From the computer to the chessboard to the amateur radio universe with Gabriele

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This episode of Aaron's Opinion is brought to you by
inosearch dot ai. Rediscover the joy of online shopping. Hey, everybody,
Aaron's Opinion here with an exciting update. This episode of
Aaron's Opinion is brought to you by innosearch dot ai.
By the way, are you blind or are you a
screen reader user? And are you buy any chance? Having
a lot a really tough time buying products online? Well

(00:24):
we hear at Aaron's Opinion, have just the thing. Into
search dot Ai is not only today's guest on Aaron's Opinion,
but the sponsor of many other episodes of Aaron's Opinion
and basically, into search ai is an online e commerce
platform with the screen reader user software in mind. In
other words, into search ai is a online e commerce

(00:48):
place to buy anything you can possibly want online and
with the ease of using of screen of screen readers,
so there's no more difficulties. It's really easy to use
and it will work with screen readers. I will say
that this product might not be available in every country,
so if you're in a particular country where it's not available,

(01:08):
please do email us here at Aaron's Opinion and let
us know that you would like access to innosearch dot
ai and we will certainly do our best to get
this set up for you. But anyway, you considering that
it's easy to use with screen reader software, considering that
you can buy millions of products, and considering that the
holidays are just around the corner, and if you're listening

(01:29):
to this episode, you know when the holidays have passed.
Just remember that it's always time to buy things online,
so you really can't resist. As a matter of fact,
to make this even better for you, we even have
a promo code here for you. You can even get
ten dollars off your first purchase at innosearch dot ai,
so you really have nothing to lose. Anyway, click the

(01:51):
link in the description for more information about innosearch dot ai.
And thank you to innosearch dot ai for joining us
today on Aaron's Opinion and continuing could be the sponsor
for Aaron's Opinion here in the sponsor segment, So thank
you so much to intersearch dot ai. Anyway, go check
it out ten dollars off your first purchase just by

(02:13):
using the promo code in the description. Anyway, thank you
and enjoy this episode of Aaron's Opinion anyway, don't forget
inosearch dot ai rediscovering the joy of online shopping.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Do you find online shopping frustrating, especially for everyday essentials
like air purifiers, battery chargers or groceries. Introducing inosearch dot ai,
the e commerce platform designed with you in mind, especially
those who are blind, visually impaired, and use screen readers.
Inosearch offers millions of products and deals, all fully accessible

(02:51):
for a smooth and frustration free shopping experience. No more
wrestling with advertisements and complicated websites. Shop with confidence in
ease on innosearch dot ai. For a limited time, new customers,
say five dollars off orders of twenty dollars or more.
Just use code o F F five at checkout. Visit

(03:12):
nosearch dot ai. That's I N N O S E
A R c H dot ai today and rediscover the
joy of online shopping.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Welcome or welcome back, everybody to another exciting episode of
Erin's Opinion, the podcast for blind people where we speak
about critical issues in the blindness community and all other
issues from across the universe and galaxy. My name is
Eron Richmond and we should definitely start this episode by saying,
Bojon note, because we're definitely going over to Italy today.
One two four zero six eight one nine eight sixty

(03:48):
nine one two four zero six eight one nine eight
six nine Aaron's Opinion six at gmail dot com a
A R O N S O P I N I
O N six. That's the number six. Aaron's Opinion six
at Gmail. Don't forget to be added to the private
Facebook group Aaron's Opinion Podcasting Community or the WhatsApp group

(04:08):
Aaron's Opinion Podcasting Community. Please do let me know. Remember
if you need any of the QR codes for any
of these things I'm mentioning, please let me know. And
if you simply want my electronic business card so that
you'll see all of the information all at once, please
also let me know, because the electronic business card will
certainly give you all of the information in a great
way for you to know exactly how to get in

(04:29):
touch with the show anyway at Aaron's Opinion on Instagram
and Aaron's Opinion Podcasting Community on Facebook and in the
WhatsApp groups. Of course, don't forget about rating and reviewing
the Facebook page Aaron's Opinion podcast and that's a great
thing to do, and many more of you are doing that.
And don't forget about, you know, downloading the episodes wherever

(04:52):
you do, whether it's Spotify or Apple, we don't really
care where you're listening from. We just we're just appreciate
you do. Don't forget this week the download contest. When
I checked it most recently yesterday, the results were pretty
were pretty interesting, very different from last week. But as
of yesterday the results are as follows. The United States,
thank you twenty seven twenty seven downloads, Canada eight downloads,

(05:16):
and of course Serbia four downloads. It's very interesting now
how much the things have shifted around, so that's of
course very very interesting. Don't forget about joining the Patreon,
which is a great way to follow along, so thank
you for that, and of course you can follow along
on TikTok as well. We do occasionally post videos there.

(05:38):
Don't forget about following along on x and on YouTube
at Aaron's Opinion TV like the video comment below and
tickled Abell notifications know exactly when we premiered the next
video on the channel. Remember when videos premiere on the channel,
that's exactly when you can listen to them on Apple,
So there you go. Okay, Well, today's guest joins us
today from Italy, and we would not have been able

(06:00):
to have the absolute privilege and honor to connect with
this person without the Romania Office. Again of Aaron's opinion,
so thank you to Marianna barbou for connecting me with
Gabrielli from Italy. Did both Marianna Barboo and Gabrielli are
two spectacular human beings. And once I read Gabrielli's endearing

(06:20):
and fascinating bio, I was one hundred and one percent
sure that I needed to interview him. And once he
started talking, I was one hundred percent right.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
This guy's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
He from childhood, well he'll tell you the story better
than I, but from a child he's always been playing
computer games, designing software and things like that. He took
his knowledge there and moved forward into the chess world
and became a competitive chess player. And if he's not
doing those things, he's using his CW his Morse code
skills on in amateur radio. And of course if you're

(06:54):
an amateur radio person, if you're a ham, you can
find him anywhere on the air air waves. Excuse me,
I'm so sorry about that. You can find him on
the airwaves at any time by of course listening for

(07:14):
India Zulu I Alpha Papa uniform in the IZ four APU.
I believe I'll also put his Facebook link in the description,
so that if you are into the amateur radio stuff
and you want to get in touch, you would certainly
be able to do that anyway. Gabrielli also, if he's
not doing those great stuff, he's also fascinated by history,

(07:35):
and he gives back to his community by volunteering in
the museum switchboard, helping people to book tours and you know,
entertaining people in the museum. And he lives in one
of the oldest cities in Italy, of course, Bologna. So basically,
we just want to say that this has been one
of the most spectacular and beautiful conversations we've ever been
graced by here on the podcast, and I must say

(07:56):
we've been graced by many beautiful conversations and this is
one them. You don't want to miss one second of
this one, Okay, you definitely want to make sure that
you have the full full time to listen to this
and listen to every word that comes out of this
man's mouth, because this is absolutely magnificent. So without further ado,
I can certainly tell you that you're listening to the
Aaron's Opinion podcast. My name is Aaron Richmond. And now

(08:18):
let's go talk to Gabrielli. And with that we need
to have an episode title. So certainly today's episode is
called from the Computer to the Chessboard to the Amateur
Radio Universe with Gabrielli. Welcome or welcome back, everybody, do
another exciting episode of Aaron's Opinion, the podcast for blind
people where we speak about critical issues in the blind

(08:39):
news community and all other issues from across the universe galaxy.
And today let's go over to Italy and say bonjon
note to our new friend Gabrielli, who joins us from Bologna,
one of the oldest cities in the world. And you know,
I read your description. You are quite a character. You
are interested in so many amazing stuff that I'm utterly

(09:00):
fascinated by. You know the amateur radio, ham radio, chess,
computer programming history, you know language acquisition, you know software languages.
I mean, you got your You're you're going to be
a blast. So I'm going to meet my microphone and
ask the question I always like to ask, who is Gabrielli.
You may take the conversation in any direction you like,

(09:23):
walk through your life story, and just really paint the
whole picture, because you are just a character. Go go
right ahead.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
Okay, So thank you much heaven, thank you to having
me here. And well, first of all, I have to
apologize a little bit with all of your listeners because
I'm not a native speaker, and so I maybe could
sound a little bit strange and expressing my fault. But anyway,

(09:52):
I just hope to be a little bit clear. So
it's an honor to me to be here to be
guest of your super podcast, and I really hope that
what I'm going to say would be some interest to
listen for your listeners. So I'm Gabrielle, my Italian name

(10:17):
that means Gabriel short in Gabi or whatever you want.
I'm fifty years old, totally blind. I was born in
a very small village to the Adriatic Sea coast in
the northeast of Italy. The name of the village was
Porto Garibaldi. And you know, maybe Garibaldi is a famous,

(10:40):
famous historical characters because he fights in Italy in South
America and he contributes to unify the Italy around eighteen
sixty one, maybe one one hundred and fifty years ago. What.

