Alessandro Pistilli Blog – New York City

No words to describe, just images

This is an old post from my italian blog that I will try to translate.
Why? Because it talks about running, one of my passions I discovered in NYC. I wrote this post after my first run:

“This city is corrupting me. I’m doing things that I would have considered embarrassing just a few months ago.I’m thinking about running.
Why? I don’t know, that’s what I’ve been wondering after my first run.
This mania didn’t cost me yet expensive gadgets, shiny shoes, branded clothes or wealthy behaviours.
In fact I’m training with just adidas shoes (100$) and pants (30$), kiway (for free) and an old shirt (free).
For the rest, no worries, same life.
Alcool, cigarettes and unhealthy food.**
New York, I gave you a finger, you won’t take my whole arm! WTF*
(The title of the post is in honor of a great 80′ band, you rest in peace).”

* This is tipical italian slang
** FYI: I don’t smoke any more, I eat healthy and drink rarely. Yes, NYC took my arm!!

You have to read this book!

(From wikipedia) This book explores, in a humorous tone, the art and science of management used by high-technology companies.

In Search of Stupidity is a parody of In Search of Excellence. Its central thesis is that the most determinant factor for success in the high-tech market is avoidance of stupid mistakes. It tries to exemplify that it is possible to set up an industry wide doctrine without solid base. This book’s existence could be interpreted that a good manager should not trust any single doctrine for management, and even traditional common sense might work better than a strict doctrine based on poor data.

In search of stupidity

This is Arpino, the land of Cicerone and Roman civilization.
In the picture the most ancient (and still standing) “sesto acuto” (pointed) arc.

Two more shots from the small village:

The Cicerone’s tower:

This place is worth a trip!

Arpino on Wikipedia

Cyclopean masonry

Snippet from an article by Henry Blodget

Instead of allowing the housing market to correct to its fair value, President Obama and Barney Frank will attempt to “mitigate” foreclosures. Mr. Frank has big plans for your tax dollars, “We may need more than $50 billion for foreclosure [mitigation]“. What this means is that you will be making your monthly mortgage payment and in addition you will be making a $100 payment per month for a deadbeat who bought more house than they could afford, is still watching a 52 inch HDTV, still eating in their perfect kitchens with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. Barney thinks he can reverse the law of supply and demand by throwing your money at the problem. He will succeed in wasting billions of tax dollars and home prices will still fall 20% to 30%. Unsustainably high home prices can not be sustained. I would normally say that even a 3rd grader could understand this concept. But, instead I’ll say that even a U.S. Congressman should understand this.

I just realized that I’m responsible for:

10 servers

4 SVN repositories

1 Bug tracker system

~100k Lines of code

6M requests / day

1 Intranet

1 Wiki

Make pesto is much easier….

This year I went on the place on time, I was able to catch the professionists!

Friday 13, take a cab to JFK with my boss, a drink at the terminal with ari and anna. Sleepless night trip on the plane. I fall asleep but we’re arriving… Dinner with the family, hang out with my brother and sister. At home at 6am. The time to recover, I drive to Florence. Pick Laure and Silvia for dinner, drink at Forte belvedere and chat till 2am. Office work, meet paola. Jv announced, drink and dinner with american’s colleagues at filipepe. Double wine and double limoncello. Finally I hang out with paola and matteo and laure. I pick matteo, laure and chiara2 and drive to pistoia, pick chiara for a drink and dinner and then at her place for photo shots. I feel tired but I have to attend the dadaparty. I speak on a slide and meet chineses, Brazilians, Hungarians, polish and a java developers (female). I’m tired but I resists, work half day, goodbye lunch with laure and I drive to castiglioncello to pick giulia and drive to grosseto. Meet ale,fede,massi,simo,letizia,tatiana for a drink dinner drink. Goodbye giulia, I drive home take a shower and meet giuseppina and nadia.
Sunday 22: 5.30am alarm, and flight to new york