Le "China girls" erano delle foto di ragazze messe dai tecnici all'inizio delle pellicole dei film come forma di controllo di qualità. Apparivano per un attimo, già nel passaggio al cinema o in televisione venivano tolte e rimanevano solo in casi di trasmissioni fate da operatori non competenti o riversaggi in Vhs di scarsa qualità. Oggi sono una rarità da ricercare e c'è chi le colleziona, con varie esposizioni su YouTube. (E no, non sappiamo perché si chiamino "China girls").

Money quote: "For many years photo labs would produce unique China girl images; around a couple hundred women, perhaps more, had their images hidden at the beginning of films. As movies have transitioned from analog to digital, though, the China girls are disappearing."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-forgotten-china-girls-hidden-at-the-beginning-of-old-films

Lo so che siete dei timidoni e non venite a iscrivervi alla newsletter perché Mostly Weekly vi sembra troppo figa per voi. Ed è vero: ma per fortuna è talmente figa che viene lei da voi sia su Twitter che anche qui su Telegram

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/139/

Uno strano teatro giapponese

Money quote: "At tonight’s show in Osaka, the zachou, or troupe leader, is Shinya-san. “Nothing makes me happier than having people from all walks of life watch the shows,” he explains. “If there’s one thing to expect from taishū engeki, it’s to have fun and enjoy yourself.”"

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/taishu-engeki-theater-japan

La frugalità eletta a sistema

Money quote: "But the most impactful way to improve your financial outlook isn’t a one-time, band-aid type solution. It’s the slow fix of adopting more frugal lifestyle habits. You’re not going to save a fortune—at least not right away—but if you take on a few small changes, you’ll rack up a snowball of savings that will set you up for life."

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/100-frugal-habits-to-live-by-if-you-re-trying-to-save-money

Ho ripescato un appunto che mi ero preso prima della pandemia, per intenderci, quando ero passato all'allora nuova Bash 5. Un po' di cose erano cambiate. Bisognava ad esempio capire come gestire gli aggiornamenti di Homebrew, perché ogni volta il binario finiva da una parte diversa. Bisognava cambiare la configurazione generale. Però c'erano cose interessanti. Poi siamo tutti migrati a zsh.

Money quote: "This release fixes several outstanding bugs in bash-4.4 and introduces several new features. The most significant bug fixes are an overhaul of how nameref variables resolve and a number of potential out-of-bounds memory errors discovered via fuzzing. There are a number of changes to the expansion of $@ and $* in various contexts where word splitting is not performed to conform to a Posix standard interpretation, and additional changes to resolve corner cases for Posix conformance."

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2019-01/msg00063.html

New York City ha un nuovo sindaco, per la seconda volta di colore. Ma è solo l’inizio.

Money quote: “New York is about to have:
a Black Attorney General
a Black DA for Manhattan
a Black DA for the Bronx
a Black US Attorney in Manhattan
a Black US Attorney in Brooklyn/Queens
And a Black mayor of NYC.

Let's see if it makes a difference in policy.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/nyregion/alvin-bragg-wins-manhattan-da.html

Folli e bellissime visualizzazioni di informazioni georeferenziate

Money quote: "Scott Reinhard is a Brooklyn-based graphic designer. He works at the New York multi-disciplinary design studio 2 × 4 and was formerly a Senior Designer at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and VSA Partners. Scott has taught in the Graduate Communications Design program at the Pratt Institute and holds a Master of Graphic Design from North Carolina State University."

https://scottreinhard.com/Mapping-and-Visualization

"Eternals" cambia il passo ai film Marvel - la mia recensione per Fumettologica

https://www.fumettologica.it/2021/11/eternals-film-marvel-recensione/

A quanto pare, se i soldi in famiglia scarseggiano, i genitori parlano sempre meno con i figli

Money quote: "In the first experiment, researchers sought to observe how parents would interact with their children (in this case, 3-year-olds) after the parents were asked to describe times in which they had recently experienced scarcity. A control group of parents were instead asked to describe other recent activities.

Of the 84 parents in the study, those in the experimental group who described their experiences of financial scarcity spoke less to their 3-year-olds during laboratory observations than parents who reflected on other forms of scarcity (like not having enough fruit), or parents who had not been asked to recollect experiences of resource insecurity."

https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/16/word-gap-when-moneys-tight-parents-talk-less-to-kids/

Grandi occasioni!

Se la vostra cosa è scrivere qualche riga di codice in Lisp e contemplarne la bellezza ovunque, anche in vasca da bagno, ecco a voi il computer perfetto, grande come un badge e autocostruito.

Money quote: "This is a self-contained computer with its own display and keyboard, based on an ATmega1284, that you can program in the high-level language Lisp:"

http://www.technoblogy.com/show?2AEE

Ogni tanto ci sono stroncature che passano alla storia della critica. Quella del New York Times per Pearl Harbour, il film di Michael Bay del 2001 è leggendaria e ancora oggi studiata da chi vuole stroncare con il machete.

Money quote: "The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II has inspired a splendid movie, full of vivid performances and unforgettable scenes, a movie that uses the coming of war as a backdrop for individual stories of love, ambition, heroism and betrayal. The name of that movie is ''From Here to Eternity.''

''Pearl Harbor,'' the noisy, expensive and very long new blockbuster from Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, steals an occasional glance in the direction of ''Eternity,'' Fred Zinnemann's durable 1953 melodrama, adapted from James Jones's sprawling best seller. A couple smooches in front of pounding Pacific surf, though they don't actually roll around in it, as did Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. Military police officers break up a barroom fight. And since the movie is in ripe, lustrous color, the sun dresses and Hawaiian shirts look just fabulous. But ''Pearl Harbor'' has as little interest in character as it does, ultimately, in history."

