Mostly, I Write

Una raccolta di detti e massime dal mondo del diritto angloamericano. Non sono brocardi, sono adagi legali di quelli che si raccontano al club per soli avvocati o per soli giudici. Money quotE: "I call it “The Last Resort Rule.” It was taught to me by a great teacher at Columbia Law School named Jerome Michael, who taught a course in appellate advocacy. At the last moment in the last class of the course, when he had taught us everything he knew, he said: “These are my final words on advocacy. If you have the facts on your side, hammer the facts. If you have the law on your side, hammer the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law, hammer the table.”" https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/04/legal-adage/

Dopo averci danzato attorno per un bel po', finalmente qualcuno mette assieme due concetti chiave della nostra epoca: gli alieni e l'intelligenza artificiale. Cioè l'altra mente oltre alla nostra. Adesso, se ci mettessimo dentro religione e pianeta delle scimmie avremmo praticamente fatto la psicanalisi sociale della razza umana. Money quote: "I’ve wondered about alien minds for a long time—and tried all sorts of ways to imagine what it might be like to see things from their point of view. But in the past I’ve never really had a way to build my intuition about it. That is, until now. So, what’s changed? It’s AI. Because in AI we finally have an accessible form of alien mind." https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/07/generative-ai-space-and-the-mental-imagery-of-alien-minds/

Francesco D'Isa riflette su alcuni aspetti dell'intelligenza artificiale partendo da un libro che raccoglie una serie di saggi dello scrittore polacco di fantascienza, Stanislaw Lem. Tutto da leggere. Money quote: "In questo capitolo Lem utilizza la metafora della “scatola nera”, che oggi usiamo più o meno in modo analogo per descrivere dispositivi o sistemi i cui meccanismi interni non sono compresi o osservabili direttamente; ciò che conta sono gli input forniti e gli output ricevuti, senza che vi sia una comprensione completa del processo intermedio. Questa idea è discussa in tempi recenti proprio in merito alle intelligenze artificiali. Anch’esse infatti, soprattutto se costruite con reti neurali profonde, vengono descritte come scatole nere per via della loro opacità. Sono capaci di svolgere compiti complessi che vanno dall’elaborazione del linguaggio naturale alla diagnosi medica, ma i processi esatti tramite i quali giungono alle loro conclusioni rimangono, in molti casi, difficilmente interpretabili persino per i loro creatori." https://www.siamomine.com/evoluzione-intelligenza-artificiale-summa-technologiaeevoluzione-intelligenza-artificiale-scatola-nera-stanislaw-lem-libri-di-stanislaw-lem/

Le sanzioni del 2019 hanno messo Huawei in una posizione molto scomoda, apparentemente. Ma le aziende, sono resilienti, si ingegnano, non si fanno prendere dalla depressione e dall'apatia. E adesso, con il suo sistema operativo alternativo ad Android, l'azienda cinese sta occupando uno spazio enorme che presto vedremo arrivare (tipo boomerang causato dalle sanzioni) anche da noi. Money quote: "By collaborating with app developers to create HarmonyOS-specific applications and fostering a new generation of programmers skilled in its platform, Huawei is positioning itself as an important player in the operating system landscape. The company has been collaborating with domestic universities since 2021 to train coders in its system. The development could have an outsized effect in further spurring China's tech industry. Huawei estimated that the creation of apps for HarmonyOS will generate at least 3 million jobs. There are currently just over 380,000 HarmonyOS-certified developers. Huawei pledged to train 100,000 developers a month through online videos and other means." https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/Huawei-s-HarmonyOS-Next-is-set-to-rival-iOS-and-Android-in-China

