La blockchain si sta trasformando in una sorta di strano mistero: tecnologia problematica, che rende impossibile la privacy così come la GDPR la immagina e consuma energia e banda senza scopo, oppure struttura decentralizzata fondamentale per lo sviluppo di nuove opportunità? Qui se ne parla un po'.
Money quote: "The word “trust” is printed on things all around you. The dollar bill in your pocket. The box of Kleenex on your bedside table has a label that reads “trusted care.” In the physical world, it’s easy to prove that trust is indeed warranted: Trade that dollar (plus three more) for a latte and you can taste the power of U.S. currency."
https://medium.com/s/trustissues/the-blockchain-can-fix-the-internet-dfeeddb9338d
Money quote: "The word “trust” is printed on things all around you. The dollar bill in your pocket. The box of Kleenex on your bedside table has a label that reads “trusted care.” In the physical world, it’s easy to prove that trust is indeed warranted: Trade that dollar (plus three more) for a latte and you can taste the power of U.S. currency."
https://medium.com/s/trustissues/the-blockchain-can-fix-the-internet-dfeeddb9338d
Medium
Your Online Data Is In Peril. The Blockchain Could Save It
The word “trust” is printed on things all around you. The dollar bill in your pocket. The box of Kleenex on your bedside table has a label that reads “trusted care.” In the physical world, it’s easy…
Alfin la maraviglia, la maraviglia.
Money quote: “
Wonder is sometimes said to be a childish emotion, one that we grow out of. But that is surely wrong. As adults, we might experience it when gaping at grand vistas. I was dumbstruck when I first saw a sunset over the Serengeti. We also experience wonder when we discover extraordinary facts. I was enthralled to learn that, when arranged in a line, the neurons in a human brain would stretch the 700 miles from London to Berlin. But why? What purpose could this wide-eyed, slack-jawed feeling serve? It’s difficult to determine the biological function of any affect, but whatever it evolved for (and I’ll come to that), wonder might be humanity’s most important emotion”
https://aeon.co/essays/why-wonder-is-the-most-human-of-all-emotions
Money quote: “
Wonder is sometimes said to be a childish emotion, one that we grow out of. But that is surely wrong. As adults, we might experience it when gaping at grand vistas. I was dumbstruck when I first saw a sunset over the Serengeti. We also experience wonder when we discover extraordinary facts. I was enthralled to learn that, when arranged in a line, the neurons in a human brain would stretch the 700 miles from London to Berlin. But why? What purpose could this wide-eyed, slack-jawed feeling serve? It’s difficult to determine the biological function of any affect, but whatever it evolved for (and I’ll come to that), wonder might be humanity’s most important emotion”
https://aeon.co/essays/why-wonder-is-the-most-human-of-all-emotions
Aeon
How wonder works
One emotion inspired our greatest achievements in science, art and religion. We can manipulate it – but why do we have it?
La scomparsa della realtà: The Vanishing of Reality. Articolo estratto di libro di giornalista vincitrice del premio Pulizer. Una di quelle sintesi da brivido che in un attimo rimettono tutto in ordine. Come avevano fatto a non capirlo prima?
(Secondo me però andrebbe esplorato anche il ruolo del correttore automatico nella creazione di fake news).
Money quote: “Recommendation engines, she adds, help connect conspiracy theorists with one another to the point that “we are long past merely partisan filter bubbles and well into the realm of siloed communities that experience their own reality and operate with their own facts.” At this point, she concludes, “the Internet doesn’t just reflect reality anymore; it shapes it.””
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/08/01/the-vanishing-of-reality/
(Secondo me però andrebbe esplorato anche il ruolo del correttore automatico nella creazione di fake news).
Money quote: “Recommendation engines, she adds, help connect conspiracy theorists with one another to the point that “we are long past merely partisan filter bubbles and well into the realm of siloed communities that experience their own reality and operate with their own facts.” At this point, she concludes, “the Internet doesn’t just reflect reality anymore; it shapes it.””
