L'uomo forte non è una cosa che succede da sola, grazie al tipo che prende in mano le redini del comando e parte. No, c'è di più, è un fenomeno molto più complesso. Dentro il quale ci sono anche pensieri giuridici alquanto raffinati, come nello studioso di diritto che sta dietro alla Repubblica di Weimar e poi al nazismo, morto nel 1985. E le cui idee adesso stanno tornando di gran moda.

Money quote: "Populism is not just a bull-in-a-china-shop way of doing politics. There is a theoretical tradition that seeks to justify strongman rule, an ideological school of demagoguery, one might call it, that is now more relevant than ever. Within that tradition, one thinker stands out: the conservative German constitutional lawyer and political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888-1985). For a time, he was the principal legal adviser to the Nazi regime. And today his name is approaching a commonplace. Academics, policymakers and journalists appeal to him in order to shed light on populist trends in the US and elsewhere. A recent article in The New York Review of Books argues that the US attorney general William Barr is ‘The Carl Schmitt Of Our Time’. The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt (2017) came out in print the year after Trump’s election. After decades as a political rogue, forced to launch his attacks on liberalism from the sidelines, Schmitt’s name has returned to prominence."

https://aeon.co/essays/carl-schmitts-legal-theory-legitimises-the-rule-of-the-strongman

Il tema della privacy è un tema politico, certamente. Ma le sue complessità tecniche lo rendono difficile da comprendere basandosi su una logica per così dire "analogica" o meglio ancora "fatta di atomi". Occorre una capacità di analisi e comprensione diversa e più ricca. È questo che mi viene in mente leggendo questo articolo in cui emergono aspetti e spigolature come ad esempio il bisogno di tutelare l'integrità degli scritti sulle proprie pagine per evitare che le Cdn ci pasticcino e mettano altre cose dentro. Insomma, il mondo è piuttosto complicato, no?

Money quote: "As the founder of Simple Analytics, I’m running into privacy issues while building our product. Based on those learnings I would like to show you some practical tips to improve the privacy of your visitors. Some of the tips seem very logical but can be hard to implement. That’s why I have provided examples with every tip so you or your team can apply them without doing all the research."

https://blog.simpleanalytics.com/practical-privacy-tips-for-your-business

Randall Munroe è un genio vero, IMHO

Title caption: “In Universe Pro®™ the laws of physics remain unchanged under time reversal, to maintain backward compatibility."

Il futuro dei documenti secondo Microsoft è "fluid". E, pur di riuscire ad imporre il nuovo formato cloud, lo ha reso open source. L'azienda lo scriveva un paio di anni fa, ma ormai è una costante della sua strategia.

Money quote: "Microsoft’s Fluid Framework sounds a lot like Google Docs, but it’s actually Google Docs on steroids. Microsoft is so confident it has built the future of productivity, it’s now open-sourcing its Fluid Framework so the rest of the world can help shape what it has created. Some Office.com users will even be able to start getting an early look at this Fluid future in the coming months."

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21260005/microsoft-office-fluid-web-document-features-build

Quasi dimenticavo: ciao ciao agosto, è stato bello rivederti

Sul perché ‘Burn After Reading’ sia una delle migliori interpretazioni di Brad Pitt (un attore notevole)

Money quote: "How much Pitt is able to do with just mannerisms and looks alone is incredible. From his rehearsed squinting eyes and his line “looks can be deceptive” that he falls back on as a crutch as the situation gets away from him will cause deep belly laughs. Pitt’s quality is always consistent, but this is a role we should remember when looking back at his filmography."

https://medium.com/@cameroncraig88/remembering-burn-after-reading-and-one-of-brad-pitt-s-best-performances-c20d828a10ff

Un racconto surreale su Occupy Wall Street, attivismo, processi, persecuzioni, vendette, difese, visioni politiche. C'è un mondo (e anche un certo disagio in chi lo legge) dentro questo articolo.

