Multicast overlay

After one month of research on the scalability issues of web radios I haven’t discovered anything new (I wasn’t supposed to in the first month…) but at least I’ve come to a simple and firm conclusion: scalability can be guaranteed only by means of multicasting, but IP multicast is not yet capillarly deployed on the Internet. Hence, the only way to go seems to be network overlay, that means working at a higher level to build a virtual multicast network on top of the real unicast one.

I told my boss about this, and he gave me one more month to put together a proposal to be presented at the first Friday meeting of November… I’m excited and a little scared, but one month should be enough.

I saw Kate again on the week end. Which was tonnes of fun (correction: tons of fun – in US spelling). We went for coffee again and she told me some more about the city. I hadn’t really wandered around the university yet, so we did that – WOW! Talk about facilities!!! She seems really interested in the Urbino on-line course, but I don’t know whether she’s registered or not. That would be funny! We could create a virtual university branch of Urbino in Madison! Think of the savings in administration costs! (heh heh).
It’s been rainy and cloudy here, but not too cold yet – great day to stay inside and work on overlay. I’m looking forward to the cold weather. It gets cold and snowy at home, but everybody tells me that winter here is like in Siberia! Tons of snow and temperatures to minus 20° or even 30° degrees. I still have to get used to their Fahrenheit system. 0° Celsius is 32° Fahrenheit. It makes no sense to me. It’s really funny to hear people talk about cold weather at 45°!!! Anyway – people are beginning to talk about “ice fishing” and preparing their fishing “shacks”. This is where they build a little cabin and drag it out on the lake (which freezes solid to a depth of more than 1 meter!). Then they drill a hole in the ice and fish with little fishing rods. I overheard some guys at a diner talking about this. It sounds fun! Like camping, but on the frozen lake! I think I’d be a little scared of falling through the ice – but it seems that they drag their cabins out there with trucks! They drive onto the lake! I can’t wait to see this – it must be fantastic. Kate was saying that some of her brothers go ice fishing – maybe if I’m nice……..
Anyway – it’s late. VERY LATE! I’m going to bed!

Tonight’s expression is “to sleep like a log”. It means to sleep very very deeply. (I suppose logs don’t move – do they!)

Mad about Madison

Wow – I love it here! There’s a lot to do, and great balance of city and nature. I’ve been going to the lake alot, and eating! Heh heh – nachos! Kate, you’re right – you too could be part of big brother land! So correct eeenglish only pleese! Heh heh – joking. I was thinking about Prof. Bogliolo’s proposal the other day – and I suppose I had better pack this blog with idiomatic expressions. That could be a fun bit of research for me.

Today’s expression is: “It’s just like shooting fish in a barrel!” – meaning, something is very easy. I’ve never actually tried this, mostly because it’s hard to get the fish into the barrel! Ha ha. No – I don’t even own a gun!

At any rate, Kate – if you ever want to avoid public space, you can look me up on Facebook. I will accept you as a “friend” – and we can arrange to have coffee! You can find me under Roberto Tousa (to USA – get it! ha ha! – I’m so brilliant it hurts). Anyway – I look forward to meeting you, and can tell you more about Urbino Computer Science – and, if you’re interested, the fantastic untamed world of web-radio! WWOZ! (station out of New Orleans that I listen to for on-line blues).

Unbelievable!!

Wow!!! I have been contacted by Professor Alessandro Bogliolo from the Computer Sciences department back home – he wants to use my blog as the base for an on-line English language course in Computer Science! It’s really nice of him to think of this, but I didn’t know a blog could be used for this!!!!!! It sounds pretty strange, but great! Do I get royalties (heh heh)?

This is really exciting! It’s “university Big Brother” and the blog will be my confessional room!!!!

Anyway – I’ve pasted Prof. Bogliolo’s message here below – and responded to his e-mail a resounding “SI – D’ACCORDO!”! He will send me the partifculars by e-mail, and I will keep you all informed!!!!

 

From: Alessandro Bogliolo

To: Roberto

Cc: md@sti.uniurb.it

Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 22:41 AM

Subject: proposta

Caro Roberto,

ho avuto modo di leggere il blog in inglese che hai aperto in vista del tuo stage a Madison e mi e’ venuta un’idea…

Forse hai saputo che dal 2007/08 il percorso online del nostro corso di laurea adottera’ la metodologia CLIL (content and language integrated learning) per insegnare agli studenti la lingua inglese insieme alle discipline del corso. Esperti docenti di lingue stanno sviluppando un nuovo corso di inglese online per il quale occorre una story line.

L’idea che mi e’ venuta e’ di impostare il corso come un reality di cui tu sia il protagonista. Il tuo blog potrebbe essere lo strumento di osservazione che utilizzeremmo per collegare il corso di inglese alla tua esperienza di studio e lavoro. Con il tuo consenso potremmo ispirarci liberamente alla tua esperienza ed eventualmente utilizzare i tuoi stessi post (che da quanto posso giudicare sono scritti in perfetto inglese) come spunto per alcune lezioni.

Che ne dici?

A.B.

PS: Fammi sapere al piu’ presto perche’ il corso avra’ inizio in ottobre e c’e’ molto lavoro da fare per organizzarlo.

Welcome everybody!

Hello! My name is Roberto. I’m a computer science student in Urbino, Italy, and I have just found out that my work/study project on web-radio has been accepted in Madison Wisconsin! I’m so exited! I’ve opened this blog to document my experiences while I’m in the United States – both to immerse myself in English and hopefully meet new people.