Si stava meglio quando si ascoltava la musica sull’iPod e non sul telefono. Sono arrivati gli hipster molto, molto giovani.
Money quote: “This video from Pitchfork deftly explains what made the original iPod and its clickwheel descendants such great products, and why using a smartphone to listen to tunes, despite the convenience they afford, doesn't hold a candle to the listening experience a dedicated music player can provide.”
https://boingboing.net/2018/10/26/why-the-ipod-classic-remains-o.html
Money quote: “This video from Pitchfork deftly explains what made the original iPod and its clickwheel descendants such great products, and why using a smartphone to listen to tunes, despite the convenience they afford, doesn't hold a candle to the listening experience a dedicated music player can provide.”
https://boingboing.net/2018/10/26/why-the-ipod-classic-remains-o.html
Boing Boing
Why the iPod Classic remains one of the best ways to listen to digital music
Why the iPod Classic remains one of the best ways to listen to digital music
Forwarded from Social&Positive News - L'informazione che fa bene (Channel Help)
🤡🤹🏻♀️ #InclusioneSociale #Giovani
«Il circo mi ha aiutato a uscire da una vita molto difficile. Ho capito che il divertimento può esistere anche come cosa normale e non solo con l’uso di stupefacenti. Mi ha tirato dentro Giovanni, venendomi a prendere per strada. Il mio sogno è diventare un trapezista». Marco, 19 anni, cresciuto nel quartiere Barra di Napoli, racconta così il suo incontro con Il tappeto di Iqbal, una cooperativa sociale che da anni promuove il circo come metodologia pedagogica e di inclusione sociale. Quella di Marco è una delle testimonianze raccolte in "Ridere fa bene. Esperienze e riflessioni sul circo sociale", un bel libro appena pubblicato da Cesvot - Centro servizi volontariato Toscana, nato dall’esperienza dell'associazione Carretera Central di Siena che da anni porta avanti progetti di volontariato internazionale e circo sociale in America Latina e Medio Oriente. Come racconto su Vita, il libro ripercorre storie ed esperienze di circo sociale, dalla sua nascita in Brasile negli anni '60 con i cosiddetti "meninos de rua" alle tante realtà attive in Italia. Nel nostro Paese sono, infatti, almeno 25 le esperienze di circo sociale, tra le più note il Circo Corsaro di Scampia. L’arte circense può rappresentare uno straordinario strumento per combattere l'emarginazione e il disagio giovanile ma non solo. Tanti sono ormai gli ambiti in cui il circo sociale viene praticato: dalle dipendenze alle disabilità, dal carcere alla salute mentale. Sì, ridere fa bene! Buon fine settimana 🤠
«Il circo mi ha aiutato a uscire da una vita molto difficile. Ho capito che il divertimento può esistere anche come cosa normale e non solo con l’uso di stupefacenti. Mi ha tirato dentro Giovanni, venendomi a prendere per strada. Il mio sogno è diventare un trapezista». Marco, 19 anni, cresciuto nel quartiere Barra di Napoli, racconta così il suo incontro con Il tappeto di Iqbal, una cooperativa sociale che da anni promuove il circo come metodologia pedagogica e di inclusione sociale. Quella di Marco è una delle testimonianze raccolte in "Ridere fa bene. Esperienze e riflessioni sul circo sociale", un bel libro appena pubblicato da Cesvot - Centro servizi volontariato Toscana, nato dall’esperienza dell'associazione Carretera Central di Siena che da anni porta avanti progetti di volontariato internazionale e circo sociale in America Latina e Medio Oriente. Come racconto su Vita, il libro ripercorre storie ed esperienze di circo sociale, dalla sua nascita in Brasile negli anni '60 con i cosiddetti "meninos de rua" alle tante realtà attive in Italia. Nel nostro Paese sono, infatti, almeno 25 le esperienze di circo sociale, tra le più note il Circo Corsaro di Scampia. L’arte circense può rappresentare uno straordinario strumento per combattere l'emarginazione e il disagio giovanile ma non solo. Tanti sono ormai gli ambiti in cui il circo sociale viene praticato: dalle dipendenze alle disabilità, dal carcere alla salute mentale. Sì, ridere fa bene! Buon fine settimana 🤠
VITA
Ridere fa bene: quando il circo diventa terapeutico
Un libro pubblicato dal Cesvot racconta storie e successi del circo sociale. Nato in Brasile oggi conta 25 realtà in Italia. Una pratica e una “cura” utile non solo per i ragazzi in difficoltà, ma ormai diffusa nel campo delle dipendenze, della disabilità…
Un articolo da prendere molto sul serio. Altro che intelligenza artificiale: il problema è la complessità del software.
