Life

Lee Dubridge, an american physicist, once said that "There are two possibilities: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Either one is amazing."

I would add that I strongly believe in the second possibility. I simply think that a huge Universe like the one we live in would be very strange if it generated life only on Earth.

Well, not strange, stupid.

Think about it before publish.

The Internet is changing fast. Facebook for instance allows more then half a billion of people to say what they want. Well, my point of view is that this is not freedom, this is just how fast and better advertising can hit us.

There is another aspect: it's possible to drive many people to believe that something is true or important, while it's not. This means that many people can drive the stock market down (or up, btw) or just make a government take the wrong way. It happens.

But what control can we apply to prevent these behaviors? None. So it's up to us: we should think before publish anything. Just think.

USB for my iPad? No, thanks.

This picture, coming from an Android device (a very good and interesting mobile OS, by the way), is self-explanatory.

Crystal clear.

Risky business

On August the 6th Hiroshima was devastated by the a nuclear bomb. Isao Hashimoto is a Japanese artist born in 1959. The video you see here is a representation of the 2053 nuclear explosions from 1945 to 1998:

Terrifying.

Good ideas win.

After an intense use of the iPad, especially for reading books and online magazines, today I have taken in my hands an old-fashioned paper magazine.

I've been surprised by the annoying consistence of the paper, the pages bended all over, the light was poor so I had great difficulties in reading...

So I made my choice. The market will make the right choice; it's not the iPad itself, it's the idea that will win. 

The march of progress.

I've copied this from the Internet; we're talking about programming languages, here.

The march of progress: 

C:
   printf("%10.2f", x);

C++:
   cout << setw(10) << setprecision(2) << showpoint << x;

Java:
   java.text.NumberFormat formatter =
             java.text.NumberFormat.getNumberInstance();
   formatter.setMinimumFractionDigits(2);
   formatter.setMaximumFractionDigits(2);
   String s = formatter.format(x);
   for (int i = s.length(); i < 10; i++) System.out.print(' ');
   System.out.print(s);

Even those who don't understand anything of programming languages can say which one is simpler. Guess what is my preferred programming language? :-)

Universe - 2

There are some facts regarding our Universe that are non-negotiable.

Fact: There is matter. This matter is made of chemical elements, ranging from H (hydrogen, the lightest element in the Universe, atomic weight 1) up to the far metallic elements, with atomic weight 100 and more.

Hydrogen makes approximately the 74% of all known matter, helium 24%, and all the others follow. The heavier elements make life possible; life is based on water, nitrogen, carbon, etc.
On a night without clouds if we look at he sky, we essentially see stars. Stars are built essentially with hydrogen and helium; during their life span the stars produce heavier elements in different manners, even when a star dies in a huge explosion.The explosion itself builds and ejects all this matter all around.
If this sounds simple, you're right; in fact this description is too simple but gives you an idea; I'll post something more accurate later on.

Fact: Everything you see, my body, your computer, the mountains and trees, almost everything you are accustomed to deal with is made of matter that comes from stars dead billions of years ago. This fact is a direct consequence of how Universe is and how it works.

We can say that when we think about the Universe, our brain, made also of those heavy elements, is a piece of Universe thinking about himself.

We, the Universe, are alive.

Universe - 1

Every image of God that all religions can give us is nothing if compared to the laws of physics that make the universe exist and change; it's nothing if compared to the dimensions of this universe, it's nothing if compared to the infinite ways a single elementary particle can move or evolve.

So universe is everything. Think.