Letture per la domanica (doppio senso)

La riscoperta delle vecchie tecnologie da parte di chi scrive romanzi, e le usa come ambientazione.

Money quote: "This juxtaposition—tech-savvy teen, antiquated technology—may seem unusual, but it’s actually become quite common in fiction. In the 2020s, Mark Athitakis writes in an Atlantic article this week, “vintage media have emerged as tactile objects that symbolize integrity, solve the crime, and radiate realness.” Airey’s novel is just one of a number of stories that seek some kind of lost meaning in the reels, discs, and cartridges that were ubiquitous before the turn of the 21st century. Athitakis points to the popularity of Stranger Things as a catalyst for this trope, but I imagine it also reflects a more personal longing. Lyca’s quest isn’t only about investigating her familial roots. It’s the story of a person who’s never lived without the internet in their pocket envisioning a lost past—and learning what life was like when their parents were young."

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/01/books-briefing-contemporary-fiction-analog-tech-confessions-catherine-airey/681528/

Archivio: https://archive.is/ZoU4l

Poi a un certo punto arriverà uno che spiegherà tutto in maniera logica e chiara, e ci daremo una botta sulla fronte con il palmo della mano e diremo in coro "Ma certo, ovvio che fosse così!". Per adesso, invece, si brancola ripetendo i soliti discorsi da almeno tre anni.

Money quote: "But when a text is written or generated by a large language model like ChatGPT, Claude or DeepSeek, the view of the author becomes clouded. Technically speaking, an algorithm wrote the text, but a human had to prompt the algorithm. So who or what is the author? Is it the algorithm, or the human, or a joint venture involving both? Why does it even matter?"

https://www.noemamag.com/ai-signals-the-death-of-the-author/

A me sta cosa del poliamore un po' mi sta saturando, però. Non c'è niente di nuovo se non che se ne accorgono quelli giovani adesso, come gli altri hanno fatto prima di loro (e poi faranno dopo di loro). Ma sai la novità.

Money quote: "I’m not currently interested in ethical non-monogamy. I see things in our relationship that I’d like to work on together with my husband. I want more of his attention and energy, to be frank. I don’t want his attention and energy being funneled into another relationship. I don’t have moral issues with ethical non-monogamy, I just don’t actually see any value-add for me right now. The cost-benefit analysis leaves me saying “not now.”

My husband admitted that he’s hoping I will have a change of mind. I don’t want to force his hand, although I am continuing to say very clearly what I want in my relationship. How do we reach a compromise? If he cuts ties with this woman, he has resentment towards me. If he continues to pursue something with her, I feel disrespected, and while I don’t want to leave him I would feel the need to do something."

https://www.vox.com/politics/414049/reading-books-decline-tiktok-oral-culture

Archivio: https://archive.is/rlG9c

Che peccato. R.I.P. William Langewiesche, lo 'Steve McQueen del giornalismo,' scomparso per un tumore a 70 anni.

Money quote: ""I just talk to people and listen carefully and respond to what they're saying and try to give of myself as much as I'm asking them to give of themselves, so that a true conversation can develop," he said. "These conversations typically will go on for weeks, on and off. Sometimes I take notes."

The real work, he said, came later when he sat down to write.

"Writing is thinking; writing is a form of thought," he said. "It's difficult for me to believe that real thought is possible without writing.""

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/business/media/william-langewiesche-dead.html

Archivio: https://archive.is/W36xw

I film migliori (negli Usa) per la Gen X. Anni Ottanta, un periodo storico in cui l'impatto dell'America sulla nostra cultura è stato enorme (musica, libri, film). Scorrendo questa lista ve ne renderete conto.

Money quote: "The big screen often reflects the society of its time, something that’s certainly true for these Gen X gems. They’re blockbuster comedies that propelled young actors to superstardom, hang-out comedies that questioned the value of success, cyber thrillers that started fictional world wars, and queer rom-coms that skewered binary norms. They spanned a decade, guiding audiences out of the fog of hairspray and neon that was the 1980s, ushering them into the grunge rebellion of the 1990s via Jane Austen adaptations and Cameron Crowe-directed coming-of-age films.

