Un saggio letterario ed etnografico, "On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë", cerca di rispondere a una domanda piuttosto complessa, che non si ferma semplicemente alla fascinazione che il Giappone ha per Emily Brontë ma tocca anche le ragioni di una forma di egemonia culturale (quella americana) su varie parti del mondo.

Money quote: "While teaching in Japan, Judith Pascoe was fascinated to discover the popularity that Emily Brontë’s novel "Wuthering Heights" has enjoyed there. Nearly one hundred years after its first formal introduction to the country, the novel continues to engage the imaginations of Japanese novelists, filmmakers, manga artists, and others, resulting in numerous translations, adaptations, and dramatizations. "On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë" is Pascoe’s lively account of her quest to discover the reasons for the continuous Japanese embrace of "Wuthering Heights". At the same time, the book chronicles Pascoe’s experience as an adult student of Japanese. She contemplates the multiple Japanese translations of Brontë, as contrasted to the single (or nonexistent) English translations of major Japanese writers. Carrying out a close reading of a distant country’s "Wuthering Heights", Pascoe begins to see American literary culture as a small island on which readers are isolated from foreign literature."

https://www.press.umich.edu/9373334/on_the_bullet_train_with_emily_bronte

Nel Novecento la filosofia ha abbandonato i problemi metafisici che hanno a che fare con Dio, la realtà, il senso, e si è interrogata sull'espressione, la linguistica, il testo. Fino ad ora, perché ci sono nuove svolte, nuove ossessioni che sta emergendo all'indagine.

Money quote: "‘There is nothing outside the text,’ wrote Jacques Derrida in 1967. Like most everything Derrida said, this notorious declaration becomes more difficult to interpret as one examines its context and the context of its context. But it aptly captures the flavour of academic philosophy at the time it appeared, which was also the year of Richard Rorty’s anthology The Linguistic Turn, which embodied an argument that the most important philosophy of the 20th century was linguistic philosophy. By then, everyone but a few reactionaries would have agreed with that assessment. Philosophy had for decades been relentlessly emphasising the nature of language (as opposed to, for example, the nature of reality, goodness or beauty). There was some dispute about whether there could be any genuine philosophical questions that were not questions about language."

https://aeon.co/essays/how-philosophys-obsession-with-language-unravelled

I Meridiani Mondadori di Philip K. Dick - un suggerimento di lettura per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2025/05/philip-k-dick-meridiani-mondadori/

La AI non ci porterà via il lavoro. Sarà qualcuno che ha imparato a usarla a farlo. Per questo ha senso cercare di capire come funziona e provarci. Se ne parla già da tempo, direi. Forse qualcosa dietro c'è.

Money quote: "We believe it’s no longer useful to debate whether this tool is “smarter “or “better” than us. The tools are here, and they’re already being widely used. What matters to us — Tomas, the author of the new book I, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique, and Dorie, a consultant and keynote speaker on personal branding and career development — is how we can better ourselves by using them."

https://hbr.org/2023/04/5-ways-to-future-proof-your-career-in-the-age-of-ai

Il Giappone ha inventato la macchina per cuocere il riso automaticamente. Un vero e proprio robot da cucina che fa una cosa sola ma la fa molto bene. E non è un semplice bollitore.

Money quote: "For centuries, most Japanese cooks made rice with a kamado, a box-shaped range topped with a heavy iron pot. It was painfully tricky. Cooking rice this way, says columnist and food writer Makiko Itoh, takes heat modulation: high heat until the water and rice boils, then low heat, then high heat again. “And that, with a wood-burning stove, is very difficult.” Each day, Japanese women rose at dawn and labored for several sweaty hours to make rice."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rice-cooker-history/

Il participio passato di "soccombere", così come quello di "dirimere" e "prudere" non è in uso. Sarebbe "soccombuto" ma si preferisce usare una sorta di perifrasi: "io ho dovuto soccombere".

Money quote: "Un participio passato che non ci aspettiamo è invece incusso (verbo incutere), formato normalmente sul modello di discutere > discusso."

https://www.treccani.it/magazine/lingua_italiana/domande_e_risposte/grammatica/grammatica_1663.html

Sono i "verbi difficili", di cui la Treccani ci parla diffusamente qui:

https://accademiadellacrusca.it/it/consulenza/verbi-difficili/221

Foreste, hacking, libri e nostalgia del futuro: Mostly Weekly 323 è online e presto vi arriva anche via email, se siete iscritti (è tutto gratuito)

www.antoniodini.com/weekly/323/

Letture per la domenica

Ho una passione particolare per un solo tipo di orologi meccanici: quelli con la complicazione che indica un secondo fuso orario. Si chiamano "orologi GMT" e ce ne sono di veramente belli ma decisamente costosi.

