Latest Posts (20 found)
Manuel Moreale 1 weeks ago

Beginning at the end

For the past decade, every time I went up to the mountains here in my area, I got the chance to look at one particular mountain ridge standing there silently in the background. It spans roughly 30km, east to west. On one side, the Slovenian one, there’s the town of Kobarid. On the other, just more mountains. I’ve considered walking this ridge for years, every time making a different plan for how to tackle it. Some people do it in multiple days, sleeping either outside or in one of the various huts that are scattered all around. Other people split it in chunks, walking one section at a time. None of those options is either appealing or available to me at this moment in time. The only option I have is to park my car on one end, walk the whole thing in one go and have someone pick me up on the other side. As I said, it’s roughly 30km and some 2200 meters of ascent. It’s nothing crazy, but at the same time it’s not a walk I can go do completely at random. It does require at least some preparation, and part of that includes walking the two sections at the beginning and at the end, while the middle part is just one long crest so I’m not worried about that. To make my life easier, I could walk this west to east because that means doing only ~1800 meters of ascent, but what’s the fun in doing that? 2200 is way more appealing than 1800. So the plan is to end the walk on the Italian side, touching the summit of Mount Mali Varh for last and then descending to the little village of Micottis some 1000 or so meters below. The various maps do show a trail that goes up to that summit, but I learned not to blindly trust maps because more than once I reached places where trails were supposed to be there only to then find myself standing in front of either an impenetrable wall of vegetation or absolutely nothing. Speaking of maps, I recently learned about the existence of hiking.waymarkedtrails.org , which is a fantastic resource if you hike around Europe. The plan was to go up to Monte Testa Grande through the CAI trail 710, walk the final km or so of the ridge, and then come back down through that trail I spotted on the map. But during my preliminary search, I learned that the trail I want to walk on my way down for sure exists because they run a race on it! It’s the Ultra Vertickal Contesa and much respect to the people—and their knees—who go up this trail at that pace because it’s an enjoyable 37% of average slope and it looks something like this: And yes, as soon as I saw 37% I knew I had to go check how bad it looks and yup, it is bad. And nope, the trail doesn’t zig-zag its way up to the top. It’s basically a straight line . The people running the race do turn to the right near the top because the finish line is at the summit of Mount Contesa, which is the second to last peak of the ridge. Being up here, walking the final bit of this ridge made me even more convinced of my plan. We’ll walk this whole thing in one go, and it’s gonna be awesome. The view is amazing; you can see the sea in the far distance on one side and the Julian Alps on the other. Descending down through the CAI 710 was also quite the experience. The trail is incredibly vertical in certain sections; according to Alltrails it’s anything between 50% to 60% (the uphill section peaks at 64%) and not very well maintained. I think I spent almost as much time coming down as it took me to go up, which is unusual. But the scenery was lovely. The trail ends—or begins, depending on the way you want to look at it—in the village of Monteaperta , so the only thing left to do was to walk my way back to the parking spot where I left my car. Very happy with this first preparatory walk. The ridge is nice, going up this stupidly steep trail was an experience, my cardio is shit, but we’re working on that, and I’m now even more convinced I’m gonna walk this whole crest one of these days. And I have a potentially quirky idea for how to share that walk, but more on that later. You love the outdoors and RSS. You're one of the special ones.

writing Writing Zig culture Culture
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Manuel Moreale 2 weeks ago

The life triangle

Over the past few years, I spent way more time than I probably should have thinking about my life. And the way I usually look at it is by asking two fundamental questions. The first question is “do I want to have a life?”. You might think this is a silly question to even ask, but since I was a teen I’ve always had a weird relationship with the concept of death, and as a result of that, the whole idea of being alive at all has never been an absolute certainty. Which is why I periodically ask myself the question, and so far the answer has clearly always been yes, and that is why I’m still here. Figuring out an answer to this question is often pretty straightforward, and the answer is binary, so there’s no point in discussing it further. The second, and more interesting, question I ask myself is “what kind of life do I want to live?”. Finding an answer to this one is a lot trickier. But one framework I’ve been using lately is to visualise my life as a triangle. I’ll explain what I mean, but I don’t plan to add a drawing so you’ll have to picture this in your head. The first vertex represents the “individual me” . These are all the things that are related to myself as an individual, as if I was existing in a vacuum. Things like health, personal aspirations, dreams and goals, experiences I want to live, skills I want to acquire, my job and so on. I know we don’t really exist in a vacuum, but you get the point. The second vertex is the “social me” which is the collection of things that are related to other people: relationships, responsibilities toward others, shared goals and dreams, and so on. The third and final vertex is reality. It represents the current state of my life at this specific moment in time. These three points are obviously connected; this is a triangle after all, and the distance between them represents how far my current life is from what I want and also how far apart my individual life is from my social life. Those points also define a plane that represents the infinite number of possible lives that are available out there. In a perfect world, this triangle is collapsed down to a single point, because that would mean that there is a perfect overlap between what I want for myself, what I want for my relationships with the other people in my life, and the life I’m actually living. The aspiration is to get to that point, but making the triangle as small as possible is a worthy endeavour. I find this framework helpful because if the goal is to make the overall area smaller, there are a couple of different ways I can go about achieving that. I can try to improve my life and move that vertex closer to the other two; that is one obvious approach. But I can also decide to willingly move one of the other two vertices: I can change my goals and my ambitions, for example, or I can change the people I surround myself with in order to live relationships that are more aligned with the life I want for myself. Or I can combine all those approaches; there’s plenty of flexibility here. What I do know is that lately I felt this triangle grow bigger, which is precisely what I don’t want it to do. But I also lost track of where those dots are, which is also not ideal. It’s funny how there are people who have some things figured out , and I’m sitting here, looking inward, and the more I look, the less all this mess makes any semblance of sense. But I guess that’s part of the fun. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 4 weeks ago