Money quote: "Objectively speaking, you should not troll prosecutors. Objectively speaking, I should not have tweeted that Langston and the editor of a prominent feminist blog were dating. But why shouldn’t the messy public-private divide cut both ways? I knew Langston was reading my tweets, and his whole “trying to put me in jail” thing felt very personal. What’s off-limits when someone wants to lock you in a cage? What could be a greater privacy violation than jail? It’s not like I tried to cavity search him. Besides, I was scared. Humanizing the state in the person of this prosecutor made me feel safer, even though it may have just put me at greater risk."

https://reallifemag.com/the-right-to-have-remained-silent/

È un bell'articolo di GQ americano: circolava un po' di tempo fa per raccontare la storia incredibile di Steve Buscemi. Forse l'avete letto o sentito. Casomai ve lo foste persi, eccolo qui

Money quote: "Buscemi has a whole three-story brownstone to himself in Brooklyn's idyllic Park Slope neighborhood, which is basically Sesame Street if the Muppets were gluten-intolerant and wore fashion clogs. He moved here back in the early '90s, long before it became a punch line about yuppies. I live here too and can confirm he is a neighborhood institution: There's our famous park, there's our famous food co-op, there's Steve Buscemi."

https://www.gq.com/story/the-remaking-of-steve-buscemi-profile

Voleva essere seppellita con la sua Ferrari preferita. Anzi, dentro. E così è stato.

Money quote: "The crane operators were careful not to mow over the existing graves as they maneuvered the 17-foot long, gray wooden box toward the 19-foot hole in the middle of the Alamo Masonic Cemetery. Inside the box lay the perfectly manicured corpse of the 38-year-old socialite and heiress, Sandra West. Mrs. West was positioned as if reclining in the driver’s seat of her beloved 1964 powder-blue Ferrari 300 America. In accordance with her will, she was dressed in her favorite white lace Italian nightgown with “the seat slanted comfortably.” The radio was tuned to her favorite station.

The box was then filled with concrete to deter opportunistic graverobbers."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave-of-sandra-west-and-her-ferrari

Il nuovo e giovane presidente del Cile, l'uomo del cambiamento, è andato a vivere in un'area depressa della capitale e lancia un segnale forte. Molto interessante.

Money quote: "Unlike the White House in the U.S., 10 Downing in the U.K. or Argentina’s Quinta Presidencial de Olivos, Chile doesn’t have a presidential residence. Each leader has chosen where to live. Billionaire former president Sebastian Pinera was allowed to stay at his mansion in a swanky part of Santiago called San Damian, but Michelle Bachelet and Ricardo Lagos had to move to homes that met security requirements. All of them were in the more expensive eastern parts of Santiago."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-04-11/why-chile-s-president-bought-a-home-in-a-dangerous-area

Un bel ritratto di MacKenzie Scott, che è una donna con una identità forte e definita ma che è tuttavia segnata dal mondo nel quale è nata. Alla fine, tutto quel che ha fatto ricade sulle fortune (e sfortune) del padre e poi del marito Jeff Bezos. Questo ritratto cerca di spiegare chi è Scott, perché fa beneficienza e cosa succede quando una donna diventa estremamente ricca ma non è più "protetta" dal marito estremamente potente oltre che ricco.

Money quote: "But as Ms. Scott’s fame for giving away money has grown, so, too, has the deluge of appeals for gifts from strangers and old friends alike. That clamor may have driven Ms. Scott’s already discreet operation further underground, with recent philanthropic announcements akin to sudden lightning bolts for unsuspecting recipients."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/business/mackenzie-scott-charity.html

Ritorna lo scontro di civiltà. O piuttosto ritorna l'orso russo, spietato e famelico come tutti gli orsi? L'abisso dell'anima russa in questo articolo del 2014, anno dell' inglobamenti della Crimea.