Money quote: ““When we had electromechanical systems, we used to be able to test them exhaustively,” says Nancy Leveson, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has been studying software safety for 35 years. She became known for her report on the Therac-25, a radiation-therapy machine that killed six patients because of a software error. “We used to be able to think through all the things it could do, all the states it could get into.” The electromechanical interlockings that controlled train movements at railroad crossings, for instance, only had so many configurations; a few sheets of paper could describe the whole system, and you could run physical trains against each configuration to see how it would behave. Once you’d built and tested it, you knew exactly what you were dealing with.
Software is different”
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/saving-the-world-from-code/540393/
Money quote: ““When we had electromechanical systems, we used to be able to test them exhaustively,” says Nancy Leveson, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has been studying software safety for 35 years. She became known for her report on the Therac-25, a radiation-therapy machine that killed six patients because of a software error. “We used to be able to think through all the things it could do, all the states it could get into.” The electromechanical interlockings that controlled train movements at railroad crossings, for instance, only had so many configurations; a few sheets of paper could describe the whole system, and you could run physical trains against each configuration to see how it would behave. Once you’d built and tested it, you knew exactly what you were dealing with.
Software is different”
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/saving-the-world-from-code/540393/
The Atlantic
The Coming Software Apocalypse
A small group of programmers wants to change how we code—before catastrophe strikes.
Chissà se ha senso e se funzionerà davvero.
Money quote: “Xinhua, China’s state-run press agency, has unveiled new “AI anchors” — digital composites created from footage of human hosts that read the news using synthesized voices”
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/8/18074806/ai-news-anchor-china-xinhua-digital-composite
Money quote: “Xinhua, China’s state-run press agency, has unveiled new “AI anchors” — digital composites created from footage of human hosts that read the news using synthesized voices”
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/8/18074806/ai-news-anchor-china-xinhua-digital-composite
The Verge
China’s state-run press agency has created an ‘AI anchor’ to read the news
But the agency’s new host isn’t any more sophisticated than a CGI puppet
Le tasche dei jeans delle donne sono peggio. Lo hanno misurato.
Money quote: “Beyond the obvious measurement differences, we wanted to see just how functional all these pockets were. After all, a pocket is only as good as what you can fit in it.”
https://pudding.cool/2018/08/pockets/
Money quote: “Beyond the obvious measurement differences, we wanted to see just how functional all these pockets were. After all, a pocket is only as good as what you can fit in it.”
https://pudding.cool/2018/08/pockets/
The Pudding
Women's Pockets are Inferior.
If you wear women's clothes, you already know this. But now we've got the data to show it.
Fortune viene venduto a un tailandese per 150 milioni di dollari. All’improvviso gli acquisti fatti da jeffnbezos e Laura Powell sembrano la mano della provvidenza per molti miei colleghi giornalisti americani.
Money quote: “Like many of its peers in media, Fortune has suffered from declines in advertising and newsstand sales over the past several years, and it has increasingly focused on digital advertising and its growing conference business.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fortune-magazine-to-be-sold-to-thai-businessman-for-150-million-1541772000
Money quote: “Like many of its peers in media, Fortune has suffered from declines in advertising and newsstand sales over the past several years, and it has increasingly focused on digital advertising and its growing conference business.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fortune-magazine-to-be-sold-to-thai-businessman-for-150-million-1541772000
WSJ
Fortune Magazine to Be Sold to Thai Businessman for $150 Million
Meredith said a Thai businessman agreed to buy Fortune magazine for $150 million in cash, the publication’s second sale this year.
Oggi, 29 anni fa, Berlino si è risvegliata (se mai quella fatidica notte è andata a dormire) senza più il suo muro. In questo vecchio articolo del Domenicale del Sole 24 Ore, un ragionamento sul senso dei muri e dei confini.
