Cosa succederebbe se Internet svanisse dall'oggi al domani? Un disastro, inutile dirlo.

Money quote: "“Most businesses don’t plan on an apocalypse lasting more than 30 days,” says Bret Piatt, CEO of cybersecurity firm Jungle Disk. “If the whole internet vanished, I would withdraw a big enough chunk of money to buy a year’s worth of rice, beans, desalination tablets, and fresh drinking water.”"

https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/web/a29629151/global-internet-outage

La storia della rapa nata alle pendici dell'Himalaya che ha conquistato il pianeta (e perché la biodiversità è fondamentale alla sopravvivenza del tutto)

Money quote: "Earlier this month, Molecular Biology and Evolution published findings from an unprecedented study of B. rapa that pulled together genetic sequencing, environmental modeling, and the largest number of wild, feral, and cultivated samples ever collected. The team’s results are important for more than knowing the genealogy of your next stir-fry: The paper is a significant step forward in understanding how one of the planet’s most important agricultural species might weather climate change."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/brassica-rapa-vegetable-domestication

Ecco a cosa serve la realtà aumentata e la stampa 3D. Partire dalle fotografie per ricreare opere perdute di artisti quasi dimenticati.

Money quote: "The destruction, in 1927, of a number of plaster and mixed-media sculptures by the Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) was a tragic loss for avant-garde art. Of the many ground-breaking sculptures he created between c.1913 and 1915, only a handful remain in existence today. Now, using a combination of vintage photographic material and cutting-edge 3D printing techniques, digital artists Matt Smith and Anders Rådén have recreated four of Boccioni’s destroyed works: a volumetric study of a human face titled Empty and Full Abstracts of a Head, and three of the artist’s iconic striding figures. This ground-breaking display enables modern audiences to ‘see’ these lost masterpieces for the very first time."

https://www.estorickcollection.com/exhibitions/boccioni-recreating-the-lost-sculptures

Questo discorso risuona profondamente anche con me: mi manca il web fatto in un certo modo. Non si tratta di nascondere la complessità, ma di farne a meno quando in realtà non serve. Tuttavia siccome l'obiettivo è la monetizzazione selvaggia...

Money quote: "‌Although many websites like Vane's exist on the clearnet, it's getting increasinly harder to find them through the commercial smog thrown up by Google. You have to look really hard for them now, and the best way to find them is through links from similar small websites--that you won't be able to find easily by a Google search, either. Duckduckgo is less commercialized, so you'll have a better chance there. But, even there, it's difficult to find the websites of people who create them just for the joy of it, people we used to call computer hobbyists. Since somehow you found my Miscellaneous Stuff blog, I'm guessing you likely understand what I'm talking about."

http://misc-stuff.terraaeon.com/articles/miss-old-internet.html

Un po' di foto del 4 di luglio, negli Usa

Money quote: "The long 4th of July weekend can be a time to see family and friends, enjoy a day off, and celebrate with a barbecue and some fireworks.

But for many Americans, celebrating a country that has done so much harm since its inception can feel complicated and even painful. "I don't feel connected to the 4th of July," said photographer Star Montana. "I never understood it as a child in school. Our teachers would try to say it was our founding fathers’ time and our independence, but I would cry every time I would read they killed another Indigenous tribe through Manifest Destiny.""

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/piapeterson/july-4th-celebration-photos

“Black Widow” è tre film in uno - la mia recensione di Black Widow

https://www.fumettologica.it/2021/07/black-widow-recensione-film-marvel/

I vostri loop personali. Perché no.

Money quote: "I wrote a Python script that lets you loop .mp3 files seamlessly, forever, based on a loop point determined automatically. This means that you can now listen to your favorite video game music on repeat, forever, sounding just like it does in the game! You can download the script here"

Money quote 2: "I love to listen to video game music - especially in the background while doing other things."

https://nolannicholson.com/looper.html

Lo sapete che il processore più importante nella storia dell'informatica è probabilmente il 6502 di MOS Technology? Qui spiegano perché (con quel filino di partigianeria che rende l'arrosto più saporito).

Money quote: ""When one particular... geek stuck one particular chip into one particular computer circuit board and booted it up, the universe skipped a beat. The geek was Steve Wozniak, the computer was the Apple I, and the chip was the 6502, an 8-bit microprocessor developed by MOS Technology. The chip and its variants went on to become the main brains of ridiculously seminal computers like the Apple II, the Commodore PET, the Commodore 64, and the BBC Micro, not to mention game systems like the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Atari 2600…""

https://www.team6502.org/

Domenica esce come al solito Mostly Weekly. Ci si abbona sul mio sito, dove si può leggere anche la newsletter di domenica scorsa

https://antoniodini.com/mostly/weekly/archivio/122.html

Brian Kernighan è uno dei papà di Unix. E ha una sua attività pubblicistica ed editoriale non indifferente. Nella sua pagina trovate almeno due libri parecchio interessanti.

