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Notes on this Bluesky Moment

Some late reflections on Bluesky user growth and the state of social networks.

A plain blue sky with a white cloud.

In the last couple of months, Bluesky, one of the many post-Twitter attempts to reshape the landscape of social networks, is living its best moment. Powered by Twitter’s blunders and by the continuous alienation provided by his power-hungry owner, Bluesky doubled its user base from around 10 millions users to the current 24 millions. It is time to annotate some of my thoughts.

The Changelog – November 2024

The one when I won NaNoWriMo (again) and did little of anything else.

A golden autumnal tree I met during a walk in the park.

It was a more stable month, where I focused on NaNoWriMo and on training my writing muscle once again. I read a lot less, but I still had some good movies and series to recommend.

The Changelog – October 2024

Some of the best days of the year and some pretty miserable ones.

The Chessboard Square of Marostica, a town in Veneto, Italy.

Another month with some wild ups and downs. I spent 5 days in Veneto, and they were wonderful days. I stumbled my way through the rest of the month. I finished the Star Trek: Vanguard series, watched a lot of Japanese spooky movies, and played a bit of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. And because I am fond of soundtracks, and I spent a lot of time listening to Bear McCreary’s compositions.

The Changelog – September 2024

Or, how I lost the thread of September.

A confusing and long staircase.

September was a month of ups and downs. At least, I read a lot of books. I watched Laura, The Post, and a lot of other movies. I listened to prograssive music and I played Castlevania Dominus Collection and Shogun Showdown.

The Changelog – August 2024

Edinburgh, Buñuel, and the end of the year

Header image for The Changelog – August 2024

Finally, I was able to travel again! I spent four days in Edinburgh, and recharged for the “New Year”. But I also read two books, some wonderful Buñuel movies, and listened to all the amazing new music we got in August. It was a good month! So let’s check it out.

How I use Calibre to manage my physical library

There is always some new use case for this wonderful tool.

The New Yorks Public Library's Rose Main Reading Room.

I love Calibre and I love to curate my digital library. But what about my physical books? How do I fill their gaps in my Calibre database? Luckily, there is a very easy way to track them using Calibre as well.

The Changelog – July 2024

The month that wasn't

Header image for The Changelog – July 2024

July was a very annoying month. I was tired, my arm was hurting, and the weather was unbearable. Still, surprisingly, something happened. Three boks, 18 movies, and two games.

Why do we feel retro-computing nostalgia?

What if the past was not better, but just more understandable?

Some old computers from the movie Wargames. One with a green-on-black screen and some schematics; the other with a white-on-black prompt.

Why do we feel attraction for the past? Why do we look at the ‘old web’ with dreaming eyes? Why do we see old protocols and feel the lure of the past? Why do we feel nostalgia for old technology? In this article, I explore my reasons behind the retro-computing nostalgia.

The Changelog – June 2024

The "worst month" ended up being better than expected. But it had to hit me with a flu.

Here in Italy, in June 2024, we had a lot of desert sand in the sky. This is basically how it felt doing errands for most of this month.

In the last issue, I lamented May’s lack of passion and my inability to connect with anything in particular. In June, instead, I caught up with everything. I got very invested in many things. I loved tons of movies, and I lost myself (and spent too much money) in a lot of different music genres.

One surprising thing about LLMs nobody is talking about

Small reflections on the unexpected of syntactic networks.

A network of nodes connected by lines. Photo by Alina Grubnya on Unsplash.

Large Language Models (LLMs) maybe be controversial, somehow, but I am still amazed by their mathematical properties. In this article, I will reflect on my favorite one.