Mostly, I Write

La comunità Unix, che è ancora viva e vegeta e lotta insieme a noi, sta producendo cose notevoli. Come questo repository su GitHub con tutte le versioni del sistema operativo (fino al 2017) delle principali varianti e contenuti. Da Epoch a FreeBSD-release/11.0.0, 11.0.1 Ricordate che, a differenza di Linux che è un kernel più GNU più quel che le varie distribuzioni ci vogliono mettere sopra, ogni distribuzione di Unix contiene lo stack completo del sistema operativo. Money quote: "The history and evolution of the Unix operating system is made available as a revision management repository, covering the period from its inception in 1970 as a 2.5 thousand line kernel and 26 commands, to 2017 as a widely-used 27 million line system. The 1.1GB repository contains about half a million commits and more than two thousand merges. The repository employs Git system for its storage and is hosted on GitHub. It has been created by synthesizing with custom software 24 snapshots of systems developed at Bell Labs, the University of California at Berkeley, and the 386BSD team, two legacy repositories, and the modern repository of the open source FreeBSD system. In total, about one thousand individual contributors are identified, the early ones through primary research. The data set can be used for empirical research in software engineering, information systems, and software archaeology." https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo

Usare l’AI per parlare con il proprio santo preferito? A quanto pare qualcuno ci ha pensato, ovviamente powered by ChatGPT https://www.prega.org/

L'economia circolare di Halo - il mio nuovo articolo nella fantastica rubrica "And so what" su Fumettologica (tanta roba anche stavolta) https://fumettologica.it/2023/03/halo-serie-tv-videogioco/

Startup che produce graffiti automaticamente con dei robot, a scopo pubblicitario, ma solo se sono (abbastanza) artistici Money quote: "“Make art not adverts”. That’s the motto of Sirje ‘Sirla’ Joala, an artist-turned-entrepreneur who has been making public art in Estonia since she was a teenager. “I really want to bring beauty and meaning to public spaces instead of adverts that manipulate people to buy more than they need,” she told Sifted at TechChill startup festival in Riga, Latvia." https://sifted.eu/articles/the-graffiti-robot-startup-thats-turned-down-millions/

Ok, non fa per me. Ma magari a qualcuno interessa, però. Musica elettronica generata proceduralmente. Money quote: "Endlessly unique ambient music" https://generative.fm/

Ciclicamente escono fuori queste cose da fantascienza, che tutti noi schifiamo. Sino a che non si realizzeranno veramente e ci troveremo ad avere le colonie su Giove. Ahahah, scherzo. È il solito vaporware, solo di un po' di anni fa. Ma tanto avrebbero potuto darla come notizia di stamani, e avrebbe lo stesso impatto: wow. E poi: meh... Money quote: "Laser propulsion has various advantages. The most significant is that the spacecraft need not carry any fuel, vastly reducing their mass. It should also be capable of accelerating the light sails to a velocity of up to 20% the speed of light. At that rate, a starchip would arrive at Proxima Centauri in less than 30 years." https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613127/a-halo-drive-could-accelerate-interstellar-spacecraft-to-close-to-the-speed-of-light/

Se Riccardo e io vivessimo nella Silicon Valley (io preferirei San Francisco, ma è comunque in zona) probabilmente ci saremmo lanciati in questa attività Money quote: "Ms. Susewitz, who started Reseat in 2020, is one of an increasing number of behind-the-scenes specialists in the Bay Area who are carving out a piece of the great office furniture reshuffling. There are professional liquidators, Craigslist flippers and start-ups spouting buzzwords like “circular economy.” And a few guys with warehouses full of really nice chairs. All of them are capitalizing on a wave of tech companies that are drastically shrinking their physical footprints in the wake of the pandemic-induced shift to remote work and the recent economic slowdown." https://archive.ph/rJYzh#selection-723.193-723.365

Ci siamo, i due simpatici omarell che conducono Tilde (io e Riccardo) hanno colpito ancora: ecco la nuova puntata del "podcast conversazionale" https://tilde.show/podcast-25/

Il ruolo della fortuna nei giochi di oggi e come si fa a mettercela, nel senso che è un lavoro piuttosto complicato. Money quote: "Luck is equally vital in modern games, whether it emerges from dice rattling in a cup or the treacherous Chance cards in Monopoly. But its role has changed: Humans have taken the reins from the gods, and luck has become a design tool capable of changing players’ experiences and expectations. For instance, it enables players of varying abilities to play together by reducing the advantage of actual skill. The New York-based designer Zach Gage recently decided to reinvent chess by introducing a hefty element of luck. “Chess is historically a very balanced game that is entirely up to the skill of the player,” he said. “This is great if you want to see who is better at chess but not so good if you’re trying to play a fun game with your friends of varying skill levels.”" http://nautil.us/issue/70/variables/how-designers-engineer-luck-into-video-games-rp

Come combattere le nostre piccole dipendenze. Money quote: "It’s natural to think we need more discipline, willpower, energy, stamina, focus, or grit to resist these distractions. More something, for sure. But for most people, I don’t think willpower is the right approach. New psychology research is showing that old ideas about willpower and self-control weren’t quite right. Just ask a gambling addict or a smoker. It’s possible that we can’t build willpower and we can’t summon self-control, after all. They’re myths. What often looks like strength of resolve is really the result of an environment or mindset that makes the right decisions the easy decisions." https://getpocket.com/explore/item/feeling-busy-and-distracted-it-s-not-your-fault