Companies don’t make decisions

I feel kinda stupid for even saying this, but it’s probably worth saying anyway: companies are not people. Companies don’t make decisions. Companies don’t decide who they want to donate money to. Companies don’t feel shame. Companies don’t learn from their mistakes. Companies don’t have political orientation. Because companies are legal entities, they're a bunch of papers, letters and numbers. That’s what companies are. When you’re mad at a company, figure out who is actually responsible for the things you’re mad about, and be mad at them. Because people can be held accountable. There’s a reason why, in 1789, it was people’s heads that were rolling on the ground. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 1 months ago

Sometimes it's better not to say anything

I was planning to write a reply to a post I read earlier today. I sat down in front of my computer, started typing, then a bunch of different people sent me messages for a variety of totally unrelated reasons, and I spent half an hour chatting with them. When I finally got back to writing the post, I stared at the screen and I was like «what even is the point of writing this?» . That is something that happens more and more often, recently. I still believe that dialogue is, by far, the best, and probably only, tool we have to make progress on a multitude of societal issues. At the same time, I’m more and more convinced that dialogue, on the internet, using the public digital spaces we have at our disposal, is almost impossible to have. Some of the reasons why I think this is the case are not worth repeating; I already wrote about them plenty of times over the years on this site. But one reason I think is worth highlighting is that a core ingredient for healthy dialogue is the ability to listen. But listening is not part of the social internet landscape. You cannot perceive the listening; you can only perceive the saying. And that is why social media dialogue is fundamentally unhelpful. It’s a lot of saying and not much listening. Which is why it often degrades into the lowest forms of communication: the name-calling, the ridiculing, the mocking, the shouting, the insulting. Not much progress though, which is unfortunate. Which is why I think sometimes it's better not to say anything. It’s better to simply read, nod along or shake your head, and then move on. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 1 months ago

Mount Plauris

I’ve been thinking about this mountain for more than a decade at this point, for reasons I’m gonna explain later. I wanted to hike it a few weeks ago, but there was a raging wildfire not too far from it on a nearby mountain, so I had to wait. Wait for better air conditions, because hiking with ash and dust in the air is not a smart thing to do, but also wait for a colder day. Yesterday wasn’t exactly a cold day, it still got up in the 33° to 35°C range, but we—me and a friend—decided we were going for a hike anyway. We were out of the car at around 8:30 am and thankfully we got blessed with an overcast day which made the hike A LOT more enjoyable. This is one of those quintessential mountain hikes; if you look at the elevation profile, you start walking, you go up, and you keep going up till you basically reach the summit. There were pretty much no flat spots longer than maybe 10 meters, and there was only a brief downhill part because we had to go through a mountain pass before going up again to the summit. We had to gain almost 1500 meters of elevation in roughly 5.5kms and the climb averages at about 26% incline with stretches in the 75-80% range. From a purely physical perspective, this is not an enjoyable walk. The trail starts on a stretch of concrete road, since there is technically a service road that goes up to the nearest mountain hut, but then turns into a lovely trail into the woods and I love walking into the woods. This area would also be a perfect spot to hang a hammock and just chill. Roughly an hour and 500 meters of elevation gained we reached the Elio Franz Hut, a lovely, lovely mountain hut that is incredibly well maintained and clearly well loved by the people here. It’s free to use and very well equipped, and I felt compelled to leave a small donation since there was a donation box inside it, even though we didn’t even stop here. But people who do this type of work deserve to receive some love. This is where the service road ends but the trail keeps going, first through the woods and then it hugs the side of the mountain with a trail that is everything but easy, with slippery rocks, loose rocks, rocks that are falling down, rocks that are falling away below you, sections with steps so high that I found myself with knees in my mouth (and I don’t have short legs). About 2 and a half hours in, we’re at the mountain pass, we have gained about 1100 meters and the summit is in front of us. Thank god is overcast because climbing up this trail with the sun hitting on us would have been absolutely miserable. Down we go through the only tiny downhill stretch of the whole ascent and this is where I stopped taking pictures before getting up to the summit. And that’s because the final stretch is bad. It’s a scree, but not one of those where you have a clear trail marked or those where everything is soft enough where you can just sink your feet in firmly. No, this is probably just the result of rocks that must have recently fallen down. You can’t stick your feet in it, there’s not enough material and the rocks are too big. You can’t properly walk on top of it, because everything is incredibly loose, and you can’t even properly scramble your way across it, because there are stretches where there aren’t even big rocks to use as an anchor. And it’s steep, 50 to 60% grade. So if for some reason you slip, you’re going to slide down quite far and there’s nothing stopping you. So we had to slowly and carefully find our way through this final stretch, trying to figure out the best way to go up this mess, and we eventually did. Boy was this not a fun thing to do. The final bit to the top is a short, fairly exposed trail but that’s easy compared to what we just passed. On the summit, 3 people were enjoying the view. We learned that they came up from the other side, where there’s a much easier and shorter trail. Maybe I’ll do it one day. The view from the top is very enjoyable, the sky full of clouds that are moving at a significant pace. A lovely spot to take a break before starting our descent. From up here, I can clearly see a place that’s stuck in my memory. You see that green-ish dot, down at the bottom of the picture? That’s the roof of another hut I slept in 10 years ago, in August 2016 when with another friend of mine I first attempted hiking this mountain. Back then the plan was to do the first part of the hike, sleep, and the following morning summit the mountain. But I arrived at the hut that I was so tired, so exhausted, that we didn’t go up and for 10 years I kept thinking at this damn mountain. And here I am, 10 years later, at the top, looking at that place from above. And I’m not even tired so take that 27 years old me. We’re getting better with age! After spending almost an hour enjoying our time on the summit, it was time to go down. And again, not many pictures. The trail was so bad that we took almost as much time going down as going up, and that’s not usually the case. But we survived the long, long descent unscathed. I am glad I finally hiked this mountain. I’m glad my adventure of 10 years ago can finally have a proper closure. But I don’t think I’ll ever do this trail again. This was not exactly enjoyable walking. It’s doable, clearly, but definitely not fun. You love the outdoors and RSS. You're one of the special ones.

