One week travel

I'm always a "maximizer"! The fact that I had to go to Switzerland at WWW @20 brought to me an occasion to take a break and get some "fresh Italy" - I really miss it!

I'll leave for Italy tomorrow, Wednesday. I'll take the plane from Bucharest to Verona. Then I'll go to Lazise (Verona) and stay at my cousin, Carmen. She was in Bucharest before she left for Italy and we took her to Republika's party! (geez, Vlad ..that "Boltz" almost killed me :)) )

Thursday I'll leave for Geneve-CERN by train and return back on Saturday when I planned to make some shopping at Verona (Grande Mela I'm coming!!). Yeah, there's no big deal in that except if you hate shopping. And I do. It took me two years (!!!) to know well the Grande Mela shoppingland and make a strategic plan on how to not loose time and energy and find the best deals in shortest time. Now I can say that's the only place where I shop with pleasure.

Lazise

On Sunday I'll leave for Venice where I'll meet Rod (follow him! :)) my coleague and friend. We need to update our ideas about university, future & inspiration, professional plans and so on.

After, on Monday I'll go with Carmen to my favourite Italian town: Como (No George Clooney, No Martini! :)) ) where is the my famous Computer Engineering Faculty and where I'll get some information and updates about my studies.

Tuesday probably I'll get some rest and have some time in Lazise and on Wednesday I'll return to Bucharest. Pretty nice. I'll bring photos and videos, so stay tuned!

Monica Ioana Muntean Limmonica	http://limmonica.blogspot.com>
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Webcasts World Wide Web @20

For those who cannot attend World Wide Web @20 celebration there will be a webcast of the event from the 14:00 (CET) on the 13 March on Webcast CERN and at 20:00 (CET) on Eurovision. Great idea!

I also have to mention the next LIFT 09 France - Marseilles, June 18-19, 2009 a conference about how to turn changes into opportunities, getting inspired trough "cross-polinisation": speakers from different backgrounds "ethnologists, entrepreneurs, artists, designers, or even the webmaster of the Vatican" that will express their vision about a "hands-on-future", a future of do-it-yourself change.

I find it very interesting so it's sure that on 18-19 June I'll join LIFT France. I've always embraced the idea that inspiration comes through a successfull interconnection of two or more areas.

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WORLD WIDE WEB @20 celebrated at CERN - The Globe of Science and Innovation

How does one feels when is living his dream? Shall I laugh? Shall I cry?

This is what I continue saying since last evening when I received the e-mail "And the lucky winners are...". I laughed, I cried and I was continuously repeating "I am living my dream!"


As you could guess from the previous post - Stop and Hear the Music - I have been always fascinated about Astronomy and Astrophysics. I've studied Astrophysics at Ferrara University, for six months during my pregnancy with my little princess, Nori Maria. I've had to abandon my studies when my I gave birth to my daughter. After one year I've decided to study Computer Engineering at Politecnico di Milano - on line courses. So you can imagine how I am feeling. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the World Wide Web held there where it was born, at CERN, more specifically at the The Globe of Science and Innovation:

How this happened? Thursday started with OpenCoffe Bucharest where I assisted to a very inspiring conversation about "How to launch an on line project on the Romanian market" started by Cristian Manafu and enriched with few successful examples, to the presentation of the project Symbolya, for which I saw a clear successful future, and Olimpika which I think it still needs a business model definition, a better usability and a richer user experience. You'll find more about this on OpenCoffee Bucharest Blog, hoping to have the time to write about.


In the evening I was at my computer, making my usual informative navigation before getting to bed. I arrived on the LiftConference.com website - I don't remember how but I think it's either from Twitter either from my Google Reader. In that moment I was very tired and started to see "double" so I couldn't read everything. I just saw the name of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web @20, 13 March and the fact that they were organizing a lottery and give 15 invitations. I've made an account and subscribed for winning an invitation. I didn't know exactly what was for. I knew only that it was on 13 March when I also planned to participate at FlexCamp Timisoara (on 14 March), organized by Adobe Romania, which was related to one of my future projects and I said that probably I'll not win but it was nice to play "the game". After I finished with the registration I went to bed as my eyes were refusing to read anything.


