Ora, io capisco tutto: si scrive su Medium per attirare i click e fare due soldi, la prospettiva black matters, il punto di vista femminile-femminista, il disagio che si vive in un'altra cultura e che diventa difficile da comprendere perché diverso da quelli della nostra cultura, e tutto il resto. Però, questo che sembrava un semplice articolo su "terapia e matrimonio" (una accoppiata interessante, direi), si è rivelato un delirio. Cioè, ma sul serio? Credo di vivere su un altro pianeta.

Money quote: "My mother’s “all men are trash” rhetoric never sat well with my spirit. So, with the help of my therapist, I went back into those spaces most of us fear — those dark, dank corners of our past relationships, where everything we’ve ever learned about love, from the people who love us the most, has been wrong.

One constant I found is that I date mentally unstable men. When I’m not dating them, I’m marrying them. And whether I’m dating or marrying them, I’m ignoring their mental health issues — as well as my own."

https://level.medium.com/why-isnt-therapy-a-prerequisite-for-marriage-e6ec2b9721a9

Un cervello digitale per Industria 4.0, la scommessa dell’Europa - il mio articolo per CorCom

https://www.corrierecomunicazioni.it/digital-economy/un-cervello-digitale-per-industria-4-0-la-scommessa-delleuropa/

Sketchfighter 4000 Alpha, un vecchio classico di Ambrosia Software, ce l'ha fatta: è sbarcato nel mondo a 64 bit.

Money quote: "With so many games gone with the transition to 64-bit apps, I was happy to see Lost Minds take the time and effort to revitalize this small but fun corner of Mac gaming history. Updating older games isn’t trivial, which is why reboots like Sketchfighter are sadly the exception rather than the rule."

https://www.macstories.net/reviews/game-day-sketchfighter-4000-alpha/

Optimizing the Joy in Your Life | The New Yorker

Vignette serali

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/optimizing-the-joy-in-your-life

Ogni tanto tutti quanti, inclusi noi giornalisti, ci emozioniamo all'idea delle "fattorie-verticali", che coltivano cibo sulle pareti dei palazzi cittadini. E ci sono parecchie startup hi-tech che ci provano. Il problema è che la Silicon Valley non ha la più pallida idea di come funzioni l'agricoltura. Peccato.

Money quote: "So why am I not worried about vertical farming or startups that are trying to reinvent the wheel? They are busy fighting battles that simply don’t exist for their competition (outdoor/field-based agriculture). Current agriculture doesn’t need an artificial energy source and the automation that exists today is breathtaking. It is completely reasonable for a single human, with assistance from machines, to comfortably farm 1,000 acres or more of traditional rows crops. It generally doesn’t matter if a vertical farm can ‘produce’ 365 days a year, the existing agriculture infrastructure in the breadbaskets of the world (United States, Brazil/Argentina/Eastern Europe) make any indoor advantage disappear, and quickly. These centers are ‘connected’ as well, with existing GPS and cellular networks available today."

https://thinkingagriculture.io/what-silicon-valley-doesnt-understand-about-agriculture

È uscita Mostly Weekly. https://tinyletter.com/MostlyIWrite

Il reportage che mancava: l’Italia al tempo del coronavirus. (Poi lo ritroverete su Internazionale e sul Post, se bon c’è già andato).

Money quote: “Why am I taking this trip to Italy?

First, because it matters. The economic and political uncertainty now surrounding the EU’s third largest economy constitute its biggest internal risk. Second, because it has just been through a searing experience. Italy was not the only Western country to experience a large Covid-19 outbreak, but it was the first and for several weeks seemed to have been uniquely condemned to the virus’s scythe. Third, because I have a stake in the place; I have Italian family, have lived in the country and as a journalist have reported from it many times. And fourth, because Italy is complicated, contradictory and hard to understand from afar. So I have set out by train – the best way to see Europe – to capture the feel of Italy today, assess the state of its society, economy and politics and work out what the future might hold.”

https://www.newstatesman.com/international/places/2020/07/italy-wake-coronavirus

Questa studentessa di 23 anni ha smontato, uno dopo l'altro, tutti i big della tecnologia (Facebook, Google e Instagram) scoprendo segreti, trucchi e prodotti futuri. Con un metodo che nessun altro sito di rumors o di news riesce a trovare. In una parola: epico.

Money quote: "When we asked her about her workflow, and how she manages to stay ahead of the rest, Wong replied that her methods were somewhat “scientific”: “It is an iterative work on top of past knowledges and experiences. I would say my methods could be pretty scientific (i.e. Observation, Hypothesis, Experiments). It’s pretty similar to how other security researchers made the exploits possible.”

“I observe how the app and the operating system works programmatically, and how the company seemingly operates structurally, and how its people operate psychologically. I then try to make sense between the different observations and find their weaknesses… and then come up with hypotheses of how to make it worse. I then test to see of those work. If something interesting comes up, I usually tweet it out.”"

https://thenextweb.com/tnw-answers/2018/10/24/meet-the-23-year-old-engineering-detective-behind-the-biggest-leaks-in-tech/

Molte aquile ho visto in volo - il mio articolo per il Post su un libro molto bello

https://www.ilpost.it/antoniodini/2020/07/27/molte-aquile-ho-visto-in-volo/

Quando anche Tex sbagliava - il mio articolo per Fumettologica

https://www.fumettologica.it/2020/07/tex-willer-bonelli-fumetto/

Google maps e il piccolo trucco con cui gli Usa proteggono alcune delle location più sensibili del pianeta. Se lo fanno una volta, vedete che lo fanno anche altre volte.

