London on Zio Ivan

The Stupid Olympics

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 09:02:08 +0000

I’m baffled on how stupid the British officials and politicians are. The entire show, is as bad in practice as it looks good on TV.

Business starving for customers in Central London
No one has tickets: either because are too expensive or because buying tickets was a Olympic sport on it’s own
Empty stations and entire city areas because of TfL end-of-the-world-is-night emails
Trains, somehow, still managed to get fucked up and cancelled

Was all this on purpose?

My current stake in PhantomJS

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I have been spending a lot of time on PhantomJS in the last couple of months. But feels like I could have done much more: there are so many interesting issues to work on in the official tracker.

** Hey, why don’t you give us a hand? :) **

Some English expressions still puzzle me…

Here is where my stake is.

REPL

I just finished putting down a new wiki page that explains a bit about the REPL and how it works. Give it a read and let me know if you want more clarification.

London's Barclay Cycle Hire: Good, Bad and Evil

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:37:04 +0000

Last Sunday my girlfriend, my friend @lucabox and I decided have a go at London’s Barclays Cycle Hire. Wanting to enjoy the weather in Hyde Park, we agreed at meeting there: Luca cycled from Tate Modern, we took our bike at Hyde Park’s Queen’s Gate.

Boris and ‘it’s’ bikes

The day was great, and the good weather helped. The experience with those bikes was… follow me.

The Good

Cheap to start

The price scheme is simple if you are not a member: we paid just £1.00 to access. The first 30 minutes are free, than £1 for the first hour, £4 for 1.5 hours and so growing. Details here.

The Shortest Christmas Holiday

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:26:30 +0000

Here we are, trying to think of a title for this post. A post about what the HELL happened to us in our first attempt to go home for Christmas 2010. The only thing we thought about is “The Shortest Christmas Holiday”. You will have to live with that! :)

10:20 - Early arrival at terminal and great weather

Our friend Oz volunteered to bring us to Stansted Airport for our flight to Naples (what a lovely chap!). After 1 hour and 10 minutes, his little Panda brought us safe and sound to Stansted Airport. More than 2 hours in advance.

Working from Home today...

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:38:04 +0000

White London ;)

Hopefully I can access my code… ;)

WTF?

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:19:33 +0000

Tuesday or Wednesday last week, Appleintroduces one of the Greatest Piece of Art that the world of Technology has ever (EVER!) seen. This:

Yesterday, the less than a week after, at 235 Regent’s Street they were Sold-Out!!! The guys there said that «it was sold-out almost the same day it went on the market!!!».

Housemade Music in Oxford Circus

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 22:54:18 +0000

Title: Housemade Music in Oxford Circus Abstract: Great, Talented artists, express themselves using just “common stuff”.

I met those guys a week ago at Oxford Circus, while I was with my Bro’. They are really really good!

Back from the Google Developer Day 2008

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:45:32 +0000

That was pretty exciting. A free, big, enlightening event about the “Google Stuff”… Ok, ok. Who spoke with me here knows that it was NOT so enlightening: most of the knowledge they brought from USA is and was already available on the web. But that’s probably not the point. The point is, I believe, to share. Share the culture, the vision and… the APIs.

The Venue: Wembley Stadium!!!

I went there for mainly two topics: Android and AppEngine. About Android, the presenter, Mike Jennings, was very funny (and you will see him as the second presenter in the video below) and a “great character”. But his knowledge of the Platform was pretty basic. I believe he sort of Project Manager or something like that. Plus, in the second part they invited to do a “technical talk about the SDK” a guy, Carl-Gustaf Harroch. He is developing an application that involves a bit of LBS (Location Based Services) and some Google Maps. Ok nice, but he straggled quite soon with our questions about… almost everything of the SDK. And, yes, I was quite bastard with my own questions. Come one: how can you do a talk like that without even knowing “enough” what is the meaning of the Tags within the AndroidManifest.xml? He was even quite young and not very confident, and he was unable to introduce the basic concepts before talking about more complex and in deep stuff. At the end, quite disappointing session, I must say. Probably, I knew more about it :-P .

The USB freebie ;)

About AppEngine, I went to a “CodeLab”: a session where you are supposed to code. And I did, focusing more on my own Python code. They were available for help and questions, either about the application they proposed to build, or about your own. “In chair”, Mano Marks: confident. Probably too confident. But, at the end, he was helpful, even if an answer or two where quite “upsetting” (I mean: if I ask a question about something you don’t know, and I tell you that you are wrong, don’t be arrogant and confident; wait and see my proof!!!).

