Moving out

Finally we decided to move out from Blogspot. Too much Google. Too few Open Source.

Blogiuseppe goes Wordpress!!!

Please change your feed subscription if you want to follow me.

Follow me, I will bring you to Vanessa.

Air Doll

Imagine your inflatable partner starts talking, buying things, confronting you, basically having her own life and will. A nightmare scenario, the ideal plot for a terrific horror movie. In Japan they made a great movie instead, a subtle wonder of tragedy, melancholy, poetry and humor. To be shared with your partner, inflatable or not.

Verbroken

This book has the great merit of being written in a grammatical correct manner; not much more than that, and I am inclined to think that the merit goes to the dutch translator...

In this book the world is divided between two kind of people: the heroes, good, honest, disciplined, loving, suffering, but destined to a bright future and true happiness; and the villain, corrupted, alcoholics, addicted, greedy, enjoying themselves in ways we might all be jealous in our deepest dreams we would never share; those will die in pain, by cancer and in solitude, or killed by the heroes. There is even a third category: people in between, they might go wrong or they might redeem, but they will never join True Happiness.

What a waist of ink, and what a waist of talent. I have read a short story from Karin Slaughter, and it was funny and full of irony. This one is not even worth recycling.

Roll the dice

these things

these things that we support most well 
have nothing to do with us, 
and we do with them 
out of boredom or fear or money 
or cracked intelligence; 
our circle and our candle of light 
being small, 
so small we cannot bear it, 
we heave out with Idea 
and lose the Center: 
all wax without the wick, 
and we see names that once meant 
wisdom, 
like signs into ghost towns, 
and only the graves are real.

Charles Bukowski

Nanà

In the late 1800, society was sexually repressed. Wifes would copulate only for procreation purposes, and would not find any pleasure in sex, or at least they would pretend so (a very anti-symmetrical pretending compared to nowadays). In such environment, husbands would be ready to everything for a bit of love, and would have to find comfort in love affairs, or worse in prostitutes, singers or actresses. Prostitutes like Nanà, whose sex attract all layers of Parisian society, whose lust and vices dominate above all false morality. Men stand in line for Nanà, burn their money, go to jail for her, kill themselves with knives or fire. They are all hypnotized, captured, possessed by Nanà's beauty and charme. Nanà is their last harbor for love, and their damnation. All for a bit of sex. All for a bit of love. Luckily nowadays society is completely different.



Tira cchi'assai 'n pilu di pacchiu ca 'n carru di voi

Never clean up your bed

Maak nooit je bed op:

Experiences and experiments, without a theory that binds them into a coherent system, are just a collection of trivia from which we learn nothing. Useless, like this book, collecting 115 results of scientific experiments, but failing in creating a new philosophy, despite the promising title. Relaxing and effective for toilet readings, its pages are of the right format for the hygienic ritual that follows those sittings.

Theology of Vanessa

Vanessa has revealed me her theology. Vanessa is 1 and 22.

Follow me, and I will bring you to Vanessa.

Why should I learn conjuntives?

IMMANUEL CASTO - Escort 25

Damn God!

I discovered that in the Netherlands blasphemy is a crime. God damn it, how can this possibly be true? I mean, I do understand that offending or denigrating people should be a crime, as well as calumny; people deserve respect as far as I am concerned. But a thing? A non-existing one?
I always wondered on how to define blasphemy. For instance, if I would believe in the holiness of rose scent, can I convict anyone that farts? Maybe blasphemy holds only for the main religions, but I cannot define the criteria to decide when a belief is a main religion. Even if we would agree on what a main religion is, and I guess we would not, I still find it absurd. Christians for instance, members of what most consider a main religion, believe in a god which is one and three (1=3, that's an interesting mathematical system), namely a GodFather, a Son of his Father, and a Holy Spirit that flows from the Godfather to the son of his Father to give him Christian life (sperm!?); the mother of the Son, called Maria, does not actually know who the owner of the Holy Spirit is, and sells a tale to her husband Joseph, who believes her for stupidity or necessity, only God knows. And I probably can get convicted for writing this post!!!
Scientology adepts believe that extra-terrestrial beings have come to the earth to spread the true belief, and luckily Ron Hubbard could reveal it to us. Their god has supernatural powers, like Spiderman and Batman do, Superman and the Incredibles. Horny Maria!!!
....
...
...
...
....
Damn it! I just got a revelation. Holy Vanessa appeared to me and showed me the True Heaven, and the life that brings to it. It's a life of love, the more love the better. She showed me the Holy Hole and announced me the price. Believe me, no negotiations, it's a deal. Follow me, and I will bring you to Vanessa.