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Manuel Moreale 1 months ago

Mounts Krn and Batognica

I lost count of how many times I looked—and photographed—Mount Krn over the past decade. It’s impossible to miss, standing right there in the background of almost all my walks around the valleys, with its 2245 meters and its characteristic gently sloping side. And yet, I never hiked it. The reason why I never hiked it was that it’s a long hike and past me wasn’t a fan of long hikes. But past me is, well, in the past. Current me, on the other hand, loves long hikes. And to be fair, “long” is a relative term. How long does a hike need to be to be considered long anyway? The route for this hike has been sitting on my watch ready to go for weeks, waiting for the summer heat to come down a little bit. I’m a stupid hiker, but going up a mountain in 35°C is too stupid, even for me. And down it finally went. Randevouz with a friend was set for 7 am. The plan was straightforward: drive together about an hour, crossing the border with Slovenia, going through Kobarid, to then reach a parking spot inside the Triglav National Park . The whole area around mount Krn is a lovely plateau, gently sloping uphill, with cows and sheep free to roam around. The scenery is wonderfully relaxing. There are many ways to go up these mountains, our plan is to summit Krn first, and once there, do a long loop touching Mount Batognica on our way back to the start. Climbing up is surprisingly easy. It’s a long, easy walk that takes us from roughly 1000 meters above sea level to the 2254 of the summit in just a bit less than 3 hours. I can’t remember the last time I gained this much elevation this easily. And getting to the top is rewarding. The view is stunning. On one side, facing south, a mix of mountains, hills, and the sea far in the distance. On the other side, facing north, a gorgeous assembly of peaks and valleys, trees and rocks. Also from up here, an unusual angle of Mount Matajur. Funny how a place can look almost unrecognisable when seen from a different perspective. Going from the Krn to the Batognica doesn’t take much. The two peaks are near each other. What I didn’t know is how much history is still up there, laying on a ground that carries the scars of the First World War. Rusted barbed wire is everywhere. So are chunks of metals, and rusted shovels and other tools. A few artillery shells are also there, now a memorial. Also bunkers. So many bunkers dug into these mountains. Walking through these places never fails to remind you of the insanity that those wars were. So many lost lives and for what? The clouds decide to pay a visit, the scenery turns grayscale in the blink of an eye. I’m glad the sun is not hammering us on the way down. It’s less hot than it was a few weeks ago, but it’s still summer, and it’s definitely not cold, even up here. The descent to the starting point is long, and mostly enjoyable. A couple of rough kilometres towards the end, the humidity comes back, and the trail is all of a sudden slippery and a bit overgrown. We lose almost 700 meters of elevation in just a couple of kilometres. The view from the other end of the loop is still magnificent. And the cows are still here, still minding their own business. What else are they supposed to do after all? A bit less than 7 hours have passed , and we’re back at the car. Krn didn’t disappoint. Batognica is worth hiking. The whole Triglav National Park is worth exploring. Slovenia is a beautiful country, and if you’re an outdoorsy person, it won’t disappoint you. You love the outdoors and RSS. You're one of the special ones.

