L’affare del secolo di Facebook si chiama Instagram: è costata un miliardo di dollari e oggi ne vale cento - il mio articolo per La Stampa

http://www.lastampa.it/2018/06/27/tecnologia/laffare-del-secolo-di-facebook-si-chiama-instagram-costata-un-miliardo-di-dollari-e-oggi-ne-vale-cento-UOGuNM4LlrlOwAQJax4StM/pagina.html

Chi è Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (e perché ne sentirete ancora parlare)

Money quote: "A day before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, clinched her remarkable Democratic primary victory in New York's 14th Congressional District, she took a moment to note how she was being described in the political press.

"A Girl Has No Name: Headlines from the Political Patriarchy," she tweeted. In the tabloids and on some local television stations, she was, over and again, simply Rep. Joe Crowley's "primary opponent.""

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/27/politics/who-is-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/index.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/26/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-crowley-new-york-14-primary/index.html

Questo canale, Mostly, I Write, va avanti da un bel po' e, non so se lo avete notato, i link che condivido sono sempre "puliti", per quanto è possibile. Niente affiliazioni, niente amp (se riesco), niente tracker. Dopo averli ripuliti a mano uno per uno, mi è anche venuta la curiosità di saperne qualcosa di più sul funzionamento e gli utilizzi degli UTM la parte che segue l'indirizzo normale e fa da meccanismo di tracciamento di chi clicca su un link.

Interessante spiegazione.

Money quote: "A UTM code is a simple code that you can attach to a custom URL in order to track a source, medium, and campaign name. This enables Google Analytics to tell you where searchers came from as well as what campaign directed them to you. A common use of UTM code is to create a vanity URL for each offline campaign, and then redirect that URL to whatever forwarding address you assign to it — most likely your main domain. This will give you the ability to track how a weekly newspaper ad, coupon, radio ad, or TV commercial is working without having to create custom landing pages for each campaign. By creating a separate UTM code for TV commercials and print ads, for example, you can get data on which generates more traffic, conversions, etc. Furthermore, you can track not only the source and the medium (radio, newspaper, coupon, etc.), but even individual campaign names like “Fall Chevy Sale.”"

https://www.launchdigitalmarketing.com/what-are-utm-codes/

Sempre per la serie: oggi lo vedete in America, domani lo vedete in Europa (e dopodomani magari in Italia), negli Usa cominciano a fare sul serio con i piani famigliari che fanno leva sul controllo della vita digitale dei figli. A partire dalla connessione alla rete. La mia domanda: ma in un mondo in cui si monitora, certifica, segue e micro-macro-gestisce la prole, come pensiamo di poter far crescere degli individui autonomi?

Money quote: "T-Mobile is launching a new subnoscription plan today as an add-on for subscribers to its T-Mobile One and Simple Choice cell plans called FamilyMode. It’s designed to let parents monitor their kids’ screen time and internet use, both on mobile when using a cellular connection and at home through Wi-Fi, regardless of the type of home internet service you use. It provides real-time location updates, browser and app history reports, internet-free scheduling, and app and internet time limits. You can also award kids with more app and internet use and less stringent time limits as rewards through the service.

The service starts at $10 a month, and it works on iOS and Android."

https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/25/17502274/t-mobile-familymode-screen-time-kids-safe-internet-use

Adoro le mie AirPods e non potrei tornare indietro ai modelli con il filo o ad altre tipologie di auricolari Bluetooth. Apple sta lavorando per migliorarle e aggiungere anche un paio di cuffie propriamente dette (con copertura dei padiglioni auricolari), a quanto pare con obiettivo settembre-ottobre.

Money quote: "The Cupertino, California-based company is working on new AirPods with noise-cancellation and water resistance, the people said. Apple is trying to increase the range that AirPods can work away from an iPhone or iPad, one of the people said. You won’t be swimming in them though: The water resistance is mainly to protect against rain and perspiration, the people said."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-25/apple-is-said-to-amplify-its-audio-device-strategy-in-2019

Nel 2018 come sarà Firefox? E, soprattutto: ci sta riuscendo?

