PhD life in Lucca

The Myths of Innovation

2009-07-18T16:09:00.005+02:00

I think that as PhD students and Researchers the single most important thing we should care about is innovation.

I found this (long) talk very inspiring. The focus is not on technology but on how innovation works.

Check it out and tell me what you think.

Wolfram on Wolfram Alpha

2009-06-11T12:04:00.004+02:00

You've probably already heard about this new "Computational Knowledge Engine" which should ideally compute answers to your questions.

This post is just to inform you that next week (Wednesday June the 24th, h. 15:00) the CEO and founder of the company behind all this (guess what? his name is S. Wolfram!) will be giving a talk in Pisa (at CNR - ISTI).

If you wish to attend you should sign-up here.

God Exists (and Gödel proved it)

2009-06-10T22:21:00.004+02:00

Maybe someone will have the kindness to translate this for us, so we will know if we need to start praying.

For the rest of us wikipedia can help.

Buonanotte.

TEST Google Calendar

2009-06-08T11:44:00.005+02:00

Dear all,

this is the link to our new calendar for conferences and deadlines.
http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=va0vgsf61cje46r141blruq8g0%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/Rome.

2009-06-06T15:18:00.003+02:00

A different, very interesting point of view on education.
Think about it...

New year, new courses, same life

2009-03-19T10:09:00.001+01:00

In remembrance of Spatorras and the lectures in cnr.

I leave you the sweet burden to translate it :)

Recession

2008-10-06T09:49:00.003+02:00

I found this comic very very actual, althoug nobody of us will admit it...

Here a harsh article from "ilSole24Ore" which points out that with our scholarship we earn a kilogram of bread per hour, like peons in '46-Italy.

Meditate, folks, meditate!!

13th of september

2008-09-16T15:46:00.004+02:00

Someone today told me that "there was light up there" when he passed through piazza del Giglio. :-)

Just wanted to share this with you!

Divine voice (by Farshad)

2008-09-06T09:14:00.003+02:00

Exactly one year ago, on September, 6, 2007, a gift from god…a voice. The so potency voice like rock, soft like silk and affectionate like rain, turned off forever. That voice was proper talent. Will the world be honored to see another Pavarotti? Pavarotti had a divine voice; he was the voice of god; he was prophet of voice. Pavarotti was not singer of opera; he was exactly the meaning of opera. His voice was competing against all instruments in orchestra. Pavarotti lived with his voice. Singing was not his job, singing was his lovely life.

The 2006 winter Olympics in Turin, his voice thundered for the last time. …”Nessun dorma”.

Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o, Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza,
guardi le stelle
che tremano d'amore
e di speranza.

Ma il mio mistero e chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun saprà

No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dir quando la luce splenderà

Ed il mio bacio sciogliera il silenzio
che ti fa mia!

(Il nome suo nessun saprà..
e noi dovrem, ahim?morir!)

Dilegua, o notte!
Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle!
All'alba vincerò!

Vincerò!

No-one sleeps....no-one sleeps,
Even you, O Princess,
in your cold room,
Watch the stars
which tremble with love
and hope!

But my secret is locked within me,
no-one shall know my name!
No, no, I shall say it on your mouth when the light breaks!

And my kiss will break the silence
that makes you mine!

(No-one shall know his name,
and we, alas, shall die!)

Vanish, o night!
Set, the stars!

Set, the stars!
At dawn I will win!

I will win!

And finally he has won. In those days he has been crossing swords with cancer, he didn’t forget to show love to people with his beautiful smile and his kind face. He has really won.

PuppTortelFest

2008-08-05T09:29:00.006+02:00

Hi verbooty!

This is to remember the wonderful time we (AleC, Farshad, Lusine, Irina, and me) had at the fest of "Pupporina" (a typical biscuit with aniseed) and "Tortelli"(dumplings with meat and tomato sauce).
This is also to wish you all the best for these holidays, whether you will be in Lucca or far away.
I will miss you guys!

P.S.: Thanks to Lusine for the pic.

Matanna Trip

2008-07-28T11:36:00.004+02:00

This is a sort of advertisement for those who missed this wonderful trip just to motivate them to have the same trip in another time.

