Amin Maalouf – Samarkand

Într‑o seară de început de mileniu în Orientul Mijlociu, tânărul erudit Omar Khayyam sosește în cetatea Samarkand, și nimerește imediat în mijlocul unei încăierări, unde apără un vârstnic acuzat de blasfemie de o ceată intolerantă. Duși în fața cadiului, Omar se bucură imediat de recunoaștere și respect, spre surpriza și neplăcerea oponentului său. Povestea sa, pe care autorul o imaginează plecând de la faimosul său volum apocrif de versuri, Rubaiatele, alternează de‑a lungul vieții între faimă și prigonire, între lumea eterică a științei și poeziei și cea concretă a violenței, războiului și urii.

— Ascultă, tinere prieten, Preaînaltul ți‑a dăruit tot ce poate dobândi mai de preț un fiu al lui Adam, inteligența, arta cuvântului, sănătatea, frumusețea, dorința de cunoaștere, de a te bucura de existență, admirația oamenilor și, presupun, suspinele femeilor. Sper că El nu te‑a lipsit de înțelepciune, înțelepciunea tăcerii, fără de care nimic din toate astea nu poate fi prețuit sau păstrat.

— Ar trebui să aștept să ajung bătrân ca să spun ceea ce gândesc?

— Până în ziua în care vei putea să spui tot ce gândești, vor fi avut vreme să îmbătrânească urmașii urmașilor tăi. Trăim în epoca tainei și a fricii, trebuie să ai două fețe, una s‑o arăți mulțimii, iar pe cealaltă ție și Creatorului tău. Dacă vrei să‑ți păstrezi ochii, urechile și limba, uită că ai ochi, urechi și limbă.

Romanul în sine se compune din două părți, ca două fețe ale unei monede, din păcate nu de aceeași valoare. De vreme ce‑și propune să urmărească călătoria zbuciumată prin istorie al volumului de rubaiate, undeva după jumătate ne despărțim de autorul lor, Omar Khayyam, și sărim în viitor la începutul secolului 20, când printr‑o serie de peripeții în Persia, manuscrisul ajunge la bordul Titanicului și se scufundă odată cu el.

The Verge: “Facebook’s Calibra is a secret weapon for monetizing its new cryptocurrency”

Underpinning all of this will be the security and transaction verification Facebook promises its blockchain-based Libra network will provide. There will also be a real identity component to mitigate the risks that Libra will be used to facilitate crimes. Another company could theoretically build an anonymous Libra wallet, though, so the mitigation here is primarily to Facebook’s reputation.

Weil says Calibra will require you sign up with a government-issued ID, and Facebook’s digital wallet will also provide fraud protection and a public commitment to never share your financial details or transaction history with the social network’s advertising divisions. In other words, your Facebook account data will largely be kept separate from your Calibra account.

Nick Statt

Yesterday we received confirmation of an earlier rumor about Facebook developing its own currency, and nothing about this announcement made me change my initial impressions on the idea. After the recent scandals, data breaches and revelations uncovered over the past years, how would anyone in their right mind trust Facebook with their financial transactions, and possibly their earnings and savings?!

Light Stalking: “Back Button Focus–How it can Transform your Camera Craft”

On many cameras, you can assign any button for focus. However, for back button focusing to be efficient, you need to assign a button that is comfortable and instinctive. Usually, this going to lie under the thumb of your right hand. As your index finger is triggering the shutter, your thumb should be on the back focus button.

One of the best options for assigning the focus is the AE/AF button. In normal mode, this works in the same way as a half press of the shutter button, but by assigning it to back button focus, we can dedicate it solely to autofocus.

Jason Row

Since I’m on the subject of cameras, I think this focusing technique is well worth mentioning. I’ve first heard about it last autumn from photographer Brendan van Son, during a workshop in Crete. At first I was pretty skeptical, as it seemed relatively complicated to use two separate buttons for focusing and exposure. But after a while curiosity got the best of me; I enabled the setting (here are instructions for Canon cameras) and took the time to accustom myself to the new workflow (it didn’t take very long, maybe a couple dozen exposures). And now I must confess I’m fully convinced it’s superior to conventional focusing and I don’t imagine myself returning to the old way of doing things! The article above talks more about the benefits when using continuous focus, and I’m eager to test this out when I get a chance, because until now I haven’t been able to make good use of continuous focus.

Dustin Abbott: “Canon EOS RP Review”

Like most of Canon’s recent camera releases, the Canon EOS RP is a mixed bag. In some ways I am more inclined to be charitable to it, as I enjoy enjoying the camera due to have wonderfully familiar ergonomics and that it fits the hand so much better than many competitors and because the price point is so reasonable. For these reasons I suspect a lot of people will end up buying an EOS RP. I certainly would choose it over a Canon 6D Mark II for the simple reason that the autofocus system is better by orders of magnitude and the new RF lenses (while expensive) have been excellent. The seamless experience in using EF lenses via the Canon adapters is also compelling. But Canon’s “blind-eye” approach to what competitors offer has become somewhat vexing. The EOS RP’s sensor is not really competitive with much of anything (it is surpassed by a number of APS-C sensors in certain areas) and the video performance is near insulting… to me. Some people could care less about video, and others think that dynamic range is for bad photographers or obsessive internet pixel-peepers, so these limitations won’t matter to some. I think that those who are not put off by the EOS RP’s faults will find a camera that is genuinely fun to use, and, at $1299 in the US, the EOS RP represents the current lowest price of entry into the world of full frame mirrorless cameras. That alone will probably assure that Canon will sell a bunch of RP’s.

