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...

La trasformazione di Rocky con i due ultimi film (Creed e Creed II, appena uscito) è molto più profonda e simbolicamente importante di quel che non possiate pensare per l’immaginario dell’America bianca.

Money quote: “But of course, Ali himself said it best. “For the black man to come out superior,” Ali once told Roger Ebert, “would be against America’s teachings. I have been so great in boxing they had to create an image like Rocky, a white image on the screen, to counteract my image in the ring. America has to have its white images, no matter where it gets them. Jesus, Wonder Woman, Tarzan, and Rocky.””

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/11/how-creed-forever-changed-rocky-series/576757/

Qualcomm: «Vogliamo conquistare il cuore di 200 milioni di Pc» - il mio articolo per Il Sole 24 Ore

https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2018-12-10/qualcom-vogliamo-conquistare-cuore-200-milioni-pc-092444.shtml?uuid=AECJu3wG

Punto di vista femminista-possibilista sul sesso coniugale (e gli stereotipi e fattori di crisi associati ad esso nella vita di coppia).

Money quote: “Sorry if that sounds judgemental--it's simply that sex should be pleasurable for both parties. If you or your partner feel like sex has become a burden, it's time to talk about it.
In talking about it, you want to find a way to make sex more satisfying. Sure, maybe it means spicing things up. But it might just mean taking a little pressure off too. Every couple's issues vary, but you've got to face them to get past them.”

https://medium.com/@Shesreallyfat/marriage-shouldnt-ruin-your-sex-life-99d898a1e971

Epico articolo sulle lingue come sistemi complessi in costante evoluzione. Dopo averlo letto, non penserete più come prima a come si parla.

Money quote: "The thousands of words in the language are a swirling mass constantly on the move. Again, when one piece moves, threatening a gap or an overlap, something else moves too. The individual, short-term change is random; the overall, long-term change is systemic."

https://aeon.co/essays/why-language-might-be-the-optimal-self-regulating-system

In prova la eSIM di iPhone XS negli Stati Uniti: piani, costi e come funziona - il mio articolo per Macity

https://www.macitynet.it/in-prova-la-esim-di-iphone-xs-negli-stati-uniti-piani-costi-e-come-funziona/

Honu: in hawaiano vuol dire "buona fortuna e prosperità". È la livrea del primo A380 della giapponese ANA che verrà utilizzato sulla rotta Tokyo-Honolulu. I giapponesi adorano le Hawaii

Leggete meno di cento libri all'anno? Siete dei falliti. Ecco qui come fare a toccare quota 150. Autoaiuto per la lettura massiccia e seriale. Ma perché poi?

Money quote: "In 2015, I read a mere 48 books, and thought that was a lot. If you had told me I’d triple that number in a few years, I would have asked you to share what you were smoking. But I believe that by applying the strategies I’m about to enumerate, you can easily double or triple your yearly book count — even if you have a 9–5 job, spouse, and 2.3 children. These strategies work with the life you have right now. My goal is to help you jettison your excuses into low earth orbit so you can get to enjoy reading all those books you’ve always wanted to read."

Money quote 2: "On your deathbed, what would you rather look back on: scrolling through thousands of eminently forgettable social media posts, or having read a heap of enlightening, enriching books?"

https://medium.com/@dralibinazir/9-simple-strategies-for-reading-more-books-how-i-read-130-books-a-year-554ef80006f9

Fa sorridere perché sostanzialmente pensiamo che Donald Trump sia un idiota e ci sentono superiori. Però è esattamente questo il motivo per cui è presidente degli Usa

Alla fine, poi, per diventare elettrici cosa ci voleva? Guardate Shenzen: autobus elettrici, -48% dell'inquinamento. Seguono obbligatoriamente i taxi. Facile, no?

Sono i costi e le stazioni di ricarica il problema? Se pensate al costo totale e non solo a quello dell'acquisto del bus o della costruzione della stazione elettrica, secondo me alla fine ci guadagnano piuttosto velocemente.

Ma certamente noi abbiamo le nostre buone ragioni per non fare una cosa del genere...

