Countries Beginning with I

We set out for a lunch somewhere along Lake Como, knowing only that we wanted a view. After pulling into a few parking lots and then changing our minds, we climbed the hill towards the Monastery of Piona, following signs for Ristorante Belvedere – with that name, it had to have a view.

The Belvedere advertised fish as its specialty and, like most Italian restaurants, had a menu posted outside. I was at first confused by the strange prices, not rounded neatly off to the nearest euros.

€ 4.13 for a first course? Then I realized that the prices were also given in lire, printed alongside their exact conversion into euros. This appears to be the only restaurant in Italy which did not take advantage of the change to the euro to gouge its customers. Before the euro, 8,000 lire for a plate of pasta would have been considered middling-reasonable. When the euro came along, most restaurants simply lopped off the extra zeroes to arrive at 8 euros for the same dish, an extortion to which we consumers have meekly consented. Ristaurateurs claim that their costs have risen, but Ristorante Belvedere has somehow managed to keep prices low, without compromising on quality.

Although the specialty was fish, I had a starter of homemade liver paté – I can never resist paté – which was good, mild-flavored, and creamy in texture. For a first course I had home-made pumpkin gnocchi, whose slight sweetness contrasted nicely with the home-made pesto they were dressed with. I didn’t have a second course, but the rest of the party had fresh-caught lavarello (a white fish native to Lake Como), simply baked in the oven, and freshwater shrimp braised in butter, all good.

My dessert was something special: locally picked wild blueberries with ice cream. They were probably the best blueberries I’ve had in my life.

Between the four of us we had two appetizers, three primi (pasta), three secondi, two desserts, three coffees, water, wine (a good Soave served by the liter), and a Limoncello. The total cost was about €97 – cheap at the price! We’ll definitely be going back to the Belvedere. (And the view was indeed spectacular.)

Nowadays, most of my creative energies go into my work for TVBLOB. “What work is that?” you may ask. Good question. As in many startups, roles aren’t well-defined, but, basically, everything that touches our future end-user customers will somehow, someday, be my responsibility.

For the moment, my main job is designing software features, behaviors, and interfaces. This would be relatively straightforward if we were making software for the familiar Windows environment – I’ve been closely involved in the development and support of some very popular Windows software packages, and I have very clear ideas (and plenty of experience) on what works and what doesn’t.

But TVBLOB’s software and services will be displayed on a television set, with a far smaller viewing area (in terms of pixels) than any modern computer monitor. Try setting your computer display to its smallest possible resolution and you’ll get the idea – except that, at least on my current computer, the smallest possible setting is 800×600 pixels, while a standard PAL (European) television set can display roughly 700×550.

Limited screen real estate is not the only design problem I’m up against. The hardware I’m designing for is not a computer with a keyboard; we expect that people will mostly use a TV-style remote control to interact with our software. And I don’t mean a huge, clunky remote with 300 buttons that are so tiny you can’t press them, let alone remember what they’re all for. Our remote will have only a few more buttons than you’d find on your average DVD player controller. So I have to use them wisely.

Not that I’m complaining. It’s a fascinating set of design challenges, and I’m having lots of fun. But the work does tend to wring all the creative juices right out of me…

2:57 min – video shot June 10, 2005

I went to London to collect my MBA from the Open University. Attending the ceremony was not obligatory, but I’d missed my BA graduation, and thought it would be fun to do the cap and gown thing.

The ceremony was held at the Royal Festival Hall, where we were supposed to arrive early to collect our (rented) gowns and have official photos taken. The Open University holds around 20 such ceremonies every year, giving graduates a broad choice of places and times to attend. Several hundred people were present that day to collect degrees from BAs to PhDs in every conceivable subject, accompanied by their beaming families.

The very medieval scholar’s robe. I suppose the bag-like sleeves were originally intended for carrying around one’s scholarly scrolls.

We were a representative slice of what is probably the world’s most diverse student body. The Open University was founded (in 1967) to open up education to people who otherwise had not had and might never have the opportunity to pursue a university degree. The institution has succeeded wonderfully at this. Few of the graduates were the usual college age; the oldest I saw looked to be well into her 70s, and she wasn’t the only grandma in the group. Many were non-white, with a large contingent from Africa (Somalia and/or Ethiopia, I think), where the OU has been operating for years.

Most of us graduates didn’t know each other, but each had a small cheering section of family, in my case my dad and his wife Ruth, but it was more common for graduates to be attended by their spouses, children, and even grandchildren!

At first we clapped and cheered everybody, but that got tiring. Ruth told me later that she settled on a strategy of applauding the oldest, the least-advantaged, and the handicapped. Judging by the volume, much of the audience made the same choice. An elderly black lady with gray hair got a huge ovation, startling the Dean of Students who was performing handshake-and-congratulations duties. He asked her something, then turned to the audience with a huge grin and shouted: “Five grandchildren!”

About That Gown

Like everyone else, I rented the gown and hood, and was carefully allocated the items pertaining to my newly-attained qualification. The pale blue robes are for Masters (Bachelors wear dark blue, Doctors shiny electric blue).

Note the carefully-arranged hood, proving to anyone who understands the arcane codes of these things (it depends on the colors and even the width of the trim) that I have an MBA from the Open University. I now have the right to wear this get-up at any future academic “congregation” I attend, until and unless I earn a still higher degree. Of course, I would have to actually buy the thing for any such occasion…

My very proud Dad.

Licensed to…

Dec 10, 2004

er, do business? I learned this week that I’ve passed the exam for the last course in my MBA from the UK’s Open University. So I can now put “MBA” after my name on my visiting cards, as is the custom in some parts of Europe. (I’m not sure it will do me much good in Italy, where few people know what an MBA is.)

I started this degree in 1999, when I realized that, if I had had to apply for the job I was actually doing at Adaptec, the description would have said “MBA strongly preferred.” My original intent was to show my bosses that I was serious about my career, in spite of the strangeness of my situation (working long-distance from Italy for an American company).