Collettivo anonimo produce le sue medicine hi-tech. Sembra la trama di un romanzo di fantascienza (peraltro ne esistono di esattamente così) ma è solo una lunga e gustosa lettura per la domenica.

Money quote: “In the last decade, Four Thieves has run afoul of the Food and Drug Administration, billionaire pharma executives, doctors, and chemists at some of the United States’ most prestigious universities. Indeed, Laufer and his collaborators can’t stop pissing off powerful people because Four Thieves is living proof that effective medicines can be developed on a budget outside of institutional channels.”

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43pngb/how-to-make-your-own-medicine-four-thieves-vinegar-collective

Ampere è una nuova azienda che produce microprocessori basati su architettura ARM per il mercato dei server. Ha dietro parecchi soldi e ambizioni solide.

Money quote: “Renee James, former president of Intel and CEO of Ampere, said in an interview with VentureBeat that customers can now order the chip from the company’s website. The chips are aimed at hyperscale cloud and edge computing, using the ARMv8-A cores. The chips target big data and in-memory databases.”

https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/18/ampere-launches-its-first-arm-based-server-processors-in-challenge-to-intel/

Se scrivete un minimo di codice, l'editor di testo che utilizzate dice molto di voi. Già, ma cosa dice?

Money quote:

Ed

Ed is the standard text editor. Enough said. You are in fact, too fucking awesome for this article. You have yet to meet a person who would be worth your respect. Every person you ever worked with was a fucking clueless n00b. You are a BOFH and proud of it. On the systems you administrate you symlink vi, emacs and nano to ed just to watch the lusers squirm in their seats and hit Ctrl+C repeatedly. You are likely to have a big bushy beard, and are probably wearing a T-shirt with a cryptic joke that only people with unix background will understand."

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2007/08/14/what-does-your-favorite-text-editor-say-about-you/

Quando internet arriverà tra le nuvole: le conseguenze dell’aereo connesso - il mio articolo per Nova del Sole 24 Ore

https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2018-12-03/quando-internet-arrivera-le-nuvole-conseguenze-dell-aereo-connesso-174636.shtml?uuid=AEEDMAoG

Non sono sicuro che il fisco italiano o comunque il nostro sistema permetterebbe una vita di rendita come quella ipotizzata in questo articolo. Personalmente sono sempre stato contrario all'idea della rendita contrapposta al reddito da lavoro. Però, messa in questo modo, acquista un altro sapore. Ovviamente per noi amaro.

Money quote: "Let’s say you want to be able to spend $40,000 per year, for life, and have that spending allowance continue to grow with inflation. And you never want to make another dollar from work in your lifetime.

In this situation, the following three sentences represent the entire universe of probability for you:

- If you retire with $800,000 in investments, you will probably make it through your whole life without running out of money (a 5% withdrawal rate)
- If you start with a $1 million nest egg (a 4% withdrawal rate), you will very likely never run out of money
- If you start with $1.2 million chunk (a 3% withdrawal rate), it is overwhelmingly certain that you’ll have a growing surplus for life."

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/11/29/how-to-retire-forever-on-a-fixed-chunk-of-money/

Videogiochi e lavoro: perché un’azienda dovrebbe assumere un gamer - il mio articolo per Wired

https://www.wired.it/economia/lavoro/2018/12/04/videogiochi-lavoro-gamer/

Vivete una parte della vostra giornata dentro il terminale? Beh, è arrivato il momento di provare una retro-console nuova e divertirsi un po'. Prendetela come un'idea natalizia.

Money quote: "cool-retro-term is a terminal emulator which mimics the look and feel of the old cathode tube screens. It has been designed to be eye-candy, customizable, and reasonably lightweight."

https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term

MacBook Air, la mia recensione per Wired

https://www.wired.it/gadget/
computer/2018/12/05/recensione-macbook-air-2018/

Qualcomm lancia Snapdragon 855: il 5G è pronto, ecco come sarà - il mio articolo dalle Hawaii per Il Sple 24 Ore

https://mobile.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2018-12-05/qualcomm-lancia-snapdragon-855-il-5g-e-pronto-ecco-come-sara/AEKafQtG

Comparare le mele con... le mele. Un video fatto molto bene per capire come si posizionano i tre MacBook in circolazione oggi: Pro, Air e 12 pollici, e quale sia il migliore.

And the winner is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRDgVS5KZ_E

Quando il marketing esagera e rischia di mandare a fondo l'azienda...

Money quote: "On Thursday, Build-A-Bear was set to celebrate "Pay Your Age Day" in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, where customers could purchase a stuffed animal and pay only their age. Kids could pay just a few dollars for stuffed bears, while the fee for adults was capped at $29. The bears usually cost $20 to $35.

But at 11 a.m. ET, Build-A-Bear said it would not allow any more customers to enter locations, citing "crowds and safety concerns.""

http://www.businessinsider.com/build-a-bear-pay-your-age-day-chaos-success-2018-7?IR=T

L'idea è sempre quella, molto antica: il panpsichismo. Cambia solo quando cambia la nostra idea delle dimensioni dell'universo. La sola Terra, anzi Gaia, oppure il sistema solare, la galassia, la bolla del Big Bang. Comunque, da millenni secondo alcuni l'universo sarebbe vivo, conscio e consapevole. E noi? Noi cosa siamo in tutto ciò?