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Manuel Moreale 1 months ago

Tiny Awards, 2026 Edition

If you’re a fan of the web, you probably want to know that voting is now open for that lovely initiative that is the Tiny Awards , running for the 4th consecutive year. I got asked to be a judge this time around, and my votes helped shape the shortlist of candidate that is currently up on the site and I was pleased to see that two of the five sites I picked are part of the final group. Picking five from the list of submissions was a lot of fun. There were so many interesting websites submitted, and it makes me happy to see that the quirky web is still thriving. Go cast your vote ! You have time till September 25th. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

web-development Web Development
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Manuel Moreale 1 months ago

On values, morals, and doing business

I caught wind of the news that MacStories is back posting on X, the “everything platform”, and that seems to have caused some backlash. I am not a reader of MacStories (because tools are tools and I don’t read about new computers the same way I don’t read about new washing machines) and I’m also not on X. So why do I even care about this news? Well, the short answer is that I don’t. But after the move (I guess because of the backlash?) Federico Viticci, MacStories’ Founder, posted what he called “ An Explanation ” conveniently, not on MacStories’ homepage and not even on the site at all. You should go read the whole thing if you’re curious, but there are a couple of things here and there that caught my attention. The first interesting thing is the attempt to separate Elon and his morals from X. We want to be absolutely clear about something: returning to X does not represent a change in our values, what MacStories or we stand for, or an endorsement of Elon Musk. We abhor Musk’s politics, his rhetoric, his careless disregard for others, and the direction he has taken X. But we also disagree that participating on X means we have aligned ourselves with any of Musk’s views or actions. We reject Musk’s worldview and will continue to treat people with the kindness and respect they deserve wherever they are on the Internet. I’m sorry, but this is not how things work. By being on the platform, by using it to reach the audience that’s on there, you are directly supporting the man. Because the platform only has value because people are on it, and you being there makes the situation worse, not better. The main reason why MacStories is back on X is, surprisingly, money. Boring, yeah I know. Quoting from the post again: It’s not just how we earn a living; it’s one of a small number of independent websites that still cover apps, Apple, and a growing list of topics, including videogame hardware and the automation and productivity side of AI. Readers shouldn’t have to think or care about the business side of MacStories, but we have to, which is why we returned to X. If that is the situation, be transparent. Show how you run the site, how much money the site is making or losing, and make your case. But simply saying “Sorry, running a site is hard so we’re doing a 180 without telling anyone, not even the people who work here” is a shitty move. Especially because the move is pretty obvious: the amount of AI-related content on MacStories has exploded, AI people are on X, and if you want to try to grab some of that money, you have to play that game. Like, I get it, but at least say it and own it. Don’t try to play the running-a-business-is-hard card. Have the guts to put up a post on your precious website where you explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Tell people you want to chase more AI content, because you think you’re now more of a “builder” . You’re an Apple fanboy; have some courage. People with strong values and morals seem to become rarer and rarer these days, especially when money is involved, and it’s so sad to see. And this whole AI moment seems to be exacerbating that. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 1 months ago

28 down, 16 more to go

You might be wondering why I’m already back hiking since I walked more than 40 km just a few days ago. And the answer to that is that I’m not hiking. This was a short stroll to briefly visit a church that would normally be part of the tenth and final segment of this ten-part loop. As I mentioned in my previous post, the second half of this loop is so poorly laid out that some of the churches require some crazy changes to the main path in order to be visited, and the final segment of the loop in particular makes absolutely no sense. And I tried to figure out a reasonable way to include all churches in my walk, but there was no sensible way to include this one. It’s also so far from the valleys that I don’t even know why it’s included at all. But there are 44, and I’ll be damned if I don’t visit them all, so off we go, this time with the dog, through the nice path that takes us inside the lovely park that runs near our destination. As I said, this is not gonna be a challenging hike at all. I’m not even wearing shoes, I’m just casually walking the dog in the park with my flip-flops on. I walked this park many times before, but this time we’ll stay on the outskirts since the church is just outside of it. The scenery is quite a bit different from my other walks, there are a lot of vineyards all around the area. Also, not many animals, aside from the dog that’s already hating the warm weather even though it’s still relatively early in the morning. And just like that we have reached the church of san Martino vescovo (28/44) which, to add insult to injury, is inside a private property. I’m not gonna bother adding extra links to this walk, as I said this was just a quick walk to cross the church off my list. But if you’re curious, the whole walk took just a bit more than an hour and was 3.6 km long. Legs are recovering fine from my previous long walk, so you’ll hear from me soon enough with pictures from more interesting places. You love the outdoors and RSS. You're one of the special ones.

