Inspired by this post on Digital Photography School, I decided to start a “project 365″ this year. In short, I will be posting a photo a day on Flickr in the hope of improving my photographic skills. Let’s see how long I last!

I was drawn to computers in the early 80s, when my father introduced in our household a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K. All of my friends had a Commodore 64, and we endlessly debated about which one was better (I can admit it now: it was the C64). Later I moved to the Commodore Amiga. Then like now, most of the attraction was the ability to play videogames.

Unlike today’s overbloated videogames industry, most games at the time were made by single individuals, two at most. Thanks to magazines like Zzap64! (known in Italy as Zzap!) I knew them by name and worshipped them like rockstars.

I think that Andrew Braybrook’s 1987 journal chronicling the development of his game “Morpheus” is what made me want to become a professional programmer (you can still read it on-line here). My cousin Massimo, aside from making his own snowboard, had his share of success writing a soccer game for Amiga and Atari ST called “Football Simulation“. It contains one of my two contributions to the videogame world, a box of balls in the options menu (top left corner in the image below).

Here is a list of my favourite game creators from back then, with some links. None of these people, in spite of their talent, seem to have made it big in the multi-billion videogame industry, which is a testament to either their anarchic genius or their inability to adapt.

• Matthew Smith, author of Manic Miner, one of the first computer games I ever played. After his early success he disappeared, apparently to live in a commune in Amsterdam.
• David Crane, co-founder of Activision and creator of the Pitfall! series, Ghostbusters and Little Computer People (inspiration for today’s The Sims!). His current company makes such iPhone games as Arcade Hoops Basketball.
• Andrew Braybrook, author of such classics as Paradroid, Uridium and the aforementioned diary. Nowadays works as a software developer for an insurance company.
• Jeff Minter, whose innovative and psychedelic shoot’em ups never failed to include references to llamas an yaks. His company, Llamasoft, is still active and just recently released a new version of the classic Gridrunner.
• The Bitmap Brothers, with mirrorshades and tons of attitude developed some of the best early Amiga games, like Gods and Speedball. After disbanding in 2003, two of them went on to found Tower Studios, but judging from the website they haven’t produced much since.
• Team 17, still active with the same name and best known for the Worms videogames series. Their Amiga games were impressive both technically and design-wise. Alien Breed was my favourite.

In retrospect, I wonder why I didn’t even try to become a game programmer. I suppose it didn’t look like a “serious enough” job, and by the time I reached employment age there were so many other interesting things to work with, the internet above all. In the end I liked playing games more than writing them.

P.S.: In case you were wondering, my other contribution to the videogame industry is the italian voice acting for Combat Mission - Afrika Korps

I found the image above while going through “The decade in news photographs” photo series on The Big Picture. I quote:

astronomers pointed Hubble at a tiny, relatively empty part of our sky (only a few stars from the Milky Way visible), and created an exposure nearly 12 days long over a four-month period. The result is this amazing image, looking back through time at thousands of galaxies that range from 1 to 13 billion light-years away from Earth. Some 10,000 galaxies were observed in this tiny patch of sky (a tenth the size of the full moon) - each galaxy a home to billions of stars

“Mind-boggling” doesn’t quite begin to describe it. To me it seems obvious that there HAS to be someone in the gazillion planets above. Of course, we may never meet them.

On a different note, I was happy not to see the iPhone pictured as representative of the decade, at least until I saw that Paris Hilton was there.

I had a kilo of duck breast to cook and I found this recipe via Google. Easy to follow instructions and good result!

I’m not particularly fond of video tutorials, but I must admit that for cooking they really hit a sweet spot. It makes a world of difference to see what “until the sauce is reduced” really means in practice!

I’m going to try  Butter Chicken next.

The Finnish TV channel “Nelonen” (number 4) is showing some funny-while-educational videos during commercial breaks, with the theme of “Urban Etiquette”. The videos show some no-no situations, like letting your dog’s poo unattended, and suggest the proper behavior.

I’m especially pleased to see that they are chastising the annoying habit of standing in front of the subway doors without letting people out first (first video from the left, second row from the top in the link above). I couldn’t quite figure out why finns, normally well behaved, become like some sort of frothing beasts when put in front of a tram or subway door. Apparently it has something to do with the fear of keeping the conductor and all the people inside waiting. Go figure!

Urban Etiquette Videos

Following up on topic of pizza, here is where I think you can find the best pizza in Lucca, my hometown: the Pizzeria “La Bella ‘Mbriana” is a small and not particularly fancy place, but it has definitely the best pizza in Lucca and among the best pizzas I’ve had in general.

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The service is quite minimalistic and fast-food like: you get a number for your order, wait to be called, and when you are done are expected to clean up after yourself. But the cutbacks stop here: the kitchen is equipped with a brick oven and the ingredients are top-notch.

I make it a point to take my foreign guests there, and so far they haven’t been disappointed. So if you happen to be around go there, and let me know how you liked it!

As an Italian, one of the questions I’m most frequently asked is “where to get a good pizza in Helsinki”. Well, the answer is in the picture above: go get yourself a Dr. Oetker Casa di Mama frozen pizza, and you will have a better pizza than in any restaurant around town. Honest.

If you really, really insist on going out for pizza, then the closest to Italian standards I have found is in “La Vista” in Kamppi, although the quality seems to vary from one time to the next. And you’ll still be better off with Dr. Oetker.

Another option is to make it yourself, but that’s the subject for another post…

(photo credit of Flickr user canchi)

Find out more in the Maemo website!

I took the video above in Helsinki last Friday, during the Night of the Arts (Taiteiden yö). This is part of the Helsinki “festival weeks”, where a number of free events are arranged by Helsinki’s notable institutions. Quoting from the website:

On this year’s Night of the Arts, the French street theatre company Plasticiens Volants will transform Helsinki’s city centre sky into an enormous ocean aquarium. Giant floating sea creatures will swim from Esplanadi to the Senate Square, telling their aquatic tale along the way.

I normally don’t talk about Nokia here because of the conflict of interest, but this time I must say that I was really impressed by the video and audio quality of my phone’s camera. I think the video above speaks for itself.

Check some photos as well (these taken with the Canon D20)

Yet another summer holiday is over and has left behind the usual trail of photos. This year’s highlights have been a tour of Tuscany with finnish guests Anu and Petri, U2’s gig in Milan and a trip to the Isle of Elba for my good friend Valeria’s wedding. Enjoy! And if you are friend or family, don’t forget to login to Flickr.