The French president Emmanuel Macron gave a talk on 14 July to the French armies (discours aux Armées) calling for an increased military budget, with the fundamentally flawed argument that, to be free, one must be feared, and that to be feared, one must be powerful. Which sounds at best as a sophism and at worst as a contradiction of terms, as it leads to the conclusion that only tyrants can be free… I wonder where the president got the inspiration for this terrible sequence, in Machiavelli maybe since he wrote his master thesis on the Florentine political philosopher. As for the relevance of rearmament, I also deem the argument similarly flawed. (Nuclear disarmament alone would scrimp €5 billion to €6 billion of the French State yearly budget.)
Archive for Firenze
non, pour être libre, il ne faut être ni craint, ni puissant…
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures with tags Cesare Borgia, Emmanuel Macron, Federico Faruffini, Firenze, French politics, French State, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Musei Civici di Pavia, Nicolas Machiavel, Pavia, philosophy, rearmament, Russian invasion, unilateral nuclear disarmament on August 14, 2025 by xi'ana journal of the plague and chaos year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel, Wines with tags beige, Black Plague, book reviews, Brunost, Chamonix, cheese, chocolate, cocoa, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, Devo, diary, Ecuador, Editions Guérin, Editions Paulsen, Firenze, Florence, Il Decameron, India, Journal of the Plague Year, Kerala, mountains, Norway, Russian invasion, Stand Up To Trump, Tuscany, Ukraine, whey on March 23, 2025 by xi'an
Read Cairns, a recently published translation (in French, by the Chamonix Guérin Éditions, now Paulsen), of a Norwegian novel Vardane by Martin Baldysz. Very short but daunting, I was completely taken by surprise by a multi-tiered story that never got where I expected it to go, with much more complex characters than I imagined from their first description, layers after layers of deception and buried secrets, and the ever-present strength (and cold) of the local mountains. A vernacular version of magical realism! Looking forward re-reading it as I am sure I have missed some subtle hints, and reading another Norwegian novel, Fjellet, geværet, vannet (A mountain, a gun, a lake) by Lars Ramslie, which I initially confused with an earlier novel about the same character!
Made a kilogram of roasted black sesame butter, just letting the mixer mix for ten minutes!. And to keep with the Norwegian theme, I made a second attempt at Brunost, which worked better than last time, although missing a few more minutes for it to turn light brown! (Inventing beigeost in the process?!)
Watched Netfilx The Decameron, which obviously cannot compete with Pasolini’s 1971 masterpiece. And is only vaguely related with 1350’s Boccaccio’s Il Decameron. With modern lyrics from many bands of my teenage years (incl. Devo!) and definitely modern attitudes. Amusing black (Plague) humour, if with lengthy moments and inconsistent characters. With a great anime introduction. And definitely suited for this ‘Og regular diary!
IMS conFlorence [ICSDS2022]
Posted in pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags conference, Firenze, Florence, IMS, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Italy, North America, Tuscany on April 18, 2022 by xi'an
The IMS is launching a new conference series, the annual IMS International Conference on Statistics and Data Science (ICSDS), whose goal is to reach out and expand membership from emerging areas of data science, underrepresented groups, and from regions outside of North America, first edition is next December (13-16) in Firenze (Florence), Italy. (And which I plan to attend.) Reposted from the conference web page:
The objective of ICSDS is to bring together researchers in statistics and data science from academia, industry and government in a stimulating setting to exchange ideas on the developments of modern statistics, machine learning, and broadly defined theory, methods and applications in data science.
The conference will consist of plenary sessions, and about 50 invited, contributed and poster sessions. Young researchers are particularly encouraged to participate, as a portion of the invited sessions will be designated for young researchers.
genuine Latinsquare rectangle
Posted in Books, pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags art restoration, bioweapon, bug, Choi Seok-jeong, Firenze, Florence, Italia, latin square, Leonhard Euler, Medicis, NYT, sacrophagus, Serratia ficaria SH7 on June 9, 2021 by xi'an
the girl who saved the king of Sweden [book review]
Posted in Books, Kids, Travel with tags Arto Paasilinna, book review, Finland, Firenze, Italy, Scandinavia, South Africa, Soweto, Sweden, the girl who saved the king of Sweden, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, Tuscany on June 27, 2015 by xi'an
When visiting a bookstore in Florence last month, during our short trip to Tuscany, I came upon this book with enough of a funny cover and enough of a funny title (possibly capitalising on the similarity with “the girl who played with fire”] to make me buy it. I am glad I gave in to this impulse as the book is simply hilarious! The style and narrative relate rather strongly to the series of similarly [mostly] hilarious picaresque tales written by Paasilina and not only because both authors are from Scandinavia. There is the same absurd feeling that the book characters should not have this sort of things happening to them and still the morbid fascination to watch catastrophe after catastrophe being piled upon them. While the story is deeply embedded within the recent history of South Africa and [not so much] of Sweden for the past 30 years, including major political figures, there is no true attempt at making the story in the least realistic, which is another characteristic of the best stories of Paasilina. Here, a young girl escapes the poverty of the slums of Soweto, to eventually make her way to Sweden along with a spare nuclear bomb and a fistful of diamonds. Which alas are not eternal… Her intelligence helps her to overcome most difficulties, but even her needs from time to time to face absurd situations as another victim. All is well that ends well for most characters in the story, some of whom one would prefer to vanish in a gruesome accident. Which seemed to happen until another thread in the story saved the idiot. The satire of South Africa and of Sweden is most enjoyable if somewhat easy! Now I have to read the previous volume in the series, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared!
