45 ways to play Mario music

Super Mario Bros., level 1 music (main theme), played with a lot of instrument, ranging from the usual voice, piano, and guitar, to the less usual sousaphone, jaw harp, ruler, and tesla coil.

11 strings Bass
2 Guitars
Accordion
Bagpipe
Balalaika
Banjo
Bass Clarinet
Bassoon (@3'05'')
Beatboxing flute
Bells
Bottles (blowing)
Cello
Chorus
Church Organ
Clarinet
Clarinet and Flute
Clarinet Quartet
Drums and Bass
Flute
Guitar
Hand (by a manualist)
Harmonica
Horn
Jaw Harp
Marimba
Mini Bagpipe
Mouth Clapping
Oboe
Ocarina
Orchestra
Piano
RC Car and Bottles
Ruler
Saxophone
Slap Bass
Sousaphone
Throat (à la Animal House)
Tesla Coil (you HAVE to see it)
Trumpet
Tuba
Ukulele
Violin
Voice
Whistle
Xylophone

P.S.: my son's name is Mario. This fact is totally unrelated (giggle).

Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green

This Wired column debunks some environmentalists' myths, may be very interesting if you're concerned. If you're not yet, you will be soon, so go on and RTFA.

Here you will find my comments to the cited article (in italian, no offense intended for Patagonia Dwarf Owls).

Safari pwnz Firefox!

Or: I am so boringly safe that I can't stop crying.

Firefox have had me. At first it came as the only true alternative to IE. I loved it very much. I installed some useful extension (Forecastfox for the weather, NoScript for security, Scribefire (formerly Performancing) for blogging, and DownThemAll for pr0n): they helped me to enjoy Firefox ever more.

But FF is a memory hog, and is slow, slower than IE? Sure is slower than Safari, today also in Windows flavor, which is pretty safe, pretty usable, and - damn - is definitely fast.

What I am about to miss: FF has a great way to handle rss feed as dropdown menu that is missing in Safari. Neither you can close tabs with the middle mouse button. Nobody's perfect.  

tIpNo: unsalted rice cakes

After reading my nutella posts, a colleague of mine told me about his experience with unsalted rice cakes (well-known for the flatline effect on your taste). He suggested Nutella is good enough to give a sense even to this ailment. Actually, I learned the meaning of "eating cardboard" after the first bite of my first rice cake (w/out nutella).

Needless to say, I have to try it myself.

1. Get a pack of unsalted rice cakes

2. Get a Nutella jar. The more, the better. Here we have a family-size one.

3. Extract a cake from the pack.

4. Spread Nutella on cake. A fairly good amount, please.

5. Have it.

That's true: even the filthiest rice cake becomes very good with the reasonable amount of Nutella; and dietetically, due to the EPS structure, the rice cakes have very few calories. (Thank you, MArco!)

Divided we fall

Q: What if you need a kidney transplant but your available donors are incompatible with you?
A: You find other people with the same problem, and exchange your donor with another, until you find one suitable for you.

From the article:
Five patients had a willing donor whose kidney was incompatible with theirs, but it did match another in the group.
[...]an altruistic donor - neither a friend nor relative of any of the six patients - was found to match one of them.
[...]suddenly, there were six people who could receive an organ.

This is civilization.

BBC NEWS | Health | 'Six-way' kidney transplant first

tIpNo: Digestive

Following a suggestion posted by anonymous, I tried eventually Nutella on Digestive.

Get a Digestive pack, the first in my life (but not the least, I hope).



Hold firmly a biscuit. You will be tempted to gnaw it. I resisted the urge for scientifical sake :-)



Get Nutella. The more, the better. Here we have a family-size one.



Spread Nutella on biscuit. As you can see, I never limit myself to the stoichometric quantitative.



Yes: have it. The firm structure of the Digestive becomes brittle when hits your tongue, unleashing a Nutella tornado with a crisp cereal note. Actually I think it's one of the best way to taste Nutella. Not to mention the biscuit itself is a masterpiece. After the jump you will find the Digestive entry on Wikipedia.

Digestive biscuit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

About surveillance

The linked article from Bruce Schneier demonstrates that sharing personal information between two people is not a fair trade, because gives the more powerful even more power on the weaker.

Someone, in Italy, is thinking about a law to avoid wiretapping: I hope this law will be equally applied to everyone. Besides, it doesn't satisfies the Ten Immutable Laws of Security, so is flawed since its birth.

Bruce Schneier's Security Matters: The Myth of the 'Transparent Society'

Censorship: what?

Read from Slashdot, through il Corriere: the Mayor of Florence sued Wikipedia about a (possible) defamation, about which I care not at all.

This allows to demonstrate once more how censorship on Internet is useless; in the worst case, attracts unwanted attention on the news you are trying to erase. Actually, the questionable phrase has been removed from the page (2008-03-01 17:31 CET), but due to the structure of Wikipedia, the old one is visible here. Or if you prefer, here is the cached Google version.

