Mostly, I Write – Telegram
Mostly, I Write
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Storie e pensieri suoi e di altri, raccolti da Antonio Dini http://www.antoniodini.com
Per contatti su Telegram: @antoniodini
Per iscriversi alla newsletter Mostly Weekly: https://tinyletter.com/MostlyIWrite
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La riflessione è interessante, ma non sono particolarmente d'accordo. E non tanto sul piano logico, quanto sullo scetticismo esistenzialista di fondo che apre a un relativismo senza fine: come possiamo immaginare di conoscere noi stessi se non possiamo conoscere nessun altro? L'identità di una persona si forma attraverso delle relazioni, non dentro la sua testa. Però, a un altro livello di astrazione, c'è molto senso in quello che scrive questa autrice: tocca tutti gli stereotipi politicamente corretti (donne, asiatico-americani, dinosauri, alieni) per affermare un punto che forse non ha neanche bisogno di essere detto: chi cacchio sei e che cacchio stai pensando? Credere di saperlo è solo confortante. Gli scrittori, quando creano i loro personaggi e le loro storie, lavorano su quello.

Money quote: "The dare hit a sweet spot. Many could summon up passages from books containing terrible, sexualised denoscriptions of women. Some of us recalled Haruki Murakami, whose every novel can be summarised as: ‘Protagonist is an ordinary man, except lots of really beautiful women want to sleep with him.’ Others remembered J M Coetzee, and his variations on the plot: ‘Tenured male professor in English literature sleeps with beautiful female undergraduate.’ It was a way for us to joke about the fact that so much great literature was written by men who could express perfectly detailed visual denoscriptions of the female body, and yet possessed such an impoverished understanding of the female mind.

This is why the philosophical project of trying to map the contours of other minds needs a reality check. If other humans are beyond our comprehension, what hope is there for understanding the experience of animals, artificial intelligence or aliens?"

https://aeon.co/ideas/can-we-understand-other-minds-novels-and-stories-say-no
Ponti sospesi in difficoltà all'altro capo del mondo

Money quote: "The Bodie Creek Suspension Bridge is just south of the Goose Green settlement on East Falkland. It was constructed in 1925 to make it easier for sheep farmers to shepherd their flocks to the village’s newly built shearing sheds.

As there are no ironworks or engineering factories on the Falkland Islands, the bridge was ordered from David Rowell & Co of London at a cost of £2,281. The kit was then shipped from London to the Falkland Islands on the SS Ballena."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bodie-creek-suspension-bridge
Arte digitale creativa... molto interessante per il cambiamento di competenze e di interazione di fronte all'oggetto artistico. Un discorso lungo, ampio, lo riprenderemo...

Money quote: "It is possible to generate different versions of the original piece, changing the number of squares and the output resolution. Finally the source code wanted to be an example of literate programming, being written in a form that resembles more a tutorial describing what everything does and why, instead of some opaque generator. You can find the code here..."

http://antirez.com/news/123
Signore e signori, ecco quello che viene definito il prodigio dell'arte digitale generativa... Manolo.

Money quote: "Manolo's work feels like it is the result of the entire contents of twentieth-century art and design being put into a blender. Once chopped down into its most essential geometry, Manolo then lovingly pieces it back together with algorithms and code to produce art that is simultaneously futuristic and nostalgic. His work serves as a welcome (and needed) bridge into digital art and an antidote for those who see the genre as cold, mechanical, and discontinuous with the history of art."

https://www.artnome.com/news/2018/8/8/generative-art-finds-its-prodigy
La cosa bella delle mappe è che non solo non sono affatto neutre, ma sono anche costruite per essere percepite come tali. La complessità però scompare quando sono fatte bene. Questo è un ottimo esempio: se aveste trovato il prodotto finale l'avreste giudicato utile e naturale. Arrivarci però è tutta un'altra storia. (E se è artificiale il modo con il quale vediamo il territorio, figuriamoci la rappresentazione grafica di altre informazioni)

Money quote: "I thought things might work better if the arrows were long wedges rather than regular arrows. Whilst this felt like an improvement it lead me to the conclusion that I needed the vertical axis to really explain the hilliness across the town. So thought turned to a 3D map being necessary to do things properly. It would also make an interesting design project."

http://www.tobyeglesfield.com/a-map-showing-the-steepness-of-streets/
Posso solo dire che allora c’è speranza anche per noi, per me e per voi. Siamo dei magnifici disastri.

Money quote: “But psychological research suggests that such fear can be overblown in people’s minds. Often, there’s a mismatch between how people perceive their vulnerabilities and how others interpret them. We tend to think showing vulnerability makes us seem weak, inadequate, and flawed—a mess. But when others see our vulnerability, they might perceive something quite different, something alluring. A recent set of studies calls this phenomenon “the beautiful mess effect.” It suggests that everyone should be less afraid of opening up—at least in certain cases”

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/beautiful-mess-vulnerability/579892/
Una cosa che mi colpì alle superiori fu quando lessi che la differenza tra un lavoro manuale -diciamo da operaio- e uno di concetto –un impiegato– sta nel fatto che l'operaio lascia i mezzi di produzione in fabbrica quando ha finito il turno, mentre l'impiegato li porta con sé nella propria testa. Michael Chabon li ha portati fino al al capezzale del proprio padre, mentre finiva di scrivere la sceneggiatura di Star Trek.

Money quote: "I looked up from the screen of my iPad to my father, lying unconscious, amid tubes and wires, in his starship of a bed, in the irresolute darkness of an I.C.U. at 3 a.m. Ordinarily when my father lay on his back his abdomen rose up like the telescope dome of an observatory, but now there seemed to be nothing between the bed rails at all, just a blanket pulled as taut as a drum skin and then, on the pillow, my father's big, silver-maned head. Scarecrow, after the flying monkeys had finished with him. His head was tilted upward and his jaw hung slack. All the darkness in the room seemed to pool in his open mouth. Hey, Dad, I need a line, I said, breaking, if only in my head, the silence that reigned between us. I'm writing dialogue for Mr. Spock."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/18/the-final-frontier
Come rovinare l’hobby della fotografia a un povero appassionato

Money quote: “A series of laboratory studies demonstrate that taking pictures (compared with not taking pictures) can decrease enjoyment of highly enjoyable experiences. This study suggests that, by constantly striving to document their experiences, consumers may unwittingly fail to enjoy those experiences to the fullest. These results have implications for how firms may best stage experiential offerings to enhance their customers’ experiences”

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mar.21194