Now, let’s see the Keynote:

Inferno in London

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:38:36 +0000

Galeotto fu il Post e Chi lo lesse ;)

[![](http://lh3.ggpht.com/detronizator/SIDvt0GwJwE/AAAAAAAABCw/7TgyLkKyKrw/s160-c/InfernoInLondon.jpg)](http://picasaweb.google.com/detronizator/InfernoInLondon)

[Inferno in London](http://picasaweb.google.com/detronizator/InfernoInLondon)

Letto il primo capitolo: promette sorprese interessanti ;) .

Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT S

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:32:20 +0000

I met one of those superior piece of art/technology/sculpture/car around the Tate Modern (just outside of it): Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT S. I couldn’t resist to take some pictures. ;)

[![](http://lh3.ggpht.com/detronizator/SHDKtVuuPyE/AAAAAAAABBQ/um0zy8ZsAVo/s160-c/MaseratiQuattroporteSportGTS.jpg)](http://picasaweb.google.com/detronizator/MaseratiQuattroporteSportGTS)

[Maserati Quattroporte Sport GT S](http://picasaweb.google.com/detronizator/MaseratiQuattroporteSportGTS)

A new, even bigger City

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:35:28 +0000

After a year and a couple of months I’m going to leave Symbian Software Ltd. (London). It has been a very good experience as my first job in [en:UK]: a way to grow mainly, first as a [en:Man], then as a [en:Software Engineer]… and then professionally in general.

A lot of interesting, inspiring, intelligent people (and a lot of NOT), that showed me “their way”: I took where it was worth it, not where it wasn’t… and left where I was able to.

Worse than being unable to Sleep...

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 10:29:11 +0000

… is being woke up at 8:32 on Sunday Morning, after you went to sleep around 02:30.

Wake Up! Now!

And not just woke up “politely”: your flatmate comes back at home and turn on his super-laudly-hard-techno-rock-massive-disruptive music.

I leave at you to imagine the rest.

Ah, by the way: just attached to his room, in the flat next to us, there a very Old-Style-Super-Polite English Couple. -_-

A Fox in Boundary Row, London

Sun, 18 May 2008 23:01:29 +0000

I was on my way to the office (yes, on Sunday: I have stuff to do ;) ), when I see something that doesn’t look correct or “in the right place”. A Fox in the middle of Boundary Row!!!

[![](http://lh6.ggpht.com/detronizator/SDCgpPE2BfE/AAAAAAAAA80/DRR4vtnWpwQ/s160-c/AFoxInBoundaryRowO_o.jpg)](http://picasaweb.google.com/detronizator/AFoxInBoundaryRowO_o)

[A Fox in Boundary Row O_o](http://picasaweb.google.com/detronizator/AFoxInBoundaryRowO_o)

I don’t know, probably was bringing to my desk Firefox 3 RC1 ;) Yes yes, I know: Firefox is not a [en:Fox], but a Red Panda!!!.

London Open Source Jam - 15th May 2008

Sat, 17 May 2008 13:15:24 +0000

This time the main topic was about “Developer Productivity”. It was one of the most funny I have ever attended: a couple of speaker were just “crazy” (but in a good way)! ;)

If interested in knowing more, here is a transcript of the event: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dm58hwb_5f93zjrcd.

Training Path #6 - 28 Apr 2008

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:06:53 +0000

2.2 miles ~= 3.54 kms

This time I was running with Luca: we pushed a bit the speed… but we practically died at the end of Blackfriars Bridge: still good, but next time I need to slow down to last more. Wish me good luck. I will run on the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge on July ;)

Training Path #5

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:11:42 +0000

2.05 miles ~= 3.3 kms

Today I took it a bit easy: John was with me and he has a problem with his knee, so we decided to do only 2 miles to start. Very beautiful day: looks like full summer, with a very strong sun smiling to us. We passed through a big festival/party/something in South Bank: a lot of people enjoying ice creams, watching shows and other stuff for kids. I tried to google for it, but I didn’t manage to know what’s going on up there.

Training Path #4

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:46:54 +0000

2.79 miles ~= 4.49 kms

Almost to 3 miles. On Monday we will see if I can do that.