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/08/01/the-vanishing-of-reality/
The Paris Review
The Vanishing of Reality
Politicians had always spun reality, but television—and later the Internet—gave them new platforms on which to prevaricate.
La banalità del male: Facebook è malvagio (lo è) perché tratta gli individui come punti in reti di connessioni. Ma le persone non sono grafi, le nazioni non sono database. A Facebook manca la capacità di avere una opinione.
Money quote: “That brings us back to Facebook. It has its own grand project—to turn the human world into one big information system. This is, it goes without saying, nowhere near as terrible as the project of the thousand-year Reich. But the fundamental problem is the same: an inability to look at things from the other fellow’s point of view, a disconnect between the human reality and the grand project.”
https://qz.com/1342757/everything-bad-about-facebook-is-bad-for-the-same-reason/amp/
Money quote: “That brings us back to Facebook. It has its own grand project—to turn the human world into one big information system. This is, it goes without saying, nowhere near as terrible as the project of the thousand-year Reich. But the fundamental problem is the same: an inability to look at things from the other fellow’s point of view, a disconnect between the human reality and the grand project.”
https://qz.com/1342757/everything-bad-about-facebook-is-bad-for-the-same-reason/amp/
Quartz
Everything bad about Facebook is bad for the same reason
The philosophy of Hannah Arendt points to the banal evil beneath Facebook's many mistakes.
Una tipa avventurosa lascia il lavoro fisso e parte per fare la nomade digitale. Scoprendo un sacco di banalità sulla vita on the road, anche e soprattutto sul senso dell’uscita con delle persone.
Money quote: “A German guy that I met in Manila had to use Google Translate to understand my text messages to him. He spoke English fluently, but he had a hard time reading and writing. We still had amazing conversations; he’d just come from living in New Zealand for six months and already missed it. He taught me that it’s not the length of time that someone’s in your life that matters, but the marks they leave when they’re there.“
https://medium.com/@tessa_6155/dating-as-a-digital-nomad-bc53e66e453b
Money quote: “A German guy that I met in Manila had to use Google Translate to understand my text messages to him. He spoke English fluently, but he had a hard time reading and writing. We still had amazing conversations; he’d just come from living in New Zealand for six months and already missed it. He taught me that it’s not the length of time that someone’s in your life that matters, but the marks they leave when they’re there.“
https://medium.com/@tessa_6155/dating-as-a-digital-nomad-bc53e66e453b
Medium
Dating as a Digital Nomad
In the last year, I’ve never spent more than a few weeks in the same city as someone I’ve dated. What it’s like to date as a digital nomad.
Quel che sta succedendo a Barcellona è anche quello che accade a numerose città italiane, soprattutto piccole e medio-piccole: il tanto invocato turismo è in realtà un evento disgregatore del tessuto urbano e sociale. Senza contare che difficilmente è controllabile perché legato a fattori esterni (Ryanair che apre una rotta piuttosto che un'altra, per intenderci).
Siamo sicuri sia questo il futuro che vogliamo?
Money quote: "The saddest thing about all this is the city is rapidly losing its identity and becoming like everywhere else. A new word has been coined to describe this apparently unstoppable process: parquetematización – the act of becoming a theme park. Barcelona has become an imitation of itself."
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/aug/30/why-tourism-is-killing-barcelona-overtourism-photo-essay
Siamo sicuri sia questo il futuro che vogliamo?
Money quote: "The saddest thing about all this is the city is rapidly losing its identity and becoming like everywhere else. A new word has been coined to describe this apparently unstoppable process: parquetematización – the act of becoming a theme park. Barcelona has become an imitation of itself."
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/aug/30/why-tourism-is-killing-barcelona-overtourism-photo-essay
the Guardian
How tourism is killing Barcelona – a photo essay
One of the coolest destinations in Europe just two decades ago, Barcelona is now so overcrowded it has become a tourist theme park – and is losing the character that made it so popular
E cosa succede al mondo del lavoro? Una trasformazione epocale. Partiamo da questo: il Manifesto del telelavoro. C'è la pars costruens, la pars destruens, e tutto il resto.
