Mambuco

New Brand

Mambuco — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 17:43:00 +0200

Tracks

Hi! Interested in some tracks? Well… this time I’ve got some peak to share with you.

I listened to an album called THE DEATH OF PEACE IN MIND by Bad Omens. I’s a metal album and it has some really cool vocals, rythm and music overall. I often listen to this, it’s one of my favorite metal albums. Gives you chills, I swear.

To be honest I need to show you what’s been going on in my head this couple weeks, lemme know what you think about it.

Tech Dilemma

This is a strictly personal section. If you’re just interested about the review for the Nothing tech accessories I got, you’re free to skip this part.

I already talked about this in another article, I know, but I’m disliking Apple. Or, I was? I’m not sure.

iOS 26 came out recently and my iPhone has been going as smooth as butter since I updated it. I don’t know how this is possible, but hey, seems like it is. I love liquid glass without all the Beta visual bugs I had, and it’s making me think to NOT buy an Android.

But the reason I wanted an Android in the first place was because of the functionalities like APKs, torrents and such that are not a thing on an iPhone. So why am I having doubts now? The only thing I can think of is fear — Apple has an extremely comfortable ecosystem, and I’m also in love with the design. What I’m scared of is that I won’t get the same treatment with Google services or self-hosting.

To me, iCloud still seems the best synchronization service so far. It works system-wide and frees up space on your device as it fills up with other stuff. I know Google has these things too, but it doesn’t provide the same level of integration. Plus, their paid plans are absurd and apparently there’s no self-hosted solution to replace iCloud and Google — with “Free up Space from Device” feature, I mean.

My Approach

One thing led to another, and now I hate all phones. I mean, they’re okay, but I figured out they take too much of my time on a daily basis. While with my laptop I’m able to do everything I need without distractions, my phone is a distraction itself. I use it even when I don’t need to, and I’m not only talking about doomscrolling.

Maybe sometimes we don’t need to go out with a phone, but our excuse is always “what if something happens?” — emergency situations. That’s also why I still need a phone. So, knowing I can’t get rid of it at all I still want to do something about it.

I’ll get a cheaper phone (which means I need to quit Apple) and try to reduce my use of it trough ear buds, a smartwatch and so on. I’ll explain why later.

New Brand Focus

While thinking about this I’ve searched for a good brand that would still give me the feeling that Apple does. This is what I’ve found so far:

Fairphone

It’s a great brand. I’ve looked into their 6th gen for over a month and was convinced to get one.

Without going too much into the details it has 120hz, a great battery, pure Android 15, an “essentials” toggle on the side which I personally appreciate a lot, and many other features. They also give you the option to buy a de-googled Fairphone for 50€ less, with /e/OS installed. (not to my liking btw)

Sounded like a great phone, but a lot of people didn’t recommend it to me and the main reason was the camera. One of the things I care about the most is the camera as I take a lot of pictures myself, especially on hikes. Camera, battery and overall design were what I was specifically looking for, and this didn’t match the requirements anymore.

Google Pixel

As much as I hate Google myself, this was a great option. The Pixel Experience is something unique, so it’s the winner on design. Hardware doesn’t miss anything either, but the price is really high with it being a popular and known phone I guess? Thing is, they have really high prices. I can’t imagine myself anymore going around with a phone that costs more than 1000€. New features come out every year anyway, and most of the times they aren’t retroactive to older models.

Nothing

“it has heavy Teenage Engineering vibes lol” — Daudix

I’ve known Nothing phones since they first came out. They’ve always given tech vibes, and I also prefer detailed designs rather than simple and flat ones. The hardware is good quality, they have pretty nice cameras and the back lights/panels are no joke either.

Accessories

As I said eariler I want to minimize my screen time as much as possible, to live life with my own eyes. But why do I have to deprive myself of modernity by not having my phone, or just not using it? I’ll instead use the phone itself to my advantage.

Earbuds

Last month I got a pair of CMF Buds Pro 2, by Nothing.

They are really comfortable as far as I can say, but I chose them for one specific reason — the Smart Dial. Their case has a little dial that can be either rotated to control the music volume, or pressed (with multiple gestures) to control playback.

That’s already a step towards not having to pull my phone out every time I need to do something. I can keep it in my pocket, and I’ll still be able to control my music from the case itself as if it was a remote. Awesome!

Obviously I’m also gonna mention that for a pair of buds that only cost 50€, the features are endless. They have:

Spatial Audio
Noise Reduction + Transparency (both amazing)
Customizable gestures
Ultra Bass (customizable)
Multi-device connectivity
Customizable EQ
In-ear Detection

You can read all about their specs on the website itself, I barely listed even half of the actual features these buds have.

I want to go even further though. The phone remaining in my pocket is okay, but what if I want to keep it in my schoolbag, or on the desk even if I’m far away?

Smartwatch

Just a few weeks ago I managed to get myself a CMF Watch 3 Pro, again, by Nothing.

A lot of people see it as a waste, and I honestly understand their point. Why would you have a watch to do what you’ve always been able to do with just your phone?

The point doesn’t stand though if what I’m trying to do is exactly getting rid of my phone.

With the success that the CMF buds had, I decided to go for another Nothing product. This time their smartwatch — and I must say, it surprised me.

Now let’s go over the actual specs. This smartwatch is their latest model (at time of writing) and it currently has:

Customizable watch faces
Always On Display
Notifications (customizable)
Music control
Heart rate, sleep, stress and blood oxygen tracking
Power saving mode (Battery can last 13 days)
Remote camera control
Weather stats

Doesn’t have an app store but it’s more than okay, I personally think that apps on a smartwatch are ~~bullshit~~ anyway. If you want to me other features (again, I didn’t mention them all) check them out on their page.

