Getting a motorbike driving license in Italy in 2009

In Italy you can get a car driving license at the age of 18 only. Until a decade ago, if you had a car driving license (patente B) you were entitled to drive motorbikes, too.

Of course, my bad lucky being always on, a couple of years before I was 18 the law changed and to drive big motorbikes (above 125 cubic centimeters of power) you had to get a motorbike driving license.

The only good point of this all, was that you just had to give the practical test if you already gave the theory part. But rumors had it that this was going to change, too, and that in a short while you were supposed to give a theory test specific for motorbikes - which, of course, you were going to pay.

So for years I went by like "I want to get a motorbike driving license before it gets too costly" but I had nobody who could lend me a motorbike. And motorbike rent services are not so common here, unless you live in one of the biggest cities of Italy which, of course, I don't.

This year I was taking the final decision to take this driving license because a collague of mine offered to lend his motorbike. But the hurdles were yet to come.

First of all, the practical test consist of a two parts: in the first one you have to go along a fixed route, namely a 8-shaped route, a narrow path and a fast slow-down (during which you have to change gears, in case you are using a motorbike with gears). In the second part you are guided by the inspector along a route in the city.

If you take the exam with a motorbike that has automatic transmission, then your license will be limited to automatic motorbikes. For this reason I want to get a full un-limited driving license, since I want to take (and pay) this exam once in my life - dreamin' of a coast to coast in the US. ;)

Taking the exam privately costs about 98 euros, against 180 euros (or above) with a driving school. Since I am greedy I went for the 98 euros option, then realized that the 8-shaped route is *really* hard with the mtorobike I was thinking to use.

Well, the problems are:

1) 95% of the people I know who own a motobike have an automatic model

2) the remaining 5% have a motorbikes that is too big to be able to go through the 8-shaped route, because they are too heavy and don't steer enough.

Now I have paid all that I had to pay, the 98 euros, and am motobike-less.

I asked to all the driving schools of the area if they rent bikes, and they replied that if I wanted to use their motorbike I was going to pay the full price with them and re-open the file with the driving inspectorate as a driving school candidate.

The nearest rent-a-motorbike service charges 127 euros per day for a motorbike (and 40 euros a day for a car!!!!). So renting a motorbike is more expensive than going to a driving school.

This is absurd!

It is not only me who has this problem: a lot of people want to buy a motorbike which is too big to be used to take the driving license practical test. If I were richer enough I would open such a service, for a lot less than 100 euros a day.

This is collusion. This is Italy.

Nitrogen (N2) Gas Cooling For a Closed Cycle Nuclear Heated Gas Turbine

The exact date of my revelation that helium was not the ideal working fluid for closed cycle gas turbines is lost in a pile of papers that may or may not include an old calendar or two. It is not really important, except for the fact that it happened after I had left active duty in the Navy, moved my family to Tarpon Springs, Florida and established Adams Atomic Engines, Inc. as a Florida

Londoneri: a Croatian recipe

I believe this is going to be the only English result for "Londoneri".

Londoneri is not a properly cake, just a Croatian sweet to be served in small rectangular portions as big as half a credit card (cut on its lenght). It is a very rich recipe and you wouldn't eat it so much at once, but it will taste fine for three days. It is perfect for a tea with friends and to offer as a cold dessert over a buffet dinner.


This was a recipe my granny used to do and I clearly remember its taste back in the time, when I was a kid. Luckly she wrote it down on her recipe book. She just forgot to state the baking details, so this first attempt didn't go as I hoped but it was a lovely sweet and it tasted just like I remembered.

Here you are the recipe of Londoneri.

For the base:
400 g. of flour
280 g. of butter
140 g. of white sugar
5 yolks

Stir the ingredients for the base in a bowl and lay it out in a rectangular mould (I used a 24 x 28 cm silicone mould). Do not make edges, lay it evenly.
Spread a veil of marmalade over the base - avoid flavours that are too sweet, peach or apricot is ok - and bake for 5-6 minutes at 180°C. The base should be half cooked and the marmalade smooth.

For the top:
5 eggs whites
280 g. of finely minced almonds (not peeled)
420 g. of sugar

After you put the base in the oven to semi-bake, start to prepare the top.
Beat the eggs whites until stiff
Mix the stiff whites, the minced almonds and the sugar with a spoon.

Take out the base from the oven, lower the oven temperature to 100°C.
Put the top on the base and bake again for 40-45 minutes.
You're done baking once there is a thin crust over the top. The inside of the top should not be dry (and believe me, with so much sugar it would be hard to get dry).

Serve cold in small rectangular piece of 2,5 x 4 cm.


This is how it should appear after you're done baking. As you can see, I used a silicone mould. I could get around 30 londoneri from it.

Videocracy - Italy has been sinking since I was born

I haven't been blogging very much lately, also because during summer there is tons of fun stuff to do outdoor and I already spend most of my day at the office in front of the computer (like now).

I just want to post here the trailer of Videocracy, a documentary (which is different from a fictionary movie) about Italian video-informations over the past 20 years, describing Berlusconi's rise to power.
It has English subs. There are no actors, all the characters are real. The man speaking in the car is Fabrizio Corona, a photographer who took pictures of celebs and then blackmailed them.
See how he describes himself...

Jeez, where are the Allies? Someone please rescue us!

Throttle Valve Control For Fission Heated Simple Closed Cycle Gas Turbines

The best way to lower construction and operating costs is copy the successes and avoid the failures of other projects. That is easy to say, hard to accomplish. As I dug into more details about combining atomic heat with Brayton cycle gas turbines, I opened my research aperture as wide as possible so that I could find out what made both simple cycle combustion gas turbines and light water reactors

Missing granny

My paternal family came from Fiume (now Rijeka, HR), a town where several cultures and populations crossed and lived together. Nothing can replicate my grandma's kitchen, its taste, its consistency and flavour. I still remember some of her dishes, but a lot I forgot, too.
Now I am surfing to look for Croatian recipes because the only Croatian recipe book ever written in Italian is odd - I have it. It doesn't even mention quantities, temperatures and times.

I have to try to do Pasticada which is basically a roasted meat sauce with big pieces of roeasted meat, used as a sort of mixed dish together with gnocchi. My grandma served it like this, although I found several different pictures and way to serve it.

Seeking Simplicity, Finding Complexity

More than a month ago, I concluded the second installment of the Adams Engine™ story with a comment about needing to go earn a living. I had no intention of letting the story go dormant when I wrote that. Sometimes life gets in the way of a good project. I got pretty busy during the period leading up to the 4th of July and kept meaning to get around to telling you more about the Adams Engine™