Un viaggio tra le guglie della Sagrada Familia, i vecchi software che scompaiono, la cultura digitale che non decolla e le parolacce che raccontano chi siamo: Mostly Weekly 348 è online

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/348/

Salman Rushdie fa il suo monumentale ritorno alla narrativa il 4 novembre con "The Eleventh Hour". È la sua prima opera di narrativa dall'accoltellamento del 2022.

Money quote: "According to Random House, Rushdie's new book will include such "unforgettable characters" as a "musical prodigy with a magical gift," the ghost of a Cambridge don who helps a student "avenge the tormentor of his lifetime" and a literary mentor who has mysteriously died. "The Eleventh Hour" is set in three parts of the world where Rushdie has lived: India, England and the U.S."

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/salman-rushdie-the-eleventh-hour-release-date/

Money quote 2: "The Eleventh Hour will consist of a collection of stories from around the world, set across India, England and the US."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04zw0qvergo

Il sogno dell'umanità nello spazio non è andare su Marte, bensì creare le isole nello spazio, cioè i Cilindri di O'Neill. Ma cosa sono?

Money quote: "Gerard K. O’Neill era un fisico che insegnava all’università di Princeton, una delle più prestigiose accademie americane. Negli anni Sessanta, in piena corsa spaziale, mentre gli Usa e l’Unione Sovietica si sfidavano (spoiler alert: vinsero gli americani portando per primi due uomini sulla Luna), lui decise di fare un laboratorio con i suoi studenti universitari. Tema per tutti: costruire le migliori strutture spaziali abitabili."

https://techdale.it/ecco-a-voi-le-colonie-nello-spazio/

Momento woke a San Pietro. Il Vaticano restituirà manufatti indigeni al Canada.

Money quote: " The Vatican is expected to soon announce that it will return a few dozen artifacts to Indigenous communities in Canada as part of its reckoning with the Catholic Church’s troubled role in helping suppress Indigenous culture in the Americas, officials said Wednesday.

The items, including an Inuit kayak, are part of the Vatican Museum’s ethnographic collection, known as the Anima Mundi museum. The collection has been a source of controversy for the Vatican amid the broader museum debate over the restitution of cultural goods taken from Indigenous peoples during colonial periods."

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-10-22/vatican-will-return-dozens-of-artifacts-to-indigenous-groups-in-canada-as-gesture-of-reconciliation

Arriva il Booker Prize per bambini. Un po' come se facessero il Pulitzer per l'infanzia.

Money quote: "Like its sister prizes, the children’s award comes with a 50,000 pound ($67,000) purse.

The prize will open for submissions early next year and the inaugural award will be handed out in 2027, with the winner picked by a jury of children and adults led by writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Britain’s current children’s laureate."

https://wtop.com/entertainment/2025/10/the-new-childrens-booker-prize-aims-to-reward-quality-fiction-for-kids/

diario del capitano Picard e la finzione necessaria della fantascienza - ne ho scritto con gusto su Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2025/11/diario-picard-star-trek-the-next-generation/

A quanto apre il robottino che pulisce la casa e ha un LLM dentro il cervelloetto digitale, ha più problemi che pregi.

Money quote: "Andon Labs concluded that while LLMs show promise in robotic applications, significant development is still required. Embodied AI remains far from achieving human-level reliability, and the vacuum robot’s comedic meltdown underscores the complexity of translating language understanding into effective physical action."

https://slguardian.org/ai-powered-vacuum-robots-struggle-existential-crises-ensue/

C'è chi critica i big dell'AI. E, ascoltando le parole di Sam Altman (vedi sotto) come dargli torto?

Money quote: "Dobbiamo agire saggiamente ma con convinzione. L’alba dell’Età dell’Intelligenza è uno sviluppo epocale che pone sfide molto complesse e dalle grandi implicazioni. Non sarà una storia completamente positiva, ma i vantaggi sono così enormi che dobbiamo a noi stessi e al futuro capire come affrontare i rischi che abbiamo davanti. Credo che il futuro sia così radioso che nessuno possa rendergli giustizia cercando di scriverne ora; una caratteristica distintiva dell’Età dell’Intelligenza sarà una prosperità enorme."

https://www.rsi.ch/cultura/societa/La-pericolosa-filosofia-dei-giganti-dell’IA--2423004.html

https://tinyurl.com/29saykxs

Una settimana di storie fra treni, memorie di volo, tecnologia e qualche sorpresa: è uscito Mostly Weekly 349. Buona lettura

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/349/

Letture per la domenica

"Con-fliggere". La complicità dei litiganti. Il conflitto personale come discorso.

