Almost twenty years ago, captivated by the convenience of new web technologies, we moved all our mail services to Google, migrating all our friends and clients who — having requested and obtained their personal @bastard.it email — wanted to join the initiative. Gmail was still in public beta—it would remain so for another couple of years—and Google promoted its adoption by providing free and unlimited infrastructure and support to select clients, including Those Lazy Italians @ bastard.

Hyper-Dependence and a Single Point of Failure

Today, Google is what’s known as a global hyperscaler, with a number of registered accounts equal to almost one-third of the entire world’s population. Dozens of services are offered, going far beyond the mail and calendar that prompted our initial migration. They are all interconnected and rely on a user’s single Google account. The lock-in is extremely powerful, the costs are high, and the concentration is such that a global downtime of its data centers, even for just a few hours, would have devastating economic and social consequences, revealing the fragility of a web built on very few pillars.

Piercing the Veil

We are leaving. Partly because we are dreamers, always used to making things for ourselves—and not just clothes—and partly because we believe that on the other side, there still exists a universe made of people, machines, and interconnected nodes. A universe upon which to re-build a network based on fundamental protocols and not just on centralized services and social networks, open, free, and why not, perhaps even distributed.

Returning to the Web, With New Tools

So what? We’re still smiling.

Starting in January 2026, all our mail services will be self-managed. The old-fashioned way, but with today’s open-source technology stacks and the timeless protocols.

If you have a @bastard.it address and want information about the migration, write to us at postmaster@bastard.it

See you around!

#deGoogle #selfhosting #DIY

Those lazy Italians have delved deep into the warehouse and will be open for the whole weekend from 10:30 to 10:30pm.
Come join us if you are around!

No, it’s not a rendering: this project, resulted from a collaboration between bastard and the venetian luxury shoes brand Golden Goose, kept us busy during the whole month of August. We moved the milanese ‘bastard bowl’ to Venice, for a truly special event in the lagoon.

Being a proper wooden skate bowl 15×15 meters in size and around 20 tons in weight placed on a 42 meters (10 wide thou) barge, we are pretty proud of how things went on backstage, on and off the construction site!

Don’t worry as the bowl will soon have it’s new indoor home ;)

Photo and Video: GG & Alberto Dedè

This time we joined our friends of 5tate Of Mind in Bologna for a lean collection of clothes for the spring, to be abused in the city and maybe at night time too, considering the many reflective details designed.

We did the artworks and they put design, production and sales.

All the items in this limited 5OM x bastard collection are available in some shops on the street – the new 5OM Bolo Store grand opening in these days included – and online directly from the source.

Below the video of this collaboration and on 5tate Of Mind blog some shots at the main street spot in Bologna that saves your ass when the weather is rainy and times are tough.

Proudly Made by Those Lazy Italians

Photo and video: Andrea Vespignani and Marco Santos

Music: Shocca aka Roc Beats

Skaters: Mattia Restante, Alex Borgatti and Piazzetta players (Bo)

On RepTv journalist Antonio Nasso walks through the origins of skateboarding in Italy with interviews with the main players.

We are happy to be part of the Vans Foot The Bill program, with a Slip-On created by our favourite skulldisegner RickyStyle and dedicated to the mind behind all this: Steve Van Doren.

Saturday 9 November, the Academy of Skateboarding coaches are waiting for you in the bastard bowl to let you taste some splinters of Nordic birch wood under your skate wheels. If you think you’ll not fall you are in the wrong place but if you wanna learn how to do it with style then you are in the right one.

Don’t worrie if you are not equipped, in addition to skateboard, helmet and pads we will also provide you a magic wand.

Local ripper Indro Martinenghi gave us a new piece on the main bastard bowl’s wall, and his own version of the bastard lefty. ScreechBitch.

Click on the photo for the making of time lapse.

In collaboration with Muckefuck Skateboards & Urethane we developed a new 54 mm wheel made of urethane without coloring pigments. The artwork with the classic bastard skull features the palladian marble flooring of the bastard store in Milano.

Saturday 15 June 2019 we’ll meet at the Parco Lambro skatepark in Milano with the classic Lambrothers party and skate contest. It will start in the afternoon, with the Gaza Free Style Festival.

This year we will gather the funds to complete the skatepark in Gaza!