Uno spiazzante genio e le sue spiazzanti idee

Money quote: “Lanier calls this technology Together mode; he helped design it this spring for Microsoft, where he has a post as an in-house seer of sorts. Initially he'd conceived of Together mode as a way to help Stephen Colbert—in whose house band Lanier sometimes performs when he's in New York—figure out how to host his show in front of a remote audience. (Lanier is sometimes credited as the father of virtual reality; he is also sometimes credited as the owner of the world's largest flute, in addition to the many other exotic instruments he collects and expertly plays.) But mostly he was trying to solve, as he's been doing since the early '80s, a problem relating to technology and how humans might use it. In this case: How could we better, more naturally communicate with one another in the middle of a pandemic?”

https://www.gq.com/story/jaron-lanier-tech-oracle-profile

Automazione e robot, una “combo” per la ripartenza dell’industria - il mio articolo per CorCom

https://www.corrierecomunicazioni.it/industria-4-0/automazione-e-robot-una-combo-per-la-ripartenza-dellindustria/

La storia femminile di Internet - il mio articolo per Anobii

https://blog.anobii.com/it/2020/09/29/la-storia-femminile-di-internet/

Non sono così sicuro che l’approccio catastrofista dei giornali come l’Atlantic abbia l’effetto desiderato. Il coronavirus ha impatti devastanti ma subdoli, non è la peste bubbonica, soprattutto non si vede fino a che non scala oltre controllo. Questo rende l’allarmismo una pratica secondo me poco efficace come profilassi: servirebbe invece un approccio più sotto-tono ma più pervasivo e persuasivo. Dopodiché non ho idea di quale possa essere

Money quote: “The virus is here to stay. At best, it would fade away gradually, but that would happen after, not before, the winter. The sooner we can accept this, the more we can focus on minimizing the losses of the bleak and grisly coming months. Some of our fate is now inevitable, but much is not. There are still basic things we can do to survive.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/how-america-can-survive-the-winter/616401/

Ci ha lasciato un gigante.

https://www.fumettologica.it/2020/09/quino-morto-mafalda-fumetti/

Posseggo e utilizzo una Hasselblad analogica, una 500 C. Ma non nascondo chiuderei volentieri anche questa combinazione. Alla faccia del minimalismo, anche se il sensore non è un vero 6x6.

Money quote: “What makes this version much more exciting though is that is also designed to couple with a new 907X body that accepts the X-series lenses – so the CFV II 50C back is a gateway not only to digitizing older classic bodies, but also to using the new X lenses in a smaller, classic-style format. Here the CFV II 50C back is married to the 907X body and mounted with the XCD 65mm F2.8 lens.”

https://m.dpreview.com/articles/1158727149/hands-on-with-the-hasselblad-cfv-ii-50c-and-907x

Quino era gigantesco. E lo si intravede anche a margine di questa nota a piè di pagina della nostra storia

Money quote: “Lo stesso Quino si è più volte dichiarato solidale nel confronti delle lotte delle donne: «Ho sempre sostenuto le cause dei diritti umani in generale e dei diritti delle donne in particolare, alle quali auguro buona fortuna nelle loro rivendicazioni» "

https://www.fumettologica.it/2020/10/mafalda-berlusconi-quino/

Cybersecurity, IoT nel mirino: attacchi a +35% nel primo semestre 2020 - il mio articolo per CorCom

https://www.corrierecomunicazioni.it/cyber-security/cybersecurity-nel-2020-bloccate-13-miliardi-di-e-mail-sospette/

Competenze digitali, 10 milioni gli “alunni” dei corsi Microsoft - il mio articolo per CorCom

https://www.corrierecomunicazioni.it/lavoro-carriere/competenze/competenze-digitali-10-milioni-gli-alunni-dei-corsi-microsoft/

Google – Antitrust Ue: accordo vicino sull’acquisizione di FitBit - il mio articolo per CorCom

https://www.corrierecomunicazioni.it/digital-economy/google-antitrust-ue-accordo-vicino-sullacquisizione-di-fitbit/

Videogaming, 2020 record: giro d’affari alla soglia dei 40 miliardi di dollari - il mio articolo per CorCom

https://www.corrierecomunicazioni.it/digital-economy/videogaming-2020-record-giro-daffari-alla-soglia-dei-40-miliardi-di-dollari/

“Perdiamo una grande opportunità nell’evitare: perdiamo la possibilità di sentire l’urgenza di prenderci cura di noi” https://nicolettacinotti.net/parole-nel-turbine-evitare-distrarsi/ un pezzo sul dolore, la compassione e l’attenzione che dovremmo avere per noi stessi✔️

Il mistero sul perché gli idioti non si estinguano diventa sempre più fitto

Money quote: “On August 11, a member of the group "Loaded Guns Pointed at [B]enis" posted a video of himself pointing a loaded 1911 handgun at his junk. There’s a brief pause before the gun discharges.

