I polpi, animaletti molto intelligenti con otto tentacoli, sono tutti figli di una mutazione genetica che ha reso il loro cervello e sistema nervoso quello che è (molto intelligente). Affascinante.
Money quote: "Now, researchers have discovered a mysterious mutation in some octopuses that might explain their intelligence. A study published in the August 17 issue of the journal Current Biology reveals that the eight-limbed creatures can produce proteins with extreme accuracy thanks to a variation never seen in any other animal. Although there is no direct evidence that the adaptation is linked to expanded octopus brainpower, only a lineage of creatures with enlarged nervous systems and that can carry out complex behaviors appears to have the mutation."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-are-some-octopuses-so-smart-the-answer-might-lie-in-a-never-before-seen-mutation-that-helps-them-accurately-build-proteins-180989319/
Money quote: "Now, researchers have discovered a mysterious mutation in some octopuses that might explain their intelligence. A study published in the August 17 issue of the journal Current Biology reveals that the eight-limbed creatures can produce proteins with extreme accuracy thanks to a variation never seen in any other animal. Although there is no direct evidence that the adaptation is linked to expanded octopus brainpower, only a lineage of creatures with enlarged nervous systems and that can carry out complex behaviors appears to have the mutation."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-are-some-octopuses-so-smart-the-answer-might-lie-in-a-never-before-seen-mutation-that-helps-them-accurately-build-proteins-180989319/
Smithsonian Magazine
Why Are Some Octopuses So Smart? The Answer Might Lie in a Never-Before-Seen Mutation That Helps Them Accurately Build Proteins
Scientists discovered a strange feature in certain octopuses’ ribosomal RNA, molecules that create a 3D scaffold for cellular protein factories. It was found only in shallow-water creatures that have expanded nervous systems and can do complex behaviors
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Dungeon Crawler Carl: un uomo, una gatta e la fine del mondo - piacevole scoperta fatta per la mia rubrica su Fumettologica
https://fumettologica.it/2026/09/dungeon-crawler-carl-matt-dinniman-romanzi/
https://fumettologica.it/2026/09/dungeon-crawler-carl-matt-dinniman-romanzi/
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Ok, è un po’ complesso, ma proviamoci lo stesso: lo faccio fare a Siri, che è brava a fare i riassunti. Eccolo. L'autrice di questo articolo esplora la rappresentazione del matrimonio in letteratura, notando la sua rappresentazione spesso negativa e repressiva. Mette in evidenza libri come "Sucker Punch" di Scaachi Koul e "An Honest Woman" di Charlotte Shane, che sfidano queste narrazioni presentando resoconti sfumati e gioiosi del matrimonio. E mette anche in discussione la necessità per gli scrittori di giustificare le loro rappresentazioni positive del matrimonio, suggerendo che il desiderio stesso è una spiegazione valida e convincente.
Money quote: "FOR YEARS, I resisted the idea of marriage the way I did any life outcome I was expected to deliver irrespective of want. If a piece of paper were the certifiable difference between calling a love true or false, then that love was rendered false by definition. I didn't nurture any wedding fantasies in childhood--not the dress, not the party, not even the spouse--save for one: I stood up from the head table while the shape in a tux who sat next to me looked on in adoration. A mic appeared in my hand. Then, I gave a zingy, sexy speech that made the entire room laugh and blush and cry before it radically remade their understanding of desire. Eventually, I realized this was not a fantasy of becoming a wife. It was a fantasy of becoming a writer."
https://thewalrus.ca/are-women-allowed-to-be-happy-in-their-marriages/
Money quote: "FOR YEARS, I resisted the idea of marriage the way I did any life outcome I was expected to deliver irrespective of want. If a piece of paper were the certifiable difference between calling a love true or false, then that love was rendered false by definition. I didn't nurture any wedding fantasies in childhood--not the dress, not the party, not even the spouse--save for one: I stood up from the head table while the shape in a tux who sat next to me looked on in adoration. A mic appeared in my hand. Then, I gave a zingy, sexy speech that made the entire room laugh and blush and cry before it radically remade their understanding of desire. Eventually, I realized this was not a fantasy of becoming a wife. It was a fantasy of becoming a writer."
https://thewalrus.ca/are-women-allowed-to-be-happy-in-their-marriages/
The Walrus
Are Women Allowed to Be Happy in Their Marriages? | The Walrus
Literature often describes matrimony as banal or repressive. That’s a shame
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Ci siamo: Mostly Weekly 393
L’arte di conversare da sé esemplificata.
