Matteo's Wasps' Nest » English

Photos in Providence

Matteo — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:01:06 +0000

It has been a long time since I wrote about photography. When I was in Padova, my cameras were always my companions on Saturdays or Sundays while I walked around the old town center looking for good shots.

At first, Providence, at least East Providence, didn’t seem to me like a good city to take photos, for neither street nor architecture photography (which I’m not very fond of, anyway).

Some days ago, it was raining or just stopped to rain, and, since I was in vacation from the department while preparing for the TOEFL test, I decided to take the digital camera with me and see whether autumnal colors plus rain may result in good shots. I would say they do. Some samples below (and on the right…)

Magnis Itineribus (going on by huge steps)

Matteo — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:29:41 +0000

In little more than one month at Brown University, under the supervision of Prof. Upfal and Prof. Pietracaprina, I think I learned a lot, both in terms of new concepts, ideas, tools and in terms of how to do research.

Yes, I’m really proud of myself and of the work I’ve been doing since I came here. =)

As a side note, I got a new MacBook and I’m testing VMware Fusion with FreeBSD as guest OS ATM. If I’m satisfied with it, I may even buy Fusion, since the student price is reaaaalllly convenient. This also leads to the consideration that I’m back with a FreeBSD machine, although virtual, and ready to start contributing to FBSD again. Yay!

GRE

Matteo — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:33:12 +0000

Yesterday it was a great day for me, quite important for my (near) future: I took the GRE test. I didn’t practice that much, just 12 days using Barron’s book, 2009 edition. My primary goal was to get 800/800 in the quantitative (maths) part and the secondary goal was to get a good result (>600) in the verbal part. Unofficial results, which usually are confirmed, say that I got 800/800 in the quantitative part and 650 in the verbal part. I’m very happy, because I didn’t expect such high grades. But they came =). I have to admit that I didn’t feel that confident after having done the quantitative part: it seemed too easy and, since the test is adaptive, I thought I made some mistakes…

On November 8th I’m taking the TOEFL test. Practice will begin tomorrow, on the Kaplan’s book.

Going on with the show

Matteo — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:12:59 +0000

Note: Posts on my thesis, on what I do at Brown and on other “serious” topics will be written in English.

After a week of hard work, with 12 papers readed and a 18 pages long note written, I eventually had my first meeting with Prof. Upfal this morning. Ph.D. student Fabio Vandin took part to the meeting as he is helping me a lot and working with Prof. Upfal too. I presented what I’ve studied until now and some comments, then we had some brain storming to think about interesting open questions and future directions. I’m pretty excited of what I’m going to work. The only downside is that I have to work on it during the long weekend (it’s Columbus Day on Monday. Please remember that Columbus was Italian, not Spanish!) , anyway that’s what I’m supposed to be here for: working.

I got an invitation for dinner tonight, two party invitations for tomorrow, a trip to Cape Code planned for Sunday and work planned for Monday…uhm..it looks like it will be a busy long weekend…

Some updates for English speaking readers

Matteo — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:34:52 +0000

As you probably know, I’m in Providence, RI, to work on my thesis at Brown University. Everything is fine: I’m here since a week (tomorrow) and I’m settled with accomodation, work, mobile phone number, bank account and so on.

I’m really excited of being in a new city: new places to see, new things to do, new people to know. I already began seeing places, doing things and getting to know new people: last weekend I was in Boston and in the White Mountains Region, NH, to see the foliage (it was beautiful, see pictures on Flickr: Boston and Foliage). Thanks to my German room-mate Fabian I also got involved in the intramural soccer championship (since I’m Italian, you know..).
I got an office in the CS department and today was my first day of real work. The CS department looks like an environment where being productive is easy, which is just great and what I need.

That’s all, folks. Stay tuned!

Uh, yeah, a final note: I won’t attend NYCBSDCon although I’m pretty near NYC (just two hours by train). Sorry guys, but I’ve so many things to do that the conference didn’t get the maximum priority. I may come to MeetBSD, anyway…

Ready to go!

Matteo — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:14:53 +0000

I’m leaving Padova for the next three months in less than 10 hours. Goodbye all!

Italian newspapers suck. US newspapers suggestions needed.

Matteo — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 10:57:51 +0000

I really like reading newspapers, when there are intelligent editorials above all. Reading an electronic edition just isn’t the same thing, to me. But I want to read quality newspapers, and consider a publisher’s duty (and a reader’s right) the newspaper to be written in correct current but rich language, with correct syntax and an appropriate use of vocabulary.

This is something I don’t find but seldom in Italian newspapers.

Just to add another item to the “What I dislike about Italian newspapers”, I want to tell publishers that their websites sucks: gossip is the main topic in their website and I don’t find it appropriate for a quality newspaper. What is more, they don’t provide on the website the whole set of articles and editorials that you find in the paper edition, which is silly and unrespectful to the reader.

Anyway, I’ll be living in the US for the next eight months, so I’m open to suggestion about what quality newspaper to buy/read.

Food problems

Matteo — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:46:28 +0000

As I often said I’m just (too) fat.

On Wednesday I’m leaving to the USA, which is traditionally considered an unhealthy country for a food point of view. This fact makes me feel in trouble, or at least I feel my health in trouble. Therefore, I will have to pay the maximum attention possible when eating anything in the US.

I admit I even thought about becoming a strange sort of vegetarian: a vegetarian who eats meat. To said it in a more appropriate way, I’d like to ban fats and limit carbohydrates from my diet. Yes, nice dream. =)

A regular sport activity (squash and jogging/walking) is needed too. Will I have enough time? Who knows.

GEB-EGB finished!

Matteo — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:19:20 +0000

It took me more than one and half year to finish that fantastic book that “Goedel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid” is.

I got it for my 21th birthday and finished it few days ago while on cruise on the Egean sea.

It gave me lots of food for thoughts and a new point of few for many aspect of life. It also influenced my education, making me a big fan of information and meaning manipulation and preservation/hiding.

I think there is a parallel between Douglas Hofstadter and Umberto Eco, one of the main living Italian authors (you probably know his “The name of the rose”) but I will write about this in a later post (or forget about it… ).

The book is great. A bit tiring because it talks about many subjects but absolutely enjoyable for geeks and non geeks. Read it, if you have some patience and lots of curiosity.

This sentence does not talk about itself.

Some previous posts were related to EGB: one, two, and three. Uh, this one too for sure!

GPG Key Updated (again)

Matteo — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:52:22 +0000

My dear friend flevour pointed out a mistake on my side in my GPG key, so I had to update it again. You find it on my GPG key page.

Sorry for the noise.