Un corso rapido sulla differenza tra rapporti causali e quelli di semplice correlazione.

Money quote: "“Correlation is not causation.”

Though true and important, the warning has hardened into the familiarity of a cliché. Stock examples of so-called spurious correlations are now a dime a dozen. As one example goes, a Pacific island tribe believed flea infestations to be good for one’s health because they observed that healthy people had fleas while sick people did not. The correlation is real and robust, but fleas do not cause health, of course: they merely indicate it. Fleas on a fevered body abandon ship and seek a healthier host. One should not seek out and encourage fleas in the quest to ward off sickness."

https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/tim-maudlin-you-are-smarter-your-data/

Chi ha visto solo il film non credo sia molto entusiasta, ma per il lettori della serie di romanzi, soprattutto i primi due, del ciclo di Dune di Frank Herbert, questa è una piccola miniera di informazioni. Almeno, per me è stato così.

Money quote: "Anyone who has obsessed over the mythology of Dune will immediately recognize the language Herbert borrowed from Blanch’s work. Chakobsa, a Caucasian hunting language, becomes the language of a galactic diaspora in Herbert’s universe. Kanly, from a word for blood feud among the Islamic tribes of the Caucasus, signifies a vendetta between Dune’s great spacefaring dynasties. Kindjal, the personal weapon of the region’s Islamic warriors, becomes a knife favored by Herbert’s techno-aristocrats. As Blanch writes, “No Caucasian man was properly dressed without his kindjal.”"

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-secret-history-of-dune

Uno di quegli articoli che mai più senza: perché i bambini finlandesi da 75 anni dormono in scatole di cartone

Money quote: "For 75 years, Finland's expectant mothers have been given a box by the state. It's like a starter kit of clothes, sheets and toys that can even be used as a bed. And some say it helped Finland achieve one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates."

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22751415

La dialettica tra scienza e ideologia è uno dei temi fondamentali del nostro futuro. Oltre alla religione e della politica, anche la scienza infatti viene impacchettata utilizzata come un martello per schiacciare il pensiero delle persone, riempiendolo di concetti in realtà non compresi e creduti ciecamente. Un paradosso, se volete.

Comunque, l'Amazonia è fondamentale ma non per il motivo che pensiamo di solito.

Money quote: "The Amazon is a vast, ineffable, vital, living wonder. It does not, however, supply the planet with 20 percent of its oxygen."

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/amazon-fire-earth-has-plenty-oxygen/596923/

Fumetterie italiane: quante sono e quanto vendono

I risultati della prima indagine in assoluto sulle fumetterie italiane. Finalmente il punto su un settore importantissimo, ma che raramente viene calcolato alla pari delle normali librerie. Inoltre i dati di vendita mostrati sono molto buoni e, aggiunti a quelli delle librerie, rendono il fumetto sempre più protagonista del mercato del libro in generale.
👉 https://bit.ly/3T65Iit

Quando l'elaborazione del lutto di una separazione dopo un matrimonio fallito è una cosa positiva (perché lo è).

Money quote: "I sought out other women who had been where I was, who were left holding relationships and families together when their partners decided to chart their own course. My mother was my first model of rebuilding after heartbreak — separating from and subsequently divorcing my father just before I turned 16. I’ve watched over the years as she transformed from a shell of herself to a brand new woman, sure of her happiness and worth. A close girlfriend also traveled down the marriage and separation road, reminding me that even in my deepest darkness, the sun would come out again. One common thread in their rebounding was allowing themselves time to grieve. I had never given myself that permission, and I truly didn’t know where to start."

https://zora.medium.com/grieving-my-failed-marriage-helped-me-grow-stronger-105cae1c440a

Il filosofo Herbert Fingarette (1921-2018) ha scritto un bel libro, da stoico e laico, sulla non-esistenza. Però ha ripreso il tema poco prima di morire, registrando questo video che mette in una prospettiva più realistica i timori e la serenità di un 97enne.

Money quote: "In a later book, Death: Philosophical Soundings (1999), Fingarette contemplated mortality, bringing him to a conclusion that echoed the Epicureans: in non-existence, there is nothing to fear. But as Being 97 makes evident, grappling with death can be quite different when the thoughts are personal rather than theoretical."

https://aeon.co/videos/an-ageing-philosopher-returns-to-the-essential-question-what-is-the-point-of-it-all

Ci siamo! Siamo online! Finalmente

È uscita Tilde ~ 21, la seconda puntata della seconda stagione!

Titolo: Monitor E-ink, acquisti in Giappone, libri di James Bond e server di Netflix

"La strana coppia dei famosi ladri di tè è tornata più in gamba che mai, a parte gli acciacchi."

→ tilde ~ su Spotify
→ tilde ~ su Apple Podcast
→ tilde ~ su Google Podcast

Potete ascoltare il podcast da Spotify, Google Podcast o Apple Podcast, oppure dal sito: tilde.show. Buon ascolto e buon lunedì!