Umberto Eco, gli studenti che diventano più scemi con i chatbot, un romanzo di 1.300 pagine, le casette di KLM, Gloria Steinem e tanto altro.
Questa settimana mi sono proprio divertito!
https://antoniodini.com/weekly/393/
L’arte di conversare da sé esemplificata.
Umberto Eco, gli studenti che diventano più scemi con i chatbot, un romanzo di 1.300 pagine, le casette di KLM, Gloria Steinem e tanto altro.
Questa settimana mi sono proprio divertito!
https://antoniodini.com/weekly/393/
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Letture per la domenica
Finalmente uno che parla chiaro. Avere tanti libri non ti rende più colto: ti pone un problema di logistica. E io ne so qualcosa...
Money quote: "The number sounds impressive. People hear it and assume a certain grandeur — a private library with rolling ladders, mahogany shelving, one of those brass lamps that appear in photographs of Oxford colleges. The reality is more prosaic. Twenty-eight thousand books, at an average thickness of roughly 2.5 centimetres, is 700 linear metres of shelving. That's the length of seven football pitches, or — in the metric that matters — considerably more shelf space than exists in my house.
This is the first thing you learn when your collection crosses from "large" into "logistical situation": the books will outgrow any space you put them in. Not eventually. Quickly. The relationship between books and shelf space is not linear; it is exponential, because you are always acquiring faster than you are shelving, and the shelving itself takes space that could hold more books. It is a problem with no equilibrium. I have been solving it for twenty years, and I am further from a solution now than when I started."
https://www.shelvd.org/blog/28000-books
Finalmente uno che parla chiaro. Avere tanti libri non ti rende più colto: ti pone un problema di logistica. E io ne so qualcosa...
Money quote: "The number sounds impressive. People hear it and assume a certain grandeur — a private library with rolling ladders, mahogany shelving, one of those brass lamps that appear in photographs of Oxford colleges. The reality is more prosaic. Twenty-eight thousand books, at an average thickness of roughly 2.5 centimetres, is 700 linear metres of shelving. That's the length of seven football pitches, or — in the metric that matters — considerably more shelf space than exists in my house.
This is the first thing you learn when your collection crosses from "large" into "logistical situation": the books will outgrow any space you put them in. Not eventually. Quickly. The relationship between books and shelf space is not linear; it is exponential, because you are always acquiring faster than you are shelving, and the shelving itself takes space that could hold more books. It is a problem with no equilibrium. I have been solving it for twenty years, and I am further from a solution now than when I started."
https://www.shelvd.org/blog/28000-books
www.shelvd.org
Shelvd — Book Collection Management
Professional library management for antiquarian books, rare editions, and fine bindings.
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Le migliori interfacce della fantascienza.
Money quote: "The Fritzes award honors the best interfaces in a full-length motion picture in the past year. Interfaces play a special role in our movie-going experience, and are a craft all their own that does not otherwise receive focused recognition. (Looking at you, Academy.) Awards are given for Best Believable, Best Narrative, and Best Interfaces (overall). Sometimes I like to call out other things I spotted in my survey."
https://scifiinterfaces.com
Money quote: "The Fritzes award honors the best interfaces in a full-length motion picture in the past year. Interfaces play a special role in our movie-going experience, and are a craft all their own that does not otherwise receive focused recognition. (Looking at you, Academy.) Awards are given for Best Believable, Best Narrative, and Best Interfaces (overall). Sometimes I like to call out other things I spotted in my survey."
https://scifiinterfaces.com
Sci-fi interfaces
Scifiinterfaces analyzes the speculative technology in sci-fi movies and TV shows for fun and erudition.
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C’è una nuova versione del formato Png. Tanta roba.