Money quote:
"What is it not:
- There is no main office or headquarters with multiple people "The only way to not have people in a satellite office is not to have a main office."
- You do work together and communicate intensely, remote doesn't mean working independent of each other.
- Offshoring of work, you hire around the world.
- It is not a management paradigm, it is still a normal hierarchical organization, however there is a focus on output instead of input.
- It is not a substitute for human interaction, people still need to collaborate, have conversations, and feel part of a team."
https://www.remoteonly.org
Money quote:
"What is it not:
- There is no main office or headquarters with multiple people "The only way to not have people in a satellite office is not to have a main office."
- You do work together and communicate intensely, remote doesn't mean working independent of each other.
- Offshoring of work, you hire around the world.
- It is not a management paradigm, it is still a normal hierarchical organization, however there is a focus on output instead of input.
- It is not a substitute for human interaction, people still need to collaborate, have conversations, and feel part of a team."
https://www.remoteonly.org
Il lavoro cambia. Farsi il mazzo serve sempre, ma occorre farlo in modo nuovo. Per dire: si può lavorare meglio ma meno.
Money quote: "Surprisingly, the top 10% of employees with the highest productivity didn’t put in longer hours than anyone else – often they didn't even work eight-hour days. Instead, the key to their productivity was that for every 52 minutes of focused work, they took a 17-minute break.
While our culture may be pushing us towards working 24/7, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a Silcon Valley consultant and author of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, believes this is not helping us to be more productive or to come up with creative solutions.
The research instead points towards the importance of rest, he says."
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170612-why-you-should-manage-your-energy-not-your-time
Money quote: "Surprisingly, the top 10% of employees with the highest productivity didn’t put in longer hours than anyone else – often they didn't even work eight-hour days. Instead, the key to their productivity was that for every 52 minutes of focused work, they took a 17-minute break.
While our culture may be pushing us towards working 24/7, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a Silcon Valley consultant and author of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, believes this is not helping us to be more productive or to come up with creative solutions.
The research instead points towards the importance of rest, he says."
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170612-why-you-should-manage-your-energy-not-your-time
Bbc
Why you should manage your energy, not your time
When our workloads increase, many of us decide to up our number of working hours. But harnessing moments of 'unfocus' might be the key to getting more done in less time.
La recensione dell’hotspot portatile Tp-Link M7200 LTE - il mio articolo per Macity. L’hotspot è mitico e costa poco!
https://www.macitynet.it/tp-link-m7200/
https://www.macitynet.it/tp-link-m7200/
macitynet.it
La recensione dell’hotspot portatile Tp-Link M7200 LTE
Recensioni
Il motivo per cui amo internet: dove mai avrei potuto trovare un articolo così pieno di amore che racconta l'invenzione degli scoiattoli nelle moderne città statunitensi?
Money quote: "There were squirrels in Manhattan before there was a city there, but by the mid-1800s their population was practically nonexistent. Then in 1877, about 20 years after the first bushy-tailed rodent found its way into the newspaper, the city decided to capitalize on squirrels' growing fandom by bringing them back to Central Park. They planted squirrel-friendly nut trees and installed cozy squirrel homes, then released a handful of chipper gray squirrels to run wild in the park. The following year, they released 30 more pairs. By 1883, the park was home to at least 1,500 of them."
https://curiosity.com/topics/heres-the-real-reason-cities-are-full-of-squirrels-curiosity/
Money quote: "There were squirrels in Manhattan before there was a city there, but by the mid-1800s their population was practically nonexistent. Then in 1877, about 20 years after the first bushy-tailed rodent found its way into the newspaper, the city decided to capitalize on squirrels' growing fandom by bringing them back to Central Park. They planted squirrel-friendly nut trees and installed cozy squirrel homes, then released a handful of chipper gray squirrels to run wild in the park. The following year, they released 30 more pairs. By 1883, the park was home to at least 1,500 of them."
https://curiosity.com/topics/heres-the-real-reason-cities-are-full-of-squirrels-curiosity/
Curiosity.com
Here's the Real Reason Cities Are Full of Squirrels
For those of us who live in a major American city, the most communing with nature we get on a regular basis is hanging out in the park and watching ...
