I have been in Seattle for three days now. These are a few things that attracted my attention. Things that seemed strange or at least different for an Italian visiting this big country.

First things that catch your attention are things very near you… The bathroom! 🙂
The bathroom, in my hotelroom, has two lights. One is a standard light to actually see when you are in the bathroom…. The other one is to HEAT. It’s one of those lights that you also see in some fast foods or places where they want to keep food warm. It’s right above the WC and feels warm while you’re under it. Today, when I was going to take a shower I left my towel under it and it was a little bit warm when I got out of the shower. It probably did not have enough time to warm up more. Amazing!

Second thing are buses. I take the bus to go to the office. Yesterday was the first time I took it. Interesting thing is that in the very center of the city there’s a “Ride Free Zone“, which means that you can use the bus for free. You get on and off anytime you want. If you get on in a ride free zone and get off out of it, you will have to pay the full price of the ticket.
I think it’s a cool service because anyone can move around the center of the city for free without a car. Sounds like a good idea not to use a car. “Downtown” is actually bigger than the Ride Free Zone, but still seems a very good initiative.
Bad thing about the bus fares is that during the rush hour you pay MORE than during normal hours. This does not seem like an incentive to avoid using the car during the hours in which there’s the highest traffic problem.

Third thing, but probably most people who lives around here already knows it: it rains all the time.
Funny thing about it, though: most of my co-workers don’t use an umbrella. It seems like they are so used to the rain that they don’t “avoid” it.

It looks like the guys of Parallels are working hard to provide a better experience to Mac users that actually want to also run other OS’s.

Take a look at this video Ivan sent me.

Looks like I will have to buy a new iMac or MacBook.

In Italy, like in many other countries, gambling is illegal.

Gambling is legal only in casinos that are managed by the Italian government, there are 4 or 5 in total.

In the last few years some gambling machines commonly called “video poker” were legalized. These machines were legalized with the excuse that there’s a fixed rate of wins. Players may not win money, but tokens. Tokens can only be used to play again OR spent to buy something in the same place where you played. For example bars have them, if you win you can get a coffee or a sandwitch or something else. You basically trade them.

How do online casinos relate to all this? Is it legal for me, that I am Italian and live in Italy, to play an online casino that is in some foreign country where casinos are legal?
According to a recent law in Italy, it’s not legal if the casino did not request permissions and paied the fee, of course!

What if I want to access one of these site? Click here to see it.

In short, the page says that you may not access the site because it does not respect law number 266 of Dec, 23rd 2005.

What makes me think most about this, is how the government decides that I may not gamble. I am happy that they want to protect me and make sure that when I go to a casino there are no tricks and that they don’t steal money, but blocking my browsing is a little bit too much in my opinion.
What if one day I reached the Italian borders and got asked “What are you going to do in Switzerland?” and I reply “I am going to a casino” and the officer told me “You can’t go, because the casino did not agree with the Italian government the rules of each game”.
Isn’t this the same?

Also, how do you technically realize this block? Is the Italian government going to provide a list of blocked IP’s and all the Italian ISP’s block them? How quickly are the casino sites going to buy new IP’s? How quickly will they change domain names? How about proxy servers? May I access those sites using, say, a French proxy? What if I use a modem, connect to a French ISP and get on the casino site? Are they going to control my telephone line? Spy all the packets going back and forth on my computer?

I am not the kind of person that wants to protect his privacy at any cost, but this feels a lot like an intrusion. Technically it is going to be a big problem to keep track of all sites and IP’s. Sorry, but this does not seem like a definitive solution.

Today everything is wirelessly connected!

Special thanks to Ruben.

The Nintendo Wii has now been presented and a few game demos were shown.
I am not in the gaming industry and I was not at any of those expo’s, but I have to say that I’m really excited about the new controller. I can’t wait to see it.
I have been a hardcore player, I started when I was a kid and have been playing almost every possible game for many years.
A few years ago I kinda got bored. Most games were all the same. I bought a Dreamcast and never really used it. I bought a PS2 with the gun and played about 2 weekends. I sold both.

I played a lot MAME, lots of retrogaming such as Tetris, Puzzle Bubble and Money Puzzle Exchanger.

Then I quit playing games again. I did try some “modern” games but I am not really attracted and I don’t have the time to play a couple of hours a day… I might find that time, but probably I don’t want to.

Here comes casual gaming. My girlfriend is a hardcore-casualgamer. Is this possible? Isn’t a casual gamer someone who plays occasionaly? Yes and no, in my opinion. Casual gaming is about playing occasionally, but also about playing simple games, that you pick up very quickly and can play for a good amount of hours without getting bored. They must be simple in concept, but must have a good development.
At that time the concept did not exist, but Tetris is a GREAT example. Think about it. Rules are DAMN simple. How long does it take to learn how it works? 5 minutes? How long does it take to be a good player? Maybe a week or two of intense playing. How long does it take to become a master? An entire life!
Well, my girlfriend plays a bunch of casual games often… How would you call that?

