Mostly, I Write
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Storie e pensieri suoi e di altri, raccolti da Antonio Dini http://www.antoniodini.com
Per contatti su Telegram: @antoniodini
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Fantasmi del passato: il Mobot Mark II del 1961 e una (amara) considerazione sulle magnifiche e progressive sorti.

Money quote: "Nearly 60 years later, the DARPA Robotics Challenge showed that even the most sophisticated robots are still essentially Mobots, needing a human in the loop to help them with complex manipulation tasks."

http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/military-robots/the-1961-mobot-mark-ii-had-all-the-moves
Semplicemente geniale

Money quote: “Looking for small, irrational, incompetent, freeloader roommates with rage issues and separation anxiety? Have kids.”

https://thehairpin.com/kids-a12b2adf4b11
Effetti collaterali del vaccino per il morbillo.

Money quote:

"Back in the 1960s, the U.S. started vaccinating kids for measles. As expected, children stopped getting measles.

But something else happened.

Childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half."

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/07/404963436/scientists-crack-a-50-year-old-mystery-about-the-measles-vaccine
Nella sua ultima rubrica il giornalista americano Walt Mossberg (una specie di istituzione nel settore del giornalismo tecnologico "new") apre la via a una riflessione che cerca di far capire in qualche direzione andrà la tecnologia nel futuro. Una direzione completamente diversa da quella degli ultimi anni, perché il computer sta scomparendo dalla nostra vista per diventare realmente pervasivo, con tutto quello che comporta in termini di interfacce e servizi.

Money quote: "But just because you’re not seeing amazing new consumer tech products on Amazon, in the app stores, or at the Apple Store or Best Buy, that doesn’t mean the tech revolution is stuck or stopped. In fact, it’s just pausing to conquer some major new territory. And, if it succeeds, the results could be as big or bigger than the first consumer PCs were in the 1970s, or even the web in the 1990s and smartphones in the first decade of this century"

https://www.recode.net/2017/5/25/15689094/mossberg-final-column
Il sospetto che si un deficiente sta diventando una certezza.

Money quote: "“Administration officials leak to the media hoping it will eventually become true and that coverage will sway Trump. White House officials sometimes don’t trust one another and spread rumors. They call other aides and advisers to see what he is saying about them. And officials are contradicted by other officials -- and even Trump, who tests different strategies aloud to different people. He sometimes agrees with whoever is in the room with him. He likes to please and can dial dozens of friends in a weekend"

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/01/playbook-josh-dawsey-donald-trump-decisions-239015
Lungo pippone sulle magnifiche e progressive sorti di Windows S. Non c'è emozione, solo calcolo utilitaristico. Non sono così ottimista sul futuro di questo approccio. Vince chi è più spietato, non basta la visione.

Money quote: "Windows 10 S will play an important role in Microsoft trying to reach that scale, Belfiore said. Because it's going into schools, which Microsoft sees as a growth market, it could get a lot of young, app-savvy customers using Windows. And because Windows 10 S only lets users download apps from the Windows Store, developers who want to reach those students might be convinced to start making apps for it."

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-windows-cvp-joe-belfiore-google-apple-windows-store-2017-5?IR=T
Buffo fenomeno. Quello per cui i difensori della novità del nostro tempo (il lavoro da casa, spinto e abilitato dalla tecnologia informatica) devono difendersi da una montante ondata di persone che invece vogliono che il loro lavoro abbia un posto.

La domanda è se il lavoro sia anche un posto oppure no.

Money quote: "Edit: *Sigh*. People. People people people. “Work from home” does not mean “100% full time work from home and never in the office”. It can range from “emergency” WFH, to part time WFH, to full time. Companies should offer these options."

http://www.midnightdba.com/Jen/2017/05/employers-let-people-work-home/
Vita e vecchiaia del gangster Ralph DeMasi. Articolo spettacolare.

