Another year, another platform goes down. I’ve just completed the process to delete my 14-years-old Soundcloud account. Not much to add here, the platform has been quite pointless to me for a long time. Without going deep into the quality of their audio codec, my issue … | Continue reading

Quote by Joan Westenberg. I keep thinking about people who actually agree with the current incarnation of capitalism as members of a growth death cult. Can’t explain it differently. Let’s start with something controversial: Capitalism is not an economic system. It is … | Continue reading

Quote from the hideous movie ”Serendipity”. The hideous Christmas movie Serendipity, that I’m very sorry to have inflicted on both my wife and myself, was released in 2001. It preceded the current enshittification of the web by a couple of decades, and had a single high … | Continue reading

A quote from Nick Cave’s popular newsletter “The Red Hand Files” Three of my favourite words, and ones I find myself using more and more these days, are ‘Having said that’. I am also fond of saying ‘On the other hand’, and Seán O’Hagan tells me that the word I use mos … | Continue reading

Garrit Franke’s recent post, titled “Roast my site”, motivated me to write about something that has always bugged me with personal sites: the grocery-style blogroll. While list-only blogrolls are pretty common, the result of reading them across various blogs is an unins … | Continue reading

When my Feedbin annual renewal approached I decided to look at it objectively, and check if a cheaper alternative existed. Turns out I had it already. The $50 fee for the service wasn’t dramatic — however, since I’ve been on a path to cut any non-necessary expenses and … | Continue reading

On the 60th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, Todd Gardner featured my song in a special episode of his podcast. Ten years ago as the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination was approaching, I asked garage/psychedelic bands if they would contribute a track t … | Continue reading

I’m quietly cutting on the habit of being always connected. Fighting my tendency to add ideology to tech choices, I’d decided to confront things from a different point of view. As a creature who’s prone to read certain things with a hint of dogma, I don’t usually realis … | Continue reading

Ted Gioia wrote an open letter to Taylor Swift, denouncing the current state of the music industry, and asking for a radical initiative. The letter starts with an honest introduction, the common ground between Swift and Gioia. All emphasis are mine: I’ve devoted my li … | Continue reading

Reflecting on the slower decentralised way to communicate online during the 1990s, I outline a simple path to bring back a quieter and safer internet-based chat. The best ways to join communities on the internet, when I started in the early 1990s, were: BBS, IRC and Use … | Continue reading

Very sad to learn that Molly Holzschlag died yesterday. She was one of the most influential advocates of web standards and accessibility. Everyone has something to contribute to the World Wide Web. Why? Because the Web is of us. Whatever we are as humans is now manif … | Continue reading

What happens to your data when a remote system is shut down or just stops working? I don’t care, because I back it up, locally. A fantastic post by Parker Moore, titled Preserve your Instapaper bookmarks, highlights, and notes inspired me to add an addendum to my recent … | Continue reading

Last post in my ‘degrowth’ series: a few points around my concept of a personal and sustainable website. I’ve been expressing myself on a personal website since 2002, writing about what I do — or want to do, along with personal thoughts. Two years ago it’s gone back to … | Continue reading

‘Degrowth’ series, part 6: now that I moved most of my workflow to plain text, I struggle to understand why I relied on proprietary locked-in formats for so long. I worked with a plethora of file formats throughout my multiple careers, while using both proprietary and o … | Continue reading

Part of my ‘degrowth’ series: why I’ve been using less and less Apple products. Might sound like venting, though it’s not. As a quick premise, I don’t judge anyone’s choices when it comes to computer hardware and software. Therefore, I have no bias for people relying on … | Continue reading

Fourth instalment in my ‘degrowth’ series: how and why I use the cloud (not), with a closing note about backup. I basically use zero cloud systems, even though I was an eager early adopter, because of the following reasons: I inherently don’t trust any of the supplier … | Continue reading

Part of a ‘degrowth’ series, this third post is focused on my online social interactions, and how I keep it manageable. It’s been three years since I rejected the morally corrupt, privacy-invading, time (and energy) waster that is corporate social media, and it works. B … | Continue reading

Second post in my ‘degrowth’ series. How I approach the news online, including blogs, videos, newsletters. I’m off real-time news: no ‘breaking’, no ‘live reporting’. Instead, I read long-form articles from trusted sources such as The Conversation. I don’t have an accou … | Continue reading

First of a series of short posts on personal degrowth. Not a “how to” step-by-step guide, rather a point of view on tech choices that I feel are necessary. Regarding how I manage my time online, I think the best way to action some degrowth is to reduce my own footprint. … | Continue reading

Three years after I left Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, I might have found a space where to both agree and disagree in peace, while growing connections. Last year I reflected upon my life after “social” networks (quotes are on purpose), which contained a post-scriptum … | Continue reading

A quick reply to the excellent post by Jamie Hill about the need of a strict versioning system for people who work in music (on the computer). Jamie argues for a backup system, and rightly so. Although his post outlines the exact same manual, effective, simple methodolo … | Continue reading

A transparent and honest analysis on the struggle to go back to a job that I left. This is not my first foray into the unintended consequences of a past decision that’s affecting my present. I’m not again onto why I left the UK to “temporarily stay in Italy” until COVID … | Continue reading

After receiving an unexpected royalty payment today, I’ve been reflecting about the music industry, again. Not long ago, I wrote a personal account (in two parts) of what it meant to release a concept album as an indie artist in 2019. Specifically talking about the cons … | Continue reading

Read an article on The Atlantic titled ‘The Endless Cycle of Social Media’, missing the subtitle about Threads by Meta. Slightly amusing nonetheless. I usually couldn’t care less about the topic of what Meta do or don’t do with their time and money, but found the interv … | Continue reading

Taking time off my day to reach out to strangers who did something nice to me on the internet. Ever since I ditched web statistics platforms, I proved to myself that all I really care for is connecting with others, at their pace, in anonymity. I signed up to a free Ahre … | Continue reading

A video by Benn Jordan made me realise how little respect I hold for the idea that growth is a given, in this capitalist world I live in. The recent announcement that Plugin Alliance, iZotope, and other respected brands in the music production software sector, will n … | Continue reading

Personal considerations about what it meant visiting the UK, almost three years after my wife and I left the country. Ten days ago, I took a plane bound to the UK with Silvia, and stayed there for a week. Our first trip after September 2020, almost three years ago. I’ve … | Continue reading

Finally, my long-time feelings about the pointlessness of filing bug reports to Apple is backed by proof. Back when I was still using Logic Pro X as my main DAW, I used to hang out in Logic-centred forums and Facebook groups alike. Every now and then, someone would go o … | Continue reading

While working on a test project based on a video series by Cujo Sounds called ‘Setting up a AAA Wwise project’, I envisioned a method to speed up the process. Provided that a certain knowledge of Wwise is required, these didactic videos by Bjørn Jacobsen are brilliant a … | Continue reading