Wonder Woman, il film. La mia recensione per Fumettologica

http://www.fumettologica.it/2017/05/wonder-woman-recensione/

L’epopea (un po’ tirata in lungo) degli ascensori, gli eroi semi-sconosciuti delle città verticali. Altro che grattacieli

Money quote: “Quite a bit, in fact, if you’re interested in expanding skylines, growing cities, and our race for ever-taller towers. Elevators have been, and will continue to be, central to the story of urbanization and skyscraper architecture.”

http://www.curbed.com/2017/4/24/15385658/elevator-skyscraper-urban-design-kone

Un tempo la vita era più formale. Oggi ci vestiamo tutti un po’ più sportivamente, anche e soprattutto al lavoro. Merito della Silicon Valley, a quanto pare

Money quote: “The life and impending death of business casual demonstrates broader shifts in American culture and business: Life is less formal; the concept of “going to the office” has fundamentally changed; American companies are now more results-oriented than process-oriented. The way this particular style of fashion originated and faded demonstrates that cultural change results from a tangle of seemingly disparate and ever-evolving sources: technology, consumerism, labor, geography, demographics. Better yet, cultural change can start almost anywhere and by almost anyone—scruffy computer programmers included.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/history-of-business-casual/526014/

Se avete bisogno di un generatore casuale di mappe di città medioevali, non cercate oltre. L'avete trovato.

https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator

La storia di uno dei libri più visionari di sempre, raccontata dal suo autore.

http://www.fumettologica.it/2017/05/genesi-codex-seraphinianus-incontro-luigi-serafini/

Google contro Porsche. Una guerra tra paradigmi di design: quelli essenziali, iconici, senza tempo di prodotti fenomenali e quelli del mondo tecnologico che, invece, sono tutto tranne che permanenti. Interessante riflessione (e belle foto di Porsche 911, design di automobile che adoro).

Money quote: "Both products were born with good design — simple, innovative, unobtrusive. Both are brilliantly engineered, iconic, beloved and instantly recognizable. Both have been carefully iterated on over time, getting better and more robust. And perhaps most importantly, both fundamental designs are just as good (if not better) when they launched as they are today.

So why does Porsche stir up feelings of timelessness but Google doesn’t?"

https://medium.com/startup-grind/can-digital-products-be-timeless-a04e30662029

Non dimentichiamoci che oltre agli USA sono in tilt anche quelli del Regno Unito

Money quote: "On Monday evening, Theresa May finally appeared on national television to take unscripted questions from the public and from Jeremy Paxman. It did not go well. Her evasive, sweaty performance stood in sharp contrast to the calm, confident delivery of Jeremy Corbyn. But you would never know it from a glance at the front pages of the UK press this morning"

https://www.thecanary.co/2017/05/30/whats-happening-across-front-pages-uk-press-today-nothing-short-whitewash-images/

Tredici mesi di analisi delle mappe di Google e di Apple a San Francisco. Una analisi che restituisce l'idea di un divario che non solo non diminuisce. Addirittura, sta aumentando.

Money quote: "So I wrote a script that takes monthly screenshots of Google and Apple Maps.1 And thirteen months later, we now have a year’s worth of images"

https://www.justinobeirne.com/a-year-of-google-maps-and-apple-maps

Telelavoro, remote working, lavorare da casa. È la strada del futuro per molti e per le più varie ragioni. Ma non a tutti piace. È difficile uscire dal lavoro se non ci sei mai entrato.

Money quote: "Work is work and home is home, and as much as I can help it, never the twain shall meet. Again, I get why some people want work and home to hold hands: long commutes make the option undoubtedly convenient. I don’t live far from my job, and hope to keep it that way. But beyond commuting, it’s also very convenient for employers, who can ensure you start earlier, work longer, and ingrain the company into the parts of your life that should be yours and yours alone. Moving from New Age to conspiracy theory: I’ve worked in tech for most of a decade, and a lot of the benefits (free food, open kegs, company-sponsored social events) simulate the idea of a personal life, a home life, your life — but between someone else’s walls, and ultimately someone else’s terms."

https://thebillfold.com/working-from-home-is-never-worth-it-688a41167936

Addio "media-media", l'account condiviso in rete del Wall Street Journal, uno dei segreti di Pulcinella meglio custoditi (tra giornalisti) dei nostri tempi. Ah, ci sono e ancora esistono cose simili per gli abbonamenti dei giornali digitali italiani e per le agenzie, mi dicono. Voi ne sapete niente?

Money quote: "For years, one of the best/worst kept secrets in media circles was a login that unlocked the Wall Street Journal's formidable paywall. Username: media. Password: media."

https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewzeitlin/rip-media-media

La vita degli sviluppatori software è più complessa di quel che può sembrare, soprattutto all'inizio. Perché l'università non insegna le cose pratiche necessarie al lavoro e in generale si entra con un set limitato di competenze in un ambiente multidimensionale e con una curva di apprendimento piuttosto ripida. La risposta? Abbracciare i propri limiti e costruire sopra nuove competenze.

Money quote: "My first year as a developer I dubbed the year of the Annoying Talking Sponge. As an Annoying Talking Sponge, it’s your responsibility to ask as many questions as you can, and absorb as much information as you can handle"

https://hackernoon.com/being-a-junior-developer-is-tough-f716cc83655d

Ripensare il design delle interfacce (ma non solo) in maniera estrema, applicando lo storytelling prima di disegnare il layout grezzo. Anzi, prima lo storyframe del wireframe.

