Ciao America! by Beppe Severgnini

Ciao America! An Italian Discovers the U.S. by Beppe Severgnini

According to its cover, this book is "a delightful look at America through the eyes of a fiercely funny guest -- one of Italy's favorite authors who spent a year in Washington, D.C." It captured my attention because I myself was once a "guest" in the U.S. Perhaps Signore Severgnini's experiences bear some resemblance to mine. Years ago, while still living in San Francisco, I'd read Bill Bryson's I'm a Stranger Here Myself, which described his returning to America after twenty years away in England. I found it a hilarious read, even though it was mystifying to me why I should find much in common with Mr. Bryson. After all, I was not returning home to America; rather the opposite. Nevertheless, the way he looked at the U.S. from a quasi-outsider's point of view resonated with my own feelings.

Signore Severgnini is very funny in his own right. My guess is that he's even funnier in his native tongue. Unfortunately, I can't read Italian, so I have to settle for a translated version, which always leaves me with a sense of having been cheated somehow. In fact, considering that Signore Severgnini lived in England before crossing the Pond, I'm sure he could have written his book in English. Presumably, he didn't because his main target audience is in Italy.

The various stories are believable, and the little comments interesting. The overall tone is good-natured. One year is an awfully short time to really get to know a country though, especially one as large and diverse as the United States. Too often, I find Signore Severgnini drawing conclusions based on too small a sample space. Oh well, that's the way it goes with this genre. Even if one were to extend one's stay to, say, ten years, would one know everything? Even a native-born American only knows what his little world allows him to know about his own country and fellow countrymen.

My personal American Experience was filled with some interesting discoveries, too. Here is one small example. Somewhere along my stay in California, I noticed that I could name all of the U.S. Supreme Court justices. I never consciously tried to memorize the names, but American news items focus so much on the Supreme Court that one would have to bury one's head in the sand to not learn something. It's a unique country that can effortlessly draw a non-political visitor into its web.

Multiple Wi-Fi Routers

When I moved back to Toronto in 2003, the first thing I did was to set up a wireless network at home. It was out of necessity: the house is too big; we have too many computers; it would be an ugly mess to pull wires across hallways and down the stairs. Wi-Fi was the perfect solution.

Since then, more devices have been added to the network without any problems. That was until the arrival of the Nintendo Wii. It appears that when the Wii has been in use for a while, it takes over the wireless router, and will not allow any new device to join the network, at which point the only solution is to reboot the wireless router. This, to me, is unacceptable.

A quick search on-line shows that other people are having similar problems, and Nintendo has not provided a fix. I could get a new wireless router and hope that it can handle the Wii, but I then remembered that I had a spare wireless router sitting in storage doing nothing. It was replaced a couple of years back by a more powerful one, but there is nothing wrong with it otherwise. I could make this second Wi-Fi router a dedicated one for the Wii. This way, the Wii's bully behaviour will not affect the other devices.

Our house, like most homes, has one high-speed service. How do I create two (or more) wireless networks? I looked around on-line, but couldn't find any useful help. So I closed my eyes and thought about it. Well, it really isn't that complicated. Here's what I did:



Using the same daisy-chain setup, one can easily insert a third wireless router, a fourth, etc. The only constraint is that all the routers must be within close proximity to each other.

In theory, this new setup should fix the problem caused by the Nintendo Wii.

One last note of interest is I need to connect a computer to each wireless router to configure it. There are a number of ways to establish the connection. In the above diagram, I already have a device connected to Router #1 via an Ethernet cable, so I used that device to configure the router. For Router #2, I took an Ethernet cable, plugged one end into one of the router's LAN ports, and the other end into my laptop, and configured the router using the laptop. Alternately, as I know the default factory-set Wi-Fi SSID of Router #2, I can also connect my laptop wirelessly to Router #2. Once a connection to the router is established, I can configure the router from the web browser of the device, and set up the usual functions (e.g. SSID, encryption methods, firewall, passwords, etc.).

Free iPhone Ringtones

One very cool thing I figured out recently is a way to make free ringtones for my iPhone from any song I own.

Currently, to get a ringtone for the iPhone, you need to first check if the song of your choice exists in Apple's iTunes Store in the ringtone format. Most songs don't, so that's problem number one. Also, even if the song you want is there, you don't get to choose which part of the song you'd like to have as your ringtone. Finally, if the song is indeed available as a ringtone, you must purchase the song for 99 cents, and then, pay another 99 cents for the ringtone.

I know some of you may say, Gee, she's really counting pennies. Jeff couldn't stop laughing when he heard I worked hard for a couple of hours just to save $1.98 plus taxes. It's not the money, people; it's the principle involved. Why should I pay for a song I already own legally, and then pay extra just to make a segment of it into a ringtone? This is robbery.

So here's how it's done on Mac OS X Leopard, using iTunes Version 7.7.1 (11), for iPhone G3.

Part I: Splice Your MP3 File

First of all, you need to splice your legally obtained song so that you will have ready the segment you want as your ringtone. If you already know how to do this, skip ahead to Part II.