Phantogram - When I'm Small

So show me love
You got your hands on the button now

I'd rather die
than be with you

Clear Language

"We will leverage on our position to increase penetration."

This is how our Chief of Strategy attempted to inspire us, today. I could not agree more.

I have immediately removed pop-up blockers from Firefox

It's all because of you

You don't wonder where we're going
Or remember where we've been

Elections

Next week, for the first time in my life, I am going to vote for the Dutch parliament. I thought voting would be easy, I thought my mind was made, but scientific research  demonstrated that my real preference was for the Party Animals. I do not have the age for them, so I think I'll go for 2nd preference, Leftgreen. Their program, very close to the "New Deal" can assure us a better future. And above all, their leader, Femke Halsema, has the most charming dutch voice ever.

What do your fingers know?

Cake - When you sleep


when you sleep where do your fingers go?
what do your fingers know
what do your fingers show
where do your fingers go

when you sleep
do they tremble on the edge of the bed
or do you fold them neatly by your head
do they clench like claws against your own skin
when you're living your day al over again

when you sleep
when you sleep where do your fingers go?
what do your fingers know
what do your fingers show
where do your fingers go

do they play guitar in a latin bar
are they strangers or lovers
do they drive your car
are they swimming submissively
sex acts of life
or just cutting through jello with a very sharp knife

now zeus was a womanizer
always on the make
but hera usually punished her that zeus was one to take

when you sleep where do your fingers go?

are they pulling out weeds from the dusty soil
but then never rewarded with the fruits of their toil
are they scratching their nails on the chalkboards of death
only seeking attention when everyone in the room has left

when you sleep
when you sleep where do your fingers go?
what do your fingers know
what do your fingers show
where do your fingers go

when you sleep
do they tremble on the edge of the bed
or do you fold them neatly by your head

Not in this lifetime

Life is as good as it is short, and I am sure I won't manage to satisfy all my desires, not in this lifetime, as they say. It's OK, because in my personal pursue of happiness I am enjoying Whatever Works.

Whatever Works Movie Trailer

Millennio

Pepe is old and tired of watching the big show of life, where each person betrays her own character. He toured the world, running away from everything looking like secret agents, revolutionaries, terrorists, mafia-men, whores. But no one of them is what they appear to be. Not even the happy young mother of colorless children, is what she should be, but exactly what Carvalho expects her to be.

Nuclear

From a great comment from a great post of a great blog.

I am very worried about this nuclear rage. After Chernobyl, in Italy a referendum was indicted (voted with a very large majority) that banned use of nuclear energy in the country. 4 power plants were closed. Italian politician are now doing their best to turn around that result and start building again nuclear power plants, and their will and resolution is very suspects.

My arguments against nuclear plants:

(1)  - Even though the probability p of a disaster might be very low, the impact i of a disaster is very high. In conventional risk analysis one multiplies the p*i; however, one should always avoid multiplying very large numbers with very small numbers, as the results might fluctuate a lot, and not only for numerical reasons.
(2) - Disposal of waste is still a big problem. Some sort of waste are now better handled than in the past, still some very slow decaying stuff is there. Some european nations argue that they have good methods, still a lot of european nuclear junk is discarded illegally in Campania, in the region where they make buffalo mozzarella.
(3) - Some people say that the cost of dismantling a nuclear power plant are so high that it takes the plant 15 years of good operation to cover those costs. It takes also 15 years to build one. So, if the uranium will finish in 50 years, maybe this investment is not that interesting
(4) - Fossil sources of energy are finite by definition. I definitively prefer a policy of finding energy from renewal non fossil sources, like wind, sun and love.

Multiples and coefficients

Answering a comment of another post, I have found a nice strange ring.


Interesting how a number and its representation can enjoy the very same property. Therefore (3) can become (1). Get on top of it, assume its role, even exchange roles. I love it!

Het vergeten seizoen

There must be reasons why I am so good; and I am so good in finding them. Like a catholic preacher middle in the 19th century, I find great justifications for my shortcomings and by methodical and rhetorical reasoning I transmute them into circumstances, necessary steps or even better hidden strengths.