La storia del padre della fotografia sottomarina. Sembra una storia di un secolo fa, invece era quasi un secolo e mezzo fa: il 1880.
Money quote: "The experience of diving appears to have been revelatory for Boutan. He later recounted, “It was all so beautiful and so strange that I often found myself longing to be able to sketch or paint the scene, so as to be able to bring up to the surface a souvenir of what I had seen below.” Boutan resolved to photograph these “submarine landscapes.”"
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/worlds-first-underwater-portrait
Money quote: "The experience of diving appears to have been revelatory for Boutan. He later recounted, “It was all so beautiful and so strange that I often found myself longing to be able to sketch or paint the scene, so as to be able to bring up to the surface a souvenir of what I had seen below.” Boutan resolved to photograph these “submarine landscapes.”"
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/worlds-first-underwater-portrait
Atlas Obscura
How a 19th-Century Biologist Became an Underwater Photography Pioneer
A deep dive into the "submarine landscapes" of Louis Boutan.
Il falso, anzi il marcio dentro Instagram.
Money quote: “Instagrammers with completely or partially fake followings and/or engagement present advertisers with a unique form of ad fraud that’s becoming more and more commonplace and could be siphoning tens of millions of dollars from brands.”
https://www.highsnobiety.com/2017/08/07/fake-instagram-influencer/
Money quote: “Instagrammers with completely or partially fake followings and/or engagement present advertisers with a unique form of ad fraud that’s becoming more and more commonplace and could be siphoning tens of millions of dollars from brands.”
https://www.highsnobiety.com/2017/08/07/fake-instagram-influencer/
Highsnobiety
Here's How Easy It Is to Become a Phony Instagram Influencer
Marketing agency Mediakix has conducted an investigation into the murky world of online Instagram fakers. Read about what went down here.
Il logo definitivo per la “spade force” di Donald Trump.
Money quote: “When Bloomberg Businessweek asked eight leading designers to brand President Trump’s preposterous “Space Force”, they can’t possibly have imagined getting anything this deliciously good”
https://onefoottsunami.com/2018/07/30/an-idiotic-idea-doesnt-deserve-branding-this-good/
Money quote: “When Bloomberg Businessweek asked eight leading designers to brand President Trump’s preposterous “Space Force”, they can’t possibly have imagined getting anything this deliciously good”
https://onefoottsunami.com/2018/07/30/an-idiotic-idea-doesnt-deserve-branding-this-good/
Onefoottsunami
An Idiotic Idea Doesn’t Deserve Branding This Good
“Space Force”. God.
Lei guida una azienda online cinese gigantesca. Ma è una donna, e come tale ha davanti una strada ripida il doppio.
Money quote: “Jane Sun may be the head of a Nasdaq-listed Chinese tech company valued at US$23 billion, but she still sometimes feels slighted in the company of other CEOs.
While attending a recent CEO conference in Silicon Valley, “people assumed I was there to accompany my husband”, said the 49-year-old head of Shanghai-based Ctrip, Asia’s biggest online travel platform. On a separate skiing trip to Canada, fellow skiers asked Sun’s husband what line of work he was in, but not her.”
https://www.scmp.com/tech/china-tech/article/2156661/ctrips-female-ceo-gender-inequality-and-fighting-internet-platform
Money quote: “Jane Sun may be the head of a Nasdaq-listed Chinese tech company valued at US$23 billion, but she still sometimes feels slighted in the company of other CEOs.