Money quote: "this is exciting news. PNG is back to its former glory after its progress stalled for over two decades. Did you know the U.S. Library of Congress, Library and Archives Canada, and the National Archives of Australia recommend PNG? It is important that we keep PNG current and competitive. After 20 years of stagnation, PNG is back with renewed vigor!"
https://www.programmax.net/articles/png-is-back/
Money quote: "this is exciting news. PNG is back to its former glory after its progress stalled for over two decades. Did you know the U.S. Library of Congress, Library and Archives Canada, and the National Archives of Australia recommend PNG? It is important that we keep PNG current and competitive. After 20 years of stagnation, PNG is back with renewed vigor!"
https://www.programmax.net/articles/png-is-back/
www.programmax.net
PNG is back!
After 20 years, PNG is back with renewed vigor! A new PNG spec was just released.
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Imparare a programmare in codice macchina, perché no? Per noi che eravamo ragazzi alla fine degli anni Settanta-inizio anni Ottanta, era l’altra metà della mela (la prima metà era il Basic nelle sue mille varianti)
Money quote: "One problem with machine code is that there isn't simply one standard. There are many different "instruction sets" depending on the processor. Most modern PCs use x86-64 machine code, but newer Macs, Raspberry Pis, and most mobile devices use ARM. There are other architectures out there, especially as you go back in time. The goal of this article won't be to give you a deep understanding of any particular instruction set, but instead, to give you enough information about how machine code typically works so you cannot be afraid of machine code. So we will start by having our examples be in ARM 64-bit (also written as aarch64). Once we have a decent understanding of that, we will talk a bit about x86-64."
https://jimmyhmiller.com/machine-code-isnt-scary
Money quote: "One problem with machine code is that there isn't simply one standard. There are many different "instruction sets" depending on the processor. Most modern PCs use x86-64 machine code, but newer Macs, Raspberry Pis, and most mobile devices use ARM. There are other architectures out there, especially as you go back in time. The goal of this article won't be to give you a deep understanding of any particular instruction set, but instead, to give you enough information about how machine code typically works so you cannot be afraid of machine code. So we will start by having our examples be in ARM 64-bit (also written as aarch64). Once we have a decent understanding of that, we will talk a bit about x86-64."
https://jimmyhmiller.com/machine-code-isnt-scary
Jimmyhmiller
Machine Code Isn't Scary — Jimmy Miller
Machine code isn't scary. If you can make sure your JSON conforms to a JSON schema, you can write machine code.
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A casa non uso una smart tv. Invece, uso un grande schermo-monitor non smart e senza neanche il decoder del digitale terrestre, collegato con un buon cavo alla mia Apple Tv. Per vari motivi, tra i quali sicurezza e privacy. Ecco qui perché la privacy.
Money quote: "One of the simplest ways Apple TVs ensure better privacy is through their setup process, during which you can disable Siri, location tracking, and sending analytics data to Apple. During setup, users also receive several opportunities to review Apple's data and privacy policies. Also off by default is the boxes' ability to send voice input data to Apple."
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/all-the-ways-apple-tv-boxes-do-and-mostly-dont-track-you/
Money quote: "One of the simplest ways Apple TVs ensure better privacy is through their setup process, during which you can disable Siri, location tracking, and sending analytics data to Apple. During setup, users also receive several opportunities to review Apple's data and privacy policies. Also off by default is the boxes' ability to send voice input data to Apple."
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/all-the-ways-apple-tv-boxes-do-and-mostly-dont-track-you/
Ars Technica
Breaking down why Apple TVs are privacy advocates’ go-to streaming device
Using the Apple TV app or an Apple account means giving Apple more data, though.
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Il tuo amico chatbot è stato progettato e costruito per manipolarti. Questa è la triste realtà.
