La classe creativa, quella che lavora in spazi non suoni, quella che ha tolto il posto dall'idea di posto di lavoro. E che lavora negli spazi condivisi. E WeWork è il suo profeta. Smartwork, o quel che è. A me non piace, forse perché lavoro così. Boh. Questo è l'articolo che ne parla

Money quote: "WeWork was founded by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey in 2010, and it started with a single office in New York City. Today, the company has 274 offices in fifty-nine cities, from Bogotá to Tel Aviv. It is the fourth-largest startup in America, and it is reportedly valued at more than $20 billion (US), which puts it below only Uber, Airbnb, and SpaceX. WeWork leases buildings, renovates them to a millennial-approved sheen, and then rents them out desk by desk and office by office. There are now five locations in Canada, and at the inaugural Toronto office, a “hot desk”— a spot at a communal table or couch— starts at $500 per month, a permanent desk at $700, and a private office at $1,000. The company is now trying to become the leader in a crowded market where dozens of hubs all promise a variation on the same thing: an inspirational environment among like-minded members of the creative class, plus coffee."

https://thewalrus.ca/why-its-so-hard-to-actually-work-in-shared-offices/

In effetti le spogliarelliste al corteo funebre (cinese) mi mancavano. Ma ne parla la BBC quindi...

Money quote: “According to one theory, strippers are used to boost funeral attendances because large crowds are seen as a mark of honour for the deceased.
Another states the practice could be linked to a "worship of reproduction".”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-43137005

Ci sono molte donne con un elevato tasso di intelligenza che riescono a mimetizzare il proprio autismo. Che, peraltro, nelle donne sembra di capire sempre più che si manifesti in maniera differente che negli uomini. E insomma si scoprono tante cose sulle differenze, sull'autismo, sulle strategie delle ragazze per non farsi scoprire e non nel frattempo negarsi, rifiutarsi di scoprire anche se stesse.

Una storia potente che poteva essere scritta meglio: giornalismo proceduralmente fatto molto bene ma senza anima. Tipico delle journalism school negli Stati Uniti.

Money quote: "Over the past few years, scientists have discovered that, like Jennifer, many women on the spectrum “camouflage” the signs of their autism. This masking may explain at least in part why three to four times as many boys as girls are diagnosed with the condition. It might also account for why girls diagnosed young tend to show severe traits, and highly intelligent girls are often diagnosed late. (Men on the spectrum also camouflage, researchers have found, but not as commonly as women.)"

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/02/women-camouflaging-autism/553901/

Storia di ragazze mantenute da ricconi cinesi, per questione di status. Soprattutto, un articolo con un attacco così, come fai a non leggerlo?

Money quote: “Shanshan’s $550 shoes came from her lover, but the soles of her feet, as hard as leather, came from her childhood. ‘We used to play barefoot in the village,’ she told me. ‘All the girls in the karaoke bar had feet like this.’”

https://aeon.co/essays/why-do-young-rural-women-in-china-become-mistresses

Lacoste mette al posto del coccodrillo una serie di animali in via di estinzione. Il numero di magliette prodottoe per ciascuna serie limitata corrisponde al numero degli animali ancora vivi.

Money quote: “Lacoste, the French polo shirt brand, is replacing its iconic crocodile logo with ten threatened animals in a limited-edition line created in partnership with a nature conservation charity.“

http://creativity-online.com/work/lacoste-save-our-species/53963

Dalla regola del limite di 20 slot per gli investimenti pensata da Warren Buffett alla necessità di impegnarsi in quel che si sta facendo, investendo tempo e passione, anziché "bagnarsi i piedi" e provare un pochino

Money quote 1: "If you take a look around, you’ll notice very few people actually go “all in” on a single skill or goal for an extended period of time.
Rather than researching carefully and pouring themselves into a goal for a year or two, most people “dip their toes in the water” and chase a new diet, a new college major, a new exercise routine, a new side business idea, or a new career path for a few weeks or months before jumping onto the next new thing."

Money quote 2: "Don’t waste your next slot. Think carefully, make a decision, and go all in. Don’t just kind of go for it. Go all in. Your final results are merely a reflection of your prior commitment."

https://medium.com/the-mission/warren-buffetts-20-slot-rule-how-to-simplify-your-life-and-maximize-your-results-760e7109ffe8

Che dite, lo scrivo un romanzo?

