Siamo tutti ossessionati dal matcha, il tè verde giapponese. È diventato un fenomeno mondiale. E sta mandando in tilt l'industria locale, anche perché i prezzi sono altissimi ma i piccoli produttori indipendenti non riescono a stargli dietro. Articolo fenomenale per capire come funziona e le ragioni indirette di questa bolla del tè.
Money quote: "If you’re on social media, there’s a bankable chance your algorithm has served you matcha in some form or another. It’s easy to picture the verdant powder, whisked to froth in glazed chawan before being tipped, streaming, into a glass of cold milk; or a domestic surface populated with small tins and at least one bamboo whisk—the prototypical post-Japan haul. On MatchaTok, you’ll see influencers whip up their foamy beverages in zellige-tiled kitchens, cramped hotel rooms, and even on long-haul flights."
https://atmos.earth/the-world-wants-matcha-japans-farms-cant-keep-up/
Money quote: "If you’re on social media, there’s a bankable chance your algorithm has served you matcha in some form or another. It’s easy to picture the verdant powder, whisked to froth in glazed chawan before being tipped, streaming, into a glass of cold milk; or a domestic surface populated with small tins and at least one bamboo whisk—the prototypical post-Japan haul. On MatchaTok, you’ll see influencers whip up their foamy beverages in zellige-tiled kitchens, cramped hotel rooms, and even on long-haul flights."
https://atmos.earth/the-world-wants-matcha-japans-farms-cant-keep-up/
Atmos
The World Wants Matcha. Japan’s Farms Can’t Keep Up.
The world’s obsession with the green tea pushed prices to historic highs. But as droughts and extreme heat squeeze harvests, small farmers question how long they can keep up.
Critici sostituiti da influencer, software che si piegano all’utente, retrofuturo giapponese e pure Gesù nel muro: Mostly Weekly numero 339 è appena uscita
https://antoniodini.com/weekly/339/
https://antoniodini.com/weekly/339/
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Letture per la domenica
Tratto da un libro che raccoglie dei saggi dello scrittore cubano Abraham Jiménez Enoa, intitolato originariamente "La isla oculta" e appena tradotto in inglese appropriatamente come "The Hidden Island", questo saggio parla della rete underground che fa funzionare La Bolita, la lotteria quotidiana totalmente illegale ma popolarissima a Cuba. Stupendo.
Money quote: "Cuba’s gambling laws threaten any “banker, messenger, collector, or promoter of illegal gambling” with “one to three years in prison, payments of 300 to 1,000 pesos, or both,” adding that “if the aforementioned crimes are committed by two or more people or involve minors under sixteen years of age, the prison term will be three to eight years.” But more Cubans play La Bolita than baseball, the national sport.
“No city, town, or corner is free from this devouring cancer,” wrote the nineteenth-century intellectual José Antonio Saco in his celebrated 1832 treatise Memoir on Vagrancy in Cuba. “It has crept from Punta de Maisí to Cabo de San Antonio, from the westernmost tip of the island to the east.”
In the twentieth century, when Cuba was a neocolonial property of the United States, the game was run by men who sold small, numbered balls called bolitas, hence its name. A ball cost anywhere from a cent to a peso. You could hear the winning numbers on the radio or public-access television. Unlike the state lottery, which cost much more, even the poorest people could play."
https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2025-08/lucks-children-hidden-island-jimenez-enoa-meyer/
Tratto da un libro che raccoglie dei saggi dello scrittore cubano Abraham Jiménez Enoa, intitolato originariamente "La isla oculta" e appena tradotto in inglese appropriatamente come "The Hidden Island", questo saggio parla della rete underground che fa funzionare La Bolita, la lotteria quotidiana totalmente illegale ma popolarissima a Cuba. Stupendo.
Money quote: "Cuba’s gambling laws threaten any “banker, messenger, collector, or promoter of illegal gambling” with “one to three years in prison, payments of 300 to 1,000 pesos, or both,” adding that “if the aforementioned crimes are committed by two or more people or involve minors under sixteen years of age, the prison term will be three to eight years.” But more Cubans play La Bolita than baseball, the national sport.
“No city, town, or corner is free from this devouring cancer,” wrote the nineteenth-century intellectual José Antonio Saco in his celebrated 1832 treatise Memoir on Vagrancy in Cuba. “It has crept from Punta de Maisí to Cabo de San Antonio, from the westernmost tip of the island to the east.”