Money quote: "Panpsychism, the theory that the entire universe is conscious, is by no means a new idea. It has existed in one form or another across the centuries and in many different cultural and religious settings. The ancient philosopher Plato believed in what he called the “World-Soul”, some Hindus believed that the universe was a living illusion from a powerful god and many neopagans believe that the earth has a conscious spirit they call “Gaia”"

https://medium.com/@corlettnovis_82477/is-the-universe-conscious-53d7cb6e95e6

Da ragazzino ne avevo una e l'adoravo. Poi sono cresciuto e l'ho buttata via, era logora e comunque troppo piccola. Ma il sogno della camicia hawaiana mi è rimasto dentro. Adesso che il riscaldamento globale gioca a suo favore, vale la pena ripercorrere la sua storia e scoprire che è tutta colpa di Elvis Presley (e io intanto a Maui me ne sono comprata una...).

Money quote: "This eventually evolved into the aloha shirt. A heavy, blue-and-white plaid cotton fabric arrived from Germany in the 1800s—the material ended up being called palaka in Hawaii and they used it to make long-sleeved shirts. Because the fabric was very heavy, it was useful on the sugarcane and pineapple plantations.

Originally the shirts offered some protection for the workers in the fields, but in the early 1900s, they started cutting off the sleeves and using a lighter-weight fabric, which was also called palaka. The shirt went from being a kind of jacket to what we recognize today as an aloha shirt."

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/an-interview-with-aloha-shirt-author-and-scholar-linda-arthur/

L’arresto di Meng Wanzhou manda in effervescenza gli analisti - il mio articolo dalle Hawaii per Il Sole 24 Ore

https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/mondo/2018-12-06/l-arresto-meng-wanzhou-manda-effervescenza-analisti-215601.shtml?uuid=AEKhExuG

Ecco le intelligenze artificiali che non ti aspetteresti - Il mio articolo per La Stampa (a pagamento)

https://www.lastampa.it/2018/12/06/tecnologia/ecco-le-intelligenze-artificiali-che-non-ti-aspetteresti-wx0kYoXeUrMp4Ts796wgHO/premium.html

La storia della matematica giapponese si esprimeva con la geometria dei templi e lo studio dei matematici dell'epoca. Affascinante: ci starebbe dentro anche il rapporto tra geometria, disegno e architettura nella Firenze del Rinascimento, ma lo vedremo un'altra volta. Invece, questo articolo, nonostante le profonde ingenuità, vale decisamente la pena di una bella lettura approfondita. Non è breve.

Money quote: "When Temple Geometry met Western mathematics the latter won, because math-based technology gave Commodore Perry bigger guns and faster ships. Math continues to be a vital weapon for our military, and also contributes to many aspects of the unsustainable destruction of our living environment. In stark contrast, Temple Geometry, which was cultivated for peaceful purposes, for personal development and pleasure of the Temple Geometers, was part of a more stable and harmonious culture."

https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/art-spirit-in-mathematics-the-lessons-of-japanese-temple-geometry-part-i/

Cose che sappiamo tutti ma che poi non ci ricordiamo mai. Ecco perché le pagine web dovrebbero finire...

Money quote: "Infinite scroll can be disorienting, uncontrollable, and can cause your users stress.

In this article, we will explain why you need to stop building websites with infinite scroll. But to start, let's look at a brief history of scrolling."

https://logrocket.com/blog/infinite-scroll/

Cresce lo spazio per GitLab, che ha dietro anche i soldi di Alphabet, cioè Google.

Money quote: “GitLab, whose customers include Intel Corp., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Nasdaq Inc., saw a surge of users after Microsoft agreed in June to buy GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock. Some programmers were concerned about how Microsoft -- historically critical of open-source tools like GitHub and GitLab -- would change the platform as its new owner.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-19/alphabet-backs-gitlab-s-quest-to-surpass-microsoft-s-github

La Ue ha dato disco verde alla acquisizione di GitHub da parte di Microsoft. Ci sono ancora dei ribelli che non ci stanno. Ecco sei alternative a GitHub.

Money quote: “Some of us working in IT for a long time. We have not forgotten big evil Microsoft. Microsoft is the same company that was behind the SCO Lawsuit against Linux and called open source cancer. It actively follows a policy of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Microsoft is also known for its abuse of patents (see Netscape and Microsoft is generating $2 billion per year in revenue from Android patent royalties) and the recent Windows 10 Telemetry privacy issues. The list is endless. One should be a cautious trusting company that has a strong history of abuse towards open source communities and Linux operating system. Hence, installing your Git server is the best policy”

https://www.cyberciti.biz/open-source/github-alternatives-open-source-seflt-hosted

Torna Nietzsche, per tutti gli appassionati di self help.

Money quote: ““Become who you are,” the quotation that Nietzsche chose for the epigraph of his graduate dissertation, is a line from the Pythian odes of the Greek poet Pindar. Bereft of context, this pronouncement can sound as flabbily vacant as the text of a self-help manual. After all, how could anyone fail to become who she is? Is there any instruction more trivial? The full Pindar quote, however, outlines a daunting assignment: “Learn and become who you are.” Nietzsche knew that if philosophy can serve as therapy, it’s by delivering an electric jolt to the soul.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/nietzsches-guide-to-better-living/568375/

Il prossimo Y2K? Abbiamo tempo per preoccuparcene, direi...