Second City, Chicago

In Chicago, meetings are over. I’m leaving tomorrow. Wait to do tonight? It’s around 730pm. I ask Sam, he looks something up, finds an interesting trombone, sax, bass, drums quartet. Sounds good? Yeah, i really like the idea, i like the idea of a trombone inspiration.

No! What am i thinking! I have a list of things to do when i’m in Chicago. And the least reads:

• Improv Olympics
• Second City

After a brief internet research, i decide for Second City, even though the price is much higher. So we cab it there. The show has started already: a night of sketches. They seem initially set up, then improved. Then some obvious improvisations on clues from the audience…

The cast is great: 6 actors Tim Baltz, Edgar Blackmon, Holly Laurent, Katie Rich, Mary Sohn and Steve Altien. I enjoy very much the performance of Steve (great acting, and great improv ideas) and Edgar. There is also a guest appearance of Jason Sudeikis, whose improvisation ideas are impressive, however his acting skills a tad less.

I have seen some improvisation shows in Italy and surely this team is very well trained. However, i was not impressed by how the audience clues were incorporated in the actual improvisation: sometimes they were not completely and all the times they were only used as starting point. I really like improvisation performances which end with the clue, or start and end with it, because it give the audience the impression that the actors are really on it: by the end of the sketch, the audience most likely forgot all about the clue, and then BAM! there it is, giving the entire sketch a whole new meaning. So from this perspective i am a little disappointed with tonight’s show.

The food is fun, the crowd is mostly under 30, very interesting. I purchase a way-overpriced T-shirt for Mauro, the buddy who suggested i added Second City to the Chicago todo list.

Overall, i am very pleased to have gone and know this place!

Leaving for Spain and Chicago

Tomorrow i fly out to Spain, San Sebastian. From there i fly out to Chicago. Then back home. All in less than 10 days. I have stayed in the Genoa area for quite a while now, almost 2 months. However, it still isn’t enough. I really don’t feel like traveling again.

EuteliaVoIP richiede documenti di identità via web senza protezione crittografica

È vero. Da qualche mese, EuteliaVoIP ha cambiato le condizioni d’uso, e richiede un documento d’identità per ciascun utente. Nulla di male fin qua. Ho ricevuto una email, chiedendomi di entrare nel loro sito e fare l’upload del documento di identità in formato JPG, TIFF o PDF. Così ho fatto. Il sito funziona abbastanza bene, anche se è molto rudimentale. Però: L’upload viene fatto su protocollo http puro, senza crittografia SSL! Il che significa che, volendo, potrebbe essere intercettato ed usato per false identità. Questo per una ditta che offre un servizio informatico, lo ritengo abbastanza inammissibile, e un forte segno di mancanza di professionalità.

Comunque, oltre al danno, pure la beffa: dopo qualche giorno di aver fatto l’upload del documento, ho ricevuto una email dicendo siamo spiacenti di informarti che

“…

il tuo documento di identità non è stato accettato dai nostri sistemi per il seguente motivo: 

- DOCUMENTO NON COMPLETO – DA RINVIARE FRONTE RETRO IN UNICO FILE

…”

NB:

• Il sito non contiene informazioni specifiche su come il file va inviato.
• Il sito offre pure la possibilità di scaricare e visualizzare il documento inviato: anche questo tutto su connessione aperta, non crittografata, suscettibile ad intercettazioni.
• Il sito non controlla che il file venga inviato nel formato desiderato.
• L’email allegata non è precisa: indica solo che il documento non è completo, e che va rinviato fronte retro unico file. Cosa vuol dire? Non esiste un “fronte retro” digitale. In che formato? Che risoluzione? In che modo?
• Date queste imprecisioni, le probabilità che un secondo ri-invio non vada bene sono alte.

Dopo aver mandato le mie considerazioni, non ho più ricevuto risposta, tranne l’email automatico intitolato “Comunicazione ai clienti EuteliaVoip. Oggetto: anagrafiche incomplete”.

