I have tried Nostr (a new protocol for decentralized social media) and would like to give a personal & non-technical verdict on this system.

First doubt: if the average user is already struggling to use Mastodon at first glance, I can imagine how they might find themselves overwhelmed by such a system.

Second doubt: the fact that it is uncensored is a good thing, but also a major Achilles’ heel. As far as I understand it, there is in fact no content moderation.

Have you tried Nostr? If so, what do you think?

After talking about self-hosting and introducing my blogging journey let me talk about the platform I’ve used to blog for 4 years till I recently left.

I do not remember how I found Write.as, but I tried it just because I was curious to understand how it worked.

The essential user interface and the markdown editor with no frills attracted my so much that I decided to start blogging with them.

The idea of focusing on content instead of all the rest was so amazing that I blogged there regularly till I recently switched to Micro.blog that is now my preferred blogging platform.

I’ve recently written about the drawbacks of self-hosting. In that article I talked about it from a generic and technical point of view.

Let’s get more personal now. 😉

Many years ago I was self-hosting Wordpress for my blog, but at some point I realized I was spending more time upgrading, customizing & fixing problems than writing something on it.

This situation was so frustrating that I decided to stop blogging many times because I had a sort of internal conflict. From one side I enjoyed blogging, but at the same time I didn’t have the willing to work on it from the technical side.

I even tried Wordpress.com but it didn’t appealed me at that time.

So I gave up my blogging activity for some time till I found a service that suited my needs.

Which blogging platform drew my attention? Hold on, in the next article I will tell you which service I’m talking about.

Self-hosting is great: you control the server, the software & your data. That’s all. Or not?

I think there is a lot understimation about the drawbacks related to self-hosting.

I self-hosted Wordpress for several years and during that time I had some issues while upgrading it, also theme and plugin conflicts where always behind the corner.

Wordpress is a great piece of sofware and very versatile. It is easily customizable, but this can also be a problem once we talk about compatibility. Something can break suddenly and if you are self-hosting you have to understand what’s going wrong.

What I experienced with Wordpress can happen with every piece of software you decide to install on your server. It can be Nextcloud or a Mastodon instance, no matter what you install, there may always be some problems while running your software.

Another issue while we talk about self-hosting is security. Server misconfiguration can expose your data to hackers, if you are not a security expert data breaches could be part of the game.

In my opinion self-hosting is great because you have full control of everything, but such power comes with great responsibility.

You need time to understand the software, install it, update it and fixing if something is going wrong.

All of this requires time and time is money.

If you are not a techie person (or if you don’t want to spend much time working on the server) then probably you should look for an hosted service.

Inspired by Manton blog post I’ve done a recap of the countries I’ve visited over the years.

• Italy
• Switzerland
• France
• Austria
• Germany
• Netherlands
• Spain
• Greece
• United Kingdom
• San Marino Republic
• Vatican State
• Principality of Monaco
• Principality of Seborga (that’s the only unrecognised micronation I’ve visited so far 😉)

Over the years I’ve tried several note taking apps and after using them I came to conclusion that many are overcomplicated for my personal needs.

All I need in my daily routine is a short list of things I have to do (or to remember).

I believe Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) can be useful for some people, but not for me (at least not in this moment).

Simplicity is all I need, so a smart To-Do list is perfectly fine.

When we think about smart homes we usually look into positive things like controlling lights, temperature, security and connected devices.

But are these smart homes truly smart?

A part from the enthusiasm for technology every smart device has its own app and configuration accounts (not talking about security holes).

A solution may be the new Matter standard, which was born in order to offer:

• Simplicity;
• Interoperability;
• Reliability;
• Security.

It's hard to say if Matter will solve all actual problems of our smart homes, but probably it will be an important step to the right direction.

Years of research have shown again and again that the way choices are posed affects our actions.

Source: “What Should We Watch Tonight?” On the Concept of Choice Architecture

I recently read an article that made me reflect on how often we are inclined (myself first) to use sophisticated web services and apps that propose to help us be more productive.

Sometimes alternative solutions are very easy and simple.

The blog post talks about how the author replaced note-taking apps by simply opening a new mailbox used only for this purpose.

This is certainly a creative solution that can actually be interesting for many people that don't need complicated features but only to keep track of their notes on the go.

I agree with postpsychosis, we usually tend to discuss without discussing. That's make sense to me especially because we are immersed in a society always online.