Blog posts by Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/ 2026-09-29T00:00:00Z https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-09-29-FinedellInfanzia.html 2026-09-29T00:00:00Z 2026-09-29T00:00:00Z

From "Fine dell'Infanzia", by Eugenio Montale [...] Volarono anni corti come giorni, sommerse ogni certezza un mare florido e vorace che dava ormai l’aspetto dubbioso dei tremanti tamarischi. Un’alba dové sorgere che un rigo di luce su la soglia forbita ci annunziava come un’acqua; e noi certo corremmo ad aprire la porta stridula sulla ghiaia del giardino. L’inganno ci fu palese. Pesanti nubi sul

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-09-14-Leaving-Obsidian-again.html 2026-09-14T00:00:00Z 2026-09-14T00:00:00Z

Leaving Obsidian (Again) I've recently switched from Obsidian to Zen Notes, and along the way I ended up building something I didn't expect to build: my own self-hosted note-syncing stack, made of Syncthing and Tailscale. This post is about both things — why I moved, and what I built to make the move actually work. This isn't the first time I've left Obsidian. About a year and a half ago I jumped

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-09-13-Reflection-on-Impermanence.html 2026-09-13T00:00:00Z 2026-09-13T00:00:00Z

Losing Everything and yet live in the Present A few days ago I listened to a BBC World Service's interview with a man who had lost everything in the recent floods along the Nepal-Tibet border. He lost his house, his belongings, everything. And yet what he chose to say, what he offered as advice to others, was essentially: don't live in the future, don't hold too tightly to your possessions, be in

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-09-13-Field-Day-in-Basovizza.html 2026-09-05T00:00:00Z 2026-09-05T00:00:00Z

A Field Day on the Border: Friendship, Antennas, and Remembering to Enjoy Myself Last week I travel to Trieste for work and decided to stay one extra day for something purely for fun: a ham radio field day with a small group of friends from the local radio club, right at the edge of Italy near the Slovenian border. The setup Field days are European or even global contests, really more of an excuse

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-09-13-Car-rental-scam-in-Italy.html 2026-09-10T00:00:00Z 2026-09-10T00:00:00Z

Booking Right, Getting Scammed Anyway: A Car Rental Cautionary Tale from Southern Italy For more than fifteen years I've booked rental cars through AutoEurope, even before moving back to Italy. It's a broker that lets you compare providers and, crucially, lets you pre-pay for the "excess waiver" (franchigia in Italian) the deductible you'd otherwise owe out of pocket (sometimes 500 euros or more)

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-09-13-Book-acceptance.html 2026-09-09T00:00:00Z 2026-09-09T00:00:00Z

From Science Festivals to a Book Contract Last week I got the news I'd been chasing, quietly, for over a decade: a publisher has accepted my book on neurotechnology and brain-computer interfaces for the general public. I can't say yet which publisher, since the contract isn't signed, but I can tell the story of how it happened, because it's been a long and, in hindsight, quite beautiful road. It g

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-09-07-Interactive-polls-during-a-Keynote-presentation.html 2026-09-07T00:00:00Z 2026-09-07T00:00:00Z

My own live polling system for Keynote For a while, I relied every now and then on Poll Everywhere to engage students during my university lectures. It was a great tool, but recently, their pricing policies changed. I did not realise it immediately and was surprised that my account stopped working. I wanted something truly minimal and frictionless. No student accounts. No IP logging. No tracking.

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-09-06-Signal-strengths-in-Engineering-and-HAM-Radio.html 2026-09-06T00:00:00Z 2026-09-06T00:00:00Z

From an Antenna to engineering conventions During the last weekend, I spent a fantastic time together with a group of friends from my (ARI) radio club in Trieste, Italy. I joined them on the Carso hills, in Basovizza, not too far from the Italian border with Slovenia. We spent an entire day participating to the Field Day contest which is a sort of competition where amateurs go outdoor and mount te

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-09-01-Podcast-Apps-and-Personal-audio-files.html 2026-09-01T00:00:00Z 2026-09-01T00:00:00Z

Importing audio files into a Podcast app I spend a lot of time commuting—walking or driving. While I do love my usual news and topic feeds, I often find myself wanting to listen to my own thoughts. Whether it's voice notes I've recorded or synthetic podcasts generated from articles via NotebookLM, I need a way to brainstorm and process information when I can't be staring at a screen. For a long ti

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-08-29-ConfCalls-and-Personal-Meeting-Rooms.html 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z

Conf-calls static link: How to? With the convenience of "text-expanders" (e.g. espanso, TextExpander, etc.), I have always felt the need to rapidly communicate (in an email, instant messaging, or a calendar invite) the hyperlink to join a conference call that I was organizing. I dislike immensely the style of Microsoft Teams or even Google Meets, as one needs to first schedule a meeting, entering

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-08-28-On-Podcasts.html 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z 2026-08-28T00:00:00Z

On Podcasts I haven't owned a TV set for over 20 years but I have always been an avid consumer of podcast shows. As I shower in the morning or commute to work, or board a 8h flight overseas, I enjoy listening to fresh news, latest episodes on Linux, HAM radio, Python programming, or even Mindfulness. Apps There are many apps available, most of them cheap or even free (e.g. see Downcast, Snipd, Rad

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-08-27-Dog-Walk-Board.html 2026-08-27T00:00:00Z 2026-08-27T00:00:00Z

(Not so) friendly dogs walking around I finally took a few days off in Liguria with my dog, Daisy. When she is with me, she turns into a tiny shark: she goes after anything that breathes nearby, growling, jumping, promising to dismember dogs and people alike. With my wife instead, perhaps unsurprisingly, she's a lamb and she is loved and recognized with a smile by anyone in this neighborhood. More

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2026-02-12-search-tutorial.html 2026-02-10T00:00:00Z 2026-02-10T00:00:00Z

How to Use the Search Feature The large search bar is prominently displayed at the top of every page. You can't miss it! Here's how to use it effectively: Basic Search Simply type your search query into the search bar. As you type, results will appear instantly below the search box. - Minimum 2 characters: The search activates after you type at least 2 characters - Real-time results: Results updat

Michele Giugliano https://blog.giugliano.info/content/posts/2024-04-17-quick-notes.html 2024-04-17T00:00:00Z 2024-04-17T00:00:00Z

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) Over the last couple of years, I explored several apps for PKM. After getting more and more unhappy with Evernote and its proprietary format, I decided to stick to the minimalism of text file format and particularly of Markdown. I played with Roam Research, LogSeq, but I fell in love with Obsidian. I have been however searching for a very very fast way to jot do

Michele Giugliano