As everyone on this planet probably knows, Italy was put into lockdown as an attempt to limit the diffusion of SARS-CoV-2 (“coronavirus” for friends), and the related COVID19 infection. As I write this, in the evening of March 14th, there have been over 21,000 confirmed cases in the country, with almost 18,000 active ones. The daily increase in new cases is still exponential and so far there seems to be no sign of hitting the inflection point yet, though the peak is expected to be around March 18th; that’s because the lockdown was enforced on the 12th, and the incubation period is 7±2 days according to most estimates. An increase especially in the South is also expected in the next few days, because the news of the impending lockdown last week led a bunch of idiots many people from the South who work or study in the heavily affected North…
Avian Bone Syndrome Posts
The Apple Watch is a nice little device, and it’s known to have motivated even lazy people into taking better care of themselves through the “gamification” of exercise. However, it can happen that the Workout app doesn’t properly track exercise minutes (and, to a lesser extent, burned calories), and while Apple provides an official checklist for improving workout calibration, sometimes the issues persist. TL;DR: If you wear the Watch low on your arm, move it higher. Seriously, that fixed it for me. One very peculiar problem I had myself was that indoor walking workouts were not always being recorded properly: calories mostly worked, but I could walk half an hour and yet only a few minutes would be recorded as exercise, even if I walked fast. (Yes, I do walk around he house when it’s too cold to do so outside; a book or a friend on the phone are…
LOOKING FOR THE PICTURES? If you’re looking for the photo albums from my trip to London, you can find them here: London album on Facebook London album on Flickr Note that each photo has a short caption explaining what it is about. INTRODUCTION If you’re looking for the photos, you can find them on Flickr or Facebook. They’re not really “works of art”, rather a visual collection of memories. This post, too, is very long for the same reason: I wrote it for myself more than anyone else, so I saw no reason to hold back. If you do want to give this a read… good luck! FOREWORD And so, after three years, I went back to London. Three years of craving and pining and looking for someone to share a room, and an adventure, with. Lots of things happened in the meantime, as may be inferred by my lack of…
LOOKING FOR THE PICTURES? If you’re looking for the photo albums from my trip to London, you can find them here: London album on Facebook Highgate Cemetery album on Facebook London album on Flickr Highgate Cemetery album on Flickr Complete London collection on Flickr Note that each photo has a short caption explaining what it is about. FOREWORD I am not a traveler, in fact this was effectively my first trip as an adult. I come from a pretty small town of barely fifty thousand souls in central Italy. London always held a great significance to me, for personal reasons which I’m not going to discuss here. Suffice it to say that I visited it when I was a teenager during the summers of 1998 and 1999: we stayed in Egham (Surrey) but we were taken to London and other places nearby several times. My view of London is overly biased,…
Did you think I wasn’t going to publish the podcast anymore? WRONG! I’m back, and with a mammoth episode for good measure: a whopping 57 minutes that will guide you through the intricacies and nuances of how everything man-made gets old, and how we can learn to avoid the frustration caused by being unable to update a phone we bought just a few years before. I focus mostly on technological devices, but I also compare them with cars, fridges, and even a Boeing 787 aircraft just because I love planes and I actively look for any random excuse to talk about them. Don’t forget to “like” the new Facebook page for Avian Bone Syndrome! Links of interest mentioned in the episode: Moore’s Law The timeline of Microsoft Windows releases The timeline of Apple Mac OS X releases The specifications of the 2006 iMac How plane crashes are getting weirder, and why The Phoebus Cartel
(For those of you addicted to the podcast, don’t worry! It’s not over yet. I haven’t had a chance to make any more episodes lately but I will resume shortly.) I often talk to people about Voxer, a free app for smartphones that I find incredibly useful. I am going to describe it in a little more detail, because the official website can be slightly confusing. The short version: Voxer is a free walkie-talkie app. But that’s just part of the story. Whereas a traditional walkie-talkie, by definition, requires that all parties involved are ‘tuned in’ at the same time, Voxer doesn’t have that requirement, and mixes live broadcasting with traditional audio messaging. This sets it apart from any other app that supports voice messages, such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram and whatnot. With those, a 3-minute message requires a 6-minute turnaround time, minimum: 3 minutes for the sender to record it and…
Welcome to a brand new episode of Avian Bone Syndrome Podcast! This is a “patch” episode, tying up a few loose ends from episodes 1–3. In particular, this episode covers lunar eclipses, daguerrotypes, and the filter bubble around you on the Internet. Don’t forget to “like” the new Facebook page for Avian Bone Syndrome! Links of interest mentioned in the episode: My photos of both lunar and solar eclipses Large format photography Ansel Adams’ zone systems Eli Pariser’s TED talk about the filter bubble The Filter Bubble book: Amazon.com – Amazon.co.uk – Amazon.it
Here is episode 2 of Avian Bone Syndrome Podcast! Thank you so much to everyone who listened to episode 1 and provided feedback, suggestions and ideas. This is very much a work-in-progress for me from many points of view, but it’s something I’m enjoying quite a bit. This episode is about photography and ethics: what is the line between photo editing and fraud? There are no links mentioned in the episode, however you may find these interesting: My portfolio on Flickr My Facebook page dedicated to my photography Prints of my photos for sale
And so a new podcast is born! I have no idea where I’ll go with this, nor how often or for how long I will be making it; but for now, enjoy episode 1, all about eclipses! External links mentioned in the article: My photos of the solar eclipse of March 20, 2015 The image of Earth from Saturn