Secondo me la cultura di Facebook non è del tutto normale

Money quote: "Let us consider a concrete example. When we are getting close to launching products at Facebook we often move the product team out of our usual open floor plan and into a room so they can coordinate in even tighter loops. As a rapidly growing company, it can sometimes be hard to find the space for these so-called war rooms. Before the launch of our games platform we needed to move more people into a war room than could possibly fit in any floor plan. Not to be defeated, the team came in over the weekend and built a loft which could support desks on two levels. This is classic hacking. The team solved a problem on a dimension, quite literally, that was unexpected: when you think of a floor plan you think of width and depth, not height"

http://boz.com/articles/the-hacker-way.html

Flirtare con un libro, anzi con la vostra foto mentre tenete un libro. Perché no? Se siete di origine anglosassone, lo facevano i vostri trisnonni...

Money quote: "The cards were “flirtations”: coded explanations for how to flirt with the opposite sex, using an item as your prop. In this case, the item was a book. Book leaning against your left cheek? Careful, someone’s watching us. Book on your knee? Let’s talk. Book between your teeth? It’s over."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/book-flirtation-cards-victorian

È arrivato il momento di un iPhone dual sim - il mio articolo per Wired

https://www.wired.it/mobile/smartphone/2018/07/06/iphone-dual-sim/

Qualcuno fermi la corsa al megapixel delle macchine fotografiche - il mio articolo su Wired

https://www.wired.it/gadget/foto-e-video/2018/07/06/megapixel-macchine-fotografiche/

🤝 Non so per te, ma per me spesso le riunioni sono un incubo. Quello che ho imparato è che di solito basta la metà del tempo per dire le cose per cui ci si è tenuti liberi una giornata intera https://thecooperreview.com/10-tricks-appear-smart-meetings/

Avete presente i grafi? Forse conoscete la parola, ma il suo significato, cioè cosa sono e come funzionano? Impariamo i grafi

Money quote: "A graph (as in "graph theory") is a discrete mathematical structure which deals with objects and pairwise relations between them. Graphs have immense applications in various disciplines of science. Knowledge of this subject is essential for mathematics and computer science enthusiasts.

D3 Graph Theory is project aimed at anyone who wants to learn graph theory. It provides quick and interactive introduction to the subject. The visuals used in the project makes it an effective learning tool."

https://mrpandey.github.io/d3graphTheory/index.html

La storia vera di Asus (e di Taiwan) dopo la trasformazione della Cina in gigante hi-tech - il mio articolo per IlSole-24ORE

http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2018-07-09/la-storia-vera-asus-e-taiwan-la-trasformazione-dell-cina-gigante-hi-tech-130831.shtml?uuid=AEqLs9IF

C'è questo tizio, che pensa di scrivere in modo divertente (a tratti ci riesce) che ha fatto una intera IDE dentro Excel, a suon di plugin. Era tutto cominciato per impressionare la sua ragazza e poi, da cosa nasce cosa.

Money quote: "Back in 2014, my girlfriend, let’s call her Anna, was having a hard time dealing with data in Excel files. Anna worked in quality control in a large pharma company. Every month or two, she’d start bringing home this soul-crushing pile of Excel files to work on, often over evenings and weekends. I wasn’t too happy about this since I had other plans for our evenings and weekends, but it did give me a chance to show off my superior tech skills so I wasn’t too sad about it. You might be surprised to learn that in a developer’s life, there aren’t all that many chances to impress girls with your coding skills."

http://blog.querystorm.com/index.php/2018/04/04/whynow/

Mi ricordo un pomeriggio a Firenze in cui intervistai Nicholas Negroponte per il suo progetto OLPC e una settimana provando il suddetto computer (la foto che Paolo Attivissimo utilizza come icona in cui mostra un OLPC sta usando il mio).

Il ricordo viene fuori dalla lettura di questo articolo, in cui si racconta lo studio fatto da un gruppo di ricercatori sull'uso del computer da parte di bambini poveri nei villaggi del Madagascar

Money quote: "Research shows that using technology in school makes children more engaged with learning. We wanted to know how children in low-income countries use laptops in their everyday lives; in school and after class. To find out, we embarked on a study in a village in Madagascar four years after the project was launched there."

https://theconversation.com/how-kids-in-a-low-income-country-use-laptops-lessons-from-madagascar-93305

L'iPad 9.7 è pensato per le scuole. Ma siamo sicuri che sia stato veramente pensato per essere usato dai bambini? Oppure è un riadattamento di un apparecchio con altre finalità?

Money quote: "If iPads were meant for kids, then there would be a way for apps to know what the allowed content ratings are. An app should be able to know that I’ve only allowed G and PG media on the device. The Youtube app wouldn’t need its own rating system, and youtube.com would have some WebKit api to call to know to only allow kid-appropriate videos."

https://davedelong.com/blog/2018/04/06/if-ipads-were-meant-for-kids/

Un sistema di microblogging a prova di censura, peer-to-peer. Peccato sia a pagamento per transazione basato su criptomoneta (perché usa una blockchain per funzionare in modo sicuro). Il problema di questo tipo di sistemi è il costo per transazione.

Money quote: "It costs a little bit of ether (a cryptocurrency) to use Peepeth. These fees power the Ethereum network. That's why you'll need MetaMask, which lets you execute Peepeth actions with 1 click."

https://peepeth.com/about

Prospettive differenti

Ok, questa cosa della fuga da Facebook vi ha lasciato sotto shock? Per voi è arrivato il momento delle decisioni storiche? Volete tornare a vivere una vita in cui possedete tutti i vostri dati? Una vita come durante il fascismo, completamente autarchica, libera dall'arrogante strapotere della perfida Albione-Google? Ecco la possibile risposta: FreedomBox.

