News - Life Ends With Death!

So we have this groundbreaking research: if you already present trombosis' risk factors, sitting still for hours on end can cause the aforementioned trombosis!

How does it correlate with the alarmistic title on Yahoo news:

How window seats can harm you

Well, apparently because:

Prolonged sitting, such as in a window seat of a plane, where someone is less likey to get up and move around, can also increase the risk of DVT.

How could we live without these health warnings? Maybe following the flight comfort suggestions given by the airlines, or common sense!

Hotpants Country

I have visited Singapore and I decided that Hotpants Country is a fitting nickname: the number of girls wearing tight and short shorts is huge. It can be a distraction, I tell you.

How can I describe that state, besides the abundance of exposed skin? 60% Jakarta, 30% London and 10% unique; Singapore is certainly a city where West meets East, but it is without doubt Asia.

Anyway, on a more serious side I find Singapore an interesting experiment. The city-state is what can be called and enlightened oligarchy, where concepts like freedom of expression and association are not held in the highest regard. And the ruling class is not really shy about it, they will express their opinion rather candidly.

Truth to be told, I expected Singapore to be a more uniform and regimented place; instead - at least in Geylang where I was based - there was a comforting degree of disorder on the streets and in the shops. I did not feel like living in a dictatorship. And it is probably the country I have visited with the least visible police presence.

Singapore is prosperous, safe and orderly - even more so when compared to its neighbors in Southeast Asia. I cannot bring myself to regard Singaporeans as stupid or inferior for choosing to trade some liberties for more safety and wealth.

This is, I think, in line with the evolution of my opinions about democracy. I'd take an enlightened oligarchy rather than a degenerate democracy like most of the Western ones these days.

President Rockstar - SE Asia Tour

One should see the coverage of Obama's visit on Indonesian TV to believe it.

It was a litany of Obama's ex-teacher, ex-playmate, ex-this and ex-that, and the house where he lived in Jakarta and the food he liked (nasi goreng, bakso and sate) for hours on end.

Quite obsessive, and more like the treatment given to celebrities and entertainment stars than heads of state.

Here I Am Again

In Cikarang, east of Jakarta. Suitcases are (almost) unpacked and I am settling down in this new situation.

One thing I can never get used to is the heat, tho. As hot and humid as all except the very worst days of summer in Northern Italy.

Goin' Away

The Second Version will soon head out again to the tropical lands of Indonesia.

This time, tho, some family issues are going to make this trip less than full-time rest & relax - but I am confident there will be a positive resolution.

There will still be the same irregular posting as always, tho.

The Other Italy

My workload looks more like a fuckload, and there's still a household to run here. Still, tonight I got some time for blogging.

Many people from foreign countries know the Italian cities - Milan, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples - but those cities are now heavily cosmopolitan, less Italian and more god-knows-what. I suspect that in a few years of those cities will remain only the buildings, but the culture and the people will be gone - not evolved; erased.

There's another Italy, that few foreigners know. The Italy of the miriad of villages and hamlets scattered around the lowlands of the north, and the mountains and valleys.

Only a few of those villages miss more than one of these things: a church, a bar and a post office.

The church these days is often empty, yet almost never abandoned: the people still care about the campanile - belltower, symbol of the place and land visible from afar - enough to keep it in good conditions.

The bar is the centre of the social life. Much like a pub in the english countryside, it is where anyone can be seen sooner or later. Only seldom those bars are new and shiny and cool; most of the time they are watering holes for the locals, old and worn and barely meeting the stringent regulations of these days. In one case, far up in the mountains, I saw the owner ironing clothes in a corner while some customers were having a breakfast of pancetta, bread and white wine.

The post office works as public service and another aggregation point - it's where the elderly (because these days the majority of citizens of villages are elderly) can get their pension check and discuss of the latest news of the place. While repairing printers or other devices I've heard talking of cows and barns and fields, and births and deaths - and maybe I've seen a slight increase in births. And people just seeing each other, enjoying the chance of leaving home for a while.

Not all is so nice in villages; the main problem is a state of mind so conservative to become backward and closed to anything different. And yet... racist violence seems to be more an urban than rural problem. Countryside people may be closed and diffident towards strangers, but once one is accepted as a member of the community, there are little problems. Or that's what I have observed.

