Mostly, I Write

Letture per la domenica "Con-fliggere". La complicità dei litiganti. Il conflitto personale come discorso. Money quote: "The shape of the conflict this article explores is the one which normally takes place in the realm of language, when two or more individuals face one another in what is commonly identified as a “quarrel”. Redefining quarrel as personal conflict, and distinguishing it from differring opinions is the premise on which my article rests, so that personal conflict may be conceptualized as a discourse, i.e., a reality that is not to be found behind or beyond the words of the conflicting parties, and not in their “real motives” or “real interests”, but rather in their discursive coming together (inter-esse). We will not start from asking “why” two or more individuals come into conflict, but “what” they do with words while they quarrel. Taking as its background the Weberian sociology of the sense of action, my article tries to answer this question by taking cues from Austin’s speech act theory, Barthes’s semiotics, Bakhtin’s polyphonic theory, and Wittgenstein’s philosophical grammar, as well as some recent contributions made by analysts and professional “mediators”’ of personal conflicts." https://journals.openedition.org/qds/350

Una settimana di storie fra treni, memorie di volo, tecnologia e qualche sorpresa: è uscito Mostly Weekly 349. Buona lettura https://antoniodini.com/weekly/349/

C'è chi critica i big dell'AI. E, ascoltando le parole di Sam Altman (vedi sotto) come dargli torto? Money quote: "Dobbiamo agire saggiamente ma con convinzione. L’alba dell’Età dell’Intelligenza è uno sviluppo epocale che pone sfide molto complesse e dalle grandi implicazioni. Non sarà una storia completamente positiva, ma i vantaggi sono così enormi che dobbiamo a noi stessi e al futuro capire come affrontare i rischi che abbiamo davanti. Credo che il futuro sia così radioso che nessuno possa rendergli giustizia cercando di scriverne ora; una caratteristica distintiva dell’Età dell’Intelligenza sarà una prosperità enorme." https://www.rsi.ch/cultura/societa/La-pericolosa-filosofia-dei-giganti-dell’IA--2423004.html

A quanto apre il robottino che pulisce la casa e ha un LLM dentro il cervelloetto digitale, ha più problemi che pregi. Money quote: "Andon Labs concluded that while LLMs show promise in robotic applications, significant development is still required. Embodied AI remains far from achieving human-level reliability, and the vacuum robot’s comedic meltdown underscores the complexity of translating language understanding into effective physical action." https://slguardian.org/ai-powered-vacuum-robots-struggle-existential-crises-ensue/

diario del capitano Picard e la finzione necessaria della fantascienza - ne ho scritto con gusto su Fumettologica https://fumettologica.it/2025/11/diario-picard-star-trek-the-next-generation/

Arriva il Booker Prize per bambini. Un po' come se facessero il Pulitzer per l'infanzia. Money quote: "Like its sister prizes, the children’s award comes with a 50,000 pound ($67,000) purse. The prize will open for submissions early next year and the inaugural award will be handed out in 2027, with the winner picked by a jury of children and adults led by writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Britain’s current children’s laureate." https://wtop.com/entertainment/2025/10/the-new-childrens-booker-prize-aims-to-reward-quality-fiction-for-kids/

Momento woke a San Pietro. Il Vaticano restituirà manufatti indigeni al Canada. Money quote: " The Vatican is expected to soon announce that it will return a few dozen artifacts to Indigenous communities in Canada as part of its reckoning with the Catholic Church’s troubled role in helping suppress Indigenous culture in the Americas, officials said Wednesday. The items, including an Inuit kayak, are part of the Vatican Museum’s ethnographic collection, known as the Anima Mundi museum. The collection has been a source of controversy for the Vatican amid the broader museum debate over the restitution of cultural goods taken from Indigenous peoples during colonial periods." https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-10-22/vatican-will-return-dozens-of-artifacts-to-indigenous-groups-in-canada-as-gesture-of-reconciliation

