Monthly archive: January 2008

1. The British Sign Language sign for the Wal-Mart-owned supermarket chain ASDA is a double pat on the buttock (or on the hip, as the bum officially lies outside the designated area for signing), from the series of ads where at ASDA you 'pocket the difference'.
2. 'Americans threw out just shy of three million tons of household electronics in 2006'.
3. Googlegangers are people who share your name, often the result of self-googling.
4. Whole coffee beans keep as long as they do because they are filled with carbon dioxide, which helps exclude oxygen. Once ground, they only keep a few days at room temperature.
5. Arpanet launched in October 1969. That makes The Internets way older than I thought (but still younger than myself, dammit!
6. A stealth startup is a startup that avoids public attention, either to hide information from competitors or a way to manipulate its image.
7. iTunes will play only a portion of a song if you specify start and stop times within the song (Get Info > Options > Stop time).

I am not a designer, never been and never will be. Working on the web, however, I have often indulged in the pleasure of pushing pixels around a page.

However, with time the pleasure has turned into frustration, and the real satisfaction is now mainly derived from playing around with data to make it do what I want it to do. The presentation layer has become a burden and I try to avoid it as much as I can.

I have lately been working on a few ideas that need an appropriate design to be implemented. I started my usual trial-and-error method to check what looks nice and what doesn't, and what would complement the content best.

And then I stumbled on Colors of Rainbow a WordPress theme that more or less does it. With a push of the proverbial button – literally. It would only require a couple of tweaks that it would probably take me under an hour to apply.

This time I might fight my pride, let go of control and let those who know best do their thing.

Com'è andata ieri sera?
How did it go last night?
Literally: 'How (he/she/it) is gone yesterday evening?'

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I am waiting with bated breath for my friend Oliver to report back from his date with an Italian last night. I hope he had a chance to impress him with some of the Italian phrases I have been posting here over the course of the week.

Dimmi tutto
Tell me everything
Literally: '(You) tell-me all'

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The word for 'how' is 'come'. You must all know 'Come stai' (how are you). As usual, when two vowels (a, e, i , o, u) meet, the first one is dropped and replaced by an apostrophe: Come + è = 'Com'è?' = 'How is it?'.

The word for 'night' is 'notte'. However, in expressions like 'tonight', 'tomorrow night' or 'last night' it is translated as 'sera' (= evening). The word 'notte' is very much associated with pitch dark, silence and sleeping.

So if my friend Oliver was Italian, and I asked him 'Com'è andata ieri notte?', he might find it quite offensive because by using 'notte' I would imply that he'd spent the night with the guy on their first date. Which he so obviously would never ever do.

In a proper manner; correctly.

Read more about aright at Answers.com

Yahoo! has announced that it will support OpenID. What can this bring to the average web user?

In terms that I hope are not oversimplified, OpenID lets you log on several websites with one single set of details. You do not spread out that single set of details to all the websites (that would defy the point, it would be like using the same username and password for all your online logons).

Instead, OpenID gives you the option to log on to website A by briefly popping over to website B and logging on there. It means that A trusts B with verifying and keeping your identity safe.

You then might go to website C, click on log on, and because you are already logged on to website A (via B) you are offered to extend that logon to website C, either for the current session or for a longer period of time.

The full details of a decentralised single sign-on system are of course a bit more complex than that, but I hope this will give you an idea of where the benefit lies for you.

I have been using OpenID for several months now by pointing bitful.com towards an OpenID provider. From the end of January I (and another 250 millions users) can just use my Yahoo! login credentials because Yahoo! will act as website B in my example above.

Yahoo!, once again, really really rocks it for me.

Vuoi vedere la mia collezione di farfalle?
Do you want to come up for a cup of coffee?
Literally: '(You) want to see my collection of butterflies?'

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Yes, you read that right. The lamest excuse in the book to ask your date to come up to yours takes an interesting and, let me say it, rather academic turn in Italian. Other versions are devised to entice future lovers to come and see 'stampe cinesi' (Chinese prints) or sometimes 'stampe giapponesi' (Japanese prints). WTF?

Actually, it's a bit of a joke, something from the past when people did collect butterflies or prints. It's something that might not be out of place in a Carry On film, and I take no responsibility if my teachings ruin your chances in love.

As they say, honesty is always the best way forward.

La verità è che ti voglio.
The truth is I want you.
Literally: 'The truth is that (I) you want'.

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Having a somewhat salty taste, especially from containing a mixture of seawater and fresh water. Distasteful; unpalatable.