Primo cantiere come elettricista

Here i am working on my first official complete job as an electrician. It’s a small apartment, however a complete job. I redid the electrical box, which was mess, disabled the old wiring system, which was falling apart.

It was fun! I had no idea how much it would take me. I used one color for switches: purchasing 4-5 colors would have been too expensive for that small apartment. I thought it would have been more complicated, however the circuitry was pretty simple, so it all went pretty smoothly.

I decided to bring the mains in with 4mm2 and 2.5mm2 for the rest. The switching wire is 1.5mm2 and all light outlets are grounded, with brown, blu yellow 2.5mm2. I decided not to run the purple switched wire directly to the lights. I figured it would be more intuitive to figure out the circuit this way.

Zeroshell and OpenDNS

If you are using Zeroshell and OpenDNS (a great combination), don’t use a password with spaces in it! It will NOT work. ddns2 is a shell script and not properly escaped in order to handle spaces in passwords.

team Tops!

A great representation of the tops Software team.

Check out this episode of This American Life,”Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory”

“Mike Daisey was a self-described “worshipper in the cult of Mac.” Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.”

http://thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=454

Boingo Hotspots Don’t Work Well

Dear Traveller,

Boingo is an internet service provider for wireless internet across the world. It has hot spots in many locations such as airports and hotels.

I am here to write about the negative experiences i have had with the Boingo iPhone/iOS app and their hotspots. If you can, avoid Boingo, or use it being aware that you might be able to get only a fraction of the service they offer.

About a year ago, i purchased 10 credits of the Boingo at an airport. It was a good deal. I think it payed about 10-11 USD for 10 credits, each credit is for 1 hour of internet usage, which is pretty much the cheapest way to get online from an airport outside of the country where i have a cell phone data plan. And the way it works is easy: i downloaded the app from the App Store, and i just had to launch it, and tap start, after having connected to the open Boingo access point.

Image via Wikipedia

It worked OK for a few times: in some places it would not work, others it would, and i was able to use 3 or 4 credits.The around february or 2011, i was in paris, and couldn’t get it to work so i decided to call customer care. They were not able to help me (couldn’t find my account). Eventually i had to leave, so i decided to continue over email, so i could use the credits for the next trips.

The email exchange was useless. I kept getting replies from different customer care reps, (Eric Ortiz, Mary O’connor, Bronwyn Olsen, Mitchell Owen), always very polite, with warm wishes, but no practical info on how to solve the problem i had. What i did get out of the email exchange is that there might be two ways of purchasing credits: one is from the App Store, the other from boingo directly. The App Store way doesn’t really create an account on boingo, or maybe it does but one should be able to log in with iTunes credentials (which i was not able to do). It also seems that the App Store approach could be device specific. That is, if i purchase the boingo app with credits from the app store, and i then switch device, (say i go from iPod touch to iPhone), then i loose all the credit i have).

In short, avoid Boingo, or use it being aware that you might be able to get only a fraction of the service they offer.

Double Tie

I really like how woman can pretty much wear anything, and don’t like how men are limited to the standard pants shirt jacket tie. I’m trying hard to come up with something new.

This is how i dressed up for christmas this year. I think it looks great!

Pina 3D

Bello che non era doppiato.

Inquitante, non è strutturato in maniera semplice. Va interpretato, bisogna ragionarci sopra. It’s not laid out for the audience. One cannot turn the brain off and watch. So was Pina Bausch’s works, probably.

Enigmatic, just as Pina probably was too. Not many words. Through her silence, she gave importance to the few words she did say. That’s what i interpreted from the movie.

At first i didn’t really understand why make this a 3D movie. Then watching it though, it became clear: it really feals like being there, at a theater. It made sense, its a whole different experience. Especially cool being able to see the performances from angles not possible to be seen when in a theater.

It’s sort of a dedica to Pina. Those who have worked with her for years have a chance to send her a 3D message through this movie.