Marco's Blog

All content personal opinions or work.
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Tra Te E Il Mare [Laura Pausini] (CD)

2005-11-26 2 min read Music marco
Growing up in Italy is a bitter-sweet. Italy’s culture is strong, rich of an imagery that had thousands of years to mature. In particular, design, architecture, music, and movies are world class, as many have recognized. While Italian design has world renown in cars, furniture, and – to possible parity with France – fashion, the other items are not widely accepted to be part of the Italian strengths. Architecture, for instance, is something that most people associate with past centuries, and they see no new contributions. Continue reading

Met Kevin Caudill

2005-11-25 2 min read marco
Ah, so this city is not New York or Los Angeles, and celebrities are not as frequently visible as they are there. But we have our own A-list, made up of actors (Robin Williams), directors (George Lucas), singers (Barbra Streisand), tycoons (Larry Ellison), and the like. Well, ibam forte via sacra, and at the corner of Castro and 18th a random guy calls out my name. I turn around, and it’s someone I have never seen before. Continue reading

Surviving Thanksgiving

2005-11-25 4 min read marco
I don’t think you could cross my plans worse than happened this year. First, I was looking forward to 6 days in Hawai’i, with invitation to Thanksgiving dinner already extended and accepted. Then I had to move and it was clear I was not going to be able to make it. I thought: no big deal! I can still go snowboarding! Forget about that: this year the season starts late, to make up for the early start last year. Continue reading

PHP Weight Table

2005-11-25 2 min read Site Updates marco
Somehow this application follows me like a curse… The PHP version of the weight table is available as a Mambo/Joomla component. It was my first attempt at a component, and I have to admit it was much easier than I thought. You can download the component from the Remository. A long time ago I decided I needed to track my weight. I used to be a fat kid, and even in early adulthood I had real problems keeping my weight. Continue reading

Hotlinks Off

2005-11-24 1 min read Site Updates marco
I noticed that more and more of the requests to this site are for images that are embedded in somebody else’s pages. That’s quite a drag (as it has caused me almost to lose my other ISP for bandwidth violations until I turned it off). What to do? Well, wonderful Google helped out. People that link an image externally to save bandwidth are called bandwidth thieves and their activity is called hotlinking. Continue reading

The Four Boxes of Democracy

2005-11-24 1 min read Web marco
A quote from a Canadian on /.: There are four boxes to defend liberty with: the soap box, the jury box, the voter box and the ammo box. Use in that order.

Saved! (2004)

2005-11-20 2 min read Movies marco
Never ever listen to NPR. They will make anything they like sound grave and wise, and everything they don’t will become sinister and perilous. Saved! is a teen comedy about Christian fundamentalists. It has all the trappings of a typical teen comedy, and the Christian fundamentalist component is just color added to the usual plot of popular vs. not so trying to get through hell. Mary attends a Christian high school in Baltimore, MD. Continue reading

Heavenly Not Opening On Friday, After All

2005-11-19 2 min read Snow Updates marco
It was all over the skiheavenly.com site until Friday: the season was to open on 11/18!!! That didn’t happen, although the snowmakers are pretty busy. Now the opening date is set to Thanksgiving. If that happen, there is going to be one sick puppy that is going to be in heaven(ly)! I am already thinking of bringing a turkey sandwich to the slopes. Or maybe I should break down and finally buy the turkey jerky I always stared at in the supermarket. Continue reading

Making a GIF/PNG Transparent In the Gimp

2005-11-17 1 min read Utilities marco
I have to search on the Internet for the solution to this problem every time I need to make the background of a GIF disappear, since it’s quite a strange process. So here is the short recipe: After the image is loaded, you need to add an Alpha channel. Go to Right Mouse -> Layer -> Transparency -> Add Alpha Channel. Nothing wil seem to have happened Perform any kind of selection on the image Hit Ctrl-K, or Right Mouse -> Edit -> Clear Continue until the checkered background fills the area you want transparent. Continue reading

Desperately Trying to Find Apartment

2005-11-14 2 min read marco
Ok, I am about to give up. My conditions for an apartment are too strict, and I cannot find anything that matches the criteria. Besides, I don’t have time to continue looking: I have to be out of my current apartment by the end of the month, and the Thanksgiving weekend is going to cause a huge hole in my schedule. I still have a lot of furniture that does me no good. Continue reading
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