Read more about brackish at Answers.com

I use Outlook extensively, and not only for sending and receiving messages. It is a repository for all commitments, reminders and notes. Surprisingly enough, I never bothered to look into shortcuts, until the other day, when I accidentally hit three random keys together and a 'Move Item to' window popped up.

A quick search returned this complete yet simple and very clear list of Outlook shortcuts by the RNIB. I have started using these few ones straight away:

• Delete message from message window: Ctrl + D (if you are viewing an individual message, the Delete key removes text, this shortcut lets you delete the message without using the mouse).
• Move cursor to top of email list: Home (when you have scrolled through a long list of messages and want to go back to the top).
• Launch Advanced Find: Ctrl + Shift + F (I rely heavily on the advanced search to find information stored in Outlook at work where we are not allowed to install any indexing software. Now I can do it without leaving the keyboard).
• Move directly to Inbox: Ctrl + Shift + I (again, I must be using this dozens of times a day).
• Move selected item to folder: Ctrl + Shift + V (especially useful when you are processing all your messages in the morning or after lunch, and want to file them quickly one after the other).
• Launch flag for follow up dialog box: Ctrl + Shift + G (same as the point above).

I was already aware of the following shortcuts to create new items, have been using them regularly and recommend them strongly:

• Create a new email message: Ctrl + Shift + M
• Create a new appointment item: Ctrl + Shift + A
• Create a new contact item: Ctrl + Shift + C
• Create a new task item: Ctrl + Shift + K
• Create a new note item: Ctrl + Shift + N

I hope you find these useful too.

Every now and then life's great tapestry reminds me of the reason why I left Italy and settled in the UK.

My eyes reacted badly to a new pair of contact lenses the other day, so I wore my glasses to work (I am so vain that I normally would not be seen dead in them).

Nobody commented. I am sure my colleagues have opinions, but not a single one felt that there was a need to express it.

Some people might find this impersonal, I call it being civilised. This non-behaviour has such a massive impact on me that even if my eyes seem to be fine today, I am still wearing my glasses, just in case.

All I want is to be left alone, and leaving people alone is one of the principal traits of this great country.

Update (19 January 2007 at 7:13PM): in the end I wore glasses for three days at work. On day three, four people made a comment. Their nationalities: Irish, American, Nigerian and Londoner from Irish family.

Abbracciami, baciami… e chiamami!
Hug me, kiss me… and call me!
Literally: 'Hug-me, kiss-me… and call-me!'

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Today we are going to learn how to give orders (or, for those of you who have some knowledge of grammar, the imperative).

First you take the verb as you find it in the dictionary, i.e. in its 'to …' form:

To hug = abbracciare
To kiss = baciare
To call = chiamare

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Then to give an order you simply chop off the -re from the ending:

Hug! = abbraccia!
Kiss! = bacia!
Call! = chiama!

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You might also want to give an indication of who should receive the action, in this case 'me'.

I have intentionally used three regular verbs, of which there are plenty more, for instance 'scopare' which as you can see from the Wiktionary entry for 'scopare' has one meaning of 'to sweep' and another (caution, vulgar) that Ollie might use with his Italian date if he gets lucky.

And yes, it follows the rule, you chop away the -re at the end, replace it with -me and switch the accent on the letter 'o'. But that is one sound bite I shall not provide you with.

A collision followed by a rebound. To collide and rebound; glance.

Read more about carom at Answers.com

Andiamo da me o da te?
Your place or mine?
Literally: '(We) go at me or at you?'

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My mate Ollie has requested some Italian phrases he can use with his date on Friday.

I hope he'll get to use the sentence above and have a great time.

But as it's a Gaydar hookup and his man might not have updated his profile pics this side of 1999, here's another one that he can say after the phonecall one normally arranges to receive to provide a swift escape:

Mi dispiace, devo andare. MI6 ha bisogno di me. Missione top secret.
I am sorry I must leave. MI6 needs me. Mission top secret.
Literally: 'To-me (he/she/it) displeases, (I) must go. MI6 has need of me. Mission top secret'

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The structure of the expression 'Mi dispiace' (I am sorry) works in exactly the same way as 'Mi piace' (I like) that we saw a couple of days ago. 'Ti dispiace?' literally means 'To-you (he/she/it) displeases'. However, it is the equivalent of the English 'Do you mind?'

Withered, dry. Having little or no liquid or moisture.

Read more about sere at Answers.com

Dov'è la mia cintura nera?
Where is my black belt?
Literally: 'Where is the my belt black?'

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Dr B. was looking for his Ju-Jitsu black belt this morning (he's training tonight) and could not find it. He tried to ask me where it is in Italian but was missing a couple of words. He then said he found it, again in Italian, and I only had to correct him on a small detail. He's making progress.