(11:02):
I was born totally blind and my parents. My father
work as a seaman. He fished in the the Adriatic Sea.
My mom was very young, just twenty one years old.
And I've been around hospitals for the first six years
of my life. And then my parents surrendered and they

(11:27):
leave me. They leave me experience my child childhood, and
well I grown up developing many many interesting For example,
when I was twelve or eleven or twelve, my daddy

(11:49):
give me my first computer, and it was an odd
spot for me. It opens a new exciting word. And
I start on my own too well, learning how to
programming in Q basic and building some small simple game

(12:12):
for for myself. And then I met the chess world.
Later I became amateur radio, especially the c W. You know.
The c W is the short for continuous wave. It's
the old Morse code, which which required a lot of

(12:33):
skill to be received by your ear. It's like to
learn foreign language and and and I joined I try
to join all my interesting for example, programming tools to
train myself in receiving Morse code, or analyze my chess

(12:58):
game and an whatever. So at the age of twenty five,
twenty six, I moved away from my parents house and
i'd been here in Bologna, which I love it so
much because Bologna as one of the most ancient and

(13:20):
famous institute for the blind, and so this city has
much more blind citizen blind people, more than maybe than
the other city in Italy. And for this, the people

(13:41):
here are used to see us walking on the street
and they are very helpful to help us to cross
the road or to say the bus number, the bus
land number, for example, or give a hand. And it
was the best best city I think in Italy where

(14:03):
blind people could could leave. And then I find a job,
I found my flat, my apartment, and then many years
are past and I'm still happy here in Bologna. So
how and this is very a quick uh can I

(14:24):
say scenario, quick picture of my life? If you have
some question that you want to go deep in some
some subject, I'm available.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Absolutely you know that was an absolutely perfect response and
perfect answer and just a beautiful way to kick it off.
Today absolutely. Yes, of course I've I've heard of, you know, Portuguese.
Of course, I've heard of the historical figure Garabaldi. In fact,
as you as you know, there's a there's actually a
square in Nice, there's a plus in Nice, France called

(14:56):
plast Garabaldi. It's very very well known. Absolutely, what really
inspires me and what really you know, what really drew
me into interviewing you was how much of a great
thinker you are. You know, there's one thing that that
computer programming, building computer games at the age of twelve.

(15:18):
That would have been around uh, let's see the nineteen
early nineteen eighties correct in.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Arly the bit early maybe because I'm i born in
nineteen seventy four, so it was the early nineteen nineties, so.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
That would have been so if you were twelve in
twelve twelve, you were twelve when you started to do
the computer stuff, so that would have been around eighty six,
nineteen eighty six, nineteen eighty seven, around that time.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yeah, something like that. Yeah, eighty eight.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Oh, okay, eighty eight. There you go, and you see
this is very very critical. I'm much younger. I'm a
young I'm a young kid. I'm a young guy. I'm
thirty four. I was born in ninety one.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
Lucky year.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Well, I don't know, it's the year we were born.
Who knows? Who knows who's luckier? The answer is answers.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
The lucky guys.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
The guy that stays alive, that's the answer. That's the
lucky guy. Yeah. But what all of these things that
you've brought up to my mind, you know, the the
the parallel and the comparison between all of them is
that they all involve you using your brilliant mind to
be a brilliant and critical thinker, you know, and this
is the most important thing you You were put on

(16:26):
this earth to think critically about life and to think
critically about solving problems. So I will tell you that
I have not taken even one classing computer programming. But
what I would like you to do is walk through
the fundamentals of, for one thing, what type of person
are you to have the desire and to have this
enormous motivation to build a computer game just to entertain yourself,

(16:49):
And how does that work? And what was really going
on inside your brain and inside your head when you
were doing that? And walk through the elements of how
computer programming works and exactly what problems you can you
can solve. The reason I'm asking is because I strive
to connect with blind people who are problem solvers like you,
so really really get under my skin and really delve

(17:11):
into the into the depths of all this. How does
computer programming really work? In what do you know about it?
And then we'll dig into the other stuff.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
Go right ahead, Yeah, okay, So the main the quick answer,
just using a few few words, is the key word curiosity.
Curiosity and not to be afraid of what the people
say you could You couldn't do that because you are blind.

(17:40):
If you are curios, the curios is like an engine
for your brain that push you a little bit over
and over and and there is a special excitement, excitement
when you have a problem and there is no tool,
no solution, and you think about it. I think about it,

(18:05):
and you and you invented something new and you can
I say, you came out with something very new that
to solve a problem is something that sounds like magical.
You know, you feel very very proud of yourself and

(18:26):
this is the first step. Then it's like a drug.
Then you want to to feel that emotion again. And again,
and so you are you push yourself on your own
to not surrender when you face some problem, when the
others say you can't do that because you can see

(18:48):
there is no accessible tool. Okay, but if you are
a little bit smart and patient and you ask without
one thing from the other, but just asking, gentle asking
the other people, and you have patients, and you're not
going to surrender at the first our time difficulties find

(19:15):
you came out with a solution. So you take what
it is accessible, and you try, you test, you share
with other guys your knowledge, and finally there's a magic
inside things. I remember that at that time there were

(19:37):
just a few things accessible. You know, we had very
simple screen reader or bier display with some programming language,
with our old text, no graphic at all. But with
that tools you can build the database, go inquire, inquire

(20:02):
this database, extracting data, go calculation, or playing with sounds,
for example using the stereo plan, creating games using the
pitch or of the all the stereo of the sound

(20:23):
and uh and that's it. For example, when I learn
more cod one of my first tools, it was called
c W Squala. Squala is Italian for school and It
was a tool to teach to the other amateur radio
students how to learn. It gives some words and the

(20:49):
students must enter this word with using the keyboards. It
If the word it guessed, the speed up a little bit.
If the work is wrong, the spit down a little bit.
And at the final of fifty wards received, you had
the score. And with the score you have a chart.

(21:10):
And with this chart you could challenge your friend and
the fun with it. So I convert a Sabbi task
in a sort of game, you know, and it works.
It works because many many people have tried. And now
I have the same but maybe much much better because

(21:33):
now you know, technologies increase. I have much a powerful
computer and so on. And now I have a software
on guitab. It is called CWAPU. C W is okay,
CW and APU is from Italy Zulu for Alpha Papa
uniform my call sign. And this CWAPU does the same

(21:59):
trains you in speed up with your MARS code receiving.
That's one of my favorite and most important tools I
continue to build. I continue programming all day scenes maybe
one year and off. And this was this on the

(22:24):
koos key and never give up is the key quest,
the key answer.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Absolutely absolutely, I could not I could not possibly agree more.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
That is so so good.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
And also to what you alluded to a moment ago
when you were talking about the computer software the game
that you built before you learn c W. And of
course I know I know what CW is, and so
does my father. We're both amateur radio people too. We
aren't doing the hobby at this particular moment in time,
but we know, we know of it, and we have
a long history with amateur radio. So certainly I know CW,

(22:59):
and I know I know of c W. I don't
know you know, I know some of the some of
the letters for those who are, you know, not so familiar.
It's a system basically. The way I would describe it
in one sentence is Morse code is a system of
dits and dashes that is used to communicate over over
the airwaves, and then it's heard as pulses beeps, which

(23:20):
are perceived as dits or dashes as we say in English.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
But no, the really thing, the thing that really stands
out to me, that I think is a very subtle
thing that blind people all over the world need to
learn is that for you to be successful, you had
to be curious, but you also had to be realistic
and cautious. You had to gently You really touched on it,
and it really touched me. You gently reached for the
right information. And I think this is something that is

(23:47):
so misunderstood and not understood by blind people all over
the world, is that everybody wants to get, you know,
all of the information. It seems to me that you
took little bites of the right information and walked in
the right direction. So when you build that game for
your computer, you know what, like, what was the game

(24:07):
that you were able to build and what did the
game do when you when you build that game?

