C’è una fotocamera miracolosa e di nicchia che però fa tendenza: la Leica M Monochrom, la fotocamera serie M che fa foto solo in bianco e nero (ma molto meglio di quelle a colori). Ecco, gli altri forse ci stanno arrivando. Ci ha provato Pentax, presentando una sua reflex digitale Aps-C con sensore monocromatico. Ma in molti si sono detti (me incluso) che forse l’azienda - Pentax è di proprietà di Ricoh – ha sbagliato bersaglio. Di brutto.

Money quote: "But if Ricoh was going to make an oddball camera for its fanbase, it missed one incredibly important opportunity. They should have made a Ricoh GR III Monochrome first. The GR has always been a camera for photo nerds by photo nerds, from the very start. Ricoh’s APS-C cameras have been phenomenal tools that are easy to shoot but can output impressive results in the right hands. Matching the street-smart GR III with a monochrome sensor would let users shoot in the dark practically, and ape the look that made photographers like Daido Moriyama famous. Rugged DSLRs like the K-3 III aren’t well suited for fast one-handed shooting, making the Monochrome version that much more of a head-scratcher."

https://www.dpreview.com/opinion/2301491718/did-ricoh-put-a-monochrome-sensor-in-the-wrong-camera

Gli appassionati di fotografia scoprono presto che ci sono differenti formati. Nel mondo digitale sono le dimensioni dei sensori, in quello analogico quelle della pellicola. Non è banalissimo e per quanto riguarda l’analogico anche piuttosto importante da capire. Questa guida non è fatta male perché fa capire un po’ di cose sugli obiettivi per il medio e il piccolo formato.

Money quote: "Numbers are pretty abstract, so I’ll include some more tangible examples from the lenses I’m currently using with my Hasselblad 500 C/M.

With a 6×6 aspect ratio, the 80mm lens is considered the 50mm equivalent on 35mm. It’s the lens I use most often, as it gives me the field of view that’s closest to what the human eye sees, and it’s versatile for shooting any subject matter."

https://shootitwithfilm.com/understanding-medium-format-vs-35mm-lenses/

L'incredibile solitudine delle grandi città

Money quote: "Throughout the town, Mike collects evidence that he has just missed people: Douglas Sirk’s movie Battle Hymn (1957) flickers in the empty cinema; a cigar burns in an ashtray; coffee boils on a stove in the diner; a phone in a phone booth rings, but no one is on the other end when he answers. A line of direction from Rod Serling’s noscript describes a long shot of the main street: ‘Once again the sense of emptiness and loneliness and that bizarre quality of activity with no actors.’"

https://psyche.co/ideas/struths-unpeopled-photos-evoke-the-loneliness-of-urban-life

Cory Doctorow ci prova a spiegare cos'è il Social Quitting dei social media e dove vorrebbe che andassimo tutti. Bella analisi ma assurdo lo sbocco.

Money quote: "In "Social Quitting," my latest _Locus Magazine_ column, I advance a theory to explain the precipitous vibe shift in how many of us view the once-dominant social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, and how it is that we have so quickly gone asking what we can do to get these services out of our lives to where we should go now that we're all ready to leave them"

https://doctorow.medium.com/social-quitting-f049b33ad3f6

È arrivata Tilde 29!

Tappi o fucile ~ Leggere Wodehouse ~ Laptop o Mini PC ~ Pirateria ~ Magnum P.I. e PTSD

https://tilde.show

Il Vaticano e i suoi problemi di cybersicurezza.

Money quote: "In general, though, "the same security principles apply everywhere." The Vatican would need sufficient endpoint security, he says, alongside network security, physical security, "and perhaps an underestimated angle: training and awareness in an organization that is not particularly technology savvy.""

https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/pope-mobile-security-vatican-mdm-move

Giochi da fare in spiaggia con il telefonino

: https://neal.fun/password-game/

Troppa, veramente troppa roba da fare in troppo poco tempo.

Money quote: "The following are five common self-sabotaging mistakes overwhelmed people tend to make. There are practical solutions for each that will help you feel like you're on top of things and do a better job of navigating your most important tasks and solving problems."

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/5-mistakes-we-make-when-we-re-overwhelmed

I ritagli di giornale. Nel 2023.