Money quote: "Non c’è da stupirsi che questi ultimi abbiano finito per percepire la Russia come una forza distruttrice. Joseph Conrad, che nella sua nativa Polonia sperimentò in prima persona l’insaziabile fame di territorio dell’impero russo, lo definì un impero del nulla. In “Autocrazia e guerra” (1905), per esempio, scrisse che fin dalla sua nascita in Russia “la brutale distruzione della dignità, della verità, della rettitudine, di tutto ciò che è buono nella natura umana è stata la condizione della sua esistenza”. Sotto l’ombra opprimente dell’autocrazia russa “nulla poteva crescere”. Circa otto decenni dopo, in “La tragedia dell’Europa centrale” (1984), Milan Kundera avrebbe fatto un’osservazione simile: quando i russi portarono il totalitarismo nel suo paese “fecero tutto il possibile per distruggere la cultura ceca”. Infatti, per lui, la “civiltà russa totalitaria è la negazione radicale dell’Occidente moderno”. “"

https://www.indiscreto.org/i-due-abissi-dellanima-russa/

Il corsivo collega la mano al cervello, incoraggia l’originalità, migliora la capacità di leggere, di prestare attenzione, di concentrarsi, di imparare e di farsi venire le idee, 🛝 https://thevision.com/cultura/utilita-corsivo-scrittura/

Rip

https://www.ilpost.it/2022/09/08/regina-elisabetta-morta/

Essere genitori di figli piccoli nel fine settimana (il momento peggiore, ve lo dico io)

Money quote: "You’re a parent now. And without the structure of school, your offspring look to you to be their playmate, encyclopedia, snack bitch, and cruise director. And parents, wanting a break themselves, can’t seem to catch one. But there are ways to make those work-free days a little less chaotic and hopefully, more enjoyable."

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-actually-enjoy-a-weekend-with-your-kids-1848703212

Tanto bella Barbie, ma sarà anche buona? Preparare degli Hot Dog un po' speciali come forma d'arte. Fico.

Money quote: "the creative handiwork of Anna Hezel and Gabriella Paiella, the resident dynamic “Deranged Crafts” duo from Lucky Peach. When they recently put their heads together and thought about what kinds of Disney princesses would inspire them most, they thought of hot dogs… “Obviously.”"

https://womenyoushouldknow.net/grossly-appealing-disney-princesses-reimagined-as-hot-dogs/

Non dimentichiamoci. Il metaverso di Meta/Facebook/Oculus/Quest è partito subito con il piede sbagliato.

Money quote: "Some apps in the virtual-reality metaverse are "dangerous by design", the NSPCC has warned in response to a BBC News investigation.

A researcher posing as a 13-year-old girl witnessed grooming, sexual material, racist insults and a rape threat in the virtual-reality world.

The children's charity said it was "shocked and angry" at the findings."

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60415317

Lo Straniero di Albert Camus e la difficoltà di tradurlo in inglese.

Money quote: "First impressions matter, and, for forty-two years, the way that American readers were introduced to Meursault was through the detached formality of his statement: “Mother died today.” There is little warmth, little bond or closeness or love in “Mother,” which is a static, archetypal term, not the sort of thing we use for a living, breathing being with whom we have close relations. To do so would be like calling the family dog “Dog” or a husband “Husband.” The word forces us to see Meursault as distant from the woman who bore him."

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be

Slower News aggiorna raramente (una volta al mese, forse) però centra il bersaglio e quello che sceglie di aggregare di solito vale la pena di leggerlo.

https://www.slowernews.com

Non so come finirà in San Salvador, ma sono contento di non essere nato là: le fotografie sono impressionanti

Money quote: "It was only the latest display of power by the young president, in office less than a year whose take-total-charge style has earned him an enormous following at home and much concern there and elsewhere.

“I call it punitive populism,” said Salvadoran security specialist Jeannette Aguilar. “These measures come in the context of Bukele’s style of publicity and media use that seek to ingratiate him with public opinion.”"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/stripped-prisoners-on-floor-latest-tool-of-salvadoran-president

Questo secondo me ridefinisce l'espressione "a fin di bene". Chapeau. Da oggi Patagonia è un'azienda che reputo in buona fede.

Money quote: "A half century after founding the outdoor apparel maker Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, the eccentric rock climber who became a reluctant billionaire with his unconventional spin on capitalism, has given the company away.

Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate-philanthropy-chouinard.html