There are sound file editor programs out there that do splicing, e.g. cdparanoia on Linux. Because applications on the Mac are not nearly as abundant and free as on Linux, we're better off using existing programs. iTunes can accomplish the goal. Go ahead and start iTunes. Go to Preferences / Advanced / Importing, and change format to AAC.

Outside of iTunes, using Finder, locate your song file in the iTunes Music Library. Ctrl-click on the file and choose Duplicate. A new file is created in the same directory.

Back in iTunes, you'll see a duplicate of your chosen song in the iTunes Library. Ctrl-click on the duplicate and choose Get Info. In the new window, under Options, change the Start Time and Stop Time values so as to retain the segment you want to use as your ringtone. Make sure the segment is less than 40 seconds in length. Close the window. Next, ctrl-click on the MP3 file again, and choose Convert into AAC this time. As only the segment from Start Time to Stop Time will be converted, your duplicate copy of the song will become a segment in AAC format.

Part II: Rename File to m4r

The newly created AAC file has extension m4a. You need to change it to m4r.

Go back to the Finder program where you're already inside the directory where the new AAC file is. Ctrl-click on the AAC file and choose Get Info. In the new window, under the section Name & extension, change the extension to m4r. Close the window. A dialog box will pop up, asking you if that's what you really want to do. Choose "Use m4r".

Part III: Import File into iTunes

Go back to your iTunes program. Ctrl-click on the segment song, and choose Delete. When the dialogue box pops up, choose "Keep the file". This is very important because, while you want to delete the song from iTunes Library, you do not want to delete the physical file. Next, go to File / Import... and select the m4r file for importing. You'll notice in Finder that the physical file is removed, but in iTunes, the song appears under Library / Ringtones.

When you next sync your iPhone, you'll see that inside the sync page Ringtones, the new ringtone is listed there, ready to be synced. Unfortunately, the iPhone holds only one custom ringtone at a time. Nevertheless, now you've got your ringtone made out of your favourite song for free!

Unknown Quantity, by John Derbyshire

Unknown Quantity, A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra, by John Derbyshire

I haven't submitted a book entry in nearly a month because it's taken me this long to finish this book even though it has a mere 320 pages.

Derbyshire's book is about the history of algebra, and also the stories of algebraists. The first few chapters are easy: how systems of expressing numbers evolved over the centuries; how Diophantus and al-Khwarizmi paved the roads for the development of algebra; etc. I remember in my childhood working on Diophantus's famous riddle (it's really just a simple one equation with one unknown that any Grade Six kid can do). What's interesting is how concepts that small children nowadays take for granted were completely rejected by the most learned men in ancient days. Zero came into being long after the natural numbers. Negative numbers were discarded because they didn't make any sense. Imaginary numbers were again ignored for as long as possible. It's so intuitive now to use letters, in particular, the letter x, to represent unknowns, but the ancients had to use cumbersome language to refer to any unknown quantity. Simplicity and clarity of presentation are paramount in mathematics. Imagine having to do arithmetic using Roman numerals, or calculus using Newton's notations. Ugly!

The rest of Part I of the book describes the quest to find general solutions to quadratic, cubic and quartic equations. Everyone knows the importance of quadratic equations. The cubic, a reluctant nod. But the quartic? Really, who cares about formulas for solving the quartic? For higher degree polynomial equations, numerical methods are sufficient in most cases. However, as an intellectual exercise, it is still something challenging to work on.

Part II of the book deals with more advanced topics in algebra developed from the late 16th century to the early 18th. The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra was stated by Descartes, and proven by Gauss. Euler worked on the problem of the general quintic, and Abel proved its unsolvability. The study of n-dimensional spaces was developed. Now we're into first- and second-year university algebra. Since I remember my vector spaces, basis, and matrices well, I'm still doing OK.

The last part of the book gets really hairy. Some of the topics are taught in first-year algebra classes: rings, fields, groups, and modular arithmetic. I remember finding those things a challenge back then. Reading about them again has clarified things. Also, since my first year in university, I've read a lot more on rings and fields, so it's natural that I should understand them better. Same with non-Euclidean geometry. When I took a third-year course on non-Euclidean geometry, I could do the problems but my mind rebelled against the concepts. Over the years, the theorems of non-Euclidean geometry started to make more sense in my head. However, when it comes to Galois Theory, Noetherian Rings, and topology, I'm as lost as I've always been. This, I've come to realize, is my personal limit of understanding abstract mathematical ideas.

At the end of the book, there is a nice little summary on the distance between algebra and the practical world:

"The very earliest algebra arose ... from practical problems of measurement, timekeeping, and land surveying.

"From the invention of modern literal symbolism in the decades around 1600 to the late 18th-century assault on the general quintic equation, the new symbolism was widely used to tackle practical problems.

"The growth of pure algebra in the 19th century, however, was so abundant that the subject raced ahead of any practical applications to dwell almost alone in a realm of perfect uselessness.

"The 20th century, for all its trend to yet higher abstraction, saw the gap close somewhat. All the new mathematical objects discovered in the 19th century have found some scientific application, if only in speculative theories."