Now back to the Nintendo Wii.
The new joystick really breaks that barrier that kept a lot of possible players from playing. It takes a while to get used to the joypad and I still haven’t been able to use all the keys on a PS2 joystick easily. On the other side EVERYONE can use a stick, point it, click 1 or 2 buttons, swing it and so on. How long would it take to learn to play a Tennis game? 1 minute? 5 minutes?
Ok, so we made games simple to pick up. Do we need great graphics? Not really, IMHO. Gaming is about playing. Playability must be GREAT. The stick is a way to make higher playability.

I just hope the Wii will not be limited to Mario Bros and Pokemons. I DO like Mario bros games such as mario kart, I like shooting games such as Time Crisis (they don’t really need great graphics!!), but I can’t buy a console for 2 games…. and, NO, I don’t like pokemons.

I can’t wait to get one and I hope they will get in the stores with a few games ready. I’ll be there to get one and I’m sure that this could be a good chance for me to play with my girlfriend. And guess what? I think this could be a winning move for Nintendo. I can play with my girlfriend, I can play with my niece who’s 6 and all thanks to a very innovative controller.

Think of Wario Ware on the Wii. It just demonstrates that if playability is good, you will play it.
Does Brain Age have good graphics? Wasn’t it a blockbuster?
Innovation – playability – simplicity.

PS: If you like Puzzle Bobble you should try this

A couple of days ago I was looking for a few updates about the new Mazda MX-5 or Miata as is called in USA.
I browsed the Italian site, but then wondered about the US version. I was looking for little difference, just for the curiosity.

I went on the Official site.
Then I went to the section of the beautiful Miata and with my great surprise I discovered a tiny fun game (look at the bottom, there’s a link named “MX-5 Miata game”). It is definitely a Casual Game.
In short, there’s a course and you drive your Miata. The more you drift the higher is your score.
There’s practice and race.
It’s pure casual gaming, it takes about 5 minutes to pick up the game and you can basically play for hours to drive and drift perfectly.

It’s fun to see that casual gaming is now also a vehicle to promote other products. We used to get little gadgets or a chance to win a prize along with a product publicity. Now that casual gaming is trendy and cool, big brands use it to promote their products.

The game is fun and the graphics is good. If you are up for a quick match with your friends or colleagues, I suggest you give it a try.

This video is really interesting. It’s a chair that takes life.
I read this on an Italian site, but it was actually already referenced on Engadget, so you can see their comments in English.

Here you can see the video of the chair plus some other interesting things.

Enjoy.

If you read my blog you must be a nerd, a hardcore developer or something like that. Don’t take it wrong. 😀

Maybe this link will make your life a little better, check it out.
Dr. Razavi’s Good to Know Info: Ergonomics, Obeying the Natural Laws of Work to Avoid Injury

An old friend of mine used to say “Quando è fatto bene si vede subito”, which can be roughly translated into “When it’s a good software you can see it from the start”.

Here’s an example:

class user_class {
  var status = -1;
  var stato = 0;
  var name = ”;
  var last_name = ”;
  function user_class() {
    $this->stato &= $this->status;
  }
}

While I might understand that stato and status are probably the same variable that changed name in time… It’s funny that they are initiated with different values and then set as the same thing! 😀

Software evolves in time.

These days I was considering moving from Milan to a sunny place like Liguria or Tuscany for the summer. Work from home and travel when needed.

This perfect summer plan seems to present a flaw: I live connected to Internet and I might not be able to survive for such a long time away from the ‘net. I could probably also not be able to work which would be a problem too!
A couple of usefule links:
definition of Addiction
Are you addicted to the internet?

At home I have an aDSL connection at a flat fee and I can use it as much as I want. Working from home is not a problem, I can access VPN networks, download and send big emails and browse as much as I want.
I would like to have something similar while not at home.

Finding a summer house or apartment with internet connection doesn’t seem to be so easy, mostly because most apartments don’t even have a telephone line. Asking the landlore to add phone AND DSL seems a little bit too much for a month or two.
I could try some Satellite provider, but I would still need a modem to send requests. Doesn’t seem very convenient as I would have to use a cellphone.

My last resort is going in an H3G shop and buy a PCMCIA with a somewhat flatfee (sorry this is Italian only, there is a similar offer in UK that you can see here).

Now I wonder. Am I the only one considering to do this? With all the new communication tools such as IM and Skype and the fact that most companies support VPN access… Why isn’t everybody working from the seaside?

Wouldn’t it be beautiful?