Rails3: Better, Faster, Stronger

For those who understand italian, I’ve just published an article on therubymine.com on the upcoming Ruby on Rails framework release, version 3.0: the big news is the merger with another ruby web framework, merb.

Have a nice read! :-)

http://therubymine.com/2009/06/04/rails3-better-faster-stronger/

It just takes one person to get the party started

• The sad conclusion: «humans are such herd animals»

• The good conclusion: «virality has always existed, it’s not an invention of Web2.0. Social networking is just a powerful tool for everyone that wants to change the world»

• The mean conclusion: «how much does it take to get people from their computers to the real world after a virtual “heads up” by some “dancing man”?»

• More conclusions: read the comments on this video on reddit and on youtube.

E-Privacy 2009: Towards Global Control

The Recipe

Ingredients

• The 2009 social environment
• A bunch of hackers
• Some competent lawyers
• A Google Spokesman
• The Big Brother Awards
• A consistent amount of paranoia

Preparation

Take the whole social environment, utterly unprepared to the media \(r)evolution happening in the last years, and let the hackers observe and talk/write about it. Bring in the lawyers, and let them recognize that “Houston! We’ve got a problem!”, whilst also they define it via lawspeak. Ask questions, and participate to interesting debates.

Now, deliver the 2007 big brother award to the Google Representative, let the sun dive in the hills, add a noticeable amount of Tuscany red wine, and get ready for the next day. Let the paranoia flow, while the hackers show how you can be traced and found via the cellular network and spied via wifi-networked cameras placed there for your safety.

Watch the undelivered Big Brother Awards 2009 sit on the speakers’ desk and suddenly put on sale on ebay, and go back home, where you read about, and watch, a video-edited interview to the italian PM.

Put everything into the fridge, and give your brain two days to metabolize it. Then write it all LOUD [ .. ]

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The best way to begin a new day

XFS internal error XFS_WANT_CORRUPTED_RETURN at line 295 of file fs/xfs/xfs_alloc.c.  Caller 0xc018066c
 [<c017fed0>] xfs_alloc_fixup_trees+0x1b0/0x2e0
 [<c018066c>] xfs_alloc_ag_vextent_near+0x31c/0x9c0
 [<c018066c>] xfs_alloc_ag_vextent_near+0x31c/0x9c0
 [<c0180187>] xfs_alloc_ag_vextent+0xf7/0x100
 [<c01824fe>] xfs_alloc_vextent+0x35e/0x420
 [<c019015d>] xfs_bmap_alloc+0x80d/0x12b0
 [<c0111254>] try_to_wake_up+0xa4/0xc0
 [<c02cf248>] schedule+0x308/0x5c0
 [<c01939c4>] xfs_bmapi+0x514/0x1470
 [<c0130069>] find_lock_page+0x29/0xe0
 [<c013013c>] find_or_create_page+0x1c/0xb0
 [<c01d9116>] kmem_zone_zalloc+0x26/0x50
 [<c01a2296>] xfs_dir2_grow_inode+0xf6/0x3c0

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Girl Geek Dinners Workshop @Apple Store, 16 May 2009, Rome

«Women! The knife grinder is here!» – Apart from funny jokes ;) the italian Apple Store together with Girl Geek Dinners Roma organized on May 16, 2009, a workshop about mobile lifestyle (focusing on the iPhone, of course).

Let’s start from the beginning: what are the Girl Geek Dinners? Linda explained to the audience (nearly 20 people) that a geek is a person passionate about technology in a broader sense: the GGD is a group devoted to aggregate women interested about the internet, new medias and technologic lifestyles. Women are often underestimated in geek communities, and this embarassing clichè generated a lot of discussion in the past, and it’s still unsolved (in my opinion).

The GGD italian group was born in 2007 in Milan, and then arrived to Rome in 2008, and is also present in Bologna and in the Marche and Emilia-Romagna states.

So, the GGD group tries to generate a “critical mass” of geek women, to abolish a stereotype that “computer programmers / power users” are only men: in GGD events boys listen and girls talk, [ .. ]

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The conceptual foundations and the economics network neutrality [Part 2] - 14 May 2009, Rome

This is the second part of my recap of the nnsquad.it convention held in Rome on May 14, 2009, and hosted by the ICT consultants foundation Fondazione Ugo Bordoni.

In the first part I described the morning session, dedicated to the definition of Network neutrality, and how global economics can cope with it. The afternoon was dedicated to more technical talks, and I had the occasion to hear telcos spokesmen remarks over the current situation and possible future developments.

The first speech started at 2.15PM and was held by Prof. Vittorio Trecordi (slides available here). He introduced it by stating that net neutrality could possibly contrast with the economic development and security assessment, because of the wiretapping needed for the latter, tap that is strongly against [ .. ]

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The conceptual foundations and the economics network neutrality [Part 1] - 14 May 2009, Rome

http://www.fub.it/events/seminari/neutralitadellareteeaspettisocioeconomici

http://www.nnsquad.it/

Neutrality – “Economy is dematerializing”

Solicited by a Facebook message sent to all the members of the nnsquad.it – for a neutral Internet members on 6 May 2009, I stumbled upon this interesting event I had the occasion to participate, held in the 17th century Rospigliosi palace in the heart of Rome.

In this photo: Kenneth Carter and Stefano Quintarelli

The preface looked pretty good: professors, Ph.Ds, telco spokesmen and politicians speaking about the internet, its inborn freedom, and how to cope with this in a society where security measures are constantly increasing, and as such contrast in a virtual world with no barriers whatsoever. Furthermore, it’s a virtual arena in which everything can be free, not only information, and people is becoming accustomed to it [ .. ]

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