Money quote: "L'idea di Febvre è che i luoghi di confine sono punti di sutura più che di frattura. Fine della politica è nel proporli appunto come luoghi di sutura per fare in modo che lo siano per davvero: la geografia non è mai ciò che c'è e la politica è uno strumento per fare in modo che la geografia non sia il registro dei conflitti. Oggi vige un diverso principio. I muri ci appaiono come naturali. Lo storico francese Claude Quétel, che con pazienza si è messo a indagare non solo il funzionamento di quelle fratture, ma anche l'origine, la diffusione, la crisi e talora il crollo, scrive nelle righe conclusive di questo suo libro che i muri «non pretendono di essere soluzioni. Sono risposte»."
https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/cultura/2018-11-09/ci-sono-muri-che-indicano-coabitazione-guardinga-piu-che-distanza-153913.shtml?uuid=AEURgGeG
Money quote: "L'idea di Febvre è che i luoghi di confine sono punti di sutura più che di frattura. Fine della politica è nel proporli appunto come luoghi di sutura per fare in modo che lo siano per davvero: la geografia non è mai ciò che c'è e la politica è uno strumento per fare in modo che la geografia non sia il registro dei conflitti. Oggi vige un diverso principio. I muri ci appaiono come naturali. Lo storico francese Claude Quétel, che con pazienza si è messo a indagare non solo il funzionamento di quelle fratture, ma anche l'origine, la diffusione, la crisi e talora il crollo, scrive nelle righe conclusive di questo suo libro che i muri «non pretendono di essere soluzioni. Sono risposte»."
https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/cultura/2018-11-09/ci-sono-muri-che-indicano-coabitazione-guardinga-piu-che-distanza-153913.shtml?uuid=AEURgGeG
Il Sole 24 ORE
Ci sono muri che indicano una coabitazione guardinga più che una distanza
Tracciati fortificati, spazi di rifugio, barriere di controllo, perimetri fiscali: le linee di separazione analizzate da Quétel - Oggi sono soprattutto i ricchi che si isolano in nome della sicurezza, del silenzio, del diritto alla privacy: i muri sono segno…
A coloro i quali manca Leonard Cohen, ecco i suoi quadernini postumi. Ce n’è un armadio pieno...
Money quote: “Two years have passed since Leonard Cohen’s death on the eve of the 2016 American presidential election, and to no one’s surprise, the world remains steeped in the miserable mix of darkness and fleeting hope that the poet-songwriter articulated so well. The Flame, published last month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is Cohen’s parting gift: a collection of poems, lyrics, drawings, and pages from his notebooks. Cohen’s son, Adam, writes in his foreword: “This volume contains my father’s final efforts as a poet … It was what he was staying alive to do, his sole breathing purpose at the end.” Below, we present a selection of images from the book”
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/11/07/selections-from-leonard-cohens-notebooks/
Money quote: “Two years have passed since Leonard Cohen’s death on the eve of the 2016 American presidential election, and to no one’s surprise, the world remains steeped in the miserable mix of darkness and fleeting hope that the poet-songwriter articulated so well. The Flame, published last month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is Cohen’s parting gift: a collection of poems, lyrics, drawings, and pages from his notebooks. Cohen’s son, Adam, writes in his foreword: “This volume contains my father’s final efforts as a poet … It was what he was staying alive to do, his sole breathing purpose at the end.” Below, we present a selection of images from the book”
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/11/07/selections-from-leonard-cohens-notebooks/
The Paris Review
Selections from Leonard Cohen’s Notebooks
“To know my father,” Cohen’s son, Adam, writes, ”was (among many other wondrous things) to know a man with papers, notebooks, and cocktail napkins—a distinguished handwriting on each—scattered (neatly) everywhere.”
Si sta meglio da vecchi? Boh, forse...
Money quote: “Sohn posits that happiness isn’t so much a feeling of peace, but a “state of fulfillment, meaning, or abundance .” It’s also possible that it’s not something we can necessarily appreciate while it’s happening, but only when we’re looking back on it.”
https://lifehacker.com/why-being-middle-aged-may-be-the-best-part-of-your-life-1828366010
Money quote: “Sohn posits that happiness isn’t so much a feeling of peace, but a “state of fulfillment, meaning, or abundance .” It’s also possible that it’s not something we can necessarily appreciate while it’s happening, but only when we’re looking back on it.”
https://lifehacker.com/why-being-middle-aged-may-be-the-best-part-of-your-life-1828366010
Lifehacker
Why Being Middle-Aged May Be the Best Part of Your Life
If you had to guess what the best era of a life would be, you might say being young and without responsibilities or old with a retirement fund. It turns out that for a lot of people, the best part of their life is the slog of middle-age.