Speaker 4 (24:11):
Yeah, okay, so commenting the first part of your speech, Yeah,
I totally agree.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
When you grow up with a healthy problem, we can
we may say disability or yeah you have some disability.
Usually people divided in two different ways. Many of them

(24:43):
stay living on their couches watching TV with their parents
until they are very very adult, you know, and they
think the world is too much hard to be faced,
they want all out on their own, or they consider

(25:04):
impossible many many things that usually people do in life. Okay,
another category category of people otherwise, on the other hand,
won't be helped by everyone, because as I am so unlucky,

(25:25):
you must help me and you must do what what
what I want you do for me, okay, And these
two ways to to behave is failure failure both because
obviously the best way to face your life is it

(25:48):
to bring inside your disability, to consider it just part
of yourself, like like the color of your hair or
the color of your eye, how much you're told, okay,
just like a parameter of yourself. And if you do that,

(26:09):
the other people when when they look at you, they
see they saw first the keep the person, and then
the disability. Otherwise they will see first disability and maybe
then the person you are. And if you got this

(26:29):
second way, the life will be a hard challenge for you. Okay.
Coming to the second part, Well, I did many games,
many games. Some are very stupid, very simple, other other
are a little bit complicated. For example, when I was

(26:55):
pretty young, I had a oh, well, I had a
painting ninety computer with Windows ninety five, and there is
just one of the first versions of Jaws in that way,

(27:17):
and I built a little bit, a little bit of
poker machine game. But to take it unconventional and a
little bit interesting. I uh did it in a way.
It says that the card comes out, you know, Queen

(27:38):
of Spades and whatever, not by voice, but but in
c W, so you can you have to be be
good on receiving c W and then play play poker. Well.
Then another another tool I did there was Football Football

(28:07):
Manager Football Soccer Online, which which is accessible. It's a
game from Sweden. It's called Factory Hatstreak dot or org
hatter dot org. When you have to manage a football
a soccer team and bring it from your village church

(28:29):
to win the world championship, you know, and manage everything.
And it's a very very complex game, but pretty accessible, okay.
And I developed a tool to support it that you
put all your players in a dB. And this dB,
using statistics and other mathemats and other maths, helps you

(28:53):
to decide what player key to, what player to train,
what player to to sell, how to train young young
players and whatever. Okay, if if I think I could
a recall to my mind many other things I did,

(29:16):
but I don't know if they are so interesting for
your listeners back to you haven't.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Well, I mean, all of this is very very interesting
to me, and it's certainly going to be interesting to
the listeners. Absolutely, yeah, definitely. You know, this is all
really really really incredible that you took the time to
do this. And I you know, I mean, even me
growing up in the United States, I have heard of

(29:44):
this very you know, I have. There are not many
other times where I've heard of stories like yours where
somebody has this level of curiosity and applies it in
such a great way, you know, in such a graceful
and like beautiful way that you applied your knowledge. It's
really touching and really really special. Yeah, and then certainly

(30:06):
you got into the whole game of chess.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Now.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
Chess is a fascinating thing. It's been around for thousands,
thousands of years. Chess is an interesting game because, as
you know, there are sixty four squares on the board.
And although we would like to think, no, I never
got good enough at chess to make it worth my while,
but it's still an incredible hobby. You know. Although we

(30:31):
like to think that there are an unlimited number of
probabilities and plays and choices that you can make on
a chess board, I would argue that actually there is
a limitation because we only have sixty four squares. So
what can you tell me about your interest in chess
and how you mastered the game and the things you've
accomplished in the chess world, because that's really special.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
Okay, thank you for the question. This is one of
my favorite hobby. Study chess all days and I participate
too many tournaments both online and in presents. In three days,
on July twenty first, I will live for Gallatina in

(31:19):
Pulia region in the south of Italy, where we have
our blind Italian Chess Championship that lasts for one week
and we stay there altogether, playing one against each other
and whatever. Okay, the chess enter in my life thanks

(31:39):
to my grandfather when I was young, seven or eight
years old, see me, came all day to my home
and helped me to do school homework, you know, and
it says, if you finish your homework on time, then

(32:03):
we play chess and I will. First he taught me
the rules, you know, how the pieces move around this
beautiful universe of sixty four galaxies. And then so I
do my homework and then we do our one game

(32:27):
each day for years. Then when I grow up and
became twelve thirteen. Other interests interesting came to my mind.
For example, I don't know girls or friends going out
and whatever, and my poor grandfather had to had to

(32:49):
play alone. And I forget says for some years until
I discover very old software called Cyrus that runs under
DOS six point twenty two at that time, and as

(33:10):
it was a text engine, a text chess engine, it
was accessible. And then it is, oh, wow, my god,
I can I can play chess against a computer. And
I start losing all my games, and they say, oh,
but I believed to be pretty good in chess, but

(33:31):
I discovered that I wasn't absolutely. Then I start studying.
A friend of me of mine read reads a book
for me, and then buy a packet radio radio, which
is a way that amateur radio can use in to

(33:53):
send the text message through the DBS or packet station.
There were a network of chess lover and I start playing,
not in real time, you know, but one two three
moves per day or each two three days. And and
I had this very very long game, maybe three four

(34:16):
months long, until some website arrives like chess dot com,
game not and whatever, and we and we can and
we blind also could play on real time with all
the other players all over the world. Chess, it's more

(34:40):
than a game, it's a sport. Is the most beautiful
game the humanity has discovered, invented. He passes along three
thousand years of history, He passes through religions, gender, nations, government, uh, geography, distance. Okay,

(35:11):
it changes a little bit, but the soul of this game,
of this sport remains remained the same, and it fascinated
people from all ages on this planet. And there are
haron some games maybe play two two years ago, two

(35:33):
hundred years ago, one hundred years ago, that I studied
from past championship, which are soul that I feel, emotions
like like cited people could could feel in front of
a painting like the Joconda or from another famous painting.

(35:57):
There are situations so complicate in a chess game where
if a single piece fall down, falls down, all the
positions fall down, and all the other thirteen fourteen fifteen
pieces fall down, that they are kept up just by

(36:21):
one single poe and the mind who could concept this
incredible paint it was a simple genius genius to me, okay,
And when you think that that mind belonged to a

(36:43):
body who is disappeared two hundred, three hundred years ago.
You couldn't feel astonished. You know, it's very fascinating and
also chess it's wonderful because it doesn't matter if you

(37:05):
have sighted or not, if you have the sight or not,
if you have two arms or four arms, if you
have three legs, if you have two heads, if you
are a male female, if you are not male or female,
if you speak New Zealand Japanese, it doesn't matter. In chess,

(37:27):
you have only one set of rule. It is your brain,
your naked brain on a table together your opponents naked brain,
and these two brains fight one against each other, no
matter what the body, what bodies they live in. It's

(37:52):
just a matter of deepness of thought, of your ability
to forecast the future, your psychology skill to know when
it's time to attack, when it's time to defend, when
it's time to give a glance, a glance to the

(38:14):
clock and decide how to use the remaining time on
your clock, because you know all the games are with
the clock, and you see if you are just one move,
one move from a chess mate, but you finish the time,
you lost the game. So the time is the invisible

(38:36):
piece on the chess board. But it's important as much
as the other you know. And now I start serious
with chess in twenty or five, two thousand and five.
But nowadays we have many many a chessible tool, we

(38:58):
have books, we have the artificially intelligence that can read
the diagrams and positions for us. We have leeches dot org.
It's very important, I say again, I say it again
for your listeners. It's Lima, India, Charlie Hotel, Echo Sierra
Sierra Dot Oscar Radio Golf, which has as the first

(39:24):
at the very top of the page one button that
says enable accessibility mode. If you push that, the website
changes itself and it becomes almost not totally unfortunately, I
have to say eighty five percent accessible. And you could

(39:46):
learn and play chess for free in your own language
against people from all over the world. And I invite
with my all of my heart everybody to dive in
this adventure because it's a vitamins for your brains, for

(40:07):
your brain. It's a really strong strong vitamin. You know,
as you go to the gym to keep your body health,
chess is the same gen for brain. I guess.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
So back to you, Hieron, You're so correct. I cannot
possibly agree with you more. Chess is so beneficial, and
you're very right. As a podcaster myself, I have to
take care of my brain and body all the time.
I exercise physically and emotionally every day by exercising, walking
around my neighborhood, eating a healthy diet. I mean, you're
so right. All of these little things together make all

(40:44):
the difference in the world. You know, you are so
correct too. When you look back at some of these
chess games throughout history, what it really shows is that
people have not changed much at all over time. That
if you were a brilliant person like you are today,
there were other geniuses hundreds of years ago that also
had the same level of curiosity that you do. And

(41:06):
that's that's why it's so touching. You know, often in
American society you learn about, you know, the the forefathers
of our country, and history is one of my favorite topics,
by the way, So you know, oftentimes we read the
Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights or different
documents from our our nation's past, and I think a
similar thing. I think, Wow, you know, all of these

