Una tranquilla presa di coscienza.

Money quote: "For a long time it was considered impertinent to refer to Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their henchman as Nazis. “Are they registered members of the American Nazi party?” some have demanded to know. “Did they actually help carry out the Holocaust?” others obtusely inquired. But we’ve reached a point where these distinctions have no meaning. Whatever comes to mind when you think of a Nazi, that is for whom this country is currently being run. And the powers that be aren’t shy about it."

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/nazis-musk-kliger

Elon Musk ha affermato che il suo team "DOGE" ha trovato prove di "massicce frodi" presso l'Amministrazione della previdenza sociale, sostenendo che americani di 150 anni stavano ricevendo assegni di benefici. Ho visto questa affermazione facilmente smentita durante il fine settimana, ma Wired ne ha una buona ricostruzione. In buona sostanza, il linguaggio di programmazione in cui sono scritti questi sistemi (COBOL) utilizza spesso una data arbitraria come linea di base, più comunemente una data di 150 anni fa. Peraltro, la SSA interrompe automaticamente anche i pagamenti delle prestazioni ogni volta che qualcuno raggiunge l'età di 115 anni.

Money quote: "Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure was not evidence of fraud, but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration’s benefits system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases as well as systems from many other US government agencies.

COBOL is rarely used today, and as such, Musk’s cadre of young engineers may well be unfamiliar with it.

Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the “Convention du Mètre.”

These systems default to the reference point when a birth date is missing or incomplete, meaning all of those entries in 2025 would show an age of 150."

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-doge-social-security-150-year-old-benefits/

Alle sei del mattino, a Chongqing in Cina, i contadini arrivano in città con le loro cose da vendere. Video notevole

Money quote: "This got viral in Chinese social media and was heavily discussed. The Chongqing government has designated last year a line, now often called Vegetable Basket Line, that specifically allows farmers to bring their goods in the train even during peak hours. While there were complaints about how they shouldn't be allowed, most of the people are supportive of the policy. The fare is also free for these farmers as seniors don't pay in the city."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoSjDp4FtFY

Studiare piccole storie per capire cosa potrebbe succedere su una scala globale. L'esperimento sociale di una cittadina del New Hampshire dove si sono trasferiti un buon numero di libertari americani, e tutto è andato in vacca quando alcuni hanno decoso che erano liberi di dar da mangiare agli orsi selvaggi della zona, perché no?

Money quote: "Pressed by bears from without and internecine conflicts from within, the Free Town Project began to come apart. Caught up in “pitched battles over who was living free, but free in the right way,” the libertarians descended into accusing one another of statism, leaving individuals and groups to do the best (or worst) they could. Some kept feeding the bears, some built traps, others holed up in their homes, and still others went everywhere toting increasingly larger-caliber handguns. After one particularly vicious attack, a shadowy posse formed and shot more than a dozen bears in their dens. This effort, which was thoroughly illegal, merely put a dent in the population; soon enough, the bears were back in force."

https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project

Vi godete la vista non solo della Sutro Tower di San Francisco ma anche della città, che adoro e mi manca tantissimo (è un sacco che non ci vado). Comunque, la tecnica per creare il modello 3D è molto innovativa e ovviamente basata sulla AI. Meglio vederla da computer e non da telefono.

Money quote: "This scan is made possible by recent advances in Gaussian Splatting. This is an emerging technology that lets us quickly create very detailed models just from photographs. For this model (or splat, as we call them), my friend Daylen and I flew our drones around Sutro Tower at a respectful distance for an afternoon until we had collected a few thousand photographs."

https://vincentwoo.com/3d/sutro_tower/

Un libro che parla di apocalisse, perché adesso che forse arriva la temiamo, ma in realtà ci ha sempre entusiasmato (quando non ci riguarda).

Money quote: "APOCALYPSE uses true stories from archaeology to retell human history as a story of endings, transformations, and new beginnings. For tens of thousands of years, events like plagues, natural disasters, and state collapses have forced us to take stock of who we are and what kinds of societies we want to live in. Apocalypses may destroy old worlds, but they also offer the best chance we have to create new ones."

https://buttondown.com/lizziewade/archive/apocalypse-is-coming-your-way/

È domenica e Mostly Weekly è dedicata al Giappone, tra l'Imperatore e l'AI, passando per Donald Trump e i matrimoni gay non più vietati (ma non ammessi)

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/314/

Letture per la domenica

Come reagire al mondo che sta collassando? A quanto pare, serve una competenza umanistica e non scientifica.

