RLJ3

Did you miss me? Me too. Me neither. It depends.

This is another issue of your favorite Journal, full of links, things to see, things to watch, and… let’s go!

Introduction

Planning is the key. But I hate planning.

I wrote some months ago “I will have some spare time this summer. I’d like to plan some articles until the end of this year”.

Hehe, joking. When I started RLJ3 was in June, and I still had many things to do.

Health

First things first: how am I doing? I’m pretty good.

I used to be burned out, and I was like “see you in September” for everything, but I’ve been on holiday and I’ve almost done everything I wanted to do, I am pretty good!

To be honest, I am worried about the future. Things in the world are not going very well, there are wars, there still is censorship, too many climate changes…

Projects

• Stufftrack: I am so excited about this one that I’d like to share the entire project with you and the web. Stay tuned!
• HCI project: I love HCI. While in University, one of the best subjects was HCI, which I loved all by myself. Not only it was taught by a good professor, but it also was interesting. Anyway, the project for uni consisted in adding a feature to an already existing application. We tested our new feature among everyday people with my colleagues, it was really fun. I also have implemented our work into the final app: even if it won’t ever be released, it was really fun to work on it!
  • In detail: we let the users leave ratings for courses and professors, so they don’t need to spam on Telegram and Whatsapp groups.
    • More on the source app: the only (un)official Sapienza app. If you’re a Sapienza student with an Android phone you can’t miss this one.
  • The application extension has been developed in a marathon of about 20 hours on Ionic, in an already configured VM provided by the prof
    • I was unfamiliar with Ionic, and I got hung up on fiddling with CSS the only night I programmed the application (as well as figuring out how to do things right)
      • I’ve ended up in a total mess, talking about clean source code but “hey! if it works, it works!”
  • No screenshot because we didn’t take them!

On life

• Youtube: I haven’t used YouTube for an exceptional period of time (apr-august), except for funny videos. It is boring, and Youtube rarely suggests me something really interesting.
• Hedgehog Dilemmat: a fascinating concept that I’ve discovered thanks to Evangelion
  • 
• Plato’s Cave: a video is worth more than one hundred words. I am unable to clearly explain it, however, you can just watch this awesome video by TedEx.
  • {{ youtube 1RWOpQXTltA }}
• Pareto Principle: The Pareto Principle is a simple rule that could help us to reach our goals and don’t be stressed. The rule is simple:
  • 80% output
  • 20% input
    • The less you input, the more you should produce and this is so true
• Richard Benson is dead: on 10th May, Richard Benson left this earth. This man has accompanied the afternoons of my adolescence. I like to remember him with a smile. Thank you, Richard, CIAO!
• Dead phone, dead computer: call it a bad luck strike or whatever, but I don’t use to have access to both my phone and computer until some days ago. I mean, I still don’t have a computer of mine, I bought a new phone but I am still attached to the old one. On 2nd September I replaced its screen, and now it’s sluggish, the battery sucks, but it works great!

Development

Also known as “behind the scenes stuff”.

Feel free to read this part if you’re not technical and blame me in private, because you understand nothing.

Things I’ve found interesting:

• Postman: a lifesaver when you need to test your own backend. It permits to explore cookies, change body requests and params, and much more… and it is so comfortable
• Vue: I hate frontend. But when it comes to Vue, well… I hate “less” frontend. Vue is a powerful framework that allows you to build an amazing frontend in “not-so-much” time. Check it out! -wadda wadda, we hate javascript… read more-
• No software like Picasa: I am unable to find a good Picasa alternative. Lightroom has too many things, Digikam is the same… Picasa’s like programs don’t exist!
• JWT: from this awesome link on Hacker Noon, JWT is a token that can be verified online (because they respect an open source format) and with this, you can identify a logged user instead of saving its IP or other personal information.
• The duck anecdote: IT people often keep a little rubber duck on their desk and while debugging line per line, they explain what are they doing. Beware of programmers! 

Photography

Just approach this world by “just spending some € and see if I’m lucky”.

A big scratch card, but I’m having a lot of fun!

Long short story: I’ve bought an old Polaroid in very good condition for a few € and… it works!

• Polaroid film: b/w, i-type, 600, SX-70… there are several types of film, all of them are very expensive and there is nothing compatible with those old machines. Good job Polaroid, they can roll your own prices, because they’re the only film manufacturer ever of their own machines.
• [Rise and fall of Polaroid]((https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7z7BAZdt2M): Polaroid was a colossus back in time when Edwin Land was alive. This video explains everything in 5 minutes!
• Photography in 10 minutes: this video really helped me in understanding the core concept of photography. Adorable!
• ZINK: how beautiful Zink is? A lot. In case you’re new, Zink is a technology that allows you to “print” (not really) your photos, by heating some special crystals on the paper’s surface. Please, note that all Zink paper is compatible with all Zink products regardless of brand. You just need to check the paper’s dimensions.
  • FFFF is anyway expensive!