While the best movies often cross generational divides, it’s always good to remember one’s roots. In that spirit, here are 15 of the best Gen X movies (listed in chronological order) that captured a groundbreaking era—not just for cinema, but for the culture at large. "

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-15-best-gen-x-movies-of-all-time

Lo stato dell'arte: c'è un coso nello spazio che fa cose, e ce ne siamo accorti cosando per caso.

Money quote: "Located 15,000 light-years away in a region of the Milky Way brimming with stars, gas and dust, this object could be a highly magnetized dead star like a neutron or white dwarf, Curtin University’s Ziteng Andy Wang said in an email from Australia.

Or it could be “something exotic” and unknown, said Wang, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature."

https://apnews.com/article/strange-celestial-object-milky-way-7c119d11d37b2b5b0fa254154b4aba8e

Uno strano articolo che prende sul serio gli origami (e perché non dovremmo?) spiegando come hanno cambiato e stanno continuando a cambiare il mondo.

Money quote: "The art form didn’t stop at paper. As early as 1529, high courts of Europe folded linen and other fabrics for decoration. Today, the art of origami inspires advancements in fields like architecture, medicine, biology, and robotics. Some modern-day inventions that are in debt to origami engineering are the ability for rapid rebuilding of structures following natural disasters; and for creating a small, flexible tool that attaches to laparoscopes and endoscopes that can quickly expand and contract so that surgeons can clean the scope without having to remove it from the surgical site."

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/the-history-of-towel-art

Supplemento:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/origami-driving-futuristic-technologies-feature

La nuova Mostly Weekly numero 329 è pronta: Boeing in picchiata, sogni antichissimi e ciao Brian Wilson. Una lettura piena di spunti per chi ama farsi domande senza prendersi mai troppo sul serio (ChatGPT dixit)

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/329/

Letture per la domenica.

Dobbiamo studiare il progresso per capire come fare a farlo meglio. O di più, che negli Usa temo sia considerata la stessa cosa.

Money quote: "Looking backwards, it’s striking how unevenly distributed progress has been in the past. In antiquity, the ancient Greeks were discoverers of everything from the arch bridge to the spherical earth. By 1100, the successful pursuit of new knowledge was probably most concentrated in parts of China and the Middle East. Along the cultural dimension, the artists of Renaissance Florence enriched the heritage of all humankind, and in the process created the masterworks that are still the lifeblood of the local economy. The late 18th and early 19th century saw a burst of progress in Northern England, with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In each case, the discoveries that came to elevate standards of living for everyone arose in comparatively tiny geographic pockets of innovative effort. Present-day instances include places like Silicon Valley in software and Switzerland’s Basel region in life sciences."

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/we-need-new-science-progress/594946/

Ma insomma, questo nuovo "design language" di Apple, il Liquid Glass, piace oppure no? I primi pionieri sono presi bene, a quanto pare.

Money quote: "The idea seems to be that because they're "floating" a layer over things like your lockscreen wallpaper or text, the "glass" can be translucent to give you a sense of what's under them. It makes sense. The initial implementation in the iOS 26 developer beta has many of Apple's signature flourishes and attention to detail.

But boy are the changes jarring when you first see them."

https://www.theverge.com/apple/683914/apple-iphone-ios-26-changes-liquid-glass

È arrivata l'intelligenza artificiale: che funzioni o non funzioni, c'è chi fa finta di niente. Ad esempio, alcune università americane. E quelle italiane? Chissà.