Il sogno dell'umanità nello spazio non è andare su Marte, bensì creare le isole nello spazio, cioè i Cilindri di O'Neill. Ma cosa sono? Money quote: "Gerard K. O’Neill era un fisico che insegnava all’università di Princeton, una delle più prestigiose accademie americane. Negli anni Sessanta, in piena corsa spaziale, mentre gli Usa e l’Unione Sovietica si sfidavano (spoiler alert: vinsero gli americani portando per primi due uomini sulla Luna), lui decise di fare un laboratorio con i suoi studenti universitari. Tema per tutti: costruire le migliori strutture spaziali abitabili." https://techdale.it/ecco-a-voi-le-colonie-nello-spazio/

Salman Rushdie fa il suo monumentale ritorno alla narrativa il 4 novembre con "The Eleventh Hour". È la sua prima opera di narrativa dall'accoltellamento del 2022. Money quote: "According to Random House, Rushdie's new book will include such "unforgettable characters" as a "musical prodigy with a magical gift," the ghost of a Cambridge don who helps a student "avenge the tormentor of his lifetime" and a literary mentor who has mysteriously died. "The Eleventh Hour" is set in three parts of the world where Rushdie has lived: India, England and the U.S." https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/salman-rushdie-the-eleventh-hour-release-date/ Money quote 2: "The Eleventh Hour will consist of a collection of stories from around the world, set across India, England and the US." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04zw0qvergo

Un viaggio tra le guglie della Sagrada Familia, i vecchi software che scompaiono, la cultura digitale che non decolla e le parolacce che raccontano chi siamo: Mostly Weekly 348 è online https://antoniodini.com/weekly/348/

Adesso i turisti stanno sfondando Jimbocho, il quartiere di Tokyo delle librerie dell'usato. Perché è stato raccontato in qualche libro, è finito su Instagram grazie a qualche influencer e adesso è diventato virale. Solo che Jimbocho è minuscolo, piuttosto pissero e francamente poco attraente dal punto di vista librario se non siete fluenti nella lingua locale. L'unica cosa che se ne ricava è che il Giappone ha un problema con il turismo. Money quote: "A visitor exiting Jimbocho Station onto the main thoroughfare of Yasukuni Street will find the south side lined with secondhand bookstores. Most have piles and stacks of their offerings outside, creating an overall effect that is part-shopping street, part-museum of an analog era. The area is also home to countless curry stores — from Japanese to Sri Lankan — and coffee shops for every taste and mood. Saboru, a 70-year-old retro kissaten (cafe) popular for its pizza toast, is only a stone’s throw from newcomers Cafe Ataraxia, playing classical music on a gramophone, and Dill Coffee Parlor, which serves one of the best carrot cakes in town." https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2025/10/18/lifestyle/jimobocho-coolest-neighborhood-in-the-world/

Money quote: "How, players wondered, did the life simulation game get so lifeless? That the world of The Sims resembled its raw, offline counterpart was important to its creator, Will Wright, who saw in it a tool for real-life education. Owing to his Montessori schooling, he viewed games as “software toys” capable of imparting practical lessons. Wright envisioned a virtual dollhouse where players faced an ever-expanding set of choices, as they navigated life and its random disasters: pranks, burglaries, electrocutions, house fires, social worker assessments — even infectious guinea pig bites. Wright hoped that through these trials, players of The Sims would learn a valuable, imaginative form of problem-solving." https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/magazine/the-sims-easy-mode.html archivio: https://archive.is/Mzl5K

Milionesimo articolo su: "L'AI può prendere il mio posto di lavoro oppure no?". Forse sì, o forse no. Money quote: "LLMs can give you answers to precise questions, but they don’t necessarily understand how to land on tone, style, tension or originality, nor do they have the power to benefit from serendipity, all of which are components of good writing. ChatGPT took about 48 hours to churn out a first chapter after gobbling up several samples of my own 33-year body of work, a detailed book proposal with footnotes, a chapter outline of where I wanted to go, taped interviews with sources and plentiful background reading selected by me. Sadly, what I got back was a kind of Muzak version of myself — predigested, relatively accurate, but thoroughly uninspired. This result was both amusing and depressing." https://www.ft.com/content/0b56a85d-e71e-49c4-802f-316ed83cb386 archivio: https://archive.is/BBL7C