While attending a recent CEO conference in Silicon Valley, “people assumed I was there to accompany my husband”, said the 49-year-old head of Shanghai-based Ctrip, Asia’s biggest online travel platform. On a separate skiing trip to Canada, fellow skiers asked Sun’s husband what line of work he was in, but not her.”
https://www.scmp.com/tech/china-tech/article/2156661/ctrips-female-ceo-gender-inequality-and-fighting-internet-platform
South China Morning Post
Ctrip’s female CEO on gender inequality and fighting internet platform companies
Jane Sun may be the head of a Nasdaq-listed Chinese tech company valued at US$23 billion, but she still sometimes feels slighted in the company of other CEOs....
Educazione sessuale in Olanda e negli Usa (e da noi? Chissà...)
Money quote: “Over the past 30 years, more and more American sex-ed classrooms have shifted toward abstinence-only messages and away from more effective curriculums. Yet, over that same time period, Dutch sex education—in classrooms, but also in public spaces like Nemo—has gotten progressively more comprehensive, and the Netherlands now outperforms most countries on various global metrics for sexual-health outcomes. On average, Dutch and American teenagers have sex for the first time around the same age—between 17 and 18—but with dramatically different results”
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/568225/
Money quote: “Over the past 30 years, more and more American sex-ed classrooms have shifted toward abstinence-only messages and away from more effective curriculums. Yet, over that same time period, Dutch sex education—in classrooms, but also in public spaces like Nemo—has gotten progressively more comprehensive, and the Netherlands now outperforms most countries on various global metrics for sexual-health outcomes. On average, Dutch and American teenagers have sex for the first time around the same age—between 17 and 18—but with dramatically different results”
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/568225/
The Atlantic
How the Dutch Do Sex Ed
In the Netherlands, one of the world’s most gender-equal countries, kids learn about sex and bodies starting at age 4.
2018, l’anno in cui lo smartphone piccolo morì - il mio articolo per Macity
Money quote: "Quando Apple sbarcò nel settore dei telefoni “robusti”, passando dai 3,5 pollici (veramente mignon) delle prime cinque generazioni ai 4 pollici con l’iPhone 5 e 5s e poi 4,7 dell’iPhone 6/6s/7/8 e ai 5,5 pollici dell’iPhone 6/6s/7/8 Plus, fu una autentica rivoluzione. E all’epoca dell’iPhone 6 e 6 Plus ci furono test e misure millimetriche sulle pubblicità e i materiali di marketing per capire se la mano che impugnava il telefono era più grande o più piccola. Cioè se serviva come trucco del riferimento ottico per dare più enfasi alla “generosa” dimensione dello schermo oppure alla tascabilità e usabilità dell’apparecchio."
https://www.macitynet.it/2018-lanno-in-cui-lo-smartphone-piccolo-mori/
Money quote: "Quando Apple sbarcò nel settore dei telefoni “robusti”, passando dai 3,5 pollici (veramente mignon) delle prime cinque generazioni ai 4 pollici con l’iPhone 5 e 5s e poi 4,7 dell’iPhone 6/6s/7/8 e ai 5,5 pollici dell’iPhone 6/6s/7/8 Plus, fu una autentica rivoluzione. E all’epoca dell’iPhone 6 e 6 Plus ci furono test e misure millimetriche sulle pubblicità e i materiali di marketing per capire se la mano che impugnava il telefono era più grande o più piccola. Cioè se serviva come trucco del riferimento ottico per dare più enfasi alla “generosa” dimensione dello schermo oppure alla tascabilità e usabilità dell’apparecchio."