Oliver asked me for some useful sentences to impress an Italian he is seeing on Friday night. Well Ollie, I suggest that you wear a black belt, so you can use today's phrases on on Saturday morning ;-)

Non importa, l'ho trovata.
It does not matter, I have found it.
Literally: 'Not (it) matters, it (I) have found.

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When two vowels (a, e, i o and u) meet, one of them is removed and replaced by an apostrophe. So instead of 'Dove è' (Where is) you say 'Dov'è'. Instead of 'La ho trovata' ('I have found it') you say 'L'ho trovata'.

Words like 'my', 'your', 'his' etc are almost always preceded by the article (the equivalent to 'the'). My belt = La mia cintura.

To slobber; drool. To behave in an obsequious manner; fawn.

Read more about slaver at Answers.com

Devo proprio continuare?
Must I really continue?
Literally: '(I) must really continue?'

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This morning I realised this latest attempt of mine to teach Dr B. Italian was going well, when he turned around in bed after checking the Italian category in Bitful and asked 'Dov'è la prima frase di oggi?' (Where is the first sentence for today?'). Attaboy.

So I hurriedly recorded and uploaded today's phrases (because I was told yesterday that I am expected to have two new Italian phrases in each post) while Dr B. was getting ready next door in the bathroom. If you listen closely you might even hear him in the background.

I am now writing this from a very packed Monday morning underground train, and it will get published once I get out.

I am accepting bets on how short-lived this whole Italian teaching/learning thing (and the interest in it) is going to last. But for the time being it is still very much fun.

Va bene, allora vado avanti.
OK, I'll go on then.
Literally: '(He/she/it) goes well, then (I) go ahead.'

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If you want to ask a question In English you must swap pronoun (person) and verb (action) (Must I?), or use the 'do' form (Do you eat meat?).

In Italian a question is identical to a statement expressing the same idea, but the tone of the sentence is different. Unsurprisingly, Italian is considered to be a musical language.

On the other side of the fence, the fact that in English you can pronounce what is unmistakingly a question as if it was a statement opens up endless possibilities for irony, humour and wit.

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account last week:

• Musical Minifigs – a photoset on Flickr
  Lego minifigs inspired by bands, musicians, and composers.
• Free Barcode Image Online Generator
  I used this to print out my Tesco Clubcard barcode on a tiny strip of paper that I cellotaped to the outside of my wallet. The look on people's faces when I wave my wallet on the reader and the self-service till says 'Clubcard accepted' is priceless.
• Mobilesign
  Searchable A-Z of British Sign Language words shown as short videos. Very spare interface, perfect on mobile devices.
• http://www.3mindme.com/
  Email it anything and it will email you back at the date and time you specify in natural language in the email address (e.g. nexttuesdayat5pm@3mindme.com).
• 'Getting Things Done' In 60 Seconds
  I have read the whole book and it does make a whole lot of sense, but this is a very nice, very condensed and yet exhaustive overview of the whole process
• stikkit
  Online virtual sticky notes. You can share stikkits to work on, and update the notes by sending emails to them.
• Bokai Online Barcode Image Generator
  Tesco barcode type is EAN128C
• Just One Club Card – Combine All Of Your Club Cards
  'This is a simple web application I made. The goal is to fix the problem of having to carry around tens of loyalty, discount, and club cards every time I go shopping. I finally broke down and created this page when I realized my wallet was way too thick.'
• VentureBeat » Analysis: Plaxo and Friendfeed, pushing the “feed”
  FriendFeed' and Plaxo Pulse let you designate friends, then easily add feeds of your activities from other sites. The result [...] a continuous stream of updates [...] – Twitter messages, uploaded YouTube videos, blog posts, shared Google Reader items'
• 'Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication'
  A quote by Leonardo da Vinci

Promoting peace; conciliatory.

Read more about irenic at Answers.com

Just a quick update on Dr B.'s progress in learning Italian with my new method. He seems to follow regularly, asks a few questions but most importantly feels that what I'm doing is helping him learn.

Today he was very disappointed because there was only one phrase in the Italian language post this morning. I told him that I had not planned to have two phrases every day, it just happened like that after the first couple of posts.

So I recorded an extra one for today, and:

Ecco la seconda frase di oggi.
Here is today's second phrase.
Literally: 'Here-is/are the second phrase of today'

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As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Dr B. is working from home all weekend on 24-hour call, and I am keen to make his life as easier as possible.