Strane abitudini.

Money quote: "Sharing newspaper clippings used to be common before the internet disrupted everything. It wasn't just the move from snail mail to email. There are now a lot fewer printed newspapers and magazines to clip from.

Peter Butkus said when he was growing up his father must have subscribed to as many as six newspapers and more than a dozen magazines. "It looked like a dentist's office in our house," said Butkus, a 39-year-old hedge-fund manager in Barrington, R.I. The elder Butkus doesn't dispute it.

During the golden age of print, when newspapers were generally regarded as having the last word, people regularly passed around articles on shared interests or to settle arguments in I-told-you-so missives. Parents often mailed clippings as thinly veiled advice or criticism to grown children."

https://archive.is/OQP5m

Speciale 4 di luglio: se stasera avete voglia di mangiare americano, cioè un hambuger, ecco qualche ricetta valida.

Money quote: "The slugburger is not alone. From a Prohibition-era speakeasy that still slings bitters-filled patties to a roadside stand that’s carrying on a century-old tradition of steaming burgers, American history is filled with unusual burgers born of unusual times."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/lists/unique-burger-ideas

La casa d'aste Sotheby’s si è comprata un palazzo storico di New York, il Breuer Building. Chissà come lo ridurrà.

Money quote: "Sotheby's will take over the Breuer in September 2024, before ultimately relocating in 2025. The auction house plans to "sensitively review the internal spaces and maintain key elements such as the building's striking lobby," as the new space will boast updated galleries, exhibition space, and a reimagined auction room. The galleries will be free and open to the public.

Sotheby's will retain ownership of its current headquarters in New York's Lenox Hill neighborhood, where it has been since 1980, for the time being."

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/sothebys-buys-whitney-museums-iconic-breuer-building-1234670229/

Vivere alla Magnum, P.I. - il mio articolo per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/07/magnum-p-i-tom-selleck-serie-tv/

Arrivano le vacanze. Tempo di fare le valigie. I consigli degli esperti.

Money quote: "So here is our most comprehensive roundup of all the great travel packing tips we've given over the years, all in one place. Whether you're looking for help packing a carry on, packing tips for international travel, or even suitcase packing tips, we can help you. So sit down, relax, and get packing!"

https://packhacker.com/blog/general/packing-tips/

Chi e come sta inseguendo la supremazia quantistica - il mio articolo per Guerre di Rete

https://www.guerredirete.it/chi-e-come-sta-inseguendo-la-supremazia-quantistica/

Quando mi sono laureato in diritto internazionale, una vita fa, era semplicemente inimmaginabile. Oggi avere accesso liberamente a tutti gli atti del tribunale di Norimberga in formato digitale da qualsiasi parte del mondo è incredibile.

Money quote: "The Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, 1945-46 archival collection provides access to a digital version of Nuremberg IMT courtroom proceedings and documentation, including evidentiary films, full audio recordings of the proceedings, and approximately 250,000 pages of digitized paper documents. These documents include trannoscripts of the hearings in English, French, German and Russian; written pleadings; evidence exhibits filed by the prosecution and the defense; documents of the Committee for the Investigation and Prosecution of Major War Criminals; the judgment. All 9,920 collection items are searchable and viewable in digital form."

https://virtualtribunals.stanford.edu/nuremberg

Poi a un certo punto scopri che sei diventato vecchio perché il volume della musica è diventato troppo alto, no? No, le cose non stanno esattamente così. E comunque, viviamo (noi che viviamo in città) in un mondo che è diventato rumorosamente pericoloso per la nostra salute, non solo per l'udito. Il troppo rumore uccide, come ogni forma di inquinamento.

Money quote: "Unpleasant noise enters your body through your ears, but it is relayed to the stress detection center in your brain. This area, called the amygdala, triggers a cascade of reactions in your body. If the amygdala is chronically overactivated by noise, the reactions begin to produce harmful effects. The endocrine system can overreact, causing too much cortisol, adrenaline and other chemicals to course through the body. The sympathetic nervous system can also become hyperactivated, quickening the heart rate, raising blood pressure, and triggering the production of inflammatory cells. Over time, these changes can lead to inflammation, hypertension and plaque buildup in arteries, increasing the risk of heart disease, heart attacks and stroke."

https://archive.is/APMLv

Quando esce un nuovo iPhone, ad esempio, e le persone si stracciano le vesti perche costa troppo, c'è sempre in differenziale che non viene considerato. Cioè che in Europa, e in italia in particolare, abbiamo un costo della vita completamente diverso. Sono generalizzazioni, ma fino a un certo punto.

