Qual è il senso della vita? Perché vivere? Qual è una vita degna di essere vissuta? Vivi o semplicemente esistenti? Una raffica di domande che hanno steso menti ben penetranti degli ultimi 5mila anni di storia (e pure di qualche migliaio di anni nella preistoria) vengono condensate partendo da un grande ponte sospeso su un fiume per arrivare a William James.

Money quote: "To my surprise and delight, the walkways on the bridge were empty. I’d have the view to myself. With a maximum height of 276 feet (84 metres), it was once regarded as one of the seven wonders of the industrial world. During its construction, 27 workers died, before it was completed in 1883; two years later, Robert Odlum became the first man to jump off the bridge. A swimming instructor who wanted to prove that descending through air at high speed was not necessarily fatal, he sadly died. In the next century, approximately 1,500 people have followed Odlum, for different reasons. I’m not sure how many people are saved by the sign, but I am inclined to think that it is highly ineffective."

https://aeon.co/essays/is-life-worth-living-the-pragmatic-maybe-of-william-james

Un manga che non è molto comune: Arte.

Money quote: "La storia è ambientata all’inizio del XVI secolo in una Firenze rinascimentale in pieno fermento culturale. La protagonista, che dà il nome al manga, è appunto Arte, palesemente ispirata ad Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654), una delle figure più interessanti e carismatiche del panorama artistico di ogni tempo e luogo.

Non è sicuramente l’unica donna degna di nota che la storia dell'arte ci abbia consegnato, infatti di primo acchito non si può far a meno di citare Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) o anche Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625), Camille Claudel (1864-1943) e Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). La vita e l’opera di Artemisia Gentileschi però suscitano particolare curiosità e ammirazione ancora oggi perché lei si fece protagonista di una conquista rivoluzionaria, riuscendo ad ottenere gli stessi diritti e la legittimità accademica dei suoi colleghi maschi, in un contesto estremamente ostile."

https://www.animeclick.it/news/79108-arte-recensione-del-piccolo-capolavoro-manga

Alcune foto spettacolari dei maestri giapponesi del bianco e nero

Money quote: "The Japanese Shōwa period, coinciding with the reign of Emperor Hirohito from 1926 to 1989, is noted as one of Japan’s most tumultuous and transformative eras. Over these many decades Japan went from a militaristic empire to a conquered, occupied nation – one that had experienced first-hand the horrors of atomic warfare. After WWII, it crawled out of the embers of defeat to metamorphose into a liberal democracy and an economic powerhouse. This rebirth opened Japan to a deluge of foreign ideas and influences.

Against this backdrop many Japanese photographers would emerge to document the profound changes in their nation with bare, raw realism. Others pushed the boundaries of long held societal norms and taboos.

I’ve taken on the daunting task of picking just five photographers from this long period. These five Shōwa era masters of light exemplify the blistering pace of life that was challenging the very foundations of the nation. They propelled Japanese photography down new pathways."

https://casualphotophile.com/2021/03/16/five-masters-of-light-from-japans-showa-era/

C'è uno strano, ambivalente rapporto tra i filosofi e l'immaginazione: dalla razionalità nata nel Settecento a oggi infatti l'immaginazione ha avuto molteplici ruoli, non sempre accolti in maniera positiva. Una esplorazione un po' classicheggiante/occidentale come scelta e profondità ma interessante.

Money quote: "Kant’s bifurcation hints at why philosophers treat the imagination with both despair and delight. Perhaps the kind of imagination we despise is totally different from its more useful cousin. But in accepting this subdivision, we give up on the possibility of seeing the imagination as a unified mental faculty – which is perhaps more how we experience it."

https://aeon.co/ideas/imagination-is-a-powerful-tool-why-is-philosophy-afraid-of-it

Manzanar era il campo di concentramento per gli americani di discendenza giapponese durante la Seconda guerra mondiale. Una delle storie vergognose che scompaiono quando chi le mette in essere risulta poi essere il vincitore. Le foto di Dorothea Lange mostrano una storia che è stata censurata fino al 2006.

Money quote: “A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched—so a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents—grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.”

https://anchoreditions.com/blog/dorothea-lange-censored-photographs

Una storia che prima o poi cercherò di raccontare anche io: l'aereo della Pan Am che fece il giro del mondo per sfuggire alla guerra scoppiata con Perl Harbour.