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Manuel Moreale 1 months ago

27 down, 17 more to go

The day is August 16th, the time is 6:42 am, and the temperature is a very enjoyable 16°C. The sun is about to rise over the mountains, and I can see it appearing behind the car I just parked at the same parking spot where we ended our walk back in June. It’s been a long summer so far, and not a great one when it comes to hiking. It’s been hot. Probably too much. We hit a few records here and there, hitting 40°C more than once and hiking when it’s more than 35°C and with more than 50% humidity is a miserable experience. But I wanted to go hike, I felt the need to be out there moving through nature, putting some steps in. And that’s what I did. This is going to be a strange hike since it’s part of the 44 churches loop I’m walking, but it’s not going to be a point A to point B hike, and I’m also hitting all the churches of the sixth segment of the loop plus an extra one for reasons I’m gonna explain later. But we have a long way to go, so we better get going. The first church we’re going to visit is very close to the start, just 1km away, and it’s one I never visited before, even though I drove through this place a million times. Walking along the river this early in the morning is very enjoyable, and it’s nice to start a hike on flat ground, rather than immediately going up. Barely 10 minutes into this hike and we’re visiting the church of Sant’Antonio Abate (22/44). The church itself is not all that remarkable, but there’s an interesting plaque on a wall under the porch as a reminder of the history of this place, and also a window was open so I managed to take a picture of the inside. With the first of the six churches we’ll see on this hike behind us, it is time to work our way up. We walk through a few lovely houses (never been on this part of the town), and we find the trail that is gonna take us up to the second church. Noticed a couple of what used to be houses completely reclaimed by nature and was reminded of a recent podcast episode I listened to during a long drive where they were talking about abandoned places amongst many other things. It’s fun to imagine how these towns and villages would look if we all left for a few decades. The narrow trail widens up, we intersect one of those service roads, and then we work our way up to a lovely stretch through a series of open fields. I’m glad I’m walking this part of the trail early in the morning. As always, we’ll encounter random Jesuses and Maries throughout the hike. This is just one of them, placed there for who knows what reason. This part of the loop is very close to home, I walked these fields many, many times before, and I also walked past this cabin so many times and always thought it would be so nice to live in such a place. At some point I should probably ask the owner if he’s willing to sell it. It’s such a lovely place. Just a bit more than an hour into this walk and we have reached the church of Sant’Andrea Apostolo (23/44). This is a lovely church, but the whole area surrounding it is quite neglected, unfortunately. There would also be a lovely view of the whole valley just outside its porch, but sadly everything is overgrown. And that’s the reality of this whole area: it has so much potential, but everything is so neglected, and it feels such a waste. With this church we have also concluded the first uphill part of the hike, it’s going to be mostly flat and downhill for a while before we start climbing back up again. Plus the third church of the hike is just 10 minutes away from here. And in fact, just like that, we’re outside the church of Santa Lucia (24/44). The outside is not unlike many of the other churches, but this one has a gorgeous altar. I couldn’t take a decent picture, but there are a few on the site linked above, so make sure to go click it. We connect back with the trail, and now we have quite a long way to go before we reach the next church since it’s almost 8 km away and we need to go back down this side of the mountain, into the next valley and back up again. Thankfully this walk is gonna be almost entirely inside the woods because the day is warming up fast. But for the next hour and a half we can enjoy this slow descent into the nearby valley. A bit more than 10 km into this walk, and it’s about time to start going uphill again, in the direction of the village of Costne and the fourth church of this hike. I have never been up here before, and it always amazes me how many old and abandoned houses there are in these valleys. I think I should start doing a more comprehensive work of photographing these places just to document how an area slowly dies down. Maybe that’s a project for future me. We just passed the three-hour mark, and we have reached the church of San Mattia Apostolo (25/44), which I think is the only one so far with 3 bells. I thought this was a nice spot to take a quick break, eat something, drink a bit of Gatorade and also, since I had phone signal, FaceTime my friend Mattia who was about to hop on a plane for South Korea. I’m walking around the valleys while he’s travelling around Asia at the moment, and if you’re interested in that, you can follow his adventure either on his site or via his newsletter . This 20-minute break was nice, but we’re now moving again, going down for a little bit before starting the biggest climb of the day. We’re passing close to the village of Tribil, which is where this segment of the loop ends, but we’re headed in the opposite direction, up Mount Hum, a place that’s filled with WWI history, and then down on the other side to reach the fifth church of the hike. The sign at the base is telling me it’s gonna be a 1-hour hike to reach the summit, but I have different plans. I hiked this mountain before, but it was a lot more slippery back then. Now everything is super dry. And we’re at the top. It took me 30 minutes. Easily the hardest part of the hike so far, and my HR can confirm that. But that’s behind us, and we now need to go back on the other side before going up again to reach the halfway point of this hike. We’re down the mountain, back on the road, and I can see the church from here. Been up there quite a few times lately, it’s a lovely spot, especially late in the day. Final push uphill, and we have reached the church of San Volfango (26/44). We’re 5 and a half hours into this walk, and we have hikes 20kms so far. It’s time for another quick break to catch my breath and also finish this Gatorade I have with me. Most of the rest of the hike is gonna be downhill from now on, but we have quite a long way to go before we’re done. So down the stairs we go, through the abandoned—I think—village of San Volfango, onto a very sunny road and back to where we exited the trail out of Mount Hum not long ago. I’ll have to walk back on the same trail for a tiny bit—something I usually try to avoid—because the alternative would mean walking quite a long stretch on paved road and that’s not an enjoyable experience. On the trail, I stumbled on a big group of people that was taking a break, lying down in the shade, and they all had horses that were also chilling on the trail. Lovely animals. Horse riding is something I’ve never done in my life but would love to do one day. Feels such a great way to experience nature. Almost 25 km into this hike and we’re about to enter Tribil, where this segment of the churches loop ends. I passed through here just the other day, during a silly walk with my dog, but that’s a story for another time. And here we are, at the parking spot next to the cemetery where our hike should end, if I was a reasonable person. This is also where the next hike will start. But this time, we’ll keep going, and we’ll make it a full loop, going back to my car. And on our way there, we’ll hit a church that’s part of the 7th segment of this loop. There are two reasons why I’m doing this. The first one is that I’m an idiot and I like to do silly things. The second is that the second half of these walks all have idiotic routes that make absolutely no sense. And as you’ll see in future newsletters, I had to tweak the proposed paths quite a lot to make them walkable in a decent way. And hitting this extra church today allows me to make the next walk much more enjoyable. But that means today we need to keep going, so down the trail we go. The trail is mostly uninspiring now, just a long, relaxing, slightly downhill stroll through the woods, as we’re heading towards the village of Presserie, very close to the final church of the day. We’re out of the woods now, back on paved road, and about to approach the final uphill stretch of the hike. My feet are starting to hurt a little bit. We are a bit more than 30 km into this hike. Almost 8 hours into this hike and we’re finally outside the church of San Paolo Apostolo (27/44). Thankfully, there’s a fountain just outside of it. I definitely need to refresh myself a little bit. The only thing left to do now is to walk back to the car. Which means leaving the church behind us, going through a short stretch into the woods, back onto the main road, then through a weird side trail again and then back onto paved road. We’re down at the bottom of the valley, only a couple of kms left to walk on this sunny road and then we’d be done. With the walk. My feet are now hating me, but that’s a problem for later me. And just like that, we’re back at the car. The time is 4 pm, the temperature is 35°C, and we have walked almost 38 km and ascended almost 1600 meters. I’m honestly less tired than I thought I’d be and kinda pissed that I didn’t hit 50k steps for the day. But the good thing is that I need to walk the dog later in the day, so we’ll get there. As always, photos of the walk are on the shared drive folder (these are all kinda shitty I have to say, not sure what happened, I definitely need to buy a camera) and the data from my watch is available at this link . See you next time! You love the outdoors and RSS. You're one of the special ones.

