The ApostoliC Tales 1 August 2015 2 Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................6 How it All Began ...........................................................................................................7 Buon Vento Alberto ......................................................................................................9 What would be the Life without Prosecco...................................................................... 10 The Raincoat of a Lifetime............................................................................................ 12 Tennis Balls ................................................................................................................ 13 The $1400 Cashmere Sweater ...................................................................................... 15 Cashmere Sweater, part 2 ............................................................................................ 15 The Flight from Paris ................................................................................................... 16 The Barber of Salerno.................................................................................................. 17 The Mormon Conversion ............................................................................................. 18 A Kosher Experience ................................................................................................... 19 Suits for a Lifetime ...................................................................................................... 20 Italian Efficiency ......................................................................................................... 21 The Tourist................................................................................................................. 22 The Tourist Guide ....................................................................................................... 25 Gastone and the Boating License .................................................................................. 26 The Antique Furniture Connoisseur............................................................................... 27 The Race Car Driver..................................................................................................... 28 A New Antique Furniture Connoisseur .......................................................................... 29 The New Rabbi in Town ............................................................................................... 30 Alberto, the Perfect Gentleman .................................................................................... 31 A Penchant for Positivity.............................................................................................. 32 Simply Funny .............................................................................................................. 33 The Perfectionist ........................................................................................................ 34 The Gentleman with the Spicy Fowl .............................................................................. 35 Good Cop – Italian Cop ................................................................................................ 36 Hungarian Cop ........................................................................................................... 37 The Chiarissimo Debate ............................................................................................... 39 One Can be Really Stupid when One is Young! ............................................................... 40 3 The Ill-timed Flush ...................................................................................................... 42 The Phone Call in Paris ................................................................................................ 43 Discussing Suffix Trees in Dagstuhl ................................................................................ 43 The Communicative Finn ............................................................................................. 44 Is this Work? .............................................................................................................. 45 First and Last .............................................................................................................. 46 The Tomato Sauce ...................................................................................................... 47 Culture ...................................................................................................................... 48 Alberto and Driving ..................................................................................................... 49 Sgroppino .................................................................................................................. 49 The Race .................................................................................................................... 50 De Crecenzo ............................................................................................................... 50 Sailing ....................................................................................................................... 51 Prosecco Ritual ........................................................................................................... 52 Cacio e Pepe .............................................................................................................. 52 Alberto the Practical ................................................................................................... 53 They are with Me ........................................................................................................ 53 Totó .......................................................................................................................... 54 Rich’s Passport ........................................................................................................... 55 Noventa Padovana ...................................................................................................... 56 Friday Pizza ................................................................................................................ 57 The Levenshtein-distance ............................................................................................ 58 The Ride to Georgia-Tech Lorraine ................................................................................ 58 Bielefeld .................................................................................................................... 59 Alberto’s voice ........................................................................................................... 60 Proof of Research ....................................................................................................... 61 Brother ...................................................................................................................... 62 Alberto Policies for Visits ............................................................................................. 64 Elegance .................................................................................................................... 65 Trascina faccende, Alberto!.......................................................................................... 66 Alberto's Axioms ......................................................................................................... 68 The Story of Feltino ..................................................................................................... 69 La novella di Feltino .................................................................................................... 70 The Annotated Translation of the Summary ................................................................... 73 4 How do I Thank you? ................................................................................................... 74 Alberto's 60th Birthday ................................................................................................ 75 Condolences .............................................................................................................. 77 Alberto Apostolico, 1948–2015 .................................................................................... 89 5 Introduction Dear Friends, I was not surprised to see that most of the condolences sent after Alberto's passing away stressed Alberto's unique personality. Alberto was a scientist who contributed some seminal insights to pattern matching, for example the Augmented Suffix Tree, parallel algorithms for Stringology, or the study of quasiperiodicity. He was also one of the founders of our community. Nevertheless, what everyone remembered and reminded was his generous personality: generous to students and colleagues, generous to the field and to the founding of other fields. Computational Biology started at the pattern matching community, and Alberto always wanted to encourage growth and collaboration with others. We all know of research areas where one needs to constantly walk with one's back to the wall, lest he be stabbed in the back by a colleague. Pattern Matching is the opposite of that! My wife, who joined us this year for CPM, and who is used to medical conferences, remarked with amazement at what a great atmosphere there was at the conference! Friends, this is clearly a result of the years of personal example