Money quote: "The shape of the conflict this article explores is the one which normally takes place in the realm of language, when two or more individuals face one another in what is commonly identified as a “quarrel”. Redefining quarrel as personal conflict, and distinguishing it from differring opinions is the premise on which my article rests, so that personal conflict may be conceptualized as a discourse, i.e., a reality that is not to be found behind or beyond the words of the conflicting parties, and not in their “real motives” or “real interests”, but rather in their discursive coming together (inter-esse). We will not start from asking “why” two or more individuals come into conflict, but “what” they do with words while they quarrel. Taking as its background the Weberian sociology of the sense of action, my article tries to answer this question by taking cues from Austin’s speech act theory, Barthes’s semiotics, Bakhtin’s polyphonic theory, and Wittgenstein’s philosophical grammar, as well as some recent contributions made by analysts and professional “mediators”’ of personal conflicts."

https://journals.openedition.org/qds/350

Tra le altre cose che ci sono in questo sito, Doom 64 che va (anche in emulazione) su Mac.

Money quote: "A source port project called Doom64 EX came out, whose goal was to recreate the game using the N64 ROM image for data. In the runup to DOOM Eternal, id and Zenimax decided to resurrect the game and the creator of the source port worked with Nightdive Studios to make a version that ran on PC as well as consoles. In the years since, the Doom 64 EX+ project came out which enhances the original source port as well as gives it the ability to use the data from the PC port of the game. The commercial release did not come to the Mac, but working with the author we're able to offer a Mac release here.

So fire it up and pretend like you're playing on your big CRT having just rented it from Blockbuster Video. It's definitely a unique experience."

https://www.macsourceports.com/game/doom64

Ma c'è anche Carmageddon

https://github.com/dethrace-labs/dethrace

Gli anni passano. Ho appena compiuto dieci anni di Backblaze, il servizio di backup nel cloud che mi pago da un decennio. Toccando ferro, non l'ho mai dovuto usare. Il suo scopo è proprio quello: non averne bisogno, ma intanto tenerlo pronto.

Ci metto la faccia e ve lo consiglio. Questo è il mio referral, vuol dire più mesi di prova per voi e un mese gratuito per me. Per qualche giorno (fino al 13) gli omaggi sono raddoppiati.

Se poi vi abbonate al servizio, ovviamente costa uguale.

https://secure.backblaze.com/r/01ti3i

Allarmi allarmi, se gli dai delle fake news gli LLM vanno fuori di testa.

Money quote: "For the test, researchers fed AI a constant stream of posts from X. The posts were selected based on virality, high-engagement posts and posts that contained phrases that may be clickbait, such as “TODAY ONLY,” and “WOW.”

The researchers used existing benchmarks such as ARC and RULER to evaluate the results.

The results were shocking to say the least. On ARC, a benchmark for reasoning, there was a drop in the total score from 74.9 to 57.2. While on RULER, a long context understanding benchmark, the score fell from 84.4 to 52.3.

Researchers found that the LLMs were ‘thought skipping.’ The model would simply give inaccurate information without following proper steps to give results to the user."

https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/ai-gets-brain-rot-too-study-finds-feeding-chatbots-junk-posts-makes-them-dumb-and-mean-2806199-2025-10-21

Una cosa molto americana ma sarebbe divertente da fare anche in Italia: i libri letti alle superiori che hanno modellato la nostra vita da adulti.

Money quote: "We're sharing your thoughts here. This list reflects a time when fewer female authors and writers of color were being published and assigned in high schools — and many of you expressed hope that today's syllabuses are more varied and diverse.

So, at the start of a new school year, with gratitude to English teachers past, present and future, here's what you told us about the books that shaped you.

Readers' responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity."

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/28/nx-s1-5468462/best-books-read-high-school

Uno studio di qualche settimana fa spiega chiaramente: ChatGPT è diventato il nuovo motore di ricerca.

Money quote: "Key Takeaways

Our earlier model (1.2–1.4B/day) slightly overestimated search-intent share. With new data, the refined base case is ~1.0B/day.

Even the conservative case (~0.45B/day) is massive, and comparable to Bing.

“Seeking Information” usage is growing fast, so ChatGPT’s role as a search engine is expanding."

https://www.seoclarity.net/research/how-many-searches-really-happen-on-chatgpt-new-data-refined-model

Un raro Uovo d’Inverno Fabergé del 1913, un tempo donato dall’ultimo imperatore russo Nicola II a sua madre, è pronto a infrangere i record d’asta quando andrà sotto il martello da Christie’s a Londra il 2 dicembre 2025. L’elegantissimo Uovo Imperiale di Pasqua, tempestato di 1.660 diamanti e scolpito in cristallo di rocca, ha una stima superiore a 20 milioni di sterline (22,7 milioni di euro), il che lo renderebbe l’opera Fabergé più costosa mai venduta all’asta.