Greetings from Summer Schools

2008-07-25T08:51:00.004+02:00

Dear all,

some of you (read AleC) looked angry at me because I have never written a post here.
Some of you (read Binh) looked angry at me because I did not show them the pictures of my last travels.
Some of you (read Lusine and Farshad) looked angry at me because I already presented them the pictures of Bressanone (mountains, mountains, mountains...).
Some of you (read Maddalena and AleB) are enjoying their summer school (have a nice time folks!).
Some of you (read Guido, Michele and Sonia) noticed an empty place in our classroom and thought that maybe there was one more seat (just kidding).
Some professor saw me for the very first time during his last lesson and he (reasonably) asked me "What are you doin' here?".
Some of you (read Michele and Philip) ... I've been missing you, a lot.

Well, I would like to share with you some memories from my summer schools. You will find the pictures at the following URLs:

- http://www.nicholascaporusso.com/wp/?p=153 (Bressanone)

- http://www.nicholascaporusso.com/wp/?p=134 (Bologna)

- http://www.nicholascaporusso.com/wp/?p=151 (addendum to Bologna)I hope you will like the pictures. Also, it is an opportunity to check what the places offer!

Pittance to Researchers

2008-07-23T14:26:00.004+02:00

Dear Friends,

I am very scared of the university conditions in Italy.

Our kind mum AiEmTì reports catastrophic news about the academic world. I advise you to follow carefully the press review section in her site.

In particular, this morning I find a very very bad article:

In Bologna, PhD candidates will not receive the upgrade of scholarship amount. Whole article can be find here (it is in italian, but very easy).

So, I hope you don't yet burn your house. :)

Best regards.

Ale

some famous iranians

2008-07-07T14:29:00.035+02:00

Lotfi Zadeh (Lotfali Askar Zadeh).
In 1973 he proposed his theory of Fuzzy Logic.

Maria Khorsand.
She is President of Ericsson Technology Licensing.

Pierre Omidyar.
He is founder/chairman of the eBay auction site.

Anousheh Ansari.
She is co-founder and CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI).

Bijan Davari.
He is vice president of IBM.

Hossein Eslambolchi.
He was Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer, President of AT&T Labs and President of AT&T Global Network Services of the company.

Omid Kordestani.
He is Google's senior vice president.

Farzad Nazem.
He is Yahoo!'s chief technology officer.

Mahmoud Hessaby.
He was the only Iranian student of Albert Einstein. He received Nobel Prize for physics in 1993.

An italian proverb:
Nessuno è profeta a casa sua.

2008-07-04T09:33:00.000+02:00

I took this photo on one day watched Americans practice their play. I don't know the author of this guitar. Anyway, I found it cool.

New directions in data mining

2008-07-02T12:09:00.007+02:00

(This is a real story. Main characters begged me to rewrite it. I hope that it could be fine for you. If you feel that it is too crazy or stupid, you can delete it.)

The legend told that if you went to the statue of Juliet in Verona and touched her naked breast, you would get successful in love (!!! I doubt about this or it has another meaning :D). That was what the legend said.
Most of Italian people know about this legend and of course, young IMT researchers know but they do not take it in their minds.
And it would have been so for ever if one day it had not happened the following incident.

After two weeks with difficult exams, A.C was exhausted. One day, he passed the Piazza della Misericordia as usual, suddenly he felt strange.
- What’s that? He thought.
Turned to the direction attracted him, he found a statue of a woman with half naked breast. This kind of statues could be found everywhere in Italy, so it should have not been so strange like that but he did not know why. Next days, he kept going to the statue, observed it for hours but he still could not comprehend the reason that took him to this statue. Then, he decided to urge assistant from his classmates.