Last night, being a Friday, I knew I could stay up as much as I wanted to and finally play around with my computer (it has been a bit temperamental lately). Yes, my life is that exciting.

So, in order not to be shushed every time his work mobile rings:

Ho spostato il computer in soggiorno.
I moved the computer into the living room.
Literally: (I) moved the computer in living room.

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And it turned out to be a far better place to work: kettle and fridge nearby, TV and connected players on my left. You'd think more distractions would slow me down? Not me, no.

An adolescent youth.

Read more about stripling at Answers.com

I've been playing around for a bit with Jiglu tonight.

Jiglu's tagline is 'Tags that think', and that's exactly what it does: it automatically tags your content and displays tags as cross-referenced links.

All you have to do is register your URL, install some code (I used a ready-made WordPress plugin, but there are versions for Blogger, Typepad and other platforms), and Jiglu analyses your content, subtly underlines people and events with a faint dotted line and makes them clickable. You can choose to include links too, but I find the outcome a bit confusing for the end-user.

Say for example I mentioned Jamie Oliver in a post. Jaiku overlays a link on the text 'Jamie Oliver', and the link takes you to a list of articles in my website that mention Jamie Oliver.

I have installed it twenty minutes ago and the list of people is growing and growing. A great way to offer content aggregation with absolutely no effort whatsoever from neither the content producer (no manual tagging, no building of topic pages) nor the website user (no need to search, links are presented organically and maps overlay the content).

As with all automated tagging systems, I can already foresee some limitations (it is a text-based tool after all) and it would be great if it could be co-managed manually (perhaps as a paying feature?) but I already like very much the potential it has to enrich and integrate content.

Ti piace Harry Potter?
Do you like Harry Potter?
Literally: 'To-you is-liked Harry Potter?'

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I cannot quite put my finger on why I have enjoyed reading all seven Harry Potter novels. I can see why they have such mass appeal, yes, but I thought I was immune to that. Plus, magic and wizards and shit? Yawn. A book with over 300 pages? Fear.

I don't know, either I have the literary sensibility of a seven year old (with the emotional development to match) or it must have something to do with the affection you develop for the main characters. I noticed this the other day when I kept being moved while watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and not just because it was playing on the HD-DVD XBox add-on that Dr B. got from his brother for Christmas (days before all but one of the major movie studios pulled from the HD-DVD format and embraced rival technology Blu-Ray exclusively – grrr).

I have now just watched A Year in the Life of J.K. Rowling, a documentary that Dr B. had recorded over Christmas (repeated on Friday 18th January at 20:00 on ITV 2), and it gave me a little more insight into this, as I understood that the author is absolutely passionate about her characters, so much so that she has constructed in her mind their whole future, because she felt she needed to know how they would end up. And not at all in case she runs short of money and is talked into writing book number eight, of course not.

Mi piacciono i libri di Harry Potter.
I like Harry Potter books.
Literally: 'To-me are-liked the books of Harry Potter'.

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• 'I like' is expressed in Italian by 'To me is liked'. This means that if you like more than one thing you must change the 'is' to 'are', which is done by changing 'piace' to 'piacciono'. A bit complicated, but it's an expression you'll hear several times a day so it's worth learning it.
• The genitive case (i.e. when you want to widely express a concept of 'belonging to' like 'Ann's job', 'Picasso's creativity', or 'Harry Potter books') is very easy in Italian. You invert the words from English to Italian, and add 'of' in between the two: 'Il lavoro di Ann', 'La creatività di Picasso', and 'I libri di Harry Potter'.

1. Supermarkets pay farmers as little as 3 pence per chicken. And all male chicks, unsuitable for the egg industry, are killed and turned into pet food. These are just a couple of the facts Jamie Oliver talked about in the first ten minutes of Jamie's Foul Dinners. We recorded the rest but could not bear to watch it yet.
2. Eugène Ionesco wrote children's stories for his daughter.
3. Dykes On Bikes applied for a trademark.
4. HD TV only display 40% of the colour spectrum the eye can see. A proposed new TV technology that uses laser illumination offers double that.
5. Artist Raymond Briggs (The Snowman, of Walking in the Air fame) also wrote When the Wind Blows, a graphic novel about a nuclear attack on Britain. If you were a child in the early Eighties in the UK, chances are you were traumatized by it too.
6. Once or twice a year the BBC tests its emergency rebroadcast system and you might get to see the old test cards for an hour or so.
7. You can let friends who are not on Flickr view your private photos with a Flickr Guest Pass – basically just a URL that is not displayed anywhere on your Flickr pages, and that you can give to friends and switch off after a while if you wish so.