P.S. La copertina di questa puntata è stata generata da Dall-E con descrizione "copertina astratta e colorata del podcast tilde stagione 2 episodio 2".

L'iPad è in stato confusionale? Siamo arrivati a fine corsa per un approccio guidato da esigenze di marketing ma incapace di vedere ancora il profilo dell'innovazione?

Money quote: "When the iPad was announced in 2010, one model was available in one of six possible configurations: 16, 32, & 64GB with either WiFi or WiFi+Cellular. Fast forward to 2022, Apple now sells six different models of iPad. And when you add all the colours, storage configurations, and connectivity options available, your decision of an iPad is among 98 possible models."

https://basicappleguy.com/basicappleblog/the-state-of-ipad

"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" è un grande film - la mia recensione piuttosto entusiasta per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2022/11/black-panther-wakanda-forever-recensione-film/

La fine di Olap cube (che peraltro era iniziata con un bel conflitto di interessi) è in realtà l'inizio di un fantastico viaggio nell'evoluzione dei database al tempo dei big data.

Money quote: "Online Analytical Processing (or OLAP) is a fancy term used to describe a certain class of database applications. The term was invented by database legend Edgar F. Codd, in a 1993 paper noscriptd Providing OLAP to User-Analysts: An IT Mandate.

Codd’s creation of the term wasn’t without controversy. A year before he published the paper, Arbor Software had released a software product called Essbase, and — surprise, surprise! — Codd’s paper defined properties that happened to fit Essbase’s feature set perfectly.

Computerworld magazine soon discovered that Arbor had paid Codd to ‘invent’ OLAP as a new category of database applications, in order to better sell its product. Codd got called out for his conflict of interest and was forced to retract his paper … but without much fallout, it seems: today, Codd is still regarded as ‘the father of the relational database’, and OLAP has stuck around as a category ever since."

https://www.holistics.io/blog/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-olap-cube/

In America vanno più in biblioteca che non al cinema o allo stadio. Però va detto che in America c'è una infrastruttura di biblioteche pubbliche che da noi ce la sogniamo.

Money quote: "Visiting the library remains the most common cultural activity Americans engage in, by far. The average 10.5 trips to the library U.S. adults report taking in 2019 exceeds their participation in eight other common leisure activities. Americans attend live music or theatrical events and visit national or historic parks roughly four times a year on average and visit museums and gambling casinos 2.5 times annually. Trips to amusement or theme parks (1.5) and zoos (.9) are the least common activities among this list."

https://news.gallup.com/poll/284009/library-visits-outpaced-trips-movies-2019.aspx

I giochi di strategia, la cui storia si intreccia tra mondo fisico e mondo digitale. Sarebbe una bella chiave per rileggere la storia dei video game: evidenziare i fili di continuità con oggetti culturali appartenenti all'ambito ludico fisico e, perché no, anche ad altri ambiti. In questo caso, una bella storia-etnografia di Master of Orion.

Money quote: "The roots of the strategic space opera can be traced back to the tabletop game known as Diplomacy, designed by Allan B. Calhamer and first published in 1959 by Avalon Hill. Taking place in the years just prior to World War I, it put seven players in the roles of leaders of the various “great powers” of Europe. Although it included a playing board, tokens, and most of the other accoutrements of a typical board game, the real action, at least if you were playing it properly, was entirely social, in the alliances that were forged and broken and the shady deals that were struck. In this respect, it presaged many of the ideas that would later go into Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games. It thus represents an instant in gaming history as seminal in its own way as the 1954 publication of Avalon Hill’s Tactics, the canonical first tabletop wargame and the one which touched off the hobby of experiential gaming in general. But just as importantly for our purposes, Diplomacy‘s shifting alliances and the back-stabbings they led to would become an essential part of countless strategic space operas, including Master of Orion 34 years later."

https://www.filfre.net/2020/01/master-of-orion

Non a tutti è piaciuto "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" (a me invece si).

Money quote: "There’s a lot of wasted talent onscreen. Michaela Coel’s character, Aneka, is missing the tricksy magnetism the writer-actor displays everywhere else. The look of Namor is beguiling — as are the ideas behind his Talokan lineage (he was born in the 16th century and witnessed, as a young child-king, the morally repugnant, heartbreaking violence of Spanish conquistadors). "

https://www.vulture.com/article/black-panther-wakanda-forever-review.html

Uno dei problemi di chi si occupa di fare comunicazione strutturata o no, è che tende ad essere autoreferenziale. Ad esempio, le mille recensioni dei MacBook Pro e degli iPad Pro fatte da youtuber che lamentano la mancanza di uno slot per le schede SD è più comprensibile se si pensa che è una specifica esigenza degli youtuber, che fanno video e hanno un sacco di schede sd in mano tutti i giorni, anziché del resto del mondo.