Next day, on Friday I went to WebEvent at Pitesti. Here I saw myself becoming something like an Internet evangelist. That because I've heard some aberrations like "We do advise our customers not to make a blog if they don't know: 1) to whom they want to communicate 2) what they want to communicate 3) who will write the posts 4) how to deal with negative feedbacks/comments". This sounded to me like "If you want to suicide yourself: do it, I'll help you by making the same". The worst case, I would rather advise my customer to get some marketing experts. The best case, I would collaborate with some marketing experts and provide to my customer a "tailored solution". This would ensure my customer growth, mine and the most important the market growth. Unfortunately, this is the eternal problem here in Romania: people don't want to grow so consequently markets don't; and most of all, people are not flexible and open-minded. I've heard also that "Internet is not for everybody". I'll not comment it anymore - it speaks by itself.


The day finished in a very nice way, I've made some new friends and future collaborators and I left the conference pleased by the fact that I've changed something about the Romanian on line market. I convinced some people that

we have to learn how to inspire the smart use of Internet by offering "tailored solutions", encouraging and inspiring the use of Internet by getting the right arguments that can convince an entrepreneur: the numbers - which means giving a clear idea about what is the investment and relate it to the return on that investment.

One of the persons I was talking with and who seemed very conservative in the beginning was the one that ensured me that I didn't lost my day for nothing, because I have inspired him some ideas. That was a success for me.

I went back to Bucharest and took my family to an Italian restaurant as my kids wanted "Pizza con tonno" and while I was eating my delicious "Scottata di manzo in carpaccio con rucola" I checked my e-mail on my phone and I found that I was one of the lucky winners. I've started to check what did I win as I've started to have a doubt that I won a conference ticket and that was not so convincing for me as I didn't find the name of Tim Berners-Lee on the speakers list.


I've landed on the page of "World Wide Web @ 20" and understood that I was invited to the 20th anniversary celebration of the World Wide Web (invitation only event) held at CERN where I'll see speaking Tim Berners-Lee and more I'll have the opportunity to visit CERN - I've started to shake. That was priceless. I only said "Oh my God, I am living my dream!". I drove back at home crying and so emotioned thinking about how lucky I am. Lucky to have this occasion and lucky to have such a family, such a husband that tells me "You have to go, it's a fantastic occasion. It's your dream."

Monica Ioana Muntean Limmonica	http://limmonica.blogspot.com>
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Stop and Hear the Music

What is the essence of life? What does make our hearts fill with joy?

***

The strongest memory of my childhood is one awesome and sunny spring day, when I went on the balcony and saw my street. I said amazed: "Wow! my street is so beautiful today!" The deep blue sky, the green trees, the mountains... I felt my heart filled: like when sensing the perfection of nature, the beauty of life and happiness that you've been given in this life.

That day I felt special - I felt that I've been given an unique moment and I promised myself to follow that path through my life: to catch those unique sensations and be able to discover them. I was 6 years old. And one year before - being 5 - I promised myself to discover a fuel that will allow me to visit other planets.

These two promises guided my life, my entire life and have never died. And no matter what I've done... I've always returned to my path.

***

I'm going to tell you a story I've read this evening. The story is about a violin player at the Washington DC Metro station. It was a cold January morning, and he played Bach for 45 minutes. At that hour it was estimated that thousands of people would be able to hear him.

After 3 minutes a man slowed his walk and stopped for a few seconds to listen. Few minutes after, he left in a rush, worried not to be late.

Few minutes after that, the violonist received his first dollar: a woman threw it to him without even stop.

There was a 3 years old child that seemed to be the most interested to his music. But his mother forced him to continue walking. All children repeated the same behaviour and all parents forced them to continue walking.