(41:27):
people who wrote these papers are long since dead, but
I'm glad they wrote the things they did because they're
also brilliant people and things like that. So it's a
very similar thing. Yeah, you are, You are so right.
Surely you've read the book The Immortal Game, which is
a great book about the history of chess. That's a
great one to read for listeners who want to learn

(41:48):
more about that, and it's it's really really competitive and
really compelling. So what has been the biggest chess tournament
you've ever participated in, and what what chess tournament would
be your dream ornament that you would want to win.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
Well, I would say I would like to be better
than I am. Unfortunately I begin with chess uh at
the late age. You know, because if you dream to
make the chess your main activity in life, also for earning,

(42:26):
earning some money, just winning tournament or gives giving classes,
you have to begin, or you have to be a
real genius to be full of talent, or you have
to to start when you are very young at the

(42:48):
primary school. I made. It's not my case. So I
do all my all of my I do my best,
and you know, we we in chests. We are in
an endless stare. You know, you always have steps below you,

(43:08):
below you and step above you, and it doesn't matter
to be to sit down on the top of the
Olympus mountain. The goal that you have is to defeat yourself,
defeat yourself day by day or just step up months

(43:33):
after months. So one of the best experience I have
made in the past is when I participate to French
Championship in I guess it was in in Lyon in France,
and it was great, yeah, because I I win some

(43:59):
very hard game, but moreover for social things because I
knew I I you know, I knew very nice, nice
uh person other French players. We are still friends and
we sometimes uh chat to each other. And Chess is

(44:20):
also you know, good for this reason because you enter
in a world and having this shared interest interest it's
it's make it easy to to make new friendship and
and then you can go to visit them, to participate

(44:44):
to their tournament or invite them in Italy to enlarge
your your networker and it's nice. Okay, So I don't
have a specific dream in a sense, I want to
be the first one in Italy because it's you know,
as you said before, I had to be realistic and

(45:06):
it's it's a little bit out of my target. My
best friend person which is the president of the as
C I d Our Italian Association for the Blind, is
the number two in Italy. We are a very friends.
And when I lost, I lost. When I lost lost

(45:28):
a game, I called him and we analyze my We
we analyzed my game and explain. He explains me why
I lost that game, and I did the say. I
do the same with the people who are weaker than me.
For example, since November night, twenty twenty four last year,

(45:58):
I started a class with twenty six newbies, twenty six
blind and partially cited people in Italy who want to
learn chess. And we had a WhatsApp group and I
did twenty twenty five lessons and now we organize our

(46:19):
internal small tournament with all of my students and we
are having lots lots of fun. Were also the God
of Love visited us because I knew that two of
my students became a couple. That's it. Back to your island.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
And so endearing, basically, so basically, basically, just just to
have this documented, your greatest accomplishment in the chess world
is that you help people to get married.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
Yeah, it's what's probably the best way I took.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
That's that's true, that's adorable. That's that's really really sweet,
and it really goes to show though intellectually, apart from
being very silly and very humorous, actually it really goes
to show that chess truly is about the relationship of
our brain and the way that our brain interprets choices.
So absolutely, that's really good. Are you still in contact

(47:25):
with this French chess player today, because you know, the
reason I would ask is somebody like that is also
welcome on the podcast. So if you ever find people
GABRIELI in the future, who you know in your life,
in the chess world or wherever you know them, other
blind people who would also like to be interviewed, you're
welcome to if you like, you're welcome to share this
information and share my podcast with them and help me

(47:46):
get connected with French people or people from all over
the world. You do know that I speak French by
the way, and language acquisition and being a bilingual guy,
that's one of my passions in life too. But that's
really cool that you got to go to Lyon. I've
never been to I've been all over France, but not
I don't think I've been to Lyon. But that's really good.
It's super super cool man. Yeah, absolutely, there's a lot

(48:08):
of interesting tournaments for chess all over the world. And
the longer you stay here in the Aaron's Opinion family,
I don't know how many other people are into chess
like that, but this is certainly appreciated and that's truly,
truly incredible. Absolutely. Yeah. So when you look at though,
let's think of another question that's important to think about
when we talk about chess. You know, there are sixty

(48:32):
four squares on the board. Now I'm going to parallel
this with things that are going on today right now,
Surely you know and understand that there are many conflicts
going on in the world, and there's many problems around
the world. So what do you think when you think
of the world, if you are going to think of
the world through the lens of a chess player, right,

(48:53):
how does chess really help us to solve global problems?
You know, what are some things that we can learn
about solving problems in the world world just by playing chess.
What do you think it teaches.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
Us, well, I think it's a wonderful dream. Uh maybe
I'm unrealistic, because you know, the the people who move
the power along the nation and governments, those people are

(49:26):
really blind in the full sense of the word. And
they are playing, yes, but not something clean as a
as a playing a chess game. But they are playing
dirty because they are playing not only with their life,
but also with the life of unnguilty people. It would

(49:52):
be great to solve our to solve the words problem
in the middle in the Middle East, for example, or
in Russia and Ukraine by organizing a chess tournament. It
would be it would be a fantastic dream. But I

(50:14):
suppose they they wouldn't agree with this. So what what
we can say is that.

Speaker 5 (50:26):
Sess is a war game at the hand because there
are many strategies and tactics, tactics, logistics, problem solving psychologies.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
So you need you need to be also kind of
aggressive in the time you are playing. You have to
be a little bit rude on your opponent. And I mean,
but only see only in in between the start and

(51:06):
the and the gains hands, not out of the chessboard.
We are all friends. You're shaking hand of your opponent,
especially if you lose. Okay, and and this uh, this
is a very uh spoor, very spot behavior. Unfortunately, in

(51:27):
the nowadays uh situation, it's not like that. And you
you could easily understand that. Just turn on your your
television in every channel and see what is going on.
I think, and I really want to be wrong, that

(51:50):
we are closer, we are closest to the World War
number three as we never had until now after after
the Second War. It is maybe the worst situation I
ever see in uh in in my in my life. Unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Yeah, yeah, you're you know, you're you're that's absolutely correct.
I do, I do understand what you mean. I don't know, man,
I think you know chess. I think though that although
you're right, playing a tournament would not solve the problems
in the Middle East or Ukraine or in any country,
and there are many problems in every single country, even
in America, there are problems, believe it or not, which

(52:36):
is something that is misunderstood by many of my students
to whom I teach online, which is what I do
when I'm not doing this. I'm basically a lecturer specializing
in English as a second language. But anyway, I think
though that that the thing that chess can teach anybody,
whether you're good at it like you are, or not
good at it like I am, is that chess. Chess
can teach us though that there are consequences to every action, right,

(52:59):
Like like has said, every action has an equal and
opposite reaction, and we can learn to calculate and predict
future behavior, which is what I think chess really really
can impress upon a young person is that there are
there are good things and bad things about the way
we behave and there are always that all of our behavior,

(53:21):
whether it's physical, mental, psychological, you know, regardless of how
we are behaving, any action we take can both be
predicted and calculated. And I think that's what is really
the true takeaway. In addition, in addition, and in including
everything you've said, which is one hundred percent correct, but
I think it really teaches us that we need to

(53:42):
be able to predict future behavior. Now, now that of
course has its limitations. I mean, look at algorithms, right,
look at algorithms on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram or TikTok.
I mean, surely there's not a perfect solution. But if
we can start to predict things with accuracy, then we
would be moving towards more of at least a reasonable
solution to all of that stuff, you know. But yeah,

(54:05):
I think that's really really fascinating stuff. And go for it. Man.
If you want to keep playing chess and inviting people
to join your group and keep educating people about the importance,
go do it. That's that's a great, a great gift. Absolutely,
that is.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
The other thing you're very knowledgeable about, and we touched
on it before, but I want to walk through it
with you a little bit more in depth. Is amateur
radio the history of course, as you know of Samuel B. Moose,
the creator arguably one of the most important people ever
in history of many important people, sam you'll be Moose,

(54:42):
you know, and the whole development of amateur radio. So
from your perspective, you know, what can you tell me
if somebody comes to you and says they have no
idea what amateur radio is, walk us through the history
of that, because this is a lot of fun too.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
Yeah, thank you for this nice question. Yeah, to close
with chests, your I totally agree with your form is
a beautiful thought you had. I could just add that
when you start playing a chess game, you are in
a perfect balanced situation. Okay, you are in zero. Your

(55:20):
balance is absolutely in the middle, and each big or
small mistake you do shake this balance from one side
or to the other side. And so this is a
very nice tool to learn that every action has a consequence.