Be attracted by A.C’s ads about a naked statue in Lucca, A.B, Michelle, Lusine, Maddalena and Binh (Mai Chi) went to the piazza (how innocent scientists are!!! Really? It is hard to believe.)
- It is a statue. So what? Said Binh.
- Yeah, do you see? She has a naked breast. Answered A.C.
- Yeah, I see. So what? Said Binh.
(She thought how ridiculous these Italian guy were!)
(Oh, an ordinary girl. A.C was bored.)
At the same time, Michelle was angry. Why not? He was really disappointed; he hoped to see a complete naked statue. But what was that? Half naked breast ONLY!
- Ah, Binh, if you touch her naked breast, you can be successful in love. Explained Michelle.
- I don’t need it. Anyway, I don’t believe.
- Yeah, there’s a legend about the statue of Juliet in Verona. That is if you touch her naked breast, you can be successful in love.
- Right. Agreed other Italian guys.
- I will go to Verona. Informed Lusine.
- Yeah, I can have a breast on my body with 2000 euros. Said Michelle.
- Really? Asked surprisingly A.B.
However, Michelle did not answer.
Selfish guy! A.B thought. I will find it out on my own. Ah, if I am lucky, maybe it will open a new direction in data mining such as new model for searching applied in breast service (smile alone). This trip is not useless at all.
- I don’t care. Binh was still stubborn.
- I don’t have porn. IMT blocks the proxy. Explained A.C. (Maybe now we have the answer for his problem!!!)
- Really? Asked both A.B and Michelle. I don’t know. How innocent they are!
- Oh, you have dozens of these real stuffs on TV at night.
- Really? Asked again Michelle, A.B and now A.C. I rarely watch TV in the evening. What’s time for those shows? Eagerly asked.
- I don’t remember. Sempre.
- Ah, capisco.
- And about the legend, I can’t believe. A.C, can you try first and then tell us about its effectiveness?
It seemed to have a light in A.C’s mind. Yeah, exactly. I will make a data set and then mine on its result. If destiny loves me, this would be a new direction in mining research. Haha, now I know the title for my PhD thesis. I’m so lucky. Ah, thanks the statue a lot. And thanks Binh, too.
Those are invaluable scientists whose researches originates from fundamental needs of human beings, for the human beings and because the human beings! TRUE SCIENTISTS!

I am so sorry that I do not have any information from Michelle. Can you guess?

Sleep

2008-07-01T18:21:00.003+02:00

As wikipedia says:

"Sleep is a natural state of bodily rest observed throughout the animal kingdom. It is common to all mammals and birds, and is also seen in many reptiles, amphibians and fish.

In humans, other mammals, and a substantial majority of other animals which have been studied — such as fish, birds, ants, and fruit-flies — regular sleep is essential for survival. However its purposes are only partly clear and are the subject of intense research."

Thus, we cannot fully understand this wonderful natural mechanism that involves body and mind...anyway, I have some clues on its probable causes.

To and From Torre Guinigi

2008-06-30T20:16:00.007+02:00

Whenever I go to the Italian classes, I am disappointed, angry, aggressive...

Trying to think about some positive things, I just looked at my pictures in Italy and decided to put some nice pictures here. Just for having a little break between PhD issues...

dura lex, sed lex

2008-06-27T15:28:00.004+02:00

ANNOUNCEMENT:
[...] you won’t be allowed to use your classroom when you have no lesson.
All classrooms will be locked at the end of each lesson, so you will have the possibility to study only in the school library.
I’m sorry, but these are the rules.

...what to say? Maybe it's a way to tell us we need to study a little bit less?

Given that "our rights" are a monotonically decreasing function I have already prepared countermeasures for when the next ANNOUNCEMENT arrives; you can all just come and study at my place (obviously ONLY if you have your badge, and ONLY between 10:26 and 12:14!!!)

Who knows, maybe they'll even ask for our fingerprints next time!

better give this exam soon!

2008-06-26T14:46:00.000+02:00

help

2008-06-26T11:45:00.002+02:00

A long-long day full of lectures.

2008-06-25T15:26:00.003+02:00

This is an overview of today's fatal classes from the last raw.
Everyone was suffering (I think) in his / her own way. Guido was upset because of some strange, complicated shape of graphs, Michele was trying to improve his abilities as a painter, Ales B. was in another orbit with some another exam, Binh suffered because of some paper (maybe Dini's presentation), Ales C. couldn't fix the correct height of his chair and periodically changed it, Sonia was scared reading Dini's slides, Farshad was looking outside of the window, Nicholas was preparing some ppt file, Lusine was refreshing browser intensively and Maddalena was with her stato esame.
That's all...

Software enginnering

2008-06-25T10:39:00.004+02:00

This morning I will not write a long post, because during my "break" I am working to a project for an exam. Maybe this afternoon...

