Strumenti on manuel uberti

Welcome SourceHut

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I will not go into many details on me leaving GitHub behind, because Protesilaos has already done it and I share his appreciation for SourceHut. So, without further ado, here we go: https://sr.ht/~manuel-uberti/.

The migration went fine. I only had a small issue with my website, mainly a www to non-www HTTP redirect not behaving as intended, but I am investigating. For now, manueluberti.eu is the new kid in town. I do not want to spend too much time over this problem, though. If a solution does not come up in the next few days, consider the www gone once and for all.

Needless to say, since I still want to report bugs and file pull requests on projects hosted on GitHub I am keeping my account over there.

Notes on my digital consumption

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been more than a year since I decided to try my best at Digital Minimalism and recently I’ve found myself discussing my efforts with non-believers. Reviewing the resolutions described in the afore-linked article, I noticed a considerable level of progress on two of them in particular:

I don’t use RSS feeds any more
I check Letterboxd sparingly

The first one may come as a surprise considering how highly I think of Elfeed. The problem is not the tool one uses to collect updates, of course. The problem is how pervasive they had become. I felt irresistibly attracted to the news provided by my collection of RSS entries, pulled into my Elfeed buffer over and over again. But was it worth it? How many times I was just marking an entry as read before reading it fully? This can be very subjective, sure, and the beauty of an update speaks more about my taste in RSS feeds than the actual content. Not to mention the simple fact that one could just learn to set their priorities and schedule feed-checking at precise times.

Nonetheless, this is why I dropped Elfeed entirely and subscribed to a handful of weekly and biweekly newsletters. I still want to be informed and I still like to read about Emacs, philosophy, literature, cinema, and music, but the information should not overwhelm me and be a distraction.

As for Letterboxd, it has sadly become another digital addiction which in return has been giving me little. Partly because one of my favourite film critics has vanished from the website and partly because most of the recent films I watched barely moved me, I’ve been neglecting my cinephilia in favour of books. As a result, constantly browsing Letterboxd has developed into seldom visiting the website to register my viewings. Unfortunately this also means my other blog misses me, but the love for cinema is still strong, so it’s only a matter of time.

For someone working in IT it’s kind of ironic to write about detachment from technology, I know. Rest assured, I am not working my way to the life of a farmer. At the same time, though, I’d be lying if I say that having more time for other things isn’t what I was really looking for after all.

A pen and a notebook

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Sun, 25 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism has really changed my perspective on a lot of things in my life. Since I started my decluttering process I’ve noticed several benefits. In particular, I’m less prone to distractions and leisure has become time for engaging activities.

This new approach has prompted me to reconsider how I organise my days, weeks, and months. For a couple of years I’ve been using my custom variation of GTD, tracking everything with Org files in Emacs, and using Syncthing and Orgzly to keep it all synced with my phone. However, as I already explained when I wrote about Cal Newport’s book, my smartphone is not my best friend, and so the whole setup is actually of little use. And let’s be frank: sometimes I can leave Emacs alone.

I also write a lot, everyday. I write about films, note my ideas on the music I listen to and the books I read, and I write for this blog too. Hence I need a place which can be useful both for organising my life and for my basic urge to write. Enter Bullet Journal.

I recently rediscovered the pleasure of pen and paper when in Leuven for Heart of Clojure. Since I left the laptop at home on purpose, I spent almost every spare moment on my notebook, and much of the article on the conference came straight from its pages. As Ryder Carroll, the man behind Bullet Journal, points out in his book, the connection our brain establishes with pen and paper is completely different from the one with keyboard and monitor. For me it’s mostly been a feeling I sensed when writing on my notebook. My thoughts just came out with a spontaneity I’ve rarely enjoyed with the digital counterparts.

I won’t bother you with the details about Bullet Journal. The website has tutorials, videos, there is a book about it, so everything you need to know is out there. I picked this system because I find it simple and clear, modular and practical. Starting next month, I am going to fully migrate my GTD setup to Bullet Journal and once again step back to distance myself from pervasive technology consumption.