Buon lunedì a tutti! E bentornati dalle vacanze. So che vi sentite così, ma non vi preoccupate. Poi passa...

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/

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

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/

Il genio della rete

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/

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

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/

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/

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/

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/

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

Lavorare in un open office richiede regole certe: come stare in biblioteca. Però può convenire dal punto di vista economico (lo spazio viene sfruttato meglio e costa meno attrezzarlo, che poi è il motivo per cui molte aziende lo preferiscono) e richiede una mentalità condivisa organizzata e coerente.

Money quote: “We did the best job we could designing an open office (and a culture) that allows everyone to work in focused peace and quiet every day. But even that’s not good enough, which is why no one is ever required to come into our office. Basecamp is a fully remote company of 54 people, and even the 14 people who work in Chicago work remotely from home most of the time. Walk into the office on any given day and you’ll see 3–5, if you’re lucky. Yes, it’s a tremendous waste of space most of the time, but that’s a concession we’re comfortable making.“

https://www.signalvnoise.com/library-rules-how-to-make-an-open-office-plan-work-f9f6d69a2d4c

Davvero vogliamo la vita eterna, l’immortalità in Terra, oppure abbiamo bisogno della morte, di una fine che dia senso a quel che succede prima? E se poi la nostra fosse “solo” paura di non riuscire a controllare il nostro destino finale ed ineluttabile? Un articolo decisamente non banale.

Money quote: “It seems, then, that both philosophers and popular culture keep trying to tell us the same thing: you might think that you want to live forever, but reflection should convince you otherwise. And yet, if this is ultimately true – as philosophers and popular culture seem to want to say that it is – then another question arises: why do we keep needing to be told?”

https://aeon.co/essays/theres-a-big-problem-with-immortality-it-goes-on-and-on

Ecco Chrome 69, l’ultima versione del browser di Google che compie 10 anni - il mio articolo per La Stampa

http://www.lastampa.it/2018/09/06/tecnologia/ecco-chrome-lultima-versione-del-browser-di-google-che-compie-anni-3Zlk2BUHG0HiJCNhIgzdfM/pagina.html

iTerm2 3.2, il Terminale alternativo per Mac ora supporta Metal 2 - il mio articolo per Macity

https://www.macitynet.it/iterm2/

Sul perché bisognerebbe tutti quanti collezionare orologi della Seiko (concordo!)

Money quote: “The Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, wears one. Ellen Ripley wore one when she battled aliens. Ramon Ang wears one to meetings and, if he likes you, will take it off his wrist and give it to you. The manong security guard at the mall has one. And after years of saying that I’d never collect watches because I’m already deep down the rabbit-hole with hi-fi audio and fountain pens, I have one as well.“

https://www.spot.ph/newsfeatures/the-latest-news-features/70000/seiko-watch-collection-a503-20170503

Alla fine, quel che conta è lo strumento... forse.

Money quote: “Decía Pablo Picasso que «la inspiración existe, pero tiene que encontrarte trabajando». Si un pintor esperara siempre a que le llegara la inspiración (o las ganas de trabajar), probablemente ninguno de sus cuadros vería la luz. Y si un escritor hiciera lo mismo, tampoco pondría el punto final a ninguno de sus libros. Y precisamente sobre el proceso de escribir y las distracciones quiero hablar hoy”

http://www.ochoenpunto.com/escribir-minimalismo-zenpen-scrivener/

Il mondo in cui viviamo

Cory Doctorow è un giornalista e imprenditore, oltre che scrittore. Personaggio complesso. La rappresentazione di quel che sta per succedere è perlomeno parziale.

Money quote: “Just last week, German music professor Ulrich Kaiser posted his research on automated censorship of classical music, in which he found that it was nearly impossible to post anything by composers like Bartok, Schubert, Puccini and Wagner, because companies large and small have fraudulently laid claim to their whole catalogs.”

https://boingboing.net/2018/09/05/mozart-bach-sorta-mach.html/

Una snella guida alla non-monogamia nel mondo. Intrigante.

Money quote: “Zou hun or “walking marriage” is a common practice with the Mosuo ethnic group, in the Yunnan province of China. Instead of traditional marriages, the Mosuo indicate interest, and a woman may give a man permission to visit her after dark. While sexual activities may happen with many partners, couples do not usually live together even when their relationships become longer-term; women remain with their family. Rather than caring for their specific offspring, men share responsibility for any children born to women in their own family.”

https://matadornetwork.com/life/non-monogamy-around-world/