Adoro quest'articolo fin dal titolo: qualsiasi tecnologia indistinguibile dalla magia nasconde qualcosa.

Money quote: "So, what we know as the cloud doesn’t actually exist. It’s a euphemism that obfuscates the consolidation of critical infrastructure. The cloud is metaphysical porn for wild-eyed technocrats in Allbirds who say things like, “I’m making a dent in the universe” without a whisper of irony. It’s bullshit. It’s fugazi. There is no spoon, Neo.

The cloud is a lie."

https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/

Una serie dalle grandi premesse: Fallout riprende una serie fortunata di videogiochi e lascia che sia Jonathan Noalan a fare il lavoro di messa in scena. Cosa ne viene fuori?

La mia recensione per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2024/04/fallout-serie-tv-recensione-amazon-prime-video/

Un effetto dell'AI? Far crollare l'uso dei motori di ricerca perché le domande si faranno direttamente agli agenti intelligenti.

Money quote: "SEO e PPC sono incredibilmente preziosi. Il traffico di ricerca, infatti, è ciò che può portare a ricavi e profitti (sia attraverso la conversione del traffico in lead, vendite o qualsiasi altro tipo di conversione). Per ottenere il traffico di ricerca, i siti web devono ottimizzare i loro contenuti e le loro pagine per i motori di ricerca (SEO) o pagare per apparire nelle pagine dei risultati di ricerca (PPC).

Se la previsione di Gartner fosse vera, significherebbe un enorme cambiamento nelle strategie di marketing di ricerca, che dovrebbero adattarsi alla nuova realtà."

https://www.punto-informatico.it/ai-ridurra-25-per-cento-uso-motori-ricerca-entro-2026/

Casomai vi capitasse di andare al cinema a New York, qui vi dicono i posti migliori. Cioè, proprio dove sedervi...

Money quote: "Today, most places have advanced-ticket seating maps online so you can see the layout of your theater before you spend money – is it playing on a big big screen or one that's closer to flat-screen-TV size?

So here's a look at some of the best spots for movie viewing within each category: the big chains, the dine-ins, and the independents – as well as advice on which screens, and even which seats, within the multiplexes give you the most comfortable moviegoing experience and the biggest bang for your 20-bucks-and-up."

https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/the-best-seats-in-the-house-where-to-sit-in-almost-every-nyc-movie-theater

La forma del mal di testa

Money quote: "Medieval migraine sufferers compared the jagged shape of their scintillating scotoma to fortresses, and medical literature describes their “fortification patterns.” I never quite understood the analogy until I took a water tour of Copenhagen—as our boat slid down the Øresund alongside the island citadel of Kastellet, I saw my own scotoma in stone. A migraine aura, too, has ramparts and ravelins, bastions against a zig-zag world. At their edges, chaos reigns. The thin interface between a scotoma and normal vision is a boiling tar, a volley of arrows, a violence of inputs and light. In the midst of an attack, it’s tempting to think that perception is always at war with reality."

https://clairelevans.substack.com/p/brighter-than-a-cloud

La storia del primo, grande hacking "sponsorizzato da uno Stato" (Urss) nel 1986 e dell'uomo che l'ha svelato. E ha scritto un libro, che è poi il primo libro su come si cattura un hacker "cattivo". Fenomenale perché ha intuito, per mera necessità, e anticipato la maggior parte delle tecniche anti intrusione.

Money quote: "Stoll then spent the next year of his life following that hacker’s footprints across the lab’s network and the nascent internet. In doing so, he revealed a vast web of similar intrusions into military and government agencies carried out by a group of young German hackers, eventually revealed to have been working in the service of the Soviet KGB. The story that Stoll unraveled from that tiny initial clue, which he published in late 1989 as a kind of digital detective memoir, "The Cuckoo’s Egg", turned out to be the very first known case of state-sponsored hacking—a tale far bigger than he could have ever imagined when he began hunting those three quarters missing from his lab’s ledger."

https://www.wired.com/story/meet-the-mad-scientist-who-wrote-the-book-on-how-to-hunt-hackers

Archivio: https://archive.is/9CdoH

Secondo voi quale giorno ho scelto per andare a Dubai? Ma ieri sera, ovviamente. Ed è stato veramente un delirio perché qui nelle strade manca proprio il concetto di tombino e di fogna. Oggi però c'è un gran sole.

Money quote: "Dans un pays désertique, le phénomène est rarissime. L’aéroport international de Dubaï, l’un des plus fréquentés au monde, a détourné mardi une partie des vols en raison de pluies diluviennes qui ont provoqué d’importantes inondations aux Emirats arabes unis et dans d’autres pays du Golfe. Cet aéroport de la capitale économique des Emirats, où plus de 100 vols étaient attendus mardi soir, a précédemment interrompu pendant 25 minutes ses opérations dans le chaos provoqué par la tempête."

https://www.liberation.fr/international/moyen-orient/dubai-des-inondations-spectaculaires-paralysent-laeroport-et-la-ville-20240417_UR7H72O4PJHD7FTJTEQUFMHKU4/

Se volevate farmi sentire vecchio, con questo progetto che ruota attorno a un telefono con il selettore a disco (pun intended), beh, ci siete riusciti.