One thing I actually got surprised of is their compatibility — this is not my first smartwatch, I’ve had a Xiaomi band before and an actually pretty good Huawei smartwatch. The Xiaomi one being a band was very limited to a few features, but the Huawei one had plenty of ’em. The issue was iOS. Bound to an iPhone, it lost half of its utilities because of “incompatibility” while they were just being lazy. The most compatible device was a Huawei phone, of course.

I discovered then that a lot of brands do this, Apple included. But this, it’s the first time I see a device having full compatibility (exactly, none missing) with a phone very far from their own. Made me kind of happy, not gonna lie.

Nothing Phone

Don’t worry, I haven’t got one yet. But I’m planning to.

Actually I’m kind of scared, because what if I don’t like it and go back to using my iPhone? But honestly, maybe I’m worrying too much. Oh and by the way, I’m probably gonna get a Nothing 3.

Conclusion

Maybe it’s a little bit too early to review these devices but I’ve already used all of their features and they work great, so why not. In case there’s any update you must be aware of I’ll just publish another article about it.

Let me know what you think, and see you soon!

Summer Hike

Mambuco — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 18:16:00 +0200

Tracks

This time, I’m listening to Lo-files by Bring Me The Horizon. It’s an album with lo-fi versions of their most famous songs, which give you both chilling and exciting vibes. The same vibes I had while living the experience that I’m about to narrate.

During the hike itself I didn’t have earbuds, so I didn’t listen to any music. But I didn’t have to, ’cause listening to the nature surrounding you while traveling has no substitutes.

As the title suggests, I went on a hike! Well, not that recently… From the 2nd to the 7th of August! Actually, the 2nd I participated at the youth day and actually departed the 3rd, so…

This article depicts an arch linux user and anime otaku touching grass. Not just touching, but also walking and sleeping on it, for several days. There are also pictures of it.

If you’re sensitive about the topic, we advise you to exit the article and go read another one about either linux, gaming or anime.

Pre-Hike

Before actually departing, I participated to the international youth day which was held in Rome—my hometown. It was a really heartwarming experience.

Most of you do not know but I’m a scout. Not a boyscout (that’s american stuff, I’m not involved with it), just a scout. More specifically, I’m part of the International Union of Guides and Scouts of Europe, shortened as FSE. We’re also catholic, this should explain what I’m gonna say next.

I’m gonna keep this short, as it’s not the main topic of the article but we basically reunited (we as in 1.5M+ christians) in Tor Vergata—a place in Rome—and slept there until the next day. There was the pope with us and the people were from all over the world. I got to talk to some really nice spanish girls, and some korean guys. It’s an experience that you don’t get to live very often, and the religious part of it made it even better.

By the way, about the hike: I’d like to share with you the original plan, keep it in mind because there’s gonna be a looooooot of detours.

Highlights

I’m not gonna separate the article in “days”, as it wouldn’t be interesting enough. There was no concept of time out there, I only remember the places we went to each day but we have pictures for that. I’m actually gonna talk about the experience, stuff that happened, buildings we visited, all this without a precise order hopefully.

The beginning was very harsh. You see, we planned this hike ahead of months, and we overstimated our capabilities. The total length was ment to be 60 kilometers more or less, pretty normal, but the actual issue was the slope. We didn’t pay too much attention to the altitude and managed to follow the planned route for the first day.

Imagine this: it’s the next day and you’re already tired from the day before; you then spend half a day going up a steep climb, and after lunch you look at a really high mountain in front of you (the one in the banner on top by the way). You then quickly check the route on your phone and—UH?!

I immediately said: “Guys… bad news. Can you see that mountain in front of us? Yeah, we’ve gotta climb that”.

The Infinite Forest

As you may guess, we immediately chose to detour and find another path for our daily destination. There was no way we would be able to climb that mountain and be alive afterwards.

Do you see this forest? This was our detour. A calm, downhill forest that would have brought us directly to our resting place.

What we didn’t know is that this forest seemed to never end. We walked, and we walked… it was always the same. Like an infinite corridor. We traveled at least 10 kilometers and the trees never changed, nor the ground did. We couldn’t see the sky clearly as the leaves covered the top, and at a certain point I was starting to go crazy.

We eventually got out of the forest and only walked 2 kilometers to reach our destination. But still, that was pretty crazy.

Bus Rides

From the 3rd day on going we didn’t trust our own route anymore. We already walked more or less 40km on the first 2 days and preferred to actually take it calmly. It’s okay to have a challenging hike, but it doesn’t make sense if the pleasure has to be compromised. Wait, does this go against something I said in the previous article…?

By the way we walked to the nearest bus stop every morning and decided to cut some part of walking. We enjoyed the nature and talking to the people we met. We even stopped at a little water stream and submerged our feet in it!

Sanctuaries

As the good christians we are, we also visited some churches. 2 of them even gave us a place to sleep!

Our 4th day was completely dedicated to guided trips, and a few other things that scouts do (not gonna say it as it’s off-topic). We had much more time to rest, and I invested that time into reading. I brought my Kindle and managed to read the whole novel I downloaded just before departing. Cool, right?

As we didn’t do much, there isn’t anything I can say either. But wait ’till I get to the last day.

Canyoning

I just figured that I actually managed to separate the article in days. I genuinely thought I couldn’t do that.

Jokes on you, the 5th day we took a bus! A bus to our final destination. “But why? Wasn’t this a hike?” It was meant to be, yeah. But our “scout heads” (basically the adults that guide young scouts during the year) had a surprise for us, and as the title suggest it was Canyoning.

In case you don’t know, while canyoning you’re basically tied to a rope and you walk down cliffs and inside waterfalls. Quoting Wikipedia: “Canyoning is a sport that involves traveling through canyons using a variety of techniques, such as walking, scrambling, climbing, jumping, abseiling, swimming, and rafting.”

The water was freezing (btw I like it) and we had a lot of fun. We could run, push each other, dive from cliffs and so on.