Money quote: "Of all the complications offered by mechanical timepieces, globetrotters arguably find none more practical than the GMT. So named after the Greenwich Mean Time, the watch’s ability to indicate two different time zones allows its wearer to keep track of the local time and the home time at a glance. It’s an extremely useful tool that helps travellers stay connected to life back home. Even more so when the watch’s good looks get one respect and nods of approval at any corner of the globe. Here are four GMT timepieces that will easily take you from meetings to merrymaking, no matter the time zone."

https://cnaluxury.channelnewsasia.com/obsessions/gmt-watches-rolex-patek-philippe-bell-ross-tudor-236056

La macchina fotografica a pellicola perfetta non esiste. Ma ogni tanto si trovano piccole gemme per usi particolari.

Money quote: "A year ago I was looking for the “ultimate film compact camera”, the Ricoh GR1 series, but I was somewhat afraid of what I’ve read on many websites: they’re fragile, they can’t be repaired (or at least, not easily and cheap), and I was scared of wasting more than 600€ that I could invest in film and chemicals instead of a future paperweight. So, I looked for an alternative

I’m a “stray shooter” (similar to a “street photographer”, but that’s for another day), I’m from Barcelona, Spain, and I shoot A LOT daily. Even though I have a little collection of cameras of different sizes, formats — Leica and Rolleiflex included — I’m personally a fan of 135 film compact wide-angle cameras, they fit perfectly into what I do: shooting in streets, wandering without disturbing or being seen, going light, getting closer…

In my searches I’ve come across to the “younger siblings” of the GR1 series, the R1 (reviewed recently by EM and very promising for me) and something very, very interesting: The Ricoh GR10"

https://emulsive.org/reviews/camera-reviews/ricoh-camera-reviews/the-ricoh-gr10-piggy-in-the-middle-gr-sibling-plus-gr1s-comparison

L'articolo di JR Moehringer sul *New Yorker* che parla del memoir "Spare" (la vita del principe Harry scritta dal famoso ghostwriter) è un modo straordinario per "vedere" il suo modo di lavorare come ghost.

Money quote: "Although this wasn’t the first time that Harry and I had argued, it felt different; it felt as if we were hurtling toward some kind of decisive rupture, in part because Harry was no longer saying anything. He was just glaring into the camera. Finally, he exhaled and calmly explained that, all his life, people had belittled his intellectual capabilities, and this flash of cleverness proved that, even after being kicked and punched and deprived of sleep and food, he had his wits about him.

“Oh,” I said. “O.K.” It made sense now. But I still refused.

“Why?”

Because, I told him, everything you just said is about you. You want the world to know that you did a good job, that you were smart. But, strange as it may seem, memoir isn’t about you. It’s not even the story of your life. It’s a story carved from your life, a particular series of events chosen because they have the greatest resonance for the widest range of people, and at this point in the story those people don’t need to know anything more than that your captors said a cruel thing about your mom."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/15/j-r-moehringer-ghostwriter-prince-harry-memoir-spare

La capacità di Nintendo di avere successo nonostante tutto, cosa che spesso vuol dire nonostante se stessa, è veramente rimarchevole.

Money quote: "Writing on social media, Dr Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy firm Kantan Games, described the amount of interest in Switch 2 as "ridiculous", but also noted Nintendo had "originally promised enough supply for launch - which of course immediately sounded like a fairy tale for anybody with a basic understanding of the game market"."

https://www.eurogamer.net/nintendo-admits-switch-2-demand-far-exceeds-expectations-in-japan-as-company-president-offers-stark-warning-over-stock

La storia e il pensiero di James Baldwin, uno dei più grandi intellettuali e attivisti del Novecento.

Money quote: "Between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, Baldwin became a preacher at the Fireside Pentecostal Assembly, where he developed a celebrated preaching style. His brief experience in the church would have a sustained impact on his rhetorical style and on the themes, symbols, and biblical allusions in his writings. Baldwin’s Pentecostal experience is, in fact, essential to understanding his complex views on Christianity, which he espoused in his speeches and publications. His experience in the pulpit also served to inflect his overall stance on religion, and his ultimate rejection of it in the name of humanistic love. In The Fire Next Time, Baldwin proclaims, “If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, it is time we got rid of Him.”"

https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/introduction-james-baldwin

Cosa sarebbe successo se? La storia non è fatta di se e di ma, però con l'intelligenza artificiale si può illustrare una contro-storia costruita sull'emergere di ipotesi e desiderata. Magari alternativi anche alla cultura che più è dilagata nel pianeta. Benvenuti nell'epoca della decolonizzazione smart.

Money quote: "Since the launch of image generators like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, a new wave of generative AI-focused creators have taken to TikTok. These accounts, some of which already have followings in the hundreds of thousands, post slideshow carousels of novel AI art. But one subset of creators is playing into a decolonial curiosity with its content — one that seems to ask, what if Western imperial nations never came to power?

The TikTok account @what.if_ai, for one, already has over 27,000 followers. It posts videos with prompts like, “What if Mexico invaded the U.S.?” and “What if Somalia conquered Europe?”"

https://restofworld.org/2023/ai-tiktok-creators-rewrite-history/

L'era del lavoro da remoto è finita. Lo ha detto il capo di OpenAI, Sam Altman già due anni fa.