And when the choice is between urbanites and hillbillies... I know where I stand.

Difficulties Of Translation Redux

My post Difficulties Of Translation has turned out to be one of the most succesful, at least when hits from Google an other search engines are concerned.

It has received visits from many different countries where English is not the native language - Egypt, Vietnam, Romania and more - but I'm afraid that the visitors where somewhat disappointed, because I did not offer advice on specific issues.

I can't, I am not a linguist or professional translator or interpreter. I can only repeat what I said, that in order to comprehend a foreign language out of either a very specific (technical) field or the most basic needs such as asking the price of something at the market, one needs to understand something about the culture that originated and is using that language.

That is also necessary to understand other subtle way to transmit the intended message, because tone, loudness and even the order of words can change the the overall meaning of a question, for example, from sincerely concerned to inquisitive to openly hostile. And coming across as nosey or hostile is not the best way to make friends.

Update: Something related to what I wrote, even if limited to the Indian language(s).

A Different Man

I have been once again in Jakarta for the past couple of weeks.

There I finally got married to my fiancee. We had a catholic wedding and a small reception - no more than 400 guests... I also discovered to my dismay that the only alcohol there was a small toast, and the bride and groom are not supposed to eat until most guests have had their dinner. Things here are not exactly the same in Italy, you know.

After that, we had a short wedding trip in a luxury hotel in the nightlife district of Kemang and just yesterday I came back. I can't tell you the sheer joy of travelling again on an Italian train, really.

Emirates is a great airline, deservedly one of the world's best; with their inflight entertainment system the 14-odd hours of the flight passed well. I also noticed that the airways do not pass over Iraq even if it would make the shortest route from Milan to Dubai: is that airspace forbidden, or the airlines just no not want to take any more risks?

But no worries, The Second Version will remain a single blog!

The Jakarta Skyline

My fiancee asked me why I only talked about Jakarta's dirty alleys and decrepit trucks, and I did not mention the skyscrapers, the elegant houses and mansions and apartment complexes.

I can say that those are the things one expects to find in nearly any metropolis of the world, while rusty trucks sporting fearsome bumpers are rather unique.

Yet, it is true that Jakarta has a rather impressive skyline. There are several tall and shiny skyscrapers - I do not know their names, they are not as famous as the ones in New York or even the Petronas Towers of Kuala Lumpur, but they are buildings of a respectable size and built with modern techniques.

Many shopping malls, from big to huge, dot Jakarta and attract vast crowds. Anything can be found there, from the most modern and trendy restaurants to luxury stores, from shops selling the traditional batik fabrics to small and crowded auto parts stores (want a Daihatsu transmission shaft? it was just hanging from the wall in a store).

But the city is not just about skyscrapers and malls: many streets (I cannot recall which area) are lined with beautiful houses and villas and imponent trees growing in the gardens - but only little of the houses can be seen behind the high walls and fences around them. I have been in some of them and been quite impressed by the vast salons and tiled floors and frequent fish ponds.

And to end... well, the apartments in the recent condos are not bad at all too. I have spent a few days in one, at the twelfth floor of a 30-story tower, one the four built around a square where a garden and a big pool and and another pool snaking around the garden take place.

After-Action Report

The last few days were spent battling an acute gastroenteritis that manifested itself on the early morning of the 15th, obviously when my return flight was scheduled. I was unable to keep anything in my stomach for more than half a hour or so (and it went either up or down, if you get what I mean) but had barely the energy to move from bed to toilet and back. Taking the plane that night was pretty much out of the question.

A doctor recognized it as gastroenteritis and gave me antiemetics and antibiotics, but on the morning of the following day the situation was only little better. It took a shock antiemetic therapy to calm my stomach down enough to swallow more or less a shovelful of antibiotic tablets per day, and a few other pills. The situation improved rather quickly (apart from the heartburn), and on the 20th I was able to travel again; this time, with the magnificent Singapore Airlines - if it's not the best airline in the world, it must be among the top 3. But those airline ticket thingies do not come for free, rest assured.

Things I learnt in and around Jakarta: changing the timing belt of an old Opel car is one hell of a job; yes, you can lose 2 kilos in 3 days; air conditioning is a blessing upon humanity; Indonesians like Italian soccer; I could get used to living in a very nice apartment complex; a travel insurance is no guarantee of having your ass covered; I should be able to cook a decent sweet & sour sauce myself. And other miscellaneous stuff.