Due mesi fa Microsoft si preparava a sconfiggere la concorrenza (Apple) con i nuovi chip Qualcomm sui quali far girare Windows. Dove sono finiti? Che risultati hanno raggiunto? Un mistero chiamato Vaporware? Money quote: "After years of failed promises from Qualcomm, Microsoft believes the upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processors will finally offer the performance it has been looking for to push Windows on Arm much more aggressively. Microsoft is now betting big on Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processors, which will ship in a variety of Windows laptops this year and Microsoft’s latest consumer-focused Surface hardware. Microsoft is so confident in these new Qualcomm chips that it’s planning a number of demos that will show how these processors will be faster than an M3 MacBook Air for CPU tasks, AI acceleration, and even app emulation. Microsoft claims, in internal documents seen by The Verge, that these new Windows AI PCs will have “faster app emulation than Rosetta 2” — the application compatibility layer that Apple uses on its Apple Silicon Macs to translate apps compiled for 64-bit Intel processors to Apple’s own processors." https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/8/24116587/microsoft-macbook-air-surface-arm-qualcomm-snapdragon-x-elite

Sappiamo che Russia e Cina ovviamente fanno azioni di disinformazione. Ma che la Cina ci investisse così tanto e con così scarsi risultati è molto interessante. E spaventoso. Money quote: ""Spamouflage is like throwing spaghetti at the wall, and they are throwing a lot of spaghetti," says Jack Stubbs, chief information officer at Graphika, a social media analysis company that was among the first to identify the Spamouflage campaign. "The volume and scale of this thing is huge. They're putting out multiple videos and cartoons every day, amplified across different platforms at a global scale. The vast majority of it, for the time being, appears to be something that doesn't stick, but that doesn't mean it won't stick in the future." Since at least 2017, Spamouflage has been ceaselessly spewing out content designed to disrupt major global events, including topics as diverse as the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, the US presidential elections, and Israel and Gaza." https://www.wired.com/story/china-bad-at-disinformation/

Mostly Apple è il mio “altro” canale. Pochi aggiornamenti, niente link, solo notizie flash su Apple e dintorni (prevalentemente tech). Costa niente ed è carino, per qualcuno anche utile. https://t.me/mostlyapple

Il fascino di una notizia orribile come questa sta nella assurdità del gesto e nella sua elicits: come Filippode, il soldato della battaglia di Maratona. Money quote: "Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made history by reaching the summit, a courier named Ten Tsewang Sherpa ran 200 miles to Kathmandu to deliver the news. He died a few weeks later. His story has never been told--until now." https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/everest/everest-hillary-norgay-1953-news/

Fare il surf tra le piattaforme di streaming - Il mio articolo per Fumettologica su un problema che in molti sentiamo! https://fumettologica.it/2024/05/streaming-piattaforme-tv-abbonamenti/

A quanto pare l'uso massivo della ai dentro le app di Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp) non sta andando bene. Money quote: "The introduction of Meta AI--a suite of intentional tools designed to make users' lives easier and, more importantly for the company, spending more time with Meta products, is an intentional salvo into a trendy area of emerging technology. If it fails it'll either be because users genuinely do not want to interact with AI where they're seeing friends' baby pictures, or it'll fail because it's made the entire experience kind of crappy and annoying." https://www.fastcompany.com/91113437/ai-making-meta-apps-basically-unusable

Uno sguardo interessante sul modo con il quale funziona la nostra cultura contemporanea oramai filtrata e modellata attraverso gli strumenti di comunicazione digitale (che hanno avuto un impatto simmetricamente a come è successo con stampa, radio, cinema e televisione). Molto interessante. Money quote: "To say that everything is a cult is a bit of an overstatement, but as a general framework for understanding the world at the moment, it is helpful. The way we consume content, the way fandom works, the ways we sort ourselves into tribes and camps online, even the way lots of industries work, including the news business -- it all has shades of culthood. This is easier to see if you set aside the more extreme examples of cults, like the ones that end in mass suicide or shootouts with the ATF, and instead think of cults as movements or institutions that organize themselves around the belief that the mainstream is fundamentally broken." https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area/24133960/america-cult-internet-culture-end-monoculture-communication-tribalism

Victorinox, l'azienda che è sinonimo di coltellino svizzero, si prepara a dire addio alla lama come dotazione standard. E allora noi come lo chiameremo? Money quote: "We're concerned about the increasing regulation of knives due to the violence in the world," said Carl Elsener, the fourth-generation CEO of the family-run company. "In some markets, the blade creates an image of a weapon. I have in mind creating a tool that would be useful for cyclists. Cyclists have a need for specific tools but not necessarily a blade," he said. "We already have a tool specifically for golfers."" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/07/swiss-army-knife-maker-to-produce-version-without-a-blade?

