Tesla va avanti per la sua strada senza spendere un penny di pubblicità. A quella ci pensano i suoi fan

Money quote: "Tesla fans don’t just post personal accounts - more than a few have created their own advertisements, both videos and static graphics. And of course, press coverage is arguably even more effective than advertising, and Tesla gets more of that than any other carmaker, thanks both to the revolutionary nature of its products and to Elon Musk’s fondness for making headline-grabbing statements. Even in the rare cases when other automakers try to generate publicity for their own electric vehicles, Tesla often steals the show."

https://insideevs.com/news/365726/tesla-no-advertising-social-media-wins/

La poligamia nell'America nera: famigliole con figli e un paio di mogli, o di mariti. Insomma, allegri e scoppiettanti, ma poligami.

Money quote: "Sound strange? To most people, it probably does. But for the thousands of families in the United States who practice polygamy and other poly lifestyles, it’s not only considered normal, but many of them believe it’s the best way to go. They are willing to risk societal stigma, heartache, and even being arrested to live the way they feel they should."

https://medium.com/s/story/dating-while-married-an-inside-look-at-poly-gamy-in-black-america-16049c79a96b

In alcune delle biblioteche pubbliche di New York ci sono degli appartamenti segreti. Cioè, gli appartamenti di servizio per i tempi in cui c'era una persona che rimaneva a controllare tutto. Sono mezzi devastati, ma Atlas Obscura ci fa fare un bel giro.

Money quote: "Some have spent decades empty and neglected. “The managers would sort of meekly say to me—do you want to see the apartment?” says Iris Weinshall, the library’s chief operating officer, who at the beginning of her tenure toured all the system’s branches. The first time it happened, she had the same reaction any library lover would: There’s an apartment here? Maybe I could live in the apartment."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/inside-the-new-york-public-librarys-last-secret-apartments

"The Witcher: Blood Origin" ha un grosso problema - la mia recensione per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/01/the-witcher-blood-origin-serie-tv-problema/

Passando da Ibm (che aveva una strategia Linux piuttosto articolata) alla cinese Lenovo, si era persa l'anima open source dei sistemi operativi per i computer della leggendaria serie ThinkPad. Adesso, dopo una decina di anni, a quanto pare Lenovo sta riconsiderando la vicenda. E sta preparando varie sorprese. Ma era già tutto previsto in questo vecchio articolo.

Money quote: "Lenovo's newly-announced 2019 ThinkPad P-series mobile workstations can be purchased with Ubuntu, according to the ordering page on Lenovo's website. ThinkPads have often been the laptop of choice for Linux users, as Lenovo historically does certify ThinkPad models for Linux use, though prior to this change, buyers were stuck paying the Windows tax for the unwanted bundled license of Windows."

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/lenovo-shipping-ubuntu-linux-on-2019-thinkpad-p-series-models/

Divertirsi un po' con la matematica

Money quote: "Do adventure games have dead ends? The author of The Teeny Tiny Mansion proves the absence of dead ends in that game via formal verification (in particular, with the help of the cbmc model-checking program). Here I’ll demonstrate how to prove the same thing via Markov theory. The Markov approach requires more mathematics, but less computer code, and lets us quantify the risk of encountering a dead end via matrix manipulation."

http://www.evanmiller.org/adventure-games-and-eigenvalues.html

Un viaggio nella capacità di creare mondi e nella mente di Philip K. Dick

Money quote: "In Plato’s Timaeus, God does not create the universe, as does the Christian God; He simply finds it one day. It is in a state of total chaos. God sets to work to transform the chaos into order. That idea appeals to me, and I have adapted it to fit my own intellectual needs: What if our universe started out as not quite real, a sort of illusion, as the Hindu religion teaches, and God, out of love and kindness for us, is slowly transmuting it, slowly and secretly, into something real?"

https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html

È giunto il momento di farsi un giro dentro il fantastico mondo dei GAN, i Generative Adversarial Network.

