Addio ditale. La spietata multinazionale del gioco da tavolo che possiede il Monopoli, la Hasbro, ha deciso di far fuori il dolce e romantico avatar, dopo aver giubilato anche il ferro da stiro (sostituito dal gattino di acciaio).

Nessuno di voi spero vorrà credere alla favoletta che si sia trattato veramente del voto degli appassionati, eh? SVEGLIA GENTE!1!!1!

Money quote: “The company hasn’t yet announced which game piece will replace it among contenders like sunglasses, a typewriter, a hashtag, computer, rubber ducky, and an array of other random (and modern) household items. That result will be announced on March 19, and the newly-updated game will be sold in stores starting this August.”

https://consumerist.com/2017/02/16/monopoly-fans-vote-the-thimble-off-the-game-board/

In Mongolia abitano 2,8 milioni di persone. Di queste quasi un milione sono nomadi. Vivono nelle tende, pascolano gli yak, girano in moto. Oggi però hanno cominciato a usare i pannelli solari, piccoli e trasportabili. Il risultato sono i cellulari e la televisione. "Ed è come vivere in città", anche se sei nell'oceano verde della steppa.

Money quote: "The availability of electricity has, of course, improved the quality of life of the herder communities," he told Al Jazeera. Seventy percent of the herders reported "increased productivity" as a result of access to electricity, with 90 percent using mobile phones (compared with a pre-project level of 0 percent). Seventy percent own a colour TV, which have become the most widely used source of information."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/12/mongolia-nomads-warm-solar-power-201312813468350849.html

Horizon Zero Dawn è un gioco notevole per PS4, ambientato in una terra del futuro con i resti della nostra civiltà, robot animaleschi che popolano la giungla e le praterie, pochi esseri umani che lottano con archi e frecce. Sopratutto, però, è un gigantesco mash-up di altri giochi. Una gigantesca macchina per le citazioni.

Money quote: "But while Horizon’s setting feels exciting and new, actually playing it is a startlingly familiar experience. As I explored Horizon’s massive landscape of fauna growing atop a previous civilization, I was reminded of the other games upon which Horizon builds. Everything from the combat to the missions to the map you use to find your way echoes another blockbuster of the genre. Horizon is, in practically every way, the video game as mashup. Different settings clash, while gameplay elements cribbed from other titles are jammed together. It has survival elements culled from Far Cry, with story and missions reminiscent of The Witcher. The role-playing features call to mind everything from Diablo to Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor"

http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/20/14665114/horizon-zero-dawn-review-ps4

Come si fa giornalismo e si copre la gente di potere che mente? Reuters institute ha lanciato una ricerca in crowdsourcing. Risultati notevoli. In Italia dovremmo tenerla presente.

Money quote: "Inspired by Eli Pariser’s crowdsourced efforts to find effective responses to fake news, we created an open Google Document and invited people from all over the world to share their thoughts and suggestions on how journalists should cover powerful people who lie.

Over two weeks from January 26 to February 9, more than a hundred people from all over the world have contributed with ideas as the document has been shared widely on social media and covered by news organisations in many countries and grown to more than 50 pages.

The full document is available here."

http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/we-asked-people-all-over-world-how-journalists-should-cover-powerful-people-who-lie-here-what

Italia, al via il piano nazionale per la cybersicurezza - il mio articolo per Macity

http://www.macitynet.it/italia-al-via-piano-nazionale-la-cybersicurezza/

Casi di malasanità che vengono dagli Stati Uniti (e da Ibm con il suo Watson) tanto per cambiare

Money quote: "According to a blistering audit by the University of Texas System, the cancer center grossly mismanaged its splashy program with IBM, which started back in 2012. The program aimed to teach Watson how to treat cancer patients and match them to clinical trials. Watson initially met goals and impressed center doctors, but the project hit the rocks as MD Anderson officials snubbed their own IT experts, mishandled about $62 million in funding, and failed to follow basic procedures for overseeing contracts and invoices, the audit concludes."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/ibms-watson-proves-useful-at-fighting-cancer-except-in-texas/

Ecco il certificato SPID per l’identità digitale emesso da Aruba - il mio articolo per Macity

http://www.macitynet.it/certificato-spid-emesso-aruba/

Mettiamola così: la speranza dei giornali americani adesso è che emerga il fancazzista dentro Donald Trump e che questi, giocando a golf e cazzeggiando in Florida, faccia meno danni di quanti non se ne stiano temendo.

Money quote: "On Sunday, the administration claimed that he’d only played “a few holes” both days this weekend. That was revealed as untrue thanks to a blog post indicating that Trump was joined by professional golfer Rory McIlroy for 18 holes two days ago. (The administration’s response to the truth coming out? “He intended to play a few holes and decided to play longer.” The White House spokesman then added, “He also had a full day of meetings.”)"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/politics/wp/2017/02/21/how-donald-trump-spent-his-first-month-in-office-by-the-numbers/

Al concerto australiano di Bruce Springsteen un ragazzino sale sul palco e ruba la scena al Boss. Spettacolo notevole, una vera lezione di rock and roll, letteralmente.

Money quote:

"“When I was your age, I brought my first guitar, and I realized, it wasn’t how well you played it, but how good you looked doing it,” the 67-year-old musician said. “So I go in front of the mirror trying out different poses.”