Today is once again the Winter Solstice - it doesn't make a difference in the Tropics, but above my homeland of Italy, it does. Yet now the days can only get longer.

Scenes from Jakarta

An alley between two row of houses, which I cannot tell whether it's a public way or an extension of private houses: the alley has a roof - of disparate materials- and there are seats and sinks, people washing their stuff and one old lady preparing some sort of food. Between one house door and the other, a tiny hairdressing salon. Deeper into the alley, a woman sits behind a little stall, selling top-up cards for mobile phones, and at the same time talking to a stark-naked, chubby kid of about 10 years. The people there don't pay much attention to the rare white guy among them; what makes me stand out the most are probably my trainers, in a world where 90% of the people wear sandals or flip-flops - or no footwear at all. Except security guards on duty, proud of their black and white boots.

On the streets, a number of trucks, from mid-size to 18-wheeled monsters. The majority of them old and worn, roaring aloud, dented and eaten by corrosion, patched up with layers and layers of caulk and paint, rough arc weldings, iron wire, and whatever material was handy at the moment. Yet, in a display of what seems to be a deeply ingrained aesthetical sense, a number of these trucks and trailers are painted in combinations of bright colours, and often decorated with elaborate paintings and fancy-shaped protection grilles. The rear of trucks and minibuses often carry funny or irriverent writings too, painted or stitched.

A market somewhere in the town, a concrete building, floors and pilalrs and ceilings covered in crud. Tiny passageways separate stalls loaded with any kind of stuff: food, knives, strange fruits, kitchen utensils, handicrafts, tools, enormous stone mortars, traditional medicines, coffee. Small eateries diffuse the smell of frying oil and spices: we sit at a bench in one of these to have a meatball soup and a dish of steamed chicken, stir-fried mushrooms and noodles. It tasted good and produced no ill side-effects. The market takes its electricity from a precarious, inestricable tangle of wires atteched to the roof and pillars. In another area, a gutter full of putrid water emits an unbearable stench. At the margins of the market, stray cats wander around, while a guy stands in the middle of a rubbish skip, sorting plastic waste from the rest - with his bare hands.

Along another road, a young boy is propelling forward a waste cardboard cart: it obviously is a metal box fitted with two bicycle wheels and joined to the frame of a mountain bike. In the cargo, another young boy is enjoying the the ride listening to music from a portable player.

Indonesia Report

Hello loyal readers.

In case you're wondering where I have gone, I can reveal it: at the moment I am in Cikarang, a town near Jakarta, Indonesia.

I am visiting my... agent here and I'll be away for another 10 days or so.

Situation is more or less as usual here: hot, humid and, in the city, severely polluted. Old, battered and rickety buses rumble along emitting clouds of thick black smoke.

I have also seen the civil registrar office of Jakarta, and dismal is not enough to describe the place. It seem to be undergoing renovation, at least.

A heavy rain squall ended not long ago; now I'm about to go downstairs and grab some lunch.

The Second Version Expatriates

The job market here is in such a bad shape that I have lost hope. So, next week I will fly far away to try my luck in a more dynamic environment. I have given myself a little less than 3 months time: if things do not work well by January next year... I'll be in deep shit, I suppose.

Where exactly? I'll leave you with a bit of a riddle: the country was founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819.

This also explains why I've been quite silent lately: preparations for the trip kept me busy - and I am fighting a little voice at the back of my head that keeps telling me not to go, not to leave my country and my people.

Alas, going is what I will do.

The World From Above

Another, much belated, episode of my travel chronicles.

Last time I went to Jakarta, the outbound trip did not bring much interest: it was night until the plane reached the Indian Ocean, and from there many hours flying over that vast featurless expanse of water. The stopover in Colombo didn't bring anything interesting, and neither did flying over the Malay Peninsula. The approach to Singapore was just a little more attractive, but it's all about small islands, sand banks and dirty waters.