Relax domenicale. Se c'è un posto che non mi piace è Londra. Però queste diapositive dell'East End negli anni sessanta-settanta, scattate tutte da un fotografo dilettante con la mitica pellicola Kodachrome, sono proprio belle.

Money quote: "Beyond these basic details, though, there is precious little information available about Granick. Even his work—consisting of more than 3,000 Kodachrome transparencies—remained largely unseen for over three decades. That didn’t start to change until early 2017, when the East London photographer Chris Dorley-Brown first glimpsed Granick’s work at the Archives."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pictures-london-east-end-1960s-color

2018, preparatevi alla nuova Apple - il mio articolo per Macity

https://www.macitynet.it/2018-preparatevi-alla-nuova-apple/

Un ricordo di Mimmo Candido

Money quote: “Ho vinto parecchi premi giornalistici (e ne sono orgoglioso quasi quanto per i titoli da campione che, da ragazzo, vinsi nella scherma, nell’atletica e nella pallacanestro). Ho scritto alcuni libri. Insegno all’università.

Ho vissuto.”

http://www.cattivamaestra.it/2018/03/mimmo-candito/

Deleuze e Guattari, la strana coppia della filosofia

Money quote: “Before that first encounter, though, few could have predicted the powerful personal chemistry that existed between these men. At the age of 44, Deleuze must have seemed much older. Unwell and with difficulty breathing, he was reluctant to travel and comfortably settled in his post at the University of Lyon. Guattari, meanwhile, was a committed activist, who’d recently split from his previous mentor, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, after refusing to toe the party line. He was now 39 and employed at La Borde, an unconventional psychiatric clinic in the Loire Valley, where his work on group fantasy had piqued Deleuze’s interest. But Guattari was also suffering from writer’s block; he hoped the philosopher might help him overcome it.”

https://aeon.co/essays/a-creative-multiplicity-the-philosophy-of-deleuze-and-guattari

⚖👨🏻‍⚖ #Migranti #Diritti
La situazione di povertà prodotta anche dai cambiamenti climatici giustifica la protezione umanitaria dei richiedenti asilo.
Con una interessante e innovativa ordinanza del Tribunale dell'Aquila, datata 18 febbraio 2018, è stata riconosciuta la protezione umanitaria ad un cittadino del Bangladesh il quale aveva dichiarato di essersi irrimediabilmente indebitato dopo aver perso il suo terreno agricolo a causa di un alluvione.
Il giudice, nel motivare la propria decisione che farà scuola in Italia, in primo luogo fa riferimento alle problematiche legate ai cambiamenti climatici che interessano il Bangladesh, tra cui evidenzia il land grabbing e la deforestazione. Inoltre, ricorda che l’Italia ha ratificato il Patto internazionale sui diritti economici, sociali e culturali e il Patto Internazionale sui diritti civili e politici che riconoscono il diritto di ogni individuo ad un livello di vita adeguato e il diritto alla libertà dalla fame.
Infine il giudice aquilano, citando una circolare emessa dal Ministero dell’Interno nel luglio 2015 che evidenziava tra i motivi della concessione umanitaria anche le gravi calamità naturali o altri gravi fattori locali ostativi ad un rimpatrio in dignità e sicurezza, ha riconosciuto al cittadino bengalese la protezione umanitaria.

Viviamo immersi nelle reti ma, salta fuori, una vera teoria organica delle reti non esiste

Money quote: “A paper posted online last month has reignited a debate about one of the oldest, most startling claims in the modern era of network science: the proposition that most complex networks in the real world—from the World Wide Web to interacting proteins in a cell—are “scale-free.” Roughly speaking, that means that a few of their nodes should have many more connections than others, following a mathematical formula called a power law, so that there’s no one scale that characterizes the network”

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/power-laws-networks/553562/

Apple alla conquista del mercato aziendale: diventerà la nuova Microsoft? - il mio articoo per Macity

https://www.macitynet.it/apple-alla-conquista-del-mercato-aziendale/

Il 99,9% delle mie foto sono scattate con luce naturale. Adesso finalmente trovo una giustificazione per la mia avversione alla luce artificiale