Money quote: "The findings add to evidence that the tech industry's drive to make chatbots more compelling may cause them to become manipulative or harmful in some conversations. Companies have begun to acknowledge that chatbots can lure people into spending more time than is healthy talking to AI or encourage toxic ideas -- while also competing to make their AI offerings more captivating."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/31/ai-chatbots-user-influence-attention-chatgpt/
Money quote: "The findings add to evidence that the tech industry's drive to make chatbots more compelling may cause them to become manipulative or harmful in some conversations. Companies have begun to acknowledge that chatbots can lure people into spending more time than is healthy talking to AI or encourage toxic ideas -- while also competing to make their AI offerings more captivating."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/31/ai-chatbots-user-influence-attention-chatgpt/
The Washington Post
Your chatbot friend might be messing with your mind
OpenAI, Meta and others want people to spend more time with AI chatbots, but there is growing evidence that they can hook users or reinforce harmful ideas.
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Il nuovo film di Resident Evil fa finalmente paura - la mia recensione per Fumettologica
https://fumettologica.it/2026/09/resident-evil-zach-cregger-recensione-film/
https://fumettologica.it/2026/09/resident-evil-zach-cregger-recensione-film/
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Quand'è che un articolo diventa «il solito spiegone»? E quando lo scroolling diventa doomscrolling? E l'AI ci terminerà tutti?
Il numero 394 di Mostly Weekly è pieno di domande. L'anteprima:
https://antoniodini.com/weekly/394/
Il numero 394 di Mostly Weekly è pieno di domande. L'anteprima:
https://antoniodini.com/weekly/394/
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Lettura per la domenica
Come funzionano le videocamere per la sorveglianza che le amministrazioni non solo americane comprano a tonnellate? Ecco, maluccio, diciamo: sono piene di contraddizioni e mancate regole che permettono forme incontrollate di sorveglianza non si da parte di chi.
Money quote: "Flock’s cameras photograph passing vehicles and send the images and other data to the company’s servers. There, Flock’s system presumably reads the license plate and can identify characteristics such as the vehicle’s color, make, and model. Flock then makes these time-stamped records searchable by whichever local agency owns or has access to the cameras. But in many cases, Flock’s system also allows other police departments from all over the country to search those cameras too, as part of the company’s national network. In Alpharetta, Georgia, for example, WIRED found that records from the city’s Flock cameras were accessible to more than 2,000 agencies, including police departments, colleges, airports, and, inexplicably, the Office of Inspector General for the federal General Services Administration."
https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-flock-camera-data-shows-how-system-works/
archivio: https://archive.is/Xy8dz
Come funzionano le videocamere per la sorveglianza che le amministrazioni non solo americane comprano a tonnellate? Ecco, maluccio, diciamo: sono piene di contraddizioni e mancate regole che permettono forme incontrollate di sorveglianza non si da parte di chi.
Money quote: "Flock’s cameras photograph passing vehicles and send the images and other data to the company’s servers. There, Flock’s system presumably reads the license plate and can identify characteristics such as the vehicle’s color, make, and model. Flock then makes these time-stamped records searchable by whichever local agency owns or has access to the cameras. But in many cases, Flock’s system also allows other police departments from all over the country to search those cameras too, as part of the company’s national network. In Alpharetta, Georgia, for example, WIRED found that records from the city’s Flock cameras were accessible to more than 2,000 agencies, including police departments, colleges, airports, and, inexplicably, the Office of Inspector General for the federal General Services Administration."
https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-flock-camera-data-shows-how-system-works/
archivio: https://archive.is/Xy8dz
WIRED
Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera. Its Data Shows How the System Really Works
A hacker collective pulled down a Flock camera and dumped its data. The files included thousands of videos and logs showing that the device captured 1.6 million images of 50,000 vehicles in 21 days.
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Di epidemie sociali ne abbiamo viste tante, ma come la mania di essere stati rapiti dagli alieni, secondo me no. (Potrei chiosare dicendo che l’America è un grande paese, ma anche no).
Money quote: "Alien abduction sparked not only interest but controversy -- and on multiple fronts. The claims of witnesses tested the limits of how far society should respect the testimony and beliefs of others. Questions were raised about just how reliable personal memories were. And academics debated which experts and which methods were best suited to determine the truth."
https://aeon.co/essays/the-short-dramatic-history-of-alien-abduction-in-the-us
Money quote: "Alien abduction sparked not only interest but controversy -- and on multiple fronts. The claims of witnesses tested the limits of how far society should respect the testimony and beliefs of others. Questions were raised about just how reliable personal memories were. And academics debated which experts and which methods were best suited to determine the truth."
https://aeon.co/essays/the-short-dramatic-history-of-alien-abduction-in-the-us
Aeon
Incredible testimonies
In the 1980s, thousands of Americans began to suspect they may have been abducted by aliens. What happened?