Money quote: "In 2018 Firefox browsers will be fast, personal, mobile, and opinionated."

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Roadmap

Il capitale di ventura, elemento essenziale per lo sviluppo delle economie digitali, sta crescendo in Cina (Pechino e Shanghai). Di brutto.

Money quote: “Silicon Valley tech startups pulled in the most funding of any metro region globally during the last six years at $140 billion, according to CB Insights’ Global Tech Hubs Report, which the New York-based research firm published Tuesday. But Beijing and Shanghai startups appear to be working to keep pace, reeling in $72 billion and $23 billion, respectively—meaning startups in the two cities added $95 billion between 2012 and 2018, according to the document, which focused on the top 25 metro area tech hubs in the world.

That level of investment in Beijing and Shanghai is thanks to large rounds for companies such as Didi, Toutiao, Mobike, and Ele.me, CB Insights says. On top of that, the two Chinese cities have 40 “unicorn” tech companies between them (companies with billion-dollar valuations), compared to the 57 that exist in the Silicon Valley.”

https://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2018/06/26/how-the-rise-of-beijing-and-shanghai-tech-may-impact-silicon-valley/

Rifiutarono di farla partecipare alla cena in onore di Charles Dickens, che era venuto a visitare New York. E lei per tutta risposta fonda il primo club per sole donne negli Usa, "Sorosis", il nome scientifico di una parte del fiore che sta fruttando. Il resto è storia, scandalosa per i benpensanti dell'epoca, ma sempre storia. Inclusa la location: il ristorante newyorkese Delmonico.

Money quote: "The choice of Delmonico’s was a statement. Not only had Charles Dickens been hosted there (he declined Croly’s invitation to attend the first Sorosis meeting), but Delmonico’s was the culinary center of America. Founded in 1827 as a pastry shop, Delmonico’s became America’s first true restaurant, an island of good taste and good food in a country previously indifferent to fine cuisine. During its mid-century glory years, the kitchen was ruled by French chef Charles Ranhofer, who created dishes such as Lobster Newburg for the politicians, luminaries, and upper crust who frequented Delmonico’s. Croly made the restaurant Sorosis’s headquarters."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/delmonicos-womens-lunch

Geniale. Totale. Definitivo (grazie a Mattia Giovanni)

Money quote: "Isn’t writing about productivity the opposite of being productive?"

https://hackernoon.com/25-thoughts-about-personal-development-from-my-european-friends-ba37efe215d8

A cosa servono le biblioteche? In qualche modo costruiscono un catalogo dei gusti di chi le mette assieme, ma anche dei bisogni della società che le ospita, e della cultura delle persone che le frequenteranno. Un meta-racconto delle storie che contengono.

Money quote "“Libraries are an attempt to impose order in a world of chaos,” he writes. “They are places of redemption.”"

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/books-about-libraries-history

Andiamo a comandare anche Linux: il colosso cinese Tencent entra nel CdA della Linux Foundation - il mio articolo per La Stampa

http://www.lastampa.it/2018/06/28/tecnologia/andiamo-a-comandare-anche-linux-il-colosso-cinese-tencent-entra-nel-cda-della-linux-foundation-s64jrwdCPUcpFZoiXXjwoL/pagina.html

La prototipazione rapida è fondamentale perché chiude il loop tra quello che si intende a fare e quel che effettivamente viene fuori. Learning by doing e non solo. Diventa come manipolare cose che non si possono manipolare, torna fuori l'artigiano, il maker. Beh, la stessa cosa si applica anche al codice, ovviamente, e con risultati interessanti per chi lo scrive direttamente nel debugger

Money quote "However, after using Jupyter for a while, I’ve noticed that it has changed my programming process in a way more fundamental than simply inlining visualization of results. Specifically, Jupyter enables programmers to edit their program while it is running. "

http://willcrichton.net/notes/programming-in-the-debugger/

Se siete linguaggisti, questo vi interessa molto: sta per arrivare Scala 3.0. Se non siete linguaggisti, leggete almeno la prima parte, qualcosa si capisce anche se non si è (troppo) tecnici. Se il cervello vi fa già bau-bau, invece, beh, magari non leggetela, non fa per voi...