In the 45 minutes that the violonist played, only 6 persons stopped and spent a moment to listen to him. About 20 persons gave him money while keeping on walking. He reached the amount of 32 dollars. And when he finished and the silence came, nobody noticed. Nobody applaud.

No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made.[...]Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100.

The Washington Post

Now the question is:

"In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"

Would you stop to listen? Whoud you notice if he would have been really bad?

We make our sets of priorities and stick to them. We become intrasigent and don't allow anything to disturb us from reaching our goals. How much frustration can that bring?

Monica Ioana Muntean Limmonica's	http://limmonica.blogspot.com
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Why am I interested about USA elections?

A day before the USA elections I've decided to write a post on my blog. It's been almost seven months since the last one. There have been so many occasions to write a post, I've found so many curious things to write about (like my new telescope :) ) - but I haven't felt that excitment or the right inspiration to write.

This evening, I was taking dinner with my family and, me and my husband, were talking about tomorrow's elections in the USA. I came at my computer in order to find out what was the exactly time difference between Bucarest and Los Angeles. And I found via Twitter, a new post of Sergiu Biris another Romanian person interested about USA elections. So, inevitably I asked myself: Why do I care?

1) First, it's an emotional response to the Obama's Political Campaign - right, a Political Campaign 2.0.

2) Then, I've got used with the leading position of USA in tecnology, IT, R&D untill the last years when this position was eclipsed by military events like 11/09, war in Irak, war in Afganistan. So, I prefer an Obama's USA leading through inventions and becoming a model to follow with a great pleasure than McCain's vision of leading through military strategies of (forced) world domination.

Some people talk in Romania that McCain politics should bring some benefits like an easier visa for USA and military help. Well, I am also Italian and I can get to USA whenever I want. But I prefer my country - where I realy feel at home. So, in order to keep the war in the middle-eastern the McCain/Bush strategy is to get closer to the ex-comunist countries. Consequently you give me military help and an easier visa for your country. OMG! :DDD Well, with McCain it seems there will be a war in Romania. That's why I want Obama - he really respects and cares about his country and therefore about mine.

3) Obama used the web 2.0 Internet tools in order to communicate his deepest belief: The Change. This is what everybody want: a change. We are sick of wars, we are in the 2008 and war should become an archaic word. Each time we talk about war there's a feeling like the world is returning back in the past. Young generations want to step forward. And peace is a vital request for the world's progress.

I wrote only three reasons for which I care about tomorrow's election. For which I want Obama as an USA President. Maybe the economy of Europe will not return to its normal state as quicly as the American one could, but I prefer this situation.

I prefer suffering in peace than progressing in war.

Monica Ioana Muntean Limmonica's	http://limmonica.blogspot.com/
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NYU Smartboard - Multi-Touch Interaction Experiments

I was watching it astonished. I mean I was amazed, wished and have a tablet PC but this goes beyond immagination.

It seems that it's the apple multitouch screen and not just a simple smartboard as smartboard or any other touchscreen simulates "one" pointer (like mouse) when you touch it.

It is developed by Jeff Han - Consultant Department of Computer Science. Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences New York University. And the project is called Multi-Touch Interaction Research - Bi-manual, multi-point, and multi-user input on graphical interaction surfaces.

Nice job and hoping to see it on the market soon. I am very excited about the direction that technology has taken and I talk about human-computer interfaces which obviously is researching ways of improving the human experience - one of the last barriers when using a computer. I mean many people think that they must have some kind of talent to use a computer - which is not true as we don't have to have any kind of talent for driving a car.

Later edit: nice user experience improvement on Youtube - I posted the video directly from there. Good.