(55:46):
And moreover, in chess, you have no the lucky factor.
You have no lucky or unlucky. You have no random
you know, it's all from you and all from your opponents.
And this is a scientific game, scientific sport, no lucky

(56:06):
at all. Okay. Amateur radio another interesting hobby. When I
was six sixteen, one day my father came at home
with a very old radio. It was a CB Citizen

(56:26):
band and it uses it on his boat, you know,
because he finishes into the airgraphic and every ship must
have a radio inside. And he that day he changes
with a new one and brought to me this old
radio and put it on the table and he said,

(56:51):
let's try it. Maybe you have fun. I turned it
on and I heard like, and well, it's broke. It's sorry,
it is broken. It doesn't work. And my father said, ah,
it's not breaking. You need an antenna and I said
antenna what And then I asked him to go back

(57:14):
to the harbor and bring also an antenna for me.
And it was this long piece of metal wire that
I put outside of my windows. I turned on and
with a knob a knob, I start surfing the channel
and and something magic it opens to me because I

(57:38):
heard a conversation in between two girls from a small
village two three kilometers from my house. And then I
pushed the button and I said, hey, you hear me,
and one girl said, yes, we hear you, but you
have to to ask to enter. And I said, oh sorry,

(58:01):
I had at know the rules here and so yeah,
since then it's begin. It began. It began a very
nice adventure. Then I discover all the citizen band, and
then I discovered the S s P another way to
communicate with on on other frequencies and with more power

(58:27):
that goes you can receive and go farther than UH
than just the nearborg the nearboro village, and I did
my first UH contact with say d X stands for
a distance call outside of Italy. Then I started receiving

(58:51):
a QSL card from France, Germany, England, Spain, Portugal and
then I became part of a group and starting counting
all the countries. I confirmed with the Qso then I
passed the Italian government exams to get the call sign

(59:15):
IC for APU and the Morse code is King. So
what what is the sense of the amateur radio in
a world when you can be in touch with everybody
using internet? Ah, it's like the difference. It's like the

(59:37):
difference that you have to go buying a nice fish
at the shop or to go fishing on the lake
or in the sea. Okay, with internet, everything is easy.
You have a contact and we type and send and
press enter and you are in touch. Using the radio,

(01:00:02):
you have to know how the radio propagation waves works
and build your own station, buying radio and install big
antennas on top of your roof, and understanding that certain
countries can be heard during the sunset, for example just

(01:00:27):
in autun or springtime, or certain in in in winter,
certain other other just in certain frequencies, and then you
go for a collection. More hard is the country to

(01:00:47):
to contact. For example, I don't know Galapagos Island or
the excess expedition in South Paul or a Vatican city.
You may say or I don't know, a rock fifty
meters square rock in the middle of the South Pacific
Ocean and more good you are as an amateur radio,

(01:01:12):
then you can experiment also because you have the voice,
your voice pecking into the microphone to make contexts. But
you could also do in telegraphy more sCOD and it
is much much more challenging. Or you could experiment with

(01:01:34):
other way of sending and receiving data using computers in SSTV,
in RTTY in ft eight ft four. There are many, many,
many kind of protocols you can send on the air,

(01:01:55):
and there are this propagation which is our our I
mean our amateur radio god the divinity, because one night
with one hundred whats you could reach a place at

(01:02:16):
forty fifty sixty miles from your home. The day after
with the same condition you could reach Tokyo in Japan
and speak to another amateur radio has it as he
was sitting close to you on your shack, you know.

(01:02:37):
And it's magical. And the propagation depends from the solar
spot season, time of the day, weather condition, your kind
of antennas that you have exists horizontal or vertical antenna,

(01:02:58):
your kind of radio the frequent see you are using
and you could be lucky. For example, you could talk
with Samantha Christopherretti on the ISS starship and I mean
space station. Okay, And that's this, that's this hobby. Moreover,

(01:03:25):
you have to keep a log book where you keep
all of your contact you made time, frequency, name of
your contacted amateur radio. You could you could exchange a
QS and card which is like the postcard and and

(01:03:45):
and show your friends the collection of the postcard from
all corners all over the world you get. And then
with computer you can have a great statistics, sorry, you
can have great statistics and see where you be able

(01:04:08):
to reach with your patients with your chasing activity. Because
sometimes you know, you know the Galapagos, it's online maybe
at two and off in the morning, and you have
to get up from the bed and try and trying
to to to have a qso to have a contact

(01:04:29):
with the Galapagos island. But you are not the only one,
and all the words want to contact them. And maybe
there there is a poor man who can have time
just to do a hundred or two hundred QSOs and
then live with the boat. And if you are one
of these two hundred. Luckis you can get you can

(01:04:50):
get his QSL card and you and you and you're great.
That's the the sense. But there is much much, much
much more. Okay, then want to annoying your listeners, so
microphone back to you, Adam.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
Not a problem. You're absolutely right. It's a lot of
fun for people, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
Yeah, And the.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
Original the original source for all of this and why
and how this hobby developed, at least in the United
States was, as you know, during the Cold War and
shortly after World War Two, people felt the need to
be able to come together as a nation and defend
the nation if there was ever a national emergency. So
although amateur radio is a fun hobby for people like

(01:05:38):
us around the world, it's it's not it was actually
not intended to be entertainment. It was intended, at least
in the United States, to be a form of protecting
our country and readying our citizens to respond to urgent
matters in our in our society. So it actually started
out as something that was a serious matter, but of

(01:06:00):
time it's become more and more interesting for people as
as a hobby. You're very you're very very right.

Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, I'm I'm sorry.

Speaker 6 (01:06:11):
Yeah, yeah, super yeah, super right now in I mean
in time of peace or not or not ecological disaster.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
It's just an hobby, but he has been developed as
a tool for protect the country. And for example, when
a disaster came, maybe the mobile mobile cell network could
fall off, but not the the the radio waves that

(01:06:48):
always that is always on and always permitted to people
allow people to communicate one to each other. And for example,
most most code was invented yeah by by Morse and
used by Gudielmo Marconi wireless for the first time in

(01:07:08):
nineteen oh seven, nineteen oh seven, Yes, and it saves
lots of lives preventing disaster in with ships in both
then since nineteen ninety four it has been substituted by

(01:07:28):
more efficient protocols using satellites and it remained remains just
for you know, for for amateur radio followers, lovers, you know.
But yes, you're totally right. The first goal it's to

(01:07:49):
establish a net who is resilient to catastrophes.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Right exactly, And it was it was intended at the
time it was intended. It was developing time period where
there were where there were no other means of communicating that.
That's why it was more I mean, it's super important
to you to us now obviously, but it was even
more magical in the past because people were not able,
especially if you come from an isolated country, which the

(01:08:17):
United States ironically is one of the more isolating places. Sure,
we have Canada to our north, Mexico to our south,
and some islands to our southeast, and you know, but
but America, relatively Gabrielle is a relatively isolated place geographically,
you know. So for an American to send a message
in the early nineteen hundreds and somebody in England to

(01:08:39):
be able to pick up the other end and say, yeah, hello,
good e, you know, I hear you, that was like
magical to them back then. That was truly like science
fiction of of today, you know. So that that one
is actually equally important today, but more more magical then
than now, you know, because we can, you know, transmit
all sorts of signals now and we think nothing of it,

(01:09:02):
at least most people who certainly don't have the appreciation
that you and I do, would think nothing of it.
But a long time ago, these things were a big deal,
you know, And I ironically not to create a parallel,
because there's not a parallel to amateur radio. But you know,
when you're a podcaster, you also get data from what
countries download your show, So there is some similarity there actually,

(01:09:24):
because I can see that when I send out my episodes,
I can see what countries around the world are hearing
what I'm saying. So there is some similarity actually in
that sense, you know, because you can keep track of
your countries and where we're being downloaded from. Interestingly, in
case you were going to wonder, lately we've been receiving here,
there's opinion we've been getting a lot of downloads from

(01:09:45):
countries in the Balkans, as we say in English, places
like Bosnia and but what's that other place Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
Places in Macedonia.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Yes, yes, yes, which is interesting because yes, North Macedonia. Yes,
I do have download from North No, Northern Macedonia. It's
what it's called in the in the chart. Yeah, there's
a chart that shows you when you're a podcast that
shows you what the country is, how many downloads, and
even what parts of the country. So for instance, I
could open the Italian list and see, okay, what cities
are downloading Errand's opinion lately, right, and i'd be able