Conclusion

To be honest, it’s refreshing. At a certain point I stopped caring about the pain and tiredness, and just went on walking and having fun. Yes, because it’s fun. To go away from home several days, with no technology apart from my iPhone (which I couldn’t charge very often) in the middle of nowhere. And most importantly, it was a great way to spend time with friends.

If there’s a scout group in your zone, I suggest you give it a try. There’s also non-religious groups, don’t worry. The idea of walking may scare you but I assure you that I’m the laziest person on earth and still survived more than 60 kilometers those days.

That’s it, I hope you liked a different type of content. Here’s a pic of me drinking a monster energy on the last day of route, bye!

Silksong Is Out!

Mambuco — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 19:34:00 +0200

Tracks

This time, I’ve been listening to Silksong’s soundtracks. You know, to match the vibes and bring back that game feeling at the time of writing.

You’re not forced to listen to them while reading, but they’re pretty good. Because the article is not very long, I prefer to actually begin with Choral Chambers as I think it’s the best soundtrack so far.

If you follow me on fedi, you probably know about my obsession for Hollow Knight. I tried it out, like, 1 year ago and loved it. Now, after 7 years of development heaven, we’ve got a sequel!

Release Date

Before actually talking about the game itself, I want to bring an important topic. The wait. I’ve been waiting for so long, and Team Cherry was so concentrated on building the game that they didn’t give any announcement or additional info these years. Some of the reasons are to avoid spoilers, and because they didn’t want to give any false signals about the game’s release date.

Thing is, they announced the release date exactly 2 WEEKS before it came out (21 August 2025) with a trailer on YouTube. Therefore there was a total mess. People playing Hollow Knight for the first time so that they could then play Silksong, or even Indie Developers that planned to publish their own game on September.

Me and other fellow players waited so long for it, and we finally got it. Silksong came out.

The Time of Purchase

You know, Silksong has been the most whitelisted and awaited game for years thanks to the fact that Team Cherry postponed the release of the game multiple times, and hollow knight was a great success after all. The music, the graphics, everything of it was astounishing to indie developers and whatnot.

No preorders, no early access for reviewers. The game was published on the 4th of September at 7:00 PT on all game stores and even made them crash. Exactly. Steam, Nintendo, Playstation and apparently Xbox too crashed exactly in that moment. I was there, refreshing my Steam page trying to add it to the cart but didn’t manage for over 2 hours.

Eventually I bought it, after a lot of pain and suffering—oh and it costed ONLY 20 DOLLARS. Silksong already had over half a million players online on Steam after only 10 minutes after it came out. I think this beats some records, or at least gives the game a special throne between some of the best games ever.

When the game came out I was on Discord with a friend. He managed to buy it in like 15 minutes, while I had to wait like 2 and a half hours… This tells you how messed up the servers were. They didn’t even shut down, they were just hella confused because of all the people purchasing and downloading the game.

“The Game Is Too Hard”

You may have heard about a lot of players complaining about the game being hard. After all, Hollow Knight was already hard as fuck and Silksong was not going to be any easier.

Well, you see, I’d like to say something to those people: NO SHIT. It’s literally a sequel of one of the hardest metroidvania out there, did you expect them to release an easy and chill game after 7 YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT?

I’m glad it’s difficult. That’s how a game should be, hard. Did people really prefer a game that could be finished in a couple days? NO. You’re gonna get to the end, go trough all the 3 ACTS of the game, then 100% it and train yourself for the Steel Soul mode (which is a hardcore mode, you can’t die).

At the time of writing, I haven’t even finished the game yet. I plan on playing for at least a year, first finishing my main run and then playing again and again until I can do Steel Soul.

Git Gud

Why are silksong players so afraid to improve? I’ve seen people complaining and ragequitting after the 3rd try. Do you know how many tries Moorwing took me? At least 30 and I’m not ashamed of it because at the end I managed to beat him and actually got better at the game.

It takes a lot of concentration and skill. Something that AAA games do not require nowadays, and I’ll tell you the reason:

My friends often ask me to buy a game to play together, and you know what’s the thing that always convinces me? “man, look at the graphics!”. That’s what they always say. And what do I do? I buy it, of course.

We stopped caring about soundtracks, story, map exploring. We no longer look into the little details unless it’s about graphics, and hollow knight has actually taught me how to play games. Both HK and SS are full of hidden rooms, breakable walls, easter eggs, unnoticeable details that require you a lot of experience to notice.

In my opinion, patience is no longer normalized in games. And that’s kind of similar to what’s happening with socials and doomscrolling. We want content, we want it short and we want it rapidly. Most popular games nowadays just have a basic storyline, no deviations, no complicated lore, just a simple game. They spend millions of dollars on it, and only focus on delivering it to the public.

Team Cherry actually did something different here. If you don’t know why they took so much to deliver Silksong I’ll tell you why: they were in development heaven. This means that they were having so much fun building and expanding the game that they didn’t want to publish it yet.

The Game Itself

What do I think about the game? After all, this is a review about Silksong.

It’s objectively good. Christopher Larkin composed some beautiful soundtracks that really soothe your soul while playing. The lore itself is not complicated at all, you get to understand what’s going on in Pharloom step by step while advancing through the game. The graphics are exactly what I expected from them, a pure pleasure to look at.

I’m also in love with the new movement. The Knight had some really basic controls, while the new Crests allow the player to customize their entire experience and playthrough.

Conclusion

If you haven’t played Silksong or Hollow Knight, please give them a try. They will be hard at first, but you’ll understand what I’m saying once you fully live the Team Cherry experience like I am doing right now.