Besides, someone tagged a version of the Domenici english page on WP as "LGBT people from Italy", where LGBT is "Lesbo Gay Bisexual Transgender". The tag has been already removed.

Dogfather wallpaper

My genius friend (and former colleague) Marco sent me a wallpaper both visually awesome and funny. He granted me permission to post it here. You can download the wallpaper after the jump.

Standard:
1600 x 1200
1280 x 1024
1024 x 768
800 x 600

Widescreen:
1680 x 1050
1280 x 800

Note to self: a black-themed wallpaper stuns your coworkers and helps you keeping clean your desktop.

Senselessness from EU, part II

EU just banned patio heaters, thus expecting to diminish of a whopping 0,016 % the CO2 production, as demonstrated by numbers in the linked article.

I am waiting (breathless: otherwise I would emit CO2) for a more *substantial* measure.

EU to ban the patio heaters that ate the planet. Not. | The Register

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Commercial made real: Holy Trinit, Rome

A bunch of men launched a whopping half million balls down the stairs of Holy Trinit on Pincio Hill in Rome. See the video below:



The scenario is very similar to a TV manufacturer commercial, that became a viral video on the Net a couple of years ago: see by yourself.



Before you ask, the soundtrack is "Heartbeats" by Jose Gonzales.

The commercial involved 250,000 bouncy balls, so the half million declared by the newspaper seems a bit overrated. Is quite an effect anyway.

Senselessness from EU

While Sony BMG, after Warner, EMI and Universal, adds another nail to DRM coffin, Viviane Reading issued a report sanctioning a "transparent" DRM framework for the EU.

From my Boingboing comment:

Although as an Italian I am used to be ashamed of government, sometime I am ashamed of government as an EU citizen too.

I hope you all will act now and sign the Open Letter, as I have just done.

Please sign the Open Letter, and spread the word. Let not be ineptly shameful.

Letter to Viviane Reding, European Union commissioner for information society and media | DefectiveByDesign.org

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The most (im)probable future job yet: wanker.

Yes, not banker. Turns out the best motion source for pharmacologic nanobots is ATP-powered sperm flagellum. If this is true, given sufficient outcome from nanotechnologies, will result in a higher sperm demand for drugs prep.

You will be paid to jerk off. If you are reading this and you are at work, maybe you are already paid for that. :-)

Slashdot | Sperm Could Power Nanobots

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Scroogled in italian

I just published the italian translation of "Scroogled", by Cory Doctorow, who kindly linked my page to his site. As usual, my italian translation is strictly for zero-english-knowledge people. If you can, you should read the original work.

Cory Doctorow’s craphound.com » Stories

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7zip pwns Zipgenius

Free compression software:

I used to be a ZipGenius fan, for its reliability, stability, for wide range of filetype supported, and last but not least, because is Italian software.

I adopted 7zip after the weekly antivirus scan showed a possible threat in the ZipGenius folder, and I totally uninstalled ZipGenius: 7zip is even more reliable, more stable, supports more compression formats than you'll ever use, and last but not least, is open source.

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Definitely: I want one

Today ASUS announced the long-waited ultraportable EEE notebook.

Here you will find the specs: ASUS | Eee PC
Here you will find pricing info: 華碩 Eee PC 正式上市 - Engadget 癮科技

The most attractive feature being the price. If you look for the best mobility device, you can't choose a 20'' laptop, because isn't mobility.
You can't choose a smartphone either, keybord too small and display too small.

The best device would be a TX series Sony Vaio, but the price tag isn't just too high: it prevents people to buy it because if you have a Vaio TX you have to take it everywhere with you. But then, your chances to have it lost or stolen are higher and higher.

If you, like me, could afford to buy a laptop so expensive, but you can't afford (or you just can't bear) to lose a 3000 US$ gadget, you will not buy a Vaio.

The price tag of the most expensive EEE should be less than 300 EUR. I want one.

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tIpNo: tarallini

Things I put Nutella on: tarallini

- Tarallini availability scarce except in Southern Italy.
- Overall taste: good but not great.

Tarallini have a strong flavour that covers almost completely Nutella taste.
Long time Nutella fans know she (Nutella) gives her best with unsalty bread.

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tIpNo: banana.

Things I put Nutella on: banana.

- Easy to find components
- Overall taste: very good

The hazelnut flavour of Nutella mix very well with greasy fresh taste of banana.

Post scriptum: this is my first post Nutella related. It isn't the last. If you have suggestion, or experience, of things to spread Nutella on, write me and please send a picture as proof (as Digg readers used to say: "picture or didn't happen".)

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PC games are boring.

Recently I pointed out with my son that PC games, after you buy them, are almost free, and the gameplay is only time limited. In a video arcade you have rather a money limit, so playing PC games is more fun, because you haven't to worry for your wallet getting lighter.

