Una cosa folle che circola nella civiltà occidentale sono gli NDA, gli accordi di non divulgazione. Nel settore tech sono particolarmente micidiali. Qui ne potete vedere per bene uno e capirne i perché e i percome.

Money quote: "Digging through a box of files the other day, I discovered an old NDA that I'd signed. The company has long since dissolved, and the NDA expired a few years ago - so I reckon I'm in the clear to talk about this."

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/07/nda-expired-lets-spill-the-beans-on-a-weird-startup/

Perché prendersi una laurea in una prestigiosa e costosa università quando si può fare tutto online, un pezzetto alla volta?

Money quote: "As universities are switching to 100% remote teaching in the coming semester, many undergraduate students should strongly consider getting a “DIY” CS degree: take the same courses you would at your own school, but on any one of the online Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms, like Coursera or edX."

https://www.pashabitz.com/posts/undergrad-altenative/

Attention Economy

Essere innovativi non vuol dire avere successo, ma provarci. Questo ci prova con le tasche dei pantaloni

Money quote: "TL;DR

The clothing industry rarely creates dramatically new patterns. It is more lucrative to make small, easy-to-manufacture changes that always use the same basic pattern.

There is therefore lots of room to innovate clothing that is more appropriate for contemporary problems, because basic clothing patterns haven’t changed in decades.

I made some trousers with unusual pockets, and I think they’re good."

https://sambleckley.com/writing/pockets.html

Ehi, Mostly Weekly è online! Se vi abbonate vi arriva più comodamente per email, sennò la leggete qua

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/144/

C'è stato un solo Cary Grant. Perché? Chi era o meglio cosa c'era di così unico in quest'uomo?

Money quote: "Over the course of his long career, Grant fixed standards of what it meant to be “debonair” and “a man about town” — everything he did, on screen and off, seemed inflected with panache and grace. Or, as my professor from undergrad used to sum him up: “The man knew how to wear clothes.” Indeed he fucking did."

https://medium.com/the-hairpin/scandals-of-classic-hollywood-cary-grants-intimate-bromance-e00033754c49

Lo Straniero di Albert Camus e la difficoltà di tradurlo in inglese.

Money quote: "First impressions matter, and, for forty-two years, the way that American readers were introduced to Meursault was through the detached formality of his statement: “Mother died today.” There is little warmth, little bond or closeness or love in “Mother,” which is a static, archetypal term, not the sort of thing we use for a living, breathing being with whom we have close relations. To do so would be like calling the family dog “Dog” or a husband “Husband.” The word forces us to see Meursault as distant from the woman who bore him."

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be

Quando la creative non-fiction diventa fantascienza: cronache dalla pancia del videogioco online (e poi c'è gente che si chiede perché esiste Twitch)

Money quote: "In theory, anything can happen in EVE Online, but some things are considered impossible. Well, last month, one of the “impossible” things happened: The destruction of the game’s first-ever Keepstar battlestation, which was kept in a wormhole. Of course, it took 11 months of meticulous planning.

Ever since the massive Keepstars, the largest structures that can be created by EVE players, were put into the game in 2016, they have lost the sense of perceived invulnerability that they once enjoyed. Over the two years, more than 30 of the extremely expensive structures have been destroyed. But the first-ever Keepstar endured, thanks to its location: Deep in the heart of a wormhole, the most inhospitable space that EVE Online has to offer."

https://kotaku.com/the-year-long-undercover-plot-to-blow-up-eve-onlines-m-1831574442

Ogni tanto torna fuori, anche perché la gente continua a commentare la recensione che la (ora ex) moglie di Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie, ha scritto di un libro che raccontava la storia di Amazon, polverizzandolo

Money quote: "One of the biggest challenges in non-fiction writing is the risk that a truthfully balanced narration of the facts will be boring, and this presents an author with some difficult choices. It may be that another telling of the Amazon story—for example, that people at Amazon have no secret agenda they’ve been able to keep hidden for 19 years, really do believe in the mission they keep repeating, and are working hard and of their own free will to realize it —would strike readers as less exciting than the version offered here. I sympathize with this challenge. But when an author plans to market a book as non-fiction, he is obliged to find a suspenseful story arc that doesn’t rely on mischaracterizing or avoiding important parts of the truth. I am grateful this is the era of the Internet, when characters in non-fiction can step out of books, as Jonathan Leblang and Rick Dalzell have done, and speak for themselves. Ideally, authors are careful to ensure people know whether what they are reading is history or an entertaining fictionalization. Hollywood often uses a more honest label: “a story based on true events.” If authors won’t admit they’ve crossed this important line, their characters can do it for them."

https://www.amazon.com/review/R2I0T26SV0ELPP/

Uno dei punti principali delle startup è avere almeno due fondatori, altrimenti gli investitori non investono. L'idea è che un neo-imprenditore da solo non ce la possa fare. E invece, c'è chi dice di sì

Money quote: "In their recent working paper "Sole Survivors: Solo Ventures Versus Founding Teams," Greenberg and Mollick show that “companies started by solo founders survive longer than those started by teams.”"

http://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/2-founders-are-not-always-better-1

Un tizio che si occupa della parte più laboriosa degli orari e biglietti dei treni: la parte internazionale

Money quote: "Train travel is a more rewarding, low-stress alternative to flying, which brings us closer to the countries we visit and reduces our contribution to climate change. It's time to rediscover the pleasure, romance & adventure of travel by train or ship. This site explains how to travel comfortably & affordably by train or ferry where you might think air was now the only option. For help with train travel, ask the Man in Seat 61"

https://www.seat61.com/

Il vero miracolo della maternità a quanto pare è il papà...