Money quote: "When we say, for instance, that we are imagining the end of the world, or the end of the world as we have known it, we are imagining the end to imagination itself. That is surely something difficult, if not impossible for the imagination to do. For it is one thing to imagine an ongoing destructive process and quite another to feel one’s own power to imagine draw to a halt, potentially destroyed by the destructive processes one is tracking. Tracking fatality is still anticipating, and that assumes a form, whether a picture, a sequence of associations, a cluster of images, a story yet to be narrated about history unfolding, or the new landscapes now lay before us."

https://lithub.com/judith-butler-to-imagine-a-world-after-this-democracy-needs-the-humanities/

La musica e il cambiamento politico. Non ci avevo mai pensato, ma c'è tantissimo da dire.

Money quote: "Part of intangible history, music has long played an important role in historical events. Long a tool of protest, thousands of songs across the globe take aim at repression and authoritarianism and have done so for centuries. In some rarer cases, songs have a much more tangible power. From songs that push back against fascist regimes to songs that incite revolution to songs that demonstrate cultural radicalism and anti-establishment politics, music can be instrumental towards gaining and expressing freedom. From looking at different controversial and contested pieces of music, we can learn how music is a powerful political tool embedded in the histories of nations across the globe."

https://contestedhistories.org/uncategorized/the-sound-of-freedom-the-role-of-music-in-political-change/

Vi piace Severance, la serie su Apple Tv+? Be', su Youtube c'è uno streaming di otto ore solo della musica di sfondo che serve per fare concorrenza a LoFi Girl, presumo.

Money quote: "In Severance, Mark Scout (Adam Scott) leads a team at Lumon Industries, whose employees have undergone a severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. This daring experiment in “work-life balance” is called into question as Mark finds himself at the center of an unraveling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work and of himself."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRnDYB28bL8

Nirav Tolia, fondatore di Nextdoor, il social dei vicini di casa, pensa di poter raddrizzare i destini della sua ex azienda con l'IA. Be', ha molto da fare per riuscirci

Money quote: "Now Nirav Tolia is on a mission to turn things around. He has a strong motive to prove himself capable. Tolia founded the company and led it until 2018, when he was reportedly ousted by the board over a disagreement about a potential acquisition. In 2021, Nextdoor went on to go public through a special purpose acquisition vehicle at a $4.3 billion valuation, but facing flattening growth and dwindling advertiser interest, the board last year asked Tolia to return."

https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/17/nextdoors-nirav-tolia-thinks-he-can-turn-things-around-with-ai-he-has-a-lot-riding-on-it/

Giovedì sul piccolo schermo!

Cercando di acchiappare varie tendenze (le vacanze esotiche dei quasi ricchi, il burnout dei dispositivi con relativo detox) questa serie tv giapponese su Netflix è davvero particolare.

Money quote: "Netflix’s latest Japanese program in this realm proposes a 2020s scenario with a touch of nostalgia for a simpler time — what if you couldn’t use your smartphone for just over a week?

“Offline Love,” now streaming on Netflix, follows five men and five women, ages ranging from 20 to 30, as they spend 10 days in Nice, France, making connections and finding romance. The noscript gives away the twist: Their smartphones have been turned off and put under lock and key, with other digital tech also off limits. As a result, the participants wander the picturesque seaside city assisted only by a Netflix-produced guidebook, a letter system that allows them to communicate (albeit with time lag) and hopeful hearts."

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2025/02/18/tv-streaming/offline-love/

Forse Philip K. Dick aveva ragione: viviamo davvero in una simulazione - la mia idea per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2025/03/philip-k-dick-viviamo-in-una-simulazione/

Andate tutti online e gustatevi questo meraviglioso capolavoro medievale. Solo la sua storia è una libidine.

Money quote: "The ancient masterpiece is a stunning example of Hiberno-Saxon style, thought to have been composed on the Scottish island of Iona in 806, then transferred to the monastery of Kells in County Meath after a Viking raid (a story told in the marvelous animated film The Secret of Kells). Consisting mainly of copies of the four gospels, as well as indexes called “canon tables,” the manunoscript is believed to have been made primarily for display, not reading aloud, which is why “the images are elaborate and detailed while the text is carelessly copied with entire words missing or long passages being repeated.”"

https://www.openculture.com/2024/09/the-medieval-masterpiece-the-book-of-kells-is-now-digitized-and-available-online.html

Domani è domenica, arriva Mostly Weekly, ma è già online se preferite. Ci sono (parecchie) tracce del Giappone e un ragionamento sull'appistocrazia, che poi giustifica il titolo di questa settimana. E tanto altro

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/315/

La Cina ha sviluppato molteplici ecosistemi tecnologici-industriali che si sovrappongono in termini di aziende e tecnologie coinvolte. La Cina non ha solo un'industria degli smartphone o un'industria delle batterie o un'industria dei veicoli elettrici. Ha tutte queste industrie e altro ancora. La forza della Cina attraverso molteplici industrie sovrapposte crea un effetto composto per i suoi sforzi di politica industriale.

