Random Thoughts

It's been a while. And now I'm back only to say goodbye. Well, not really. It's just that I've decided to go on to a more personal blog at (drumroll, please):    The Beast, the Bard, and the Bot. Why? What's wrong with Science 2.0, I hear you ask? Nothing at all. Like I said, I wanted something more personal. It was time to move on. Nevertheless, thank you Science 2.0 (and the people behind it), I enjoyed my time here. My first blogging experiences here were interesting and rewarding in more than one way.  And a big thank you to everyone who has read one of my posts. Thank you…

Just a placeholder and another H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6 Just regular text A link V(\mathbf{x})=-\int_{\mathbb{R}^3}\frac{G\rho (\mathbf{r})}{\left|\mathbf{x}-\mathbf{r} \right|}dv(\mathbf{r}) V(\mathbf{x})=-\int_{\Omega }\frac{G\rho (\mathbf{r})}{\left|\mathbf{x}-\mathbf{r} \right|}dv(\mathbf{r}) \mathbf{F}=\frac{d\mathbf{p}}{dt} \mathbf{p}=m\mathbf{v} \frac{d\mathbf{p}}{dt}=\frac{dm\mathbf{v}}{dt}=m\frac{d\mathbf{v}}{dt}+\frac{dm}{dt}\mathbf{v}=m\mathbf{a}+\frac{dm}{dt}\mathbf{v} \mathbf{F}=m\mathbf{a} \frac{dm}{dt}\mathbf{v}=0 \frac{dm}{dt}=0 E_{ph}(r) \frac{GM}{r^2} m_{ph}=\frac{E_{ph…

Don't get too excited but 200 activists are going to jump off Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. These aren't the usual pesky environmentalists, these are hang-gliding global activists, which really sounds like just an excuse to go hang-gliding but get permits to do it in cool places but it's still going to raise money for a worthy cause. Wings of Kilimanjaro's request to launch two hundred paragliding and hang-gliding global activists off Mt. Kilimanjaro  has been approved for February 5th, 2013. Getting down the mountain is much easier than going up. They have to ascend 19,341 feet,…

"These behaviors can be irritating for family members." --on stimming in autistic children My children stim. I stim--come on, for Pete's sake--every one of us--autistic or not-- STIMS. We all engage in self-regulatory behaviors to calm ourselves. Some of us have small, discrete behaviors that are not necessarily obvious. I swing one of my feet beneath my desk at work. I rub my thumb over my index finger repeatedly. My fingers slide back and forth over the steering wheel while I drive. They're small stims. But they are there, and they are used to regulate myself.  I have…

Between physicists - there's an Easter bunny! Last Friday I went to Oslo, you know, the capital of Norway and home of the Vikings, to meet experimental physicist Tommaso Dorigo. Tommaso, who writes A Quantum Diaries Survivor  here on Science 2.0 had a few days earlier announced that he planned a visit to my country and asked for advise on what to see with his family while he was here. Normally I would have done like my ancestors who first settled in this neck of the ice, not wood, I would follow the ice and snow up to our cabin. At Easter the cities are deserted here in Norway. When…

To take a statement with 'a grain of salt' or 'a pinch of salt' means to accept it but to maintain a degree of skepticism about its truth. --The Phrase Finder We use idioms with little thought. We know what they mean, even if the saying itself bears no relation to the meaning. Well, except for when that's not true, when we have no idea, when we can't catch the underlying meaning and focus instead on the surface meaning of the words, you know, like my kids do. This morning, my son (who is autistic and intellectually disabled) sat watching the news with me, and he started to get carried away…

As I had announced in my blog, I spent four days in Oslo before Easter, visiting museums with my kids and my fiancee, and enjoying the place -new to all of us. Oslo is a relatively un-interesting city if you compare it to other European capitals, but it hides many treasures, as I was happy to discover: the museums hosting the Kon-Tiki and Ra II ships with which the Pacific and Atlantic oceans were crossed just as men could have done it 2000 years ago, the Polar museum with the Fram ship which was used for polar expeditions at the beginning of the XXth century, the Munch museum hosting many…

As almost every parent of an autistic child knows, there is no shortage of books out there on autism, but true gems are rare. Eileen Riley-Hall’s new book Parenting Girls on the Autism Spectrum is just that, though, a true gem and a must-have book for anyone with daughters on the spectrum. Eileen and I both have two girls on the spectrum, and both of them are two years apart, and she and I are both English teachers, so it’s natural I would feel a sense of kinship with her. She’s also resolute about facing the challenges our children face and we face as parents with a positive…

Today I am leaving to Norway, for a visit of few days. If you happen to have suggestions for things to see and do there, please drop me a line in the comments thread below; I will be traveling with my son Filippo (13 yo) and daughter Ilaria (9), so avoid advising me on night clubs or wine bars; museums and entertainment are more like what I am likely to be interested in. Also, if you live nearby and are (presumably) interested in particle physics, I will be happy to have a drink together. I'll tell you the news from the LHC experiments, you can in return give me information about the place.…

Autism Speaks wants us to go blue. I sit here in my 2011 WAAD tee, all in blue, from hair to shoes. I am blue. Blue to celebrate today. Celebrate seems a weird word, doesn't it--what are we celebrating? That the UN declared April 2 World Autism Awareness Day? What does that even mean?"Hey, everybody, autism exists"--celebrate that you know that? Celebrate autism, a condition that for at least a third of those diagnosed on the spectrum involves crippling disability? "Hey, you can't talk, can't write, can't take of yourself and self-injure!" Yay for that?  I'm not sure what the celebration…