(01:10:21):
to tell and obviously surely you know, and surely you
wouldn't be surprised that if you download enough episodes, I'd
be able to see, oh, Bologna, and then it would
show me like the number of downloads within a certain
period of time, so that day. Wow, oh very absolutely,
absolutely very interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:10:37):
And yeah, right, it's a sort of evolution of the
amateur radio. It's a different, different kind to transmit your
your faults, but it is the same concept to establish
an nett and and to a net and and and
to spread your your thought and create your network. And yeah,

(01:11:00):
I'm very fascinating from the statistics. And I really would
like to see and understand what the board of your
podcast could tell, could tell you about how it is downloaded,
where and what and from who. It's nice, I mean,

(01:11:22):
what it tells.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Surely it is not something I fixate on at all,
And I mean I don't really look at it much,
just once in a while, just for fun, just like
you do with your radio hobby. I don't worry about
the country count. But it's good to know who is
receiving your knowledge, is what it's about you know. For me,
I noticed that, and I think there is a lot
to be said for it that I get downloads from
countries that are developing. I get a lot of countries,

(01:11:45):
I get a lot of listeners from from developing countries.
And what that shows me intellectually is that people in
the developing world need knowledge, is what it shows, so
they need to learn from us. Is what it shows. Improves.
But it's painfully interesting. But certainly I don't look at
it and concern myself with it at all, but it
is good to know. And of course, when you listen

(01:12:06):
to any podcast, whether it's Aaron's Opinion or any of
the podcasts you would you would download, know that if
you push download on any podcast, the creator of that
podcast can tell exactly that Bologna. They can see that
there was a download from Bologna. If you download. Of
course there's metrics and certainly there's you know, a length
of episode. You have to download a certain percentage of

(01:12:27):
each episode, obviously for a certain percentage of time to
get into the computer. But it has to be like that,
and then they'd be able to tell, oh, you know,
Bologna downloaded five episodes and then the host can then tell, well,
I know that that I got five downloads from that city,
and that means that probably they listened to the last
five episodes. So again it goes back to predicting future behavior. Right,

(01:12:49):
where do I think I'm going to get downloads from
next week? Well? Probably I don't know, Northern Macedonia, Kosovo,
places like that, places that I've never been.

Speaker 3 (01:12:58):
But I'm glad they downloaded.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
And yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you had a lot of
amateur radio contacts? Do you get q Do you have
QSL cards from like Kosovo and Bosnia and those countries
and as we call it in English by the way,
we call that region the Balkans in English. Do you
have a lot of contacts from the Balkans?

Speaker 3 (01:13:18):
Yeah, I paink did have at least from from five
to fifteen qs QSL card from all of this country.
I missed in that area. I miss just one little
little little independent state in Greece, which is Mountain Mountain

(01:13:45):
Atos Mountain atos Is, It's an independent state. And with
the prefixed sugar Victor to Alpha, I wasn't able to contact.
But all the costs of all Macedonia or Macedonia and Curatia,
Slovenia and whatever I have, I have it all. I

(01:14:08):
think that I'm one, maybe nine ninety seven percent in Europe. Yeah,
and the top tally. So there are three hundred forty
different countries all over the world, and I work two
hundred forty one of them, and I got youself from

(01:14:30):
two hundred to nine of them. That's incredible. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
See, that's an incredible The listener at home probably doesn't understand,
but that's a major accomplishments. That's something to be proud
of forever. That's a huge deal, huge, huge deal. Oh yeah,
that's so good. That's so good. Yeah, as we say
in the amateur radio mega seventy three, seventy three to
you for sure, good luck, and seventy three for.

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):
That's thank you, seventy three to you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
That's a seventy three first. That's incredible. That's a ridiculous accomplishment.
And I you know, and over time podcasts get downloaded
and we say to ourselves, we say, that's an accomplishment too,
and it but but in a different way. You know,
to get a physical postcard, now they're electronic. Now, surely
you know you can build your electronic QSL card, just

(01:15:15):
like I have an electronic business card for Aaron's opinion
now that has like all my plugs, all my contacts
for how people can get in touch, and yeah, with
electronic business That's the thing with these hobbies now, man,
is that over time the Internet and technology has infiltrated.

Speaker 3 (01:15:31):
In both good ways and bad.

Speaker 1 (01:15:33):
Technology has infiltrated hobbies so much that the technology has
kind of changed the hobby. It's kind of taken the
charm out of a lot of things and added new
charms in. But yeah, yeah, wow, holy moly.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
Yeah nothing agree, yes, sure, And when you're we have
QS card right now, both on paper and both digital
q card, there are service online to exchange with no
time lapses immediately. Okay, the cure's a car, but many

(01:16:06):
Alata Radio still like to receive the papers.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
One yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's part of the
because it's part of the physical connection. It's part of
the charm of knowing that you help someone have a
good day and that you connected with them and you
made the connection, and that's what it's really, that's what
it's truly about, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
So when you're not doing all of.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
These things, I also understand that you spend a lot
of time working for for this, I believe you work
for the city of Bologna. Right, you work in a
music do you work in a museum? What exactly do
you do for work? By the way, if you don't
mind me asking, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:42):
I no problem at all. Yes, I'm employee for a
company called g Jenus bon Genus Bononia. There are two
Latin words. Generals means people and Bonogne means or from Bologna,
people from Bologna, ancient people from Bologna. Maybe Genus Bologna

(01:17:06):
is an us our SRL society that manage historical some
historical building here in the city center. They have four
building and they they manage exhibition paint exhibitions in this building.

(01:17:32):
Some building have open space, open area, and they brought
painting or sculpture or ancient musical instruments from Bologna, but
also from other parts of Italy and sometime also from abroad.

(01:17:53):
For example, back in twenty sixteen, they brought in Bologna
La Ragazza the Quinola, which is a very very famous
painting from Netherlands means the girl from the with perl
fir ring hearing. What the jewel you put on your hair.

(01:18:18):
You know, I don't know the English name. Maybe hearing
something like it's a small ring that you put on.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Your here oh here year yeah, yes, yeah you put
in that would be an ear ring, yes, hering yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:18:32):
Yeah, Okay, I'm sorry for the worries. Okay, And yes,
I employee with them, and they do info line and
info mail. So the people call me asking about the
too to reserve for reservations, to to book school visit

(01:18:52):
or to by exhibitions catalog, or to having information about
what painting are exposed, or what the the scheduled time
to to visit or if they yeah, well they they
lost some items, or if they there's an availability for

(01:19:19):
these disabled people or whatever, and they send they send
me email or they call my then my business number,
and it's that's that's my job.

Speaker 1 (01:19:31):
Sounds good, that's that's that sounds like a lot of fun.
It sounds like you would get a lot of characters,
people calling to arrange real tours. But then every once
in a while you'll get your prank calls and you're
silly people that just just right they just want to
call you just to just just for for for something
to do for something like that. But that's that's really
really cool stuff. I've traveled all over the world and

(01:19:51):
I love doing like history stuff like that. So I
absolutely love historical museums and and I'll go out of
my way to learn about the history of place, and
it's it's all really really really cool stuff. Yeah, yeah,
that's so. Have any Americans ever come come to your
museum where you work?

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
Yeah? Yes, maybe the most represented country as a visitors
are here is Spain, French and German, but obviously because
they are closer in the American but we also have
kind of part of a couple of American college here

(01:20:36):
in Bologna, and so it's not rare to see American
students around here. And I certainly stad see uh, certainly
so American classes visit the building where I work.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
Wonderful, so good, so good. Absolutely, yeah, really really really
cool man. And then the only other thing, as if
we haven't covered the whole universe today, the only other thing,
or one of the many other things that I one
of the final things that I wanted to ask you before,
I will, as you probably know, turn the microphone in
the other direction and let you ask some questions. So

(01:21:20):
you've also done some scuba diving. Scuba diving is something
that I've never done, but I'm painfully interested by it.
So what can you tell me? And what's your perspective
about scuba diving? And how did you get into that?

Speaker 3 (01:21:33):
Yeah, and there was a very out How can I
say what? A man is not a standard man, you know,
a very independent thinker, very strange people, but in a
good sense. It was my master of scuba diving. It's
his name is Tierro Greco is some Calabria region in

(01:21:57):
the south Italy, and in two thousand and five he
was a very scuba diving master. He breaks records, he
reaches one hundred seventeen meters in deep risking his life.