This is both a review and a venting article, because I really can’t stand those people quitting and bad-reviewing the game because it’s “hard”. Just get better, improve, don’t quit every time you encounter a new boss. Or if you ragequit, do like I do: come back after a few hours. I’ll assure you that by taking a good nap, doing other stuff throughout the day, you’ll be able to come back to the game with a fresh perspective and a better understanding of the boss mechanics.

That said, if you ever plan on playing Silksong because of my article or have any questions please let me know, I’d be so happy to find out that this was actually useful to someone. With “let me know” I mean in the comments, obviously.

Have a nice day!

The Meaning of Open-Source

Mambuco — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 06:23:00 +0200

Tracks

From now on I’m mentioning the music I’m listening to while writing every article.

I highly suggest reading while listening to these tracks (or the author) to be on the same wavelength I was at the time of publishing. You’re not forced to, it’s a thing you can do if you’re a regular on my website and enjoy what I say.

For this article, I listened to Billie Eilish. I don’t have any specific tracks list to give you because I played the author on shuffle. BUT if you want something specific, play her dont smile at me EP.

Here we go again… How have you been? Tonight I want to talk about open-source. That’s it.

If you don’t know much about open-source, you can learn a lot from this article. I’m going deep into the meaning of why is open-source important, and why some people hate it.

Why Tho?

I don’t really know. I had a conversation with a friend… when was it, 2 days ago? Anyway, he was telling me that by making my stuff open-source I’ll never achieve anything, and that somebody could steal my code anytime, license or not.

I obviously told him that whatever I put out publicly is for people to use and see. It made me think tho, why do I actually love open-source?

Definition

Before writing this article I chose to look up the definition of open-source. Dictionary.com says:

open-source

Relating to source code that is available to the public without charge. Open-source code is often enhanced, improved, and adapted for specific purposes by interested programmers, with the revised versions of the code are made available to the public. For example, most of the code in the Linux operating system is open-source.

In a simple way, open-source code is free software available for people to use, edit, re-distribute, and many other things based on your license. This means it’s basically volounteer work.

But that’s only one way to see it. If we just thought of open-source as something you’re giving to the public for free, it would sound kind of negative. Who whould want to mantain a project constantly just for people to be able to fork it, improve it and get all the fame? Obviously there’s something deeper than this.

Free Software

I’d like to first talk about free software, because we obviously know that there’s a difference between free software and open-source software.

Let’s be transparent: we all need free software. Not just software, but digital content at all. The digital era has given us a lot of possibilites in the field of communication, logic, transport, and more. A lot of jobs now require tech knowledge as a side or even main requirement (e.g. software engineers).

We already live in a world where everything material must be earned trough hard work. What about everything digital? Is it fair to make somebody pay 20$/month for an application, something that has already been developed and that has no cost of distribution?

All those questions are valid, but either we find an answer or not, nothing’s going to change. But one thing is sure: not everybody can afford professional software.

Design

I’ll take the Adobe stack as an example. We all know how much it costs; a lot. Only those who work with Adobe software on a professional level can afford it.

But it’s paradoxical: what if I need a logo? Why am I forced to pay either Adobe or a designer to have a logo? That’s where the free software comes in. Think about apps like GIMP, Inkscape, Krita and many others; these applications allow common people to make their own graphics without having to spend money ~~or take the path of piracy~~.

Piracy

With this paragraph I’m not saying that piracy is good. It’s not. It’s illegal and unethical. But it’s also a reality. And it’s a reality that we have to deal with.

There’s something I read somewhere on Twitter from Hakita, ULTRAKILL’s developer:

You should support indies if you can, but culture shouldn’t exist only for those who can afford it. ULTRAKILL wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t had easy access to movies, music and games growing up.

If you don’t have money, you can support via word of mouth.

See post

Why does piracy exist? To download paid content for free, obviously. But why do we do it?

It’s the same thing I was telling you before. Most of us don’t think it’s fair to make people pay for digital content. Content that can be distributed at an infinite about. I’m not saying everything should be free obviously, developers still need an income to live afterall.

But is it bad if some of us download some stuff through piracy? As Hakita confessed, he himself streamed music and movies for free, and he calls those culture.

I agree, culture shouldn’t be exclusive to those who can afford it. That’s why some countries (e.g. Italy) have public schools: places where students can have an education for free. Thing is, schools only provide one side of the overall education a student needs. We can’t see movies at school, nor listen to music or play videogames, because those activities belong at home.

I’m not saying piracy is good, but I’m saying it’s not bad either. It’s a matter of perspective.

If you’re a developer, you should be happy that people are downloading your content for free.
If you’re a musician, you should be happy that people are listening to your music for free.
If you’re a movie producer, you should be happy that people are watching your movies for free.

Quoting Hakita again, as I strongly agree with his POV: “If you don’t have money, you can support via word of mouth.” There’s multiple ways of helping an author grow, not only money. Word of mouth is more powerful than you probably think it is.

Open-Source

Free software is fun and all, but what about sharing your code too?

Let’s just talk about software again. Wouldn’t it just be okay to distribute the compiled result of your project and let people use it? It depends.

In my opinion, sharing your code means being transparent about your work. You’re honest, you show people there’s nothing sketchy behind your application. And when your software is free but people still feel like contributing, now they can.

But that’s the sharing point of view. What if we’re the one accessing someone else’s code? This gives us opportunities to learn, take inspiration, and copy/paste some snippets when the license allows it. It’s a way to give back to the community and contribute to the growth of the open-source ecosystem.

Licensing

Licensing is a crucial aspect of open-source software. It defines the terms under which the software can be used, modified, and distributed. There are various types of licenses, each with its own set of rules and restrictions. Some popular open-source licenses include the MIT License, Apache License, and GNU General Public License (GPL).

Obviously, open-source brings many risks such as somebody copying your code without giving you any credit, and either:

Earning money off your project without your consent
Taking all the credit for your work

Licenses usually cover this kind of issues, because as long as a LICENSE file is present in your code source (usually a git repository) all the code inside of it is affected. People accessing your code must comply to it, and if they don’t, they risk legal action.

