La foto della domenica

Un piccolo errore nelle mappe di Flight Simulator, storie dal passato

Money quote: “Bill Gates actually reads his email, and he forwarded the message to the head of the Flight Simulator team with the note, "Please look into this."

Now, if you're the head of the Flight Simulator project, you have plenty of things to deal with already, and one of the last things you want to get is a piece of email from Bill Gates asking you to look into something.”

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170418-00/

Il cimitero delle piattaforme petrolifere. Storia lunga ma affascinante: prendetevi del tempo.

Money quote: "Of those 864 vessels sent for demolition that year, 668 went to yards in that region. “The incentive is to go to south Asia,” said Patrizia Heidegger of Shipbreaking Platform, “because the highest price paid per tonne is there.” Whether individual shipowners took up that incentive depended, in her view, on a moral-financial reckoning. How much they cared about profits, as against how much they cared. “The reason you have owners going to beaches in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is money,” said Petter Heier, head of Grieg Green, a subsidiary of the Norwegian maritime group Grieg established to promote and advise on responsible shipbreaking"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/02/where-oil-rigs-go-to-die

Come gestire un superiore gerarchico narcisista. Ma anche piuttosto violento e incontrollato. Non sono d'accordo perché mi pare una postura non sostenibile eticamente. Comunque, per la cronaca...

Money quote: "On a day-to-day basis, appealing to this person’s egocentricity can be very effective. The occasional recognition of the person’s achievement, strengths, or values may go a long way in avoiding anger or demeaning comments; in some instances, you may simply want to remark upon a person’s good efforts. Fanning the embers of narcissism is particularly effective in avoiding unwanted conflict. Particularly if the Narcissus is your boss, you have to let them think that you perceive them as important. No matter how difficult it may be to do this, the Narcissus boss can make the workplace a living hell for anyone who they think is not on board with their success. Give them compliments, and try to do so without mocking them."

https://qz.com/978909/the-best-ways-to-deal-with-narcissistic-coworkers-according-to-a-psychiatrist/

Nota di servizio: sono di nuovo in viaggio (ancora negli Stati Uniti). Questa settimana il canale verrà aggiornato con meno frequenza del solito, ma spero con articoli sempre interessanti. Un saluto a tutti!

E visto che siamo in tema, almeno come destinazione culturale: il cambiamento è la chiave per evolvere assieme e mantenere vivi i sentimenti e le relazioni. Detto questo, gli americani sono decisamente un popolo di alieni, per un motivo o per un altro.

Money quote: "Several long-married people I know have said this exact line: “I’ve had at least three marriages. They’ve just all been with the same person.” I’d say Neal and I have had at least three marriages: Our partying 20s, child-centric 30s and home-owning 40s."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/style/modern-love-to-stay-married-embrace-change.html

Difendiamo i "celibi" dai soprusi e dai privilegi di chi si è sposato!

Money quote: "It seems, then, that single people have finally arrived, poised to take their rightful place alongside married couples when it comes to status, power and respect. Except for one thing: single people still don’t have access to the legal benefits and protections the government grants to those who get married. In the US, there are more than 1,100 laws benefiting married couples, and that’s just at the federal level; many states offer perks and protections as well"

https://aeon.co/ideas/marriage-should-not-come-with-any-social-benefits-or-privileges

Stephen Levy ha fatto un giro all'interno del cantiere - praticamente finito - del nuovo quartier generale di Apple. Sì, quel ciambellone che si vede anche dall'aereo. Ed è rimasto sinceramente impressionato.

Money quote: "It turns out that when you turn a skyscraper on its side, all of its bullying power dissipates into a humble serenity."

https://www.wired.com/2017/05/apple-park-new-silicon-valley-campus/

L'intervista di Donald Trump all'Economist, prima del pasticcio con l'ambasciatore russo e prima del viaggio in Medio Oriente, è un vero delirio.

Money quote:

"(Ms Hicks) And we’ll have you guys back to talk about it. Sorry

(The Economist) Thank you so much, Mr President.

(Donald Trump) I hope you had enough time.

(The Economist) You’ve been very kind."

http://www.economist.com/Trumptranscript?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/transcriptinterviewwithdonaldtrump

Buona parte di quello che Corman McCarthy ha scritto, l'ha scritto con una Lettera 22 che quasi dieci anni fa è andata all'asta. Grande scrittore, grande macchina per scrivere: è proprio il caso di dirlo.

Money quote: "When I grasped that some of the most complex, almost otherworldly fiction of the postwar era was composed on such a simple, functional, frail-looking machine, it conferred a sort of talismanic quality to Cormac’s typewriter. It’s as if Mount Rushmore was carved with a Swiss Army knife"

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/great-writer-great-machine

Competenza e incompetenza. Una lettura che dovrebbe essere obbligatoria.

