I think it was my brother who first introduced me to the concept of Wiki-nationalism. This happens when an article on Wikipedia says very different things in different languages, reflecting the point of view of a given country or culture. I remember laughing while reading the article on Christopher Columbus in English, Spanish and Italian. The English …
Keep up with the times
The mechanism of Antikythera is an ancient Greek “Analogue computer” used to calculate astronomical positions. It’s a fascinating piece of technology that represents the earliest known mechanical clockwork: it is believed to have functioned as a set of at least 30 different bronze gears which several studies tried to reconstruct as digital or physical models. Its …
You are human, aren’t you?
I firmly believe that you want to believe that. Don’t know if Sam Vaknin is the real deal, but in the best tradition of the Turing test, if he fools the experts, he probably is. Either way, this is a chilly (but curious to watch) documentary. …
Working on a Music Playlist Generator of sorts
In which I dump metadata for 1.3 million artists and wonder what to do with it next. Spoiler alert: it’s a bipolar playlist generator. …
Alpheidae, the fireball-throwing shrimp
[Citation not needed] The snapping shrimp competes with much larger animals such as the sperm whale and beluga whale for the title of loudest animal in the sea. The animal snaps a specialized claw shut to create a cavitation bubble that generates acoustic pressures of up to 80 kPa at a distance of 4 …
Full Codex Magliabechiano PDF
Despite their goriness, I absolutely love the aesthetics of the Aztec Codices. I was going through the pages of the Codex Magliabechiano when I stumbled upon a line that caught my attention: En esta fiesta celebrauan otro demonio. q[ue] se dezia ometuchtli que es el dios de las borracheras. During this festivity [the Aztecs] …
Idea for a frictionless bilingual reader – my way
If I were to actually go on and make the bilingual book-reader app a reality, this would be my Epic and child stories: “As a language student, I want to practice my skills and increase my vocabulary while doing what I really would like to do instead: reading adventure books.” 1.1 As a language learner I …
Idea for a frictionless bilingual reader – competitor analysis
It doesn’t happen often these days that I read a book in two languages, but that is mostly due to my laziness. Reading in a foreign language was very important for me in the acquisition of English and Spanish, so it’s not surprising that improving my Portuguese and my Dutch has almost come to a …
Hello world!
Hi there, welcome to my blog. I’m Giacomo, a computer scientist with an interest in startups, art and the meaning of it all. I am collecting here ideas, sketches, links and some commentaries about technology, aesthetics, entrepreneurship and the World. I believe in an interdisciplinary approach to the moral problems and life of the XXI …