Earning

Open-source projects have no income, that’s obvious. That’s the only sad part of it, that everybody is legally allowed to download your work and you’re not getting a dime for it.

There is a way, and that’s usually by receiving donations trough Ko-fi or just companies supporting you; for example, Red Hat and Canonical supporting Torvalds with the development of Linux.

Tho I wouldn’t recommend doing open-source for a living, unless you’re part of a big corporation like GNOME. Sharing code to the public is most of the times just a hobby, not a job. A way to show your capabilities, to contribute to the community, and to learn from others.

For a startup, you’d prefer a closed-source project. You wouldn’t want anybody copying your idea, right? Not your code either.

Conclusion

I felt something different writing this article. I’m not writing about me this time, but about society. About the world we live in, corporations, developers all around the world.

A lot of questions came up, most of them weren’t answered. That’s kind of how it’s supposed to be. I don’t have a personal answer that I would give to all of those, not yet at least.

I aknowledge that many things I wrote may not sound right to a lot of people. I’d like to hear them out tho. Maybe in the comments.

That said, see ya in the next article!

My Love for Japan

Mambuco — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 00:40:00 +0200

Banner is Marin Kitagawa, a scene from My Dress-Up Darling S2 (which is currently airing this summer).

Hey, I’m so happy to see you here!

Today I want to try something different. No techy stuff, just me. But not my thoughtful me like in the last article.

You’ll discover something new, my otaku side! You may have already seen it somewhere around fedi, on my alt account, but this time you’re getting a full presentation!

By the way, if you don’t know what anime is, just know you’ve probably watched a few where you were young. Do you remember Doraemon, Dragon Ball or maybe One Piece? These “cartoons” are all japanese animations, perhaps called anime. Don’t ever call animes “cartoons” in front of an anime lover, he’ll probably attack you, ’cause they are NOT cartoons.

Where Do We Begin?

I’d still like to do what I always do, bring back some memories from the past.

I began watching Anime around 2021, with my first one being Darling in the FranXX. This was because of a friend I had, who was really appassionate about anime and still is. I liked it so much that I kept rewatching it every year, funny right?

By the way for a few years I kept watching some anime, but not that much. Until a few months ago the only ones I had seen were:

Darling in the FranXX
Death Note
Your Name.
Demon Slayer
My Dress-Up Darling
Chainsaw Man

I really didn’t watch that many. I blame my age, I was still very young and couldn’t recognize true peak.

After a While…

Last year (2024) I got to know more the asian culture. That summer I went to South Korea for two weeks and visited Seoul, Busan and Jeju. I loved that trip with all of my heart, and while I walked around the streets I was listening to… guess what? Japanese music!

I actually think I know the reason about that. You know that feeling when you watch a Movie or TV Series and don’t have anybody to talk to about it? That’s how I felt. That’s the feeling I had when I watched those animes listed above. Until I met some new friends who were interested in anime like I was, and we got to recommend each other a thing or two.

This kind of brought me back to anime, as without someone to talk to I had almost lost interest in it.

What about Manga?

What's a "Manga"?

I admit mangas are less known than anime. They’re comics, to make it simple. Japanese comics, and they have a unique way to be read.

They’re not comics made for kids. Actually, a lot of manga are NOT recommended for kids. They’re read from right-to-left, and the illustration boxes too are read the same way. And the same goes for the dialog bubbles.

They’re divided in volumes, and then in chapters. Most animes are an animated adaptation or a manga. For example One Piece, Chainsaw Man, the Monogatari Series, and many others. Sometimes, there can also be a manga adapted from an anime.

Technically there’s also Light Novels I should talk about, but let’s leave it for another time. Right?

Oh by the way, one manga can cost around 5-7€. Pricy, huh…

When was it… maybe two years ago? Oh yeah now I remember.

Around 2023 I found a really nice manga shop in Rome. There’s not many around here, so I wanted to take a look around. I swear, it was amazing. So amazing that I actually wanted to buy something.

My first manga ever was Your Name. I had already seen the anime, so I knew the manga wouldn’t let me down, and it didn’t. There’s one thing do I did wrong: I thought that it wouldn’t be as exciting as the anime.

I was wrong. Yeah there’s no animations on a manga, but there’s movement, and plenty of it. I understimated how illustrations are actually capable of catching your attention and showing you things that usually woldn’t be possible to see on a piece of paper.

The artstyle was amazing, and the fact that it hit me so hard emotionally was also really surprising. So I chose to buy another one: One Piece.

As of today I own 10 volumes of One Piece, and 12 of Chainsaw Man.

How It Evolved

So, you know, around 3 months ago (April 2025) I got too much into anime and manga.

I began watching all type of anime, every day. The genre that prevails right now is rom-coms. There’s no way I’m gonna list them all because they’re too many.

The thing is, they took 5-8 hours of my time, every day. It was truly an obsession, something I couldn’t live without. Part of the reason is, I was going trough a bad time (and I still kinda am). I needed something to cope, and this distracted to my overall issues and responsibilities.

I did know it was kind of an unhealthy and brain-rotting habit, but it only got worse. Oh by the way I’m really proud of it. They grew, from 8 to 10-13 hours daily. This means 20-30 episodes (24~ minutes each).

I was indeed locked in this cycle for a while. Eventually I started to do other things such as gaming and coding, so my watchtime decreased to just a few hours a-day. No issue with that, right?

My Kindle

I’d like my Kindle to have a special mention into this.

I bought a kindle two weeks ago, with the only purpose of reading manga. Physical volumes cost too much, and I can’t support that kind of lifestyle yet. So I eventually wrote some code to convert manga scans into kindle-supported files, and transferred them via USB.

