Mostly, I Write

È domenica e Mostly Weekly è dedicata al Giappone, tra l'Imperatore e l'AI, passando per Donald Trump e i matrimoni gay non più vietati (ma non ammessi) https://antoniodini.com/weekly/314/

Un libro che parla di apocalisse, perché adesso che forse arriva la temiamo, ma in realtà ci ha sempre entusiasmato (quando non ci riguarda). Money quote: "APOCALYPSE uses true stories from archaeology to retell human history as a story of endings, transformations, and new beginnings. For tens of thousands of years, events like plagues, natural disasters, and state collapses have forced us to take stock of who we are and what kinds of societies we want to live in. Apocalypses may destroy old worlds, but they also offer the best chance we have to create new ones." https://buttondown.com/lizziewade/archive/apocalypse-is-coming-your-way/

Vi godete la vista non solo della Sutro Tower di San Francisco ma anche della città, che adoro e mi manca tantissimo (è un sacco che non ci vado). Comunque, la tecnica per creare il modello 3D è molto innovativa e ovviamente basata sulla AI. Meglio vederla da computer e non da telefono. Money quote: "This scan is made possible by recent advances in Gaussian Splatting. This is an emerging technology that lets us quickly create very detailed models just from photographs. For this model (or splat, as we call them), my friend Daylen and I flew our drones around Sutro Tower at a respectful distance for an afternoon until we had collected a few thousand photographs." https://vincentwoo.com/3d/sutro_tower/

Studiare piccole storie per capire cosa potrebbe succedere su una scala globale. L'esperimento sociale di una cittadina del New Hampshire dove si sono trasferiti un buon numero di libertari americani, e tutto è andato in vacca quando alcuni hanno decoso che erano liberi di dar da mangiare agli orsi selvaggi della zona, perché no? Money quote: "Pressed by bears from without and internecine conflicts from within, the Free Town Project began to come apart. Caught up in “pitched battles over who was living free, but free in the right way,” the libertarians descended into accusing one another of statism, leaving individuals and groups to do the best (or worst) they could. Some kept feeding the bears, some built traps, others holed up in their homes, and still others went everywhere toting increasingly larger-caliber handguns. After one particularly vicious attack, a shadowy posse formed and shot more than a dozen bears in their dens. This effort, which was thoroughly illegal, merely put a dent in the population; soon enough, the bears were back in force." https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project

Alle sei del mattino, a Chongqing in Cina, i contadini arrivano in città con le loro cose da vendere. Video notevole Money quote: "This got viral in Chinese social media and was heavily discussed. The Chongqing government has designated last year a line, now often called Vegetable Basket Line, that specifically allows farmers to bring their goods in the train even during peak hours. While there were complaints about how they shouldn't be allowed, most of the people are supportive of the policy. The fare is also free for these farmers as seniors don't pay in the city." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoSjDp4FtFY

Elon Musk ha affermato che il suo team "DOGE" ha trovato prove di "massicce frodi" presso l'Amministrazione della previdenza sociale, sostenendo che americani di 150 anni stavano ricevendo assegni di benefici. Ho visto questa affermazione facilmente smentita durante il fine settimana, ma Wired ne ha una buona ricostruzione. In buona sostanza, il linguaggio di programmazione in cui sono scritti questi sistemi (COBOL) utilizza spesso una data arbitraria come linea di base, più comunemente una data di 150 anni fa. Peraltro, la SSA interrompe automaticamente anche i pagamenti delle prestazioni ogni volta che qualcuno raggiunge l'età di 115 anni. Money quote: "Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure was not evidence of fraud, but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration’s benefits system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases as well as systems from many other US government agencies. COBOL is rarely used today, and as such, Musk’s cadre of young engineers may well be unfamiliar with it. Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the “Convention du Mètre.” These systems default to the reference point when a birth date is missing or incomplete, meaning all of those entries in 2025 would show an age of 150." https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-doge-social-security-150-year-old-benefits/

Una tranquilla presa di coscienza. Money quote: "For a long time it was considered impertinent to refer to Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their henchman as Nazis. “Are they registered members of the American Nazi party?” some have demanded to know. “Did they actually help carry out the Holocaust?” others obtusely inquired. But we’ve reached a point where these distinctions have no meaning. Whatever comes to mind when you think of a Nazi, that is for whom this country is currently being run. And the powers that be aren’t shy about it." https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/nazis-musk-kliger

