L'ipotesi fatta un po' di tempo fa da Wired Usa: il giornalismo non sta morendo, sta solo tornando alle origini (umili, direi)

Money quote: "What is dying, perhaps, is that flavor of “objective” journalism that purports to record an unbiased account of world events. We take journalistic objectivity to be as natural and immutable as the stars, but it’s a relatively short-lived artifact of 20th-century America. Even now it’s foreign to Europeans—cities such as London cultivate a rowdy passel of partisan scribblers who don’t even pretend there’s an impregnable wall between reportage and opinion. The US was much the same until the late 19th and early 20th century. Until 1900 or so, most newspapers were overtly political, and a name like The Press Democrat meant Democrat with a big D. Advertising was a minor concern, as party leaders encouraged members to subscribe to their local party organ, obviating the need for anything more than classifieds."

https://www.wired.com/story/journalism-isnt-dying-its-returning-its-roots/

Ci sono alcuni orologi che sono realmente iconici. Tra questi, anche se si tratta di un modello che molto raramente si vede su un polso "dal vivo", un posto d'onore certamente è quello del Royal Oak di Audemars Piguet, progettato da Gérald Genta. Beh, ecco qui la nota più incredibile della sua pur ragguardevole storia. L'orologio è stato progettato in una notte. Sottolineo anche l'ultima riga: "Great creativity is seldom a democracy".

Money quote: "This particular part of the origin story of the Royal Oak always struck me as implausible – I'd heard it many times, just like all of us, but the idea that such an iconic design could have been put together so quickly seemed like just another watchmaking tall tale. Apparently, though, that's exactly what happened.

Genta said that Georges Golay told him – at 4 PM, the night before Baselworld 1970 opened, "Mr. Genta, we have a distribution company that has asked us for a steel sports watch that has never been done before – and I need the design sketch for tomorrow morning." Genta rose to the occasion and would later say, "It was a crazy thing, personally I don't know by what magic it was possible to create such a thing in one night, it was quite amazing!"

I can't help but wonder what the watch would have ended up looking like if Genta and AP had had more time – maybe it was a blessing in disguise that design-by-committee, with endless second thoughts and waterings down, was not an option. Great creativity is seldom a democracy."

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/from-the-audemars-piguet-archives-8-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-origin-of-the-royal-oak

Un libro nato da lezioni universitarie e un tumblr di uno studente che pubblicava i suoi appunti. Una collaborazione che è diventata un best seller.

Money quote: "Zero To One might be the first best-selling business book based on a Tumblr. Stanford student Blake Masters took Peter Thiel’s class on startups. He posted his notes on Tumblr after each lecture. They became a minor sensation. Thiel asked if he wanted to make them into a book together. He did.

The title comes from Thiel’s metaphor that ordinary businessmen like restaurant owners take a product “from 1 to n” (shouldn’t this be from n to n+1?) – they build more of something that already exists. But the greatest entrepreneurs bring something “from 0 to 1” – they invent something that has never been seen before.

The book has various pieces of advice for such entrepreneurs. Three sections especially struck me: on monopolies, on secrets, and on indefinite optimism."

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/31/book-review-zero-to-one/

Com'è che era Richard Feynmann

Money quote: "I could have recognized that distinctive, gravelly voice with the unmistakable New York accent with my eyes closed. Standing before me was my scientific idol, the legendary physicist Richard Feynman, with his shock of graying, shoulder-length hair, wearing his characteristic white shirt, along with a disarming, devilish smile."

http://nautil.us/issue/68/context/what-impossible-meant-to-feynman

Omega e Swatch (il marchio la cui casa madre è proprietaria anche di Omega) stanno lavorando a qualcosa di grosso insieme. Il risultato arriverà tra un paio di giorni, e gli svizzeri stanno investendo un sacco di soldi in marketing per creare molta, molta attesa. Cosa arriverà? Un Omega Speedmaster di plastica tutto colorato?

No sooner are we sat down in the Nicholas Hayek conference room, Mr Hayek informally dives straight in. “We started nine months ago and we kept it secret,” Hayek tells us. “It's all about collaboration at the moment, collabs are very fashionable, between Gucci, Balenciaga, Adidas... whoever is working together. But often it's also just a marketing gig. You put the logos from one to the product of the other one and that's it. Here we wanted to go a step further, because there is a brand that you all know very well, Omega, which is an icon, and on the other side, Swatch is another icon because it saved the Swiss watch industry. When everybody was only focusing on luxury, Swatch was there, and Swatch is an innovator. So these were the bases where we were thinking together, ‘What can we do that is positive provocation and joy of life?’ Now, let’s have a look at the result,” teases Hayek.

