Ehi, il lavoro mi chiama: parto tra poco per andare a Boston e rientro a fine settimana. Il canale va avanti, ma in modalità più saltuaria. A tutti, buon primo maggio.

(Per i curiosi: LIN-CDG-BOS)

La biblioteca di Alessandria esiste, e la stiamo buttando a mare. Le norme sul copyright (delle quali adesso gli americani si raccontano essere vittime) hanno bloccato del tutto il progetto di Google per digitalizzare tutti i libri del pianeta. Che sono digitalizzati, ma nom accessibili.

Money quote: "Page had always wanted to digitize books. Way back in 1996, the student project that eventually became Google—a “crawler” that would ingest documents and rank them for relevance against a user’s query—was actually conceived as part of an effort “to develop the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and universal digital library.” The idea was that in the future, once all books were digitized, you’d be able to map the citations among them, see which books got cited the most, and use that data to give better search results to library patrons. But books still lived mostly on paper. Page and his research partner, Sergey Brin, developed their popularity-contest-by-citation idea using pages from the World Wide Web"

Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-tragedy-of-google-books/523320/

Meglio della riviera romagnola. Quando hai solo sabbia a disposizione, perché non fare un museo creativo?

Money quote: "Tottori was already famous for its 10 miles of massive sand dunes along the coast of the Sea of Japan. The museum was an attempt by the city to capitalize on its main tourist attraction."

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-sand-museum-at-tottori-sand-dunes

Avete presente Blade Runner con le auto che volano? Ecco...

Money quote: "Lilium enables you to travel 5 times faster than a car by introducing the world’s first all-electric vertical take-off and landing jet: an air taxi for up to 5 people. You won’t have to own one, you will simply pay per ride and call it with a push of a button. It’s our mission to make air taxis available to everyone and as affordable as riding a car."

https://lilium.com/

Lo studio definitivo su come defecano i mammiferi. In quanto tempo, quante, quali "polpette" (come direbbe un bambino) fanno e facciamo. Condotto in modo scientifico e assolutamente serio, permette di capire finalmente il funzionamento di questa attività universale. Lo studio ha visto un impiego di mezzi notevoli, e risultati sorprendenti e - direi - alquanto democratici: in natura defechiamo sostanzialmente tutti alla stessa maniera e con la stessa velocità, uomini e bestie.

Money quote 1:

"To come up with a universal deuce-dropping time, the researchers turned to YouTube, a dog park, and Zoo Atlanta. There, they filmed elephants, giant pandas, and warthogs producing bum brownies. In all, they collected 23 clips of pooping from 11 types of animals—which included cats, a mountain gorilla, lions, a black bear, zebras, a hippopotamus, and white rhinos, in addition to the others listed. It’s unclear if more data would alter their estimate of a universal time. They also eliminated power-poopers from the study, such as rabbits, rodents, and ruminants, which can serve up a bundle of turd pellets in short order"

Money quote 2:

"They noted marked similarities between the species. Animals tended to produce two pieces of poo per go. Each piece was about the length of the animal’s rectum. This suggests that the colon stores a rectum-sized turd tube prior to evacuation. And that the turd length was about five times the diameter of an animal’s rectum."

Money quote 3:

"With all the data, the researchers assembled a mathematical model to calculate evacuation times. It’s a wee bit crappy: the model estimated that the universal poop time was 5.6 seconds, not 12. But it did hold steady for animals of various sizes.

Patricia Yang, lead author of the study, speculated to New Scientist that the reason animals might have evolved similarly swift defecation times was to avoid lingering over a smelly deuce that could attract predators."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/speed-of-poop-big-or-small-mammals-drop-a-deuce-in-12-secs-study-finds/

Un Surface bello da paura - il mio articolo per IlPost
http://www.ilpost.it/antoniodini/2017/05/02/un-surface-bello-da-paura/

Poi c'è quell'altro piano di Sergei Brin, quella steampunk delle navi del cielo: i dirigibili...

Money quote: "The people familiar with the project said Brin has long been fascinated by airships. His interest in the crafts started when Brin would visit Ames, which is located next to Google parent Alphabet Inc.'s headquarters in Mountain View, California. In the 1930s, Ames was home to the USS Macon, a huge airship built by the U.S. Navy. About three years ago, Brin decided to build one of his own after ogling old photos of the Macon."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-25/with-secret-airship-sergey-brin-also-wants-to-fly

Compie 80 anni Luxo, la lampada che ha ispirato il logo della Pixar - il mio articolo per Macity

http://www.macitynet.it/compie-70-anni-luxo-la-lampada-ispirato-logo-della-pixar/

Il film ha successo e tu fai un sacco di soldi, vero? Falso. Non va così. Vincono sempre le major. Tranne questa volta: c'è una causa in corso che potrebbe cambiare Hollywood per sempre. Questa è la sua storia.

Money quote: "Last October, Shearer sued Vivendi for $125 million. Asserting that the movie “has generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue in the thirty years since its original theatrical release,” the complaint notes that the four collaborators are entitled to 40 percent of all net receipts from the film, plus 50 percent of the gross receipts from the music, and that Vivendi “fraudulently underreported the revenues owed” them. The suit demands an honest accounting of what’s owed Shearer and the others and accuses Vivendi of deliberately failing to fulfill the terms of the original deal with Embassy. In response, Vivendi filed a motion expressing “genuine admiration for the talents of Shearer and his partners,” but argued that the company had “not received anything close” to what Shearer claims"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-20/this-is-spinal-tap-s-400-million-lawsuit

Un discorso su come si studia (e ci si appassiona) alla matematica che in realtà si allarga anche ad altri e più vasti problemi cognitivi: come si impara.

