Recensione fotocamera digitale Leica Q3, forse la migliore compatta di sempre: il mio articolo (e ci sono anche un po' di foto del Giappone! Ma poco perché nonostante la macchina bestiale non sono bravo)

https://www.macitynet.it/recensione-leica-q3/

Mostly Weekly, la mia newsletter gratuita, continua anche d'estate. Si parla di vestiti alla marinara in Giappone e lingue perdute in Cina, fra le altre cose. La trovate qui:

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/230/

Avete presente la tragica fine del generale Custer e del Settimo cavalleggeri, massacrato dagli indiani? Beh, la narrativa è molto, molto viziata. E adesso c'è finalmente una riscrittura di quella storia che spiega anche i motivi per cui il racconto è diventato quel che è diventato.

Money quote: "Marshall is writing a book on how distorted narratives about the “Indian wars” after the Civil War made their way into schools. The answer reveals a potent mix of the powerful who engage in history making: soldiers burnishing their own reputations, loved ones honoring family members, lawmakers lobbying for federal dollars, and textbook writers mythologizing American Manifest Destiny."

https://time.com/6288437/custer-last-stand-history-education/

Ta-da!

🎙 Un paio di bazzecole e qualche buon libro.

Ovvero: Tokyo mon amour - Venedikt Erofeev - L'ultimo Miyazaki - Software aggressivo

Ascoltate Tilde ~ 30, il finale di stagione!

→ 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, buon martedì e grazie per il supporto di questi mesi. Torneremo a settembre, forse!

Le notizie sulla imminente fine del nostro mondo sono fortemente esagerate.

Money quote: "Despite the hype around today’s possible geomagnetic storms, there’s no reason to panic.

Electrically-charged gas ejected from the surface of the Sun will collide with Earth’s magnetic field sometime today, sparking geomagnetic storms. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center expects the storms and their effects to be minor. However, the weird solar phenomenon behind the storms, called a cannibal cloud, is terrifying and awesome."

https://www.inverse.com/science/x-class-solar-flares-coming-this-week-unlikely-says-noaa

Escono nuovi telefoni "pieghevoli" con cronometrica regolarità. Ogni tanto ne intravedo qualcuno e un paio li ho anche provati. A parte Android, sono anche comodi. Però non sono ancora pronti per la prima serata, come si dice.

Money quote: "RIP to my Pixel Fold: Dead after four days"

https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/06/rip-to-my-pixel-fold-dead-after-four-days/

Alcuni forse li avete anche letti. Comunque, ogni tanto mi rispunta l'articolo di *The Verge* che fa la listona dei migliori libri di sempre in ambito tech, e quindi perché non segnalarla una volta per tutte anche qui?

Money quote: "Technology craves a narrative but often has a short memory for history. As a publication that contributes to that — The Verge lives in the news cycle, after all — we wanted to praise the form of writing that lasts: the book. How else do we move forward if we can’t remember the past? So we set out with the audacious goal to define the best books about tech out there."

https://www.theverge.com/c/23771068/best-tech-books-nonfiction-recommendations

Sono tornato da poco da Tokyo e questa lista di mercatini dove comprare cose usate e usatissime me l'ero dimenticata. Viaggiando con il solo bagaglio a mano sarebbe stato anche una tortura farci un giro. Comunque, a futura memoria...

Money quote: "Here, in no particular order, is our pick of top Tokyo flea markets to explore for mind-blowing bargains and good fun. Note: the smaller markets can be a bit hit and miss—buzzing one month, dead the next. Also, this post is peppered with cheapo tips — keep an eye out for them!"

https://tokyocheapo.com/shopping-2/fashion/top-tokyo-flea-markets/

La guida per nerd che visitano New York. Di carta. Nel XXI secolo. Genio.