Money quote: "In case you don’t see where I’m going here, the images you just saw were utterly, undeniably, 100% … fake."

https://blog.floydhub.com/gans-story-so-far/

Divertente: una AI simpatica

Money quote: "Your new best friend built with an artificial neural network"

https://github.com/olivia-ai/olivia

Il ministro della cultura attuale dice che Dante è il fondatore del pensiero di destra in Italia. Però Dante di destra proprio non va. Casomai, europeista, comunque imperialista. Ma di destra, no. Non è lui, non è quello.

Ci sono critiche interessanti all'intervista del ministro, come quella messa in calce. Interessante anche l'altro link all'articolo sulle celebrazioni del 2021, che sono state così indigeste e pervasive che sembrava non dovessero finire mai.

Ma Dante di destra, non ci sta. A mio avviso, tralasciando il valore enorme “tecnico” della poesia, Dante è “semplicemente” un imperialista, ostile alle altre religioni (come tutto il suo tempo e non solo: quando si abbraccia una religione e prima ancora l'idea stessa di religione si diventa per forza “pastorali”). Le tirate sul veltro e la serva Italia lo prestano a qualunque tipo di propaganda nazionalista. Paradossalmente, propugnando la venuta di un imperatore non patrio, è più europeista che nazionalista!

Vaglielo a spiegare…

Per il resto, e per recuperare i tratti caratteriali di un uomo altezzoso ma povero e dunque anche servile quando occorre, ramingo, sfigato nel modo in cui muore, per malaria dopo aver accettato una missione, stilnovista ma magari preso a ceffoni dalla moglie quando andava a cena, beh per tutto questo ci sono le biografie.

Se leggete le biografie riuscite a umanizzare Dante, Pascoli (un alcolista depresso), Puccini (un ansioso affamato d’amore). Siamo tutti nella commedia umana.

Più difficile sottrarsi all’uso improprio. Abbiamo assistito alla canonizzazione post mortem di poeti dichiaratamente agnostici, e Atreyu parlava di portare Gramsci a destra se ricordate: alla fine ognuno è utilizzabile a fini politici, utriusque partis.

Un esempio? Pasolini è di destra per il suo famoso articolo sui poliziotti. Ciascuno può essere di destra o sinistra. Ma sono sparate che, rispetto alle biografie, se le porta via il vento.

E comunque Dante no, non era di destra. Sarebbe da rimandare il ministro al posto con un voto gravemente insufficiente.

Il ministro:
https://www.corriere.it/politica/23_gennaio_14/sangiuliano-dante-fu-fondatore-pensiero-destra-italia-4c62f63e-9425-11ed-86e1-e1e0fbfb2935.shtml

Il dibattito:
https://jacobinitalia.it/defascistizzare-dante/

Che fa rima con:
https://www.lastampa.it/opinioni/editoriali/2008/06/12/news/gramsci-rispunta-da-destra-1.37106195/

L'unico modo per descriverlo è semplicemente pazzesco: il New York Times ha pubblicato un articolo sconvolgente di Frank Pavich e Johnny Darrell che racconta la finta versione di Tron preparata niente di meno che da Alejandro Jodorowsky nel 1976. Immagini e foto di scena perfette per un film mai neanche immaginato ma semplicemente create da una AI particolarmente ben addestrata.

Money quote: "I was recently shown some frames from a film that I had never heard of: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1976 version of “Tron.” The sets were incredible. The actors, unfamiliar to me, looked fantastic in their roles. The costumes and lighting worked together perfectly. The images glowed with an extravagant and psychedelic sensibility that felt distinctly Jodorowskian.

However, Mr. Jodorowsky, the visionary Chilean filmmaker, never tried to make “Tron.” I’m not even sure he knows what “Tron” is. And Disney’s original “Tron” was released in 1982. So what 1970s film were these gorgeous stills from? Who were these neon-suited actors? And how did I — the director of the documentary “Jodorowsky’s Dune,” having spent two and a half years interviewing and working with Alejandro to tell the story of his famously unfinished film — not know about this?"

