The Great 2026 Blog Renovation
I spent the first week of my summer vacation redesigning this blog. Now the home page is richer and more information-dense. There is still much to do but, for now, we are open for business! -- Read More
Davide Aversa
Software developer, writer, messy human.
Latest posts
The ChangeLog – July 2026
This summer is a never-ending fight against heatwaves. The best I can do is accept it and make the best of it. Therefore, in this lighter issue, I will go over a fantastic Medieval horror book, a great movie adaptation of a beloved sci-fi novel, and the list of my favorite free puzzle games you can find online. -- Read More
A Skill for Getting Letterboxd Reviews into Obsidian
For years I manually copied my Letterboxd reviews into Obsidian like a primitive. Then I realized that automating tasks has never been easier, so I made a skill and turned this process into one click. -- Read More
The ChangeLog – June 2026
June 2026 has been a mix of events and emotions. I went to Greece for work, I hurt my back, and we booked our wedding location and date. But I also read the new Dungeon Crawler Carl book, a historical novel set in Syracuse, watched a romcom from 1966, a Pixar movie I didn’t know existed and enjoyed yet another Canadian progressive rock duo. -- Read More
The ChangeLog – May 2026
Yes, I am getting married. A symbolic representation of how I am breaking a decade of stagnation. Moreover, in this issue, the new chapter of On the Calculation of Volume , the review of Adaptation . and Clifford and, finally, I talk about the new album forom Genesis Owusu. -- Read More
A D&D Encounter Calculator in Elixir
I am sharing a little Dungeons & Dragons encounter calculator I wrote in Elixir as an exercise. In the last two months I did two things: D&D and Elixir. It was only a matter of time before they had a little child. -- Read More
The ChangeLog – April 2026
April wasn’t really a month of change, but it was one in which I put something in motion. In the meantime, I read Anathem and two other books, watched a 1945 movie, explored nerdcore hip-hop, and lost my mind on Vampire Crawlers . -- Read More
The ChangeLog – March 2026
In a surprisinglly cold March, I read a lot not completing any book (next month!) and finally reached the final stretch of my James Bond watch-a-thon but, most importantly, I got lost in the best Pokémon game of all time: Pokopia. -- Read More
The Changelog – February 2026
February is the shortest month, and I always need to write it at the last moment. It is hard to write about what I did up to the 27th when the month has only one more day. So I am always short on time, and I never learn my lesson. I didn’t learn it even this time. Still, in the end, I have still something to show off. -- Read More
The Problem With Measuring AI Productivity
Every time I read about some study measuring the productivity gain of AI-assisted development, I raise an eyebrow. There is too much variability in the usage of AI tools and techniques, making it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions. So, let me share my personal opinion. -- Read More
The Changelog – January 2026
The year started with a bang. I read an Einstein biography, watched a great, century-old movie, and got caught by Polish progressive rock once again. But, most importantly, I have a cat now. -- Read More
The Hyperdigestion of Modern Media
I am increasingly bothered by the fact that any piece of media that comes out is already old in less than 24 hours. Everybody feels the urge to have a strong take, to dissect it and analyze it. In doing so, we lose the ability to let a piece of media filter through our minds and become part of us. -- Read More
Why I Quit Mastodon in 2026
I constantly wrote on Mastodon for the last 4 years. The environment is increasingly hostile and far from what I would like. So there is no point in staying. -- Read More
The Changelog – December 2025
This monthly edition is shorter than usual, as I spent most of my time revising my second novel-length story, doing this year’s Advent of Code , and living the Christmas atmosphere. -- Read More
The Changelog – November 2025
October was very similar to November, with the same issues but also the same good things. I am focusing a lot on Music an RPGs as a coping mechanism. This month, I finished the last two books from the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, watched Del Toro’s Frankenstein and another bunch of James Bond movies. And an important news: after 2 years, I finally started Baldur’s Gate 3. -- Read More
The Golden Rule of Using AI Agents
As with many, I played around with AI agents in code. Contrary to some opinions, AI agents made me rediscover the joy of coding (for many reasons I may discuss another time). However, I am not blind, and I owe my satisfaction with AI agents to a strict mental model and practice. If you are not a software developer and you use AI to jam together personal scripts for yourself, do not worry, you can…