Money quote: "On the contrary, staggering transformations are in full swing. And yet, on campus, we’re in a bizarre interlude: everyone seems intent on pretending that the most significant revolution in the world of thought in the past century isn’t happening. The approach appears to be: “We’ll just tell the kids they can’t use these tools and carry on as before.” This is, simply, madness. And it won’t hold for long. It’s time to talk about what all this means for university life, and for the humanities in particular."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/will-the-humanities-survive-artificial-intelligence

https://archive.is/4EOYW

Cosa gli farà l'AI a Hollywood e agli sceneggiatori in particolare? Un mazzo così, verrebbe da dire. E infatti non facevano male a scioperare. Come molte altre categorie non farebbero male.

Money quote: "We met Lyonne in a corner of the studio where uncanny clips generated by Asteria’s AI model were playing on a dozen old-school televisions. The footage was unnerving. Robots with smooth, blank faces typed blindly in an old-fashioned office. Disembodied mannequin heads drifted in space. Lyonne was drinking a sugar-free Red Bull and wearing a structured black velvet jacket with a plunging neckline. She was fresh off a plane from Seattle, where she had done a talk with the science-fiction author Ted Chiang, who has written at length about why AI will never create great art. Over the past few years in Hollywood, it had become clear to Lyonne that many people were not being forthright with how often they were using the technology. “If I’m directing an episode, I like to get really into line items and specifics,” she said. “And you find out that there’s a lot of situations where they’re calling it machine learning or something but, really, it’s AI.” She had begun to do her own research. She read the Oxford scholar Brian Christian and the philosopher Nick Bostrom, who argues that AI presents a significant threat to humanity’s long-term existence. Still, she had come to feel it was too late to “put the genie back in that bottle.” “It’s better to get your hands dirty than pretend it’s not happening,” she said."

https://www.vulture.com/article/generative-ai-hollywood-movies-tv.html

archivio: https://archive.is/Ppgsb

La fine dei processori Intel nel mondo Mac passa dalla fine del sistema di emulazione che garantisce la compatibilità software di un sacco di applicativi, Rosetta 2.

Money quote: "According to a portion of the Platforms State of the Union, developers have until macOS 28 to get their apps running natively on Apple Silicon. They also shared that macOS 26 is the last Mac operating system that will support Intel-based Macs. When it arrives, macOS 28 will still run Rosetta 2, but scaled back significantly to support only legacy apps like old games that won't be updated again. The full Rosetta 2 translation layer will still work in macOS 26 and macOS 27, in the meantime."

https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/06/10/macos-27-will-be-the-last-operating-system-to-fully-support-rosetta-2

Terry Pratchett è il mago segreto della fantascienza - e io ne ho scritto abbondantemente su Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2025/06/terry-pratchett-fantascienza/

Impariamo tutti a fare i "sogni lucidi", quelli in cui siamo consapevoli di sognare nel mentre che sognamo (e io che non ho ancora capito se sogno a colori o in bianco e nero)

Money quote: "Though scientists still don't know why dreaming is so important for humans, studies suggest that those deprived of REM sleep suffer may from increased risk of obesity, memory problems, and increased inflammation. It's clear that REM sleep adds to our physical quality of life, so it makes sense why one might want to delve further into their subconscious through lucid dreaming, or dreaming with the awareness that you're asleep. The practice's TikTok hashtag alone has close to 600 million views on videos that encourage and instruct viewers on how to tap into their subconscious mind (and sometimes offer creepy advice on what not to do during your experience)."

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-to-lucid-dream-and-enjoy-it-according-to-experts

L'ex premier neozelandese, Jacinta Ardern, ha avuto una parabola molto particolare: per un periodo è stata il segnale di qualcosa di nuovo che ha influenzato anche l'immagine dei politici italiani (vedi Elly Schlein). Poi, puf, andata. E con lei anche la spiegazione del perché. Eppure, di cose da dire ce ne sarebbero state molte. Solo che lei non le affronta.

Money quote: "A new memoir by the former Prime Minister revisits her time in office but doesn’t explain the confounding transformation the country underwent during covid.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/why-did-new-zealand-turn-on-jacinda-ardern

archivio: https://archive.is/qEkOG

Letture per la domenica

Comprereste un orologio il cui interno è pieno di un liquido a bassissima vischiosità e ad altissima trasparenza usato per le bussole di rotta sulle navi? Ecco.