But the return trip... that one brought quite a sight. The plane took of from Soekarno-Hatta at night, and when approaching Singapore the landscape was awesome: Singapore, the city-state, the Asian tiger, all lit up and glittering with life and wealth. In front of her, the Strait of Malacca, crowded with ships and boats of any size from the oil tanker to the fishing boat, lights ablaze, multicoloured jewels in the black waters.

Night lasted until landing in Dubai, when it gave way to the baking sun of Arabia. And from there to Italy, it was another sight to behold. A few kilometers out of Dubai the desert begins: light brown sand, dunes carried by the wind over the sparse roads, almost no life in sight. But also, for no apparent reason, roads that run around square patches of land with absolutely nothing in them. I haven't been able to figure out the purpose of those roads.

Then in the middle of the desolation the emerald green of well-tended lawns, and the fresh water of fountains around a huge, majestic, domed palace. I'm not sure, but if I were the sultan or emir of Dubai, that one would be my palace.

The plane then crossed over the Persian Gulf, with its massive artificial islands still being built. And after that, Iran. And its mountains: ridge after ridge of barren snow-capped moutnains, crossing, branching, taking up all the space. Italy is not exactly a flatland, but it looks like one compared to there. And the mountains continued more or less uninterrupted all the way up to Turkey, when the route took me over the Black Sea.

The next piece of land were the snowy plains of Romania and Bulgaria: villages here and there, no glamour, just houses of - I suppose - farmers for the most part; streams and small rivers, and in the distance the Danube, the great river lazily meandering throught the plains.

The terrain slowly rose into the mountains of the former Jugoslavia, but these aren't as barren as the ones in Iran. Less steep slopes, more forests, and the somewhat familiar look of towns and villages that were getting more and more European. And then the myriad islands of the eastern Adriatic coasts, again the sea, and Istria, that was by any means part of Italy.

Finally, the plane crossed over Italy proper near Trieste, where I had the unusual sight of contrails from above. Shortly afterwards clouds concealed the landscape until the final approach to Malpensa, where I was greated by the usual muck: melting snow on the ground, cold rain, lead sky. And more airport chaos there than in Soekarno-Hatta.

Indonesian Things

I have mentioned only in passing my trip to Indonesia around Christmas. It's not that I don't want to talk about it, but I've never been inspired.

Tonight, the time has come.

The thing that most impressed me over there is the chaos: the traffic is always heavy to the point of congestion, and sidewalks (often, a gravel strip between the road and the buildings) are crowded with people. A multitude of people moving around with no apparent direction or purpose, in the streets lined by an endless procession of shops and stalls and carts - the traditional bakso soup carts; vendors of fruit (including the mighty durian, huge jackfruit, curious manggis, hairy rambutan and disturbing snakefruit); shops of all sorts mixed with no order or logic: shiny new electronics shops next door to rickety, dusty and oily motorbike mechanics; minimarkets and eateries (warung or wartel), and the frequent mosques. All immersed in an air thick with pollution, humidity and heat.

But if you spend some time over there, order will begin to emerge from chaos. You will notice that all those people do in fact have a purpose - only a few are just milling about. There's customers and vendors - of course - and people going somewhere for a purpose.

Same as in any other city you may think. Well, not in my opinion: in London, for example, most people had a very apparent sense of purpose around them. It's not the same thing in Indonesia; over there people don't have this urgent look and demeanor.

There's those folks who stop incoming traffic in order to let parked cars get into the road - for a tip, of course. So if you plan to drive over there, have a wad of 1000 Rupiah bills handy. There's plenty of security guards (guarding community gates and malls and all sort of places), all proud of their well-kept uniforms - they usually carry a baton, but some also have pretty large knives.

But these scenes are not exclusive of Jakarta. In fact, a good part of the road from Jakarta to Cipanas in the mountains is lined by houses and shops and huts and stalls... But away from the city the type of shops is different: eateries are more common, together with construction materials and handicraft stores. There's also quite a market for those metal cusps with a crescent or "Allah" shape at the top, which are used to decorate mosques and minarets - and of course artisans making them. And even more vendors of plants, including some very curious ones.

More travel chronicles will follow in the next days.

Back In The Freezer

Because the Pianura Padana fills itself with cold air and often fog during the winter, and doesn't let go until April.

It snowed yesterday (Jan 4); now a cold drizzle is falling from a low, lead-coloured sky with a temperature of 1 °C. There was snow in Milan yesterday, but the airport suffered no problems. Quite a shock from the usual 25 - 30 °C of Indonesia.

