running out of batteries

Google's not only about software, anymore

It's quite late and I'm pretty tired, so I am just going to paste here the URL pointing to an Official Google Blog entry that sounds fantastic to me. I can bet there's not speculation in that, even more because the blogger is Larry Page in person...

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/towards-more-renewable-energy.html

Google's commitment to innovation in the production of renewable energy at costs even lower than those entailed by coal is true and concrete (remember one of my previous posts about Google.org?). 

Now they're looking for "creative and motivated entrepreneurs and technologists with expertise in a broad range of areas, including materials science, physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, land acquisition and management, power transmission and substations, construction, and regulatory issues."

Everything looks so exciting! The most of us will surely have to wait and see what's going to happen, while others (more capable and lucky) do have the chance to mold reality as it should be.

Android Dev. Challenge... not for everyone

Yesterday Google Inc., following the announcement of the constitution of the Open Handset Alliance, finally released the official SDK for developing next-generation mobile applications: Andorid!

It's truly amazing and thrilling for a bunch of different reasons. Android is based on Linux 2.6, comes with a set of C/C++ libraries mainly for OpenGL implementation, SQLite data-store and so on, but the most exciting thing I founded out is that the Android runtime is fully Java-based. Actually is an ad-hoc Java version that is neither a JSE nor a JME implementation. This is one of the most debated point, but this is not the reason behind this post. So why am I posting?

Well, along with unveiling Android, Google has officially launched a competition aimed at awarding those visionary-developers that will create new amazing applications for the Android runtime. This competition is not opened to every one in the globe, here you can find a list of not admitted countries, and amongst those countries... there is Italy!

Between the words, I'm not complaining about Google Inc., I'm complaining about my country. Obviously there are legal restrictions that prevented Google from opening this challenge to italians, that's why I my country's fault.

That's really sad, one more time there is a chance to actively take part into something dramatically important and once again there are men and women doomed to miss it.

Luckily we can still develop with Android, 'though we are not eligible for the challenge we can still learn this new SDK and envision new applications.

The Nowhere "on air"

It's a few hours my first album "The 7-th month" is online. As you can see on the right there is a Last.fm playlist player featuring all the songs of the album, along with other artists' works.
This album dates back to 2003 though a few songs are even older. I had both the honor and pleasure to play and recorder it with Sarah Pizzolato (voice) and Gloria Armaroli (drums)... well, obviously I played guitars and bass-guitar. That band now does not exist anymore, but "The Nowhere" is looking for a brand new line-up, new songs are craving for being played.

Hope you will enjoy.

MOTD

Reading docs on the Net I found this wonderful statement...

How can the computer know what is right without human-labeled data?
The same way scientists have been doing it for hundreds of years. It's called Occham's Razor. The simplest (or most likely) explanation is generally the best, and even though we can't know that it's true, it is quite useful for predicting new and unobserved data.

Google.org commitment to halt climate changes

Ever heard about Google.org? Well, they use to define themselves as follows:

"Google.org aspires to use the power of information to help people better their lives. We are an experiment in active philanthropy. In addition to financial resources, we are fortunate to be able to engage Google’s entire family of people and partners, information technologies and other resources to address three major growing global problems: climate change, global public health, and economic development and poverty."

Great, isn't it? But there is more in store rather than just a definition, a declaration of intent. There is a concrete project going on named RechargeIT.

This project is about gathering a series of observation of hybrid-vehicle behavior in real-traffic/life scenarios, and much more... The truly ground-breaking aspect of the project is the study and potentially fostering of a technology termed V2G (Vehicle to Grid).

Here is a Google.org statement that has really excited me thinking about how many good things could be done in the next future if just enough resources and attention were given to new technologies just like Google is committed to do even in fields not related to its core business activities:

"Plug-in hybrid vehicles can achieve 70 -100 miles per gallon, quadrupling the fuel economy of the average car on the road today (~20 mpg), and doubling the fuel economy of a regular hybrid car such as a Prius (~45 MPG). A plug-in hybrid is different from today's hybrid because it has a higher capacity battery and the car can be plugged into a regular 120-volt outlet for charging. Because it is operating primarily on electricity for the first 20-40 miles, the car operates much more efficiently and uses dramatically less gasoline. Manufacturers are now designing plug-in hybrids that may not use any gasoline at all for those first 20-40 miles, and since more than 70% of Americans drive less than 33 miles per day, many will not use any gasoline in their daily commutes -- but they retain the flexibility of using the hybrid gas engine for longer trips. In addition, plug-in hybrids will often recharge at night using excess power from base-load power plants that are already running, so they won't generally add to peak electricity demand. During daytime peak power usage, plug-in hybrids may be able to sell power back to electric utilities, potentially earning drivers as much as $2,000-$3,000 per year".