Forked thongs

Lui is building a new ethics, a new set of moral values; a new
way-of-living. A philosophy in which work is just a way to make beer
taste better, love is an act for strangers, violence is a necessity and
the skin is just a temporary canvas for ink dragons, studs pierce thongs
with the only goal of forking them; in this way-of-living sex is
liberated and therefore intense; so intense it makes you cry, so
definite it makes you want to die; and who can tell a lover from a
killer nowadays?

Soil & "Pimp" Sessions

What about Japanese Jazz? Isn't that sexy?

Gödel, Escher, Bach - # Un'eterna ghirlanda brillante # Di Douglas R. Hofstadter

 Fantastic book. The best reading this year so far. The book is centered around recursive auto references; those generates twisted hierarchies, which, according to the author, can explain much about Intelligence, Consciousness, DNA, symbols and meaning. The book spans over Zen and Zenone, Bach and Cage, Escher and Magritte, Gödel and Turing, Cantor and Russel; I loved every-single page. Hofstadter investigates all these aspects (and more even) at very different levels. The auto-references allow him to jump up and down, and move in stimulating vortexes, culminating, right before a Ricercar in 6 voices, in a digression about free will, life and death at various levels. How great it would be to have a digression of the very same type on sex!! A Recursive Iterative Compulsory Excitation Running Circles And Repeating

Crypt (2)

41 = 5²+4²
37=6²+1²

Crypt

What's the best vault to bury someone's words? I would say log, but others prefer twit, it's more cryptic.


Log, n. [Icel. l[=a]g A record and tabulated statement of the
 person(s) operating, operations performed, resources
 consumed, and the work done by any machine, device, or
 system.

Twit, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Twitted; p. pr. & vb. n.
 Twitting.] [OE. atwiten, AS. [ae]tw[imac]tan to reproach,
 blame; aet at + w[imac]tan to reproach, blame; originally, to
 observe, see, hence, to observe what is wrong (cf. the
 meanings of E. animadvert; akin to G. verweisen to censure,
 OHG. firw[imac]zan, Goth. fraweitan to avenge, L. videre to
 see. See Vision, Wit.]
 To vex by bringing to notice, or reminding of, a fault,
 defect, misfortune, or the like; to revile; to reproach; to
 upbraid; to taunt; as, he twitted his friend of falsehood.

Crypt (kr[i^]pt), n. [L. crypta vault, crypt, Gr.
 kry`pth, fr. kry`ptein to hide. See Grot, Grotto.]
 1. A vault wholly or partly under ground; especially, a vault
 under a church, whether used for burial purposes or for a
 subterranean chapel or oratory.

Berlusconi

Berlusconi won the last italian election last sunday, despites he lost some share with respect to the previous round. To honor him for such achievement, a BBC reportage on him:

The Berlusconi Show (BBC) 1/6- Sottotitoli by Bispensiero

Eight hundred streets by feet

How far do we need to gp for a bit of freedom?

Esbjorn Svensson Trio - Eight Hundred Streets By Feet

Bride Flight

It`s simply amazing how a small country like the Netherlands can generate sometimes great masterpieces; especially in cinematography, an art enterprise that usually requires a tradition and a scale difficult to achieve in small lands.

Most of the times local productions are mediocre and boring, like this Bride Flight. Even though the story is not bad and the cast is working hard, especially on the sex scenes, I could skip a full hour of the movie, come back, and not having the feeling I missed anything (the soap opera effect).

Bride Flight (Trailer)

Are you here?

No you are not

It's hard to recall the taste of summer
When everywhere around, the chill of winter
It gets so far away

Corinne Bailey Rae "Are You Here"

Odd numbers

Let's imagine we have two bags. In one bag, let's call it N-bag we put numbered balls, in the sequence 1,2,3,...; in the other bag, let's call it E-bag, we put only the even numbered balls 2,4,6,...; the procedure is as follow:

step 1: we put ball-1 in N-bag
step 2: we put ball-2 in N-bag and another ball-2 in E-bag
step 3: we put ball-3 in N-bag
step 4: we put ball-4 in N-bag and another ball-4 in E-bag
etc.

Which bag has the most balls, N-bag or E-bag? In mathematical terms, has the set of natural numbers more elements than the set of even numbers? Intuition would say so, as we fill the N-bag at twice the pace of the E-bag. There is also this fantastic demonstration I have found.