Money quote: "The morning of 6th January 1942 was going to be a cold one. Not that this was unusual for New York, mused the night-shift air controller at LaGuardia’s tower, but it did mean he’d have to wrap up extra warm when he headed home."

https://medium.com/s/story/the-long-way-round-the-plane-that-accidentally-circumnavigated-the-world-c04ca734c6bb

Cosa c'è dietro il comportamento dei repubblicani più radicali in America, in particolare a Nashville? Lo spiega benissimo Dan Rather.

Money Quote: "They are desperate measures from desperate people who fear they have already lost the future."

https://steady.substack.com/p/injustice-in-nashville

Inchiestona del New York Times sul futuro dei libri e delle librerie nell'epoca di Amazon. A questo articolo pre pandemia, che parla di contraffazione, ha risposto poi la stessa Amazon con un suo post

Money quote: "Antimicrobial Therapy, which publishes “The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy,” bought 34 of its handbooks from Amazon and Amazon’s third-party sellers. At least 30 were counterfeits."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/technology/amazon-domination-bookstore-books.html

https://blog.aboutamazon.com/books-and-authors/our-response-to-the-new-york-times-story-on-book-counterfeiting

Auguri di una serena Pasqua a tutti gli iscritti a questo canale!

Le idee di business spesso sono balzane. Questa più di altre.

Money quote: "750 Words is a site that I built on a whim in 2009, and it's still going strong. It turns 10 years old this December! It's a site that allows you to practice a daily habit of private journaling (the opposite of every publishing platform out there). The words you write are saved and locked away, only for you to ever look at, so you can write whatever's really on your mind without fear of it getting out. It's basically a digital version of morning pages, an idea I learned about from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. If you write every day you get badges and analytics, etc. It costs $5/month after the free trial.
As of today, over 400,000 have signed up and over 5 billion words have been written. 968 people have written over 365 days in a row, 265 people have written 1,000 days in a row, and 68 people have written 2,000 days in a row."

https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/063525ef84

Dopo tanti anni Flight Simulator di Microsoft è tornato. È e sarà soprattutto un simulatore ed è e sarà per Windows e poi per Xbox One. Per me è (quasi) la killer app di Microsoft.

Money quote: "The culmination of time, effort, technology, and collaboration was edited into a 1:30 second video shown at the Microsoft Keynote presentation this year to kick off E3 2019.

On behalf of the entire Microsoft Flight Simulator team, we humbly and deeply express our gratitude for such an overwhelmingly positive response to our announce trailer! We recognize that without people like you, we don’t get to make experiences like this that span more than 35 years and maintain such a passionate following. Thank you for being patient enough to weather the turbulence caused by some of our previous missteps. Thank you for being willing to look to the possibilities of the future while asking us to be accountable for the past. We hear you, we value you, we want to make the next generation of Microsoft Flight Simulator for you, with you."

https://fsi.microsoftstudios.com/

https://www.flightsimulator.com

Altre cose divertenti che riguardano la matematica con SymPy, libreria Python

Money quote: "Mathematics is a lot of things. It's fun of problem-solving, it's an excitement of discoveries, it's a pride of accomplishments, and it's a ton of tedious computations, too. I never liked the last part. Couldn't make it right. That's why I'm so happy to live in the XXI century since I can give it away to computers and still enjoy the first three."

https://wordsandbuttons.online/sympy_makes_math_fun_again.html

Che disgrazia Electron: una totale mancanza di rispetto per chi sviluppa i diversi ambienti e soprattutto per i loro utenti.

Money quote: "Some people really hate Electron apps. The idea that an app includes an entire copy of the Chrome web browser sounds ridiculous. This feeling is validated when looking at the apps on your machine — they eat up memory, boot slowly, and aren't very responsive. It's hard enough to build good apps on web, why the heck are we bringing the web to desktop and causing even more problems?"

https://jlongster.com/secret-of-good-electron-apps

È il sogno americano: le villette monofamiliari con giardino e parcheggio dell'auto. Un sogno che oggi non è più sostenibile, già da un po' di anni.