In the twentieth century, when Cuba was a neocolonial property of the United States, the game was run by men who sold small, numbered balls called bolitas, hence its name. A ball cost anywhere from a cent to a peso. You could hear the winning numbers on the radio or public-access television. Unlike the state lottery, which cost much more, even the poorest people could play."
https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2025-08/lucks-children-hidden-island-jimenez-enoa-meyer/
Words Without Borders
Luck's Children by Abraham Jiménez Enoa - Words Without Borders
Cuban writer Abraham Jiménez Enoa draws us into the underground network that runs La Bolita, Cuba’s wildy popular—and illegal—daily lottery.
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In italiano in effetti non viene usato se non per introdurre delle battute di dialogo (e la convenzione tipografica è leggermente diversa) ma in inglese il trattino lungo (cioè l'em dash) viene usato e anche parecchio. Per questo l'idea che circola nella rete anglofona, cioè che si tratti di un chiaro segnale che un testo è stato scritto dall'intelligenza artificiale perché "l'em dash non viene usato dalle persone" è abbastanza balzana.
Money quote: "Yet for months, the em dash has been the victim of a relentless campaign of online persecution the likes of which no punctuation mark, not even the semicolon, has ever seen. Any chucklehead who disagrees with an online post can, if that post happens to include an em dash, dismiss it with the claim that it was written by a chatbot. It’s gotten so bad that people on random subreddits are having to issue PSAs informing their fellow users that em dashes were not invented by ChatGPT. These people are heroes of our time. Normally I’m an enthusiastic advocate of AI-shaming, but I will not stand idly by while you make the em dash a pawn in your dirty game of bot-spotting."
https://www.theringer.com/2025/08/20/pop-culture/em-dash-use-ai-artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-google-gemini
Post scritto mio: il trattino semplice in italiano ha una lunghezza diversa dall'em dash. Nelle due lingue questi trattini sono comunque più lunghi dal trattino usato per legare assieme le parole, tipo "part-time" (quello che nelle nostre tastiere sta a destra prima del tasto delle maiscole). In inglese invece l'em dash introduce digressioni o chiarimenti, serve a dare enfasi e colore. Negli ultimi anni sta entrando anche nella scrittura italiana come prestito stilistico, anche se le varie funzioni dell'em dash in italiano sono coperte a seconda della bisogna dai due punti (per introdurre spiegazioni o elenchi), parentesi (per le digressioni), virgole e punti e virgola (per le pause più o meno forti).
Tipo: "C’era una sola cosa da fare — scappare."
Che in italiano di solito si scrive: "C’era una sola cosa da fare: scappare."
Quindi, esiste il segno dell'em dash (c'è nell'Unicode, per dire) ma non appartiene alla norma italiana; invece, lo stiamo importanto sempre più di frequente, salvo che le AI non lo rendano "cancellabile".
Money quote: "Yet for months, the em dash has been the victim of a relentless campaign of online persecution the likes of which no punctuation mark, not even the semicolon, has ever seen. Any chucklehead who disagrees with an online post can, if that post happens to include an em dash, dismiss it with the claim that it was written by a chatbot. It’s gotten so bad that people on random subreddits are having to issue PSAs informing their fellow users that em dashes were not invented by ChatGPT. These people are heroes of our time. Normally I’m an enthusiastic advocate of AI-shaming, but I will not stand idly by while you make the em dash a pawn in your dirty game of bot-spotting."
https://www.theringer.com/2025/08/20/pop-culture/em-dash-use-ai-artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-google-gemini
Post scritto mio: il trattino semplice in italiano ha una lunghezza diversa dall'em dash. Nelle due lingue questi trattini sono comunque più lunghi dal trattino usato per legare assieme le parole, tipo "part-time" (quello che nelle nostre tastiere sta a destra prima del tasto delle maiscole). In inglese invece l'em dash introduce digressioni o chiarimenti, serve a dare enfasi e colore. Negli ultimi anni sta entrando anche nella scrittura italiana come prestito stilistico, anche se le varie funzioni dell'em dash in italiano sono coperte a seconda della bisogna dai due punti (per introdurre spiegazioni o elenchi), parentesi (per le digressioni), virgole e punti e virgola (per le pause più o meno forti).
Tipo: "C’era una sola cosa da fare — scappare."
Che in italiano di solito si scrive: "C’era una sola cosa da fare: scappare."
Quindi, esiste il segno dell'em dash (c'è nell'Unicode, per dire) ma non appartiene alla norma italiana; invece, lo stiamo importanto sempre più di frequente, salvo che le AI non lo rendano "cancellabile".
Theringer
Stop AI-Shaming Our Precious, Kindly Em Dashes—Please
Human writers have always used the em dash. In fact, it’s the most human punctuation mark there is.