https://www.macitynet.it/2018-lanno-in-cui-lo-smartphone-piccolo-mori/
Macitynet.it
2018, l'anno in cui lo smartphone piccolo morì - Macitynet.it
I telefonini con schermo mini faranno la fine del Dodo? Il 12 vedremo cosa sceglierà di fare Apple ma la strada sembra segnata. Cornici ultrasottili e fattore di forma 18:10 sono il futuro per i telecomandi della nostra vita
Google Arts&Culture trova il vostro sosia nel mondo dei ritratti d’arte - adesso disponibile anche in Italia - il mio articolo per Macity
https://www.macitynet.it/selfie-artistico-google-molti-americani-non-tutti/
https://www.macitynet.it/selfie-artistico-google-molti-americani-non-tutti/
Macitynet.it
Google Arts&Culture trova il vostro sosia nel mondo dei ritratti d'arte - Macitynet.it
L’app Arts&Culture permette di scattarsi foto e, grazie a machine learning e computer vision. vedere a quale personaggio di quadro famoso assomigliamo
Roberto Viola, dirigente Ue per la tecnologia (un ruolo fondamentale, sotto c'è un link a un articolo che racconta la sua storia) era a Venezia alla Mostra del Cinema e ha dichiarato a Variety che i servizi streaming (Amazon, Netflix) da dicembre dovranno dare spazio al 30% di programmazione locale, ben in evidenza. Da noi ci aspettano Don Matteo e Un medico in famiglia?
Money quote: "Viola said that, starting in December, the EU’s 28 member states would have 20 months to apply these new norms and that countries “could choose to raise the quota from the 30% minimum to 40%.” EU nations can each choose whether the 30% includes sub-quotas on original productions in their countries and whether they want to follow the German model of adding a small surcharge on streamer subnoscription fees to support the national production fund."
https://variety.com/2018/film/news/netflix-amazon-local-product-quotas-european-union-law-1202924740/
La (notevole) storia di Viola
https://www.politico.eu/article/roberto-viola-profile-eu-dsm-tsm-technology-tech-policy/
Money quote: "Viola said that, starting in December, the EU’s 28 member states would have 20 months to apply these new norms and that countries “could choose to raise the quota from the 30% minimum to 40%.” EU nations can each choose whether the 30% includes sub-quotas on original productions in their countries and whether they want to follow the German model of adding a small surcharge on streamer subnoscription fees to support the national production fund."
https://variety.com/2018/film/news/netflix-amazon-local-product-quotas-european-union-law-1202924740/
La (notevole) storia di Viola
https://www.politico.eu/article/roberto-viola-profile-eu-dsm-tsm-technology-tech-policy/
Variety
Local Product Quotas for Netflix, Amazon to Become Law, EU Official Says (EXCLUSIVE)
Quotas obligating Netflix and Amazon to dedicate at least 30% of their on-demand catalogs to local content in the EU are set to become law.
La domanda è molto semplice. Le sostanze chimiche psicotrope, droghe ricreative o medicali, ci danno più libertà o ci cambiano e ci pilotano?
Money quote: “Psychological medications such as Xanax, Ritalin and aspirin help to modify undesirable behaviours, thought patterns and the perception of pain. They purport to treat the underlying chemical cause rather than the social, interpersonal or psychodynamic causes of pathology. Self-knowledge gained by introspection and dialogue are no longer our primary means for modifying psychological states. By prescribing such medication, physicians are implicitly admitting that cognitive and behavioural training is insufficient and impractical, and that ‘the brain’, of which nonspecialists have little explicit understanding, is in fact the level where errors occur”
https://aeon.co/ideas/do-psychotropic-drugs-enhance-or-diminish-human-agency
Money quote: “Psychological medications such as Xanax, Ritalin and aspirin help to modify undesirable behaviours, thought patterns and the perception of pain. They purport to treat the underlying chemical cause rather than the social, interpersonal or psychodynamic causes of pathology. Self-knowledge gained by introspection and dialogue are no longer our primary means for modifying psychological states. By prescribing such medication, physicians are implicitly admitting that cognitive and behavioural training is insufficient and impractical, and that ‘the brain’, of which nonspecialists have little explicit understanding, is in fact the level where errors occur”
https://aeon.co/ideas/do-psychotropic-drugs-enhance-or-diminish-human-agency
Aeon
Do psychotropic drugs enhance, or diminish, human agency?
Drugs quell pain, boost focus, and enable euphoria, but they also occlude agency and compromise self-development