The act of coming or going out; emergence. The right to leave or go out: denied the refugees egress. A path or opening for going out; an exit.

Read more about egress at Answers.com

Lavora anche di notte
Dr B. works at night too
Literally: '(he/she/it) works also of night'

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Every few weeks the company Dr B. works for requires him to be on call for a four-day stretch during which colleagues and clients can call him at every hour of the day or night for support. This means he needs to be at home in order to log on to the work servers. Some nights the phone almost never stops ringing.

When he is on support he needs peace and quiet to concentrate, especially if he is speaking on the phone. So last night I volunteered to switch off my computer (the fan was humming) and then to leave the room (I was breathing). And by 'volunteered' I mean 'not so subtly encouraged with heavy sighs and glaring looks'.

When he is on call he is in a pretty foul mood – well, wouldn't you?

È di cattivo umore
He is in a bad bood
Literally: '(He/she/it) is of bad mood'

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• Prepositions (words that are usually short words and show the relationship between two other words, like to, from, on, at, in etc.) often do not match in Italian and in English. Di notte (at night). Di cattivo umore (in a bad mood).
• 'Umore' is not a translation of the English word 'humour'. Umore (mood) but umorismo (humour).
• 'Anche' (too/also) always comes before the word it refers to, unlike in English where it is usually placed afterwards. Anche tu (you too). Anche di notte (at night too).

Affectedly or ostentatiously learned; pedantic.

Read more about inkhorn at Answers.com

I normally do not do anything on a school night, but

Ieri sera sono uscito
Last night I went out
Literally: 'Yesterday evening (I)-am gone-out'.

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Last night we went to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to see Zoe Lyons' one-woman show. She usually comperes the weekly comedy night there (BrouHaHa), which we went to a few times, so the idea of a whole show by her was very promising.

And she delivered. It was brilliant. I like Zoe Lyons because she's one funny lesbian with a mean streak and yet she manages not to take it out personally to anyone in the audience. I should know about it, as I once had a goatee and one of the acts Lyons introduced looked at me and said I had a hairy c**t on my face. Classy.

I hope Lyons will go places (we saw her last week on the telly in one of those chart-type shows, I think it was The Most Annoying People of 2007, of which she was not one, she was one of the talking heads). And yet I hope she'll stay local and we get to see her often.

Zoe Lyons mi fa ridere
Zoe Lyons makes me laugh
Literally: 'Zoe Lyons to-me makes laugh'.

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In English you always use 'have' for all actions in the past of the type 'I have done something'.

In Italian sometimes you use 'have' in most cases, and 'am/are…' in others.

This is why today's phrase 'I have gone out' is 'I am gone out' in Italian ('Sono uscito').

Off the top of my head (but there might be exceptions), when the action described is a movement from A to B, then you use 'am' instead of 'have':

• I have come in = sono entrato
• I have gone = sono andato
• I have climbed = sono salito
• I have gone/come down = sono sceso
• I have left = sono partito

But:

• I have travelled = ho viaggiato
• I have flown = ho volato
• I have sailed = ho navigato
• I have driven = ho guidato

You can read more about the past at BBC Italian Steps, but I'm afraid there is not a definite rule around this. Just one of those things you have to learn. Sorry.

Great noise or excitement; uproar.

Read more about hullabaloo at Answers.com

Hello dear technically-inclined reader, I wonder if you could help.

I have been using email as my main means of capturing and storing information. Started with Outlook, switched to Gmail for a while (loved the tags and no-directory structure) but then went back to Outlook when I got an HTC Tytn II that syncs with it in real time.

I send myself dozens of emails every day, whenever something crosses my mind (easy for me, as I'm online on my mobile every single waking hour – from the moment my it wakes me up in the morning to the movies I watch on it or feeds I read in bed before falling asleep).

These emails look something like this:

• bitful backlog link to answers.com absent from single post page
• cal wed vegetable samosa 37g*320cal/100g
• money wed 2.50 leaving collection for x at work
• weight mon 13st 11lbs 21%
• task 1 feb register for glastonbury tickets

Then every now and then I sit at my machine at home and transfer the data into Outlook, MS Money or my weight/calories spreadsheet. Yes, I could enter the info straight into my mobile (it syncs with Outlook and has Mobile Word and Excel and all you can dream of) but if I'm at work it's much easier to email myself. Large fingers love large keyboards.

My question is: does anyone know of any application or system that lets you email a specific worded syntax to yourself and it gets entered into Outlook as a task/appointment/note/contact? I have fooled around with Sandy for a bit and although she's definitely a very smart cookie, her Outlook integration does not stretch that far.

Thank you.