Money quote: "But a number of officials across the country are starting to make seemingly heretical moves. The Oregon legislature this month will consider a law that would end zoning exclusively for single-family homes in most of the state. California lawmakers have drafted a bill that would effectively do the same. In December, the Minneapolis City Council voted to end single-family zoning citywide. The Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Julián Castro have taken up the cause, too."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities-across-america-question-single-family-zoning.html

Spiegare i supereroi con un podcast - la mia rubrica su Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/04/super-chora-media-podcast-supereroi/

Avete presente la porta sull'estate? Una coppia svedese ha costruito una serra attorno a casa propria. Se sopravvivono al puzzo di stantio, il clima è temperato anche d'inverno.

Money quote: "Marie Granmar and Charles Sacilotto literally live in a bubble, insulated from the cold and the harshness of the elements, while taking in the best of what nature has to offer."

https://returntonow.net/2019/03/04/swedish-couple-builds-greenhouse-around-home-to-stay-warm-and-grow-food-all-year-long/

I giornali sportivi e la tv offrono una visione tostissima dei concorrenti vittime di dolorose sconfitte. È facile immaginare un atleta sconfitto: postura prona, occhi bassi e il peso del mondo sulle spalle. E lo spauracchio per moltissime persone. Conosciamo tutti la sensazione di sprofondamento, il vuoto nello stomaco che accompagna il dolore di una sconfitta. La delusione per la sconfitta è universale. Ma come si fa ad accettarla?

Money quote: "A core lesson is that the act of losing is not the problem in itself. The problems often arise in one’s relationship to the concept of losing and in how one responds to losing. Part of what separates truly elite competitors from their counterparts is their ability to respond to losses in ways that lead to growth, rather than to a merging with the pain of loss."

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-be-a-better-loser-and-grow-from-your-mistakes

La brutta storia di MySpace che ha perso tutto. Ma lo ha davvero perso?

Money quote: "NPR has reached out for comment from MySpace. According to several media reports, it posted a message on its site recently reading, "As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from MySpace. We apologize for the inconvenience."

"More than 50 million tracks from 14 million artists has been lost," reports The Guardian."

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/18/704458168/myspace-says-it-lost-years-of-user-uploaded-music?t=1553640319879

L'invenzione dell'aldilà passa da quelli che hanno avuto una Near Death Experience (e sono cioè tornati per raccontarla)? A quanto pare sì.

Money quote: "Is it possible that this type of extraordinary experience that is universally associated with nearly dying is a fundamental source of beliefs about the afterlife? For many societies, there’s no need to speculate. In historical as well as modern accounts, NDEs are often said to lead directly to new beliefs, including the belief that consciousness can separate from the body and that it continues after death. I’ve unearthed more than 70 Native American NDE accounts dating from the 16th-19th centuries, and in more than 20 of them it was stated that the experience was a source of knowledge about the afterlife. Likewise, from the Pacific islands, 19 of the 36 NDE accounts I found had similar claims."

https://psyche.co/ideas/near-death-experiences-have-long-inspired-afterlife-beliefs

Ikea all'assalto del centro della città. Ha saturato il mercato periferico oppure sta capendo qualcosa che ancora noi non vediamo?

Money quote: "The furniture retailer has been working on these small format stores, dubbed Planning Studios, for the last three years. It recently opened two planning studios in Los Angeles, in Arcadia and Long Beach, in August. Ikea also has small-format locations in Paris, Moscow, Toronto and New York City.
Ikea’s Planning Studio was developed to reach shoppers living in areas that its typical big-box stores aren’t located in. These new Planning Studios in the U.S. are around 8,000 to 9,000 square feet and focus on key areas integral to city living, such as kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. Ikea plans to open more Planning Studio locations in Rome, Tokyo and San Francisco among others.
The new Planning Studios are part of the 3 billion euros (or about $3.2 billion) Ingka Group, Ikea’s largest franchisee, planned to invest in its new and existing stores. The investment also focuses on developing physical stores so they can serve as e-commerce distribution centers. Ikea did not share financial figures on how the Planning Studios are performing so far."

https://www.modernretail.co/operations/inside-ikeas-small-format-store-strategy-the-retail-environment-is-changing/