(01:22:18):
He won many competitions in scuba diving, doing photography pictures
in a very dangerous place. Okay, And one day he
want almost everything he could get and he was looking

(01:22:38):
for another challenge, and he says, why do not bring
blind or other visi people under the water, And all
around him he said, you're crazy. You couldn't do how
can you communicate with people under the water. They couldn't
see your phase, they couldn't see your gestures. If you

(01:22:59):
have to communicate some dangerous you couldn't. But he said, no,
I will do that, and I will bring blind people
also down syndrome people under the water. And so he
established he built up a camp in the city of

(01:23:22):
Paola in Calabria and start this class in two thousand
and five. I was one of his first students. We
were seven blind people and six down syndrome people at
that camp.

Speaker 4 (01:23:37):
And he.

Speaker 3 (01:23:39):
Invented a tactile protocol signal where the blind people touches
the master hands and there were twenty twenty five gestures
to communicate things. Example, I could ask how many air

(01:24:02):
do I have my bottle still? Or the master said
wait for me here, or we have to go up,
we have to go down, or calm down or brief slowly,
or I'm going to let you touch something dangerous okay,

(01:24:27):
and whatever. And we did a twenty day twenty days
of theory and practice theory all the physics involved in
scuba diving. What could happen if the if you lost
the mask when you are at eight ten meters down
to the water, How to be brave to not go

(01:24:53):
in panic, you know, and the maneuver to say to
retake the mask and put on your face and push
the water outside of the mask and to take your
the things where you have to blow the oxygens there.
And then we have a big swimming pool and we

(01:25:14):
start testing the scuba diving in the swimming pool. And
after twenty days we blind passes all the we all
passes the exam and the other guys with our syndrome
five on six passive the passes passing the exams. And

(01:25:35):
then we took a boat and we go into the
sea in the Tyrannean Sea and we do another two
weeks of scuba diving immersions which are something incredible fantastics.
You feel like an alien in an alien word. You

(01:25:59):
are with out any way. You know, you could move
yourself in three dimensions up or down, down, up. You
can literally fly in this blue liquid element. And you

(01:26:21):
have to fill one hundred percent confident with your master
because you also you always go down with your personal master,
your personal guide, one by one, one sided and one blind,
and you could could be in touch with him or

(01:26:45):
her by a wire or by a hand, you know,
and you go down touches the animals and plants or
sank both for example, or all the bent tonic details

(01:27:06):
which are on the sea bottom. We for example, being
in a sank Roman ship down twenty three meters down
to the sea level, and I touched you know, am
for a basis, old boxes and whatever from the the

(01:27:32):
the ancient Roman empire, and it was an incredible emotion. Incredible.
Then down below there are kind of magical silent you know,
and fishes came to you and are not scared by
but they are curios and they touches you and you

(01:27:57):
could gently touch them and see an inhabitant of another
word that lets you catch himself itself, and it's it's nice.
All the time I came up to the surface, I

(01:28:17):
had the feeling to be to be hosted in an
alien world and to have and I bring to my
bring home something special, have them back to you.

Speaker 1 (01:28:32):
My god, I was just like totally loving that when
you were explaining that, because I was totally like putting
my soul into that and feeling it right along with you,
and you were explaining that it's so cool. Man, Wow,
I adore hearing that. That's so beautiful that you had
that chance that would be that's so special, you know,
that's something that even in America, blind people would really

(01:28:54):
not have access to that experience. So that's really really cool. Man. Wow, Yeah,
if you come to the United States, we'll have to
go scuba diving sometime because that's just too cool. I
would I would love to geek out with you about that.
I really would. No, it's just kind of one of
those hobbies where it's like because I love because I
also want to go skydiving, but the thing that I

(01:29:16):
like about scuba diving more is that you can see
animals and like have more like interaction with the environment,
and you know, totally geek out about stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):
Yeah. I don't exactly know what the situation in US,
but I know there's something called h s A h
s A. You maybe could google for it and it
should could be or should be American Association for Scuba
Diving for Scuba Diving for Blind.

Speaker 1 (01:29:49):
Really, well, that's really good. I will certainly take a
look at that. That's really fascinating to know about. That's
that's excellent. Yeah, who, holy moment, you you know you
are you? You know, I knew that this would be
an utterly spectacular experience in my life, you know, absolute

(01:30:09):
honor getting to speak to you today. And it was
in fact our great Romanian friend, Uh Marianna, who told me, yeah,
you should contact this a Gualian guy named Gabrielli, and
she was right.

Speaker 3 (01:30:21):
I would like to Thankst. Marianna. Thanks, thank you Marianna
for giving me this opportunity. My only regret here is
that I can I couldn't talk in my mother tongue
language because I am a pretty good speaker in my language,
but in English, I feel like a five years old.

Speaker 1 (01:30:43):
Not at all, not at all. I didn't get that
impression at all. I didn't get that impression. H Your
English is that will never GABRIELI that will never be
an excuse. So your English is perfectly fine. You can't
get off the book just because of the English. You're
doing fine with that. It was I I could not
have asked for better, and I know you're you're fine.

(01:31:03):
But of course, Gabrielli, I am one hundred percent sure that.
Throughout this conversation and up until this point, there's always
been some questions that You've always wanted to ask Aaron
Richmond or Aaron's opinion, So what are some questions that
you really want to ask me? And some You know,
as I always like to say, if you can ask
me a question to really get under my skin, to

(01:31:24):
really make me sweat, to see if I'm worth my
salt as a podcaster. What do you Gabrielli really want
to know about me? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:31:33):
Yeah, as you know, it's very it's dangerous to to
ask me that because you know I would touch everything.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
Really try to really try, because I know you're curious,
So I know you're going to a great question.

Speaker 3 (01:31:53):
Really really really dive it. Can you give me a
picture of yourself? I'll do you look like? And also
are you married? Do you have children? Are you living alone?
What's your favorite interesting beside the podcast?

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
Sure? So I'm thirty four years old. As I said,
I'm a European guy like you, brown hair, blue eyes,
you know, basically exactly what you were picturing. Probably Am
I married? Luckily not.

Speaker 3 (01:32:28):
I live.

Speaker 1 (01:32:29):
I basically live alone in my in my kind of
studio apartment that I have. It's attached to my I
live with my family, but I have also have a
lot of privacy to do my hobbies and my teaching
work and things that I do. And that's that's kind
of the picture, kind of the picture of me, of
of who I am.

Speaker 3 (01:32:50):
For university, so I work for.

Speaker 1 (01:32:54):
I can certainly tell you exactly what it is off air,
but I work for a couple of companies that provide
English as a Second Language instruction online. Basically, it's a
software similar to Zoom where you get on with students
and you teach them English when they need to learn
English as a second language. And with that, I really
love it because I'm able to have a lot of
French students. I had a new French student yesterday, and

(01:33:15):
it's really fun for me because I'm able to go
back and forth from English to French, French to English
and use my language skills. So for me like language
acquisition and learning languages. That's my that's my that's my thing. Yeah,
so that's me when I'm not podcasting. What else I like? Well,
I like watching scary videos on YouTube. I like watching
horror videos and horror movies sometimes if they're really well done.

(01:33:38):
I love a good thriller. I love a good thrilling movie.
I love great food. I also really have acquired and
adapted an interest in baking. I love baking cake because
I love the processes of baking cake. And ingredients, and
I love making things with peanut butter. I have a
fixation with peanut butter. And do you know the word

(01:34:01):
Reese's as we say in this like's Reese's peanut butter cup.
It's a product I think from I don't know. It
might be from hershey, but I'm not don't quote me
on it anyway. I love making peanut butter desserts and
using peanuts and peanut butter in recipes. That's kind of
my fixation. I love Grete beer. I have a very

(01:34:21):
advanced palette.

Speaker 3 (01:34:22):
I love.

Speaker 1 (01:34:24):
And of course things like that. I love French food
and Italian food too. My favorite Italian meal, because you
were just about to ask me my favorite Italian Italian
meal is, of course nioku. I love nioko and I
learned how to say it from other Italian people who
because I kept on saying I love nochi, I love noki,
and they're.

Speaker 3 (01:34:42):
Like, what what? What's nochi? What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (01:34:45):
Nochi?

Speaker 3 (01:34:46):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:34:46):
And then I explained it. You know the little pasa
that are the little dumplings with cheese and potatoes inside,
and they're so delicious with a pesto sauce and a
nice old beer and they're like and they're like, no,
I don't it's it's nikol And they made me, they
made me say it. Well, it's so my favorite Italian
my favorite Italian meal is of course nioku with a

(01:35:06):
good Pioni and a good a good Italian beer or
a nice, a nice lemon cello. And of course after Oh,
trust me, man, you know you thought you were an
You thought you thought you're an adventure. You've never met me.
Trust me, I can make you sweat too.

