If you want to understand time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone. Climb a mountain and listen to the conversation between eons encoded in each stripe of rock. Walk a beach and comb your fingers through the golden dust that was once a mountain. Pick up a perfect oval pebble and feel its mute assurance that time can grind down even the heaviest boulder, and smooth even the sharpest edge. ...
With all the medium-to-very-low-quality productions we’ve been accustomed to from Netflix, it was a pleasant surprise and a relief to watch Train Dreams last night. I’ll quote the most recent review on IMDb: Robert’s life is gently lived and not without profound tragedy. The film evokes our own memories, little joys and sadnesses, discoveries, losses, and hopes, bringing grace to our self-reflection. The film is heartbreakingly beautiful. Acting, editing, and direction are just right. ...
I was walking early this morning, as usual, when I came across an unusual advertising sign. It was in Spanish, text only, red background and black typography. I don’t comprehend Spanish well enough to read it, so I photographed it and sent it to Serena, who promptly replied with the translation. Embarrassingly, just yesterday, I got a severe reprimand from Serena because I did not know or remember what day it was today. When I got back, I traced the source and found that the sign is actually available in several languages. ...
The story that the Python micro web framework Flask started as an April Fool’s joke is well known in Python circles, but it was nice to see it told by Armin Ronacher himself1. I’m fond of Flask. It was a breath of fresh air when it came out, and most of my Python open-source work is based on it. The video is produced by the people who also authored the remarkable Python: The Documentary. ↩︎ ...
The theory that people no longer read as much as they used to is put forward by people who no longer read as much as they used to. – Francesco Farabegoli
I’m presenting at the WPC 2025 Conference on December 3rd in Milan. My session topic is Feature Flag Management and Dynamic Configurations in C#. I will use a Web API as an example project, and since I’ll be using curl live to query the it, I’ll need to pipe responses through jq to obtain nicely formatted JSON for the audience. The problem with jq is that it crashes on 400s or 500s because the response body is empty in those cases. Error responses are inherent to the demo, and crashes are not the most desirable thing during a presentation. ...
Last night we went to Bologna1 to see La Niña in concert, a birthday present from the kids to Serena. She loves this artist, whom I didn’t really know before last night. The concert was very nice, even though, not knowing her, I was initially confused, I think by the local folk festival atmosphere, if such a thing exists. It took me a few minutes to understand what I was looking at and what I was listening to. ...
An essential part of my fitness routine is my early morning walks. On weekdays, I leave my home on the outskirts of my small provincial town, walk to downtown, and then return. It’s a brisk, almost hour-long loop before I sit down at my desk. On weekends, I take walks in the woods or to the beach, or if I have the time, head out for a mountain hike. These walks make my daily zen moment. Sometimes I come back and, if I try, I can’t remember what I was thinking about the whole time. Other times, however, and often, I mentally organize my day, or solve coding problems (or, more likely, study solutions to try later, once I’m at the keyboard). Sometimes I plan or dream about my future mountain trips, or remember past adventures, or plan motorcycle trips. Sometimes I listen to podcasts or music: there are mornings when I want to be on my own; others when listening to a well-told story is just what I need. In any case, once I get back, I feel refreshed, oxygenated, relaxed, and ready for the day’s work. ...
Super interesting. What’s happening across Sub-Saharan Africa right now is the most ambitious infrastructure project in human history, except it’s not being built by governments or utilities or World Bank consortiums. It’s being built by startups selling solar panels to farmers on payment plans. And it’s working. Why Solarpunk is already happening in Africa The ongoing discussion on HN is also worth reading (minus the AI slop complaints).
It is impossible to tell the story of electronic music without examining the pioneering beats, grooves, and performance aesthetics of Dusseldorf’s Kraftwerk and its founding member, Florian Schneider. Formed in 1970, the band brought an experimental approach to pop music, resulting in some of the most innovative and commercially successful electronic albums of the mid-1970s into the 1980s: Autobahn, Trans-Europe Express, The Man-Machine, and Computer World. The Florian Schneider Collection is the first auction to feature a comprehensive collection of items from Florian’s personal life and career, providing a tantalizing glimpse at his and Kraftwerk’s often-enigmatic musical processes. The sale features over 450 lots of stage- and studio-played instruments and gear, clothing, artwork and furniture from Florian’s home and studios (as well as from Kraftwerk’s Kling Klang Studio), bicycles, Kraftwerk memorabilia, and Florian’s extensive collection of historic woodwind and brass instruments (flutes, clarinets, oboes, saxophones, horns, tubas, and one-of-a-kind oddities). ...