Money quote: "Put another way: China has created a system of interlocking industries. As China becomes stronger in some industries, this tightens its grip on others. What are the mechanisms by which overlapping tech-industrial ecosystems create this compounding or spillover effect?"

https://www.high-capacity.com/p/chinas-overlapping-tech-industrial

Letture per la domenica (magari su uno schermo eInk)

Ok, guardare il computer (o soprattutto lo smartphone) tra le altre cose vi fotte cervello e occhi. Scriverlo qui è un paradosso, lo so. Ma ci sono soluzioni possibili.

Money quote: "“Passive screen time is like eating sugar but for your brain. It ‘tastes’ good, and you want it now, but you’re not actually feeding yourself. You’re not giving your brain any nutrition,” says Loeffler. “Instead, replace screen time with an intentional healthy habit that feeds your brain in a healthy way. Lifestyle medicine activities, like exercise, good sleep, social connection, and stress management, function like ‘nutrition’ for your brain and mental health.”

Specifically, Loeffler cautions us not to pick up the phone after the alarm goes off in the morning. She explains that looking at our email or social media on our phones while still in bed jolts the nervous system and can trigger the fight-or-flight response since we aren’t fully awake yet.

Also, if we look at our phones first thing every morning, we create a pattern and can set the flight-or-flight response as our default mode of operation. So, not only does this behavior set an anxiety-filled tone for the day, but we are also training our brains to be more hypervigilant in general."

https://longevity.stanford.edu/lifestyle/2024/05/30/what-excessive-screen-time-does-to-the-adult-brain/

Il Giappone sta scoprendo la gioia dei vestiti di seconda mano. Che in quel Paese sono tenuti meglio di quelli nuovi che compriamo dalle nostre parti.

Money quote: "In November last year, an unusual fashion show was staged in Tokyo's Harajuku district with many fashion brand stores. All clothes and accessories worn by the runway models were used items collected from consumers by apparel makers or provided by the models themselves.
Marketplace app operator Mercari hosted the event, where no newly made products were present. Eleven companies, including apparel makers, participated."

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/03/13/japan/apparel-sustainability/

archivio: https://archive.is/WwmOO

Quelli tra voi che sono abbonati alla mia newsletter Mostly Weekly (gli altri dovrebbero farlo 😎) l’hanno ricevuta stamani anziché domenica mattina. È stato un problema tecnico con il provider, solitamente efficiente e puntuale. Scusate il ritardo! 🙏

https://antoniodini.com/iscrizione/

Così, senza dire niente, quelli di Adelphi tirano fuori a sorpresa un nuovo romanzo di Ian Fleming (che sapete che mi piace da morire). Questa volta è "Si vive solo due volte" e ci avvicina alla fine delle opere dello scrittore britannico: ne mancano solo due. Il libro esce domani.

Money quote: "Su James Bond, ormai, si direbbe calato il sipario: non è più neanche l’ombra dell’agente «duro e audace» – il migliore fra quelli al servizio di Sua Maestà – al centro di tanti romanzi. L’assassinio di Tracy – per mano del capo della spectre, Ernst Stavro Blofeld – poche ore dopo il loro matrimonio lo ha reso fragile, incapace di portare a termine perfino il più semplice degli incarichi. Quella che M gli prospetta ha dunque tutta l’aria di un’ultima chance: una «missione impossibile» nella terra del Sol Levante da cui dipendono tanto le sorti della Guerra Fredda quanto il suo futuro di spia. Spogliato per la prima volta del suo nome in codice – 007 –, per avere successo in quest’«operazione sul filo del rasoio» James Bond dovrà non solo calarsi in una cultura millenaria così estranea alla sua, ma appropriarsene fino a «mutare pelle»; e dovrà essere pronto, per ripagare l’on contratto con Tigre Tanaka, capo dei servizi segreti nipponici, a fare quello che nessuno è stato finora in grado di fare: introdursi, ricorrendo alle arti segrete del ninjutsu, nel Castello della Morte e uccidere «il Drago» – il misterioso e diabolico dottor Shatterhand, che in un’antica fortezza sulla costa del Kyūshū ha allestito un terrificante giardino dei veleni, dove gente da tutto il Giappone accorre per darsi la morte. Ancora non sa, James Bond – di cui Fleming mette qui in luce come non mai umanità e debolezze –, che riuscire nell’impresa gli offrirà anche l’opportunità di placare la sua personale sete di vendetta."

https://www.adelphi.it/libro/9788845939686

Ed ecco a voi il quantum computer cinese

Money quote: "Chinese scientists have unveiled a new prototype superconducting quantum computer which they claim would lay the groundwork for a whole new era of processors.

Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) say the quantum computer operates at a speed that is a quadrillion (1015) times faster than the fastest supercomputer currently available.

The quantum processor, described in a new study in the journal Physical Review Letters, was also found to be a million times faster than Google’s latest experiment."

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/quantum-computer-fastest-china-processors-b2708491.html