Trapani è una città

In risposta a chi definisce Trapani un paese:

Trapani è città, non paese. Città piccola per i canoni odierni, ma è città da secoli. Ha porto, cattedrale, cantieri navali, era città libera nel medioevo con fiera annuale ad Agosto dal 1315 (ne aveva un'altra dal 1302, per San Giorgio ad aprile, una distinzione molto particolare), Senato cittadino inaugurato da Carlo V (che ci soggiornava e la favoriva spesso e volentieri, come d'altronde diversi suoi antenati Aragonesi), pianta a griglia (tranne il quartiere Arabo-Normanno che è naturalmente un kasbah) e due delle cinque torri sullo stemma furono costruite da Hamilcar Barca, il padre di Hannibal.

Il dialetto Trapanese del Siciliano era la lingua franca del Canale di Sicilia fino a molto dopo l'invasione Piemontese, a parte tanti miei familiari che hanno lavorato a Sfax, Tunisi, Biserta ed Orano ho diversi amici le cui famiglie sono tornate a Trapani soltanto dopo la II guerra mondiale (per non parlare di quelli che sono stati espulsi da Tripoli da Gheddafi).

Ecco l'incipit di un articolo del New York Times del 1903 su un rapporto del Parlamento francese in cui i francesi si preoccupavano perchè a Tunisi c'erano 75 mila Siciliani (la maggior parte Trapanesi e Mazaresi) e 25 mila Francesi.

A Tunisi c'è ancora una folta comunità di discendenti di Siciliani che per svariati motivi non sono mai emigrati indietro in Sicilia, parlano un Siciliano molto simile al Trapanese, ma molto più ricco di parole Arabe.

Birgi, Chinisia e Milo, i 3 aereoporti di Trapani.

Trapani ha avuto 3 aereoporti, il primo fu Milo, esclusivamente militare, costruito da prima della II guerra mondiale, dove ora sorge una stazione gestita dall’ASI, poi Chinisia, costruito nel 1949, ed usato per voli civili dal 1955, ed infine Birgi, costruito nel 1961 ed dove appunto nel 1961 si spostarono i voli civili da Chinisia (che fu usato dai militari fino agli anni 80).

In questa mappa sono indicate le posizioni geografiche dei tre aereoporti, dalle quali si nota che Milo era posto giusto alla fine della periferia sudorientale di Trapani, mentre sia Chinisia e Birgi si trovano a metà strada tra Trapani e Marsala, sulla sponda settentrionale del fiume Chinisia, Birgi più vicino al mare, Chinisia più distante, a circa 3 km di distanza uno dall'altro, entrambi ad una dozzina di chilometri sia da Milo, che da Trapani che dal centro di Marsala.

How to install ASP.Net on x64 platforms

After more than a couple of years, many service pack and a version of Visual Studio later, we still need to deal with Enable32bitAppOnWin64, aspnet_regiis.exe and the likes to properly install Asp.Net on x64 platforms.

I wonder when and if Microsoft will make this less time consuming ..

How to fix fatal error A1000 while compiling Crypto++ 5.5.2 on VS 2005

The possible cause

A white space on the path to the asm file.

The possible solution

If so, the solution is really simple (well, once you know it or you read it here or in such a place): open the solution in VS 2005, in the solution explorer locate x64masm.asm (should be between the Source Files of the crypdll project), right click on the file name (or do whatever you need to do to get the context menu), select the property menu item, go to Configuration Properties/Custom Build Step/General, and change the Command Line property from:

ml64.exe /c /nologo /Fo"$(IntDir)\x64masm.obj" /Zi $(InputPath)

to:

ml64.exe /c /nologo /Fo"$(IntDir)\x64masm.obj" /Zi "$(InputPath)"

Remember to do it for each configuration (Release, Debug, ..)

The story behind that possible solution

A long time ago, while trying to compile Crypto++ in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, I got a "MASM : fatal error A1000: cannot open file : C:\Projects\Blabla\My" compile error.
The file name actually gave me straight away the lead on what was going wrong, as the asm file was located in something like "C:\Projects\Blabla\My Project\myasm.asm", and it was self evident the issue was with the space on the path.
After spending an inordinate amount of time to find out to fix it, I did fix it only for the Release x64 configuration, so the issue came back to haunt me later on, that's it this morning, when I was wishing to compile again Crypto++ (5.5.2, I don't know if they fixed it on 5.6.0), this time in the Debug x64 configuration.
After spending another inordinate amount of time on the issue and finding again the way to fix it, I decided to put in on my blog, so next time I may have the chance to google my own solution.

Tales by the swine flued London

This evening I was minding my commuting business in the main square of Paddington station, in between the Isambard pub and the island with the automatic ticket machines and the automatic passport photographer, when the guy in white and orange horizontal stripes trotting in front of me hands forwards threw himself on the ground.
For a split second, while he was sunsetting, I thought he may have spot some gun, perhaps the beginning of some other vile terrorist attack, but then I saw her, blonde, piercing clear eyes, a wet napkin kept at some distance from her face, sneezing.
Sneezing. Sneezing in my face.
It happened in what seemed an instant, the white and orange striped guy sprang back on his feet, the sneezing young lady went sneezing to the next commuter, and I went on walking, shocked, mouth tight, in complete apnea, until I got the courage to step out of the stream of commuters, get my own napkin, and clean away her mess from my face.

A comment on unblocked Sicilian money

A comment to the Boastful Silvio Berlusconi buys off his party rebels article on the Guardian:

One of the key words on the article, is to unblock.

Also in Italian media, very little is made of the fact that this €4bn that the PM is allegedly throwing to Sicily, were to begin with already allotted to Sicily on the government balancy sheet.

Moreover, even more little is made of the fact that the total amount of money in that specific government account, €18bn, was fully pledged to areas south of Rome, but that the Italian version of the chancellor of the exchequer had instead used it as a sort of ATM, to get money to spend and invest in the north of the country.

The true scandal is not that Mr. Berlusconi is allegedly throwing money to Sicily, far from it, but that it was up to members and allies of Mr. Berlusconi's government, Mr. Micciché and Mr. Lombardo, to force the government to unblock the Sicilian money.

Where was the opposition? How anyone is supposing to steer the Sicilian electorate away from Mr. Berlusconi, if they aren't able even to clamour when the government is siphoning away even the few resources it still pledges to the island?