Monica Ioana Muntean Limmonica's	http://limmonica.blogspot.com/
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Beppe Grillo's Blog - 9th in The world's 50 most powerful blogs

The Observer has published "The world's 50 most powerful blogs" where I've discovered that Beppe Grillo's Blog is on the 9th position. Now, I found it very normal but the journalist's description of the Beppe's Blog made me laughing:

Grillo's name for Mario Mastella, leader of the Popular-UDEUR centre-right party, is Psychodwarf.

This was really funny! It's not Mario Mastella but Clemente Mastella, he is the leader of the Popular-UDEUR center-left party and the Psychodwarf is Berlusconi. I suppose the journalist made a mistake by talking about Mastella and not about Berlusconi who is the leader of a centre-right party.

Beppe Grillo has a great value as an italian comic and political commentator and his filosophy is very simple: he can tell the truth to people as he is a comic; because if he would have been a scientist or politician nobody would believe him. He use to laugh on this by telling to his public: "I can't believe I'm your last chance! I am a comic!" It seems a joke but it comes from a very interesting idea I found time ago and which can be resumed like this: "If you want to say the truth make it seem a joke". I don't know if it is one of the Muphy's laws or I read it elsewere. Not only, but I find that Muphy and Beppe Grillo are very similar: they are so pessimistic that they are making you laughing. Both talk about absurdities and attempt to make sense of nonsenses. Murphy's Laws about life, Beppe Grillo about italian politicians absurdities.

Monica Ioana Muntean Limmonica's	http://limmonica.blogspot.com/
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A conversation with Dr. Stephen Hawking & Lucy Hawking

I couldn't ignore it. I couldn't ignore such a great person like Stephen Hawking that made me dreaming since I first discovered one of his great books (I'll add it to Shelfari - the bookshelf on the right side of this page).

Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 (300 years after the death of Galileo) in Oxford, England. Stephen wanted to do Mathematics but was not available at University College, Oxford, so he did Physics instead.

Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in Cosmology, there being no-one working in that area in Oxford at the time. After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973 Stephen came to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and since 1979 has held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. The chair was founded in 1663 with money left in the will of the Reverend Henry Lucas, who had been the Member of Parliament for the University. It was first held by Isaac Barrow, and then in 1669 by Isaac Newton.

Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which govern the universe. With Roger Penrose(I am reading another great book of Roger Penrose - see on Shelfari) he showed that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes. These results indicated it was necessary to unify General Relativity with Quantum Theory, the other great Scientific development of the first half of the 20th Century. One consequence of such a unification that he discovered was that black holes should not be completely black, but should emit radiation and eventually evaporate and disappear. Another conjecture is that the universe has no edge or boundary in imaginary time. This would imply that the way the universe began was completely determined by the laws of science.

In this conversation they discuss their book George's Secret Key to the Universe, an adventure story about two children who find a sort of computer portal through which they can slip into the solar system and beyond.

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A conversation with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch

A great and insightful interview with Michael Arrington "one of the best connected folks in Sillycon Valley". He talks about the Microsoft-Yahoo deal, Facebook, blogs, privacy, and tech policy. Awesome!

Monica Ioana Muntean Limmonica's	http://limmonica.blogspot.com/
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The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Happy now, bitches?

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Happy now, bitches? This is, well, an interesting announcement. I still vote for Nokia even thou I'm thinking about passing to iPhone but it seems to me only a "shiny" thing by now.

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Get out of my head!

Ma pregateam sa merg la culcare si ma gandeam la "cum sa incep sa scriu pe blog-ul asta" si pe toate celelalte. Mi-am zis: care e problema reala? Lipsa de idei? Nu. Problema este ca am prieteni, deci cititori potentiali, de trei categori diferite. Romani - pentru ca sunt romanca, italieni - pentru ca sunt si italianca si, mai grav, locuiesc in Italia, englezi - amici. Cum sa fac? Am amici romani care nu stiu engleza, iar cei italieni poate s-ar simti depasiti ... Cum sa multumesc pe toti? As scrie in engleza dar ma gandesc ca modul meu de exprimare in engleza a cam scazut la nivel de calitate dat fiind ca de cel putin patru ani nu mai vorbesc engleza ci am asimilat o limba noua ... ceea ce a pus in umbra celelalte.

