I recently bought Dirty Rat, the absolute banger from Orbital’s 2023 Optical Delusion. It couldn’t be anything different, given that it’s a collaboration between the seminal electronic duo that emerged from the rave era and one of my British favorites, Sleaford Mods. Sleaford Mods’ barbed lyrics perfectly augment Orbital’s concrete-heavy digitalism. Mods’ James Williamson lambasts the people, “blaming everyone in the hospital, everyone at the bottom of the English Channel, and everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal.” ...

Most people likely already know and use the voice dictation feature in iOS and macOS all day, but I’ve only now seen the light. Yesterday, I discovered I could dictate text notes to my iPhone, even offline. It works with Obsidian, WhatsApp, and any other app where I need to enter text, like the Safari search box. I suck at entering text on the phone. I also hate WhatsApp audio messages, but I often recur to them as, again, I suck at typing text on the phone. I can instead dictate those messages, and they will render as text as if I typed them; what a revelation! ...

Medieval monks also needed help with focus and attention. Joel J Miller discusses this in What Monks Know About Focus, the latest issue of Miller’s Book Review, which I recently discovered and shows great promise. While technology has evolved in the last fifteen hundred years, the human brain has not. And few people in the ancient world cared as much about the challenges of attention and distraction as monks. Our reasons might differ today, but we have much to learn nonetheless. ...

I am speaking about OAuth2 and Open ID Connect with ASP.NET Core 8 at Rome .NET Conference 2024 on March 22 and then, less than a week later, at WebDay 2024 in Milan. I am always particularly excited when I can present the stuff I’m currently working on. Being forced to share as I learn encourages me to go deeper into the topic to reinforce my comprehension and better explain it to the audience—a win-win situation. ...

For those who have found their meaning, their place in the world, and what they feel they want to live for, death is just one part - inevitable, but not frightening - of a good life—a death all woven with life, which has the smile and soft touch of a newfound embrace. I wish myself, anyone, such a death. – Benedetta Tobagi, La Resistenza delle donne

I just came across this tweet by Aaron Levie: The best founders I know — no matter their company’s scale — thrive on doing customer support directly. There’s literally no better way to understand the pulse of your customer base, what features to build next, or where systems are breaking down. It’s always upside. It profoundly resonates with me. For context, we’ve been a small company in the market since 1991, making us quite the rare bird (we have seen so many software companies come and go that it is unbelievable). ...

Thanks to Giovanni Ansaldo’s convincing review on yesterday’s issue of Il Mondo podcast, my first Bandcamp purchase1 is the recently released Astral Gold album by Dean McPhee, a British guitarist who combines folk with experimental music and jazz using his telecaster guitar to create endless landscapes. As the title suggests, McPhee’s latest album is a journey into outer space. The album consists of six instrumental pieces, all captivating, enjoyable, and cohesive; they all serve as each other’s natural continuation. Along with the sound of his guitar, the musician uses tape loops, small percussion sounds, and a few synthesizers here and there. The result is a hypnotic moonscape reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey2. ...

I’m growing sick and tired of Spotify’s music-consuming model. There are many compelling and sometimes conflicting reasons, most perfectly outlined in The day I canceled my Spotify subscription on Raed’s blog. I used to cherish music, I used to religiously collect, catalog and enjoy every album on my iPod. I could navigate the endless folders and find that exact song that I needed for that precise moment. Spotify killed that, I listen to what it suggests and just accept that it will go away when it decides to rotate it out. Spotify trained me not to look too hard, to let the flow be, and if that awesome song is gone or removed, don’t worry, we still have a million more. ...

Jordan Mechner (@jmechner, creator of Prince of Persia) has written and drawn a graphic novel memoir, REPLAY. It’s out in French and will be released in English on March 19. I pre-ordered a signed English copy. More info here.