For the full effect, he then struck several of his iconic rock and roll poses in front of the enthusiastic crowd."

http://variety.com/2017/music/news/bruce-springsteen-teenager-on-stage-concert-1201992229/

Negozi, ristoranti, addirittura fabbriche. Nella mia top ten di posti da visitare adesso ci sono i tunnel di Chongqing

Money quote: “Chongqing, one of China’s fastest growing municipalities, is home to an array of tunnels built to defend the city—then known as Chung-King—from the hundreds of Japanese air raids that took place from 1939 to 1941. These raids usually targeted residential areas or other non-military marks. It was a campaign designed to terrify the local population into submission.”

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chongqing-tunnel-workers

Effetto nostalgia: la console Nes di Nintendo fa vendite record trent’anni dopo - il mio articolo per La Stampa

http://www.lastampa.it/2017/02/22/tecnologia/giochi/effetto-nostalgia-la-console-nes-di-nintendo-fa-vendite-record-trentanni-dopo-wl6oZiBC8gw1dwD1VpB4JL/pagina.html

In italiano non c’è neanche la parola: “jaywalking” lo potremmo tradurre come “attraversamento distratto” ma in realtà nel codice della strada degli Stati Uniti è la parola che indica il reato di “camminare sulla strada”. Perché la strada appartiene alle auto. Ma non è sempre stato così. Anzi: le strade fino agli anni Dieci-Venti erano un commons delle persone a piedi, a cavallo, sui carretti, in bicicletta (pardon: velocipede). Si facevano le marachelle e si giocava tra bambini, si correva o si passeggiava, soprattutto con il bel tempo e man mano che diminuiva lo sporco dei cavalli per l’entrata in circolazione delle prime automobili.

Già, le automobili. Le grandi espansioni dei mercati (come quello dell’automobile) non sono figlie della mano invisibile o accidenti della storia. Sono state pianificate e perseguite con determinazione. Infatti, ad esempio i lobbysti spingono per vedere approvate alcune norme, poche ma mirate, che consentono poi di scalare senza problemi. Per le automobili? Basta bloccare le linee ferroviarie a lunga percorrenza da una parte, multare i pedoni che camminano in strada all’interno delle città dall’altra, e in quattro e quattr’otto hai fatto quanto necessario per consentire la “crescita naturale”. E per evitare che la nuova arrivata della strada, l’automobile, venisse vista come un mostro assassino di vecchi e bambini, cioè dei principali “utenti” della strada.

Money quote:

"In the early days of the automobile, it was drivers' job to avoid you, not your job to avoid them," says Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. "But under the new model, streets became a place for cars — and as a pedestrian, it's your fault if you get hit."

One of the keys to this shift was the creation of the crime of jaywalking. Here's a history of how that happened.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-forgotten-history-of-how-automakers-invented-the-crime-of-jaywalking-816728195

Il nuovo slogan del Washington Post

L'inferno della droga a Filadelfia

Monet quote: "The squalor and chaos along the rail line resembles a scene from Hieronymus Bosch. Addicts - many with needle marks so fresh that still-drying blood glistens in the sun - twist their bodies into unnatural forms to crouch and teeter on the trash-covered banks as they shoot up. Others sleep under nearby bridges or in makeshift shelters surrounded by garbage, drugs, and death."

http://www.philly.com/philly/health/addiction/A_hidden_heroin_hellscape.html

Il diario dalla California di Matteo Renzi: giorno 1

Quando è libero da obblighi del fare, torna nel suo territorio e vola subito alto

https://blog.matteorenzi.it/in-cammino-con-elon-musk-e81b88acaf6f#.hx18bes5h

Mia nonna avrebbe detto: mangiate di meno e vedrete che campate di più. In buona sostanza, decenni dopo le perle di saggezza dell’anziana progenitrice, adesso ci stanno arrivando anche i ricercatori giapponesi che studiano i loro sardi, cioè quelli che vivono nell’isola di Okinawa.

Money quote: “Some elderly Okinawans might attribute their longevity to habushu, a traditional rice liqueur with a pit viper coiled at the bottom of the bottle. In fact, the habu snake does possess the curious property of being able to survive long spans of time, up to a year, without food, and perhaps this is where Okinawans take their dietary cues from. In 1972, the Japan National Nutrition Survey found that they consumed 17% less energy than the Japanese average, much of it from plant-based material like the Japanese sweet potato, their staple food, in contrast with the rice-heavy cuisine of the mainland. Partly as a result of this diet, Okinawans died of heart disease, cancer, and cerebral vascular disease at rates 60-70% of the Japanese average, and lived on average a year and a half longer.”

http://geroscience.com/caloric-restriction/

Il National Film Center del National Museum of Modern Art di Tokyo ha aperto un sito dedicato ai classici dell’animazione giapponese, con anime antichi in streaming gratuito sottotitolati in inglese.

http://www.fumettologica.it/2017/02/anime-piu-antichi-streaming-cento-anni-animazione/

Il futurologo di turno fa il solito aruspice completamente svincolato dalla forza di gravità e da quella del buon senso, dichiarando apoditticamente che "tra 14 anni si andrà a scuola dai robot".

Si becca gli applausi oggi ma chi si ricorderà di verificare nel 2030?

Money quote: ""I've been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven't heard of yet," Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider."

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/the-largest-internet-company-in-2030-this-prediction-will-probably-surprise-you

Dongle life: come vivere bene con l’USB-C di MacBook 12 e Pro 2016 - il mio articolo per Macity

http://www.macitynet.it/dongle-life-vivere-bene-lusb-c/