È possibile fare le cose in maniera diversa? Questa inchiesta giornalistica portata avanti da The Verge in collaborazione con delle altre associazioni è molto interessante non solo per la fonte ma anche per la prospettiva che apre. Ci sono altri modi per fare le cose. Money quote: "Switch to renewable energy. Stop deforestation. Restore ecosystems. They’re lofty goals that more and more corporations and governments are setting for themselves. If it seems too ambitious, just look to Costa Rica. It’s the first tropical country to have reversed deforestation, and it generates nearly 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources of energy. There’s a lot to learn from those successes and even more to gain from the challenges the country now has to tackle. Seasons are increasingly unpredictable. Could climate change upend past victories? Meanwhile, Indigenous leaders face violence from people trying to stop their campaigns to reclaim and reforest Indigenous territories. Can the country undo a history of land grabbing?" https://www.theverge.com/24146299/costa-rica-forest-restoration-renewable-energy-lessons

La storia della Queen Elizabeth 2, la seconda nave a chiamarsi Regina Elisabetta, di proprietà di Canard, varata nel 1967. Oggi è un hotel galleggiante a Dubai e niente male, se devo dire la verità. Ma i suoi giorni migliori sono ovviamente quelli in cui ha navigato per i sette mari, sia come velocissima e compatta nave da crociera durante la jet-age che come trasporto militare durante la guerra delle isole Falklands/Malvinas. Money quote: "A year after the Falklands War, the QE2 found herself back in the shipyard with major mechanical problems following her annual refit. Boiler problems and an electrical fire which caused a ship wide power loss forced Cunard to pull her for a significant overhaul. Pumping $162 million into her, this would be the biggest refit yet. Her entire power plant would be replaced. No longer steam/oll powered, she would be diesel powered. Nine diesel engines and new screws would replace her steam boilers and oil tanks. This conversion would add another 20 years to the QE2's life. In addition, all passenger cabins and lounges were modernized and the ship received all new electrical systems. Emerging from her eight month refit state of the art once again, the QE2's sea trials revealed a new top speed of 34 knots and was far more fuel efficient. She reentered service in April 1987." https://owlcation.com/humanities/QE2

Il grande cambiamento nel settore della tecnologia dietro le quinte, cioè dei produttori di hardware, è questa grande novità, un profondo cambiamento di paradigma: siamo passati da un mondo in cui una archittettura veniva usata per tutto (x86, grazie a Microsoft e Linux) a uno in cui invece si fa un chip ad hoc per ogni esigenza. Siamo nella Golden Age del "silicio su misura". Money quote: "Several global megatrends impact the development of microelectronics. They include 5G and edge computing (we would rather call it explosive growth of connected devices), autonomous and software defined vehicles (SDVs), AI, cloud computing and high-performance computing (HPC)." https://www.eetimes.com/the-golden-age-of-custom-silicon-draws-near/

Me lo sono sempre chiesto: perché non abbiamo fatto denti che ricrescono con le cellule staminali, o vaccini per le carie, o sistemi per trasformare la bocca delle persone. Perché non abbiamo lavorato di più sui denti, che sono sì un mercato straordinariamente ricco per chi se ne occupa professionalmente (i dentisti) ma che costituiscono anche una delle cause di salute e sanità di chi li ha ben in ordine rispetto a chi no. Poi, ho letto questo articolo. Money quote: "About seven years ago, Aaron Silverbook and his then-girlfriend, a biologist, were perusing old scientific literature online. “A romantic evening,” joked Silverbook. That night, he came across a study from 2000 that surprised him. Scientists had genetically engineered an oral bacterium that they said could possibly prevent tooth decay: “I read it and sort of boggled at it and said, ‘Wow, this is a cavity vaccine. Why don’t we have this?’”" https://www.inverse.com/health/cure-for-cavities-inside-decades-long-scientific-quest