Anyway, look what I found somewhere on the web:

"If you are a plumber, you will fix your own leaking faucet; if you are a mechanic, you will change your own oil; if you are a doctor, you will give yourself some nice prescription; if you are a lawyer, you will sue your neighbor's pants off; if you are a teacher, you will teach your children; if you are a software engineer, you will..."

Of course it does not refer to any course we are attending.

Approaching an exam

2008-06-24T10:05:00.006+02:00

I promised you to write a post during "a short break", so...here it is my first post in our blog.

As you probably know, in these days my sister is doing the high-school final test. She sent me an e-mail that explains what a student does during (and before) this important period.

I hope you like it, I laugh every time I watch it.

Let's start:

First week of lessons

Last week of lessons

Before the exam

When you find out the starting letter for the orals

7 nights before the exam

6 days before the exam

5 days before the exam

4 days

3 days

2 days

1 day

The night before the exam

An hour before

During the exam

Just after the exam

After the exam...holidays

It took a long time to upload all images, but this break was quite long (about 2 hours...).
Welcome to our blog!!!

Fantozzi and the 1000 euros per month

2008-06-21T10:48:00.003+02:00

This morning, I found in my mailbox the most dandy news I'm waiting for: PhD's scolarship is now of 1000 euros per month! ...thank you, Michele, to have made so sweet my wakening!! :)

Just as I read the news, I thought to a very funny shot of the masterpiece-movie "Super Fantozzi".
This pauper man Fantozzi receive announcement of his (very rich) uncle's dead: he is very happy, because it is the sole heir!
Hence, he burn his house and run to obtain the money, but... the uncle's name is Lazarus and you know the history: eventually, the rich man will be resurrected from Jesus.

Ok, for us the things are different... or not?? :D

Aumento delle Borse di Dottorato

water on mars!

2008-06-21T10:33:00.006+02:00

Video Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University (here)

Or better, ice on mars..

These two pictures were taken at different times, and the small "balls" in the lower left corner disappear. The (only?) possible explanation is that it's ice!!

[edit] Our host "blogspot.com" will not display animated gif's. So what you see above is just one frame, go here for the animation [/edit]

Now the objective is to catch some of those and analyze them... aren't you curious?

Here is a color version and here the official announcement from NASA.

And here are some other really impressive pictures from Mars... seriously, take a look.

p.s. I don't know what the copyright is for this image. I put the source beneath the image (and I hope no one thought it was my own work ;-) and think that this is better than deep linking. But since this is a shared-blog if you feel I should take it off or something else just tell me.

A piece of my country

2008-06-20T19:05:00.005+02:00

These are the places that I like at most in my country.

The first is Khor Virap. This is the place that you have an illusion that Ararat is just in a few meters. And I have a stupid dream (as I know it never will become true) not to take a picture from Armenia to Ararat, but from the top of Ararat to the side of Armenia...

The second one is Noravanq (monastery of 12-th century) where the human made architecture competes with the architecture of the nature.

CPM 2008

2008-06-20T18:57:00.003+02:00

If you think these happy faces are the result of the presentations that we 'listened carefully' during the conference, you are completely wrong...

and now for something completely different

2008-06-17T16:18:00.003+02:00

So, just to keep the average tone lighter here are some videos i would like to share with you...

One is for italians only (sorry!) and is the imitation of a famous italian presenter

The other one is a sketch from Monthy Python. It is typical english-humour. I find it very very very funny, but some people just look at it and think it's plain stupid, nonsense. If you don't know them be warned.

cached sun clip

2008-06-17T16:10:00.004+02:00

The previous post reminded me of a quote I read time ago.

"When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers."

Oscar Wilde

At first sight it may sound just cynical, or a phrase from someone trying to surprise with an uncommon thought.

But time after time I have found it just plain true, so true.

We need dreams, hopes and wishes, but I think we need them in their own world, where they can continue to be perfect. The clash that we experience when we try to bring them into our imperfect real world can indeed be a punishment. But is it always so? No, I hope not..

Maybe one should wish to find a wish that can become true and remain a wish.

Ah, and welcome to our weblog! ;-)

a persian proverb

2008-06-16T13:14:00.004+02:00

Do you have a special wish?
think a happy thought, then blow on the dandelion to make it come true!

.. my dear friends, Welcome to our weblog ...