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In Canada hanno legalizzato l'eutanasia quasi dieci anni fa. Questo sta avendo un impatto sociale notevole al punto che adesso è statisticamente rilevante per le cause di morte di quel Paese.
Money quote: "When Canada’s Parliament in 2016 legalized the practice of euthanasia—Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID, as it’s formally called—it launched an open-ended medical experiment. One day, administering a lethal injection to a patient was against the law; the next, it was as legitimate as a tonsillectomy, but often with less of a wait. MAID now accounts for about one in 20 deaths in Canada—more than Alzheimer’s and diabetes combined—surpassing countries where assisted dying has been legal for far longer."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/09/canada-euthanasia-demand-maid-policy/683562/
archivio: https://archive.is/GLzqm
Money quote: "When Canada’s Parliament in 2016 legalized the practice of euthanasia—Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID, as it’s formally called—it launched an open-ended medical experiment. One day, administering a lethal injection to a patient was against the law; the next, it was as legitimate as a tonsillectomy, but often with less of a wait. MAID now accounts for about one in 20 deaths in Canada—more than Alzheimer’s and diabetes combined—surpassing countries where assisted dying has been legal for far longer."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/09/canada-euthanasia-demand-maid-policy/683562/
archivio: https://archive.is/GLzqm
The Atlantic
Canada Is Killing Itself
The country gave its citizens the right to die. Doctors are struggling to keep up with demand.
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Questo articolo sostiene che i sistemi di credenze, come il modello geocentrico della Chiesa cattolica, sono strutturati come cattedrali concettuali con idee interconnesse. Mettere in discussione una convinzione fondamentale, come l'eliocentrismo, può destabilizzare l'intero sistema, portando a dissonanza cognitiva e ragionamenti divergenti. Strategie efficaci per cambiare le credenze implicano il targeting dei nodi principali o la rottura delle connessioni tra le idee, piuttosto che fare affidamento esclusivamente su prove fattuali. Le convinzioni strutturate in sistemi sono difficili ma non impossibili da riorganizzare.
Money quote: "The Church’s worldview was a bonafide conceptual cathedral. Its visible rituals and teachings rested on a hidden architecture of interlocking ideas, each supporting and reinforcing the others. At the very foundation was the belief that Christianity—and specifically the Church—was the sole authority on interpreting reality. The geocentric model was a crucial supporting pillar: it was drawn directly from noscripture and literally carved into the intellectual and physical fabric of Christian society. To question geocentrism was to question the explanatory power of noscripture itself, and by extension, the Church’s authority to define what was true."
https://vasily.cc/blog/facts-dont-change-minds/
Money quote: "The Church’s worldview was a bonafide conceptual cathedral. Its visible rituals and teachings rested on a hidden architecture of interlocking ideas, each supporting and reinforcing the others. At the very foundation was the belief that Christianity—and specifically the Church—was the sole authority on interpreting reality. The geocentric model was a crucial supporting pillar: it was drawn directly from noscripture and literally carved into the intellectual and physical fabric of Christian society. To question geocentrism was to question the explanatory power of noscripture itself, and by extension, the Church’s authority to define what was true."
https://vasily.cc/blog/facts-dont-change-minds/
Vas Zayarskiy
Why Facts Don’t Change Minds in the Culture Wars—Structure Does
Why do facts bounce off some people? It’s not about logic; it’s about structure. Your worldview isn’t a list of opinions—it's a living network. And right now, it's at war.
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Classifichiamola come "una modesta proposta"
Money quote: "At the age of 82, he is only a couple years older than the current president and the same age as the prior one. Amelio could hop right back in and provide leadership that doesn’t involve building one-of-a-kind objects that are designed as elaborate appeasement vehicles.
So … yeah! Get Gil Amelio back in the chair, put him on the board, let him run the company, have him figure out how to manage with higher tariffs and less political support. But at least he won’t be out there making cringey shows of support just to keep a political figure on the company’s side."
https://tedium.co/2025/08/06/tim-cook-apple-trump-gift/
Money quote: "At the age of 82, he is only a couple years older than the current president and the same age as the prior one. Amelio could hop right back in and provide leadership that doesn’t involve building one-of-a-kind objects that are designed as elaborate appeasement vehicles.
So … yeah! Get Gil Amelio back in the chair, put him on the board, let him run the company, have him figure out how to manage with higher tariffs and less political support. But at least he won’t be out there making cringey shows of support just to keep a political figure on the company’s side."
https://tedium.co/2025/08/06/tim-cook-apple-trump-gift/
Tedium: The Dull Side of the Internet.