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Manuel Moreale 2 months ago

On content, writing, and art

Yesterday I was emailing with the always lovely Robin Harford, who has a wonderful website over at eatweeds.co.uk . We were discussing the sad state of the web, and wondering what can be done to prevent Google and the others from abusing our content. And within that discussion, he mentioned his hate for the word “ content ”. He’s not the only one who feel that way; I’ve seen quite a few people mentioning this issue of the use of the word “content” to describe the product of someone’s creativity. As I said to him via email, I don’t have the same issue with the word, but that’s maybe because I’m not a native speaker and to me “content” doesn’t carry a connotation of any kind. If you say “content creator” , though, that’s a different story. He used the word “art” to describe the product of his work, and I have no issue with that. He’s a writer after all, and writing is an art form. My 5 years of high school were spent at an art school, studying traditional goldsmithing, as well as art in general. And maybe this is how my brain is wired, but to me the word “art” usually isn’t attached to written content. I also don’t consider myself a writer . Which is funny because when I get asked to describe what I do the most succinct definition I often use is “writer of code and words” since that is what I spend my time doing in front of this screen. But reflecting on the use of these words made me wonder what even is this thing I’m doing here on this site. This is clearly writing and, therefore, I am a writer. But in that case, we’re probably all writers. We all text and send emails and post online. Are we all writers? What makes a writer a writer? The medium? The length? The meaning? The time spent? As I said to Robin via email, I think of what I do here as public emailing. I sometimes have thoughts appearing in this brain of mine, and I decide to share them in a way that’s public. These are attempts to communicate, to make connections, to encourage dialogue. But maybe that’s also what artists try to do with their art? As always, many questions, not as many answers. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 2 months ago

Raising the bar

I just went through the queue of submissions to blogroll.org and probably deleted 95% of what was in there. This is not unusual, and has become more and more common lately. A big reason for this is clearly AI. The amount of slop submissions I’m getting is trending upwards, unfortunately. The other big reason is people attempting to use the blogroll as a way to get traffic for their shitty marketing sites, which is obviously annoying and a waste of my time. There’s people who have submitted their stupid marketing sites multiple times, and I’m starting to contemplate the possibility of blacklisting domains because some people out there clearly don’t know how to behave. But all this is making me question the value of big lists in an age where content is becoming more and more abundant. There are people out there—idiots, if you ask me—who think that coding has become a commodity, that everyone can make a site with just a few prompts, and that producing content worth consuming has become so incredibly cheap and easy. If you believe in all that, what even is the point of having a big list of sites worth consuming since content worth consuming should just flood every corner of the web and be easily accessible? I do not believe that to be the case. I believe, in fact, the opposite to be true. Good content, content worth consuming, is becoming harder to find, and it’s getting buried under a sea of low-quality crap, which makes me wonder if it’s time to start rethinking how blogroll.org works. I have ideas for how to tweak both the site itself as well as the submission process (and no, that doesn’t involve the exchange of money), but it’s obvious to me that the only way out is to raise the barrier to entry, which is pretty much the opposite of what the web has been all about for the past 20 years. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 2 months ago