L'opera struggente di un solitario genio dei trasporti pubblici. Money quote: "Albert Guillaumes Marcer Sóc enginyer tècnic d'obres públiques, especialitzat en transports i mobilitat. Dibuixo mapes de transport públic des que tenia 5 anys. Programo com puc." https://www.albertguillaumes.cat

Un meravigioso personaggio minore iraniano: il traduttore creativo Zabihollah Mansouri. Molto creativo. Money quote: "One of the show’s characters is a translator named Zabihollah Mansouri. He appears suddenly, talks about something he calls his “philosophy of expansionism” in translation, has an awkward interaction with another character, and then vanishes, never to be seen again. The screenwriters didn’t bother to provide an introduction for him because they knew it wasn’t necessary. Most people in Iran, even those who rarely crack open a book, know who Mansouri is, though he died almost forty years ago." https://yalereview.org/article/amir-ahmadi-arian-zabihollah-mansouri

Certi articoli non passano mai di moda. ChatGPT ha ribaltato completamente il sistema scolastico non solo americano. Solo, non ce ne siamo ancora resi conto. Money quote: "Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College. ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project." https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html archivio: https://archive.is/ofxzl

Letture per la domenica\ \ Stili di vita. La Francia si sta innamorando delle coppie aperte. Money quote: "S’il reste marginal, ce modèle semble tout de même prendre de l’ampleur. En 2017, seuls 1 % des interrogés se déclaraient en couple libre. Ils sont aujourd’hui 5 %. Et beaucoup plus (15 😵 à avoir déjà été concerné une fois au cours de leur vie, sans que ça ne soit toujours le cas lors de l’étude – réalisée de mars à avril 2025 (1), en partenariat avec Gleeden, un site de rencontre extraconjugal. Un chiffre qui grimpe significativement (23 😵 chez les Parisiens et Parisiennes." https://www.liberation.fr/lifestyle/intimites/intimite-en-france-le-couple-libre-seduit-de-plus-en-plus-20250423_EOBT4CCDFJDW7CN4P3SVFPNYHU/

Da oggi, tutti artisti! È in corso una vera e propria rivoluzione low cost della creatività: con l'ai si può fare tutto con quattro soldi e praticamente senza talenti pratici. Money quote: "Películas de presupuestos bajos como ‘Flow’ y ‘El brutalista’ o videojuegos como ‘Clair Obscur’ compiten con grandes producciones gracias a herramientas accesibles como la IA y el ‘software’ libre" https://elpais.com/cultura/2025-06-28/la-revolucion-creativa-low-cost-cuando-la-tecnologia-pone-el-arte-al-alcance-de-todos.html

Da Kant alla ZTL di Firenze, passando per l’Eternauta e l'Eurostar: un viaggio settimanale tra cose serie, curiose e (quasi) inutili. Mostly Weekly 347 è online https://antoniodini.com/weekly/347/

Che problemi volete che porti mettere in circolazine un servizio gratuito che permette a tutti di chattare con una entità camaleontica come una intelligenza artificiale generativa? Magari che la gente inizi a chattare con il detentore dei segreti dell'universo? Cosa volete mai che possa andare male? Money quote: "Less than a year after marrying a man she had met at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Kat felt tension mounting between them. It was the second marriage for both after marriages of 15-plus years and having kids, and they had pledged to go into it “completely level-headedly,” Kat says, connecting on the need for “facts and rationality” in their domestic balance. But by 2022, her husband “was using AI to compose texts to me and analyze our relationship,” the 41-year-old mom and education nonprofit worker tells Rolling Stone. Previously, he had used AI models for an expensive coding camp that he had suddenly quit without explanation — then it seemed he was on his phone all the time, asking his AI bot “philosophical questions,” trying to train it “to help him get to ‘the truth,’” Kat recalls. His obsession steadily eroded their communication as a couple." https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/