Gil Amelio Wouldn’t Give Trump A Desk Ornament
If Tim Cook is busy having Apple make unnecessary ornaments as appeasement for political leaders, why not have Gil Amelio lead the company instead?
Cose strane che si leggono in rete: il tizio che si è bevuto tutti i cocktail della International Bartenders Association (IBA, per gli amici).
Money quote: "As of 2025, there are 102 IBA official cocktails, and as of July 12, 2025, I’ve had every one of them.
The journey has taken me to some interesting places, and now that it’s done, I have a little story to tell for each cocktail. I’m not gonna tell you all 102 stories, but I do want to debrief the experience. Drinking all 102 cocktails turned out to be unexpectedly tricky, and for reasons you’ll soon understand, I might be one of the first people in the world to do it."
https://aaronson.org/blog/i-drank-every-cocktail
Money quote: "As of 2025, there are 102 IBA official cocktails, and as of July 12, 2025, I’ve had every one of them.
The journey has taken me to some interesting places, and now that it’s done, I have a little story to tell for each cocktail. I’m not gonna tell you all 102 stories, but I do want to debrief the experience. Drinking all 102 cocktails turned out to be unexpectedly tricky, and for reasons you’ll soon understand, I might be one of the first people in the world to do it."
https://aaronson.org/blog/i-drank-every-cocktail
Adam Aaronson
I Drank Every Cocktail | Adam Aaronson
The International Bartenders Association, or IBA, maintains a list of official cocktails, ones they deem to be “the most requested recipes” at bars all around the world. It’s the closest thing the bartending industry has to a canonical list of cocktails,…
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Viviamo nell'era della qualità sempre più declinante.
Money quote: "There’s one conclusion that comes up repeatedly throughout this report: the perception that everything is of lower quality is more pronounced among older people. The reasons are varied. One is that attributes like durability — which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product’s quality — have lost relevance.
Psychologist Albert Vinyals, author of El consumidor tarado (The Disordered Consumer) (2019), recalls that years ago, the first thing car ads highlighted was their longevity. “Now we don’t even consider it,” he notes over the phone. “My grandmother, when she went to buy clothes, looked at the type of fabric they were made of. Now, no one knows what their pants are made of. Why would they? In a year, we’ll stop wearing them because they’ll no longer be fashionable.”"
https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-07-20/the-bewildering-phenomenon-of-declining-quality.html
Money quote: "There’s one conclusion that comes up repeatedly throughout this report: the perception that everything is of lower quality is more pronounced among older people. The reasons are varied. One is that attributes like durability — which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product’s quality — have lost relevance.
Psychologist Albert Vinyals, author of El consumidor tarado (The Disordered Consumer) (2019), recalls that years ago, the first thing car ads highlighted was their longevity. “Now we don’t even consider it,” he notes over the phone. “My grandmother, when she went to buy clothes, looked at the type of fabric they were made of. Now, no one knows what their pants are made of. Why would they? In a year, we’ll stop wearing them because they’ll no longer be fashionable.”"
https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-07-20/the-bewildering-phenomenon-of-declining-quality.html
EL PAÍS English
The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality
Airplane seats are getting smaller and smaller, clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash, and machines now answer our calls. Quality and care for craftsmanship seem to be things of the past
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Cosa succede quando la politica prova a fare i conti col clima, Trump scoraggia i turisti e un leone veneziano rivela radici cinesi? Ecco Mostly Weekly 340 con questo e molto altro, tipo: l'AI è una enciclopedia difettata
https://antoniodini.com/weekly/340/
https://antoniodini.com/weekly/340/
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Letture per la domenica
La storia di un gioco quasi dimenticato: "The Sumerian Game". Fondamentale per la storia dell'intrattenimento videoludico e interessante di per sé. Anche perché questo antenato di Sim City nel 1964 veniva fatto provare ad alcune classi di bambini negli Stati Uniti.
Money quote: "The Sumerian Game is not a very advanced game, though it does have a certain depth. Through the game and the text-based messages that appear along the way, players are able to construct a kind of story together with the computer’s algorithms – albeit one that often ends badly – and in the dilemmas they face can be recognized as the core of even modern strategy games. Every choice they make is interesting, in the sense that it has significant consequences for what happens next.