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Cloudflare ha fatto quello che secondo me dovrebbe essere lo sforzo maggiore da parte di tutti quelli che scrivono codice: ha ottimizzato alla grande salvando 100 terabyte di spazio grazie ai nuovi approcci sulla cache di 1.1.1.1 (se non sapete cos'è un DNS, e che potete usare questo gratuitamente, è il momento di chiedere lumi a ChatGPT).
Money quote: "Big Pineapple, the platform behind 1.1.1.1, Gateway DNS, DNS Firewall, AS112, and several other Cloudflare DNS services, stores over 250 billion DNS cache entries at any given time. At that scale, wasting a single byte per entry costs more than 250 gigabytes of memory across our fleet.
Five successive changes to how cache entries are stored in memory cut the per-entry footprint by over 50%. Across our fleet, these changes freed up roughly 100 terabytes of memory, equivalent to the amount of RAM in 130 of our Gen 13 servers. The cache also got faster. Insert throughput rose 43% and lookup latency dropped 19%, as fewer allocations and better memory locality meant we did not trade speed for space."
https://blog.cloudflare.com/dns-cache-memory-optimization-1111/
Money quote: "Big Pineapple, the platform behind 1.1.1.1, Gateway DNS, DNS Firewall, AS112, and several other Cloudflare DNS services, stores over 250 billion DNS cache entries at any given time. At that scale, wasting a single byte per entry costs more than 250 gigabytes of memory across our fleet.
Five successive changes to how cache entries are stored in memory cut the per-entry footprint by over 50%. Across our fleet, these changes freed up roughly 100 terabytes of memory, equivalent to the amount of RAM in 130 of our Gen 13 servers. The cache also got faster. Insert throughput rose 43% and lookup latency dropped 19%, as fewer allocations and better memory locality meant we did not trade speed for space."
https://blog.cloudflare.com/dns-cache-memory-optimization-1111/
Cloudflare Blog
How we saved 100 terabytes of memory by optimizing 1.1.1.1’s DNS cache
Five Rust-level memory optimizations to the DNS cache layout of Big Pineapple cut per-entry memory by 56%, freeing approximately 100 TB of memory across Cloudflare's fleet.
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Io mi sono inventato le mie "trabahanze" metà lavoro e metà vacanza, ma El Pais invece aveva fatto di meglio trovando le "coolcations", concetto che mi sconfinfera molto sopratutto con questo gran caldo.
Money quote: "Cuando agobia el calor tórrido, los granos de arena actúan como brasas y el agua está más caliente que el aire, muchos sufridos veraneantes elevan la vista al norte de España en busca de vacaciones refrescantes y reparadoras. El acrónimo de moda se llama *coolcations*, acrónimo de *cool *(fresco y guay) y *vacations *(vacaciones), que alienta ese creciente éxodo veraniego al norte peninsular pese al riesgo de lluvias y alguna que otra ola de calor que la humedad convierte en insoportable"
https://elpais.com/elviajero/escapadas/espana/2025-07-25/de-san-vicente-de-la-barquera-a-zarautz-10-playas-de-la-costa-norte-de-espana-refrescantes-y-gastronomicas.html
Money quote: "Cuando agobia el calor tórrido, los granos de arena actúan como brasas y el agua está más caliente que el aire, muchos sufridos veraneantes elevan la vista al norte de España en busca de vacaciones refrescantes y reparadoras. El acrónimo de moda se llama *coolcations*, acrónimo de *cool *(fresco y guay) y *vacations *(vacaciones), que alienta ese creciente éxodo veraniego al norte peninsular pese al riesgo de lluvias y alguna que otra ola de calor que la humedad convierte en insoportable"
https://elpais.com/elviajero/escapadas/espana/2025-07-25/de-san-vicente-de-la-barquera-a-zarautz-10-playas-de-la-costa-norte-de-espana-refrescantes-y-gastronomicas.html
El País
De San Vicente de la Barquera a Zarautz: 10 playas de la costa norte de España, refrescantes y gastronómicas
El acrónimo de moda se llama ‘coolcations’, acrónimo de ‘cool’ (fresco y guay) y ‘vacations’ (vacaciones), y alienta ese creciente éxodo veraniego al norte peninsular
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Vietiamo o quantomeno mettiamo i paletti all'intelligenza artificiale per chi scrive libri o fa film. Alé.
