Daddy, let's build a spaceship ...

A balloon with a camera left free to twirl to the stratosphere, more than thirty kilometers from earth. Everything for the dream of a child: "Daddy, let's build a spaceship." It sounds like a fairy tale, but it really happened.

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

Cancer awareness month

October is the cancer awareness month.

In memory of every cancer patient, family member and
friend who has lost their battle with cancer and in honour of those who
continue to conquer it! Put this up for 1 hour if you love someone who
has or had cancer. Many won't copy and paste this. I did. Will you?

Ciao papà ciao mamma ...

The secret powers of time

easily to recognize his Sicilian origin :-) you can't have family values if you never have family meals together ...

Tips for your summer holidays ... despite all what a beautiful Catania

I could not believe my eyes on Christmas morning, just arrived in Catania.

I left a cold Milan which was licking the wounds after the chaos created by the snowfall few days earlier and I found a warm city that had only frozen calendar impressed with the date of September the 25th.

I had promised myself not to come back for a while. Terrible year 2009 for me and my family, too many memories ... to forget soon. But my sly Catania, was always there waiting for me as beautiful and passionate lover who unsuccessfully you try to eliminate from your life.

Beautiful despite everything, despite 20 years of mismanagement, contempt of merciless livability rankings that are too long the only dispute the primacy of the worst cities in Italy for the quality of life.

The day I come back to Milan, after my Christmas holidays, at dawn I watched with longing and hope, along the road to the airport, passing the beautiful fishing village of Ognina witnessed the most important moments of my life, from birth to marriage with the woman I love.

Fire and the sea, the harshness of black lava and the green hills surrounded by golden colors of orange and wheat fields of the plain. Everything here is made of strong contrasts and excesses. We left behind the figure so majestic of the Etna Volcano just whitewashed and a beautiful sea. Then I was forced to endure the image of the waterfront full of dry bushes, the work remains by the red palm weevil and unrecognizable Europa square devastated not by insects, but the speculation-building policies of those who has no consciousness and a bit of love for my homeland.

I was wondering, fantasizing, what if I had an unlimited budget to make this city a paradise on earth?

I saw the extraordinary artistic and natural beauty, the industry of its citizens who were able to rebuild it and make it nine times. The same city that was compared in the 60s as dynamism and economic outlook to the "moral" capital of Italy, my current town, Milano.

I imagined a renovated old town with the churches of Crociferi Street and Piazza Dante returned to their former glory. Bellini park that rivaled against the best gardens in the world and a university of excellence, among the oldest in the country, able to attract the best brains in the Mediterranean for meeting the challenges of the future.

I dreamed of a prosperous, made of small and large companies, capable of clear social disadvantage and restore dignity to the inhabitants of disadvantaged neighborhoods and a football team that played in a modern stadium, where could be possible even win the serie A league ...

Unfortunately I have not an unlimited budget, but not enough to resign myself to see it treated that way. Wistful? Maybe ... but I wonder how valuable the minds and energies of men of goodwill who despite everything still love Catania?

As a great journalist murdured by mafia called Giuseppe Fava said once "what good is living, if there is not the courage to fight?

Resonance, Music and the voice of God ...

In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate at larger amplitude at some frequencies than at others. These are known as the system's resonant frequencies. At these frequencies, even small periodic driving forces can produce large amplitude oscillations.

All of us have experienced the phenomenon of resonance. As children sit on a swing, we have noticed that pushing at a certain frequency by the same effort, the amplitude became larger.

The acoustic resonance phenomenon is the amplification of sound waves that characterize the resonators and is a principle upon which the functioning of almost all musical instruments.

The music gives me an opportunity to reflect on the phenomenon of resonance not just in relation to aspects related to the laws of physics, but something that always leaves me puzzled and sometimes moved.

How many times in our lives, we have lived experiences that make our hearts resonate, giving different emotions, incredibly deep and intense. Like a tuning fork that vibrates at a frequency of 440 Hertz, our attention becomes maximum listening at some good music. Whether this is an aria by Bach, a song by Pink Floyd or the execution of a classical guitar masterpieces of Tom Jobim.

Speaking about the "Uncertainty Principle" by Werner Heisenberg, who represented one of the cornerstones of quantum mechanics, Albert Einstein said: "I do not believe that God has chosen to play dice with the universe".

Einstein was wrong, but maybe not quite. One is amazed by the wonderful complexity of nature and we are far from having discovered all the laws of the universe and the secrets behind the greatest miracle of the creation, life.

With 7 different musical notes, the possible combinations are almost infinite, but with only some of them: the good music, God seems to open a direct dialogue with our hearts, making them swing and giving the illusion for a while, to hear his voice.

Autonomy, mastery, and purpose ... the best way to motivate people

Daniel Pink on the surprising science of motivation addresses the key ingredients to motivate and engage people.

Daniel started with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don't: Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think. At least if the skills required are more than technical based on even basic cognitive capabilities.

What is the better way to motivate people for tasks requiring cognitive skills then?

Dave's conclusion is: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.

Autonomy: The urge to direct own life
Mastery: The desire to get better and better something that really matter to us
Purpose: The intent to do what we do in service of a larger something then our self


What's a good example of this? Google 20% time reserved by engineers to work at any projects they want. As outcomes 50% of the most successful innovative and rewarding ideas in Google, came out from this 20% time.

Autonomy, mastery, and purpose !!! If you want to know more then it's definitely worth going to watch this video.

Creativity loves constraints ...

Nowadays credit crunch, workforce reductions, politicians not qualified to manage the biggest economical crisis that the world remember since the great depression in 1929 have been putting on knee even the most optimistic man on earth.

Despite the difficulties there are still some people who see the bright side in whatever the face. I love them !!!

I believe that we learn the most during challenges instead success. Creativity loves constraints. Apollo 13 lunar mission is a good example.

Apollo 13 lunar mission launched on April 11, 1970, was the third manned mission by NASA intended to land on the moon, but a technical malfunction in the electrical system of one of the Service Module's oxygen tanks, forced the lunar landing to be aborted.

The command module remained functional on its own batteries and oxygen tank, which were only designed to support the vehicle during the last hours of flight. The crew shut down the Command Module and used the Lunar Module as a "lifeboat" during the return trip to earth.

The engineers creativity was boosted by the limited resources (oxygen time left) and despite great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin heat, and a shortage of potable water, the crew returned safely to Earth, and the mission was termed a "successful failure".

We cannot give up now, let's use any potential hidden force, the creativity that evolution embedded as part of our DNA. Like 39 years ago on Apollo 13 lunar mission, failure is not an option.