The experiment with The Sumerian Game didn’t last very long, and it wasn’t played by many students. But it still had a major influence on the evolution of the gaming medium, as it was a direct inspiration for a game that became very popular in the early computer community: Hamurabi. This game is considered a foundational pillar in the strategy genre and an ancestor of today’s city-building and empire-management games."
https://spillhistorie.no/2025/07/10/the-sumerian-game-the-ancestor-of-modern-city-builders/
La storia di un gioco quasi dimenticato: "The Sumerian Game". Fondamentale per la storia dell'intrattenimento videoludico e interessante di per sé. Anche perché questo antenato di Sim City nel 1964 veniva fatto provare ad alcune classi di bambini negli Stati Uniti.
Money quote: "The Sumerian Game is not a very advanced game, though it does have a certain depth. Through the game and the text-based messages that appear along the way, players are able to construct a kind of story together with the computer’s algorithms – albeit one that often ends badly – and in the dilemmas they face can be recognized as the core of even modern strategy games. Every choice they make is interesting, in the sense that it has significant consequences for what happens next.
The experiment with The Sumerian Game didn’t last very long, and it wasn’t played by many students. But it still had a major influence on the evolution of the gaming medium, as it was a direct inspiration for a game that became very popular in the early computer community: Hamurabi. This game is considered a foundational pillar in the strategy genre and an ancestor of today’s city-building and empire-management games."
https://spillhistorie.no/2025/07/10/the-sumerian-game-the-ancestor-of-modern-city-builders/
Spillhistorie.no
The Sumerian Game: The ancestor of modern city builders - Spillhistorie.no
We spoke with historian Andrea Contato about The Sumerian Game from 1964.
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Alle volte mi chiedo se essere italiano in un mondo di non italiani innamorati dell'Italia e della sua cultura e cucina eccetera sia una benedizione o una maledizione.
Tipo, questi mettono il pesto anche nel cappuccino, tra un po'. Il pesto...
Money quote: "Pesto is one of the best ways to use up an abundance of bright, fresh herbs. "Pesto" comes from the word for "crushed" in Italian, as cooks traditionally use a mortar and pestle to crush basil, pine nuts, and Parmigiano-Reggiano until it forms a creamy sauce. Though pesto is typically made with basil, many other herbs and greens--including ramps, cilantro, tarragon, parsley, and mint--can also be used. There are also pestos, such as Sicilian pesto alla trapanese, that don't contain greens".
https://www.seriouseats.com/pesto-recipes-11771684
Tipo, questi mettono il pesto anche nel cappuccino, tra un po'. Il pesto...
Money quote: "Pesto is one of the best ways to use up an abundance of bright, fresh herbs. "Pesto" comes from the word for "crushed" in Italian, as cooks traditionally use a mortar and pestle to crush basil, pine nuts, and Parmigiano-Reggiano until it forms a creamy sauce. Though pesto is typically made with basil, many other herbs and greens--including ramps, cilantro, tarragon, parsley, and mint--can also be used. There are also pestos, such as Sicilian pesto alla trapanese, that don't contain greens".
https://www.seriouseats.com/pesto-recipes-11771684
Serious Eats
14 Bright and Bold Pesto Recipes to Upgrade Summer Cooking
You'll never find our editors complaining about a big plate of pesto-covered pasta. Still, there are many other wonderful ways to use the sauce: Consider tossing it into potato salad, serving it with flank steak, or even incorporating it into a vibrant green…
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Il problema di quando l'arte è creata dal mostro: cosa ne dobbiamo fare?
Money quote: "My Edward Scissorhands dilemma is one that has been repeated over and over again by thousands of people throughout the past year of "MeToo". Over and over again, we have learned that the people who created the art we love have been accused of monstrous acts. The art could be Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” or Louis C.K.’s Louie, or Shakespeare in Love, or Manhattan, or The Cosby Show, but at heart, the dilemma is the same: How do I reconcile aesthetic pleasure with moral disgust? Which of my feelings will win? What do I do with art I love that was created by a monster?
One of the common answers to that question has been repeated so often it has come to seem as though it’s an ontologically self-evident truth: You must separate the artist from the art."
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/10/11/17933686/me-too-separating-artist-art-johnny-depp-woody-allen-michael-jackson-louis-ck
Archivio https://archive.is/DEgH9
Money quote: "My Edward Scissorhands dilemma is one that has been repeated over and over again by thousands of people throughout the past year of "MeToo". Over and over again, we have learned that the people who created the art we love have been accused of monstrous acts. The art could be Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” or Louis C.K.’s Louie, or Shakespeare in Love, or Manhattan, or The Cosby Show, but at heart, the dilemma is the same: How do I reconcile aesthetic pleasure with moral disgust? Which of my feelings will win? What do I do with art I love that was created by a monster?