It’s really nice, it feels like paper and it’s light. I don’t have a tablet to read, and my laptop was kind of uncomfortable to bring around you know? My phone wasn’t a great solution either as it’s both too little and too heavy at the same time.

E-ink displays really save your eyesight. They keep that paper-like sensation, without any blue light at all keeping you awake. You can read a whole book and actually be tired afterwards, without your brain producing hormones because of a stupid LCD display.

I think I may talk about my experience with my Kindle in another blog article someday, when I get the actual hang of it.

Conclusion

I don’t resent any of this, I’m actually really proud of it. It’s not like some important milestone or something, but there’s one thing that always kind of weighted on me. As an otaku, I only watched a few animes until a few months ago. People around me were chatting about things I didn’t know, and it got on my nerves.

I hyperfocused for a few months, and watched most of the anime people like to talk about. I can now join those conversations and actually be seen as an “experienced” anime watcher.

Saying this makes me recognize it sounds stupid, but as somebody with social anxiety, I can assure you it’s not. Everybody has their own passion, and this is mine. We’re not even in the age where people can make fun of anime. Didn’t Netflix recently announce that approximately 50% of its users watch anime across their platform? And romantic animes (like the one in the banner above) are really common.

By the way if you want to read my up-to-date anime and manga list, check out my AniList Profile!

Anyways, I feel like posting many articles about the Anime I watch, along the tech-related ones. Thanks for reading, I hope you can leave either your opinion or your experience in the comments, I’d be happy about it.

See ya next time!

What About Blogging

Mambuco — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 00:45:00 +0200

Banner was generated with Google AI Studio.

I’ve been enjoying this blog recently. Oh… now that I think about it, why wasn’t I enjoying this before? This was a cool ass introduction, admit it.

Today, we’re going to talk about the future direction of this website. I recognize that my intentions look really confused, and that’s because they are. Not even I know what I want to do with it, I just started it because it looked cool and all but…

Anyways. Let’s get into it step-by-step.

Oh and, by the way, this is going to be a novel-like article like the previous one. Get used to it for a while, once I get better with text formatting and all.

My Short Pause

I admit that I’ve been inactive for a few months… Meh, that happens.

I didn’t mean to do it; it wasn’t like I decided to stop blogging for a couple of months. I just got caught up in other things, such as school, anime and the fediverse.

The previous article itself was written two months ago, and was meant to be reviewed and published on that same day. But for some reason I just didn’t feel like it, I didn’t want to review it right away. In the end I did review it… yesterday.

Oh, and a small cause of this is also because I’m terrible at making article banners. The first one was just a screenshot, and the second one was kindly made by daudix (thanks again btw).

Microblogging

If you think about it, I didn’t actually abandon blogging at all. During this “delay” I got kind of obsessed with the fediverse. I already loved microblogging in general, but the way Mastodon and ActivityPub in general work, they were fascinating.

I spent at least an hour a day on fedi, posting whatever I was doing or thinking about. It was a small, kind place, and I liked it. A few people started following me, even if not many, and I got to interact with them. So fun!

In the end I’m still microblogging. I even got an alt account just for my anime-related thoughts and opinions, and I’m satisfied with it.

But this brings us to: how is this blog going to procede?

A Blog Routine

I thought: ‘I need to think of a routine to follow every time a new article is due.’ You know? It wouldn’t be that bad if I could create a structure to apply whenever I write a blog post.

But then I realised that, it’s not me. I do like organising and classifying my things. However, the intention behind this blog is purely to express my creativity and share my thoughts with the rest of the world.

I’ll probably have a routine of some kind written somewhere in my brain anyway, but I’ll try to be more relaxed about it. There are no deadlines, no publishers, no one. This is just me sharing my opinions and what happens in my daily life.

Conclusion

I’m going to follow my instincts. Right now, I feel like I should care more about this blog and the website as a whole. Not everyone can do this, and I want to be able to.

I must say, I have one dream and I’m not ashamed of it, no matter how egotistical it may seem: I want to have a big audience. I’m happy for every follower I get and every like I receive. My objectives now are twofold: to expand my creativity and to get to know people.

I probably like blogging because of the idea of an online identity. I recognise that my actual social life isn’t that great because being judged face-to-face is much more difficult than opening yourself up online. All my honest thoughts and what I enjoy are written here. Nothing is hidden. Those who like what I write will probably keep following me; those who don’t will just ignore me. There are no consequences.

By the way, thanks for reading. This was also me just venting. It helped me figure out what I want to do, and now we both know. I’ll probably be back soon – spoiler alert: the next article is anime-related!

By the way did you notice the emojis? They’re so cute I just can’t understand why wasn’t I using them before.

Rethinking My Choice

Mambuco — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 22:18:00 +0200

Banner was generated with Google AI Studio.

Hey, welcome back! I haven’t posted for a while, and it’s because I’ve been thinking about what to post about. I want to talk about big corporations this time such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and so on.

This blog post is different from the others. There’s not a lot of text formatting. You’ll feel like it’s a novel, as it’s supposed to be.

Please tho, tell me in the comments if you feel like this is boring. I do need feedback afterall…

Prologue

I’ll make a clear statement here: I love Apple. But not the way everybody does.

Most of the fossheads and android users see Apple fanboys as obsessed and ignorant about Apple’s beauty and products. I understand why, and most of them are right too, but I’m not one of those.

Storytime! Back in 2020 I was still an Android user, like most of the others. I was in middle school so I was really young and careless about which company had the best phones. Or at least, until I got more interested in tech.

My dad was the only iPhone user in my family, and it was pretty cool. I liked the UI (I don’t appreciate old Android UIs) and it was really smooth. I eventually saved up some money and bought an iPhone 13 Pro Max in 2021.