The Changelog – October 2025
October felt like it lasted a week. Still, it was a nice, cozy month. In this article we’ll talk about the fifth chapter of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, two non-gory horror movies, another AOR album, and my experience with Ghost of Yotei -- Read More
The Changelog – September 2025
September was a great month. I finally have a desk, and I finally changed something in my daily routine. I read another two books of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and finished the Three-Body Problem trilogy. I watched High and Low and The Phantom of the Opera, and I will share my connection I Love My Computer by Ninajirachi. Finally, my two cents about Silksong. -- Read More
The Changelog – August 2025
August was a month of recharging. I spent a week in the mountains and reconnected with myself. In this month’s issue: my first taste of litRPG , a Japanese movie about food, multiple Ulysses, and two progressive rock Ukrainian albums. -- Read More
Review your week like a chess game
For the last year, I’ve been using a chess-inspired system to review time periods in my life. It is a stupidly simple system, but effective (in my expirience). So, I thought I could share it with you. -- Read More
Movie Posters Grid in Obsidian With Dataview
With the upcoming Bases update in Obsidian , this may become obsolete, but for the time being I am still quite happy using Dataview to embed little graphical elements in my notes. For example, I have a note summarizing all the movies I watched each month. For that I use a combination of CSS and a Dataview query to generate a grid of movie posters. Until recently I used a very simple Dataview…
The Changelog – July 2025
It has been a month of contrasts; of light and shadows. In the midst of all that, I read three books, listened to the new Messa’s album and, of course, I watched KPop Demon Hunters like everybody else. -- Read More
The Changelog – June 2025
In this scorching hot June, I started to be myself again and I am again finally able to feel enthusiasm for projects and ideas. And for this reason, I read and watched more things. So let’s explore last month’s books, movie, and my favorite Japanese web radio. -- Read More
The Changelog – May 2025
I dont’t feel like talking much. So let’s just talke about two books abotut the Roman Empire, a movie about Bob Dylan, and how I am catching up with the Mission: Impossible franchise. And Expedition 33. -- Read More
The Changelog – April 2025
This month has been harsh. I spent most of it in my head, unable to control a wave of anxiety and catastrophic thoughts. Yet, I tried my best. I read Nexus, watched Conclave just in time for the real one and found another obsucre gem in Netflix back catalog. -- Read More
The Changelog – March 2025
March was a month of contrasts, but, overall, I am happy with it. I wrote two articles, finally watched Flow, and read The Notebook , listen to the new clippings album. And now I am ready for the new season! -- Read More
It Is Okay to “Vibecode”
Critiques to vibecoding are often an example of right-Gaussian thinking. If you want to be a developer, you should avoid it. But if not, why should you not take advantage of new tools? Just be aware of the limitations. Here I try to explain why vibecoding is not a cardinal sin. -- Read More
MovingAI-Rust 2.1.0: Now panic-free!
I released version 2.1.0 of my MovingAI benchmark parser for Rust. The main change is that I removed all panics from the library because idiomatic Rust code should not panic if it can return a Result object. -- Read More
How to install MediaWiki on Docker
A quick 10-steps guide to have a MediaWiki instance running locally in 10 minutes with Docker. Because why not? Why should I not the most powerful wiki software to power my local home wiki? -- Read More
The Changelog – February 2025
February was a pleasant month, but perhaps not a very memorable one. I read The Two Towers and Red Team Blues, watched Silo and Mythic Quest, and played Hades 2. I also listened to the new albums by Oklou, Benjamin Booker, and MIKE. -- Read More
The Changelog – January 2025
January was a fine month, but I need to shake things up. I read a book about Socrates and another Star Trek novel. I watched the entire Fast and Furious franchise. I listened to embarassing AOR and played Hades 2. And, finally, the Switch 2 was announced. -- Read More
The Books I Read in 2024
Another year of reading is now in the past! As the tradition wants, I am going to collect here every single comments I wrote on every book I read during 2024. All 32 of them. Enjoy! -- Read More
The Changelog – December 2024
Happy New Year! Let’s wrap up 2024 with a look back at the last month of a solid year. In the last stretch of the year, I reached 196 watched movies, 32 books, and I fell back into my Steam Deck. I also wrote about the anime movie Look Back , the Christmas movie Klaus , and the end of Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5. -- Read More
