Mostly, I Write

Imparare a programmare in codice macchina, perché no? Per noi che eravamo ragazzi alla fine degli anni Settanta-inizio anni Ottanta, era l’altra metà della mela (la prima metà era il Basic nelle sue mille varianti) Money quote: "One problem with machine code is that there isn't simply one standard. There are many different "instruction sets" depending on the processor. Most modern PCs use x86-64 machine code, but newer Macs, Raspberry Pis, and most mobile devices use ARM. There are other architectures out there, especially as you go back in time. The goal of this article won't be to give you a deep understanding of any particular instruction set, but instead, to give you enough information about how machine code typically works so you cannot be afraid of machine code. So we will start by having our examples be in ARM 64-bit (also written as aarch64). Once we have a decent understanding of that, we will talk a bit about x86-64." https://jimmyhmiller.com/machine-code-isnt-scary

C’è una nuova versione del formato Png. Tanta roba. Money quote: "this is exciting news. PNG is back to its former glory after its progress stalled for over two decades. Did you know the U.S. Library of Congress, Library and Archives Canada, and the National Archives of Australia recommend PNG? It is important that we keep PNG current and competitive. After 20 years of stagnation, PNG is back with renewed vigor!" https://www.programmax.net/articles/png-is-back/

Le migliori interfacce della fantascienza. Money quote: "The Fritzes award honors the best interfaces in a full-length motion picture in the past year. Interfaces play a special role in our movie-going experience, and are a craft all their own that does not otherwise receive focused recognition. (Looking at you, Academy.) Awards are given for Best Believable, Best Narrative, and Best Interfaces (overall). Sometimes I like to call out other things I spotted in my survey." https://scifiinterfaces.com

Letture per la domenica Finalmente uno che parla chiaro. Avere tanti libri non ti rende più colto: ti pone un problema di logistica. E io ne so qualcosa... Money quote: "The number sounds impressive. People hear it and assume a certain grandeur — a private library with rolling ladders, mahogany shelving, one of those brass lamps that appear in photographs of Oxford colleges. The reality is more prosaic. Twenty-eight thousand books, at an average thickness of roughly 2.5 centimetres, is 700 linear metres of shelving. That's the length of seven football pitches, or — in the metric that matters — considerably more shelf space than exists in my house. This is the first thing you learn when your collection crosses from "large" into "logistical situation": the books will outgrow any space you put them in. Not eventually. Quickly. The relationship between books and shelf space is not linear; it is exponential, because you are always acquiring faster than you are shelving, and the shelving itself takes space that could hold more books. It is a problem with no equilibrium. I have been solving it for twenty years, and I am further from a solution now than when I started." https://www.shelvd.org/blog/28000-books

Ci siamo: Mostly Weekly 393 L’arte di conversare da sé esemplificata. Umberto Eco, gli studenti che diventano più scemi con i chatbot, un romanzo di 1.300 pagine, le casette di KLM, Gloria Steinem e tanto altro. Questa settimana mi sono proprio divertito! https://antoniodini.com/weekly/393/

Ok, è un po’ complesso, ma proviamoci lo stesso: lo faccio fare a Siri, che è brava a fare i riassunti. Eccolo. L'autrice di questo articolo esplora la rappresentazione del matrimonio in letteratura, notando la sua rappresentazione spesso negativa e repressiva. Mette in evidenza libri come "Sucker Punch" di Scaachi Koul e "An Honest Woman" di Charlotte Shane, che sfidano queste narrazioni presentando resoconti sfumati e gioiosi del matrimonio. E mette anche in discussione la necessità per gli scrittori di giustificare le loro rappresentazioni positive del matrimonio, suggerendo che il desiderio stesso è una spiegazione valida e convincente. Money quote: "FOR YEARS, I resisted the idea of marriage the way I did any life outcome I was expected to deliver irrespective of want. If a piece of paper were the certifiable difference between calling a love true or false, then that love was rendered false by definition. I didn't nurture any wedding fantasies in childhood--not the dress, not the party, not even the spouse--save for one: I stood up from the head table while the shape in a tux who sat next to me looked on in adoration. A mic appeared in my hand. Then, I gave a zingy, sexy speech that made the entire room laugh and blush and cry before it radically remade their understanding of desire. Eventually, I realized this was not a fantasy of becoming a wife. It was a fantasy of becoming a writer." https://thewalrus.ca/are-women-allowed-to-be-happy-in-their-marriages/

Dungeon Crawler Carl: un uomo, una gatta e la fine del mondo - piacevole scoperta fatta per la mia rubrica su Fumettologica https://fumettologica.it/2026/09/