The original video of the man shooting himself in the balls and subsequent thread has been deleted, but members of the group captured the video and aftermath and reuploaded it.”

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3zeew/gun-enthusiasts-celebrate-man-who-shot-himself-in-the-balls-as-their-king

Google tende la mano agli editori: sul piatto 1 miliardo di dollari - il mio articolo per CorCom

https://www.corrierecomunicazioni.it/media/google-tende-la-mano-agli-editori-sul-piatto-1-miliardo-di-dollari/

I canadesi di solito passano per essere quelli bravi in Nord America. Beh, mica tanto. Usano la AI peggio di un film di Spielberg.

Money quote: “The report breaks down how police are using or considering the use of algorithms for several purposes including predictive policing, which uses historical police data to predict where crime will occur in the future. Right now in Canada, police are using algorithms to analyze data about individuals to predict who might go missing, with the goal of one day using the technology in other areas of the criminal justice system. Some police services are using algorithms to automate the mass collection and analysis of public data, including social media posts, and to apply facial recognition to existing mugshot databases for investigative purposes. “

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7q55x/police-across-canada-are-using-predictive-policing-algorithms-report-finds

Ci siamo: è domenica, Mostly Weekly sta uscendo adesso. Iscriviti, sei ancora in tempo!

https://tinyletter.com/MostlyIWrite

Su TikTok ci sono anche mafia e camorra.

Money quote: “Marcello Ravveduto, professor of Digital Public History at the University of Salerno, said the mafia’s use of TikTok to spread their message makes sense. “We often forget criminal organisations and social media have a key thing in common: a network,””

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qj4qxx/the-italian-mafia-is-on-tiktok

Quelli di Automatttic, cioè WordPress, hanno lanciato P, che è una specie di sistema per l'organizzazione collaborativa dei file e altro. Per adesso gratuita, fatta usando WordPress come motore. Ci provano pure loro. Mamma mia...

Money quote: "Automattic is an office-less, globally distributed company, and P2 is our lifeblood. We built it to give everyone a place to see all of their projects and files, collaborate transparently, and to do it all without constant distractions.

P2 organizes all your files, projects, and conversations on one screen, so your team can collaborate from anywhere. It’s perfect for remote teams, digital nomads, extended families — anyone who doesn’t like email or meetings (i.e., everyone)."

https://wordpress.com/p2

Abbracciare lo stoicismo durante la pandemia (articolo lungo, articolato e affascinante)

Money quote: "It was in late May, as I was reading this story by one of the most vocal proponents of Modern Stoicism (and one of Forge’s most popular writers), Ryan Holiday, that I asked myself the question that anyone who’s ever joined a cult asks, right before heading over to the “get-to-know-us” mixer: “Why not?”
After all, Zadie Smith knocked out of a book of essays inspired by reading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations during quarantine — if it’s working for her, why not for me? Why not look toward something that feels alien in a time when everything feels so weird? So in lieu of attending a drive-in megachurch service, I began exploring Stoicism."

https://forge.medium.com/what-happened-when-i-went-full-stoic-cd4e7dca9967

Un “errore” o meglio un “inghippo tecnico”. Fatto sta che un laboratorio britannico non ha registrato i nomi di quasi 16mila positivi al coronavirus. Però a me la spiegazione non torna.

Money quote: “The technical error was caused by some Microsoft Excel data files exceeding the maximum size after they were sent from NHS Test and Trace to Public Health England.”

www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-54422505

L'errore è che hanno superato il limite di una (o più) tabelle del foglio di calcolo di Microsoft. Non sappiamo cosa venga registrato su quei fogli (quanti campi o colonne ci siano). Però sappiamo quanto “tiene” un singolo foglio di calcolo per design del software.

A parte gli eventuali limiti di memoria della macchina, questo è il "soffitto":

Money quote:

Total number of rows and columns on a worksheet

1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns

Fonte:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/excel-specifications-and-limits-1672b34d-7043-467e-8e27-269d656771c3

La domanda è: cosa ci stavano salvando su quel foglio di calcolo? È davvero questo l'errore?

Anatomia di un honeypot

Money quote: "With a mere 200ish lines of Go, I implemented a honeypot server using the golang.org/x/crypto/ssh library as the underlying implementation. I advertised a portable OpenSSH version as the server version string (sent to clients on connection). I then logged each connection to a SQLite database, including the timestamp, IP address, client version, and credentials used to (attempt to) authenticate."

https://systemoverlord.com/2020/09/04/lessons-learned-from-ssh-credential-honeypots.html