Money quote: "Recently we went to the MoMA with my 4 year old son. Some modern art is hard to appreciate as a kid, but the exhibit he loved was one where they had a bunch of rotary phones and you could dial a number and it would read you a poem. I wanted to replicate something like this at home."

https://github.com/mnutt/rotary

Bastano due notti dormite male e ci si sente vecchi di anni. Molti anni.

Money quote: "In the second study, the researchers quizzed 186 volunteers aged 18 to 46 on how old they felt after two nights of plentiful sleep, in which they stayed in bed for nine hours each night, and two nights when they slept for only four hours a night. After two nights of restricted sleep, the participants felt on average 4.44 years older than when they had ample sleep. Feeling older was linked, unsurprisingly, to feeling sleepier.

“If you want to feel young, the most important thing is to protect your sleep,” Balter said."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/mar/27/two-nights-of-broken-sleep-can-make-people-feel-years-older-finds-study

È arrivato il momento di parlare di Civil War, un film che sta faacendo moto parlare perché innanzitutto è un gran bel film, ha una straordinaria interprete e poi risuona molto con il momento storico in cui stiamo vivendo. Ne ho scritto su Fumettologica.

https://fumettologica.it/2024/04/civil-war-film-recensione-alex-garland/

Le immancabili ricette del NYT (tutte da provare): stasera italiano!

Money quote: "White Bolognese, a meat sauce made without tomato, is a variation you rarely see in America"

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11111-rigatoni-with-white-bolognese

Archivio https://archive.is/mth1u

La biblioteca pubblica di Pechino pare che sia una cosa da vedere, sul serio

Money quote: "The enormous new public building has been billed “the largest climatized reading space in the world.” The glass enclosed space features a high roof with a clean white and warm wood interior, complete with lily pad or gingko-leaf style roofing panels.

The irregularly shaped exterior walls and references to nature give the library an organic and welcoming feel. We particularly like the restrained color palette, which should make the design relevant for decades to come."

https://mossandfog.com/the-new-beijing-city-library-has-the-worlds-largest-reading-room/

È uscita Mostly Weekly 268. Era una vita che sognavo di auto-quotarmi. E farlo in maniera "meta-meta".

Money quote: "La prossima settimana c'è il ponte, e più tempo per leggere. Quindi, ho pensato: è il momento di fare un numero particolare, vecchio stile, o forse solo un po' diverso. Anziché link con qualche pensiero attorno, faccio un'antologia di quello che ho letto di interessante. Almeno, le parti migliori, quelle dove c'è tutto il valore: le "money quote". Era un'idea che mi stavo coltivando da un po'. Pensavo sarebbe stato più facile metterla insieme: una specie di numero "freddo" per quando non ho tempo di organizzare le cose per un nuovo numero "caldo e croccante" di Mostly Weekly, che richiede il suo buon numero di ore. Alla fine, ci ho messo più a fare questa versione "money quote" che non la maggior parte dei precedenti. Comunque, rimboccandomi un po' le maniche, l'ho finito in vista del ponte. Ogni cosa che leggete da qui in poi non l'ho scritta io. Ma non abbiate paura, molti sono più brevi oltre che più bravi di me."

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/268/

https://antoniodini.com/iscrizione/

Sarebbe bello lavorare per la Lego e passare il tempo a costruire nuovi set, vero? Cioè, se vi piace il Lego, ovviamente. Comunque, anche se vi piace, ci sono cose che dovete sapere sul lavoro di designer dei set della Lego. E che vengono spiegate qui.

Money quote: "Many kids (and adult fans) fantasize about getting to play with LEGO bricks all day. For the professional designers who work for the toy company, that’s their life. “It’s unfair how cool this job is,” LEGO designer Mike Psiaki confirms to Mental Floss.

Though it’s a dream job for many, designing sets for The LEGO Group has a less-glamorous side as well. We spoke with three LEGO designers about the ins and outs of the job, including the rigorous quality-control process, their all-time favorite sets, and their unique workspace."

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/11-secrets-of-lego-designers

È tutta colpa dei telefonini. Ma cosa possiamo farci?

Money quote: "The exact causes of the Gen Z mental-health emergency will be parsed for years to come, but the severity of the crisis itself is, at this point, beyond question. Members of Gen Z, who were born between the mid-to-late nineties and the early twenty-tens, tend to be lonelier than the members of previous generations. They are more anxious and depressed; they get less sleep. They more commonly think that their lives hold no meaning. They are more likely to harm themselves or experience suicidal ideation. (Suicide deaths among children ages ten to fourteen more than doubled between 2007 and 2017.) They are more wary of, or just less interested in, the things that were once milestones of freedom: drinking, dating, having sex, getting driver’s licenses, moving out of their parents’ houses."