Money

Do you remember last time we talked about Monefy? Well, my (and your) special solution is “MyExpenses”, available on F-Droid!

It is like Monefy but free and open source, you can pay for some special functionalities.

Can’t get enough of recommending it!

Other links

• Stewart Copeland on Spyro. It’s very interesting and I love what he says!
• Why Companies Are ‘Debranding’: from the description From Burger King and Toyota to Intel and Warner Brothers, major brands are discarding detail and depth. Why now, and what’s the rush?
• Why airplanes have a hole in their windows: video in Italian by Geopop
• I Tried this on my old phone, and I broke it. Don’t try this at home! !(/img/dont tr.gif)

The End? Entertainment part 1

I was hungry like many people in the world of “things to see/play” and so on in these months.

I was ill in April, so I’ve decided to watch many tv shows and movies:

• Disenchantment 3 and 4: the third one is cool, they go to Steamland. I’ve found the fourth so boring, that I am unable to remember any particular detail. Sorry, Matt!
• Star wars iv
• Star wars v
• star wars vi
• Scarface: one of the best films ever in my life about the mafia, with Al Pacino. I never felt a long film so short, everything is an action, and it caught me from the first moment. One of my favorite films ever.
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: a sentimental Jim Carrey movie.
• The number 23: a serious Jim Carrey movie. The main character becomes obsessed with the number 23.
• The King’s Speech: didn’t finish it, monotonous and lacking in plot twists. It’s cute, but it always takes place even two hours apart in the same three locations.
  • I was really enjoying it but I felt it was very heavy. It is the story of this prince who stutters when he has to make speeches, a defect he has had since he was a child.
• The spotlight case: I was very passionate about the investigation of the police, priests, and testimonies. It is sort of a mystery/documentary film.
• Shutter island: the choices regarding the setting are really beautiful: apart from the shots with the beautiful cliff, I particularly liked the choice of colors that the director made at almost the end of the film when you see the main character completely dressed in white standing out from the background, all colored the latter with different colors to the main character. The story is quite unique and attracted me from the beginning, two men landing on an island to solve the case of a missing patient. In a majestic performance by DiCaprio, we find him in different roles and situations, and in all cases, he has incredible acting.
• Project Almanac: kids find a time machine by rummaging through an old basement. They have fun but mess with the timelines. Very cute as a “post-dinner late-night” movie, I appreciated that there was a live performance by Imagine Dragons. I wasn’t crazy about the ending.
• Locke: a killer ball, I didn’t finish watching it, after 25 minutes of the movie I was bored to death. Brilliant idea to shoot the whole movie on the phone, but a bore and almost nothing happens. I didn’t mind at all not finishing it.
• These Last Hours: 12 hours until the end of the earth, because of an asteroid. A man is on the run, helps a little girl find a home, and then leaves with his pregnant wife with a child who will never see the light of day. It reminded me a bit of The Walking Dead: S1 in which the protagonist takes after Maxine. Nice to pass the evening, I wouldn’t watch it again.
• Arcane: the LoL series. You watch it mostly for the graphics, because it’s cool, and for the fights, which are exhilarating and never boring. There hasn’t been a single moment when I’ve been bored watching it, except for the concluding episodes, which are a tad “stretchy.”
• Kill Bill vol. 1 and vol.2: a movie that had to be seen. The fights are cool, although I got a little bored at times (some scenes are too slow). Blood everywhere and surreal scenes, like people getting their heads chopped off and the fountain of blood start, made me kind of laugh as a thing. Watching this film made me realize how much the soundtrack influenced the years to come: not only did I know almost all of it, but you can still hear pieces of it today (like the famous meme siren). Impeccable framing and cutaways, nothing to say.
• Private Justice: a memorable thriller, about a man who is killed by his mother and daughter. He then decides to take revenge as few do and sets up a plan that is absurd and devised to the smallest detail. It always confronts us with the question of choice: Is it right to kill? One way in which he dissects a body reminded me of Dexter.
• In line with the killer: nothing is memorable, but it made me laugh a lot in the bits where she tells him to tell the truth and the main character doesn’t. As a film it is brilliant, in fact, it takes place practically in a phone booth. The killer wants to punish the protagonist for the lies he tells every day and to make him a better man. I would call the protagonist pathetic. We all lie every day, but that does not make us better people; in fact, often the opposite. We should not lie to ourselves (a concept also expressed in Evangelion, about happiness).

I don’t want to bore you, so I will stop here for now. Probably on another RLJ I will publish part two of the list, remind me by dropping an email and let me know if you have already watched one of those movies!

The end for sure!

This time I wasn’t joking. It’s true. Bye for now! I hope to write another article soon!