One of the common answers to that question has been repeated so often it has come to seem as though it’s an ontologically self-evident truth: You must separate the artist from the art."
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/10/11/17933686/me-too-separating-artist-art-johnny-depp-woody-allen-michael-jackson-louis-ck
Archivio https://archive.is/DEgH9
Vox
What do we do when the art we love was created by a monster?
I don’t know what to do with good art by predatory artists. So I asked some literary critics.
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Pensiero stupendo: da soli si dorme meglio. Bastava chiederlo a Sandra a Raimondo. Oppure no? Comunque, ho imparato un'espressione nuova: "Sleep divorce".
Money quote: "Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a bad sleeper. In my 20s, I began taking sleeping pills—Benadryl at first, then trazodone. When my kids woke me up in the middle of the night, I would sometimes be up for hours, and the meds were the only thing that helped me fall back asleep.
As of a few months ago, however, I’m sleep medication–free for the first time in 20 years. At 46, I’m honestly pretty shocked by this—I’m entering perimenopause, so shouldn’t my sleep be getting worse, not better? But there is one potentially relevant factor that could help explain my sudden shift: Due to my recent separation, I’m sleeping on my own for the first time in decades."
https://slate.com/life/2025/08/sleep-divorce-insomnia-how-to-cure-deprivation.html
Money quote: "Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a bad sleeper. In my 20s, I began taking sleeping pills—Benadryl at first, then trazodone. When my kids woke me up in the middle of the night, I would sometimes be up for hours, and the meds were the only thing that helped me fall back asleep.
As of a few months ago, however, I’m sleep medication–free for the first time in 20 years. At 46, I’m honestly pretty shocked by this—I’m entering perimenopause, so shouldn’t my sleep be getting worse, not better? But there is one potentially relevant factor that could help explain my sudden shift: Due to my recent separation, I’m sleeping on my own for the first time in decades."
https://slate.com/life/2025/08/sleep-divorce-insomnia-how-to-cure-deprivation.html
Slate Magazine
It’s an Embarrassing Habit That Makes People Worry About Your Marriage. You Should Try It Anyway.
I wish it felt less weird for wives to ask to sleep alone.
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Gli articoli in cui il giornalista fa l'esperienza in prima persona, se ben fatti, sono dei piccoli capolavori. Questo di GQ è andato dagli Usa fino al Mugello, è montato su una Ducati e si è fatto la pista a 280 Km/h (più o meno) e varie altre cose. Le foto sono notevoli.
Money quote: "Still, it was Mugello that remained our North Star throughout it all, and in our garage at the track the next morning, we stripped ourselves down to basics and pulled on our armor—one-piece, zip-up protective bodysuits made of perforated kangaroo leather (which offers a superior strength-to-weight ratio compared to cowhide) with reinforcements at the knees, shoulder, and elbows. Looking around, I got the sense I was the only one in a rental. (This being my first-ever track day, I was borrowing a Dainese suit in full Ducati Corse livery.)"
https://www.gq.com/story/ducati-panigale-v4
Money quote: "Still, it was Mugello that remained our North Star throughout it all, and in our garage at the track the next morning, we stripped ourselves down to basics and pulled on our armor—one-piece, zip-up protective bodysuits made of perforated kangaroo leather (which offers a superior strength-to-weight ratio compared to cowhide) with reinforcements at the knees, shoulder, and elbows. Looking around, I got the sense I was the only one in a rental. (This being my first-ever track day, I was borrowing a Dainese suit in full Ducati Corse livery.)"
https://www.gq.com/story/ducati-panigale-v4
GQ
What It's Like to Ride a Motorcycle at 175 Miles an Hour
How a recent trip to Italy to race Ducatis made me reorient my entire life.
Di solito sono molto critico verso chi dice che non bisognerebbe più prendere l'aereo perché ha un terribile impatto ambientale. In questo caso, però, faccio una eccezione sopra Las Vegas con 1500 dollari si può volare per un'ora come passeggeri di un Cessna 414, l'aereo del servizio "Love Cloud", e raggiungere senza problemi il Mile High Club.