Welcome philanthropy ;)

Disinformation

Yesterday we have lived a moment of true democracy, one of the few I can remember till today.
In cities and towns (180 locations) all along the country, and in at least 30 foreign cities, men, womens, citizens, all stood up to take part to the first V-Day ever!



The V-Day has been a really great initiative in both essence and form, everything has happened peacefully everywhere, but I have a regret still...

NO ONE OF THE NATIONAL TV-NEWS (but TG-3) HAS NEITHER MENTIONED WHAT WAS GOING ON IN THE COUNTRY NOR HAS SPENT A WORD ABOUT OUR PROPOSED POPULAR LAW!

You can verify simply clicking here and listening to the RAI tv-news editions of September 8th.

So, was the event not so relevant for the country or the citizens? I don't think so, absolutely, the truth is quite different and threatening.

In Italy there is no freedom of information, all the major TV-news are controlled by parties and politicians. The only reliable source of information we have nowadays is the Internet, and this is dramatically sad if we see that the level of adoption of the Internet in Italy is absolutely not comparable to the one we have in other european countries.

Only today, the day after, some on-line newspapers (La Repubblica, il Corriere della Sera) are reporting that the event has mobilized a huge number of citizens (around 50000 only in Bologna) and that about 300000 signatures should have been gathered in the whole country.
This consensus will help us bringing Grillo's proposal of popular law to the Parliament, and politicians will eventually have to formally discuss it and either approve or reject it, accounting of the reasons of their final decision to every single citizen that made this possible with a single signature.

Abducted by MAB & *decay*

Just a few hours ago one of the greatest experiences of my whole young life got completed, and the ceremony was served by four witchy girls, the MAB.

As all the greatest things, the Fate planned for this passion to arise giving a completely new perspective to the months to come and dramatically widening the spectrum of music styles I am fond of. Though it's summer and the sun burns, it is now time for darkness, enjoy the MAB

Many thanks to Franco Battiato for having introduced the MAB into my musical-world... Their music seems to be just like life is, gentle and cruel, all these things rolled into just one feeling. Here is a shot of me and Lisa...

Wondering what MAB actually means? Here's something useful.

If you are looking for Mab's video and you have not yet thought about asking either Google or directly YouTube about, here is a link you might find useful ;)

In the meantime this is my favorite track from *decay*, Suicidal Angel

Enjoy&Share

My new (inter)National Anthem

Sorry for the ones who do not speak italian, these words might suit many other countries' needs too...

Thanks to Franco Battiato for these precious lyrics.

On the stage with Carmen... don't ask me how ;)

On July 20th, in Ferrara (Italy), Carmen Consoli has had a great gig in front of an excited crowd, but this time I was on the other side, I was on the stage!!!

This is just one of the (sadly said!) few photos I got during the gig... unlikely I left my camera at home 'coz I was not expecting to follow the full gig right from the stage this time, so I used my smart-phone as replacement... anyway the overall result is not too bad actually.

Thanks to Valeria's precious friends and to both Carmen and Santi (as always) ;)

Emiliana Torrini

One week ago my girlfriend Valeria told me about a musician she was interested in. She only had a clipping taken years ago from a magazine and was interested in listening to her rather than reading about her.

Well, this pretty mysterious girl is called Emiliana Torrini, and completely captured the both of us with her smooth and gentle voice.

I have been particularly glad to find out a well-played cover of the famous Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit song!

