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Mastodon

Mastodon

I have been planning to write something on this topic for a while, and initially planned to spend some time during the holidays to collect my ideas for this post, but who can find time during holidays? Am I the only one that seems to be busier during holidays than the rest of the year?

Anyway, considering my very low opinion of Elon Musk, and my even lower opinion of the Saudi government, once the takeover of Twitter took place I decided it was time to move away from that platform, and looked again at Mastodon, many years since the last time I checked it out.

Now, I never had a great relationship with Twitter to begin with. I created my account in 2007, used it fairly often for the first few years, and then less and less. I would login every few years, have a look around, get immensely bored, or fed-up with all the negativity there, and leave for few more years. The only reason I did not delete my account a long time ago was to avoid someone else to register and use it, and this is the same reason why I still have my @isazi Twitter account. I may decide to delete it at some point, the same way I deleted my Facebook account some years ago, but this is not happening today.

Fast forward to November 2022, with Mastodon instances sprouting all over the place, I had a look around and decided to join an instance created for the Dutch academics, and this is where you can find me now, with the usual @isazi handle. My first idea was to join the Italian pacifist instance of sociale.network, but I then opted for something more closely related to my current job. What I was not expecting joining Mastodon is how much better than Twitter this place felt, almost immediately. And I realized that the reason for this is how my feed is built and populated.

There is no algorithm shoveling content at me with the final goal to keep me “engaged”. I see only the content produced by the people I follow, and their re-broadcast of things they find interesting. If I find you interesting enough, I follow you. If you start producing content that I do not want to read anymore, I unfollow you, and the platform will not keep showing me your content just because we have some contacts in common. This may sound like a bubble, and it partially is, but it is such a better experience for me personally. My Twitter timeline was nothing more than ads and content that the Twitter’s recommendation engine decided it was “interesting” for me. And this algorithm’s definition of interesting was very controversial material that would make me feel bad.

I used, and still use to say, that in such systems you are a click away to become indoctrinated. Well, I actually say that you are a click away to become a Nazi, but it’s the same. One “like” to a shady tweet that does not look that shady on the surface, and your feed starts populating with conspiracy theories, bitcoins, Nazis, climate change deniers, and so on. And if you are fed this content without knowing, and do not have enough information antibodies, the risk of being trapped in such discourse is very high.

The point I am making is not that such kind of content cannot exist on Mastodon, or that the people on Mastodon are better. The point is simply that no algorithm will start showing you such content just because you liked something or followed someone, to keep you engaged. I believe this approach is much better for our society and our public discourse.

Sentiero del Centenario

Sentiero del Centenario

It was years ago, the first time I climbed Monte Camicia from Vado di Ferruccio, that I first heard about this famous trail. There was this group of people, wearing harnesses and carrying a rope, that we met on the way, and they were hiking the “Centenario”.

Since then, I always wanted to hike that trail, but I never did. And I never did it mostly for logistic reasons: start and end are more or less 20 km apart, and without two cars, one at the start and one at the end, or bikes, it would be pretty complicated.

Well, this Summer I decided to do it anyway (and I ended up walking half way back also, but thankfully not all the way back to the start thanks to a couple of German tourists that gave me a ride).

It was a beautiful day, and the trail is brilliant. Also, according to Strava, at the time of this writing I have the 5th overall time on the associated segment 🙂

You can even check the activity in 3D with Suunto.

Ortler, and more

Ortler, and more

To be honest, few months ago I didn’t think this would have happened. When the corona crisis began, and Europe closed its internal and external borders, I thought my alpine plans for the summer were no more.

However, I decided to keep training, once again following a plan from Uphill Athlete, for two reasons: the first, training is never wasted time. If nothing happened, I still would have added to my training bank hours upon hours of aerobic training. The second reason to keep training was that, if at some point in the summer I got green light for my alpine trip with NKBV, I would have had no time to start training, so I had to be in good shape already.

And finally in mid June, one month before the trip, we got green light. And after the trip, here I am sharing some videos I made with Suunto, highlighting the three main summits of the trip: Cima Marmotta, Zufallspitze, and the Ortler.

Zugspitze

Zugspitze

Borders inside the European Union are basically open, so decided to travel to Germany to get some fresh air.
And, being in Garmish-Partenkirchen, I decided to climb the Zugspitze (2962 masl), the highest mountain in Germany.

You can even check the activity in 3D with Suunto.

Veluwe traverse

Veluwe traverse

Since at least 2015 I have been thinking about walking in a single push from Rheden to Nunspeet, traversing the whole Veluwe in the South-North direction.
I did a few attempts, all of them ended close to Apeldoorn for a variety of reasons.

Until on the 1st of September 2019, after having watched the TMB on YouTube the day before, I decided it was time for a real attempt.
The weather forecast was good, days still long, I was alone at home and feeling right, so eventually I woke up early on that Sunday morning, took the train from Amsterdam to Rheden, and walked the whole day.

The walk was enjoyable for the most part, I felt pretty good until a bit before kilometer 50, but then hit a metaphorical brick wall, my legs became rubbish, and walking the last 6/7 kilometers was hard.
Also, at that point I could not eat anymore, I believe to have chewed my last Clif Bar for 20 minutes or so.

However, although painfully, I managed to walk the whole way from Rheden to Nunspeet, ending my hike on a sunny bench at the train station.

You can even check the activity in 3D with Suunto.