Money quote: “In addition to its somatic repercussions, flash can also enact a form of ethical violence. What, if anything, might justify flash’s unexpected interruption into daily lives? This is a question that has exercised documentary photographers since the mid-20th century. Among those who worked for the Farm Security Administration during the Depression in the United States, Dorothea Lange saw its use as invasive, and Ben Shahn expressed his doubts – both about photographing someone else’s private space, and about flash’s aesthetics. ‘When some of the people came in and began to use flash I thought it was immoral,’ he said. ‘You know, you come into a sharecropper’s cabin and it’s dark. But a flash destroyed that darkness.’ His dislike of artificial illumination was to be echoed by art photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and André Kertész, who firmly adhered to the doctrine of using only available light. To use flash, said Cartier-Bresson, was ‘impolite … like coming to a concert with a pistol in your hand’.”

https://aeon.co/ideas/blinded-by-the-light-the-violence-of-flash-photography

Donald Trump, la retorica della politica e il valore manipolativo del teleprompt

Money quote: “We tend to think of speech as a less contrived medium than writing. Yet the assistive technology of the teleprompter is a routine feature of contemporary speechifying. It relies upon an unstated contract between the speaker and listener. We, the audience, know that we are hearing a pre-written presentation; but somehow we forget the artifice, and feel as if the speaker is creating something for us afresh. Even when we know the text is being read from a screen, our perception of what counts as ‘true’ speech seems to be bound up with a particular rhetorical style that suggests spontaneity and self-confidence: a direct gaze, no cue cards, a natural pace.”

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-the-teleprompter-tells-us-about-truth-trump-and-speech

La vita media dei prodotti Apple è quattro anni e tre mesi - il mio articolo per Wired

https://www.wired.it/gadget/computer/2018/03/05/la-vita-media-dei-prodotti-apple/

I cellulari sono una protesi o addirittura un pezzo di noi, almeno secondo la nostra mente (e la giurisprudenza americana)

Money quote: “In 2014, the United States Supreme Court used this observation to justify the decision that police must obtain a warrant before rummaging through our smartphones. These devices ‘are now such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy’, as Chief Justice John Roberts observed in his written opinion.”

Are ‘you’ just inside your skin or is your smartphone part of you? | Aeon Ideas
https://aeon.co/ideas/are-you-just-inside-your-skin-or-is-your-smartphone-part-of-you

Negli Usa sta succedendo una cosa strana: la domanda di energia elettrica per la prima volta è piatta, cioè i consumi non stanno aumentando. Le conseguenze saranno estremamente interessanti, anche perché negli Usa le utility sono pubbliche e hanno l'imperativo di fare (sempre più) soldi per i propri azionisti.

Money quote: "Thanks to a combination of greater energy efficiency, outsourcing of heavy industry, and customers generating their own power on site, demand for utility power has been flat for 10 years, and most forecasts expect it to stay that way. The die was cast around 1998, when GDP growth and electricity demand growth became “decoupled”:"

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/2/27/17052488/electricity-demand-utilities

Quello di cui si parla in questo articolo sono i designer, la loro "generazione perduta", quella allevata dagli hippie e avida, rapace, priva di spina dorsale. Una generazione che, nella Silicon Valley, non si farà rimpiangere. Ma questo ragionamento secondo me scavalca l'oceano e arriva fino a noi. Perché no?

Money quote: "The current generation of designers have spent their careers learning how to work faster and faster and faster. And while there’s certainly something to be said for speed, excessive speed tends to blur one’s purpose. To get products through that gate before anyone noticed what they were and how foul they smelled. Because we broke some things. It’s one thing to break a database, but when that database holds the keys to interpersonal relationships the database isn’t the only thing that breaks."

https://medium.com/@monteiro/designs-lost-generation-ac7289549017

Una bella intervista di The Believer a Laurie Sheck, scrittrice.

Money quote:

"THE BELIEVER: Are you genre-fluid?

LAURIE SHECK: With Gertrude Stein, we say she is a writer. We don’t label her in terms of genre. I love that. Too often, fluidity makes people nervous. If they can’t label one thing or another, they crack. It’s bad enough with people, but with books, it’s the same thing. To me, it’s about liberty of mind. Labeling is the opposite of thinking. As if prose is not poetry as well? And a lot of poetry is not poetry—it’s just lines. The whole thing’s all messed up."

https://logger.believermag.com/post/anti-particle-woman

Se siete amanti della cucina, vera o televisiva che sia, o semplicemente curiosi, questo articolo è inevitabile

Money quote: “Noma, as you've probably heard, is the Copenhagen restaurant considered by many people, including me, to be the most influential in the world, the place where the dominant strains in world cooking — localism, seasonality, sustainability and science — came together into a whole, aided by Redzepi's strong sense of narrative”

http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-fo-gold-noma-copenhagen-20180302-story.html