Want to listen to her music? Want to fall enchanted? I'll give you more than just some mp3s (that would be illegal too!)... here is a video with more than just one song :)



Take care,
F

PS: thanx to Vale

My first discovered-deadlock :)

About one week ago I was struggling at work with a really strange scalability issue on the back-end system I'm responsible of.
Once a system looks like frozen and does not react it could be possible it has been somehow somewhere deadlocked.
Thus I asked the JVM about the presence of any deadlocked threads, and the answer has been:

Found one Java-level deadlock:
=============================
"Thread-11":
waiting to lock monitor 0x08078ac4 (object 0xa5c85f98, a oracle.jdbc.driver.LogicalConnection),
which is held by "RMICallHandler-29"
"RMICallHandler-29":
waiting to lock monitor 0x08078e04 (object 0x67154b48, a oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleImplicitConnectionCache),
which is held by "Thread-11"

Java stack information for the threads listed above:
===================================================
"Thread-11":
at oracle.jdbc.driver.LogicalConnection.close(LogicalConnection.java:194)
- waiting to lock <0xa5c85f98> (a oracle.jdbc.driver.LogicalConnection)
at oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleImplicitConnectionCache.closeCheckedOutConnection(OracleImplicitConnectionCache.java:1148)
at oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleImplicitConnectionCacheThread.runTimeToLiveTimeout(OracleImplicitConnectionCacheThread.java:153)
- locked <0x67154b48> (a oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleImplicitConnectionCache)
at oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleImplicitConnectionCacheThread.run(OracleImplicitConnectionCacheThread.java:67)
"RMICallHandler-29":
at oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleImplicitConnectionCache.reusePooledConnection(OracleImplicitConnectionCache.java:1422)
- waiting to lock <0x67154b48> (a oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleImplicitConnectionCache)
at oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleConnectionCacheEventListener.connectionClosed(OracleConnectionCacheEventListener.java:61)
- locked <0x673947e8> (a oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleConnectionCacheEventListener)
at oracle.jdbc.pool.OraclePooledConnection.callImplicitCacheListener(OraclePooledConnection.java:519)
at oracle.jdbc.pool.OraclePooledConnection.logicalCloseForImplicitConnectionCache(OraclePooledConnection.java:440)
at oracle.jdbc.pool.OraclePooledConnection.logicalClose(OraclePooledConnection.java:456)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.LogicalConnection.closeInternal(LogicalConnection.java:221)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.LogicalConnection.close(LogicalConnection.java:194)
- locked <0xa5c85f98> (a oracle.jdbc.driver.LogicalConnection)
at oracle.oc4j.sql.spi.ManagedConnectionImpl._cleanup(ManagedConnectionImpl.java:371)
at oracle.oc4j.sql.spi.ManagedConnectionImpl.cleanup(ManagedConnectionImpl.java:339)
at com.evermind.server.connector.ConnectionContext.cleanup(ConnectionContext.java:893)
- locked <0xa5d4ee08> (a com.evermind.server.connector.ConnectionContext)
at com.evermind.server.connector.ConnectionContext.cleanupIfUnreferenced(ConnectionContext.java:836)
- locked <0xa5d4ee08> (a com.evermind.server.connector.ConnectionContext)
at com.evermind.server.connector.ConnectionContext.jtaTransactionEnded(ConnectionContext.java:733)
- locked <0xa5d4ee08> (a com.evermind.server.connector.ConnectionContext)
at com.evermind.server.connector.ConnectionContext.afterCompletion(ConnectionContext.java:542)
at com.evermind.server.ApplicationServerTransaction.callSynchronizationAfterCompletion(ApplicationServerTransaction.java:1184)
at com.evermind.server.ApplicationServerTransactionManager.freeResources(ApplicationServerTransactionManager.java:394)
at com.evermind.server.ApplicationServerTransaction.doCommit(ApplicationServerTransaction.java:282)
- locked <0xa5d5bab8> (a com.evermind.server.ApplicationServerTransaction)
at com.evermind.server.ApplicationServerTransaction.commit(ApplicationServerTransaction.java:162)
at com.evermind.server.ApplicationServerTransactionManager.commit(ApplicationServerTransactionManager.java:472)
at com.evermind.server.ejb.EJBTransactionManager.end(EJBTransactionManager.java:132)
at com.evermind.server.ejb.interceptor.system.TxRequiredInterceptor.invoke(TxRequiredInterceptor.java:57)
at com.evermind.server.ejb.interceptor.InvocationContextImpl.proceed(InvocationContextImpl.java:119)
at com.evermind.server.ejb.interceptor.system.DMSInterceptor.invoke(DMSInterceptor.java:52)
at com.evermind.server.ejb.interceptor.InvocationContextImpl.proceed(InvocationContextImpl.java:119)
at com.evermind.server.ejb.InvocationContextPool.invoke(InvocationContextPool.java:55)
at com.evermind.server.ejb.StatelessSessionEJBObject.OC4J_invokeMethod(StatelessSessionEJBObject.java:87)
at DgComponentSession_RemoteProxy_k3k2ci.create(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor126.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at com.evermind.server.rmi.RmiMethodCall.run(RmiMethodCall.java:53)
at com.evermind.util.ReleasableResourcePooledExecutor$MyWorker.run(ReleasableResourcePooledExecutor.java:303)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)

Found 1 deadlock.