Money quote: "Talking about work from home, Altman added that he considers remote work as an experiment. He stated, "I think definitely one of tech industry's worst mistakes in a long time was that everybody (thought they) could go full remote forever, and startups didn't need to be together. There was going to be no loss of creativity. I would say that the experiment on that is over, and the technology is not yet good enough that people can be full remote forever, particularly on startups.""

https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/chatgpt-maker-sam-altman-says-era-of-remote-work-is-over-380090-2023-05-04

Preview per i follower

Le carte di credito con le ali, il vecchio Mujica, le città che sprofondano, i papiri che parlano.

Mostly Weekly #324 è arrivata: storie vere, strane, utili

👉 antoniodini.com/weekly/324/

Letture per la domenica


Vivere di più: un punto di vista da "interno" sull'uomo che sta ottimizzando tutto per vivere fino a 125 anni. (Tanto poi schiatta lo stesso, no?)

Money quote: "In 2022, some 12 years later, I came across Bryan Johnson. A successful entrepreneur, also ex-Mormon, optimizing his health and longevity through data. It was familiar. He had come to this kind of life optimization in a slightly different way and for different reasons, but I was so excited by what he was doing. I thought, “This is how I’d live if I had unlimited funds.”

He said he was optimizing every organ and body system: What does our heart need? What does our brain need? What does our liver need? He was optimizing the biomarkers for each one. He said he believed in data, honesty and transparency, and following where the data led. He was open to challenging societal norms. He said he had a team of doctors, had reviewed thousands of studies to develop his protocols. He said every calorie had to fight for its life to be in his body. He suggested everything should be third-party tested. He also suggested that in our lifetime advances in medicine would allow people to live radically longer lives, or even to not die. "

https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/when-im-125/

Mi sembra evidente che non esiste una sola versione degli Stati Uniti. Ne esiste più di una, con un set di valori e credenze diverse. E stanno andando in collisione.

Money quote: "The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery "except as punishment for a crime," meant that slavery never truly ended—it evolved. Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th does an expertly precise job of tracing how that clause (a constitutional asterisk) morphed into the logic of modern mass incarceration. It follows the evolution of slavery through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the War on Drugs, Clinton-era criminal codes, privatized prisons, and the emergence of what is now a penal economy. She shows that nothing ended; it only transformed. The old tactics found new forms. The chains became policy. The plantations got vending machines.

This is not new. None of it is new. The public is merely catching up to a reality that Black and Indigenous people have always known: that the state will turn on you, consume you, silence you, erase you—and call it justice.

What we are witnessing is not a collapse. It is a continuation.

A metastasis."

https://davidgate.substack.com/p/say-the-words-american-concentration

ieri è morto Nichi Grauso, uno dei padri dell'internet italiana (e non solo)

Money quote: "Internet nel nostro Paese avrebbe avuto una storia completamente diversa, se non ci fosse stato Nichi Grauso. Nessuno come lui, infatti, ha saputo interpretare le potenzialità della rivoluzione digitale in Italia (e quanto ci sarebbe bisogno di un altro Grauso per l’intelligenza artificiale), portando il nostro Paese sulla mappa dell’informazione globale quando internet era ancora una creatura misteriosa e ignota ai più."

https://www.macitynet.it/addio-nichi-grauso-italia-internet/

Psicopatologia degli amici "io, io, io". Cioè che parlano sempre di sé.

Money quote: "En realidad, hay dos tipos de amigos que se comportan de esta manera. Los que se dan cuenta y los que no son conscientes de ello. Alicia González, autora del libro Parejas mejores (Montena, 2025), señala que los últimos están atrapados en su propio ruido mental. “No significa que no les importe lo que dices, es que simplemente no tienen la capacidad en ese momento de salir de su burbuja. Los que sí lo saben, pero lo hacen igual, suelen verlo como algo normal, priorizan su necesidad de desahogarse sobre el equilibrio en la conversación. La diferencia está en la intención: unos lo hacen sin querer, otros sin importarles demasiado”, asegura."

https://elpais.com/smoda/bienestar/2025-02-26/amigos-yo-yo-yo-como-reaccionar-ante-quienes-solo-hablan-de-si-mismos.html

"Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" è un meraviglioso disastro - la mia recensione per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2025/05/mission-impossible-the-final-reckoning-recensione-film/

Tra le hostess francesi è difficile ottenere un riconoscimento dei rischi professionali. Primo fra tutto il tumore al seno.

Money quote: "En l'espace de quarante-huit heures, plus d'une centaine de femmes lui ont répondu. En postant son message sur un réseau social, fin janvier, Sophie Lainault ne s'attendait pourtant pas à ce que celui-ci suscite autant de réactions : *« Je suis hôtesse de l'air, je me bats pour une reconnaissance professionnelle de mon cancer du sein, si vous êtes intéressée nous pouvons en parler. »* Mais les marques de solidarité ont afflué. *« On est trop nombreuses à être touchées, mais peu osent réellement témoigner »*, constate-t-elle."

https://www.lemonde.fr/emploi/article/2025/02/26/cancers-chez-les-hotesses-de-l-air-la-difficile-reconnaissance-des-risques-professionnels_6564574_1698637.html