Money quote: "I migliori negozi nerd di New York selezionati da ITOMI.studio tra i tantissimi presenti nella Grande Mela: una variegata selezione che passa dai costumi di Abracadabra ai videogiochi di VideoGamesNewYork, passando per i grandi marchi come Nintendo, LEGO e Disney e le piccole chicche come Tannen’s Magic o Hex & Company e le istituzioni nerd della città come Forbidden Planet, Kinokuniya o The Compleat Strategist."

https://nerdvanaguides.com/newyork/

Il business dell'annotazione dei dataset per le AI. Una inchiesta con gli attributi, di qualche settimana fa. È uscita su Intelligencer e The Verge, pubblico entrambe le versioni per evitare che una vada "al buio" a un certo punto.

Money quote: "Then, in 2019, an opportunity arose: Joe could make four times as much running an annotation boot camp for a new company that was hungry for labelers. Every two weeks, 50 new recruits would file into an office building in Nairobi to begin their apprenticeships. There seemed to be limitless demand for the work. They would be asked to categorize clothing seen in mirror selfies, look through the eyes of robot vacuum cleaners to determine which rooms they were in, and draw squares around lidar scans of motorcycles. Over half of Joe’s students usually dropped out before the boot camp was finished. “Some people don’t know how to stay in one place for long,” he explained with gracious understatement. Also, he acknowledged, “it is very boring.”"

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-humans-technology-business-factory.html

https://www.theverge.com/features/23764584/ai-artificial-intelligence-data-notation-labor-scale-surge-remotasks-openai-chatbots

Un medico si è sottoposto sperimentalmente per un mese a una dieta basata su cibi ultra-processati. E si è ammalato. Da qui è partito uno studio ma anche un interessante articolo che spiega perché mangiamo male anche quando pensiamo di mangiare meglio o almeno meno peggio.

Money quote: "If ultra-processed foods had the same effect on everyone, wouldn't we expect to see the whole population gaining weight and becoming unhealthy or do people respond differently?

I think there are two groups of adults. Many people will be able to have a relationship with ultra-processed food that is somewhat like a relationship with alcohol. A lot of people can just enjoy two glasses of wine or a bottle of beer on a Friday night, and that's fine. They can have that relationship with it. But many people will recognize that actually their relationship with these food products is much more addicting in nature."

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/07/24/1189276187/an-ultra-processed-diet-made-this-doctor-sick-now-hes-studying-why

La storia di un bel gruppo di plane spotter e di altre cose collegate, ovviamente negli Usa. È un mondo.

Money quote: "Situated right next to the longest runway at JFK—and outfitted with a full covered bar serving up food and cocktails and a turquoise infinity pool should you need to cool off—you couldn’t find a better planespotting vantage point than the rooftop at the TWA Hotel. And given the building’s history, it’s no surprise. In 1962, Finnish architect Eero Saarinen designed what was then Trans World Airlines’ main terminal or “head house,” now serving as the hotel’s entrance, in a style befitting a time when flying captivated the world. He envisioned the terminal’s exterior, with its swoopy silhouette and large windows overlooking the runways, as not only practical, but an effort to “interpret the sensation of flying,” and “express the drama and specialness and excitement of travel,” according to Eero Saarinen: an Architecture of Multiplicity."

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/what-is-planespotting-la-flights

Su qualcosa dobbiamo cedere, con i nostri figli pre-adolescenti. Le cose costruite per dare dipendenza però no. Oggi non è McDonald o la tv quello che fa veramente male, bensì i social e i giochi come Fortnite. Su quello non bisogna cedere.

Money quote: "A group of Canadian parents say their kids are so addicted to the video game Fortnite that they’ve stopped eating, sleeping and showering. Now these parents want to hold its tech-giant creator accountable."

https://macleans.ca/longforms/fortnite-addiction-video-games-mental-health/

Intervista a Francesca Tassini, l'autrice di "Snow Black" - il mio articolo per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2023/08/francesca-tassini-snow-black-intervista/

Non amo particolarmente il Regno Unito e quindi non ho particolari cedimenti sentimentali nei confronti dei loro piatti nazionali, fossanche il famigerato "fish and chips". Però leggere che ce lo stiamo giocando un po' fa impressione anche a me.

Money quote: "Plenty of people will tell you the East Neuk of Fife in Scotland is the best place in the world to eat fish and chips. So what happens when its chippies – and chippies across the UK – start to close?"