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/13/opinion/jodorowsky-dune-ai-tron.html

Una ode a Steam Deck, la console portatile molto alternativa e basata su Steam. Se avessi dovuto scommettere un euro su questa azienda e sulle sue possibilità di successo sia come fornitore di giochi che come attore nel mercato delle console non lo avrei fatto. Questo vi fa capire perché è meglio se non faccio investimenti.

Money quote: "To illustrate how deep the rabbit hole goes, even when there’s an exclusive PlayStation or Xbox game to check out, I’m using remote play services like Chiaki and Greenlight so I can play them on my Steam Deck. God of War: Ragnarok sings on the big screen, sure, but what if you could play it from the comfort of your bed, compromise-free? In an attention-economy-addled world, that’s a gambit I’m interested in.

The bespoke nature of the Steam Deck, with its tinker-friendly Linux base and easy access to the desktop, means that it’s able to play more games than anything else you can fit between your palms. Even complex PC-only games like Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlords will work on this thing, thanks to its fully-remappable inputs and access to layouts created by savvy community members."

https://www.techradar.com/features/how-the-steam-deck-breathes-life-into-underrated-old-games

Un rant contro Google di un utente smanettone che fa di tutto per far vedere sul tablet Android un film regolarmente comprato su Google dalla zia malata terminale ricoverata in ospedale. La tecnologia è una cosa che ha impatti molto più ampi di quelli che non sembra.

Money quote: "After spending ages, I eventually give up. The visiting slot to see my auntie is approaching, there is too little time left. So I pirate the movie (please don't arrest me, it's google's fault). Now she has an mp4 on her tablet that will always work."

https://deijin.bearblog.dev/im-done-with-google/

Avete presente una di quelle scoperte che poi uno dice "A-ha!" Lo abbiamo sempre saputo, era così ovvio, ma colpisce lo stesso "scoprirlo".

Money quote: "For decades, psychologists have studied the differences in career interests of men and women. When their results are considered from the perspective of the spherical model of vocational interests, research results consistently indicate that women prefer to work with people much more than men. On the other hand, men prefer working with things (e.g., machines, tools, vehicles) much more than women."

https://www.psypost.org/2022/12/women-like-working-with-people-men-like-working-with-things-all-across-the-world-64485

È uscita Tilde ~ 24, la prima puntata del
2023!

Tokyo vs Milano, fotocamere razziste, e come (non) fare soldi col software.

"Potevano diventare due vecchi scemi che giocano al Dreamcast davanti al CRT, ma per fortuna abitano in città diverse. "

→ 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 venerdì!

P.S. Anche la copertina di questa puntata è stata generata da Dall-E. Descrizione "Two old guys play some videogames in front of an old CRT TV. There are many books and the Tokyo skyline. Comics style".

Obsidian, la app per prendere appunti e fare schede con markdown senza finire in un ambito proprietario (i documenti di testo vengono strutturati in cartelle sul file system) ha una nuova funzionalità: Canvas. Una specie di sistema per le mappe mentali e tanto altro, che permette di mettere in relazione oggetti (cioè tipi di documenti) diversi.

Money quote: "An infinite space to visualize and make sense of your ideas."

https://obsidian.md/canvas

Questo romanzo “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” di Gabrielle Zevin sta diventando un vero fenomeno editoriale. È la storia di tre ragazzi ambientata nel settore dei videogame.

Money quote: "This is a story about brilliant young game designers hitting it big and slowly growing apart — and Zevin burns precisely zero calories arguing that game designers are creative artists of the highest order. Instead, she accepts that as a given, and wisely so, for the best of them plainly are. “There is no artist,” one of her characters says, “more empathetic than the game designer.”

Zevin’s three main characters are Sadie, Sam and Marx, bright young things who plunge together into the game-making business while students at Harvard and M.I.T. If anything, Sadie and Sam are possibly a little too bright. Their first meeting takes place in a hospital when they’re both 11, while the chronically ill Sam plays Super Mario Bros. in the children’s ward rec room. When young Sadie asks young Sam if he’s dying, as many of the children around them are, he responds, “This being the world, everyone’s dying.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/books/review/tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-gabrielle-zevin.html

Stiamo sconfiggendo la vecchiaia? Anzi, stiamo sconfiggendo l'invecchiamento?