Ceea ce am scris mai sus e doar 10% din ceea ce am gandit. Problema unde e? Ideea? Ce s-a intamplat cu ideea mea? Pai dupa toata "foiala" asta cred ca a murit sau zace pe undeva prin coltul creierului meu.

O caut... Da, a murit. Nu mi se mai pare buna ... .

Ce sa fac?

***************Traduzione italiana*****************

Stavo per andare a letto e pensavo al "come iniziare a scrivere su questo blog" e su tutti gli altri. Allora mi sono detta: quale è il problema reale? La mancanza di idee? No. Il problema è che ho amici quindi potenziali lettori di tre tipi diversi. Rumeni - perché sono rumena, italiani - perché sono anche italiana e, più grave, vivo in Italia, inglesi - amici. Come faccio? Come faccio ad accontentare tutti? Scriverei in inglese ma ho paura che il mio livello qualitativo si è un po' abbassato visto che da quattro anni non lo parlo, anzi ne ho assimilato una lingua nuova ... la quale ha messo in ombra le altre. Però scrivendo adesso mi rendo conto che mi sento più a mio aggio a scrivere in italiano perfino rispetto al rumeno - mi capita spesso a fare degli errori in rumeno che una volta non facevo ... e avere difficoltà ad esprimermi; questo perché ormai penso tutto in italiano e perfino parlare in rumeno per me implica una traduzione dall'italiano.

Quello che ho scritto sopra è solo il 10% di quello che ho pensato. Il problema dove è? L'idea? Cosa è successo alla mia idea? Eh, dopo tutta questa contorsione penso che sia morta oppure è là da qualche parte nel qualche angolo nascosto del mio cervello.

La cerco... Si, è morta. Non mi sembra più cosi rilevante... .

Chiedevo "Cosa faccio?". Ho capito adesso, scrivendo in italiano. Scrivo nella lingua nella quale mi sento più a mio agio. Oppure no? Oh mio Dio ... ricominciamo.

Meglio che vado a dormire. Però trovo che è utile l'idea che avevo all'inizio e di cui volevo parlare. Cioè:

se non riesci a gestire una situazione piuttosto che cambiare gli elementi che creano la difficoltà - il che oltre ad essere difficile e dispendioso in materia di energia - attraverso delle tattiche personali, ho scoperto negli anni che è più facile cambiare se stessi, il proprio punto di vista. Questo permette di spostare l'attenzione da una cosa soggettivamente negativa su una cosa perlomeno neutra - se no, nei migliore dei casi, positiva.

Adesso... perché mi aiuta questa idea? Perché è inutile che cerco di soddisfare tutti, in quanto non ci riuscirò mai : scrivere un post in 3 lingue... sarebbe un fallimento immediato. Mi creerebbe delle frustrazioni inutili perché m'impegnerei troppo per un cosa che dovrebbe aiutarmi ad esprimere le mie idee e non certificare le mie competenze linguistiche. Poi, insegnare l'inglese o come utilizzare il computer ai miei amici non ce la faccio per motivi logistici. Quindi faccio quello che mi viene più naturale. Come ho fatto? Sono stata un po' egoista. Un egoismo sano. Ho spostato l'attenzione dall'"accontentare tutti" all'"accontentare me". :)

Questa idea è rinata grazie a Gianpaolo che mi ha fatto l'onore questa sera di inserirla nel suo status di MSN come uno citato. Spero che lo abbia fatto perché l'ha trovata utile.

In chiusura metto un video di Beppe Grillo in cui spiega moolto bene cosa è successo questa sera nel mio cervello. Da morire da ridere!

LATER EDIT: I have chosen english, at the end. Why? Because it's me. I'll never make a simple chioce. I like challenge, I like the ideea that I can improve my english. :)

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