Money quote: "Now that Scala 2.13 is only a few months away, it’s time to consider the roadmap beyond it. It’s been no secret that the work on Dotty over the last 5 years was intended to explore what a new Scala could look like. We are now at a stage where we can commit: Dotty will become Scala 3.0."

https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2018/04/19/scala-3.html

(ps: benvenuta, Dotty)

Il tizio che in passato aveva guardato dentro alcuni comandi Unix come "ls" l'ha fatto di nuovo. Questa volta, è il turno di "rm" (usare con cautela)

Money quote: "OK. Enough blabber. I’ve been working through a backlog of issues on the Zarf app. As such, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the command line. The backlog involved deleting a lot of code (insert satisfied sigh here) and sometimes this involved deleting entire files of source code (insert doubly satisfied sigh here). This got me wondering: what’s going on when you run rm on the command line. There’s a couple of variants of the rm command that I commonly run."

https://blog.safia.rocks/post/173241985600/unraveling-rm-what-happens-when-you-run-it

Ho pensato varie volte a fare un micro podcast su Mostly, I Write. Se non lo faccio è perché c’è già lei, che è perfetta

Il problema con questo tipo di scam, che poi è un hack fenomenale, è che chi li mette in piedi è un uomo morto. Non solo deve valerne la pena (economicamente) ma poi bisogna anche essere in grado di staccare al momento giusto e scomparire in Messico...

Money quote: “Dushaun Henderson-Spruce submitted a U.S. Postal Service change of address form on Oct. 26, 2017, according to court documents. He requested changing a corporation's mailing address from an address in Atlanta to the address of his apartment on Chicago's North Side.

The post office duly updated the address, and Henderson-Spruce allegedly began receiving the company's mail — including checks. It went on for months. Prosecutors say he deposited some $58,000 in checks improperly forwarded to his address.

The corporation isn't named in the court documents, but the Chicago Tribune reports that it's the shipping company UPS.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/10/610102872/man-allegedly-used-change-of-address-form-to-move-ups-headquarters-to-his-apartm

Un gioco online (solo per Mac/Pc: non funziona neanche su tablet) molto, molto divertente.

http://demo.curious-expedition.com/

Sino in estate. Tempo libero? È arrivato il momento di imparare JavaScript giocando? Perché no: gamification dal basso con questo divertente RPG da usare nel terminale (e l’AI del gioco è smart, molto molto smart)

Money quote: “In WarriorJS, you wear the skin of a warrior climbing a tall tower to reach The JavaScript Sword at the top level. Legend has it that the sword bearer becomes enlightened in the JavaScript language, but be warned: the journey will not be easy. On each floor, you need to write JavaScript to instruct the warrior to battle enemies, rescue captives, and reach the stairs alive...

No matter if you are new to programming or a JavaScript guru, WarriorJS will put your skills to the test. Will you dare?”

https://github.com/olistic/warriorjs

Ad Amsterdam hanno prosciugato un canale e messo online tutto quel che ci hanno trovato dentro. Spettacolare

https://belowthesurface.amsterdam/en/vondsten

Sfondi della scrivania (su Mac) come forma d’arte

Money quote: “In 2015, I finally solved the problem by building an app called Backgroundifier, which converted arbitrary-size images into wallpapers by superimposing them onto attractive, blurred backgrounds. By pairing an Automator Folder Action with the native wallpaper cycling functionality of macOS, I could now drop arbitrary images into a directory on my desktop and have them automatically show up in my wallpaper rotation. Peeking at an image was as simple as invoking the Show Desktop shortcut, and if I wanted to see something new, all I had to do was switch to a new Space”

http://archagon.net/blog/2018/05/02/a-native-art-gallery-for-your-mac/