Money quote: "Interestingly, really smart people also fail to accurately self-assess their abilities. As much as D- and F-grade students overestimate their abilities, A-grade students underestimate theirs. In their classic study, Dunning and Kruger found that high-performing students, whose cognitive scores were in the top quartile, underestimated their relative competence. These students presumed that if these cognitive tasks were easy for them, then they must be just as easy or even easier for everyone else. This so-called ‘imposter syndrome’ can be likened to the inverse of the Dunning-Kruger effect, whereby high achievers fail to recognise their talents and think that others are equally competent. The difference is that competent people can and do adjust their self-assessment given appropriate feedback, while incompetent individuals cannot"

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-know-it-alls-dont-know-or-the-illusion-of-competence

È lo scarrafone della rete, la contraddizione vivente. Vecchio design mai rinnovato. Eppure, Craiglist va come un missile. Il motivo è nella pancia di tutti noi.

Money quote: "there’s something to be said about respecting an internet user’s desire to complete a task quickly, to resist the many strategies modern websites employ to keep a person’s attention just a little bit longer."

https://theringer.com/craigslist-case-for-bad-design-silicon-valley-67e9e933764e

Sap scommette su Leonardo, accelerazione sulla digital transformation - il mio articolo per CorCom

http://www.corrierecomunicazioni.it/digital/47316_sap-scommette-su-leonardo-accelerazione-sulla-digital-transformation.htm

Per chi lo ha consciuto bene, come il suo ghost writer, Donald Trump presidente degli Stati Uniti non è una sorpresa.

Money quote: "To survive, I concluded from our conversations, Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary, zero-sum choice for him: You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear, or you succumbed to it — as he thought his older brother had. This narrow, defensive outlook took hold at a very early age, and it never evolved. “When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now,” he told a recent biographer, “I’m basically the same.” His development essentially ended in early childhood"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/16/i-wrote-the-art-of-the-deal-with-trump-his-self-sabotage-is-rooted-in-his-past/

L’MP3 è morto solo sulla carta, lunga vita all’MP3 - il mio articolo per Macity

http://www.macitynet.it/lmp3-morto-lunga-vita-allmp3/

Smettere di radersi le gambe per protesta contro Donald Trump. Sembra una bischerata ma, dopo poche righe, almeno per me che sono dell'altro genere, si cominciano a capire parecchie cose. Molto interessante.

Money quote: "Although my husband supported my cause, he couldn’t help the fact that my hairy legs were a turnoff. I’ll admit I was torn — removing my leg hair to appease a man would be directly at odds with its raison d’être. Still, my commitment to my marriage outweighed any short-term political statement. So I agreed to set a “shave date” for International Women’s Day on March 8, which allowed me a full four months of luxuriating in my natural outrage."

https://medium.com/bottoms-up/the-politics-of-not-shaving-my-legs-2600cd7ea23f

Oltre all'apocalisse del settore retail, negli Usa c'è un profondo cambiamento in atto anche nel settore della grande distribuzione di alimenti, i supermercati (che, se andate negli Usa, sono una esperienza di per sé). Ecco, all'interno della crisi che tocca vari aspetti ed elementi, una cosa per me è significativa: la differente cultura alimentare e commerciale non permette loro di vedere che una parte del cambiamento deriva anche da una impostazione più sana della vita di sempre più persone. Sul serio. Stai a vedere che gli americani alla fine sono migliori dell'America.

Money quote: "Nielsen, a research and consulting firm, said last month that for the first time in a decade, shoppers were making more trips to stores, but coming out with less in their baskets. “They’re not stockpiling their pantries as much,” said Jordan Rost, the company’s vice president for consumer insights. “They’re really buying more fresh produce and prepared meals.”"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/dining/grocery-book-michael-ruhlman-supermarket-shopping.html

Bill Clinton e un suo vecchio amico giudice hanno fatto schema e domande delle parole crociate del New York Times, di cui sono appassionati.

Money quote: "In the case of today’s puzzle, Judge Fleming constructed the grid, with some input from Mr. Clinton. The president wrote most of the clues. When the judge proposed tweaks to certain clues, Mr. Clinton objected: “Too easy and boring. Might as well print the answers in the puzzle"


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/insider/bill-clinton-new-york-times-crossword.html

Il re dell'Olanda, perché l'Olanda ha un re, come hobby pilota aerei di linea di KLM. E vuole fare il salto su quelli belli grossi, oltretutto. OMG

Money quote: ""For me the most important thing is that I have a hobby for which I need to concentrate completely," he said."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/18/europe/netherlands-king-willem-alexander-klm-pilot/

È finita l'era della scrittura iper personale e soggettiva. Un'epoca durata un decennio, vissuta tutta in rete e probabilmente figlia di un riflusso verso il privato e il banale del giornalismo americano che ha solo aiutato Donald Trump.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-personal-essay-boom-is-over