Money quote: "After stumbling onto this strange piece of information, we, as researchers critical of the National Security State wanted to know how and why this happened. While the area has since been updated (the current image you see in Google Earth/Maps was taken on October 1st, 2017), the gap in Google Earth’s historical data set remains. (Since we began our investigation, Google Earth updated its historical dataset to include images from both 2014 and 2015, making the total gap remaining 6 years.)

That this gap occurred for eight years without any acknowledgement from Google, Alphabet, or the federal government suggests that it can happen again with no warning or oversight. This is Google’s Earth, not ours."

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gye79x/google-earth-stopped-mapping-this-military-installation

Quarantine 15, il numero di once guadagnate durante la pandemia dai newyorkesi. Non penso qui ci sia niente di meglio. E le sartorie riprendono fiato.

Money quote: “In a city where gyms are still closed, and Netflix and couch the safest evening entertainment, the phenomenon of stay-at-home weight gain — playfully called the Quarantine 15 by some — has brought an unexpected windfall for some tailors. Some say they have seen business rise by as much as 80 percent, with customers asking for buttons to be moved, waistbands lengthened and jackets made more roomy"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/25/nyregion/coronavirus-tailors-cleaners-weight-gain.html

Perché Apple sta producendo gli iPhone in India - il mio articolo per La Stampa

https://www.lastampa.it/tecnologia/news/2020/07/29/news/perche-apple-sta-producendo-gli-iphone-in-india-1.39134072?refresh_ce

Un libro di mappe immaginarie, più vere del vero però perché sono letterariamente corrette.

Money quote: "The book includes the map from Thomas More’s Utopia, which when published in 1516 contained the first fantasy map in a work of fiction, as far as anyone can tell. The book also has the maps that were the objects of obsession of many a fantasy-filled childhood: Middle Earth, the mysterious Narnia, the Hundred Acre Wood, the roads Milo explores in The Phantom Tollbooth."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/writers-maps

A new funding model for open source software

Introducing "sponsor pools"

- Every month, you donate some amount into a "wallet".

- Your funds are then distributed to the projects in your "sponsor pool". Your sponsor pool is just the set of open-source projects you want to support.

- Adding new projects to your pool should require one click — as easy as starring the repo on GitHub.

That's it.

Info: https://vriad.com/essays/a-new-funding-model-for-open-source-software

Sembra un altro mondo: un po' di tempo fa questo articolo affrontava il tema del peso dei social media, e di youtube in particolare. Abbiamo finito di parlare di Facebook, infatti, e adesso parliamo degli youtuber come influencer politici. Il resto doveva ancora venire.

Money quote: "One thing is very clear: His YouTube channel, the memes, the fake news, and MBL’s army of supporters have helped Kataguiri, 22, become the youngest person ever elected to Congress in Brazil. He’s also trying to become Brazil’s equivalent of speaker of the House."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/brazils-congressional-youtubers

La potenza della cultura dei popoli. Un esempio? Il concetto di wabi-sabi per i giapponesi.

Money quote: "“The aesthetics of wabi-sabi opened our eyes to everyday life and gave us a method of handling what is common in an uncommon, aesthetic way,” Prof Otabe said, highlighting the importance of acceptance in Japanese culture, a society forced to contend with devastating natural disasters on a semi-regular basis. Rather than casting nature solely as a dangerous and destructive force, it helps frame it as a source of beauty, to be appreciated on the smallest of levels. It becomes a provider of colours, designs and patterns, a source of inspiration, and a force to work alongside, rather than against."

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20181021-japans-unusual-way-to-view-the-world

Questa app, Muzmatch, fa matchmaking in maniera diversa dalle altre: è rivolta ai musulmani e cerca di innovare il mercato dei matrimoni arrangiati e al tempo stesso essere halal, cioè rispettare i valori culturali dell'Islam.

Money quote: "Hawaya’s strategy is to embed Muslim cultural values into its design. Its minimum age was raised from 18 to 21, to ensure that people were serious about marriage. To adhere to traditional Muslim attitudes around modesty, Hawaya gives female users the option of hiding their photos until they feel comfortable revealing them to a match. There is also a “Guardian Angel” feature that allows a family member to “chaperone” and oversee conversations. The message in all of this, says Ali, is that “our users respect our traditions and culture.”"

https://restofworld.org/2020/muslim-dating-apps/

(l’animazione all’inizio dell’articolo è fantastica)

“Eat the Buddha” è un libro sulla vita delle popolazioni tibetane e buddiste in Cina scritto da una giornalista americana che fa quello che fanno i giornalisti americani quando scrivono un libro. Un gran lavoro anche dal punto di vista formale e del metodo.

Money quote: “The chapters on the self-immolations are the heart of “Eat the Buddha” — the terrible climax for which Demick has prepared us through her recounting of more than 60 years of religious repression and human rights abuses. There’s a good deal of exposition, all of it essential, but whenever possible, she presents Ngaba’s brutal history through the stories of individual characters, the technique pioneered by John Hersey in “Hiroshima.” (Hersey took the idea from the Thornton Wilder novel “The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” which he read on his ship en route to Japan.) I occasionally felt I needed an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of all the players, some of whom vanish for long stretches — in one case, for more than 100 pages — before re-entering the narrative. But Demick, who used the same technique to excellent effect in her previous books (“Logavina Street,” about Sarajevo, and “Nothing to Envy,” about North Korea), knows what she’s doing.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/books/review/eat-the-buddha-barbara-demick.html

Riccardino, il finale di Montalbano - il mio articolo per Anobii

https://blog.anobii.com/it/2020/07/31/riccardino-il-finale-di-montalbano/