My Default Apps for 2024
Let’s revisit last year’s article on the apps I used in 2023 and see what I changed in 2024. -- Read More
Testing Bluesky-Powered Comments
After seeing many similar experiments, I am testing a way to show and comment on this blog’s articles using Bluesky network. In the best case, it will make the comment section more lively. In the worst case, I would had learned something new. -- Read More
Notes on this Bluesky Moment
In the last couple of months, Bluesky, one of the many post-Twitter attempts to reshape the landscape of social networks, is living its best moment. Powered by Twitter’s blunders and by the continuous alienation provided by his power-hungry owner, Bluesky doubled its user base from around 10 millions users to the current 24 millions. It is time to annotate some of my thoughts. -- Read More
The Changelog – November 2024
It was a more stable month, where I focused on NaNoWriMo and on training my writing muscle once again. I read a lot less, but I still had some good movies and series to recommend. -- Read More
The Changelog – October 2024
Another month with some wild ups and downs. I spent 5 days in Veneto, and they were wonderful days. I stumbled my way through the rest of the month. I finished the Star Trek: Vanguard series, watched a lot of Japanese spooky movies, and played a bit of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom . And because I am fond of soundtracks, and I spent a lot of time listening to Bear McCreary’s…
The Changelog – September 2024
September was a month of ups and downs. At least, I read a lot of books. I watched Laura, The Post, and a lot of other movies. I listened to prograssive music and I played Castlevania Dominus Collection and Shogun Showdown. -- Read More
The Changelog – August 2024
Finally, I was able to travel again! I spent four days in Edinburgh, and recharged for the “New Year”. But I also read two books, some wonderful Buñuel movies, and listened to all the amazing new music we got in August. It was a good month! So let’s check it out. -- Read More
How I use Calibre to manage my physical library
I love Calibre and I love to curate my digital library. But what about my physical books? How do I fill their gaps in my Calibre database? Luckily, there is a very easy way to track them using Calibre as well. -- Read More
The Changelog – July 2024
July was a very annoying month. I was tired, my arm was hurting, and the weather was unbearable. Still, surprisingly, something happened. Three boks, 18 movies, and two games. -- Read More
Why do we feel retro-computing nostalgia?
Why do we feel attraction for the past? Why do we look at the ‘old web’ with dreaming eyes? Why do we see old protocols and feel the lure of the past? Why do we feel nostalgia for old technology? In this article, I explore my reasons behind the retro-computing nostalgia. -- Read More
The Changelog – June 2024
In the last issue, I lamented May’s lack of passion and my inability to connect with anything in particular. In June, instead, I caught up with everything. I got very invested in many things. I loved tons of movies, and I lost myself (and spent too much money) in a lot of different music genres. -- Read More
One surprising thing about LLMs nobody is talking about
Large Language Models (LLMs) maybe be controversial, somehow, but I am still amazed by their mathematical properties. In this article, I will reflect on my favorite one. -- Read More
The Changelog – May 2024
May was better than expected. Even if I had to deal with a week of flu. I read two books, watched 36 movies, binged the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, and listened to a lot of music. I also started playing Tunic. -- Read More
The Changelog – April 2024
Let’s see the three books I read in April 2024, the ending of Fallot and Shogun, a beautiful Japanese movie, and a never-ending album with 32 tracks. All that in a slowly declining mood. Hurray! -- Read More
This website will always be open. For bots, too.
In period where everybody seems to care about the use of our content, I decided to take a stance: I will always make my content available to everybody, human and non-human alike. Because copyright is a already a problem as it is. -- Read More
The Changelog – March 2024
March flew by in a blink. For good reasons: I had some interesting work projects I focused on, and I spent the rest of the time reading, watching movies, and making music. While there were things I wanted to write (I have three rough blog posts drafts), it was a nice pace. -- Read More
The Changelog – February 2024
Let’s explore the events from last month! I’ll discuss why I moved my website back to my hosting server, how I watched more movies than I did in the last three years combined, the three books I read, DJ Rozwell’s roguelike album, and more. -- Read More