Money quote: "In Orange County, one-person households making less than $80,000 a year are considered low-income, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

That's up from just under $76,000 last year, and puts Orange County as the most expensive of the Southern California counties."

https://abc7.com/what-are-the-low-income-limits-in-california-how-much-do-people-make-i-qualify-for-affordable-housing-income/13419469/

Secret Invasion è una serie tv e una serie a fumetti della Marvel. La sequenza iniziale è fatta dalla ai. Perché? Perché si può ed è espressivamente adatta a quel che segue. Il cubismo alieno.

Money quote: "This is a denoscription of the plot of the new Marvel Cinematic Universe show on Disney Plus (as well as its comic book counterpart), which follows Nick Fury as he uncovers -- what else? -- a secret invasion by the Skrull population on Earth. But the concept of shape-shifting is also seen in the series' very different approach to its opening credits, which look like a sort of watercolor rendering of the key players and themes of _Secret Invasion_.

As we see a sort of jittery and ominous sequence of the Skrull green taking over more and more of the world, it looks a lot like if an AI was prompted with the concept of "Skrull cubism" -- which, actually, isn't that far off of what it is. As director and executive producer Ali Selim tells Polygon, the intro sequence was designed by Method Studios using artificial intelligence, something he thinks plays with the very themes of the show.

"When we reached out to the AI vendors, that was part of it -- it just came right out of the shape-shifting, Skrull world identity, you know? _Who did this? Who is this?_" Selim says."

https://www.polygon.com/23767640/ai-mcu-secret-invasion-opening-credits

Secondo me Corrado Guzzanti è un genio

https://youtube.com/watch?v=P7Sp4UVGjgc

Perché siamo antipatici? Anzi, peggio che antipatici, proprio della brutta gente? È una questione di percezione della realtà. Che può essere cambiata. Questa analisi sperimentale è molto interessante e dice un paio di cose che vale la pena ricordarsi.

Money quote: "Rahwan directs the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, where, according to his website, he’s focused on understanding “how intelligent machines impact humanity.” Given that avenue of curiosity, it seems inevitable that Rahwan would be inspired by the imaginatively bleak scenarios Black Mirror brings to life. And that’s exactly how his new paper, co-authored with social psychologist Nils Köbis and others, came about. The research explores a more benign version of the situation the Black Mirror episode “Men Against Fire” dramatizes. As Rahwan and his colleagues describe the episode, “soldiers perceive the world through a real-time AI filter that turns their adversaries into monstrous mutants to overcome their reluctance to kill.”"

https://nautil.us/how-were-becoming-bigger-jerks-online-311312/

Questa cosa della gente che viene pagata per addestrare le AI (lavoraccio) e che per massimizzare passa il lavoro di addestramento ad altre AI è meravigliosamente "meta", ma pieno di problemi.

Money quote: "A significant proportion of people paid to train AI models may be themselves outsourcing that work to AI, a new study has found.

It takes an incredible amount of data to train AI systems to perform specific tasks accurately and reliably. Many companies pay gig workers on platforms like Mechanical Turk to complete tasks that are typically hard to automate, such as solving CAPTCHAs, labeling data and annotating text. This data is then fed into AI models to train them. The workers are poorly paid and are often expected to complete lots of tasks very quickly.

No wonder some of them may be turning to tools like ChatGPT to maximize their earning potential. But how many? To find out, a team of researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) hired 44 people on the gig work platform Amazon Mechanical Turk to summarize 16 extracts from medical research papers. Then they analyzed their responses using an AI model they’d trained themselves that looks for telltale signals of ChatGPT output, such as lack of variety in choice of words. They also extracted the workers’ keystrokes in a bid to work out whether they’d copied and pasted their answers, an indicator that they’d generated their responses elsewhere."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/22/1075405/the-people-paid-to-train-ai-are-outsourcing-their-work-to-ai/