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/watches/article/omega-swatch-collab-tease-2022

Alcuni suggerimenti su come scegliere quale saggistica leggere. Tre regolette facili facili, una delle quali mi tocca da vicino...

Money quote: "Yes, no books by journalists, unless it’s about journalism. If the author is not an expert in the field, they should at least be a long-time practitioner. Malcolm Gladwell’s books are enjoyable—there is no denying he tells compelling stories—but ultimately they rely heavily on anecdotal evidence. In general, I find that books by journalists cherry-pick examples to fit the argument, and gloss over (or completely ignore) evidence to the contrary.

Rule #1 does not apply to Biographies. Biographies are different"

http://herman.asia/how-i-choose-nonfiction-books

Jime, la raffinata e violentissima tecnica giapponese per uccidere il pesce in modo da preservarne il gusto. Attenzione, anche se i disegni sembrano di cartoni animati carini (kawaii), in realtà può fare una discreta impressione, se si guarda bene cosa fanno. Accidenti a loro.

Money quote: "Ike jime is a Japanese fish preparation method that paralyses fish and drains them of blood. When done correctly, it not just preserves the fish’s flavour and texture but also allows the flesh to develop an umami dimension when aged.

“Ike Jime is a multi-series steps of controls and these steps are designed to mitigate all the effects of biochemical reactions,” says Andrew Tsui, president of the Ike Jime Federation"

https://guide.michelin.com/sg/dining-out/what-is-ike-jime/news

Sta per arrivare il MoonSwatch (il figlio impuro di Omega e Swatch) ma a rete è già esplosa. Il mio articolo.

Money quote: "È un momento difficile e ci vuole un buono psicologo per capirlo e trasformarlo in una opportunità economica. Bisogna saper leggere tra le foglie della società e trovare lo spirito giusto, l’angolo giusto, soprattutto il tono giusto. A quanto pare a Nick Hayek Jr, l’attuale guida di Swatch e figlio del fondatore, è decisamente riuscito"

https://www.macitynet.it/moonswatch-con-omega-fa-impazzire-la-rete-prima-del-lancio/

L'agricoltura si sta digitalizzando. Il settore primario sta lentamente diventando un'altra cosa. Non è solo questione di trattori smart e di satelliti furbi: stanno cambiando le cose sul campo in maniera radicale.

Money quote "For many companies in Salinas, the man standing astride the gap between what happens in the field and the record-keeping needs of a modern farming business is a 50-year-old technology consultant named Paul Mariottini. Mariottini—who planned to become a general contractor until he got a computer at age 18 and, as he puts it, “immediately stopped sleeping”—runs a one-man operation out of his home in Hollister, with a flip phone and a suite of bespoke templates and plug-ins he writes for Microsoft Access and Excel. When I asked the growers I met how they handled this part of the business, the reply, to a person, was: “Oh, we use Paul.”"

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/18/1013239/precision-agriculture-farmwise-remote-sensing-salinas/

"Parigi, 13Arr.": il dolore silenzioso del bianco e nero - la mia recensione per Fumettologica

https://fumettologica.it/2022/03/parigi-13arr-film-recensione/

Quelli che colorano il cibo (credevate fossero colori naturali? Pensateci di nuovo)

Money quote: "IFC Solutions in Linden, New Jersey, makes both natural and artificial food coloring in “almost any desired shade,” according to the company. This variety of colors would have been tough to imagine in the mid-19th century, when the first artificial food color (purple) was produced from coal by-products. These “Color Bits” are prized by candy manufacturers because they are easy to mix into hot masses of candy but are low in moisture, which makes for a long shelf life."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/18/1013963/food-coloring-ifc-solutions-colorbits-christopher-payne/

Se avete bisogno di qualche componente per il vostro nuovo progettino di elettronica...

Money quote: "Access price, inventory, unique market intelligence and advanced analytics for all your parts."

https://www.findchips.com/

Ehi, Mostly Weekly è praticamente pronta: esce domani, come al solito

https://antoniodini.com/newsletter/

La cosa bella della scienza è che continua a modificare le scoperte che vengono fatte, arrivando ad approssimazioni crescenti della realtà. Come l'atmosfera terrestre, che si estende fino alla Luna.

Money quote: "A recent discovery based on observations by the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO, shows that the gaseous layer that wraps around Earth reaches up to 630 000 km away, or 50 times the diameter of our planet.

“The Moon flies through Earth’s atmosphere,” says Igor Baliukin of Russia’s Space Research Institute, lead author of the paper presenting the results."