Al posto del numero di telefono, da qualche anno è nata la moda di scambiarsi il nome dell'account Instagram. Ah, i giovani. Money quote: "Crucially, Instagram provides much more context—and conversation fodder—than a random string of 10 digits. Because iMessage and SMS don’t come with public profiles, when someone texts you from a number outside your contacts, you have little to no information on who that person is or where you met. Sometimes people will provide this information themselves via text, but often you’re left guessing. But adding people on Instagram is like scanning a digital business card into your address book. You get their full name and bio, and a direct line of contact through Instagram DM. Plus, you have the added benefit of scrolling back on their profile for additional context on who they are and what they’re into." https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/why-everyone-gives-out-their-instagram-handle/585916/

Se quest'estate volete farvi una giratina sulla Luna, questa pagina creata a suo tempo per celebrare l'anniversario utilizza materiale originale dell'epoca per ricostruire una interessante "retro" versione della missione Apollo 11. Money quote: "A real-time journey through the first landing on the Moon This website consists entirely of original historical mission material" https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/

A metà tra l'aiuto-aiuto e il pistolotto filosofico, ecco a voi la ricetta per la grandezza. Niente di meno. Money quote: "Over the years, we’ve all encountered our fair share of successes and failures. As I’ve acquired more of both under my name, I’ve started to contemplate which experiences were truly “great” and why. Interestingly enough, I realized that it was not the sporadic highs that were exceptional, but instead the long hauls; the sequences of events that seemed minimal at each juncture, but compounded into major gains. This led me to think further about what greatness truly means. I’ve come to learn that it’s not about overnight successes or flashes of excellence, but periods of repeatable habits. Perhaps “great’, is just “good”, but repeatable." https://blog.stephsmith.io/how-to-be-great/

La direzione di Mazda è esattamente opposta a quella di Tesla: togliere gli schermi in generale e quelli touch in particolare, e mettere invece tanti controlli meccanici. Potrebbe avere senso. Money quote: "“Doing our research, when a driver would reach towards a touch-screen interface in any vehicle, they would unintentionally apply torque to the steering wheel, and the vehicle would drift out of its lane position,” said Matthew Valbuena, Mazda North America’s lead engineer for HMI and infotainment. “And of course with a touchscreen you have to be looking at the screen while you’re touching...so for that reason we were comfortable removing the touch-screen functionality,” he added." https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-purging-touchscreens-from-its-vehicles

Sopravvalutiamo sempre quello che secondo noi è il giusto progresso da fare da un anno all'altro, e invece sottovalutiamo di brutto l'effettivo progresso nel medio-lungo periodo. Vedi queste foto, ad esempio. Money quote: "In 2005, I visited Universal Studios Orlando and took photos with my Treo smartphone. Last week, I went to Universal Studios Hollywood and took them with my iPhone 14. See if you can see tell which photo is which." https://twitter.com/harrymccracken/status/1627083774700957696

In questo momento della mia vita non ho molto tempo per giocarci. Ma giuro che, se potessi, un giro in questo vecchio simulatore di solitudine me lo farei. Money quote: "Things We Lost in the Flood is a new, free-to-play indie MMO with a brilliant twist: It's a massively multiplayer "loneliness simulator" where each player is set adrift on a boat in a post-apocalyptic world that's been flooded over. So instead of forming into groups or communicating via chat or instant message, players can write and send messages in bottles for other players to find. Some of those messages can advance the game (more on that below), or simply just be personal expressions, anonymously shared and set adrift into the pixelated sea." https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2019/06/things-we-lost-in-the-flood-mmo-indie-game.html

Se giocare a flipper è la vostra cosa, Chicago è la vostra città Money quote: "If a baseball game is like a pot brownie—a bright, lackadaisical buzz—tournament pinball is an acid trip: sweaty, 12 hours long, and seemingly devoid of narrative structure. It’s not for everyone. I’d done some research, so I thought I had a handle on the basics: Score as many points as possible by shooting the ball at the lit areas on the playfield, hit enough shots to complete the “mode” (the pinball version of a quest), and complete all the modes to achieve a “multiball” (when several balls shoot out over the playfield at once). Do it fast enough to earn a “jackpot” for additional multipliers on every shot and do it all without letting the ball slip through the flippers or drop down the side, known as “draining.” But within that basic framework, things get complicated quickly. Every machine has different shots to make, different ways the modes affect gameplay, and different quirks that can sabotage the best struck shots." https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chicago-competitive-pinball

È morto Leiji Matsumoto, il creatore di Capitan Harlock Grazie di tutto, leggeda. 👉 https://bit.ly/3xBmLAt

Il libro dei libri del figliastro di Cristoforo Colombo è una delle più grandi risorse della storia dell'editoria del trapassato remoto che ci sia mai capitata. Una scoperta enorme. Altro che "Nome della rosa" Money quote: "The Libro de los Epítomes manuscript, which is more than a foot thick, contains more than 2,000 pages and summaries from the library of Hernando Colón, the illegitimate son of Christopher Columbus who made it his life’s work to create the biggest library the world had ever known in the early part of the 16th century. Running to around 15,000 volumes, the library was put together during Colón’s extensive travels. Today, only around a quarter of the books in the collection survive and have been housed in Seville Cathedral since 1552." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/10/extraordinary-500-year-old-library-catalogue-reveals-books-lost-to-time-libro-de-los-epitomes

Questa è una storia su come essere un po' meglio organizzati possa fare una grande differenza. Oppure, su come si fosse drammaticamente disorganizzati fino a ieri. Gli ospedali scozzesi aggiungono una lista di dodici cose da fare dopo le operazioni e le morti crollano in maniera spettacolare. Money quote: "A study indicated a 37% decrease since 2008, which it attributed to the implementation of a safety checklist. The 19-item list - which was created by the World Health Organization - is supposed to encourage teamwork and communication during operations. The death rate fell to 0.46 per 100 procedures between 2000 and 2014, analysis of 6.8m operations showed." https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-47953541