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jul/20/a-funeral-for-fish-and-chips-east-neuk-fife-anstruther-scotland

Un'ode per la/il propria/o ex

Money quote: "I’m grateful for my ex for so many things. I’m grateful for all the memories, I’m grateful for the lessons, I’m grateful for the person that he is; that I will never, ever be with another person like him. and I’m grateful to him for showing me how strong I am".

https://www.theohnine.com/home/2018/11/21/thank-u-next-why-are-you-so-grateful-for-your-ex

Scusate l’orario ma questo è troppo bello: deepfake da paura

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn8V0zB3Q1c

Non so se viviamo nel migliore dei mondi possibili (dal punto di vista dello sviluppo socio-tecnologico sì, senza dubbio). Sicuramente però viviamo nel mondo più strano e singolare. Come questa storia delle scimmie delle nevi giapponesi che sono state portate, tra tutti i posti del mondo, in Texas. Chissà perché, mi sono chiesto prima di leggere questa storia. Ovviamente, c'è un perché. Strano, ma c'è.

Money quote: "Her name was Pelka. She was ten years old and recently had a baby. I was at La Moca reporting on a story for the Daily Texan about the first-ever roundup of a troop of macaques that had been transplanted in 1972 from their sanctuary in the snowy, pine-shaded peaks of Stormy Mountain (Arashiyama in Japanese), outside of Kyoto, to the most unlikely of places: this sun-strobed ranch near Laredo. Pelka and I were surrounded by volunteers with laps full of sleepy monkeys. A couple dozen of the 176 resident macaques had been captured and tranquilized so that researchers could examine, inoculate, and tattoo them. We were keeping our charges safe until they had recovered enough to be released back into the electric-fenced, 108-acre enclosure, where the rest of the troop roamed freely."

https://www.texasmonthly.com/travel/snow-monkeys-south-texas-japanese-macaques/

Sono un appassionato di storie di truffe e truffatori. Appena l'ho visto, non ho potuto resistere all'inchiesta di Rachel Browne sull'artista delle truffe Patrice Runner. Da adolescente di Montréal, Runner era innamorato dei testi provocatori degli annunci di vendita per corrispondenza, soprattutto di quelli che assomigliavano a biglietti scritti a mano. Immaginate di essere così persuasivi sulla carta stampata da farvi spedire per posta i numeri vincenti della lotteria e i segreti della fortuna e della ricchezza. Nel corso degli anni, oltre un milione di canadesi ha ceduto al fascino di Runner, facendogli guadagnare 200 milioni di dollari. E poi?

Money quote: "In early 2022, I wrote a letter to Runner in prison, asking if he would consider being interviewed. While the so-called Maria Duval letter scheme had attracted extensive media coverage, Runner had never spoken to a reporter. “I got your letter yesterday evening. First I was surprised and then moved by it,” Runner said to me over the phone from a detention centre in Brooklyn, New York. “I was intrigued by the fact that it was handwritten. Was it done on purpose to intrigue me? Because it’s unusual today to receive, especially from a professional, a letter that’s handwritten with no letterhead. . . . You’re a good copywriter.” Over the following year, I interviewed Runner dozens of times—in person at the prison, via email, and over the phone—in the lead-up to his trial.

Runner told me that while he always tested the limits of business, he never crossed a legal line. “Maybe it’s not moral, maybe it’s bullshit,” he once said. “But it doesn’t mean it’s fraud.”"

https://thewalrus.ca/the-greatest-scam-ever-written/

A quanto pare il ondo della tecnologia consumer non finisce mai di stupire. In alcuni modelli di Chromebook prodotti da Dell si può abilitare la "modalità sviluppatore" che consente di installare Linux. Ma bisogna prima rimuovere una vite dalla scheda madre! In futuro si prevede che sarà necessario scrivere solo con la mano sinistra.

Money quote: "Enabling Developer Mode does require the bottom panel to be taken off and a specific screw to be removed, located near the battery with the letters "WP" next to it."

https://chuck.is/liberating-a-chromebook/