Now it’s been 3/4 years and I switched to Apple Music, iCloud (Mail and Drive), and all the other possible Apple subscriptions. Note an important detail: all subscriptions are part of the family bundle, mantained by my father. I don’t have the money to keep all of those bills myself, so he cares about them. He also bought an iPhone to my mom lately, and my little brother inherited my dad’s old one, so that we could all use the same services.

Changing My Idea

As you may have read from my latest blog posts I’m really into tech lately, and for “really” I mean “deeply”. I’m using Linux daily, tweaking and customizing it repeatedly and I’ve got to the conclusion that an Android phone wouldn’t be so bad.

I don’t like Android itself because of its limited features. I would prefer to have a Linux phone with GNOME Mobile, with support for GTK apps and waydroid, a tool to download and run Android apps into Linux.

This would be so revolutionary, the power of a computer into a smartphone. Imagine using your package manager to install apps into your phone, or flexing the fact that you don’t need to use a closed app source like Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store to download apps. There’s lots of open-source apps you can build and run everywhere on Linux.

But what would be the issue in buying an Android phone once my iPhone goes bad?

iCloud’s Loop

Last year, in 2024, I switched all my accounts to my @icloud.com address. This is because iCloud+ grants a few more features than the base Gmail plan and I liked the icloud suffix on the email too.

The only issue is, now that I want to switch somewhere else, I’ll have to migrate more than 200 accounts to a new email address, which would be a big pain, but not impossible. But this isn’t the major issue out there.

Subscriptions. They’re the real problem. My father sustains the iCloud family bundle, and everything I have is syncronized to it. Apple doesn’t allow syncing on Android, neither Linux. Also, I want coherence: I’d want an android phone to either sync to Google or some self-hosted service for better compatibility. I could keep using Apple Music because apart from everything else, I still prefer it over Spotify or any other music platform. But still, how am I gonna solve this problem?

My father would refuse to sustain a Google One subscription just for me, and he’d be totally right. I don’t want to buy a new subscription myself, but I would totally invest in a self-hosted solution. I’ve been dreaming of a homeserver for a while, soooooo…

The Homeserver

Actually, I’d be able to host a homeserver now. I just grab an old laptop (I have tons of old laptops), buy some RAM, an HDD and run it 24/7 with NextCloud. Why not? I don’t really know.

There’s a part of me that still loves Apple products, because they’re always so smooth and work so well with each other. I would have loved to buy an Apple Watch, or some pair of AirPods, and most of us could admit they’re the best products out there for their own category. These wishes won’t come true if I ever buy an Android.

But this is not something I should be stressing all my nerves on right now, because I don’t even have the money yet to buy a new phone and I won’t need one for the next 2 years probably. In the mean time, I’ll just enjoy what I have.

Conclusion

Apple is really nice, but the latest iPhones are just the same as their previous model and iOS feels really limited to me, a Linux user. I can’t even sync my phone properly to my laptop, or install some quality apps (which often can’t be uploaded to the App Store because of fees). I also don’t like where the company itself is heading, it’s like they’re losing the moral pillars that Steve Jobs placed a few years ago.

On the other hand, Android need a lot of work and is not perfect either. It lacks some important features that Apple has, and in my opinion no UI will ever nearly be as good as iOS’.

This was a nice thought. Maybe in 2 years I’ll read this article again and laugh, either with the latest iPhone model in my hands or with a linux phone, once GNOME Mobile gets decent.

This article is pretty old. I planned on publishing it 2 months ago but then I got distracted and forgot about it.

My opinion has changed overtime, and my hate towards Android has definitely ceased. I’ll soon make a new blog post about iOS’s new features, mentioning also its diversities with Android probably.

My New Distropedia

Mambuco — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 21:09:00 +0200

Banner was generated with Google AI Studio.

Get ready, because you’re about to read a lot of interesting stuff (at least I hope so) about Linux, and about me.

If you don’t know what Linux is, it’s basically a computer operating system like Windows and MacOS (from Apple Macs).

Do I suggest you read this article? I’m not sure. The thing is that this blog is probably going to go into technical details about OSes, distros, software, and all that nerdy stuff.

I’m not saying you won’t enjoy it, but you probably won’t understand a lot of it without some basic knowledge of Linux.

Now, let’s look at the definition of Distropedia.

What’s the Distropedia?

The Distropedia is a new project I’ve been thinking about lately. I’ve been trying out a few distros lately―there’s a new article about a new distro coming soon―and I realised that I could make this my hobby in my spare time.

So, the Distropedia is a new section of this website where you will find information about every Linux distro I have tried. I’m probably going to rank them, or list pros and cons about them.

Don’t think of it as a wiki or anything, it’s more like a Wanderer’s Journal (little HK reference). A diary, where I’ll be both technical about linux aspects and theoretical, talking about how I feel about using it.

The Criteria

I’m obviously NOT going to install every distro as my daily driver because I’d be ~~suicidial~~ after trying them all. I’ll use the great GNOME Boxes application to sandbox them.

Most people will say that to discover a distro’s true capabilities, you need to use it in its entirety, not just for a few specific tasks. I agree with that, so I’m going to write down some criteria to follow every time I try a new distro.

What do I mean by criteria? Just a list of things to try out before you give feedback on the distro itself. Some of these crieteria might be

Writing code
Launching games
Listening to music
Other stuff (See #suggestions)

Which Distros?

Obviously I can’t try every Linux distro on the planet, so I’m going to pick the most popular ones + the ones that any of you want.

I’m open to just about anything, so let’s start with

Debian
Red Hat
~~Arch Linux~~

Q: Why not Arch? A: It was my first distro and I’ve been using it for months. Here’s why I quit, but it was a wonderful experience.

I’ll continue with Debian-based distros and so on with Red Hat/Arch-based distros.

By the way there’s a roadmap if you’re interested.

Conclusion

The Distropedia tab should now appear in the sidebar. There you’ll find all the distros that have been tried so far, a roadmap, and a link to this article.