Fitness Challenge: Update Two

About two months ago, I discussed my fitness challenge where the goal was to get below 85.3kg, the oldest measurement I have on record on the scale’s app, starting from 89.6kg. We’re halfway through this challenge, and things got a bit out of hand because, as it’s often the case, I tend to go a bit extreme when I set this type of goal. I hopped on the scale this morning and logged an 81.1kg, which is the lowest weight I have on record since I bought the scale 10 years ago. I’m feeling incredibly well, at least physically, if we ignore the heatwave with its endless series of days at 39°C. The mental side of things, well, that’s a different story, but I can assure you it’s not related to the loss of weight. That’s helping a lot actually, but this is something I plan to write about once this challenge is over in a few months. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 2 months ago

A moment with a very warm summer

It’s a very chilling 38°C outside at the moment. Those are at least 35 more that the max temperature this dog considers acceptable. But he’s doing his best to ride the heatwave, like the rest of us. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 2 months ago

On “Missives From”

There is nothing I hate more than doing self-promotion. The idea of talking about something I’m doing, I’ve done, or I'm going to do makes my skin crawl. But the opposite, promoting things other people are doing—especially friends—fills me with so much joy that I’ll never miss out on the opportunity of doing it. And that’s why I’m excited to let you know that my longtime friend Mattia is about to embark on another of his trips, this time touching Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, and as usual he’s going to share thoughts and pictures on his newsletter “Missives From” . I’m sure he’ll figure out a way to get himself into some sketchy situation since he seems to have a knack for that. So, “Missives From” Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan , first newsletter dropping sometime this week (maybe). Go sign up and tell Mattia Hi and let him know I sent you. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 2 months ago

Thoughts on Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

This morning I finished reading Snow Country by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata . The book was suggested to me by my cousin who, after our most recent dinner together where we talked at length about books, sent me a list of a dozen titles for me to read. When it comes to books that are suggested to me, I like to know as little as possible about them: I don’t research the author, I don’t read the blurb, I don’t seek reviews. I like to think that if someone suggested a book to me there might be a good reason for it and so I simply pick it up and read it. And that’s exactly what happened with this book. At the beginning of July I ordered 3 books from the list provided by my cousin: Neuromancer by William Gibson (already finished it), Kokoro by Natsume Soseki (started reading it today and I’m enjoying it a lot), and Snow Country. This morning, after I finished it, E. asked me if I liked it. And as I said to her, I’m not sure I know how to answer that question. It happens a lot with books. And if you were to ask me to describe this one to you, I wouldn’t know where to start. It’s a snapshot of life, suspended in time, left there hanging without what most people would consider a proper conclusion. But at the same time it felt complete, as if nothing more needed to be added. I don’t know if I enjoyed the book, or if I liked it, but I can for sure say that it left me with something , and that’s more than enough for me. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 2 months ago

One newsletter to rule them all

This is a PSA post, and the TLDR is this: if you were subscribed to one of my newsletters, you should log into the Buttondown portal and make sure your preferences are correct. Also, I updated the domain name used, and new emails will arrive from , so make sure your email doesn’t treat it as spam. I mentioned in a previous post that I have done some work on the newsletter side of my digital life. I used to have 4 different newsletters; I’m now down to just one, and I intend to keep it that way. I renamed it “Thoughts and Walks” because those are the two main topics I write about. The newsletter is the result of the merging of two previous newsletters: my RSS-to-inbox automated newsletter, that was there for the people who enjoy getting the content of my blog in their inbox, and From the Summit , my newsletter about the outdoors. If you were subscribed to one or the other—or both—you are already on the new list, and you are tagged accordingly. And tags are how I’m going to manage this newsletter moving forward. There are currently three you can choose from by logging into Buttondown’s portal . Blog Followers is how I tagged my old RSS-to-inbox newsletter. If you select that tag you’ll get all the content I publish here on the site, except for the From the Summit posts. Again, this exists as a convenience for those who prefer to consume content inside their email client. From the Summit is my old standalone newsletter. If you select this tag you’ll get all the posts that are part of my From the Summit series, where I share my hikes and my random adventures out in nature. Newsletter Exclusive is pretty self explanatory. This is reserved for content I only share via newsletter. If you prefer to consume content on my blog but don’t want to miss out on what I share via email, just pick this one. I don’t know how many of these I’ll send, maybe a couple a year. Those are the three currently available tags, but I do not exclude the possibility of adding more in the future. Important note : if you subscribe now, and do not pick any tag, you’ll receive all the content . So NO TAGS = ALL TAGS . If you care about getting only some of the content, make sure to customise your preferences . Also, I set up a custom domain name to send these emails moving forward. Rather than using the default domain, I’m now sending from . Why .dev and not .com, you might be wondering. Well, because I don’t want to mess with the email settings of my primary work domain name, and I have a .dev just sitting there so I might as well use that instead. There’s a non-zero chance your inbox might treat this new address as spam, so watch out for that. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 2 months ago