La storia (fantastica) della serie di film *Kung Fu Panda* e del loro straordinario successo anche in Cina, dove hanno avuto un ruolo fondamentale per far decollare l'industria dell'animazione locale. Molto interessante davvero. Money quote: "This success was commercial as well as critical. Chinese audiences praised DreamWorks’ treatment of Chinese culture, landscape and architecture. Many members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) asked themselves the same question: “The film’s protagonist is China’s national treasure and all the elements are Chinese,” Wu Jiang, president of the China National Peking Opera Company in Beijing, told the state-owned Xinhua News Agency, “but why didn’t we make such a film?” Although the original “Kung Fu Panda” came out over a decade ago, its legacy has never been more relevant. In addition to shaping the strategies Hollywood employs to infiltrate the Chinese market, it has also motivated China to improve its animation industry, in the hope of extending its soft power to other regions of the globe. With the fourth installment currently in theaters, this process is still ongoing." https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/how-kung-fu-panda-conquered-china-and-china-conquered-hollywood/

Un contributo, uscito la settimana scorsa su Il Foglio, a mio avviso interessante di Ester Viola sulla pubblicità di Apple e sulla vera sfida rappresentata dai media che usiamo oggi: non un attentato alla creatività, ma alla capacità di rafforzare la memoria e la concentrazione.

La versione "seria" di Aranzulla: Popular Science che spiega come fare a capire se il nostro computer sta lentamente (e inesorabilmente) rallentando ed eventualmente che cosa fare per rimediare. Money quote: "There’s nothing wrong with going slightly more basic with your tech: Get your stopwatch out (or the stopwatch on your phone), and time how long it takes for your computer to start up and shut down. These processes are both good barometers of how healthy your Windows or macOS machine is, and how much strain it’s under. Of course, you’re going to have to do this over several days or weeks to spot if there’s a reduction in performance. Once you’ve got a few data points built up though—in a spreadsheet, maybe—you should have a useful indicator of how your computer’s performing and in which direction that performance is headed." https://www.popsci.com/diy/how-to-check-if-computer-is-slowing-down/

L'industria della bellezza è alla conquista della Silicon Valley e degli spazi solitamente lasciati alla tecnologia. Detto in un altro modo: l'evoluzione dei prodotti per il beuaty è sempre più tech e sta facendo atterrare la tecnologia sulla nostra pelle. Money quote: "Pour stimuler les effets de leurs soins, les marques ont bien compris l’intérêt de développer ce type d’équipement. Le 8 janvier, à Las Vegas, Nicolas Hieronimus, directeur général du Groupe L’Oréal, prononçait le discours d’ouverture du Consumer Electronics Show (CES), le plus grand salon mondial consacré à l’innovation technologique en électronique grand public, une première pour un label de beauté. Le géant des cosmétiques investit aujourd’hui un peu plus d’un milliard d’euros par an dans le secteur – soit un budget légèrement supérieur à celui de la recherche – et affiche ainsi son intention de se positionner également en géant des nouvelles technologies. Et dans son domaine, il est loin d’être le seul. « Le CES de 2023 a marqué une rupture, avec une présence très forte des marques de beauté, commente Brune Ouakrat, directrice du planning stratégique du bureau de style Peclers. Alors que, depuis quelques années, ces dernières s’étaient concentrées sur les idées de “clean” [sans composants controversés et respectueux de l’environnement] et de naturel, la science et la technologie font leur retour avec le culte de la jeunesse, la promesse de reverse aging” [inverser le vieillissement]. »" https://www.lemonde.fr/m-styles/article/2024/04/27/l-envol-de-la-beaute-high-tech-la-beauty-tech-trouve-son-sens-dans-l-optimisation-de-nos-rituels_6230183_4497319.html Archivio: https://archive.is/Fv4lA