I polpi, animaletti molto intelligenti con otto tentacoli, sono tutti figli di una mutazione genetica che ha reso il loro cervello e sistema nervoso quello che è (molto intelligente). Affascinante. Money quote: "Now, researchers have discovered a mysterious mutation in some octopuses that might explain their intelligence. A study published in the August 17 issue of the journal Current Biology reveals that the eight-limbed creatures can produce proteins with extreme accuracy thanks to a variation never seen in any other animal. Although there is no direct evidence that the adaptation is linked to expanded octopus brainpower, only a lineage of creatures with enlarged nervous systems and that can carry out complex behaviors appears to have the mutation." https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-are-some-octopuses-so-smart-the-answer-might-lie-in-a-never-before-seen-mutation-that-helps-them-accurately-build-proteins-180989319/

Guardare i reel e gli altri video sui social fa male, molto molto male. Anzi, di più. Money quote: "Cognitive control helps people balance immediate pleasures against longer-term goals, and impairments in this system are linked to conditions such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, and addiction. Short-video platforms present rapid, algorithmically curated streams that are built for continuous, low-effort consumption. Prior behavioral research has tied both internet addiction and smartphone addiction to weaker self-control, and separate neuroimaging work has documented disruptions to reward and cognitive-control circuits in people with behavioral addictions. Despite this, few studies had directly tested whether the act of watching entertaining short videos itself suppresses the brain’s cognitive control regions. The Zhejiang University team set out to answer that question, along with a second one: what neurochemical factors might explain why this suppression varies from person to person?" https://www.rathbiotaclan.com/tiktok-videos-deactivate-key-cognitive-brain-regions/

Rallegratevi tutti perché è tornato Elmar Burchia, l'unica firma autorevole del Corrierone (scherzo, eh! però il senso della notizia di Elmar noialtri ce lo sognamo) Money quote: "Carlo III non ha bisogno del passaporto britannico Nel caso di re Carlo III, la spiegazione è quasi paradossale: il passaporto britannico è emesso a nome del sovrano. La stessa famiglia reale britannica lo chiarisce sul proprio sito ufficiale: il Re non ha bisogno di possedere un passaporto perché il documento viene rilasciato in suo nome. Tutti gli altri membri della famiglia reale, compresa la regina Camilla e il principe di Galles, ne hanno invece uno." https://viaggi.corriere.it/news/chi-puo-viaggiare-senza-passaporto-solo-3-persone/

Negli Usa si comincia a riflettere seriamente sul lavoro da remoto, che ha stravolto l'economia facendo cambiare i prezzi delle case, spostare gli assi urbanistici e provocando tanti altri cambiamenti. Money quote: "Although these five cities are not necessarily representative of the country as a whole, their experiences help to illustrate the breadth of the impact of remote work, showing how its rise has played out in places with varied economies and tax structures, and what it could mean for the future. Researchers also interviewed national experts on office vacancies, city finances, and urban development to provide additional context. The effects of remote work on cities have been manageable so far, but city leaders should be concerned that they are not happening in isolation: Cities are also struggling with rising costs, reduced state and federal support, and fragile economies, among other challenges.6 Even if remote work on its own is not sufficient to cause cities lasting harm, it could result in harm in combination with these other factors. Encouragingly, city leaders are not complacent—they are trying to adapt to remote work and renew downtown vitality. The outlook for cities will depend in large measure on the success of these efforts and the degree of support they receive from state and federal policymakers." https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2026/05/the-remote-work-challenge-lessons-from-5-cities

"Harness" vuol dire "imbracatura", quella cosa che si usa ad esempio quando si fanno le scalate in montagna. Ma il verbo, "to harness", ha un significato più ampio e vuol dire "sfruttare" oltre che "imbrigliare". Applicato all'intelligenza artificiale, è la chiave per capire cosa sono gli agenti. Money quote: "Others have written (simplistically) that Agent = Model + Harness. Here the word Harness refers to an Agent Harness. But what is an agent harness? Agent harnesses use AI models to create AI agents, and their first application was for coding. Now, agent harnesses sit at the core of all types of AI agents and understanding how an agent harness works will help you understand what an AI agent is. An agent harness is a piece of software that provides an environment for an AI model to operate within. Unlike most AI models, you as an end user can own your own agent harness." https://earendil.com/posts/what-is-a-harness/

Letture per la domenica Un momento importante della vita, una riflessione sulle tre cose importanti che hanno avuto un impatto sulla sua maturazione. Money quote: "My father passed recently, and he was twice my age. I am approximately the same age that he was when I was born, and I am now “the old generation” - there’s no one left in the generation above me. At the same time, I recently joined a company that skews younger-than-me. When I joined Google in 2011, I had just turned 30, and was in the mainstream demographics of Google in 2011. There were a bunch of more senior folks, with the very senior ones being in their 50s and having completed stints at Bell Labs. I admired a lot of these “greybeards” (even though this is a sexist term - what’s the right female equivalent? There were a few very senior female engineers that I would love to include). So perhaps it is natural that I am reflecting on “what were the important realizations that I made since my early 20s that had a profound impact on the way I think about the world”? In some sense: What are the insights I had that made me “more mature”, for some positive definition of “mature”?" https://thomasdullien.github.io/posts/2026-08-21-three-important-steps-in-my-maturation-process/