È un'idea un po' balzana, soprattutto se si pensa che semplifica un modello di lavoro per designer digitali e solitari che in realtà non è l'unico possibile e che nel "vecchio mondo" ad esempio della pubblicità o della grafica tradizionale era già stato abbondantemente affrontato. Comunque, vale la lettura.

Money quote: "Stories work pretty well in a script format. Stripping away all the visual clutter can help you focus on the core of the message you are trying to communicate. And text editors are a great tool for that: they are simple, clean, and available in pretty much every device you use everyday as a designer— from computers to tablets to mobile phones."

https://uxdesign.cc/storyframes-before-wireframes-starting-designs-in-the-text-editor-ec69db78e6e4

Jill Lepore è una storica e giornalista del New Yorker che ha scritto un ottimo libro su Wonder Woman (tutto da leggere, ne faccio ampio uso nella mia recensione del film, che si trova su Fumettologica, link in calce). Ma qui mostra di essere qualcosa di più di una semplice storica della letteratura pop, e abbraccia un tema enorme: la dialettica fra utopia e distopia. Con una ricostruzione critica che arriva fino ai giorni nostri e, pur essendo limitata dalla visione culturale americanocentrica, è molto stimolante.

Money quote: "Dystopias follow utopias the way thunder follows lightning. This year, the thunder is roaring. But people are so grumpy, what with the petty tyrants and such, that it’s easy to forget how recently lightning struck"

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/05/a-golden-age-for-dystopian-fiction

http://www.fumettologica.it/2017/05/wonder-woman-recensione/

Non dovremmo mai dimenticare che il concetto di bolla informativa non va a senso unico. Mai. Altrimenti siamo condannati a rivivere la stessa storia

Money quote: “The U.S. presidential election, as I’ve argued, was something of a similar case. No, the polls didn’t show a toss-up, as they had in Brexit. But the reporting was much more certain of Clinton’s chances than it should have been based on the polls. Much of The New York Times’s coverage, for instance, implied that Clinton’s odds were close to 100 percent. In an article on Oct. 17 — more than three weeks before Election Day — they portrayed the race as being effectively over, the only question being whether Clinton should seek a landslide or instead assist down-ballot Democrats”

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-really-was-a-liberal-media-bubble/

Cose belle da leggere: workshop del Bebras a Brescia

http://www.bresciaoggi.it/territori/citt%c3%a0/informatica-sfida-mondiale-migliaia-di-ragazzi-on-line-1.5736151

Quando un prodotto o un servizio è venuto davvero bene, ha un qualcosa di speciale, magico. Un breve ragionamento sul tema, centrato su Apple ma non solo da parte di un programmatore che lavora per Google (su app per iOS).

Money quote: "I don't think Apple is the only company which can do this. In fact it's a little sad that these are the Apple products I'm talking about so effusively. Amazon is quite close with the Echo. I haven't gotten my hands on one yet, but it seems Nintendo is edging into this territory with the Switch6"

http://harveynick.com/2017/05/21/when-apple-or-anyone-else-really-gets-a-product-right/

Si chiamava "operazione giorno del giudizio". Durante la guerra del 1967 Israele era pronto a far esplodere l'atomica nella penisola del Sinai in caso stesse perdendo il conflitto.

Money quote: "On the eve of the Arab-Israeli war, 50 years ago this week, Israeli officials raced to assemble an atomic device and developed a plan to detonate it atop a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula as a warning to Egyptian and other Arab forces, according to an interview with a key organizer of the effort that will be published Monday"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/world/middleeast/1967-arab-israeli-war-nuclear-warning.html

Mestiere che fai, etica (e deontologia) che trovi.

Money quote: "You're not supposed to lie to the public as a lawyer, or mislead your sources as a journalist, etc; none of this is meant to be any sort of ethical advice. But if someone says to you "oh yeah I murdered someone," as a lawyer, your baseline expected response would be not to tell anyone; as a journalist, your baseline expected response would be to tell everyone."

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-25/ethics-quants-and-cold-calling

New York Stories, letture per la domenica. Il New York Times ha realizzato un inserto per il week end tutto a fumetti. Storie prese dalla cronaca dei giorni e mesi passati messe sotto forma di graphic novel. Unico. Imperdibile. Tutto da leggere, anche via web.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/02/magazine/new-york-stories-introduction.html

La buona, vecchia Responsabilità sociale d’impresa. In un articolo che sembra uscito fuori dalla preistoria dell’umanità un docente universitario europeo cerca di fare il punto della situazione. Troppo poco, troppo tardi. Ma è interessante lo stesso per lo sforzo.

Money quote: “Today, international organisations including the United Nations have taken over a view of corporations as being institutions that can be channelled in the direction of social purposes. This became particularly evident under the leadership of the former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who in an address to business people at a World Economic Forum gathering in Davos in 1999 called for a new ‘compact’ between the UN and business. With the launch of the UN Millennium Development Goals in 2000 and subsequently in the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015, the role of business as a key partner in achieving these goals was also given much weight. In response to an economic globalisation with weak political international integration, the idea was that businesses should play a vital role for development and poverty-reduction.”

https://aeon.co/ideas/when-faced-with-so-called-progressive-business-stay-skeptical