Synaptic Sugar

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends upon the unreasonable man. — George Bernard Shaw

It’s not easy to be unreasonable; but at times, one must dare to do things no one else has the courage to do. Hi, I’m Nicola Cocchiaro (or “Mana”), you might remember me for personal websites or blogs like this one. As a computer scientist who grew up in Italy I had always known that something unreasonable and unthinkable had to be done so that the world would progress. Therefore I started this blog, postponing the unthinkable until a time when it would become thinkable.

In here you won’t find the Absolute Truth or the recipe for happiness: you may ask others for those (although you might occasionally find food recipes here). On the other hand, you will find a collection of thoughts or news that are of some interest (to me — not necessarily to others), and some of my own opinions. If for some reason you find something I post enlightening, funny or otherwise appealing, please do leave a comment and make my day! On the other hand, should you find something objectionable, you’re still welcome to leave a comment about it, but you won’t get any candy.

A dash of simple blog usage guidelines

At the bottom of many posts you might find country flags and other icons. The flags will let you change the language the posts themselves are displayed in; currently, I’m only writing in English and Italian. Some posts may appear in only one language, if the post is deemed enjoyable only by one part of my audience or if it feels more natural that it be that way. The “digg it” icon will let you submit a post you deem interesting to digg.com, if you normally use that service; other icons or links (Reddit, Share This, …), when present, will allow you to do the same with similar services.

On the sidebar, the monthly archives and the categories will help you find older or specific posts; posts are also assigned tags, to more flexibly categorize them. The “Blogroll” section contains links to other blogs that are interesting or belong to people I know, or both. I can’t be held responsible for, nor have any control over, what those other blogs publish, as should be expected. Follow the links at your own risk. Additionally, the “My projects” section contains links to, as you may guess, some of my own projects.

Knowest ye also that there’s no regular schedule on updates; new posts or pages will magically appear when I have something to say and have the time to say it. This is not a newspaper, it’s a personal blog. You can use a number of RSS feeds to keep track of new material if you so wish; how to use those depends on what RSS client you’re using, so I will leave the discovery of that information as an exercise to the reader.

At the moment, registration is not required to comment on posts. However, I retain full moderation power and do not allow comments that I do not deem fit to be published; those that are on-topic, not obscene and do not advertise commercial products do generally see the light of day. Please note that even when my moderation powers are in action, I do not take any responsibility for the opinions other people may post in comments; those belong exclusively to the person who comments. In addition to all this, Wordpress has a good anti-spam plugin and this blog uses it, so don’t hope to get spam past the electric fence, the alligator-infested moat, and even the lake with the sharks with laser beams attached to their heads. Unfortunately, the plugin is so good that it may recognize as spam some comments that aren’t; I periodically go through the list of recognized spam to make sure nothing’s wrong, but this blog is victim to so many spamming attempts that I may miss some genuine comments in there. If your comment does not appear in a reasonable time, try again, or e-mail me.

A sprinkle of legalese

Finally, all content of which I am author and that is posted on this blog is protected by the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license, unless stated otherwise. The license, in short, states that you’re allowed to share said content only if it is unchanged, for exclusively non-commercial purposes, and correctly attributing it to its author (me). When redistributing my work, a link back to the blog and a comment or an e-mail about it would be nice and quite appreciated. Photographs I have taken, however, are published on “All rights reserved” copyright terms, unless stated otherwise, and thus cannot be republished without my permission. My own pictures are generally referred to as such in the post or page they appear in, or in a nearby caption, or in the “alt” and “title” image tags in the HTML code of the post or page. When in doubt, please ask me. If I link to or publish material that belongs to others, different licensing terms from the ones above may apply, and in any case one should not assume that the mere linking makes me appear as the owner of said material or in any way affiliated with what is linked or its author.

It’s worth reiterating that everything stated in this blog constitutes my own personal opinion and does not represent or reflect the official position of any company I may be affiliated with in any way.

These guidelines are in place to help the users of this blog and to protect this blog where possible; they may change with or without notice and this page is where the version currently in effect is always available. By using this blog you accept the terms of service set forth herein and — enough, just be nice and at least respect what it says in legalese up there. Better to be redundant and unnecessarily long than sorry, in any case.

That said, enjoy the show.