I vigili del fuoco di San Francisco si costruiscono da soli le loro scale, tutte in legno. E c'è una ragione (ovviamente) se lo fanno, che non è ingannare i tempi morti tra un intervento e l'altro. Perché hanno un'officina dedicata e sono molto orgogliosi del tipo di operatività che questa attività gli consente.
Money quote: "Wood is resilient in ways which aluminum—now standard for fire department ladders—can't even compare. "You know if you take an empty coke can and bend it three or four times and it tears really easy? That's what aluminum ladders will do," Braun says. "They have a seven to eight year lifespan, after which they need to be replaced."
Wooden ladders, on the other hand, can last indefinitely. "You can stress wood right up to its failure point a million times; as long as you don't go beyond that, it will come right back to where it was. They can be involved in a fire for a pretty long time; after that, it's just a matter of sanding off the top coat of material then inspecting the wood. If it's good we'll re-oil it, revarnish it, and put it back in service.""
https://gizmodo.com/inside-san-francisos-fire-department-where-ladders-are-1552279252
Money quote: "Wood is resilient in ways which aluminum—now standard for fire department ladders—can't even compare. "You know if you take an empty coke can and bend it three or four times and it tears really easy? That's what aluminum ladders will do," Braun says. "They have a seven to eight year lifespan, after which they need to be replaced."
Wooden ladders, on the other hand, can last indefinitely. "You can stress wood right up to its failure point a million times; as long as you don't go beyond that, it will come right back to where it was. They can be involved in a fire for a pretty long time; after that, it's just a matter of sanding off the top coat of material then inspecting the wood. If it's good we'll re-oil it, revarnish it, and put it back in service.""
https://gizmodo.com/inside-san-francisos-fire-department-where-ladders-are-1552279252
Gizmodo
Inside San Franciso's Fire Department, Where Ladders Are Made by Hand
San Francisco's Fire Department is one of the few left in the United States that still uses wooden ladders. Each is made by hand at a dedicated workshop. Some have been in rotation for nearly a century. We'll get to the why and how, but hang on: Wouldn't…
Quando Apple era in crisi nera, a metà anni Novanta, decise di comprarsi un sistema operativo multitasking "tosto" per fare un salto tecnologico che le consentisse di recuperare Windows NT. Le scelte erano tra NeXT OS di Steve Jobs e Be OS. Venne scelta la prima, Jobs rientrò in azienda e il resto è storia.
Tutti i pochi geek appassionati di Be OS ricordano però la supposta superiorità (oramai leggendaria) dell'altro sistema operativo, un po' come capita quando si parla di Amiga OS con un seguace del culto della Commodore. Se ne parla, ma se ne sa poco. In effetti alcune cose noteovli c'erano, a partire dal file system. Qui si racconta per bene com'era fatto e perché sarebbe ancora uno strumento valido (considerando che il file system di Apple è stato sempre un suo punto debole, almeno sino all'attuale AFS). Se non sapete esattamente cos'è un file system, Ars Technica ve lo spiega.
Money quote: "BFS was created in 1997 by Dominic Giampaolo and Cyril Meurillon, both of whom worked at Be. It was designed to be multi-threaded and lightweight, and to support high-volume, streaming multimedia. It was also designed to support the database features of the previous Be file system. Even though it was written at a time when systems typically had only 8MB of RAM and a mere 9GB of disk storage, many of the forward-thinking design decisions made then are still valid today.
BFS didn't quite end when Be shut its doors after failing to get bought by Apple. In 2002, Axel Dörfler re-implemented BFS for Haiku as an open-source project. The last part of this article features an interview with Axel.
Before we can talk about what made BFS so special, we first have to cover some file system basics."
