Signal Eleven

In a desperate attempt to escape the last minute study rush for tomorrow’s test (eOperations / Supply Chain Management) I decided to post the first in a, hopefully, long series of posts regarding stuff I find online and in the world every day (or so), dividing them into ups (things that excite me, make me go awwwww, make me happy…) and downs (the opposite, things that repelled me, made me angry, or sad, or outraged).

So, let’s give this a spin and see where it goes.

Today’s downs:

1. http://napoli.repubblica.it/multimedia/home/6482639 (in Italian but there’s no need for
   The full footage of the death of a Rom in Naples. He’s been shot during a shooting between some Camorra (the local Mafia) intestine fight. I heard about it on SkyTG, but when I found it online I knew I had no reason to watch it, but I did anyway. I don’t know if it’s because I’m curious or what else. Maybe it’s the unquenchable thirst for reality shows that we have.
   It left me with a really unpleasant feeling. It’s not gory or violent per se. You just see a lot of people fleeing the street, inside a metro station. Then you see this wounded guy limping, helped by his wife or girlfriend or whatever. Everybody gazed him and kept fleeing. I wonder what I would have done.
   Then he collapses and all you can see is the desperation in his woman’s eyes, her movements, her shaking.
   I don’t want to talk about mafia, or his ethnical heritage, or the appropriateness of putting someone’s death on show. I just don’t like the feeling I got from it, that’s all.
2. eOperations: the day before the test is always a painful drag.
3. STS-127 launches tomorrow and I won’t be able to provide live coverage in Italian with my podcast/web TV project Astronauticast. Again, stupid eOperations.

.

Today’s ups:

1. By 9AM I was already up and running, I had completed a chore I’ve been pushing ahead for a while and I had a nice walk in the neighborhood. I’ll move soon to a new apartment, 1 km away from here. I’ll miss this place and I had a good time walking around in the still not too hot morning
2. I might have had the last Skype conversation with my girlfriend befor her return from her year abroad. She was talking using her laptop in a running train in Denmark. I liked the idea. And I like when she’s happy about what she’s doing.

That’s it for tonight. I should figure out some kind of template to make this process a little more streamlined. Until next time…

Stay tuned, more to come.

I’m working on my new “visual identity”.
Enjoy the new layout.

Stay tuned, more to come

You know you’re getting old…

…when waking up to THIS view instead of “YAY SNOW!!!” you say “Awww CRAP!”

…and a few hours later, considering the money being spent on transportation, the cost of rearranged meetings , the missed earnings, the drop in GDP…you call Milano “an expensive snowdome”.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Following my participation to the annual Astronauticon convention (see previous post) I had a chance to comment the event on the pESApod blog.

pESApod is a six legged rover designed and built by a team from Scuola Superiore S. Anna in Pisa, Italy. They gave a demo of the rover operations in Montecatini during the convention.

You can check out my post here: Waiter, there’s a six legged pESApod in my convention!

Stay tuned, more to come.

Greetings, dusty RSS readers of my unsually faithful readers. Do you still track my blog? Good.

Since someone might be looking here to know something about me, I’ll post a few updates.

After graduation I basically reset my mind and sat idle for a couple of months, taking care of a few things I’ve been postponing a lot and devoting time to things that really matter on the long run.

The big news is that my Politecnico come-back is different from the standard script, as I did not applied for a Computer Science Master, but for an eBusiness & ICT Management one.

Yep, that’s right, I jumped the river and landed among those people every respectable Engineer had made fun of, at least once. The Management Engineers.

I’m enjoying my time in this funny land between a tech school and a business school. My mind is still struggling with the new learning patterns and things are going pretty fast. I’ll post something else on this in the future.

I’m among the founding members of ISAA, Italian Space and Astronautics Association, a group dedicated to the promotion and divulgation of astronautics, astronomy and related science.

It’s a spinoff of the well known Forum Astronautico, the largest Italian-speaking community of space supporters. And so is my podcast, Astronauticast, that just reached its second season and it’s getting better and better (and modest :-) )

In a few weeks, we’ll be in Montecatini for the annual Astronauticon, the convention now reaching its third occurrence. Check out the website and you are more than welcome to join us!

On the lighter side, I write for the Dead Man Writing weblog, or as I like to call it “the blog without an editorial guideline”. I basically dump there random thoughts in Italian (as opposed as what I used to do here) and so do the other editors. I might have another ace in my sleeve regarding one of the other DMW authors and the randomness factor. Stay tuned.

I also mantain another website (not polished enough yet to be linked here), have a part time job as a Phone Marketing/Political research operator (one of those annoying guys calling while you’re having dinner, right).

Aaaand, with running, swimming (sometimes), sleeping and talking to my girlfriend 1000 km from here I pretty much fill my 24 hours in ways I did not think possible.

And this is what’s keeping me from writing here!

If you want to keep on track with what I’m doing, besides the above links, check out my Twitter page at http://twitter.com/signaleleven, add me on Facebook (Michael Sacchi) or drop me an email.

That is, if you’re remotely interested in hearing from me. Which is odd enough.

Thanks for the attention, and….

stay tuned, more to come!

And now what? ;-)

YATTA!! (I did it!)

I know these pages have been quiet lately but a man’s got stuff to think about…like passing the last exam (ODE: remember?)

I received the best mail a student can get from a professor. The subject line was “Champagne“. Can you believe it?

It basically said that I’m graduating in a few weeks.

If you’re in Milan and got time to kill on July the 23rd, feel free to take a plunge in the super hot Politecnico classrooms where I’ll be discussing my thesis and become an Engineer!

Stay tuned, more to come!

I’ve already been on the subject before, and I had promised a post about RSS.

Well today is RSS awareness day, and RSS advocates should promote and raise the global awareness of RSS as a tool.

Not this time. Remember ODE? Well, it’s time to try again and this what is going to occupy my labour day afternoon.

Instead, I’m gonna link you to a very informative post on “Avventure Planetarie”, hoping Paolo will forgive me for the recent content piggybacking (Voyager, now RSS…)

It’s in Italian, (and I know a few readers will be pleased), but for you non-italian speakers, check out RSSday, the website promoting the event presenting RSS using a nice video. (with an awful audio, though)

Oh, and I expect to see a definite increase in RSS subscriptions in tomorrow stats,  mmkay? :-)

Stay tuned, more to come.