Ecco Mostly Weekly 392 Non basta trovare una cosa su Internet, bisogna capire anche cos'è. E poi il caldo che fa strage, le mappe dell’Onu, Mary Renault e l’antica Grecia, le matite No. 2, gli agenti AI e perché negli Usa i cavi sembrano spaghettoni Tanta roba! https://antoniodini.com/weekly/392/

Il sogno americano ricalibrato per il lavoro da casa: costruirsi un home office in giardino. (In realtà il prodotto finale, che da noi sarebbe impossibile senza permessi che costano più della baracca in sé, dice molto della mente di un americano della classe media). Money quote: "I have worked remotely for most of my career and always dreamed of having my own backyard office. A place on my property but completely separate from my home. Until this year, that idea seemed too unnecessary… then our baby grew into a toddler. We have a small house in Portland. We love it, and it works for us, but it became clear that it could use more space. My wife and I briefly considered buying a new home but decided to stay. But for us to stay, I needed a better working environment. Our space is small. The bedrooms and living room are very close together. It gets loud with our toddler at home with my wife during the day, and listening to one half of a Zoom call wasn’t music to my partner’s ears. I had tried coworking spaces but didn’t love the vibe or the idea of spending hours in a phone booth. I don’t see myself returning to a local office in Portland, so we decided to invest in a backyard office. It was way cheaper than buying a new home." https://www.imkylelambert.com/articles/building-a-backyard-office-the-build-and-cost-breakdown

Dolly Parton era un genio della musica e passerà alla storia per molti motivi. Uno è anche un rapporto alla scienza. Ma non per quello che uno potrebbe immaginare. Money quote: ""When geneticists from the University of Edinburgh successfully cloned the first mammal, they named it Dolly, after the now departed singer/songwriter Dolly Parton. The reason, they said, was that Dolly the sheep had been cloned from the cell of a mammary gland and 'we couldn't think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton's.' It was crass, but Dolly the human responded with her characteristic Southern charm and class, offering condolences when her namesake passed away. 'I was sorry when she died, though I don't want be cloned myself,' she said in an interview with The Guardian. 'I want to get on out of here when I can.' And now she has." https://nautil.us/dolly-parton-science-icon-1284482

Le AI sono più intelligenti dei matematici? No, il punto è un altro: hanno una memoria di lavoro maggiore di quella degli esseri umani e questo consente loro di gestire problemi più grandi che a noi "non stanno in testa" Money quote: "The importance of working memory for mathematics is not merely theoretical. It is visible in the differences between human beings. Working memory is strongly related to general intelligence, which raises an obvious question: does it independently predict mathematical performance, or is it merely another imperfect measure of IQ?" https://davidepiffer.com/p/ai-isnt-outthinking-mathematicians

Mai avuto Windows, però ho presente il problema: magari a qualcuno può piacere vedere cosa facevano i suoi nonni la notte (guardavano il defrag del disco) https://defrag98.com

Sono nato e cresciuto in una città d'arte e della visione dell'epoca classica, filtrata dal Rinascimento e dall'Umanesimo, ho un'idea chiara e un'estetica assolutamente in bianco e nero. E pensare che è del tutto falsa. Money quote: ""Per secoli abbiamo guardato al mondo classico come il più rappresentativo di una concezione estetica immobile e levigata dal candore del marmo. Ma invece è una delle costruzioni storiche errate più resistenti. La scultura e l’architettura antica, infatti, non erano nate bianche ma decorate da pigmenti (rosso, blu, ocra, nero, dorature ecc.) che si fondevano con la luce e il paesaggio circostante. A lungo questa realtà è rimasta nascosta dal peso di una tradizione interpretativa che ha fatto del bianco un ideale estetico. E la svolta affonda le radici in una lunga storia di scoperte archeologiche, da Pompei ed Ercolano fino agli studi sulle superfici ateniesi, che oggi trova nuova forza grazie alle tecnologie diagnostiche e ai protocolli di conservazione che permettono di leggere ciò che il tempo ha cancellato." https://www.artribune.com/arti-visive/archeologia-arte-antica/2026/08/riscoperta-policromia-statue-antiche-greci/ Ma vendi anche: https://www.artribune.com/arti-visive/archeologia-arte-antica/2022/06/le-statue-greche-erano-tutte-colorate-una-mostra-al-met-ulla-policromia-nellarte-antica/

Lettura per la domenica Uno studio di qualche settimana fa rivela che i lettori del panel preferiscono i racconti scritti dall'AI a quelli umani. Money quote: "Researchers also found that people who said they had greater AI literacy were better able to identify AI-written text, but participants who said they had greater expertise in literature were not. Participants were also asked to rate their experience with fictional literature and using AI platforms, with AI-generated stories receiving a higher rating for quality. "AI writing tends to be clearer, more direct and easier to process," said Weisberg. "By contrast, human-written stories are often more subtle and complex." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kmpd6lr80o