Money quote: "“We’re serving our niche of clients that want that special flight without the hassle,” Tony Blake, the owner and one of the captains of the Love Cloud, told me. Love Cloud has completed more than 4,000 of these consummating flights since its maiden voyage in 2014. “Nobody is going to be patting down their balls in security or anything like that. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime romantic experience.”"
https://slate.com/life/2025/08/sex-travel-plane-flying-mile-high-club.html
archivio: https://archive.is/OPnP8
Money quote: "“We’re serving our niche of clients that want that special flight without the hassle,” Tony Blake, the owner and one of the captains of the Love Cloud, told me. Love Cloud has completed more than 4,000 of these consummating flights since its maiden voyage in 2014. “Nobody is going to be patting down their balls in security or anything like that. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime romantic experience.”"
https://slate.com/life/2025/08/sex-travel-plane-flying-mile-high-club.html
archivio: https://archive.is/OPnP8
Slate Magazine
It Used to Be the Premier Form of Freaky Sex. Then Someone—or Something—Shut It Down.
It was everyone's favorite fantasy. Then it took a nosedive.
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Hamilton vs. Benford: quando la fantascienza incontra la scienza (e viceversa) - il mio articolo per Fumettologica
https://fumettologica.it/2025/09/hamilton-vs-benford-quando-la-fantascienza-incontra-la-scienza-e-viceversa/
https://fumettologica.it/2025/09/hamilton-vs-benford-quando-la-fantascienza-incontra-la-scienza-e-viceversa/
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Alle volte le ossessioni possono essere anche molto singolari, ma poi alla fine questo rimangono e hanno in comune: sono ossessioni. Come la grande caccia a un prototipo di macchina per scrivere cinese.
Money quote: "But there was one typewriter that Dr. Mullaney had little hope of ever finding: the MingKwai. Made by an eccentric Chinese linguist turned inventor living in Manhattan, the machine had mechanics that were a precursor to the systems almost everyone now uses to type in Chinese.
Only one — the prototype — was ever made.
“It was the one machine,” he said recently, “which despite all my cold-calling, all my stalking, was absolutely, 100 percent, definitely gone.”"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/mingkwai-typewriter-china.html
archivio: https://archive.is/SyXk8
Money quote: "But there was one typewriter that Dr. Mullaney had little hope of ever finding: the MingKwai. Made by an eccentric Chinese linguist turned inventor living in Manhattan, the machine had mechanics that were a precursor to the systems almost everyone now uses to type in Chinese.
Only one — the prototype — was ever made.
“It was the one machine,” he said recently, “which despite all my cold-calling, all my stalking, was absolutely, 100 percent, definitely gone.”"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/mingkwai-typewriter-china.html
archivio: https://archive.is/SyXk8
NY Times
A Professor’s Hunt for the Rarest Chinese Typewriter
A historian went down an 18-year rabbit hole in search of obsolete machines. But there was one he thought he’d never find.
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Il cancro alla prostata si trova solo se si fa un test di controllo, dopo diventa troppo tardi
Money quote: "Prostate cancer has been called the Silent Epidemic,” said Dr Samuel L. Washington, a urologic surgeon who specializes in oncology at the University of California in San Francisco. Even with an active lifestyle, healthy nutritional regimen and digital screenings, cancer can sneak in undetected.
“Many men with prostate cancer won’t experience any outward signs or symptoms until the disease is advanced, which is why testing is so critical,” said Dr Clifford Gluck, a urologist and Founder of Dr Gluck’s Wellness Center in Massachusetts. “If not caught early, it can break free of the prostate and run unchecked through the body, with a particular penchant for bone.” Once prostate cancer has spread to other parts of the body, the five-year relative survival rate is only 37%."
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/aug/19/men-prostate-cancer-testing-pros-cons
Money quote: "Prostate cancer has been called the Silent Epidemic,” said Dr Samuel L. Washington, a urologic surgeon who specializes in oncology at the University of California in San Francisco. Even with an active lifestyle, healthy nutritional regimen and digital screenings, cancer can sneak in undetected.
“Many men with prostate cancer won’t experience any outward signs or symptoms until the disease is advanced, which is why testing is so critical,” said Dr Clifford Gluck, a urologist and Founder of Dr Gluck’s Wellness Center in Massachusetts. “If not caught early, it can break free of the prostate and run unchecked through the body, with a particular penchant for bone.” Once prostate cancer has spread to other parts of the body, the five-year relative survival rate is only 37%."
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/aug/19/men-prostate-cancer-testing-pros-cons
the Guardian
The silent epidemic: the pros and cons of screening for prostate cancer
In the US, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men – but experts can’t agree about testing
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Letture per la domenica
Anche se sono passati 70 anni tondi tondi, gli americani sono ancora ossessionati da Lolita.
Money quote: "We certainly read Lolita very differently than we used to. For decades after its publication, readers both nodded to the horror at the center of the novel but also believed it was a little unsophisticated to dwell only on the assault. In pop culture, Lolita became synonymous with a teenaged seductress who deserves whatever she gets. Today, however, the received wisdom is that Lolita is not a romance but a horror story.
