Here we are for the third year in a row update. This is not a blog update anymore, therefore the title has changed. This year has been mostly about creating new content, and not much has changed with respect to the platforms I'm using. Still, I want to keep track of the changes. It's just cool to see something grow, little by little.
#Blog changes
In terms of blog, the only big change has been to separate my own personal writing about life, which is typically done in italian, from the more technical oriented writing, which instead is done in english. This change makes sense, because while everything is connected to everything else, for the purposes of content searching its way more functional to present a clear distinction between personal writing and technical writing.
What has not changed, instead, is the fact that I really like to write. The more I grow, the more I want to write, and the more I wish I was a better and more consistent writer. My problem with writing is that it simply takes too much quality time. Writing requires focus, constant focus. In this sense, writing is very similar to programming. You cannot expect to program interesting things if you are not able to do deep work, work that requires a continuous amount of focused work with no interruption.
Starting the count from august of last year, I wrote seven technical blog posts:
- 2022-09-03 – How I manage my blog
- 2022-09-13 – HTB Writeup - Noter (Medium)
- 2023-02-04 – Base64 Encoder/Decoder in C
- 2023-02-08 – Introduction to TLS
- 2023-04-04 – Debug nodeJS Remotely with Emacs
- 2023-06-07 – How to Build your Own Personal 4G Network
- 2023-07-08 – 4G Protocol Stack
And 9 non-technical ones as well:
- 2022-08-27 – La Tragedia della Ragione
- 2022-09-17 – Imparare a guardare
- 2022-10-11 – Le mie prime lezioni all’università
- 2022-10-30 – Il dono del rifiuto sentimentale
- 2023-01-16 – Arrival
- 2023-02-07 – Il ruolo delle parole
- 2023-03-26 – Il pendolo della vita
- 2023-04-20 – Il dono dell'ignoranza
- 2023-06-05 – Segnale e Rumore
#Finally a self-hosted git server!
Recently I also started to host my own personal git server using the gitea project. It can be found in the following URL: https://git.leonardotamiano.xyz. It was pretty straight forward to set up, although I still have to develop other tooling necessary to manage it in a proper way.
I've always wanted to host my own git server. I find really important to host the services I use as much as I possibly can. While I have no resources to compete with already existing service providers, the idea here is that I do not have to deal with as much traffic. This gives me the freedom to host my services without being destroyed by the lack of resources.
#New effect on initial page
Another cool change that I tried to do was change the matrix effect on the initial page. Right now what I do instead is I render code taken from the code I've written and that is also available in my personal archive.
The effect is not bad, per se, but is also not exactly what I'm looking for. It's just a small experiment to try new things out.
#Teaching section!
Given that this year I started a PhD within Tor Vergata, in Rome, the professor I'm working with has also allowed me to teach some classes in some of the course last year. I remember as a student just how cool it was when a teacher had his/her own website with all the class material, so that even if you missed lecture, or just wanted to refreshen up on what was said at lecture, you could just go in the website and read. To help my student move within the content of my lectures I therefore prepared a website that contains all my teaching material. The website can be found in the following URL: https://teaching.leonardotamiano.xyz/.
In terms of management, the setup is the same as the one I use for this blog, something I've discussed in the blog post How I managed my Blog. I just picked a different Hugo theme in order to have a minimalistic file explorer style.
In terms of lectures, this year I've had the pleasure of doing the following lectures:
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For the Computer Network Security (CNS) course:
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For the Sicurezza Infrastrutture ICT (SII) course:
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For the Vulnerabilità e Difesa dei Sistemi Internet (VDSI) course:
#Youtube growth
To finish off, my project on youtube is still going.
It's really hard to understand the impact I'm having. I do not trust the numbers available on youtube such as subscriber count, watch time, total views, and things like that, because it's hard to translate these statistics into real world meaning and impact. Here's some statistics:
- Total sub count: \(1.596\)
- Watch time last 365 days: 4.995,7
- Sub gain last 365 days: 567
- Views last 365 days: 43.097
What do these number mean in particular? I do not know.
What I do know instead is that the more content I create, and the more I want to create. I look around and I see endless opportunities to teach computer science ideas in fun and stimulating ways. Then, I look at how university, especially those around me, those in Rome, actually teach these subjects, and I get sad. I get real sad because what they teach is not the core of computer science, but something else, something not fun, something sad.
I still need more years of observations and of reflection to understand how to properly conver this core knowledge I'm talking about. It's really hard to teach deep ideas, and the hardest part is that before one can teach such things, well, one has to learn such things. On this, I would regard myself still as a student mostly. I've got so much to learn.