Letture per la domenica L'origine della scrittura, spiegata bene. Money quote: "Noting that early humans’ aversion to confrontation played a critical role in their evolution, a new study published Friday in the American Journal Of Archaeology concluded that written language was first developed to avoid breaking up in person. “According to our findings, early Mesopotamians created the first cuneiform tablets in 3200 BCE because they couldn’t bear the idea of looking their partner in the eye and ending things face-to-face,” said the study’s author, Professor Jason Greene, who added that once humans learned how effective a breakup note transcribed on papyrus, clay, or animal skin could be, they began developing a variety of symbols to quickly and effectively call a relationship off. “Some of the earliest pictographs, like a broken heart, a withered rose, or crossed out stick figures standing side by side, were seemingly quite effective for avoiding an in-person argument. But based on our evidence, our ancestors eventually developed a phonetic alphabet to convey more complex ideas, like that it might be best for them to open their relationship, or to take a short break and try seeing other people.” Greene added that early humans also developed hunting spears as a way to avoid going through the trouble of divorce." https://theonion.com/new-evidence-suggests-humans-developed-written-language-to-avoid-breaking-up-in-person/

È praticamente domenica e torna come sempre Mostly Weekly. Questa settimana c'è un cattivo di James Bond che conoscete tutti benissimo (sopresa!) https://antoniodini.com/weekly/313/

Lofi Girl, il rifugio digitale che ha conquistato la Generazione Z: ne ho parlato su Fumettologica https://fumettologica.it/2025/02/lofi-girl-youtube-musica-streaming/

Tutto normale, niente di strano. Solo dei bambini prepotenti che si sono portati via la fabbrica di Willy Wonka Money quote: "Last month, Meta admitted to torrenting a controversial large dataset known as LibGen, which includes tens of millions of pirated books. But details around the torrenting were murky until yesterday, when Meta's unredacted emails were made public for the first time. The new evidence showed that Meta torrented "at least 81.7 terabytes of data across multiple shadow libraries through the site Anna’s Archive, including at least 35.7 terabytes of data from Z-Library and LibGen," the authors' court filing said. And "Meta also previously torrented 80.6 terabytes of data from LibGen." "The magnitude of Meta’s unlawful torrenting scheme is astonishing," the authors' filing alleged, insisting that "vastly smaller acts of data piracy—just .008 percent of the amount of copyrighted works Meta pirated—have resulted in Judges referring the conduct to the US Attorneys’ office for criminal investigation."" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/meta-torrented-over-81-7tb-of-pirated-books-to-train-ai-authors-say/

Un giochino per passare il tempo nel browser. Money quote: "A minesweeper game that requires observation." https://danielben.itch.io/dragonsweeper

Dopo l'assurda vicenda dell'aeroporto di Tegel, a Berlino, in ritardo sul ritardo, ce n'è un altro che è nel caos più totale. Signore e signori, ecco a voi la cattedrale peruviana nel deserto: il nuovo aeroporto di Lima. Money quote: "A highway meant to whisk travelers to the $2 billion terminal has yet to be built, even though flights are supposed to begin operating in just seven weeks. A bridge to get across a river that runs along the grounds was never constructed. There’s a subway stop labeled “Airport” planned for Lima’s new metro system, but that station is set to be built (three years from now) much closer to the old airport that’s being decommissioned." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-02-07/how-a-new-2-billion-airport-in-lima-turned-into-a-debacle-for-peru archivio: https://archive.is/8aJ5J

Abbiamo scoperto una nuova Terra. Forse è un pianeta realmente abitabile (altro che Marte) che per certo non vedremo mai di persona. Non noi viventi oggi, perlomeno. Tuttavia, l'articolo e le animazioni della pagina sono davvero piacevoli. Money quote: "The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL) has confirmed the discovery of a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of HD 20794, a nearby Sun-like star. This discovery, the result of over two decades of observations, opens a window to future studies of Earth-like planetary atmospheres." https://www.iac.es/en/outreach/news/iac-confirms-existence-super-earth-habitable-zone-sun-star