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Earth_s_atmosphere_stretches_out_to_the_Moon_and_beyond

Se avete una macchina fotografica della Canon (una reflex EOS) ecco a voi il modo per doparla e darle più funzioni con aggiunte software open source dicono molto facili (si caricano con la SD card). È Magic Lantern.

Money quote: "Magic Lantern is a free software add-on that runs from the SD/CF card and adds a host of new features to Canon EOS cameras that weren't included from the factory by Canon"

https://www.magiclantern.fm/

Più che poeti maledetti, li definirei poeti molto ricercati

Money quote: "[I]n April, Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, will sell a notebook containing what appears to be original poetry written by Bonnie and Clyde."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/for-sale-original-poetry-by-bonnie-and-clyde

Perché l'Italia ama gli orologi e ha una notevole tradizione nel progettarli, produrli e anche nel gestirli (un sacco di executive di maison svizzere sono in realtà italiani). Questo articolo, che parla in realtà di Panerai e di Sylvester Stallone, offre una spiegazione.

Money quote: " Italians are renowned for many things but not necessarily precision. Maybe it’s because of that, rather than in spite of it, that there’s constantly been a thriving business in watchmaking. After all, in any country characterised by arid desert, selling water is always a good idea."

https://www.watchgecko.com/how-rambo-put-two-italian-watches-on-the-map/

Progettare una interfaccia aziendale: una storia dolorosa, e alcuni utili consigli invece su come fare.

Money quote: "Enterprise designers can take a lot of great cues from consumer design, but functionality must always be our primary concern. That’s because our users don’t have a choice, they have to use the tools we design—if they don’t think a system is usable, they can’t decide to just go download a different one. So we owe it to them to put their daily productivity first—always."

https://uxdesign.cc/how-white-space-killed-an-enterprise-app-and-why-data-density-matters-b3afad6a5f2a

Casomai aveste dei dubbi, mentre noi festeggiamo la fine della pandemia, negli Usa hanno autorizzato il secondo booster agli over 50

https://www.axios.com/fda-second-booster-shots-moderna-pfizer-c132e5a5-8e8a-4e62-bafc-5af61d1dee08.html

A quanto pare la prossima variante di Omicron si chiama BA.2 ed è diventata rapidamente dominante negli Usa (pare che sia in piena ripartenza anche da noi).

https://www.axios.com/fda-second-booster-shots-moderna-pfizer-c132e5a5-8e8a-4e62-bafc-5af61d1dee08.html

La sua trasmissibilità è del 30% superiore a quella delle varianti precedenti anche se per fortuna non è più virulenta.

Money quote: "The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday authorized a fourth COVID-19 vaccine shot for people 50 and older, which could further help protect the most vulnerable from the subvariant.

"CDC says the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron is now dominant in the US," tweeted Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University. "Reminder that while this appears to be even more contagious than the original Omicron, it is not more virulent than previous strains, and existing vaccines still protect well against severe disease."

Il fantastico mondo delle calcolatrici. Sembra un articolo che parte facile e forse noioso, ma poi diventa fantascienza pura. Credetemi.

Money quote: "We’re not in the 1980s anymore, and the reference is not CASIO fx-82 anymore. Today we have matrix displays dubbed Natural Display, Natural Textbook Display, Visually Perfect Algebraic Method (V.P.A.M.) or Natural V.P.A.M.–the idea being that one can input formulas exactly as they are normally written on paper or in a textbook. And yet, most such calculators are used in K-12 to operate with fractions, to simplify them and to give results in fractions or generally in symbolic writing instead of numerical values, e.g. 2√2/3 instead of 0.942809041."

http://ludditus.com/2019/02/10/nostalgia-fun-with-calculators/

La grandezza di Ursula K. Le Guin. Se non vi basta questo breve saggio per correre a comprare i suoi libri e cominciare a leggere, non so cosa altro...

Money quote: "Born in Berkeley, California, in 1929, Le Guin began publishing science fiction in the early 1960s and within ten years was acknowledged as one of the most important writers in the genre, particularly with the publication of A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), and The Dispossessed (1974). Curry makes it look like Le Guin rescued science fiction and fantasy more or less single-handedly from a state of literary neglect, which isn’t exactly true. (There were other writers who saw the genre’s potential for yielding enduring literature.) But Le Guin chose this “despised, marginal” genre, she once said, for a reason she couldn’t acknowledge to herself at the time: Because it was “excluded from critical, academic, canonical supervision, leaving the artist free.”"

https://www.neh.gov/article/ursula-k-le-guin-was-creator-worlds