Money quote:

"His quiet life in Salisbury seemed to suit him. He had family living nearby. He had those three refrigerator shelves. And to help him remember all that he had done and seen, he had a framed newspaper article on his night stand: “Tips For Improving Your Memory.”

“Make lists. … Put frequently used items in the same place each time. … Repeat information. … Make associations. … Exercise your mind. …”

But some things cannot be forgotten."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/31/us/a-mobster-a-family-and-the-crime-that-wont-let-them-go.html
Innovare vuol dire gentrificare?

Money quote: "The geographic focus was intentional. The area is stacked with university, medical, and corporate assets—including Penn, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Drexel, and Comcast, to name a few. If you’ve spent any time in this part of Philly over the past several years, you’ve watched it grow into an entrepreneurial hotspot brimming with young professionals, researchers, and startup leaders who want to be where the action is. Dense with restaurants, retail, and transit, the area radiates energy, and Philadelphians are starting to feel its effects.

But in this innovation hub, as in many others around the country, there lurks a tension between the desire for economic growth and the suspicion that the rewards may only go to a well-heeled few. Indeed, it is the same tension that is pulling at the nation, creating what feels like a bottomless rift over what’s causing our economic disparities—including the role of technology and innovation—and what ought to be done to bridge the divides. This tension drives the gentrification question, every time."

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/06/does-innovation-equal-gentrification/529839/
Cinque uomini (per tacer del cameraman) che si sono fatti esplodere una bomba atomica sulle loro teste (ok, in quota, ma sempre sulle loro teste). Folli.

Money quote: "On July 19, 1957, five Air Force officers and one photographer stood together on a patch of ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They'd marked the spot "Ground Zero. Population 5" on a hand-lettered sign hammered into the soft ground right next to them."

http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/07/16/156851175/five-men-agree-to-stand-directly-under-an-exploding-nuclear-bomb
E arriva anche l'unboxing dell'iPad Pro 10.5. Sto testando tutte le sue funzionalità per cercare di capire se davvero c'è una differenza sostanziale o è solo una modesta evoluzione del precedente iPad Pro 9.7

https://business.facebook.com/Macitynet.it/videos/1380109162026973/
Un gigantesco lemmario online del Greco classico. Io ho già dato, ma se serve...

https://dcthree.github.io/ancient-greek-lexica/
Ancora nessuno ha capito perché, ma a quanto pare i millennials se mangiano e fanno esercizio come i baby boomers diventano comunque più grassi. Boh.

Money quote: "They found a very surprising correlation: A given person, in 2006, eating the same amount of calories, taking in the same quantities of macronutrients like protein and fat, and exercising the same amount as a person of the same age did in 1988 would have a BMI that was about 2.3 points higher. In other words, people today are about 10 percent heavier than people were in the 1980s, even if they follow the exact same diet and exercise plans."

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/why-it-was-easier-to-be-skinny-in-the-1980s/407974/
Backchannel lascia definitivamente Medium e diventa una costola di Wired (Conde Nast).

Money quote: "Starting June 21, we will begin publishing Backchannel as a weekly digital magazine on wired.com. As players in a news cycle that’s rapidly approaching light speed, we believe our work will stand out more as a weekly event — an occasion — than as yet more fodder for the daily churn. And now we’ll be hosted on Wired’s site, rather than on Medium. We will still be editorially independent, of course, and our staff is unchanged"

https://backchannel.com/backchannel-is-moving-to-wired-dcb693c26ac0
Ecco il “Personal kanban” con i suggerimenti per ridurre il multitasking. Perché fa male al cervello.

Money quote: "James Benson, a former urban planner based in Seattle who authored Personal Kanban: Mapping Work — Navigating Life, tells Quartz that industrial Kanban was a way for Toyota to avoid overproducing. He has adapted the system to reduce overhead of the emotional sort—the “too many tasks on my mind” feeling that’s the biggest downside of our mostly doomed attempts to multitask"

https://qz.com/985821/personal-kanban-a-life-changing-time-management-system-that-explodes-the-myth-of-multitasking/