Money quote: "Unix: A History and a Memoir. Since its creation in a Bell Labs attic in 1969, the Unix operating system has spread far beyond anything its creators could have imagined. It has led to the development of a great deal of innovative software, influenced myriad programmers, and changed the path of computer technology.

This book is part history and part memoir. It tells the story of the origin of Unix, explaining what Unix is, how it came about, and why it matters. Accessible to non-speciaists, the book is written for anyone with an interest in computing or the history of inventions."

https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/

Avete presente le easter egg che fanno i programmatori? Qui ce n'è una vecchia di 35 anni, che coinvolge vinile e Commodore 64...

Money quote: "In 1984, the Christian rock band Prodigal hid a Commodore 64 program on their album "Electric Eye". See my attempts to retrieve and run this 35-year-old easter egg."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_CZpFqvDQo

Una cosa che ho scritto qualche giorno fa e che è andata anche sul Post, mentre io finisco di preparare il prossimo numero di Mostly Weekly

https://www.ilpost.it/antoniodini/2021/07/09/double-feature-men-to-supu-dake-麺とスープだけ-e-fuki-フキ/

I migliori libri sull'altro lato del tech: open source, Linux tra business e sogni - il mio articolo per Macity

https://www.macitynet.it/i-migliori-libri-sullaltro-lato-del-tech-open-source-linux-tra-business-e-sogni/

Questa dei libri per Macity è diventata una vera e propria serie che sto portando avanti da alcuni mesi, tutte le domeniche. Non voglio annoiare segnalandola ogni volta (avrete notato che ho diminuito il numero delle auto-citazioni, pur proseguendo indefesso la mia attività di scrittura) ma in fondo a quegli articoli c’è sempre un rimando ai precedenti, per chi si voglia tenere in pari.

Venti storie da paura. Spiegate bene

Money quote: "In this all-new edition of "The List Show," Mental Floss editor-in-chief Erin McCarthy—decked out in her finest candy corn-covered duds—traces the origins of 20 scary stories, including which urban myths are aren't myths at all."

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/603940/scary-story-origins-the-list-show-video

Ebbene sì, negli Usa in passato c'è stato un candidato alle primarie come Presidente degli Stati Uniti che da giovane ha fatto l'hacker. E che hacker.

Money quote: "One thing you didn’t know: While a teenager, O’Rourke acknowledged in an exclusive interview, he belonged to the oldest group of computer hackers in U.S. history."

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-politics-beto-orourke/

La storia di questi Azzurri, chiara e semplice, sul Guardian

Money quote: "Yet Mancini refused to accept diminished ambitions. From day one, he stated his intention to “take Italy back where it deserves to be, on top of Europe and the world. We have not won a European Championship for many years, so that will be our first objective.”"

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2021/jul/12/roberto-mancini-honours-promise-to-make-italy-champions-of-europe

Ogni tanto ci casco e mi lascio trasportare da articoli come questo. Che comunque, lasciatevelo dire, hanno il sapore della vecchia internet

Money quote: “Questo è il motivo per cui abbiamo creato l'elenco definitivo di trucchi che devi assolutamente leggere! Non solo dà suggerimenti utili su come rendere la tua routine più semplice e meno stressante, ma ti aiuterà effettivamente a svolgere queste attività in modo più rapido ed efficiente. Allora, cosa stai aspettando? Tuffati e scopri come la tua vita diventerà molto più semplice d'ora in poi!”

https://it.thefunpost.com/40-everyday-lifehacks-that-will-make-your-daily-life-so-much

Il nome “Comma Queen” è bellissimo. Il suggerimento fantastico.

Money quote: "“Who” and “whom” are relative pronouns, and the trick for choosing the right one is to switch the clause around so that you can substitute a personal pronoun"

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/comma-queen-who-whom-for-dummies

Il punto di vista è relativo?

Tutto ma proprio tutto su come funziona il sistema di puntamento di un aereo da guerra americano.

Money quote: "An important thing to note is that a radar lock is not always required to launch weapons at a target. For guns kills, if the aircraft has a radar lock on a target, it can accurately gauge range to the target, and provide the pilot with the appropriate corrections for lead and gravity drop, to get an accurate guns kill. Without the radar, the pilot simply has to rely on his or her own judgement."

https://gizmodo.com/how-fighter-jets-lock-on-and-how-the-targets-know-1644871272