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/the-beos-filesystem/
Tutti i pochi geek appassionati di Be OS ricordano però la supposta superiorità (oramai leggendaria) dell'altro sistema operativo, un po' come capita quando si parla di Amiga OS con un seguace del culto della Commodore. Se ne parla, ma se ne sa poco. In effetti alcune cose noteovli c'erano, a partire dal file system. Qui si racconta per bene com'era fatto e perché sarebbe ancora uno strumento valido (considerando che il file system di Apple è stato sempre un suo punto debole, almeno sino all'attuale AFS). Se non sapete esattamente cos'è un file system, Ars Technica ve lo spiega.
Money quote: "BFS was created in 1997 by Dominic Giampaolo and Cyril Meurillon, both of whom worked at Be. It was designed to be multi-threaded and lightweight, and to support high-volume, streaming multimedia. It was also designed to support the database features of the previous Be file system. Even though it was written at a time when systems typically had only 8MB of RAM and a mere 9GB of disk storage, many of the forward-thinking design decisions made then are still valid today.
BFS didn't quite end when Be shut its doors after failing to get bought by Apple. In 2002, Axel Dörfler re-implemented BFS for Haiku as an open-source project. The last part of this article features an interview with Axel.
Before we can talk about what made BFS so special, we first have to cover some file system basics."
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/the-beos-filesystem/
Ars Technica
The BeOS file system, an OS geek retrospective
From the archives: In the '90s, OS geeks adored BFS's ahead-of-its-time feature set.
Una bibliotecaria spiega la "regola del 50" che ha creato per decidere se abbandonare o no la lettura di un libro: leggi le prime 50 pagine e se ancora non ti piace, mollalo. Ma c'è anche una interessante variazione per chi ha superato i 51 anni...
Money quote: "Mine was also a family of readers, with a house full of books, and my childhood library was virtually a second home to me, so I certainly didn't lack for choices in my early reading life. But to my way of thinking back then, I had to finish the book I was reading, even if I already knew that I didn't especially like it, before I could start another one, one that I might love.
It wasn't until I became an adult, and a librarian, that I began to question my commitment to finishing each and every book that I began. Now that I really was living a major portion of my life in the library, I literally found myself surrounded by books, tempting me, calling to me from the shelves. How could I - in one lifetime - ever get through everything I wanted to read if I had to finish those books that I discovered to be (at least to me) boring, badly written or just plain bad?"
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/nancy-pearls-rule-of-50-for-dropping-a-bad-book/article565170/
Money quote: "Mine was also a family of readers, with a house full of books, and my childhood library was virtually a second home to me, so I certainly didn't lack for choices in my early reading life. But to my way of thinking back then, I had to finish the book I was reading, even if I already knew that I didn't especially like it, before I could start another one, one that I might love.
It wasn't until I became an adult, and a librarian, that I began to question my commitment to finishing each and every book that I began. Now that I really was living a major portion of my life in the library, I literally found myself surrounded by books, tempting me, calling to me from the shelves. How could I - in one lifetime - ever get through everything I wanted to read if I had to finish those books that I discovered to be (at least to me) boring, badly written or just plain bad?"
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/nancy-pearls-rule-of-50-for-dropping-a-bad-book/article565170/
The Globe and Mail
Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50 for dropping a bad book
A simple axiom from the only librarian in the world to have her own action figure
Senza tempo. I critici usano questa espressione come alternativa per "classico". Ma applicarlo al design è possibile? E se sì, qual è un design senza tempo, cioè che non invecchia?
Money quote: "But what if I want my product or brand to be timeproof?
I want to design my product once and I want to keep that design for the long run - and by long run I mean that 15 years from now it will still look good; it won't look outdated and out of touch.
Is it even realistic?"
https://www.imaginarycloud.com/blog/timeless-classic-ui-design/
Money quote: "But what if I want my product or brand to be timeproof?
I want to design my product once and I want to keep that design for the long run - and by long run I mean that 15 years from now it will still look good; it won't look outdated and out of touch.
Is it even realistic?"
https://www.imaginarycloud.com/blog/timeless-classic-ui-design/
Imaginary Blog
Is timeless UI design a thing?
