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In this introduction to classical music, Jan Swafford explains the different musical periods and their differences. Each period has its introductory chapter, followed by chapters dedicated to the most influential composers of the era. The choice is comprehensive and well cared for, with the most relevant names well-investigated both in biography and works. For each composer, Swafford also offers some listening suggestions. Biographies thicken as we get into the contemporary era. Here, some are limited to just a page or two while others, obviously those of the author’s preferred composers, remain as thorough as those of the older periods. ...

I sit under a wild apple tree at the edge of the clearing. Like a plant, I absorb the mild October sun. At the same time, I attentively listen to the sounds of the forest. Suddenly I hear a stomping of dry leaves about twenty meters ahead of me, slightly to my right. A wolf emerges out of the thicket. He stops for a moment, glances around, then starts crossing the clearing. A few moments and another wolf appears. After a brief pause, he follows his pal. They parade right in front of me, sinuous, silent, and feral. They do not see or hear me, and yet I am right there, by their side, in plain sight1. It is all over in a few seconds. The couple leaves the clearing and disappears into the forest. I stand sitting there, shocked and in complete awe. ...

A few months after I released my first .NET open source project (a niche one targeting the Italian fintech world), I was contacted by a representative of Team Digitale, the digital innovation branch of the Italian Public Administration. He suggested joining the Developers Italia initiative and moving my project to the their organization on GitHub “to enjoy enhanced visibility and broaden the audience”. I politely refused. I did not doubt my counterpart’s good faith. At the same time, I was concerned about the possible long-term consequences of a seemingly easy move. Moving a GitHub project away from your profile or an organization you control means ceding control over it. I was assured I would keep control of the project. But what happens if sometime in the future, when people in charge might even have changed, they revoke my access rights? As long as I am involved with my project, I should be in control. Also, I was not convinced that the move would help promote the project. We live in the search-engine age; people search for solutions to their problems. I was, and still am, confident that if I did my due diligence and my project is any good, people will find it1. ...

When I read Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake1, I was stunned by the scale and importance of the mycorrhizal network that lies beneath the surface of any given forest in the world. The “wood wide web”, as scientists started to call it, sounded like the perfect metaphor for such an incredibly efficient, symbiotic relation between fungi and trees. ...

Every single time I need nginx, I end up spending way too much time fiddling around with its configuration. If you’re like me, rejoice! Julia Evans built a lovely, helpful little tool called nginx playground. Hello! On Wednesday I was talking to a friend about how it would be cool to have an nginx playground website where you can just paste in an nginx config and test it out. And then I realized it might actually be pretty easy to build, so got excited and started coding and I built it. ...

In a new study published in Ageing and Society, researchers Sam Carr and Chao Fang spent over 130 hours interviewing older people to understand what it’s like to get old and cope with loneliness. The Conversation UK features their report, appropriately titled Loneliness, loss and regret: what getting old really feels like. We found that ageing brings about a series of inevitable losses that deeply challenge people’s sense of connection to the world around them. Loneliness can often be oversimplified or reduced to how many friends a person has or how often they see their loved ones.But a particular focus for us was to better understand what underpins feelings of loneliness in older people on a deeper level. Researchers have used the term “existential loneliness” to describe this deeper sense of feeling “separated from the world” – as though there is an insurmountable gap between oneself and the rest of society. Our objective was to listen carefully to how people experienced and responded to this. ...

David Fowler has a very informative gist up on GitHub. It’s titled [Migration to ASP.NET Core. NET6][3] and it’s filled with details, recipes and FAQs on migrating an ASP.NET Core 5 web app to ASP.NET Core 61. The focus is on the new, streamlined hosting model, also known as Minimal APIs2. To be clear, You don’t have to move to the new model. As the FAQ section emphasizes: Do I have to migrate to the new hosting model ...

Antoine Roquentin, the protagonist of the novel, is a former adventurer who has been living for three years in Bouville, a fictional French seaport town, researching the life of an 18th-century diplomat. During his previous life around the world, Antoine has seen many places, met many interesting people, done exciting things. For the last three years, however, he’s been alone in Bouville. He has no friends and no desire to make some or meet anyone. He’s interested in nothing, not even in his work that he keeps neglecting. His days are mostly spent walking around town, listening to conversations and observing people around him. A “sweeting sickness” he calls nausea increasingly impinges on almost everything he does and enjoys. ...

Years ago, I translated an essay by Terry Windling, On Tolkien and Fairie-Stories, from American English to Italian. I remember arguing with the author about her use of periods in quotations. Each quotation would end with a period before the closing mark. I was puzzled. We don’t do that in Italy. More importantly, I read many English texts where the period was left outside the quotation itself. She insisted that her style was correct1. ...

Someone did it –the perfect Daft Punk tribute after their break up. Also ideal for those hard-coding sessions. For the first time in 14 years, experience Daft Punk like never before! The first professionally recorded live show; revived meticulously by remastering and restoring the audio and video. The Alive 2007 show is considered a staple in live performances featuring the signature ‘Pyramid’ and groundbreaking visuals, which is now complemented by a fully remastered audio track which aims to maximize the experience. Presenting the ultimate authentic Daft Punk experience. ...