Dustin Abbott

As a follow-up to the Canon EOS R review, I wanted to share a couple of my own observations. Over the past months I’ve participated in a couple of workshops to test the new EOS mirrorless system – and also Sony mirrorless cameras and lenses. Overall I must agree with this conclusion about the EOS RP – it’s the only camera I tested, since I have no intention of spending extra for the EOS R. The biggest weakness seems to be indeed the sensor; I’ve been disappointed by the amount of noise the camera generates, even under relatively good lighting. It seems comparable to the performance of my older APS-C camera, the EOS 760D, which is now more than three years old(!). In my first testing session I’ve also been put off by the EVF, which seemed to activate rather slowly when the camera was on stand-by, compared to the instantaneous image through the classic DSLR mirror. On my second testing session tough, I haven’t felt the same lag, so maybe I just needed to accommodate to the new system.

‘Top fan’ badges for Facebook pages

I have been spending very little time on Facebook for a while now – hard to pinpoint exactly when that happened, but it could be as long as two years already. But, as I visit for the occasional notification or new friend request, I recently stumbled upon a new feature that surprised – and amused – me: Facebook notified me that I am now a ‘Top Fan’ of a photography page I follow. I had no idea they introduced badges for followers of Facebook pages; apparently it happened around a year ago, but has barely been mentioned on large tech news sites.

Apparently I am now a Top Fan – without doing anything special

This to me seems like another attempt from the social network to increase engagement on the main app/site, as opposed to its other, acquired properties, Instagram and WhatsApp. Or maybe some middle manager, eager for attention, pointed out Facebook still hasn’t replicated all forms of social interaction on the Internet, and suggested implementing forum-style badges next.

CNBC: “Google uses Gmail to track a history of things you buy — and it’s hard to delete”

Last week, CEO Sundar Pichai wrote a New York Times op-ed that said “privacy cannot be a luxury good”. But behind the scenes, Google is still collecting a lot of personal information from the services you use, such as Gmail, and some of it can’t be easily deleted.

A page called “Purchases” shows an accurate list of many — though not all — of the things I’ve bought dating back to at least 2012. I made these purchases using online services or apps such as Amazon, DoorDash or Seamless, or in stores such as Macy’s, but never directly through Google.

But because the digital receipts went to my Gmail account, Google has a list of info about my buying habits.

Todd Haselton & Megan Graham

Interesting story, but I don’t think it warrants the alarmist tone the authors write into it. After all, many companies collect data as you make online purchases, from the store owner to the payment provider, the delivery company, your bank, etc. Even Apple is launching a detailed breakdown of purchases made with the new Apple Card – that feature is also matching purchases with your location and I don’t remember anyone complaining about privacy implications or that you can’t delete specific items in the list.

Alastair Reynolds – Galactic North

De când am terminat trilogia Zorii Nopții, marcat de dezamăgirea cauzată de o poveste mediocră într‑un cadru plin de potențial, am simțit nevoia să mă întorc la un science-fiction ceva mai clasic. Și ce altă alegere mai bună pentru asta decât universul Revelation Space al lui Alastair Reynolds! Pe lângă cele cinci romane de bază, autorul a scris o serie de povestiri care completează povestea principală, explorând o perioadă chiar mai îndelungată decât romanele.

Povestirile sunt în ordine relativ cronologică, colecția debutând cu Great Wall of Mars, care redă un fragment mic, dar crucial de la originea facțiunii Conjoiner, probabil momentul în care au fost cel mai aproape de a fi eliminați. Suntem în secolul 23, în sistemul solar, înainte ca omenirea să înceapă colonizarea rapidă a sistemelor vecine. După o serie de conflagrații violente între Conjoineri și Coaliția pentru Puritate Neurală, Conjoinerii au fost obligați să se retragă într‑o regiune restrânsă pe Marte, delimitată de Marele Zid, un gigant proiect de teraformare, acum inert din cauza daunelor din timpul luptelor. Coaliția trimite o misiune diplomatică în baza Conjoineri‑lor, deși în spatele ei se află planuri de a‑i elimina definitiv. Avem ocazia să întâlnim pentru prima oară persoane importante din tabăra Conjoiner, de la liderul lor Galiana, la Felka și Nevil Clavain, care joacă un rol crucial mai târziu în două romane Revelation Space. Situația ecosistemului de pe Marte mi s‑a părut interesantă, pe de o parte eforturile abandonate de teraformare reflectă tendința generală a lui Alastair Reynolds către o narațiune mai realistă și mai întunecată, de a arăta cât de dificile sunt anumite proiecte; pe de alta mi‑am dat seama cât de mult seamănă cu un viitor roman al său, On the Steel Breeze, unde întreaga planetă e acaparată de mașini cu diverse grade de inteligență.

“It’s not genocide when they’re just a faction, not an ethnically distinct race”, Warren said, before Voi was within earshot.

“What is it, then?”

“I don’t know. Prudence?”