We see trends come and go, fonts that become uncool, buttons that aren't supposed to have round corners... but what if we want our design to be timeproof? @imaginary_cloud
1.1.1.1, l’app gratuita di Cloudflare per il DNS sicuro su iOS e Android - il mio articolo per Macity
https://www.macitynet.it/1111/
https://www.macitynet.it/1111/
Macitynet.it
1.1.1.1, l’app gratuita di Cloudflare per il DNS sicuro su iOS e Android - Macitynet.it
Con pochi tap si configura e permette di navigare nella privacy relativa di un servizio DNS crittato. Ma non è una VPN (che non può coesistere su iOS)
Tex fra scienza e fantasia - Il mio lungo e appassionato racconto di un lato forse sottovalutato decranger texano, ovviamente per Fumettologica
http://www.fumettologica.it/2018/11/tex-mefisto-scienza-fumetti/
http://www.fumettologica.it/2018/11/tex-mefisto-scienza-fumetti/
Fumettologica
Tex fra scienza e fantasia
Da El Morisco a Yama, passando per Mefisto. Dove stanno e come sono raccontati il sovrannaturale e la scienza nei fumetti di Tex.
Finalmente uno di quegli articoli che sogni di trovare quando ti stai documentando su un argomento. Uno di quelli che indica le cose giuste, in questo caso sul software di controllo di versione. Bello!
Money quote: BitKeeper aside, the version control systems that came before Git worked according to a fundamentally different paradigm. In a taxonomy offered by Eric Sink, author of Version Control by Example, Git is a third-generation version control system, while most of Git’s predecessors, the systems popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, are second-generation version control systems.2 Where third-generation version control systems are distributed, second-generation version control systems are centralized. You have almost certainly heard Git described as a “distributed” version control system before. I never quite understood the distributed/centralized distinction, at least not until I installed and experimented with a centralized second-generation version control system myself.
https://twobithistory.org/2018/07/07/cvs.html
Invece, questa è la pagina di storia analitica dei sistemi di controllo di versione del codice indicata nell'articolo precedente. È una sola pagina di un libro per esempi pratici su come si usano i sistemi di versionamento che potrebbe cambiarvi la vita nel caso dobbiate documentarvi per sceglierli o imparare ad usarli.
https://ericsink.com/vcbe/html/history_of_version_control.html
Money quote: BitKeeper aside, the version control systems that came before Git worked according to a fundamentally different paradigm. In a taxonomy offered by Eric Sink, author of Version Control by Example, Git is a third-generation version control system, while most of Git’s predecessors, the systems popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, are second-generation version control systems.2 Where third-generation version control systems are distributed, second-generation version control systems are centralized. You have almost certainly heard Git described as a “distributed” version control system before. I never quite understood the distributed/centralized distinction, at least not until I installed and experimented with a centralized second-generation version control system myself.
https://twobithistory.org/2018/07/07/cvs.html
Invece, questa è la pagina di storia analitica dei sistemi di controllo di versione del codice indicata nell'articolo precedente. È una sola pagina di un libro per esempi pratici su come si usano i sistemi di versionamento che potrebbe cambiarvi la vita nel caso dobbiate documentarvi per sceglierli o imparare ad usarli.
https://ericsink.com/vcbe/html/history_of_version_control.html
twobithistory.org
Version Control Before Git with CVS
What it was like using version control before distributed repositories and commit graphs.
Storia delle torte che si lanciano in faccia (ovviamente con la prospettiva del cinema americano)
Money quote: "This phenomenon can be traced back before the earliest days of pre-1920s silent film. Tossing a pie into someone’s face for comedic effect first existed on the vaudeville circuit. The hilarity of seeing an elegant dessert hit an an actor, and watching them react with either anger or bewilderment, soon made its way to the screen. In 1913, Sennett’s muse Mabel Normand and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle “launched the first such missile in a Keystone film,” notes The Oxford Companion to Food. Soon, the studio became known for pie-tossing shenanigans, and the high-flying desserts flew so freely that the studio needed its own bakery to make them."
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-do-people-throw-pies
Money quote: "This phenomenon can be traced back before the earliest days of pre-1920s silent film. Tossing a pie into someone’s face for comedic effect first existed on the vaudeville circuit. The hilarity of seeing an elegant dessert hit an an actor, and watching them react with either anger or bewilderment, soon made its way to the screen. In 1913, Sennett’s muse Mabel Normand and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle “launched the first such missile in a Keystone film,” notes The Oxford Companion to Food. Soon, the studio became known for pie-tossing shenanigans, and the high-flying desserts flew so freely that the studio needed its own bakery to make them."