I saw the first arcade games in 1980, the very first one being a car race (gosh) with a fake steering (but real enough), a gas pedal, and a whoppin' gamut of two gears (L and H)...
Then came Space Invaders, Pacman, Mario in all his flavors, and more, Star Wars with a fighter-like cockpit to immerse you in the game (very futuristic, very LucasArts, but so poorly realistic).

Then came Id Software, and when I saw Doom, running with dos4g in all his glory, I knew I will never ever spend a dime in a video arcade (I was 23). I have a strong dislike for fly simulators (too fake: the thrill in the flight is flying, like alcohol in beer - better drink tap water than alcohol-free beer). I have a strong dislike for adventures too. Adventure games are so time expensive, requiring hours and hours even for little advances - think about the beginning of Grim Fandango.

My interest was therefore captured by RPG-like games (once and for all: you can't have a real RPG playing alone, and when your PC AI will be sufficiently developed, well, you will be not alone anymore...). Diablo and Rainbow 6 helped me to kill some cumbersome hours, then I reached for the top with Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Stunning graphic, a convincing plot, easy to play (no: rifle and flamethrowers sharing the same ammo diminishes obviously your perception of a real story, but keeping account for ten or twelve ammos type is too far from the patience I'd like to put in a game, so why bother? I like to know the plot, feel part of your movie. I hate throwing away hours adjusting my inventory. And again, being short is not a defect, I left undone the first part (Deus Ex) for being too long.

And now, I cannot find a PC game sufficiently great (oxymoron intended) to spend all my three hours per year that I budgeted for PC games. Oblivion, Dungeon Siege II, Neverwinter Nights II are too boring for me. I just hope Deus Ex 3 will be as terrific as his predecessors.

Should I try a console? Should I get out more?

Deus Ex: Invisible War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Things I have done.

Recently I whined about lack of time, wishful to learn Alexander Technique and Japanese language (having the sole purpose to understand lyrics from Miyazaki's Conan Future Boy soundtrack). Thanks to the 'net, part of my wish is already fulfilled: below you will find the original Conan lyrics and the Portuguese translation to help you understand them (although the cited online Dictionary is very useful, too).

Next stop: Alexander Technique.

Ima Chikyuu Ga Mezameru Lyrics

Umi wa aoku nemuri
Daichi ni inochi mebae

Soshite sora ga soshite sora ga
Ashita o yume mite

Hora umarekawatta chikyû ga
Mezame no asa o mukaeru
Oyoge namiketate hashire

Tsuchi o keri
Konna ni chikyû ga suki dakara

Konna ni yoake ga utsukushii kara
Utae koe awase odore kata o kumi

Konna ni chikyû ga suki dakara
Konna ni yoake ga utsukushii kara

Ima Chikyuu Ga Mezameru (tradução) Lyrics

umi wa aoku nemuri
(O mar em soneca azul.)
daichi ni inochi mebae
(A vida renasce pela terra.)

soshite sora ga soshite sora ga
(E no céu, e no céu...)
ashita o yume mite
(...sonhos do amanhã.)

hora umarekawatta chikyû ga
(Olhe! A Terra renascida...)
mezame no asa o mukaeru
(...recebe a manhã.)

oyoge namiketate hashire tsuchi o keri
(Nade contra as ondas. Corra e chute o solo.)
konna ni chikyû ga suki dakara
(Porque você ama tanto a Terra.)
konna ni yoake ga utsukushii kara
(Porque o amanhecer é tão lindo.)

utae koe awase odore kata o kumi
(Coloquem suas vozes juntas e cantem.)
konna ni chikyû ga suki dakara
(Porque você ama tanto a terra.)
konna ni yoake ga utsukushii kara
(Porque o amanhecer é tão lindo.)

Shiawase No Yokan Lyrics

kokoro ga konna ni furueru no wa naze
ryôte ga sora e nobite iku no wa naze
ryôashi ga tsuchi o kette hashiru no wa naze

kokoro wa toareru shiawase no yokan
ryôte wa tsukamu fukura miyuku kibô
ryôashi wa kakete iku haru kara chihei

ikite iru kara
ashita ga aru kara
chikyû ga mawatte iru kara

Shiawase No Yokan (Tradução) Lyrics

Por que é que meu coração treme tanto?
Por que é que eu levanto minhas mãos ao céu?
Por que meus pés chutam o solo e correm assim?

Eu tenho uma premonição de boa sorte em meu coração.
Eu seguro em minhas mãos as esperanças crescentes.
Meus pés caminham em direção do horizonte.

Porque estou vivo!
Porque existe um amanhã!
Porque a Terra gira sem parar!

MIRAI SHOUNEN CONAN Lyrics
Highharbor.net - Future Boy Conan - Music
Future Boy Conan - X-Y-Z-Cosmonaut's CosmoBlog - by xyzcosmonaut
Online English to Japanese to English Dictionary

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