Money quote: "As you can see, since the Type 3’s introduction in 2013, Ressence’s oil-filled watches have constantly been subject to innovation. Compared to the Type 3 and 5, the ROCS module in the Type 7 now features jewel ball bearings instead of regular axes, jewels, and gears. This is a concept taken from the Type 2, which allows for a much slimmer construction. The only disadvantage is that you can hear these ball bearings rattle when you shake the watch. This doesn’t mean that the watch isn’t well constructed, although the sound does make it seem that way. This is something Benoît is trying to solve for future Ressence watches."

https://www.fratellowatches.com/up-close-and-personal-with-benoit-mintiens-and-ressences-oil-filled-watches/

La gente vuole la pace. Vuole girare, vedere, fare affari, innamorarsi, litigare, fare turismo, mangiare e bere, comprare cose, consumarne altre. Non vuole spararsi, a parte forse una ristretta minoranza di esaltati. Questa è l'idea che mi viene sempre quando leggo le statistiche del consumo di dati dei telefoni cellulari in roaming.

Money quote: "Secondo un rapporto pubblicato da Research And Markets dal titolo Roaming Tariffs – Global Strategic Business Report il mercato globale delle tariffe di roaming è stato stimato a 79,2 miliardi di dollari nel 2024 e si prevede che raggiungerà i 105,6 miliardi di dollari entro il 2030, con una crescita del 4,9% dal 2024 al 2030.

Questo aumento è guidato dalla crescente richiesta di piani di roaming più flessibili, trasparenti e convenienti, in risposta all’espansione dei viaggi internazionali e del lavoro da remoto. I provider stanno adattando le proprie offerte con soluzioni regionali, pay-as-you-go e pacchetti illimitati per soddisfare le esigenze dei vari profili di viaggiatori."

https://www.corrierecomunicazioni.it/telco/roaming-globale-connettivita-mobile-verso-i-105-miliardi-di-dollari-entro-il-2030/

Pazza idea: e se l'AI che distrugge la parte commerciale del web ci lasciasse con un web più piccolo ma migliore? Chissà, d'estate la notte si può sognare, no?

Money quote: "Think about it: if AI-generated search results (or even direct use of AI chat interfaces) subsumes web search as a primary way to look up information, there will be no more motivation to crank out SEO-driven content. These kinds of articles will fade into obscurity as the only purpose for their existence (monetization) is gone.

Perhaps we will be left with the blogosphere of old with webrings and RSS (not that these things went away but they're certainly not mainstream anymore)."

https://www.pcloadletter.dev/blog/ai-will-make-blogging-better/

Interrotto alcuni giorni fa il Parigi-Milano perché ha piovuto. Negare che ci sia un cambiamento climatico in atto e contestualmente un problema forte di infrastrutture mi sembra sempre più in malafede, francamente.

Money quote: "Al momento sono in corso operazioni di bonifica per ripristinare la sicurezza e la funzionalità della linea ferroviaria. La SNCF ha espresso l'auspicio che non siano stati compromessi i binari, poiché eventuali danni strutturali potrebbero prolungare ulteriormente la sospensione del collegamento tra le due città."

https://www.lastampa.it/torino/2025/07/01/news/treni_milano_parigi_interrotti_maltempo-15213788/

Il mondo dei videogiochi sta cambiando alla velocità della luce. Wow.

Money quote: "Expedition 33', el juego mejor valorado del año y convertido en un superventas, ha costado 10 millones de euros, ni la décima parte de lo que cuesta una superproducción. La tecnología ayuda a abaratar obras que, hasta hace no tanto, habrían costado fortunas"

https://elpais.com/cultura/2025-06-28/la-revolucion-creativa-low-cost-cuando-la-tecnologia-pone-el-arte-al-alcance-de-todos.html