Author Archives: galbarosa
How sweet
Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem; non quia vexari quemquamst jucunda voluptas, sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suavest. Sweet, when the winds turn the wide sea to maelstrom Here from the shore, is the sight of the trouble of others Not because it is nice to rejoice […]
Firenze magnifica
Lorenzo the Magnificent is to Florence what yeast is to bread. Firenze Magnifica, pulsating heart of the Renaissance, is a monument to beauty. A friend recently asked me about Firenze, for he was planning a romantic holiday. So… here’s a summary that others may find helpful. CULTURE Cappella Brancacci (chapel that inspired Michelangelo to paint […]
Retrospective: that cycle ride to Portugal
Deed – Reason – How – Best – Worst – Moral – Pics Deed During the summer of 1990 I cycled from Sanremo (Italy) to Porto (Portugal) with my friend Antonio Galatà. Reason At 20 you don’t need much of a reason to do stuff. I woke up one day and decided it would be a great […]
Elephants vs shrews
Q – “Will the big banks crash the party that FinTech entrepreneurs started?” A – “No, for elephants can’t be shrews”. This is a translation, with much poetic licence, of something I heard during a panel session at a recent Innovate Finance event. Flying the flag for the shrews was Giles Andrews, CEO of Zopa, […]
#fintechmission: an epic journey with Boris Johnson
During the week of Feb 8-13 2015, I joined a merry band of FinTech entrepreneurs specially selected for a Grand Tour of Boston and New York with Mayor of London Boris Johnson. The aim? To promote British excellence with American East Coast’s business community – an ambitious trip organised by the Mayor’s Office, UKTI, LondonAndPartners […]
The Ode Less Travelled
I just got to page 19 of Stephen Fry’s engaging book (“The Ode Less Travelled” published in 2007 – how come I only found it now?). I mean, truly engaging, for, at this point, it asked me to spend 10 minutes jotting down 20 lines of iambic pentameters to get accustomed to poetic writing. A […]
The voice of angels
Even before and ever since wily Odysseus had his men’s ears waxed and his body strapped to the mast has humanity been aware of the magical powers of pure voices singing in unison. Couple that with large numbers and the magic multiplies. A resonance effect appears to be at work when learnt, repetitive actions are shared […]
Life Sculpture
ΠΑΝΤΑ ΡΕΙ (Panta rhei). If everything flows, life is about surfing without catastrophic accidents. We are fundamentally harnessers, not creators. Creation is a godly power. To make any wish and to see it come true. Harnessing requires hard work. The best is the one that wastes the least. In the game of waste not, perfection […]
E,R not E-R
One of the foundations of structured data design is Entity-Relationship (E-R) modelling. A long time ago, when I first saw the E-R diagram of a reasonably complex trading system, I was fascinated by its image of logically interconnected boxes: an impressive “skeleton” where the little box on the bottom right might be affected by the […]
A thousand “me”
There are a thousand reasons to visit Naples: majestic Vesuvius, incomparable Neapolitan Pizza, breathtaking Capri and Ischia, unmissable archaeological sites (Pompeii, Herculaneum, the National Archaeological Museum), beautiful weather, beautiful people. Naples was the backdrop for Admiral Nelson’s love affair with Emma Hamilton: a commercial, political and cultural hub that was a key destination of Victorian […]
G-Blog 