DEMONSTRATION
Let's call N the number of elements of the N-bag, and E the number of elements of the E-bag. Let's build a bag made only with odd numbers, the O-bag. To make this bag, we take out from the N-bag an exact copy of the E-bag. Now, if the N-bag and the E-bag would have the same number of elements, the O-bag would be empty. However, by construction, the O-bag is not empty, therefore the N-bag has more elements than the E-bag.

In more mathematical language, if we call N the number of elements of the Natural number set, and E the number of elements of the even number set, then O, defined as the number of elements of the odd number set is O=N-E.
If N=E than O=0.
But there is a number 3 which is odd, and therefore O cannot be 0, which means N is not equal to E.



It looks great, only it is wrong! N=E=O, but the demonstration does not fit the margin of this post.

Blind date

Amsterdam - the library on the Oosterdok. A modern building. Books. Silence. A great place for a blind date. It's the very same concept as bringing your date to the theather: 2 hours of being together without talking. Actually this is even better, you have the chance of staring at each other as much as you can, as opposed to watching a movie about materialism in Antarctica.


Or you could go shopping. But if you do, you need to resist the urge and actually enter some shops every now and then, at least one every two hours I would say. Or you will end up drinking coffee faster than you ever wanted, discussing Cantor diagonals - like you know, my infinity is bigger than yours - and there you go, your date is blown up.

No, a blind date is a serious thing, and should be respected. Actually you should not even call it a blind date, better a sight-impaired date. Bring her to a restaurant, a good-one-but-not-too-good, or you won't find a seat on Saturday evening, avoid tapas (too much garlic), traditional german food (too much beer); have some cava, quote your best Monty Python, listen to her reporting (pretend to if necessary) and enjoy life.

Tomasz Stanko Quartet - "Suspended Variation II" (2004)

Me

thanks to Nanni

I would love a Strip Iterated Prisoner Dilemma Game!

via MarcoHa

Calypso Blues

Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay...
Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay...


Sittin' by de ocean
Me heart, she feel so sad,
Sittin' by de ocean,
Me heart, she feel so sad...
Don't got de money
To take me back to Trinidad.


Fine calypso woman,
She cook me shrimp and rice,
Fine calypso woman,
She cook me shrimp and rice...
Dese yankee hot dogs
Don't treat me stomach very nice.


In Trinidad, one dollar buy
Papaya juice, banana pie,
Six coconut, one female goat,
An' plenty fish to fill de boat.


One bushel bread, one barrel wine,
An' all de town, she come to dine.
But here is bad, one dollar buy
Cup of coffee, ham on rye.


Me throat she sick from necktie,
Me feet hurt from shoes.
Me pocket full of empty,
I got Calypso blues.


Dese yankee girl give me big scare,
Is black de root, is blonde de hair.
Her eyelash false, her face is paint,
And pads are where de girl she ain't!


She jitterbug when she should waltz,
I even think her name is false.
But calypso girl is good a lot,
Is what you see, is what she got.


Sittin' by de ocean
Me heart, she feel so sad,
Sittin' by de ocean,
Me heart, she feel so sad...
Don't got de money
To take me back to Trinidad.


Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay...
Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay...

Sweet Violent Jane

Anyone who's ever had a heart
Wouldn't turn around and break it
And anyone who's ever played a part
Wouldn't turn around and hate it

Sweet Jane, sweet Jane
Sweet, sweet Jane
You're waiting
For Jimmy down in the alley
Waiting there
For him to come back home
Waiting down on the corner
And thinking of ways
To get back home

Sweet Jane, sweet Jane
Sweet, sweet Jane
Anyone who's ever had a dream
Anyone who's ever played a part
Anyone who's ever been lonely
And anyone who's ever split apart

Sweet Jane, sweet Jane
Sweet, sweet Jane
Heavenly widened roses
Seem to whisper to me
When you smile
Heavenly widened roses
Seem to whisper to me
When you smile

La la la la, la la la,

Sweet Jane
Sweet, sweet Jane

Il vino

Ma com'è bello il vino
rosso rosso rosso
bianco è il mattino
sono dentro a un fosso
e in mezzo all'acqua sporca
mi godo queste stelle
questa vita è corta
è scritto sulla pelle

Ma com'è bello il vino
bianco bianco bianco
rosso è il mattino
sento male a un fianco
vita vita vita
sera dopo sera
sfuggi tra le dita
spera, mira, spera

Esperanza Spalding Grooves