Money quote: "All 16,000 buses in Shenzhen are now electric. This will cut the city's CO2 emissions by 48% and help tackle their smog problem. Each bus costs 1.8 million yuan, so it's pretty expensive, but more than half the cost was paid for by government subsidies. Charging stations are a big bottleneck, so the city has built 40,000 charging stations. The buses can get 200 km per charge. By the end of the month, Shenzhen will require all 22,000 of the city's taxis to switch to electric as well. An interviewed passenger said "It's quieter, smoother and I only pay the same fare as before. I would say most people here are happy with the switch.""

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/dec/12/silence-shenzhen-world-first-electric-bus-fleet

Il calendario dell'avvento del codice: è per informatici o amanti dell'informatica, ma in generale è divertente e non richiede competenze tecniche

Money quote: "Advent of Code is an Advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill sets and skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like. People use them as a speed contest, interview prep, company training, university coursework, practice problems, or to challenge each other.

You don't need a computer science background to participate - just a little programming knowledge and some problem solving skills will get you pretty far. Nor do you need a fancy computer; every problem has a solution that completes in at most 15 seconds on ten-year-old hardware."

https://adventofcode.com/2018

È arrivato il momento di riscoprire la street photography, nell'accezione più ampia di fotografia che tratti "the interest and the investigation of people, architecture and forms that occur in public spaces and ran with it too". In questo caso, buona l'idea di arrivare lentamente al nocciolo della storia: la fotografia digitale declinata nei telefonini sta cambiando ancora il nostro sguardo. Ma alla fine, ammettiamolo, è un'arte.

Money quote: "The thing to note about photography is that it doesn’t take hours, days, months to make a good photo (circumstantially, in some cases it does waiting for the right season/weather/moment etc) but specifically with street photography, you have to consider all rules, forms and techniques of composition in less than a split second to create these moments. This is what HCB was on about when he coined the words “decisive moment”. This is an important factor to consider when viewing and considering the artistic value of an image, especially a street photo."

https://medium.com/photo-dojo/the-decisive-moment-street-photography-beyond-photojournalism-1a2dda1b23fd

Come bonus, ecco alcuni buoni motivo per scattare (qualche volta) con la pellicola.

Money quote 2: "Shooting film has slowed me down considerably but in a good way. The time between finishing a roll and seeing the results is roughly a week for me assuming I ship it to the lab as soon as I rewind. This separation time disconnects me emotionally from the work I did out on the street. When I see it again, it’s almost as with new eyes.
Writers are encouraged to adopt a similar process of separation or disconnecting from their work then returning to it later. It improves objectivity and thus makes you a better critic of your own work."

https://medium.com/photo-dojo/why-shoot-film-sometimes-113fee853fcf

Cydia è morto e il Jailbreak iPhone non sta troppo bene - Il mio articolo per Macity

https://www.macitynet.it/cydia-morto-jailbreak-iphone/

Ci ha lasciato all’improvviso il curatore di Urania. Il mio ricordo su Fumettologica

Addio Giuseppe Lippi, e grazie per tutto il pesce - Fumettologica

http://www.fumettologica.it/2018/12/giuseppe-lippi-morto-urania/

Inchiestona di Pro Publica su una delle aziende che svuotano i cassonetti di New York (il servizio è appaltato ad aziende private). Non soltanto perché è interessante leggerlo, ma perché vi dà anche la misura di come sia fatta un'inchiesta.

Money quote: "An investigation by Voice of America and ProPublica, drawing on thousands of pages of public documents and interviews with more than a dozen current and former workers, depicts a workplace environment in which concerns about safety, as well as workers’ rights and compensation, are flouted despite years of complaints from workers to regulators.

Records show that more than three-quarters of Sanitation Salvage trucks have been ordered off the road after federal safety checks. Yet the company has paid lobbyists to fight local legislation that backers say would compel haulers to improve on working conditions and safety.

The Department of Labor several years ago found that Sanitation Salvage had cheated workers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages. Today, the New York State Insurance Fund is suing the company for $780,000 in unpaid workers’ compensation insurance obligations for on-the-job injuries."

https://features.propublica.org/sanitation-salvage/sanitation-salvage-accidents-new-york-city-commercial-carting-garbage/