Some months are like black holes. They drain you, crush your spirit and create a hollow space you strife to fill in. And contrary to real black hole, they do not slow down time; they speed it up. They make it disappear so that, in the end, you cannot even understand what happened.
This July wasn’t like that, but almost. My July lasted from 1st to 10th. Everything else is in a state of “alive but not living” that I really despise. It is not “bad”–I can handle bad–, it is a useless neutral state.
I don’t know why. Maybe the increasing temperatures had a role in it. On July 11th we had 33°C at 20:00, and it never got better from there. When it gets very hot, I feel increasingly sick. I move less and I get more nervous and stressed, and from there is a downward spiral.
Or maybe because my right arm started hurting around the same time. It is a problem connected to bad posture and “computer-induced strain” that only gets better when I stop typing for a while. A very hard thing to do when my job is to type code for most of the day. But if I cannot type, it means I write less, and the less I write, the more I feel nervous.
Or maybe because … I don’t know. I am just fucking tired.
Anyway, let’s start with the important things.
ℹ️ Info
If you just want the ChangeLog as a newsletter, you can subscribe here. Because, these days, if you don't have a subscribe button, you are no one.Housekeeping
Before July went downhill, I wrote an article on why I think we feel retro-computer nostalgia.
I am close to completing an article about how I use Calibre for physical books. Expect it soon.
I think I broke my blog’s mobile theme… Sorry for that. I need to fix many things on this theme but, as I said, the last thing I need is to write more code outside of work.
Reading
The interesting thing about his month reading is that none of the three books I read are the one I was already reading at the start of the month. It is a summer effect. I go to the bookstore and buy a bunch of “summer books” (usually some short paperbacks) and I put them on my nightstand. Then I read them as a break from the more “serious” currently reading books… and I end up finishing them before all the ones I was already reading before the summer.
Anyway, let’s dive into July’s list:
- Dieci cose che ho imparato (2022) (“Ten things I learned”) by Piero Angela. This is a very short book by Piero Angela, the father of all Italian scientific journalists, who died in 2022. I reluctantly have to say that it wasn’t so exciting. It was a repetition of elementary scientific facts accompanied by political commentary. I am probably not in the intended audience. I am far from the “average Joe” regarding the scientific literacy.
- A Monk’s Guide to A Clean House & Mind (2012) by Shoukei Matsumoto. After watching Perfect Days, the movie in which a man finds peace by working as a public toilet cleaner, I remembered about this book about the meditative effort of cleaning. It is a funny short book. Of course, it often feels “too much.” The monk really stresses the parallel between home and the mind and I feel there is some truth in it.
- Sherlock Holmes e L’Arte del Ragionamento (2024) (“Sherlock Holmes and the Art of Reasoning”) by Massimo Polidoro. Another short book that takes inspiration from the Sherlock Holmes character to explain the property and the capabilities of the human mind. A man like Sherlock Holmes could not exist in reality, but with some practice, we could all get better at being more rational beings.
I will end with a photo of the last “summer books” I bought. Book stores are dangerous places for me.
Watchlist
Past Lives (2023)
When a movie ends, it lingers in your mind for the next three days, and you try to talk about it to the people in your life—that’s the mark of a meaningful movie.
Past Lives is the debut film of Korean-Canadian director Celine Song. It’s a film about two people who seem destined for each other, but the banality of life event drives them apart. It is a very emotional movie in which the silence between characters speaks more than words.
The title, past lives is based on the lingering motif of the movie: the Korean Buddhist concept of inyeon, that is the idea that our relationships in this life depend on the relationships in our past lives. That is, if I am kind to someone in this live, in the next we could be friends, and in the next-next one we’ll be lovers, and so on.
This adds a lot of emotional power to the last line of the movie: “See you then.” 😭
The First Slam Dunk (2022)
Slum Dunk was a manga and an anime series published between 1990 and 1996 (with the anime starting in 1993) centered on the high-school delinquent Hanamichi Sakuragi and his unexpected development of love for basket while playing for the Shohoku team.
The First Slam Dunk, even if it has first in the title, is actually the movie rendition of the last match depicted in the manga, but the focal character this time is Ryota Miyagi.
It is a great movie about sport, and basket in particular, of course, if you don’t care about the over-dramatization typical of the manga medium. It is very good even if you, like me, never watched the original anime (even if I am left with a lot of questions).
All the rest
All the rest, in order:
- The Running Man (1987). A reality show in a totalitarian 2017 USA where criminals get executed live in a game show. Rad. And watching Arnold in that super-weird yellow jumpsuit was weirdly enticing.
- The Karate Kid (1984). Rewatched this because I wanna see the other. A classic.
- Creed (2015). Loved it. The idea of “the son of Apollo Creed get trained by Rocky” could have been a cheesy disaster. Instead is really good.
- WarGames (1983). A must-have for us computer geeks. It still holds up well in an age of nuclear Armageddons and rampant AIs.
- Electric Dreams (1984). This was weird. What happens if you have a love triangle between a man, a woman and a computer? It felt like a 1 and a half hours long music video. Great soundtrack, though.
- Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024). I am happy about this. Way better end for the franchise than that disgusting Beverly Hills Cop III.
- The Last Starfighter (1984). A boy gets recruited in a galactic war when he set the record in a videogame. Half Star Wars, half WarGames, it doesn’t do justice to any of them. But it is surprisingly fascinating.
- Creed II (2018). Not as good as the first.
- Star Wars I, II, and II (1999, 2002, 2005). So, I wanna watch Episode VII, VIII and IX. So I am rewatching them all. This prequel trilogy is the greatest pile of shit I had to watch since my movie-watching spree.
- The Garden of Words (2013). A short anime about… I don’t know. It is very beautiful to watch but I don’t think I got it.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022). I think it is in the “fine” bucket at the same level of the first one.
- Star Wars IV and The Empire Strikes Back (1977, 1980). Watching them after I, II and III made me like them way more. Is incredible how they look more modern than the prequels.
- Deadpool 2 (2018). I really disliked the first one. Here I laughed four times. So it is a win.
- The Martian (2015). Oh! That’s my kind of stuff. Hard scientific challenges, space, and a renewed love for Planet Earth. The only place of the universe that it is not trying to instantly kill us. For now.
Music
I don’t want to spend too much words on music. I surprisingly have more updates on the gaming front.
Probably is the “black hole” effect, but I got distracted and I cannot remember new music that’s worth sharing. Probably only Remi Wolf’s Big Ideas made me add one song to my favorites.
Next month would be awesome though! So Stay tuned.
Ah, let me add I love Bandcamp and my collection of digital files gave me a lot of joy this month. Streaming is great, but if you really want to love something, you need to buy it.
Gaming
Tunic
I’ll be honest: I didn’t enjoy it. I think the game is fine, and I get why people may like it. It just didn’t click for me and checked all my “annoyances” boxes.
Tunic is visually fantastic. But other than that, it looks like they took all the bad parts of “The Legend of Zelda” and pumped them up. The combat is stiff and uninspired. Bosses are boring and annoying. The constant “where the fuck do I go” feeling. Remember Zelda’s super-annoying “spam the lantern on every bush?” They got that and make it a main mechanic.
Plus, to get the real ending, you need to solve a streak of cryptic SUPER BORING and repetitive puzzles. Even when you solve them, and you know what you have to do, it is exasperating to do. It feels like work. It makes me question why am I wasting my limited time in such a way.
I don’t know. It is really not my game. And I am sorry about that because I like to like things. 😢
Stray
Stray is a beautiful little game. And you are a cat. And it is a sad story. Well, not sad, but very melancholic. You are happily jumping with your cat family on the outside when you slip and fall in the darkness of a deserted city sealed away from the outside.
But the city is not so dark and uninhabited, after all. There are communities of robots that, after humans’ extinction, started living like humans.
I will not spoil further because it is worth a shot. Luckily, it is short enough, and it ends just before the mechanic gets boring (you are a cat, after all, there is little you can do other than jumping and running around).
Conclusions
I hope to get some rest in August. Physical and psychological. At least to give my right hand a break.
For proper vacations, though, I need to wait the second half of August and, given how quick things change, these 15 days could be their own month.
See you next month.