In the 70 years since its publication, Lolita — lovely, sensual Lolita; obscene, monstrous Lolita; bleak, tragic Lolita — has become a barometer of sorts for cultural change. Vladimir Nabokov’s novel is so multifaceted that it reflects the priorities of its readers back at us, showing us what we value and fear most at any given moment in time. We’re still arguing over Lolita today, and our debates mirror the contours of our current culture war: a horror at an abuser’s attempt to cover up their abuse; a terror that all that is pleasurable will be moralized into oblivion."
https://www.vox.com/culture/458464/lolita-70th-anniversary-culture-wars-vladimir-nabokov
archivio https://archive.is/ovm78
Anche se sono passati 70 anni tondi tondi, gli americani sono ancora ossessionati da Lolita.
Money quote: "We certainly read Lolita very differently than we used to. For decades after its publication, readers both nodded to the horror at the center of the novel but also believed it was a little unsophisticated to dwell only on the assault. In pop culture, Lolita became synonymous with a teenaged seductress who deserves whatever she gets. Today, however, the received wisdom is that Lolita is not a romance but a horror story.
In the 70 years since its publication, Lolita — lovely, sensual Lolita; obscene, monstrous Lolita; bleak, tragic Lolita — has become a barometer of sorts for cultural change. Vladimir Nabokov’s novel is so multifaceted that it reflects the priorities of its readers back at us, showing us what we value and fear most at any given moment in time. We’re still arguing over Lolita today, and our debates mirror the contours of our current culture war: a horror at an abuser’s attempt to cover up their abuse; a terror that all that is pleasurable will be moralized into oblivion."
https://www.vox.com/culture/458464/lolita-70th-anniversary-culture-wars-vladimir-nabokov
archivio https://archive.is/ovm78
Vox
The scandalous literary classic we’ve never stopped arguing about
The novel published 70 years ago that still explains America.
Soggettivamente gli anni passati all'università sono molti (e nel caso dei fuoricorso, possono essere davvero molti) ma in realtà sono pochi: tre.
Tuttavia, nell'arco di tempo necessario a una matricola per finire l'università abbiamo avuto l'avvento dell'intelligenza artificiale. Per la prima volta c'è una leva di neo laureati che ha fatto tutta l'università con a disposizione l'AI mentre le università ancora non hanno assunto una postura chiara (e tutto il sistema funziona come se non esistessero strumenti come l'intelligenza artificiale). È la prima volta che c'è una discontinuità così forte in così poco tempo.
Gli studenti universitari sono cambiati per sempre. L'università (ancora) no.
Money quote: "“I cannot think that in this day and age that there is a student who is not using it,” Vasilis Theoharakis, a strategic-marketing professor at the Cranfield School of Management who has done research on AI in the classroom, told me. That’s what I’m seeing in the classes that I teach and hearing from the students at my school: The technology is no longer just a curiosity or a way to cheat; it is a habit, as ubiquitous on campus as eating processed foods or scrolling social media. In the coming fall semester, this new reality will be undeniable. Higher education has been changed forever in the span of a single undergraduate career."
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/08/ai-college-class-of-2026/683901/
archivio: https://archive.is/1gA7k
Tuttavia, nell'arco di tempo necessario a una matricola per finire l'università abbiamo avuto l'avvento dell'intelligenza artificiale. Per la prima volta c'è una leva di neo laureati che ha fatto tutta l'università con a disposizione l'AI mentre le università ancora non hanno assunto una postura chiara (e tutto il sistema funziona come se non esistessero strumenti come l'intelligenza artificiale). È la prima volta che c'è una discontinuità così forte in così poco tempo.
Gli studenti universitari sono cambiati per sempre. L'università (ancora) no.
Money quote: "“I cannot think that in this day and age that there is a student who is not using it,” Vasilis Theoharakis, a strategic-marketing professor at the Cranfield School of Management who has done research on AI in the classroom, told me. That’s what I’m seeing in the classes that I teach and hearing from the students at my school: The technology is no longer just a curiosity or a way to cheat; it is a habit, as ubiquitous on campus as eating processed foods or scrolling social media. In the coming fall semester, this new reality will be undeniable. Higher education has been changed forever in the span of a single undergraduate career."
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/08/ai-college-class-of-2026/683901/
archivio: https://archive.is/1gA7k
The Atlantic
College Students Have Already Changed Forever
Members of the class of 2026 have had access to AI since they were freshmen. Almost all of them are using it to do their work.
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