It looked like a good idea at first, but sometimes I just want to share stuff without adding a comment, and having the whole article reproduced in my blog, even if fully credited, just didn’t feel right.

I’m sorry for cluttering your RSS readers with stuff you probably could read elsewere.

If you’re still interested in my picks, and my ramblings about them (English and Italian) you can follow me on Google Reader or check out this web page:

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/michael.sacchi

And since this is my personal blog, without agenda or purpose, I can say something about me, since it’s been a while since my last update.

I started working, as a contractor hired by a third party, for a major mobile carrier in Italy. My job doesn’t require outstanding skills, but I get to have a peek of the inner workings (both technological and organizational) of a pretty big corporation. And I get paid for that, which is not bad.

I got an iPhone and I’ve got mixed feelings about it. I love it but a few things really annoy me. I might write a stupid review, just to fill up some bits on this server.

I also got a Google Wave invite, back in the end of July. I feel superguilty because I’ve got a lot of developer friends (AND I listen to Leo Laporte crying every week on Twit and TwiG that he still hasn’t got one..) that would die to give it a spin, and I barely touched it.
It’s still too unstable to be useful (and, for the time being, confined in a testing sandbox) and I don’t have the time and the energy to dive into the things I need to learn to exploit it as a developer.

Again, right before Google hands out invites for everyone and their dog I might write something about it.

Speaking of dogs, my dog (well, my family’s dog) died a couple of weeks ago. You probably don’t care, but I miss her and I thought I’d want to remember her, so it felt right to blog about it. Bye Backy.

It’s been a hectic summer, a moving and a new job. I didn’t get any real vacation, so I’m burned out already. In September. That sucks.
I scored a pair of ski on Freecycle so there’s a chance that I’ll be learning to ski this coming winter. That might make up for my lost summer vacations.

Oh. One last thing. In the last few weeks I’ve been obsessed by my spoken English. It’s never been very good but it’s getting worse and worse because all I do is read, sometimes write, but never actually say anything. So if you’re an English speaking friend of mine, feel free to call me on skype or something because I need help :)

I’m going to crash on the bed. I’ll be back soon.
Until then…

…Stay tuned, more to come.

…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.

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!

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 created another script like Writing Room for Google Docs (<brag>featured script on LifeHacker!! </brag>).

This time is for iGoogle. Allows to get rid of the annoying (but pretty, with the right theme) header bar and the totally useless footer bar.

Should you need the header bar (e.g. for undo-ing a gadget removal), theres a convenient link on top, Writing Room style.

The default is NOT showing the headerbar, since I use iGoogle as a at-a-glance kickstart in the morning. (todo, agenda, mail….the usual)

Example? Sure, there you are.

Check it out! 

Stay tuned, more to come.

This post is made in order to avoid telling the same thing to 1000 people asking me “how’s it going? Are you graduating next month?” .  I wrote it quickly. It doesn’t have a structure. It’s a stream of thoughts with little or no filter. My English probably sucks more than the average. Be warned.

Today I flunked ODE (Ordinary Differential Equations). My last exam before graduation. I’ve got nothing to complain about, the grade is totally fair. It’s my fault.

I had 3 tests on this session, 20 credits. 2 down (15 creds), one standing. This semester was supposed to be my “cushion” semester. Kind of an extra time to “heal” the “wounds” I got on the road from first year to now.  Three, tough, exams, and plenty of time.  I failed to manage time. I procrastinated. Then I rushed. And then here I am.

Yesterday I felt like a runner on km 41. One, last kilometer to go. The asphalt became glue. Muscles not responding. Tunnel vision. Panic.

I realized I wasn’t going to make it, but I kept walking, not running. I got overtook by my “wingman”. Good for him.

It’s funny that I passed every single exam regarding Computer Science and I’m being held back by a PURE MATH exam, about stuff with little or no real use in my career.

Now what? Now what? My plans go as far as tomorrow night. I can’t even think straight right now. A couple of consequences come to mind: the Chicago Project is officially canceled. Well, it was ambitious, wasn’t it? Maybe it’s better off this way, maybe it’ll turn in something else. Who knows.

My plans for the master degree in Milano change too. And, right now, I do not have the energy to think about it. Any conclusion is biased by a mix of disappointment, anger. I’m exhausted. I need to rest.

I haven’t been talking about my project because I’m quite busy with exams and graduat…er…nothing. Don’t want to jinx it, the situation is desperate enough without me talking about it.

Just a quick catch up:

• I paid the $60 application fee for international students. I ended up paying the bank 61,17 € (EURO!) for the process. A fracking robbery.

• I queued in my university offices for an official marks sheet, translated in english, with grades average. Since I’m not graduated yet, it was short of 3 exams, with an average lower than the requirements (req: 24/30. My avg: 23.82, now lowered by a stupid mark I got last week). Meeting the requirements is getting harder and harder.

• I sent a copy of my TOEFL score. (109/120. Come on. Dear UIC, unlike many other people applying, I might not have the average, but I do speak your language! Does that count?). For the records, the required score is 80.

• I started to think about money and, frankly, I got quite scared. Two semesters, 2 to 4 flights, an apartment, living expenses. As soon as I get my mind clear on this, I’ll post some numbers.

Things don’t look very good, to say the truth. The first derivative of my motivation is approaching -∞. Can’t really tell if an inflexion point is about to come. I can’t really compute the second derivative. (I haven’t been making this kind of low-tech calculus humor since high school).

Nevertheless, today I woke up early, packed up my documentation in a neat DHL envelope, and sent the stuff over to the windy city. (36 Freaking Euro, 2 days delivery)

Let’s keep the ball rolling and see what happens, I’m not giving up without a fight. A small fight.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Heh. When procrastination brings productivity. I was working in Google Documents on my thesis, and felt that something wasn’t quite right. The header was taking too much space and on my 13.3” widescreen every vertical pixel is precious.

So I came up with this tiny Greasemonkey script that allows to toggle the header bar in Google documents, providing more room for working. Plus I wasn’t really feeling like working on the thesis ;-)
Example after the jump

…from this…

…to this…

You can find the script here.