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-we-get-kids-off-smartphones

Archivio: https://web.archive.org/web/20240329182352/https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-we-get-kids-off-smartphones

Una analisi originale di come potrebbe svolgersi l'evoluzione del rapportro tra mondo del lavoro, salari e intelligenza artificiale. È una analsi molto astratta, e discutibile anche, ma comunque offre una prospettiva diversa e interessante.

Money quote "So when I cheerfully tell them that it’s very possible that regular humans will have plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI dominance — often doing much the same kind of work that they’re doing right now — technologists typically become flabbergasted, flustered, and even frustrated. I must simply not understand just how many things AI will be able to do, or just how good it will be at doing them, or just how cheap it’ll get. I must be thinking to myself “Surely, there are some things humans will always be better at machines at!”, or some other such pitiful coping mechanism.

But no. That is not what I am thinking. Instead, I accept that AI may someday get better than humans at every conceivable task. That’s the future I’m imagining. And in that future, I think it’s possible — perhaps even likely — that the vast majority of humans will have good-paying jobs, and that many of those jobs will look pretty similar to the jobs of 2024."

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/plentiful-high-paying-jobs-in-the

Quando uno è vivo vivo lo sappiamo. Quando uno è morto morto lo sappiamo. Ma quando uno passa dal primo stato al secondo, cioè quando una persona realmente muore e il suo cervello possiamo dire che ha smesso di funzionare, beh questo è molto, molto più difficile da dire. Capire qual è la soglia vuol dire capire quando una persona l'ha attraversata. E noi quel momento non abbiamo capito quale sia.

Money quote: "For several years, Jimo Borjigin, a professor of neurology at the University of Michigan, had been troubled by the question of what happens to us when we die. She had read about the near-death experiences of certain cardiac-arrest survivors who had undergone extraordinary psychic journeys before being resuscitated. Sometimes, these people reported travelling outside of their bodies towards overwhelming sources of light where they were greeted by dead relatives. Others spoke of coming to a new understanding of their lives, or encountering beings of profound goodness. Borjigin didn’t believe the content of those stories was true – she didn’t think the souls of dying people actually travelled to an afterworld – but she suspected something very real was happening in those patients’ brains. In her own laboratory, she had discovered that rats undergo a dramatic storm of many neurotransmitters, including serotonin and dopamine, after their hearts stop and their brains lose oxygen. She wondered if humans’ near-death experiences might spring from a similar phenomenon, and if it was occurring even in people who couldn’t be revived.

Dying seemed like such an important area of research – we all do it, after all – that Borjigin assumed other scientists had already developed a thorough understanding of what happens to the brain in the process of death. But when she looked at the scientific literature, she found little enlightenment. “To die is such an essential part of life,” she told me recently. “But we knew almost nothing about the dying brain.” So she decided to go back and figure out what had happened inside the brains of people who died at the University of Michigan neurointensive care unit. Among them was Patient One."

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/02/new-science-of-death-brain-activity-consciousness-near-death-experience

In italiano non ho idea se esista la parola per definirla, in inglese c'è "palmistry" che mi sembra meravigliosa. Comunque, l'arte (o la tecnica?) della lettura del palmo della mano è antichissima, è nata in India, ha attraversato il mondo ed ha fondamento scientifico zero meno, ovviamente: l'oroscopo in confronto è un trattato di logica matematica. Però è affascinante e segue delle regole balzane ma culturalmente intriganti. Eccole spiegate per i principianti e i neofiti.

Money quote: "Simply put, palmistry is the art of analyzing the physical features of the hands to interpret personality characteristics and predict future happenings. Within palm reading, hands are considered portals that shed invaluable insight. But, believe it or not, understanding palm reading basics — including the life line and the love line — isn't as difficult as you may think. Ahead, let's explore the basic theory and techniques of palm reading, along with tips and tricks to help you cultivate your unique approach. After all, once you learn how to interpret this powerful magical tool, your future literally lies in the palm of your hand."

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-beginner-s-guide-to-reading-palms

Viaggiare, attraversare i fusi orari, ma anche semplicemente cambiare l'ora da naturale a legale e viceversa, ha un impatto sul nostro corpo, non solo sulla nostra mente. E sulla risposta dei nostri muscoli all'esercizio e alla fatica. Perché anche i muscoli, come il resto del corpo, "sanno" che ore sono.

Money quote: "So when is the best time to exercise? In truth, there is no scientific consensus. The question gets surprisingly thorny as you drill down into the specifics. Who's exercising? What exactly are they doing? What are their goals?

Still, the last decade has brought a wave of new research on the interplay between exercise timing and circadian rhythms — the patterns in our physiology and behavior that fluctuate over the 24-hour cycle. These advances have led to new insights about how the timing of your workouts can affect both health and athletic performance."

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/03/29/1241424775/exercise-timing-circadian-rhythm-morning-evening

Un vecchio classico (latinorum in pdf)

Money quote: "Nutella omnia divisa est in partes tres"

https://www.minimumfax.com/web/content/book/3234/preview_file/nutella-nutellae-1597.pdf

Internet sta andando in vacca? Va riaccesa? Va cancellata? Bisogna reinventarsi tutto? Ma la colpa di chi è, del solito Grande Vecchio?

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/269/