Thoughts on “To Have or to Be” by Erich Fromm

As I mentioned in my IndieWeb Book Club post , I first read Fromm’s book more than 20 years ago. I was in my early high school years when I stumbled upon his work and was immediately intrigued by his way of looking at the world. The fact that he was not “just” a philosopher but also a psychologist and a sociologist meant his ideas felt more concrete and applicable in today’s world, even though his book was more than 30 years old at the time and is half a century old now. In reading To Have or to Be a second time, I was surprised by a couple of things. I remembered quite well the core thesis of the book, this tension between the two fundamental modes of existence, one predicated on the idea of possessing things, while the other is built on the concept of living and experiencing things without feeling the need to have them. It’s a way of looking at the world that felt right in my youth, and it still feels that way now, probably even more so considering the state of the world. But what I didn’t remember was the second half of the book, where Fromm tries to outline what a new human being and a new society could look like if we ditched the first mode—which is basically the pure capitalistic and consumeristic mindset—and embraced the second. He was certainly very optimistic, and there are passages that made me smile: seeing how convinced he was that the capitalist model was on the cusp of breaking down is heartwarming. But at the same time, there are thoughts in that second part that are shockingly accurate in describing today’s society. His thoughts about news, about the manipulation of people through advertising and propaganda, I was quite surprised to see how well they aged. Reading the book again made me want to pick up a bunch of his other books I also read in my teens, from Escape from Freedom to The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness , but also made me want to read some of his other books— The Art of Being seems very interesting—and also made me want to read Marx and Spinoza. I might add a bunch of those books to my reading list. Overall, very happy to have read the book a second time. I’m not a fan of re-reading books, but this was definitely worth it. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 3 months ago

On ethics and usefulness

Kevin sent me a link to this email from Linus Torvalds the other day, and I found that to be a great example of something that has been bothering me for a while now. It’s about AI—everything is about AI these days, so damn boring—and, more specifically, Linus’ position when it comes to the use of LLMs. What I find bothersome is the lack of any consideration for the moral and ethical implications of the technology itself. The justification for its use essentially boils down to “it’s a useful tool”, which is a totally unconvincing argument in this context. In his defense, Linus also mentioned that «There are other questions around AI» but it’s telling that the one example he picked was «what the economy of it will actually look like in the end» which, again, has nothing to do with anything related to the ethics around the use of these tools, how were made, and so on. And look, I understand that this is a very complex landscape to navigate since it touches A LOT of different aspects. But to quote Linus, «the solution is not to put your head in the sand and sing "La La La, I can't hear you”» . This is a technology that is deeply entangled with moral and societal issues, and you have to accept the fact that you need to confront those ethical and moral dilemmas. There’s no way around it. And if you decide to sweep everything under the “it’s useful” rug, well, that’s disappointing to say the least. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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Manuel Moreale 3 months ago

On planting seeds

Matt asked me a question recently about the end of my People and Blogs run. The question was if I always thought I was going to hand it over at some point, and it’s an interesting question worth expanding on, which is why I told him I was going to write a post about it, rather than simply answering via email. I started and ended more online projects than I can remember at this point. I bought a dozen domain names, coded way too many sites, only to have them all inevitably bite the dust, sometimes months later, sometimes years later. But I don’t think I ever started a project with a set deadline in mind. All the projects were open-ended, always. Back in September 2021, I posted about the shutting down of my thegallery.io , a site I ran for almost 7 years, and in that post, I wrote Once the passion is gone, it is gone. There's no point in dragging things until you reach some random date in the future. When I started People and Blogs, the plan was to run it for a single year: 52 interviews, that was the plan. But then the end arrived, and people enjoyed the series, so I kept going. But at some point, I crossed the imaginary line that separates doing something because I enjoy it, and doing something because other people enjoy it. If you do something long enough, you almost always end up inevitably crossing that line. There are exceptions—there are always exceptions—but that’s what my experience taught me. And it’s weird how the process of realising that something is done works. Because at first I was simply carried forward by the momentum, by the established routines. I was sending emails, posting updates, and scheduling interviews. But the moment I considered the possibility of stopping, it was almost as if a seed got planted in the depths of my brain. This process kinda reminds me of the plot of the movie Inception. And once that seed was planted, it’s incredibly hard to eliminate. And it’s almost as if deep down I already knew the right thing to do but was too busy dealing with the routine to realise it. So to answer the original question, no, I didn’t know from the get go I was going to pass the series to someone else. But a part of me enjoys this process of seeing projects changing hands. I was happy to receive blogroll.org from Ray , and I was equally as happy to hand over peopleandblogs.com to Zach . It’s one of the many good qualities of this corner of the web I love to inhabit. The lesson I learned this time around is that projects need an endpoint! I’ll keep that in mind for the next time I inevitably start something new in a few years from now. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Connect via email :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month

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