Once I saw this output message I could not belive to my own two eyes, I had finally found a deadlock in a third-party piece of code! I still belive it is a quite rare thing to see so clearly, so I felt quite happy and excited when I saw the mesage above for the first time.

Just a silly post to share this rare little-thing with others.

F.

JTR 4.0 final

Today I'm going to write this post in english. It's about JTR again. Finally I've been able to publish the final 4.0 release. Achieving this release has been a pretty cumbersome effort actually, but it has been funny and instructive in many ways.

I've published a JTR 4.0 final availability article on The Server Side this week, and it appeared on the main page yesterday. The full article can be reached here.

Hope JTR 4.0 will receive enough attention from the comunity ;). We'll see...

F.

Today I'm going to write this post in english. It's about JTR again. Finally I've been able to publish the final 4.0 release. Achieving this release has been a pretty cumbersome effort actually, but it has been funny and instructive in many ways.

I've published a JTR 4.0 final availability article on The Server Side this week, and it appeared on the main page yesterday. The full article can be reached here.

JTR 4.0 RC1

Dopo poco più di un anno di creatività convogliata in uno dei miei progetti Open Source, vale a dire JTR (http://jtrunner.sourceforge.net), finalmente ho ritenuto fosse giunto il momento di pubblicarlo come RC-1 (Release Candidate 1).

Il risultato è stato davvero entusiasmante per me, poiché dopo tanti mesi di ritagli di tempo e prove ho avuto modo di introdurre in JTR (ormai giunto alla versione 4.0) una funzionalità che cullavo nella mia mente da almeno due anni, vale a dire la possibilità di organizzare in modo esclusivamente dichiarativo delle sessioni di test distribuite su più nodi cooperanti, ovviamente cercando di ridurre al minimo possibile (con le tecnologie ad oggi impiegte) le attività di configurazione dell'utente finale.

Bene, il risultato è stato sorprendente! In questo tipo di scenari il problema principale è dato dal fatto che le logiche (nella fattispecie quelle di test) sono contenute in classi scritte dall'utente di JTR. Affinché quegli stessi test possano essere eseguiti da altri nodi JTR (i nodi passivi), è necessario che quelle stesse classi e tutte le eventuali altre librerie necessarie siano disponibili nel classpath dei nodi passivi.

Se questo richiede tipicamente tediose (e spesso prone ad errori) configurazioni manuali di repository comuni di classi (basti pensare alla modalità standard prevista da RMI), altrettanto non si può dire per JTR 4.0.

Il runtime è capace di far fronte autonomamente a questi problemi, riducendo drammaticamente il peso che tradizionalmente ricadrebbe sull'utente finale.

Ho anche provveduto a registrare una sessione audio-video quale demo della funzionalità JTR EDiT (Effortless Distributed Testing), disponibile on-line sul sito del progetto http://jtrunner.sourceforge.net nella sezione Demos.

Qui in basso è disponibile la versione in bassa risoluzione, presente su YouTube.

Ora attendo di pubblicare JTR 4.0 in versione finale, avendo già individuato piccoli elementi di correzione da introdurre nel pacchetto finale (per ora non nel codice per fortuna ;)).

F.

Lettera di Marco Travaglio al Blog di Beppe Grillo

Prima delle presentazioni intendo cominciare con qualcosa di succulento ed interessante... premetto, riporto sia la sorgente da cui la lettera è tratta, sia la sua intera copia per comodità di consultazione. Il link serve quanto meno come riferimento alla fonte che, sicuramente, può essere ritenuta attendibile....

