Minutes to Midnight - Blog
I've been running an online journal since March 2002. Here is my list of favourite posts.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
I've been running an online journal since March 2002. Here is my list of favourite posts.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
Adding some flare back to the current uninspiring design of Mac OS wasn't enough. After spending a day using an old Mac running Mavericks, I realised how I probably need to find a tiny place somewhere in the past.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
Over the last ten years or so, a dominant theme has been nostalgia. While initially convinced it was strictly related to my personal struggle with ageing, I've now changed my mind. A constant in my journal, a constant in other people's blogs and posts on the Fediverse, the accompanying creeping malaise doesn't seem to only affect Gen Xers and their process of getting old. It's everywhere, online, offline, in personal conversations, in magazine essays, books, podcasts. It's like every facet of...| Minutes to Midnight
I undid it. Leaving Linux to go back to Mac OS after several months was something that I did not foresee. However, this thing is more nuanced, and it's not the end of the line. Technically, I had never left Mac OS, as I kept my MacBook Pro on Monterey (offline) for music production anyway. So, what happened? In a nutshell, it's pretty simple. I used Linux as a daily ride for months, on a 2015 MacBook Air, and I loved it. Until my eyes got strained, and the machine started to get progressively...| Minutes to Midnight
A gen X with a straight to the point attitude. Based in the UK, I play bass and design sound under the moniker Minutes to Midnight.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
I did it. Leaving the Apple garden for Linux has been easier than anticipated. A new era of personal freedom has finally started.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
Questa sera sei bellissima abbracciami anche se penserai che non è poetica questa vita ci ha sorriso e lo sai Abbracciami Abbracciami Troveremo il modo anche quando poi saremo stanchi --- Reply via email| Minutes to Midnight
I travelled to my home country yesterday, and for the first time in a very long time, I printed my tickets. All of them, train to the airport, flight. What did I notice? Ryanair don't apparently allow to print a ticket. At least from my point of view, I did not receive an email confirmation with an attached PDF ticket after the online check-in. Spam folder was empty as well. I had to screen grab that crap from my phone and print the screenshot. Maybe I should have used a computer instead of t...| Minutes to Midnight
Late evening in July 1985, on a small seaside town in the North-East of Italy. It was hot, but not as unbearable as it is now. Back then, I used to spend some time each day, usually at dusk, sitting in our courtyard looking at the sky and imagining how it would be to see the missiles flying above us, eager to reach their targets. It strikes me now how I used to think about the possibility of nuclear war: terrified and excited at the same time. Like an inevitability that I should at least have...| Minutes to Midnight
A gen X with a straight to the point attitude. Based in the UK, I play bass and design sound under the moniker Minutes to Midnight.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
So much has changed in how I manage myself in these dystopian days, not sure where to start.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
I just watched one of the creepiest videos ever — in terms of AI, robotics, and potential futures ahead. Like JP said in a few of his recent blog posts, 'I’m really happy to be on the back half of my life'. --- From their section 'The Master Plan': Today, we are seeing unprecedented labor shortages. There are over 10 million unsafe or undesirable jobs in the U.S. alone, and an aging population will only make it increasingly difficult for companies to scale their workforces. As a result, t...| Minutes to Midnight
I've been banging around this topic a lot lately: how shall I use technology? Particularly in the last six months. It is with a certain degree of acceptance that I'm getting to a point where I can safely say I'm done.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
An update on the amount of accounts and services that I have removed from my life, which translated in less noise and a direct personal control over online and offline things. --- While I'm in a slow process of erasing Google from my life (Android has been de-googled but PeerTube hasn't been setup yet—hence the wait), here is a quick and dry list of accounts that I have deleted so far: Adobe AirBnB Atlassian Avid Cloudflare Deviantart Discord Eventbrite Facebook Figma GitHub GitLab Instagra...| Minutes to Midnight
Almost a month ago I drafted a personal plan to eschew a sizeable part of the insane lifestyle I've been somewhat following ever since tech turned itself into its current incarnation: a gargantuan mafia. Time for an update. Besides following up on account deletions—Microsoft above all, Google currently in (slow) motion—I focused on practical gestures that have tangible daily effects.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
A gen X with a straight to the point attitude. Based in the UK, I play bass and design sound under the moniker Minutes to Midnight.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
This might read like yet another manifesto, when in fact it's a series of choices that I have either already gone through, or am about to. In general, it's a mid-long term plan that I want to follow to regain sanity. --- Refuse the ultra-capitalistic point of view on society Premise: my devices are at least 4-year old. My main music instrument was built in 1991 and bought a year later. My daily computer is now 10-years old. I maintain and repair them, because they are good. Leave all commerci...| Minutes to Midnight
As I wrote three weeks ago on this blog, being back to music production feels thrilling. This is a brilliant and complex concept album, in a language foreign to me, intense and with a punk attitude.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
Back in 2005, I wrote a series of angry entries on my journal, where I lashed out at the infamous attempts by far left fringe groups to kickstart a revolution in Italy. They terrorised the country for almost two decades during the Cold War, getting almost zero popular support, and spreading nothing but fear, and grief. --- My greatest peeve about that story was related to how these people had injured, maimed, and killed based on the role of their targets. To be able to perform those actions, ...| Minutes to Midnight
It was slow at first, almost imperceptible; then, one session at a time, it grew to a full-fledged short (but deep) concept album. I finally started producing music again.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
My friend Ali recently wrote a beautiful — and heartbreaking — post titled Middle Easterners are numb. We exchanged emails, as we do sometimes, discussing our mutual experience. A few days have passed, and now that Israel have started bombing Iran, my argumentation looks more hypocritical than before. --- As a Middle Easterner, you get used to certain things in the region, and one of them is war. We’re born with it and many have died with it. It’s been here for thousands of years but ...| Minutes to Midnight
Finally managed to (re)watch the film Love and Human Remains on DVD, a favourite of mine since 1993 that I haven't seen in a very long time. Eager to compare my memories of it with the real thing, it didn't disappoint.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
Words are crucial to build a sense of online community, however many of us have been using them straight out of a soulless corporate lingo in order to sell ourselves as a product.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
Personal considerations about what visiting the UK meant to me, three years after my wife and I left the country.| minutestomidnight.co.uk