Money quote: "FreedomBox is designed to be your own inexpensive server at home. It runs free software and offers an increasing number of services ranging from a calendar or jabber server to a wiki or VPN. Our web interface allows you to easily install and configure your apps. Be your own host!"

https://freedombox.org

Qui l'hardware supportato:

https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Hardware

Il tizio che si chiama Orkut e che ha inventato orkut, il social network comprato da Google su cui interagivano 300 milioni di persone che poi Google ha chiuso nel 2014, adesso ci riprova. E fa Hello. Non perché ha cambiato nome, ma perché vorrebbe ricreare la grande e utopica comunità.

Money quote: "You may not know me but 13 years ago I started a social network called orkut.com while I was working as an engineer at Google. I'm the guy orkut.com was named after. In 2014 when Google announced that orkut would be shutting down, it was a sad moment for us. orkut had become a community of over 300 million people and was such an amazing adventure for all of us. Nobody wanted to lose what we had created together. We met amazing new people. We went on dates. We found new jobs. We even got married and had kids because of orkut. We made it happen, together."

http://www.orkut.com/index.html

https://hellodotcom.hello.com/en/index.html

Dopo dieci anni si aggiorna la sicurezza Wifi: arriva la WPA3 - il mio articolo per La Stampa

http://www.lastampa.it/2018/07/11/tecnologia/dopo-dieci-anni-si-aggiorna-la-sicurezza-wifi-arriva-la-wpa-N16Ghg7FHAliI7e5PaQJTP/pagina.html

Non è che i social sono stupidi. È che bisogna seguire poca gente ma interessante

Al bar dove sto lavorando la signora dietro al banco ha messo sul televisore un video della figlia che canta. Brava, ma "sfortunata" perché non c'è verso, non ce la fa. Non riesce a sfondare, forse perché non fa quelle cose che hanno a che fare con raccomandazioni e altro? Non le danno mai la sua grande chance, il suo "big break" che invece danno ad altri ovviamente meno meritevoli.

A parte la considerazione che la colpa sia sempre di altri (tipico, è un'attitudine alla quale faccio una fatica enorme a sottrarmi), c'è da chiarirsi anche sul significato del "non riuscire a farcela perché fanno passare avanti gli altri e non mi danno una possibilità". Quello che segue è un ragionamento un po' verboso e improbabile nella banalizzazione storica, ma che rende bene un passaggio chiave della costruzione della propria identità. Cioè che spesso per le cose che vogliamo in realtà non ci impegniamo abbastanza o, alle volte, per niente.

Money quote: "As I wrote in Real Artists Don’t Starve, the Big Break is a myth. Something we tell themselves out of laziness and fear of the work ahead. If Big Breaks do happen, we’d be better off not counting on them and focusing on what we can control — the work."

https://medium.com/the-mission/your-big-break-is-never-coming-do-this-instead-8157786cfe8e

Semplicemente spettacolare: una museo-mostra-evento di arte digitale imperdibile (se siete a Tokyo)

Money quote: "The building is located at the Odaiba in Tokyo bay and was co-founded by the urban developer MORI Building Co.,Ltd. and digital art collective teamLab, which is known for engaging museum-goers with colorful and mesmerizing exhibitions created with cutting-edge digital technology."

https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514f794d544e78457a6333566d54/share_p.html

Uno dei più inquietanti e deliziosi libri che ricostruiscono un delitto pare essere quello scritto da un autore che non sopporta i gialli o i delitti o la suspance in generale.

Money quote: "I don’t have much natural interest in crime, whether true or invented. My proclivities run more toward the mundane joys of domesticity. I enjoy leafing through cookbooks and pulling the Dutch oven down from the shelf, and I share with my mother-in-law a passionate interest in the garden. In the fall, I look forward to the arrival of the various Dutch bulb catalogues; and in the spring, when she tells me, sighing over the phone, that the deer have again eaten the leaves off all her Armenian hyacinths, I feel her pain, not only because I planted those bulbs for her but because I know how pretty they would have been. I have tried to learn to appreciate true-crime books, but without much success. I was only a paragraph into Capote before I’d had enough, and the hundreds of knockoffs were hardly better. I can’t even watch semiviolent movies. I made it an hour into The Talented Mr. Ripley before I had to stop, twenty minutes into Thelma and Louise—it’s not that they’re gruesome, it’s the stress. When I come across the story of a crime in the paper, I feel less excitement than nausea. I don’t want to know how many times the seventeen-year-old stabbed his grandfather, or that afterward he went to the mall and bought new sneakers."

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/04/22/the-difficulty-in-writing-about-murder/#more-124519

Il cartello del micro museo di stampe Ukiyoe dice: aperto quando ci sono. Marketing divertente.

Money quote: “The sign outside this studio is enough to make anyone stop and smile. But the amusingly honest announcement of the studio’s hours isn’t the real attraction. The true treasure lies tucked behind the doors, waiting to be revealed whenever its owner decides to open shop”

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ukiyoe-small-museum

La grande truffa dell’intelligenza artificiale: le startup che usano persone al posto di algoritmi - il mio articolo per La Stampa

http://www.lastampa.it/2018/07/12/tecnologia/la-grande-truffa-dellintelligenza-artificiale-le-startup-che-usano-persone-al-posto-di-algoritmi-GTbxpcI0vNoNRm8iz6ICeO/premium.html