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-do-people-throw-pies
Atlas Obscura
How Pie-Throwing Became a Comedy Standard
One film studio in Los Angeles pioneered the trope of flying pies.
Il New Yorker si prende tempo per raccontare la storia e indagare la plausibilità di Candy, un libro del 1958 (poi fu fatto anche il film, nel 1968, con Marlon Brando e Walther Matthau e un miliardo di altri attori in vari cameo), che predata molto della controcultura e delle rivolte studentesche. È una satira sul settore dei libri-spazzatura, è un libro-spazzatura, è un libro volgare, sporco, inutile, peraltro in parte anche una parodia sexy (as in: commedia sexy all'italiana) del Candido di Voltaire, nientedimento. Però anche un libro fuori dall'ordinario, anzi "straordinario", di quella straordinarietà che a quanto pare non invecchia. È stato anche tradotto in italiano. Se lo trovate, magari è una interessante lettura per l'estate.
Money quote: "Candy begins with exhilarating precision; the opening chapters are my favorite pages of any book ever written, with its exquisitely tuned language guiding us through an ecstatic parody of outrageous ego-driven meaninglessness, pulled off with the combination of subtle precision and insane audacity that you might find in a pilot successfully flying a plane under the Brooklyn Bridge. As it continues, the book’s writing gradually collapses, with an entropy that might well be described as obscene, into a tone of sloppy, lascivious wildness that syncs well with its plot. Along the way, it goes on extremely unnecessary tangents to satirize nearly everything imaginable to an audience of its time: psychotherapy, New York City, Hollywood screenwriting, Jewish mothers, quack doctors, New Age healing, progressive causes, pretension, naïveté, innocence, idealism, corruption, generosity, selfishness, spiritual searching, gurus, the male gaze, awareness of the male gaze, “daddy issues,” sexual repression, sexual liberation—as one review suggested, sex itself—and perhaps most of all, the reader who would buy such a book—a person they surely pictured on the banks of the Seine, scratching his head as to what the hell he was reading and whether it was turning him on or not."
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/07/11/destined-for-the-dirty-book-bin/
Money quote: "Candy begins with exhilarating precision; the opening chapters are my favorite pages of any book ever written, with its exquisitely tuned language guiding us through an ecstatic parody of outrageous ego-driven meaninglessness, pulled off with the combination of subtle precision and insane audacity that you might find in a pilot successfully flying a plane under the Brooklyn Bridge. As it continues, the book’s writing gradually collapses, with an entropy that might well be described as obscene, into a tone of sloppy, lascivious wildness that syncs well with its plot. Along the way, it goes on extremely unnecessary tangents to satirize nearly everything imaginable to an audience of its time: psychotherapy, New York City, Hollywood screenwriting, Jewish mothers, quack doctors, New Age healing, progressive causes, pretension, naïveté, innocence, idealism, corruption, generosity, selfishness, spiritual searching, gurus, the male gaze, awareness of the male gaze, “daddy issues,” sexual repression, sexual liberation—as one review suggested, sex itself—and perhaps most of all, the reader who would buy such a book—a person they surely pictured on the banks of the Seine, scratching his head as to what the hell he was reading and whether it was turning him on or not."
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/07/11/destined-for-the-dirty-book-bin/
The Paris Review
Destined for the Dirty-Book Bin
B. J. Novak on one of his favorite books.
Disegnare facce con l'intelligenza artificiale. Cioè, se le inventa lei. Impressionante.
Money quote: "However, the other way around, generating realistic images based on denoscriptions, is much harder, and takes years of graphic design training. In machine learning this is a generative task, which is also much more challenging than discriminative tasks, as a generative model has to produce much richer information (like a full image at some level of detail and variation) based on a smaller seed input."
https://blog.insightdatascience.com/generating-custom-photo-realistic-faces-using-ai-d170b1b59255
Money quote: "However, the other way around, generating realistic images based on denoscriptions, is much harder, and takes years of graphic design training. In machine learning this is a generative task, which is also much more challenging than discriminative tasks, as a generative model has to produce much richer information (like a full image at some level of detail and variation) based on a smaller seed input."
https://blog.insightdatascience.com/generating-custom-photo-realistic-faces-using-ai-d170b1b59255