However, there is one aspect of human behaviour that is unique to us but is rarely the focus of these discussions. So necessary is this trait to the survival of our species that it is underpinned by an extensive, interrelated web of biological, psychological and behavioural systems that evolved over the past half a million years. Yet, until 10 years ago, we had neglected to try to understand this trait, due to the misguided assumption that it was of no significance – indeed, that it was dispensable. This trait is human fatherhood, and the fact that it doesn’t immediately spring to mind is symptomatic of the overwhelming neglect of this key figure in our society."

https://aeon.co/essays/the-devotion-of-the-human-dad-separates-us-from-other-apes

Alla fine, una certezza rimane: anche la pubblica amministrazione americana è una capra a gestire i dati della gente

Money quote: "“The total number and current status of all children separated from their parents by [the Department of Homeland Security] and referred to ORR’s care is unknown,” the report reads. It lists the “lack of an existing, integrated data system to track separated families” as a central obstacle to reunification."

https://www.wired.com/story/oig-report-trump-separated-children-border/

Ecco a voi il numero di questa domenica di Mostly Weekly (l’email segue tra qualche ora)

https://antoniodini.com/weekly/145/

Pensiamo ai pulsanti che vogliamo e non vogliamo premere. Che dobbiamo e non dobbiamo premere. Pensiamo alla società moderna.

Money quote: "This distaste for buttons, combined with a nostalgia for a pre-button past and a belief that action involved directed contact with the world, continued to bubble up in popular discourse well into the 1900s. In the story The ‘Push-the-Button Man’ (1924) by Frank Dorrance Hopley, the protagonist, Carey, begins by being enamoured with the prospect of sitting behind a desk and pushing buttons all day to command others to do his work, but ultimately he has to excise buttons from his life to reclaim it through a dramatic act of anti-button sabotage"

https://aeon.co/essays/what-would-a-world-without-pushbuttons-look-like

Camminare fa bene, molto molto bene. Parola di James Joyce (tra gli altri).

Money quote: "What is it about walking, in particular, that makes it so amenable to thinking and writing? The answer begins with changes to our chemistry. When we go for a walk, the heart pumps faster, circulating more blood and oxygen not just to the muscles but to all the organs—including the brain. Many experiments have shown that after or during exercise, even very mild exertion, people perform better on tests of memory and attention. Walking on a regular basis also promotes new connections between brain cells, staves off the usual withering of brain tissue that comes with age, increases the volume of the hippocampus (a brain region crucial for memory), and elevates levels of molecules that both stimulate the growth of new neurons and transmit messages between them."

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/walking-helps-us-think

L'ultima storia del Professionista - il mio articolo per Fumettologica

https://www.fumettologica.it/2021/12/obiettivo-sconosciuto-segretissimo-di-marino/

Quello della circoncisione è un tema sensibile, se mi permettete il gioco di parole. È legato a pratiche religiose e supposte pratiche igieniche ma è sostanzialmente una forma di mutilazione rituale dei genitali maschili dettata dalla superstizione e dal pregiudizio. La rappresentazione simbolica (il patto di Abramo, se si guardano le ragioni della mutilazione in Occidente) non è un modo valido per nobilitare una pratica dettata dalla superstizione religiosa.

È fede? No, è mutilazione di neonati (e non solo neonati) pura e semplice. Tanto che l'altra corrente che cerca di dare un fondamento giustificatorio alla circoncisione, soprattutto negli Usa, è un igienismo altrettanto abietto.

Quella che segue è una storia di protesta all'interno del solco dell'ortodossia (il New Yorker non è esattamente un giornale di militanza comunista) che cerca di far emergere la contraddizione della piccola mutilazione genitale maschile ritualizzata. Non ci riesce, ma è un buon tentativo.

Money quote: "Most poorly performed circumcisions stem from two misjudgments on the part of the circumciser: either too much or too little foreskin is removed. In my case, it was too little (and, one might add, given that I was seven years old instead of the eight days prescribed by the Torah, too late). After the infection had subsided, the shaft of my penis was crowded by a skyline of redundant foreskin that included, on the underside, a thick attachment of skin stretching from the head to the shaft of the genital, a result of improper healing that is called a skin bridge. A small gap could be seen between this skin bridge and the penis proper. In texture and appearance, the bridge reminded me of the Polly-O mozzarella string cheese that got packed in the lunchboxes of my generation. It produced no pain on its own after the infection had died down and the two years of difficult urination were over, but the strangeness of my penile appearance—and the manner in which it was brought about—became lodged in my consciousness."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/11/a-botched-circumcision-and-its-aftermath

David Pogue, che è uno dei più famosi giornalisti tech americani (anche se con una traiettoria molto, molto particolare) si scopre che da grande voleva fare il compositore. Ed è finito a dare lezioni di computer a Stephen Sondheim in cambio di un po' di tempo per farsi rivedere il lavoro dal maestro.

Money quote: "Finally, Sondheim lived by the adage, "Be willing to kill your darlings." That means, if you have a line, or a song, or even an entire show that's not working, you've gotta be willing to throw it out, no matter how much you love it."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lessons-from-stephen-sondheim-the-teacher/

Sono ipnotizzato dal video di questo pesce che ha la testa completamente trasparente e gli occhi dentro, per poter vedere da più parti grazie anche alla bioluminescenza. Favoloso e stranissimo.

Money quote: "Thousands of feet beneath the surface of Monterey Bay off California, scientists recently captured footage of a fish with a bulbous, translucent head and green orb-like eyes that peer out through its forehead."

https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/12/bizarre-transparent-fish-that-sees-through-its-own-head-captured-in-rare-footage