Money quote: "E qui sta il cuore del dilemma. Perché ci scandalizziamo per un libro scritto da una macchina? Forse perché ci sentiamo un po' presi in giro. Forse perché anche se viviamo in un mondo parallelo di connessioni e social e di realtà generate dagli algoritmi, nel profondo crediamo ancora nel primato dell'essere umano. Forse perché l'intelligenza artificiale saprà anche scrivere un libro bellissimo, e allo stesso modo saprà fare un film altrettanto bello, scegliendo i tasti giusti per piacere al lettore/spettatore medio, perché l'algoritmo è potenzialmente onnisciente e tende alla perfezione. Ma la vera letteratura, il vero cinema, la vera arte, è proprio lo scarto dalla perfezione. È lo scarto da ciò che è già stato creato, è la ricerca dell'insondabile.
E qui casca l'asino. Perché l'algoritmo questo non saprà mai farlo. Impedire alle macchine di scrivere come gli essere umani è impresa impossibile. Difendere l'autenticità della creazione umana (e quindi mettere dei paletti, dire per esempio che si può usare l'Ai nelle fasi di ricerca per un testo, oppure delimitare le aree di utilizzo dell'Ai nella produzione di un film) è l'unico modo per impedire all'essere umano di creare (e quindi di pensare) come una macchina. Su questo credo che dovremmo essere tutti d'accordo."
https://www.lastampa.it/cultura/2026/09/03/news/l_algoritmo_non_sa_creare_vera_arte_l_autenticita_sta_nell_imperfezione-15728685/
https://archive.is/s0UpS
Money quote: "E qui sta il cuore del dilemma. Perché ci scandalizziamo per un libro scritto da una macchina? Forse perché ci sentiamo un po' presi in giro. Forse perché anche se viviamo in un mondo parallelo di connessioni e social e di realtà generate dagli algoritmi, nel profondo crediamo ancora nel primato dell'essere umano. Forse perché l'intelligenza artificiale saprà anche scrivere un libro bellissimo, e allo stesso modo saprà fare un film altrettanto bello, scegliendo i tasti giusti per piacere al lettore/spettatore medio, perché l'algoritmo è potenzialmente onnisciente e tende alla perfezione. Ma la vera letteratura, il vero cinema, la vera arte, è proprio lo scarto dalla perfezione. È lo scarto da ciò che è già stato creato, è la ricerca dell'insondabile.
E qui casca l'asino. Perché l'algoritmo questo non saprà mai farlo. Impedire alle macchine di scrivere come gli essere umani è impresa impossibile. Difendere l'autenticità della creazione umana (e quindi mettere dei paletti, dire per esempio che si può usare l'Ai nelle fasi di ricerca per un testo, oppure delimitare le aree di utilizzo dell'Ai nella produzione di un film) è l'unico modo per impedire all'essere umano di creare (e quindi di pensare) come una macchina. Su questo credo che dovremmo essere tutti d'accordo."
https://www.lastampa.it/cultura/2026/09/03/news/l_algoritmo_non_sa_creare_vera_arte_l_autenticita_sta_nell_imperfezione-15728685/
https://archive.is/s0UpS
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Quando la fantascienza diventa un mattone: i romanzi più lunghi di sempre - per quelle volte che avete proprio tanta voglio di leggere. Ovviamente per Fumettologica
https://fumettologica.it/2026/09/fantascienza-mattoni-romanzi-piu-lunghi/
https://fumettologica.it/2026/09/fantascienza-mattoni-romanzi-piu-lunghi/
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