Il licenziamento, che per la nuova generazione di americani che lavorano attorno alla tecnologia è qualcosa di inedito e surreale. Money quote: "One of the earliest indicators was the sudden cancellation of team events. When I heard from other teams that their off-site events were canceled without any clear explanation, it immediately raised red flags. These cancellations often signal that the company is going to announce something about the team structure and doesn’t want you to be with your team in the same place. This is because one of your teammates—or you—might be impacted, and you’d need to cancel flights, hotels, etc. To avoid dealing with these logistical issues, the company preemptively cancels the event." https://mertbulan.com/2025/01/26/once-you-are-laid-off-you-will-never-be-the-same-again/

Dopo l'idea che la matematica sia sterile e priva di fantasia, c'è quella che il programmatore sia un iperpianificatore che procede dal grande verso il piccolo. Mica tanto. Cioè, mica sempre. Money quote: "In writing (particularly fiction writing), there is a generally accepted distinction between authors who start by writing an outline and those who discover their stories through the process of writing. For some reason, we have no such distinction in programming, so I am here to introduce it." https://jimmyhmiller.github.io/discovery-coding

Letture per la domenica. Per chi ha un sacco di negativi scattati dai genitori o dai nonni (tipo scatole piene) da scannerizzare e archiviare in modo sensato in digitale, qui c'è una che ha fatto tutto il giro ed offre interessanti considerazioni metodologiche, pratiche ed emotive. Money quote: "I have spoken with several people who have similar family photo archives, so let me begin by describing I went about the project. Before I began, I had an inexpensive Wolverine slide scanner but I knew a manual unit would not cut it. I bought a heavy-duty slide scanner to help me process the images. It’s a Canon CanoScan 9000F. I like it, in case you’re shopping for an affordable unit; in particular, I do not loathe the built-in software, which sets it apart from other scanners I’ve used. The project, which took me about a year, became a background process. I could scan a box of slides while I was reading my daily morning e-mail, then clean up and share the images during moments of down-time (such as waiting for poky websites to load site statistics). Over a weekend I usually could get through five or six boxes of slides." https://estherschindler.medium.com/the-old-family-photos-project-lessons-in-creating-family-photos-that-people-want-to-keep-ea3909129943

Arriva domani nelle inbox ma l'anteprima è adesso: Mostly Weekly questa settimana parla degli sfigati al comando, il caos che ci aspetta, i segnali brutti dalla Spagna e la differenza (forse) tra lettura e letteratura. Buona lettura https://antoniodini.com/weekly/312/

A proposito di giudicare un libro dalla copertina. John Updike, oltre a essere stato un notevolissimo scrittore, è stato anche il progettista o comunque il primo critico di molte copertine dei suoi libri. Questo articolo è molto interessante e spiega tutto il processo, con testimonianze importanti. Money quote: "John Updike was one of the most celebrated and prolific American writers of the twentieth century. He is best known for his Rabbit series: four novels and a novella tracing the life of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a middle class white man who feels alienated from the modern world. Rabbit is Rich, the third book in the series, was also its most decorated, winning the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. Updike also published more than fifty other books, including novels, short stories, poetry, children’s books, and collections of art and literary criticism. His prominence as a writer has mostly eclipsed the other role he played in the publication of his work: designing the covers for several of his books and heavily art directing almost all of the rest. " https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/heres-why-john-updike-designed-his-own-book-covers/

L'angolo tech. Per i progammatori. Javascript sta per abbandonare il sistema piuttosto deficitario che utilizza finora per gestire il tempo. Money quote: "To understand Temporal, we can look at JavaScript's "Date" object. When JavaScript was created in 1995, the "Date" object was copied from Java's early, flawed java.util.Date implementation. Java replaced this implementation in 1997, but JavaScript is stuck with the same API for almost 30 years, despite known problems. The major issues with JavaScript's "Date" object are that it only supports the user's local time and UTC, and there's no time zone support. Additionally, its parsing behavior is very unreliable, and Date itself is mutable, which can introduce hard-to-trace bugs. There are other problems like calculations across Daylight Saving Time (DST) and historical calendar changes, which are notoriously difficult to work with." https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/blog/javascript-temporal-is-coming/