Money quote: "There are more than two dozen companies looking for safe and effective ways to get rid of these senescent cells in people. The biggest is Unity Biotechnology, founded by the Mayo Clinic scientists behind that mouse experiment and with investors including Jeff Bezos, which is trialing a range of senolytic drugs against diseases like macular degeneration (a cause of blindness) and lung fibrosis. There are many approaches under investigation, including small proteins that target senescent cells, vaccines to encourage the immune system to clear them out, and even gene therapy by a company called Oisín Biotechnologies, named after an Irish mythological character who travels to Tir na nÓg, the land of eternal youth."

https://www.wired.com/story/drugs-aging-medicine-biotech/

Cosa possono fare i computer? E cosa no? Questo articolo del New Yorker è una lunga intervista a Cory Doctorow, che è un animale strano: scrittore e artista ma anche attivista e soprattutto "tecnologicamente consapevole" (che è il mio modo per dire che non è tanto un "esperto" quanto uno che capisce come funzionano le tecnologie digitali e che relazioni costruiscono con economia, società e via dicendo). Una intervista interessante.

Money quote: "The comeuppance of Big Tech has two major sides. There’s the side that says Facebook invented a mind-control ray to sell you fidget spinners, and then Robert Mercer stole it and made your uncle racist with it, and now we don’t have free will anymore because of Big Data. And those people, I think, are giving cyberpunk real salience, because that is a cyberpunk science-fiction plot, not a thing that happens in the world. Everyone who’s ever claimed to have a mind-control ray turned out to be a liar or deluded.

The other side is, Look at these completely ordinary mediocre monopolists, doing what monopolists have done since the days of the Dutch East India Company, with the same sociopathy, the same cheating, the same ruthlessness—we should do unto them as we did unto the Rockefellers and the Carnegies and so on. And that strain of techlash, I think, rightly views the cyberpunk motifs as fiction that has been mistaken for reality, the same way Elon Musk mistakes the fairy tales about unitary inventors—who, in their lab, create a faster-than-light machine or whatever—for a thing that actually happens in the world, as opposed to a kind of juvenile fantasy, and then declares himself to be Iron Man.

Cyberpunk was a radical literature. And, if you’re going to radicalize people, you have to engage with computers as they are so that people understand that you’re not making up a fairy tale but reflecting on their actual lived experience about things that can happen, do happen, and could be better."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/cory-doctorow-wants-you-to-know-what-computers-can-and-cant-do

Segnali di vita nella mente degli americani. Inizia un lentissimo dibattito che potrebbe – dico potrebbe – portare alla riconsiderazione del linguaggio e del politicamente corretto nel dibattito pubblico.

Money quote: "The Civic Signals project, which began about four years ago, initially involved conducting a thorough literature review and expert interviews in the U.S. and four other countries to identify the values — or “signals” — people want reflected in the design of online spaces. The team then conducted focus groups and polled more than 22,000 people in 20 countries who were frequent users of social, search, and messaging platforms. Gina Masullo, a professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin, brought an expertise in incivility research to the group. But “pretty early on in the process,” she said, the team concluded that if one of the goals was to support productive political discourse, civility alone was insufficient.

“It’s not really that we are advocating for incivility,” said Masullo. “But if you are going to have passionate discussion about politics, which we want in a democracy, I would argue, people are not always going to talk perfectly about it.” In her book “Nasty Talk: Online Incivility and Public Debate,” she points out that “perfect” speech can be so sanitized that we wind up saying nothing."

https://undark.org/2022/08/15/researchers-ask-does-enforcing-civility-stifle-online-debate/

6 libri di fantascienza per iniziare l'anno nuovo - la mia lista per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/01/libri-fantascienza-anno-nuovo/