Again, if you have any suggestions please read this section to understand how you can contribute.

Thank you, really. This website helps me get trough a lot of things. You probably can’t read about all the difficulties someone is going trough in one article.

That’s why I really appreciate everyone who reads my blog light-heartedly. It helps me more than you can imagine.

See ya!

My SNES Setup

Mambuco — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:41:00 +0200

A really big thanks to Daudix for helping me with the banner!

Hey, looks like we meet again. Or maybe not, in case you’re new here.

This post is going to be about why I’ve been rediscovering retro games lately, and also why I’m having more fun with them than modern games at the moment.

The Downfall of Modern Games

Wherever you turn these days, you can probably see a new game being published by one of the big game companies out there.

But the thing is, most of the time it’s just old game ideas being recycled.

I don’t think that’s entirely their fault.

But that’s not the only reason why I think modern games just don’t have the same feel as retro or indie games.

How the SNES Solved My Issue

A few years ago (2017), Nintendo made a modernised version of the old Super Nintendo from the 90s.

It was one of Nintendo’s first consoles, and they wanted to honour it by making a smaller, HDMI-enabled console with all the games pre-installed.

Oh, and it’s powered by MicroUSB—talk about a small upgrade!

I bought one and discovered all the games my parents played when they were young.

And that low-quality, retro, pixelated collection of video games gave me a very different feeling to Minecraft, Fortnite, etc.

Sure, it doesn’t support multiplayer. Sure, it doesn’t have a decent gamepad. But hey, it’s got co-op and you can play:

Mario Kart (the very first)
Street Fighter II Turbo
The Legend of Zelda (can’t remember which one)

And lots of other games.

Consequences

Now I’m spending a lot of time on the SNES instead of TikTok, Instagram Reels and all that crap. At least now I’m doing something that’s more fun and will leave a fond memory in my heart.

But let’s talk about REAL consequences. Trying most of the games on the SNES made me think that I should eventually try other retro games outside of that little grey box. And that’s where my gaming PC comes in.

Emulators: the way to a happier life. Now, I’m certainly not going to emulate current consoles. But I think Nintendo wouldn’t mind if I sandboxed some of their old retro games that are no longer playable.

Conclusion

Retro games are fun, even if it’s subjective.

I’m the kind of person who likes retro stuff in general, so seeing video games that are older than me makes me kind of happy. Most people wouldn’t agree with me, but I feel like the audience of this blog will actually understand what I’m trying to say.

That said, I’ll probably post something more at the end of my “retro games journey”. But for now, this may be the end.

I’ve had a lot of fun writing this post, and I hope you’ll enjoy checking out the rest of my blog.

From Arch to Fedora

Mambuco — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 20:25:00 +0200

Hey, this is my first post here. Alright, seems cool.

This is actually the first post I write on this blog. I’m not even a native english speaker, and I’m not used to writing blog articles. I will get used to it with time, but don’t expect some quality content right now.

Let’s talk about what the title itself says. I recently switched from Arch Linux to Fedora. This will require me to talk a little more about the past…

First Approach to Ubuntu

When I was 5 y/o I had a little laptop with Ubuntu Desktop, I remember it was a very old version of Ubuntu, but I don’t remember which one. It couldn’t run anything heavy but who cares, I was literally 5 years old or something.

Time passed and new laptops came, they all had Windows, and I was fine with it. I even got my desktop computer (my current one) and used Windows 10/11 for years until last spring.

Re-discovering Linux

During the last 2 years I recently re-discovered linux by setting up a home-server with a friend, and I loved it. I learned how to use a terminal and learnt a lot about computers and hardware in general.

One day I meet a friend of my friend, and he was using Ubuntu Desktop on his laptop. I obviously made a lot of questions about it, and I discovered about how many distros there were, as long as Desktop Environments, and stuff like that.

Installing Arch

By scrolling on Reddit I found a post about an Arch Linux rice and got to research more about arch itself. I discovered that it was considered one of the “hardest” distros to install and use, and I was looking for a challenge.

The thing is, I installed it following the true Arch way, by making mistakes. Turns out that instead of installing arch as a dual-boot with Windows, I wiped out the entire Windows partition of my laptop and lost pretty much everything. I must say, thanks god OneDrive exists.

Using Arch

I mean, the installation did go really well because I just used the Archinstall tool, and it worked, but even then, I was really confused. My dumb ass decided to not select most of the options in the Archinstall TUI, so there was no Desktop Environment. I did manage how to install it eventually, with sudo pacman -S gnome.

At the end everything turned out great. I and the Arch Wiki became best friends, and I also learnt a lot about linux and machines in general.

The BIG Problem

Everything was going fine, until a kernel update decided that my arch installation must not boot anymore. Without talking about the issue too much, I’ll just let you know that 2 weeks ago (when this happened) I was very ill and I just wanted to use my PC for a bit, and I couldn’t because of this.

After a while I got tired of my system’s mood swings, every month something would eventually break. I already know that’s Arch’s philosophy, and it was fun at the beginning until it got boring.

The Solution

One thing led to another, and I was just furious, so I installed Fedora. You can’t imagine how happy I was to discover that Fedora came already in with my favorite DE, GNOME. I riced it a bit at the beginning, installed whatever I needed, and it was ready to go.

Conclusion

I’m really happy with Fedora, but I miss Arch. I miss the AUR, the rolling release, the wiki, the community.

But seriously, getting used to the AUR is horrible. Once you distro hop to a non-Arch distro, you eventually end up managing dnf repositories like I did, and it’s not fun at all. Maybe one day I’ll go back to Arch, but for now, I’m happy with my stable system, and it’s actually pretty fun.

That’s all for now, I’m going to bed. I hope you enjoyed this article, and I hope I’ll be making more in the future.