Money quote: "Margo Oganesian, Christie's Head of Department, Fabergé and Russian Works of Art commented: “It is a privilege for Christie's to be entrusted with the sale of the exquisite 'Winter Egg' by Fabergé for the third time in its history. With only six other Imperial Easter Eggs remaining in private collections, this is an extraordinary chance for collectors to acquire what is arguably one of Fabergé's finest creations, both technically and artistically. It would undoubtedly enhance the most distinguished collection.”"

https://press.christies.com/a-once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity-the-winter-egg-and-important-works-by-faberge-from-a-princely-collection

Google e OpenAI si sfidano sul terreno dell’ecommerce con gli acquisti automatici gestiti dagli agenti. Cambia tutto: ricerca, pubblicità e abitudini. Il numero 350 di Mostly Weekly parte da qui e vi porta ancora più in là

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/350/

Letture per la domenica

Gli archeologi hanno scoperto straordinarie incisioni di cammelli a grandezza naturale scolpite sulle pareti delle scogliere nel deserto di Nefud, in Arabia Saudita, retrodatando la presenza umana nell’Arabia settentrionale di oltre 2.000 anni. Le monumentali opere rupestri, pubblicate martedì su Nature Communications, risalgono a un periodo compreso tra 12.800 e 11.400 anni fa e rivelano comunità di cacciatori-raccoglitori sofisticate che prosperavano in quello che gli esperti in precedenza ritenevano un deserto inabitabile.

Money quote: "Today, the international research team stationed there sees few signs of life, other than the odd passing bedouin herding livestock. But, the region once had grasslands and ponds of water, allowing life to thrive.

Professor Michael Petraglia from Australia’s Griffith University told Yahoo News Australia the engravings are still "absolutely spectacular" thousands of years after they were created."

https://au.news.yahoo.com/monumental-12000-year-old-creation-discovered-in-remote-desert-absolutely-spectacular-150059839.html

La Commissione europea viola le proprie linee guida sull'AI utilizzando ChatGPT in documenti pubblici

Money quote: "A recent response from the European Commission to our access to documents request not only revealed that the President of the Commission was repeating the words of tech CEOs, but it also accidentally divulged the Commission’s use of generative AI in public documents.

The Commission's response included four links, at least one of them was generated using OpenAI's ChatGPT. This link includes "utm_source=chatgpt.com" which reveals the website that generated the link (see below). It is unclear if other parts of the response replicate generative AI outputs and if it is common practice at the Commission to use generative AI outputs in public documents."

https://www.iccl.ie/news/european-commission-breaches-own-ai-guidelines-by-using-chatgpt-in-public-documents/

Come a San Gimignano: l'élite di Pompei costruiva torri come simboli di status. Secondo uno studio le famiglie facoltose di Pompei probabilmente costruirono imponenti torri come simboli del loro status e della loro influenza, mettendo in discussione ipotesi a lungo consolidate su come venissero utilizzati i piani superiori dell'antica città romana.

Money quote: "The research is part of an innovative digital archaeology project aimed at reconstructing the upper floors of Pompeii’s often-lost buildings. In particular, archaeologists led by Pompeii Archaeological Park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel and Susanne Muth, a professor in the Department of Classical Archaeology atBerlin’s Humboldt University (Winckelmann-Institut), in collaboration with the Park itself, focused on a monumental staircase in the House of Thiasus, which appears to rise to nowhere. From this element arose the hypothesis that the staircase led to a lookout tower, perhaps used to observe the city, the gulf, and, at night, the starry sky. This is a plausible idea, supported by numerous literary and iconographic references: just think of the tower of Maecenas, from which - according to tradition - Nero observed the burning of Rome, or of Pompeian paintings depicting towers as recurring elements in villas, which later became models for the urban dwellings of the elite."

https://www.finestresullarte.info/en/archaeology/perhaps-the-domus-in-pompeii-also-had-towers-new-digital-archaeology-research

Un ritratto dell'America degli ultimi vent'anni molto particolare: gli scambisti di provincia (secondo me si potrebbe fare la stessa cosa anche da noi, nella nostra di provincia). La fotografa Naomi Harris ha fatto bingo con questo libro.

Money quote: "“I’m like, ‘Why the fuck are people always going to all these parties and never inviting me?’” Harris says. The penny didn’t fully drop until a man named Ron asked her to accompany him as his “key”—single men weren’t allowed to the parties, so he needed a female partner to unlock the door. “I’m like, ‘OK, sure. I’ll do anything once,’” Harris says."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/surreal-photos-of-small-town-american-swingers-in-the-2000s/