(22 Maggio 2007) http://www.beppegrillo.it/

Ecco il testo integrale

"Caro Beppe,
vorrei comunicare a tutti gli amici del blog l’ultima notizia scomparsa di una lunga serie. Il 15 maggio 2007 la III Corte d’appello di Milano ha condannato il senatore forzista Marcello Dell’Utri e il boss della mafia di Trapani Vincenzo Virga a 2 anni per ciascuno per tentata estorsione. Nessun giornale, a parte l’Unità e il Corriere della sera, l’ha scritto. Nessun telegiornale o programma televisivo, tranne Annozero, l’ha detto. L’Ansa, onde evitare che qualcuno se ne accorgesse, ha dedicato alla cosa ben sette righe e mezza, sotto questo titolo depistante: “Sponsorizzazioni: confermata in appello condanna Dell’Utri”. Come se il reato fosse la sponsorizzazione. Nel testo, si spiegava (si fa per dire) che l’estorsione riguardava imprecisate “modalità di sponsorizzazione della Pallacanestro Trapani”. Quanto a Virga, l’Ansa “dimenticava” di spiegare che è un boss mafioso, vicinissimo a Provenzano, arrestato dopo lunga latitanza nel 2001 e condannato all’ergastolo per mafia e omicidio.
Riepilogo brevemente i fatti. Nel 1990 il presidente della Pallacanestro Trapani, Vincenzo Garraffa, medico e futuro deputato del Pri, cerca uno sponsor per la sua squadra, neopromossa in serie A2. Publitalia, la concessionaria Fininvest presieduta da Dell’Utri, lo mette in contatto con la Dreher-Heineken. Si firma il contratto: per 1 miliardo e mezzo di lire, i giocatori esibiranno sulle magliette il logo della “Birra Messina”, marchio italiano della multinazionale tedesca. Garraffa paga la provvigione a Publitalia: 170 milioni. Ma due funzionari della concessionaria berlusconiana battono cassa e pretendono da lui altri 530 milioni, in nero. In pratica, Publitalia vuole indietro la metà del valore della sponsorizzazione, ovviamente sottobanco. Garraffa rifiuta e, ai primi del ’92, incontra Dell’Utri a Milano. Gli spiega di non disporre di fondi neri e di non poter pagare senza fattura. Dell’Utri – come denuncerà Garraffa – lo minaccia: “Ci pensi, abbiamo uomini e mezzi per convincerla a pagare”. Garraffa non paga. E, qualche settimana dopo, riceve nell’ospedale di cui è primario una visita indimenticabile: quella del capomafia Vincenzo Virga, scortato da un guardaspalle. Virga è di poche parole: “Sono stato incaricato da Marcello Dell’Utri e da altri amici di vedere come è possibile risolvere il problema di Publitalia”. Garraffa ribatte: “Senza fattura, non intendo pagare”. E Virga: “Capisco, riferirò. Se ci sono novità, la verrò a trovare…”.
L’anno seguente la Pallacanestro Trapani, nonostante i successi sul campo, non trova più uno sponsor. Garraffa s’inventa un’autosponsorizzazione antimafia, ovviamente gratuita, con lo slogan “L’Altra Sicilia”. Che gli porta fortuna: la squadra viene promossa in serie A. Maurizio Costanzo invita lui e i suoi giocatori a parlarne al “Costanzo Show”, su Canale5. Ma poi, all’ultimo momento, cambia idea e disdice l’invito. Garraffa ci vede lo zampino di Dell’Utri. E denuncia tutto ai magistrati di Palermo. Che trasmettono gli atti, per competenza, al Tribunale di Milano. Qui Dell’Utri e Virga vengono condannati per tentata estorsione aggravata a 2 anni a testa. L’altro giorno, la Corte d’appello ha confermato le condanne.
Ora manca soltanto la Cassazione. Dell’Utri intanto è stato condannato definitivamente a 2 anni per false fatture in altre sponsorizzazioni gonfiate e in primo grado a 9 anni per concorso esterno in associazione mafiosa. Naturalmente, visto il pedigree, rimane a pie’ fermo in Parlamento e viene pubblicamente elogiato per la sua “intelligenza” da diessini dalemiani come Nicola Latorre (niente a che vedere con Pio La Torre, ammazzato dalla mafia) e ossequiosamente intervistato da giornali e tv su tutto lo scibile umano, fuorchè sulle sue condanne.
Come ricorda Daniele Luttazzi nel suo ultimo spettacolo, Daria Bignardi l’ha recentemente invitato alle “Invasioni barbariche” su La7 e ha subito premesso: “Non parliamo dei suoi processi”. Dell’Utri, comprensibilmente, non ha avuto nulla da obiettare. Anzi, ha aggiunto che il suo giornalista preferito è Luca Sofri. Che, guardacaso, è il marito della Bignardi. Ecco, dei processi di Dell’Utri è meglio non parlare mai. Il senatore ha uomini e mezzi per convincere."
Marco Travaglio"