Speaker 3 (01:35:23):
Trust me.

Speaker 1 (01:35:26):
And then and then after and then after a great meal,
after a great Italian meal. In fact, nice. Let me
tell you something, man, no city does Italian and French
food better than Niice, because you can get great Italian
and great French all at the same time. Niece is
like my favorite food city. Nobody does it better than Niice,
not even not even Bologna after a great meal, after

(01:35:48):
a great meal Italian when certainly I love my lemonchella,
or of course Grappa. I love Grappa. After Oh, I'm
trust me, I'm totally plugged into the culinary world. Trust me.
I love some great Grappa.

Speaker 3 (01:36:00):
Yeah, absolutely, okay, great, So if your Gopa pizza pizza.

Speaker 1 (01:36:08):
As long as as long as the pizza is made
by French people, because French people make better pizza than
Italian people.

Speaker 3 (01:36:16):
Don't say that to any Italian.

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
Oh I said it all the time when I was
in Niece, and everyone went with it, and everyone agreed
with me.

Speaker 3 (01:36:24):
Okay, let's say that Niece is close to Italy.

Speaker 1 (01:36:27):
I agree. Okay, some other questions. I'm sure you have
one more question that you want to ask another question.

Speaker 3 (01:36:40):
Well, no, not actually, but we may we may met
another time in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:36:47):
Maybe I am one hundred percent sure that you'll be.

Speaker 3 (01:36:50):
Able to continue this. And also about the the what
what you said before? I have this French friend of
me that play chess, get with me. It's oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know yeah, okay, cool man, cool.

Speaker 1 (01:37:08):
So when I used to play chess a long time ago,
I don't think I ever was matched with I don't
think I was ever paired with Olivia de Ville. But no,
he he's a very nice man, and he's he's a
very interesting guy.

Speaker 3 (01:37:25):
Yeah, he has maybe about four hundred people in his
online tournament, so I could in I could introduce your
podcast to him and ask to spread the word along
his mailing list and you could reach with one shot
many people.

Speaker 1 (01:37:45):
Well that you may certainly do that, and you can
certainly reach out to him and say that Aaron Richmond
from Aaron's Opinion has always wanted to interview Olivia Deville. Yes,
I I don't know if he'll remember my name or not,
because I never got good enough at chess to really
compete with him at his level, which is very advanced
like yours. But but I know the name, and he

(01:38:06):
might you know, man, he might know who Aaron Richmond
and Aaron's Opinion is. But may I don't want to
I don't want to put words in the mouth without knowing.
But he might know me or he might be like,
who what who's that? So yeah, let's discover.

Speaker 3 (01:38:19):
Yeah, you're welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:38:20):
Yeah, you're welcome if you if you like, you're always
welcome to share the podcast with him and let him
know that I would love to sit down with him
and interview him over zoom and have a great conversation
about his life. And we can speak in both English
and French. Yeah, I think he does speak English a
little bit, and and we can certainly ask questions in
French too, and things like that.

Speaker 3 (01:38:40):
Yes, yes, English too, Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:38:42):
Yeah, yeah, that's super cool that you know him. He's
he's very well known in the chess scene and very
well known in blind chess for French people. So he's
a major major's huge supporter. Absolutely absolutely, Okay, if someone
wants to get in touch with a GABRIELI, how can
you be reached? If someone would like to get in
touch with you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:01):
You can. You can find me on Facebook for those
of you who who okay, who could see I have
a little bird on top of my head in the picture.
It's my name is Gabriele Battalia g A b r
I E l E and Talia my b A t

(01:39:24):
t A g l I A Battalia and I have
this small bird on top of my head because I'm
also a crazy animal lover too, or send me an email.
I Z four A pu at Libero dot I selling

(01:39:45):
Indiat Zulu for Alpha Papa uniform at Lima India, Bravo,
Echo Romeo, Oscar dot India Tango and you are very
very welcome to contact me if you want to go
deep in chess. I'm a radio, Python programming tools or whatever,

(01:40:08):
or just to say chout right.

Speaker 1 (01:40:11):
Absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:40:14):
Very good, extremely good.

Speaker 1 (01:40:16):
Just.

Speaker 3 (01:40:19):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:40:20):
It has been an absolute honor to have you on
the show, man, and I could not have asked for better.
So certainly stay on the line here for just another
moment if you can, and of course, Gabrielli, you are
forever welcome in the Aaron's Opinion family. That was absolutely fabulous,
And of course until next time, and I'm sure there
will be a part two in multiple installments here where
we we'll have to unfold some of these concepts because

(01:40:42):
this is just too fascinating. But until then, I wish
you a wonderful, safe, healthy and happy rest of your
day over there in Bologna, and of course until next time.
Help one person today, help one million people tomorrow. Been
listening to from the computer to check sport to the
amateur radio universe with Gabrielli right here on the Aeron's

(01:41:03):
Opinion podcast, the podcast for blind people where we speak
about critical issues in the blindness community and all of
their issues from across the universe and galaxy. Gabrielle, you
did a great job, man, and we'll get to you
in a moment. If you would like my electronic business card,
please do let me know, I want to keep this
outrot pretty straightforward, but one two four zero six eight
one nine eight six' Nine Aaron's opinion six at gmail dot.

(01:41:25):
Com follow along On instagram as many of you do
At Aaron's. Opinion join the groups On facebook and On
WhatsApp Aaron's Opinion podcasting. Community if you have problems getting
into those, groups let me. Know don't forget rating and.
Reviewing The facebook page will really help us to reach
the next. Listener so of course you can do that
by going To facebook and searching For Aaron's opinion. Podcast
there you'll find the page and then you'll you'll be

(01:41:46):
able to write a review of the. Show and that's
the only way that other people find out about the
important work we, do so that's super. Important rating and,
reviewing or even better or just as, well you can
rate and review On apple or wherever you. Listen but
the cool thing With facebook is it shows your friends
what you're listening, to SO i think that's actually very very. Powerful,
anyway thank you to all the listeners this week from

(01:42:07):
The United, States, canada And. Serbia we couldn't do it without.
You and of COURSE i don't forget to follow along
On patreon and of course on, TikTok and of course
on x and YouTube At Aaron's OPINION. Tv on, YouTube
certainly you can like this, video comment below and tickledbow
notification to know when we go live next on YouTube
or actually not live, next to know when we premiere

(01:42:28):
the next video sorry on. YouTube when we premiere the
video is exactly the same, time you'll be able to
watch or listen to it On Apple podcasts or wherever
you choose to download your. Podcast so thank You. Gabrielli, well,
actually first of, All, marianna thank you for connecting me With.
Gabrielli this has been truly a spectacular, conversation one THAT
i will never forget and one THAT i will always

(01:42:48):
be appreciative. Of so thank, You Marianna. Gabrielli thank you
so much for joining us. Today you're ridiculously knowledgeable about
so many things that the majority of society has no
knowledge about at. All and the other thing that really
stood out to me is how kindly and how kind
you are about explaining complex concepts in a way that's,

(01:43:08):
understandable in a way that's. Meaningful so thank you. Man
we really couldn't have done this without you at. All
it's absolutely fascinating to hear about all your successes in
it and amateur radio and everything like. That so ALL
i can say to you IS i wish you all
the very best of. Luck you're forever welcome in The
Erin's opinion family, man and certainly from my amateur radio

(01:43:28):
heart to. Yours absolutely seventy three, men keep doing all
the great stuff you're. Doing we couldn't do it without.
You we want to take this time to thank all
the other podcasts and radio stations for continuing to Support
Aeron's opinion by playing and downloading our podcast and sharing
it out around the various groups On facebook or wherever you.
Do we couldn't do it without. You thank you to
all the other, guests past president in future who continue

(01:43:49):
to share your knowledge with us each day on the.
Show we couldn't do it without you, Either and certainly
thank you to you the listener at, home because we,
KNOW i, know we all know that there are millions
of choices in that podcasts, catalog and we thank you
for Choosing Aaron's. Opinion so thank you so, much everybody
from The United, States, Canada serbia and many other. Countries
for tuning. In we couldn't have done it without, you all, right,

(01:44:11):
Everybody we're going to go stateside for the next, one
but until, then don't. Forget this was a great, one,
Absolutely and until next, time don't. Forget. Everybody you're listening
to The Aaron's opinion. Podcast my name Is Aaron, richmond
and until next, time be well, everybody and of, course
help one, person one million people tomorrow

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From the computer to the chessboard to the amateur radio universe with Gabriele

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

From the computer to the chessboard to the amateur radio universe with Gabriele

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist