Sometimes I think about all the good friends I made online over the years, ever since I first got on the internet in 1996. A few of them I’m in touch with, many others I lost all traces of. Most of those, I have no way of reaching: I may not know or remember their full name, or they may have moved, or not be very active online. Most importantly, they may not even remember who I am, or may not care. So I don’t even try to contact them: what would the point be, anyway? But I do think about them, especially when I’m feeling low, or around the time when people start feeling festive. Most of those friends I never met in person, or I may have only met them once, yet those friendships did matter to me. They were never just “names on a screen”. They were…
Avian Bone Syndrome Posts
As I mentioned in my previous post, I haven’t been on social media much ever since September 2021. Personal issues just took priority, and I decided to take a break from all the negativity I was subjecting myself to. I will talk about that in another post, as I still want to resume writing more or less regulary; it’s just that I’ve been quite busy with everything, so I haven’t had much of a chance to do so. Still, if anyone who had me on social media is wondering how things are around here, with the war in Ukraine and everything: I’m fine, we’re fine. Sort of. I’ve always considered myself European first and foremost, much more so than I’ve considered myself Italian. For me, “here” means Europe. And to get news about war taking places “here” is scary, concerning, disheartening. It’s also disappointing to see that the choices made…
I’ve been meaning to start writing again for a while now, but I felt like I never had the time. In a sense, that’s the truth: I never felt like it was the right moment, so I kept waiting and postponing. There is a joke that says: adulthood is thinking “next week will be less busy” until you die. It’s funny because it’s true — but it’s also quite sad. And it’s not only about work, because life gets in the way in many other ways. I’m not going to go into details, but the last few months have been a rollercoaster as a close family member has been dealing with a medical situation. It involved a lot of driving, seeing multiple doctors, a one-week stay away from home while a complicated surgery was performed; and amidst all that, all the practicalities of day-to-day life with the constant background of…
As we head towards the so-called “second wave” of COVID-19, Italy is no longer at the forefront of the disease. Indeed, while back in March we led the sad tally of infections and deaths, we were also the first to enforce a country-wide lockdown. That, coupled with the shock from what we were seeing, made people accept and follow the rules. This is not something anyone took for granted: Italians have a strong tendency to disregard authority, but the worst that happened at the time was that couch potatoes claimed they needed to go out for a run, or something to that effect. We didn’t even hoard toilet paper, undoubtedly thanks to the ubiquitous presence of bidets, however we did hoard flour and baker’s yeast; pizza and bread were made and eaten, for if life is short, then carbs are the way. The serious lockdown worked wonders for Italy, but…
Those of you who follow me on social media may remember that I had mentioned resuming the podcast. That is still on the table, and it will eventually happen. However, life’s gotten in the way and the podcast, as much as I’d love to jump into it, is not a priority. The current covid situation in Italy is decent enough. There have been outbreaks here and there, and there’s concern with younger people infecting one another as they enjoy their summer in a somewhat careless way. Schools will finally reopen mid-September, so whether that leads to a mess that requires another lockdown remains to be seen. In the meantime, I’ve already begun purchasing flour to make bread at home. Not kidding. The economy is what is: a mess. I used to have my hands into a bunch of cakes with online gigs of various kinds, but most of those are…
I haven’t posted in a while, and for that I apologize. Many people have been asking me how things have been going here in Italy, but the truth is that there’s been little to talk about. We mostly stayed inside, mostly followed the rules, and the curve was mostly flattened. Over the last few weeks, however, a certain sense of restlessness took over the country. Politicians began complaining about the government’s rules still being too tight, which in itself is a glimpse of normality, which in turn both echoed and triggered people’s complaints. Many were expecting the 4th of May to bring a broad start to the so-called “Phase 2”, that is a wide removal of restrictions, but the government is still very cautious: starting tomorrow, a few people can go back to work, mostly those who work in manufacturing, and a few restrictions will be lifted, such as those…
As promised on Facebook (for the few who follow me there), here’s a look at the latest numbers coming from Italy about Covid19. Those numbers are being used as a reference in many countries to warn people: look at how badly Italy is doing! And yes, it’s a mess, but not for the reasons that may seem obvious at a glance. Numbers mean nothing without some context, and that’s what I’ll try to provide here. Keep in mind that I’m not a statistician and this is all my own work, so any mistakes you may find are to be blamed exclusively on me. First of all, this table in the official GitHub repository by the Prime Minister’s Office is updated daily, so it’s worth a bookmark. The field names are in Italian, so for those who don’t speak the language: data date (Italian time zone) stato country (always ITA) ricoverati_con_sintomi…
I’m being asked by many people to post a follow-up to my previous post, especially as most news outlets abroad keep mentioning Italy as the place with most covid19 cases, without explaining in detail what’s going on. This is hardly surprising, considering that at this point most countries in Europe and beyond are starting to have their own considerable amount of positives and the media attention inevitably shifts to the local situation. I will try my best to post more often, and to provide some additional information “from the inside”. I’m not committing to any posting schedule, however. As I said in the previous post, I’ve been working from home for years now, so at this stage nothing has changed for me; if anything, there’s actually more work than usual with one of the companies I work for, as the virus itself has become central to what we do. Time…
As everyone on this planet probably knows, Italy was put into lockdown as an attempt to limit the diffusion of SARS-CoV-2 (“coronavirus” for friends), and the related COVID19 infection. As I write this, in the evening of March 14th, there have been over 21,000 confirmed cases in the country, with almost 18,000 active ones. The daily increase in new cases is still exponential and so far there seems to be no sign of hitting the inflection point yet, though the peak is expected to be around March 18th; that’s because the lockdown was enforced on the 12th, and the incubation period is 7±2 days according to most estimates. An increase especially in the South is also expected in the next few days, because the news of the impending lockdown last week led a bunch of idiots many people from the South who work or study in the heavily affected North…
The Apple Watch is a nice little device, and it’s known to have motivated even lazy people into taking better care of themselves through the “gamification” of exercise. However, it can happen that the Workout app doesn’t properly track exercise minutes (and, to a lesser extent, burned calories), and while Apple provides an official checklist for improving workout calibration, sometimes the issues persist. TL;DR: If you wear the Watch low on your arm, move it higher. Seriously, that fixed it for me. One very peculiar problem I had myself was that indoor walking workouts were not always being recorded properly: calories mostly worked, but I could walk half an hour and yet only a few minutes would be recorded as exercise, even if I walked fast. (Yes, I do walk around he house when it’s too cold to do so outside; a book or a friend on the phone are…