Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Cartman sings at the Congress

I know that South Park cartoons look ugly, are politically incorrect (using an euphemism) and are often offensive and gross but... I still think it is a great series (that stands as high as The Simpson's and Futurama).

In this clip Eric Cartman tries to persuade the government to revoke the ban on stem cell research for an egoistic and stupid reason (that is not what he states, i.e. to save his friend Kenny's life) and so he goes to the Congress and... sings the "Heat of the moment":



How couldn't you love this?

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Summary of Main new features in OFBiz - June

Here is the summary of the most interesting features developed in June 2008 in the OFBiz open source project:

Framework:
  • New deploy option for JBoss422
  • Embedded Tomcat has been upgraded to 6.0.16
  • Embedded Geronimo TX Manager have been upgraded to 2.1.1
  • Added support for LDAP Authentication

User Interface:
  • New and faster calendar lookups
  • New collapsible lookup interface is slowly spreading in OFBiz (Ajax style)

As usual, you can see the full list of new features here.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Emotional Age Test

Yesterday I did one of the tests that pretend to determine your Emotional Age: Emotional Age Test.
This one is in Italian, but there are many other in the Internet in English.
Well, my emotional age is 27... what about you?

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

HotWax Media @ ApacheCon US 2008

Here we are... ApacheCon US 2008 has been officially announced by the Apache Software Foundation:

press release
registration and details

ApacheCon US 2008 will be held 3 November through 7 November in New Orleans, Louisiana.
I am going to participate at the conference, where I will do a presentation and probably also part of the 2 days training at the OFBiz Symposium: I will post more information about this event soon.
Most of all I am proud to work for HotWax Media, one of the main sponsors of the event:

ApacheCon US 2008 Sponsors

"With world leading technology companies such as Google, Hewlett-Packard, Hippo, Hotwax Media, IONA, Linux Magazine, SpringSource, and Yahoo! sponsoring this year's gathering of Open Source users, enthusiasts and vendors, ApacheCon US 2008 has ensured that it continues its mission to encourage the uptake and development of Open Source software through raising awareness and generating public interest."

This is going to be my very first ApacheCon... and I really hope to meet you all in New Orleans.

I don't wanna grow up

In my humble opinion, "I don't want to grow up" is one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

When I'm lyin' in my bed at night
I don't wanna grow up
Nothing ever seems to turn out right
I don't wanna grow up
How do you move in a world of fog that's
always changing things
Makes wish that I could be a dog
When I see the price that you pay
I don't wanna grow up
I don't ever want to be that way
I don't wanna grow up
Seems that folks turn into things
that they never want
The only thing to live for is today...
I'm gonna put a hole in my T.V. set
I don't wanna grow up
Open up the medicine chest
I don't wanna grow up
I don't wanna have to shout it out
I don't want my hair to fall out
I don't wanna be filled with doubt
I don't wanna be a good boy scout
I don't wanna have to learn to count
I don't wanna have the biggest amount
I don't wanna grow up
Well when I see my parents fight
I don't wanna grow up
They all go out and drinkin all night
I don't wanna grow up
I'd rather stay here in my room
Nothin' out there but sad and gloom
I don't wanna live in a big old tomb on grand street
When I see the 5 oclock news
I don't wanna grow up
Comb their hair and shine their shoes
I don't wanna grow up
Stay around in my old hometown
I don't wanna put no money down
I don't wanna get a big old loan
Work them fingers to the bone
I don't wanna float on a broom
Fall in love, get married then boom
How the hell did it get here so soon
I don't wanna grow up

by Tom Waits.

However my favourite version is the one played by The Ramones:

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Meeting face to face with the OFBiz people

It is exciting to play a role in the community of an international open source project like Apache OFBiz: you have a chance to interact with smart and brilliant people from all over the World.

Here is a visual representation of the committers and PMC (Project Management Commitee) members of the OFBiz project: ASF World Map.

As you can see, mostly all the continents in the World are represented, and we also have users from South America, Africa and China.

And in the last few years, I had the pleasure to meet face to face several of the OFBiz people; yesterday I was really happy to meet Christian Geisert here in Padova.

Here is the list of the persons that I met so far:

Olivier Heinz in Padova
Si Chen in New York
Andrew Zeneski in New York
David Welton in Padova
Yoav Shapira in Padova
David Jones in Salt Lake City
Tim Ruppert in Salt Lake City
Christian Geisert in Padova

I am sure that I will have a chance to meet many others during the next ApacheCon event that is going to happen in November in New Orleans. I am going to write more about it in future posts.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

MBP in Italy

If you think that MBP stands for Mass Balance Potential aka the melting and recession of glaciers caused by global warming, then you are totally wrong.

The real meaning of MBP is... ManBearPig!

Al Gore, in episode 145 of South Park, provides a rigorous and unexceptionable definition for the threatening ManBearPig: ManBearPig is a creature "half man, half bear, half pig."



Italian newspapers, each and every summer, exaggerate about the weather conditions, and the risks and consequences; for example, according to them the temperature is never normal, because it is always over or below the average temperature of the period... which is normal since an average is the result of upper and lower values.

Any sightings of the ManBearPig?

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Why French don't like Italian people: love songs

Italy and France are very close countries, but between French people and Italian there is not a huge feeling: French are usually very critic with Italians and they are very good in spotting all our defects... however they are not so good in spotting out their own ones; on the other hand Italian people consider French people boring and arrogant.

But all in all, who can really blame the French people for not loving the Italian ones? Just watch at this two videos, two love songs: "Quelqu'un m'a dit" by Carla Bruni for France and "Ricominciamo" by Adriano Pappalardo for Italy... Pappalardo... the name alone would be enough to justify them!
The two songs are about the same subject, the two artists both miss a person that they used to love; but they treat the subject in totally different ways.

Just look at the grace, politeness, the measure and sweetness of the beautiful Carla Bruni:




and the histrionic, ugly and noisy Adriano Pappalardo:



PS: this post is just a joke, I like playing with commonplaces. I have some good friends from France, and I don't think they are boring and arrogant! And Pappalardo is not really loved in Italy too.