Per questo, in ambito "nuovi modi per lavorare" questo articolo di Ars Technica è sospetto: il "miracolo" della creazione di un ambiente di lavoro senza ufficio, totalmente remoto, è generalizzabile o stiamo parlando di una cosa che riguarda solo chi di lavoro fa il giornalista tech? (Le foto dei diversi ambienti di lavoro casalinghi sono fantastiche: è un genere che mi piace molto)

Money quote: "Ars Technica has been around for a while—the site was started in 1998, which is several epochs ago in computer time. As founder & Editor-in-Chief Ken Fisher added writers to the staff, the model he followed was to treat Ars almost like an institution of academia, with "professors" (the writers) functioning as dedicated subject-matter experts who undertook their own research and story development. This is a model the site retains to this day; while there is obviously central oversight, writers generally are expected to be the experts in their areas, to find most of their stories, and to manage their own output."


https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/no-office-no-problem-how-ars-technicas-remote-workers-work/

L'ho scoperta per caso pochi giorni fa e, a parte che è proprio bella, è anche dannatamente brava. Lindsay Ell nasce facendo country che più country di così si muore, nonostante sia canadese dell'Alberta. Ma nei suoi dischi cambia passo e mette anche del blues e qualcosa di jazz appena accennato, e tanto Bluegrass.

Ha fatto due album, "The Project" e soprattutto "The Continuum Project", che mi piace di più. Qui gioca con qualche pedale e la sua Stratocaster Mary Kaye (la ragazza ha gusto) attorno al suo singolo "Criminal"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcFcXn2vwPs

Ci sono parti del mondo che non ho fatto in tempo a visitare. Una di queste è la Kowloon Walled City a Hong Kong. Peccato!

Money quote: "The city’s many tall, narrow tower blocks were packed tight against each other—so tight as to make the whole place seem like one massive structure: part architecture, part organism. There was little uniformity of shape, height, or building material. Cast-iron balconies lurched against brick annexes and concrete walls. Wiring and cables covered every surface: running vertically from ground level up to forests of rooftop television aerials, or stretching horizontally like innumerable rolls of dark twine that seemed almost to bind the buildings together. Entering the city meant leaving daylight behind. There were hundreds of alleyways, most just a few feet wide. Some routes cut below buildings, while other tunnels were formed by the accumulation of refuse tossed out of windows and onto wire netting strung between tower blocks. Thousands of metal and plastic water pipes ran along walls and ceilings, most of them leaking and corroded. As protection against the relentless drips that fell in the alleyways, a hat was standard issue for the city’s postman. Many residents chose to use umbrellas."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/kowloon-walled-city

Lo ammetto, nonostante l'etica del lavoro che ho appreso e cercato di fare mia fin da bambino (la Costituzione italiano dopotutto la mette come valore centrale della nostra Repubblica) non ci avevo mai pensato. L'idea invece è che il duro lavoro non sia necessariamente quello che porta ad avere soddisfazione o realizzarsi come individui. Insomma, il meritarsi qualcosa perché si è sempre lavorato duro non sembrerebbe una frase legata da un nesso di causa ed effetto, se si definisce quel qualcosa come una cosa rilevante per l'attuale modernità (cioè qualcosa di più di un tozzo di pane o di una baracca in riva al fiume).

Money quote: "Some of the hardest work I can imagine is the lowest-paid labour on the planet. Any kind of construction, customer service, and any job at minimum wage is almost guaranteed to be miserable, have terrible hours, and be managed by a boss that doesn’t seem to understand you’re a human."

https://medium.com/mind-cafe/hard-work-doesnt-matter-here-s-why-15b200bc685e

Il grande problema di Disney con le principesse. Grande veramente.

Money quote: "Audiences anticipated that Disney’s intentions around Elsa’s sexuality would be clarified in Frozen II. Exciting as the /#GiveElsaAGirlfriend campaign was, the more cynical among us did not expect it to actually happen and were unsurprised that it didn’t. The sequel illuminated and confirmed a number of issues, among them a range of already-existing problems within the Disney canon when it comes to the representation of people of color and Indigenous populations, along with a particular desire to have your cake and eat it, too, when it comes to attempting to right the wrongs of colonialism. But what particularly stood out was how uniquely committed Frozen II was to continuing Disney’s overarching project they have taken on with every princess film since their co-production with Pixar, Brave: the relocation of anxiety around women’s agency from romantic relationships to the stability of the nation-state. How much does women’s independence, agency, or bodily autonomy support or threaten the state? This is the project that every Disney Princess movie of the past 10 years has engaged in"

https://longreads.com/2020/01/02/princess-problem-of-frozen-ii

"Diabolik - Ginko all'attacco!", uno spettacolare James Bond all'italiana - il mio articolo per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2022/11/diabolik-ginko-all-attacco-recensione-film/