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/25/movies/film-review-war-is-hell-but-very-pretty.html?mtrref=undefined

L'apertura in video di un evento della Microsoft sta facendo impazzire Twitter.

Nel video i presentatori fanno il politicamente corretto all'estremo. Ammettono pubblicamente che il campus aziendale sorge su terra dei popoli nativi americani e poi si descrivono e descrivono come sono vestiti per l’inclusività e l’accessibilità. Tutto con tono da sciroppati, visto il format spumeggiante da conduzione sportiva e con Satja Nardella che guarda e sorride stile Monna Lisa accondiscendente dal una schermata minore.

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1456344147103653889?s=21

Fra le altre cose, il Land acknowledgments non è una pratica neutra e rappresentanti dei nativi americani ritengono che dovrebbe essere terminata.

https://theconversation.com/land-acknowledgments-meant-to-honor-indigenous-people-too-often-do-the-opposite-erasing-american-indians-and-sanitizing-history-instead-163787

Capire l’informazione e i dati: sembra ovvio ma in realtà ci sono tecniche sofisticate per farlo, ancora non lo si fa bene e altre tecniche vengono modellate, come le wavelets. Interessante

Money quote: “Wavelets are representations of short wavelike oscillations with different frequency ranges and shapes. Because they can take on many forms — nearly any frequency, wavelength and specific shape is possible — researchers can use them to identify and match specific wave patterns in almost any continuous signal. Because of their wide versatility, wavelets have revolutionized the study of complex wave phenomena in image processing, communication and scientific data streams.”

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-wavelets-allow-researchers-to-transform-and-understand-data-20211013/

Svegliarsi presto la mattina. Due risate con il The New Yorker

Money quote: “Nine Successful Renaissance-Era Popes Who Woke Up at 4 a.m. and the Completely Bonkers Inferences We Can Draw from Their Lives (Plus, My New Morning-Success Webinar!)”

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/winners-wake-up-early-every-article-ive-written-about-my-morning-routine

Oggi ci sono un po' di storie su Mario Tchou nell'anniversario della sua morte. Innanzitutto il libro di Ciaj Rocchi e Matteo Demonte, "La macchina zero", che ho recensito qui

https://www.fumettologica.it/2021/10/la-macchina-zero-olivetti-mario-tchou/

stasera viene presentato alle 18 all’ADI Design Museum in piazza Compasso d’Oro 1, 20154 a Milano.

Ho scritto varie volte in passato di Tchou, della Olivetti di quegli anni, e della storia dell'Elea 9003, il primo mainframe a transistor della storia che è made in Italy e di cui esiste ancora un esemplare funzionante. Sul mio sito:

https://antoniodini.com/sottsass-elea-9003/

Una storia da conoscere.

Il social network conosciuto una volta come Facebook ha fatto la mossa e vuole costruire il metaverso del futuro. L'idea di Meta (ex Facebook) e di altri attori parigrado è che ci sia un solo, titanico metaverso. Ora, io personalmente penso sia una clamorosa bolla per succhiare investimenti e dare una verniciata di nuovo a gente che altrimenti non saprebbe cosa dire, ma a parte questo, c'è anche chi argomenta ragionevolmente e sostiene che se ci deve essere un metaverso c'è già: è Minecraft. Molto più di Fortnite e Roblox.

Money quote: "The truth is, a thriving metaverse already exists. It’s incredibly high-functioning, with millions of people immersed in it for hours a day. In this metaverse, people have built uncountable custom worlds, and generated god knows how many profitable businesses and six-figure careers. Yet this terrain looks absolutely nothing the like one Zuckerberg showed off.

It’s Minecraft, of course."

https://debugger.medium.com/the-metaverse-is-already-here-its-minecraft-99c89ed8ba2

Cambiare vita, riprendere il controllo, ripartire. Cosa succede dopo la pandemia.

Money quote: "For me, I realized I wanted to be more present in my children’s lives. I no longer wanted to optimize my life with productivity apps and outsource activities to nannies (no shame though to those that do). I wanted to bask in all the mundane parenting things before my kids were all grown up. It irked me to think that my oldest may already be halfway through his “living-under-my-roof” chapter of his life.

And ideally, I wanted all this to happen without sacrificing my career. Or requiring my partner to hyper focus on his. I enjoyed what I did for a living and the financial freedom it afforded my family. My burnout wasn’t going to magically evaporate if I jumped to another company."

https://forge.medium.com/i-just-dont-want-to-be-busy-anymore-ac4dd37c8119

Il prossimo che mi parla di home office e banfa su quanto sia fico il suo, gli faccio vedere questo articolo e poi vediamo cos'ha da dirmi.

Money quote: "AN ARCHITECT IN BARCELONA HAS spent almost half a century renovating an old cement factory into his home office—and managed to create a gorgeous statement of functionality and enchantment along the way.

Known as “La Fábrica,” the modern-day fortress that houses Ricardo Bofill’s firm, Taller de Arquitectura, is a visual incongruence of exposed concrete and rich green flora. After purchasing the cement factory in 1973, Bofill transformed the eight spacious silos into a lofty interior for his workshop."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/la-fabrica-the-factory

Avete presente le tab dei browser? Le ha inventate un tizio. Qui viene intervistato e racconta come ha fatto e perché.

Money quote: "In the summer of 1997, a 25-year-old Pasadena software developer named Adam Stiles started working on a new web browser in his spare time. On January 4 of the following year, when Stiles published SimulBrowse, the first users would have noticed a peculiar feature at the bottom of the browser window: small grey boxes, each corresponding to a different webpage, which could be toggled between by clicking.

Those boxes were the first browser tabs, the now-standard unit of internet navigation."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/meet-the-man-who-invented-tabs