About me

I'm Luca Cristiano, better known online — and to friends — as Zekromaster.

I like to understand, build and fix systems of all kinds — from complex software to sociolinguistics to building bikes.

I keep this capsule mostly as a way to scream my thoughts into the void and maintain an online presence that's under my control rather than hosted on someone else's silo.

Zekromaster, online

I write code, either because someone's paying me for it, or because I have some time to kill.

I'm always happy to review a patch before a friend sends it upstream, and in general appreciate chances to improve the software I use.

I'm the proud operator of a small homelab, built on Ansible, sweat, old machines and patience: one day I might write up a virtual tour, or even a /tech.gmi page detailing the whole stack I pick for myself.

Zekromaster, offline

I play Tabletop RPGs and have since late middle school: I've spent a few years as a Forever DM, but that curse has been broken somewhen in my early 20s.

I'm also a general board game and card game player, equally enjoying a hand of Skat, a game of Magic: The Gathering or 50 minutes in front of whatever random game you just pulled out of a shelf.

I am an amateur bartender, and keep a well-stocked liquor shelf that allows me to prepare at least half of the IBA recipe book on a whim, plus some more. Combined with a general love of cooking, I dare call myself a great host of dinners, snacks and aperitifs.

I'm an adventure cyclist and also get around by bike on the daily. My longest tour has been 4 days in the inner Salerno province, but I'm looking forward to travelling more with my two-wheeled companion.

I'm an avid reader, anime watcher, and gamer, and like to think about the medium and how it's used just as much as I enjoy the content itself:

A brief, bullet-point manifesto

• I share many positions with both Effective Altruism [1] and Stirnerian egoism [2], something I think is less contradictory than it sounds;
• Most software can sustain itself on a free-as-in-speech model [3]: I reject the premise that proprietary software is a necessity in the modern market;
• Technological progress should not mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater: old doesn't mean worse, nor does new mean better;
• Knowledge is meant to propagate. You can't know in advance which knowledge will be useful — the more you produce and spread, the better the odds it reaches the hands that need it;
• Language can tell you a lot: what one thinks, where they grew up, who they respect and who they learn from. Humanity is its languages;
• Things took a turn for the worse when we became always online and always available: the internet should go back to being a "place";
• Learning to hack something together yourself is twice as satisfying as just having someone do it well for you;

Geek Code

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
  Version: 3.12
  GCS/H/P d+(++) s+: a->+++ C++ UL+++ P+>++ L+++ E- W+++ N++ o K w---
  O M- V- PS+++(++) PE--(-) Y+ PGP++ t+ 5 X+ R+++ !tv b+>+++ !DI D+
  G++ e+>+++ h-->++ r z?
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----

Contacts

PGP keys are available through WKD given an email address on the zekromaster.net domain.

References

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