My flight was pretty much uneventful: the 777s and A330 I took cruise well above most atmospheric phenomena. But I took a couple nice pictures of contrails left by planes flying at lower altitude.

I'm not ready to write down my travel experiences; I need to let them settle for a bit. Anyway, this is a scene of everyday Indonesian life in a small town: in the dirt and gravel at the side of the road, a slim guy using wedges of some sort and a sledgehammer to take a truck's tire off the wheel for repairs.

Piston Engine

It seems all the rage today to revile piston engines and desperately seek some other device to turn chemical energy into kinetic energy.

But the piston engine is, in fact, a great engineering achievement. It left steam engines in the dust as a matter of energy efficiency and performance (turbine/jet engines are external combustion, and they are marvellous too). In its story slightly longer than a century, it has successfully powered the most disparate vehicles and fixed installations all over the world- land, sea, air; from the scorching heat of deserts to the freezing cold of Antarctica.

Piston engines come in a huge variety of sizes and shapes: from the tiny but fast & furious 2-stroke nitro engines employed in RC vehicles, to the gigantic diesels that move ocean ships around*. This V10 4-stroke petrol engine instead propelled the Ferrari F1 car to its victory in the 2003 championship; it produces some 900 hp at 19 000 rpm and has to last a few hundred kilometers at least. Top Fuel dragsters have supercharged engines that generate over 7000 hp, burning a mixture of nitromethane and methanol as fuel. The downside is, such a monster has to be rebuilt every run even if it doesn't blow up - a not so uncommon occurrence. This aircraft engine made a good deal of difference during WWII.

Small petrol engines, 1 to 2 liters displacement, are the most common power plants for small cars in Europe, Japan and increasingly the USA: they provide good performance, great fuel economy and a durability of 200 000 km; but for maximum durability I suggest an oilfield mechanical rig power engine - slow, but steady and sure.

Piston engines can run on a variety of fuels: hydrogen, methane, natural gas, gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, kerosene (word is that Jet-A makes a passable substitute for diesel) methanol, ethanol, nitromethane... and the low-quality fuels available in backward areas. Also the success of liquid hydrocarbon fuels is easy to understand: they are cheap, do not require advanced technology (at least the basic versions); are easy to handle and store; they are not too dangerous nor toxic - and pack a considerable amount of energy per volume unit.

And let me tell you, against the odds the piston engine will remain with us for quite some more time.

*The article says the engine is built by a Japanese company, but the writing on the signs in the factory is clearly Korean.

Curious Incident at Stansted

While I was at the gate waiting for my plane - on Sunday 18 March, at 11:30 - 11:40 - I was witness to an incident involving police: four armed officers (equipped with thoroughly tacti-cooled MP-5s or similar) escorted a cuffed suspect into the gate building - he was coming from outside, presumably - but I don't know whether he was a passenger on a flight. After a while, the two remaining officers escorted the subject out of the building and into a police car that had arrived in the meantime, and so the episode ended.

The perp was a white caucasian male, 25-30 years old, rather tall and slender. I would say he had an eastern-european appearance, but I can be wrong. He wore black jeans, a grayish striped jumper and a sleeveless, dark blue quilt jacket. He was quiet and meek while held into custody - and I repeat, he had nothing of the Black, Arab, Pakistani or generally Muslim look.

Call Me Doctor

Right, right... I did my exam, and passed! So now getting my PhD diploma is just a matter of time!

I also played the tourist a bit; bought a few scotch bonnet chillies hoping I can grow my own plants from the seeds; and accumulated a small stash of Wadworth 6X beer.

And I also noticed that Kevin linked my "Visible, and Unknown" piece on his blog. That's an achievement too.

On The Road Again

Or, I should say "In the air": tomorrow I'm gonna board another cattle-carrier low cost flight to London. Where I'll have to sustain my PhD exam... and I will also spend a Saturday over there: partying if I pass; drowning my sorrows in cheap lager in the unlikely case I do not pass.

But this whole travelling the world thing is a bit tiresome, in fact. I'd prefer to make a living logging some wood, cultivating my land and/or working in my own mechanical workshop, at least at this stage.