Money quote: "The road to expertise is paved with 10,000 hours of practice, so claims Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers. Gladwell’s claim is a gross simplification. Anders Ericsson, the man behind the original research, has set the record straight in Peak. He duly rebukes Gladwell for imposing an arbitrary threshold of 10,000 hours (it actually varies within and between disciplines). More importantly, Gladwell does not distinguish between different types of practice. Ericsson’s research, and the weight of his book, is premised on the principles of deliberate practice"

https://hackernoon.com/you-werent-bad-at-maths-you-just-weren-t-looking-at-it-the-right-way-7b11fb0a0982

Facebook vende agli inserzionisti le crisi adolescenziali dei suoi utenti - il mio articolo per Macity

http://www.macitynet.it/facebook-vendere-agli-inserzionisti-le-crisi-adolescenziali-dei-suoi-utenti/

Red Hat: il futuro degli sviluppatori è in rete - il mio articolo per Macity

http://www.macitynet.it/red-hat-futuro-degli-sviluppatori-rete/

I tabù sociali hanno un impatto notevole non solo sul nostro modo di pensare quotidiano, ma anche nella ricerca. Per questo il museo della vagina potrebbe essere una buona idea.

Money quote: "There is a chain of events that led to this particular good idea. Schechter studied biochemistry but realized she likes talking about science more than doing science. After college, she started a YouTube channel so she could keep talking about science. (She also has started a science film company, Collab Lab, and does science-themed stand-up comedy.) One of her videos is about animal penises—she’s interested in mating behavior in the animal world—and as a follow-up she wanted to make one about vaginas."

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/vagina-museum

Questa cosa è veramente per nerd hard core che oltretutto utilizzano Vim e lo vogliono personalizzare. Questo è un file .vimrc piuttosto interessante. Io sono un dilettante del genere e sono interessato a una parte molto piccola delle personalizzazioni che ci sono qui (oltretutto uso vim per scrivere "prosa", non codice, quindi molto non mi serve nemmeno). Ma è interessante lo stesso perché si impara qualcosa oltretutto da uno che, nonostante i vari plugin, molte cose preferisce farle a mano.

Money quote: "I have spent the last few years tweaking and refining my VIM configuration. This is the ultimate VIM configuration .vimrc file. It is well organized and documented. It is on GitHub so you can always grab the latest. It works well alone, but is intended to be paired with the plugins and configuration found in my complete .vim configuration also hosted on GitHub."

http://spf13.com/post/perfect-vimrc-vim-config-file

Scanner Epson per fotografia analogica alla prova - la mia recensione per La Stampa

http://www.lastampa.it/2017/05/04/tecnologia/prove/scanner-epson-per-fotografia-analogica-alla-prova-hkWkcgPknm502IKdOxl8NL/pagina.html

Parlando di tabù, le mestruazioni sono uno di questi. Non è infatti un discorso sociale condiviso se non in termini limitativo o denigratori. Questo è un grosso errore, sotto tanti punti di vista diversi.

Money quote: "Few mammals menstruate – humans are unusual in this. While the hormones oestrogen and progesterone work together to precipitate ovulation, blood is directed to the uterus to make a spongey, nutritious endometrium (lining of the uterus) into which the fertilised ovum can embed and develop into a baby. If conception does not occur, the endometrium disintegrates, leaving the body through the vagina as a period. The thick endometria of humans means that, unlike dogs, we can’t just reabsorb the blood and tissue. So, five to 15 teaspoons of menstrual blood have to be dealt with over a few days. Buying and using menstrual products is inconvenient for most women, and disposing of all the pads and tampons is an increasing environmental problem for the world"

https://aeon.co/essays/throughout-history-and-still-today-women-are-shamed-for-menstruating

Collegarsi a una rete wi-fi pubblica è come fare sesso non protetto. I rischi sono gli stessi. E' quanto sostiene un documentato articolo su Harvard Business Review.

Link: http://42h.it/2pL9Ryi

In questo articolo ci sono almeno due parti interessanti. La prima è sul modo con il quale impariamo - focalizzato o rilassato - e la seconda è su come la nostra società sia costruita attorno al lavoro di ufficio come modo e tempo sperato rispetto al resto della vita, con precise valutazioni su cosa sia "di valore" e cosa no. In un contesto di cambiamento così forte come quello attuale, e di cambiamento del modo con il quale si lavora (dall'ufficio a casa e al bar) ripensare anche le strutture sovrastanti dovrebbe essere prioritario. Non lo si fa per vari motivi. Qui però c'è uno spiraglio interessante.

Money quote:

"How do we learn how to learn? Usually in school, combined with instructions from our parents, we cobble together an understanding that allows us to move forward through the school years until we matriculate into a job. Then because most initial learning comes from doing, less from books, we switch to an on-the-fly approach.

Which is usually an absolute failure. Why? In part, because we layer our social values on top and end up with a hot mess of guilt and fear that stymies the learning process."

https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/04/learning-baggage/

I molti miti dell'intelligenza artificiale. Tipo che ci renderà obsoleti e ci farà fuori tutti (avete presente Terminator?). Beh, qualche mito lo possiamo anche eliminare, ad esempio provando a ragionarci sopra.

Money quote: "If the expectation of a superhuman AI takeover is built on five key assumptions that have no basis in evidence, then this idea is more akin to a religious belief — a myth. In the following paragraphs I expand my evidence for each of these five counter-assumptions, and make the case that, indeed, a superhuman AI is a kind of myth"

https://backchannel.com/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai-59282b686c62