“After the AI devoured all that video to train itself, the researchers fed the algorithm a single frame from a video it had not seen and tasked it with predicting what would happen next. The algorithm got it right about 43 percent of the time.”
Archives for June 2016
Apple Patents Idea To Block Fans From Taking Pictures At Concerts
“The patent describes a smartphone camera receiving coded infrared signals beamed from emitters in public places. The handset could then offer on-screen information or disable the camera functionality to stop pictures being taken.”
Report Urges BBC To Drop License Fee And Find Better Source Of Funding
The report claimed the licence fee was “vulnerable in the face of changes in technology and consumption”. It continued: “It is in any case far from an ideal system – it has failed to guarantee real independence and is charged at a flat rate. The BBC’s independence has also been compromised by the insecurity of its establishment by a royal charter and the process behind the appointments to its governing body.”
Critic Tim Page Writes About Trying To Rebuild His Life After A Traumatic Brain Injury
“I was somehow convinced that the return to my house would envelop and embrace me and make me whole once more. In fact, the mix of comfortable familiarity and my own freshly acquired strangeness made me feel more dissociated than ever. There was too much “stuff” and I could never find anything that I wanted; trips up and down stairs were plotted like military operations, while coordination of my various remote controls — television, cable, DVD, CD – seemed a sadistic, Satanic test of memory.”
Here’s What’s Really Killing The Met Opera
“You can wrangle on and on about what the Met should do to cut costs and sell more tickets, but you may be wasting your time and breath. For if you know anything at all about economics, you’ve probably already got a pretty good idea of what’s happening there. It sounds like a raging case of cost disease—one that could be fatal.”
On College Campuses, A Movement To Get Rid Of Student Newspapers
“As student activists call for the institutions around them to confront issues of diversity and inclusion, campus newspapers have been critiqued as well. But activists are not just calling for reform—editors of campus papers are struggling to improve their papers alongside student bodies that, in some cases, would like to see student newspapers as an institution disappear.”
Do Readers Still Care Which Magazine Published The Story They Just Read?
“As the internet solidifies its role as a leading news source amid continued declines in print, news organization homepages are losing traction. Magazine stories are increasingly unmoored from the outlets that published them, and from the brands that once all but guaranteed their legitimacy. In the US, more than 60 percent of social media users now access news through platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and news organizations harvest nearly half their traffic from social media.”
Alex Ross Looks At Music Used As A Weapon
“The intersection of music and violence has inspired a spate of academic studies. On my desk is a bleak stack of books examining torture and harassment, the playlists of Iraq War soldiers and interrogators, musical tactics in American crime-prevention efforts, sonic cruelties inflicted in the Holocaust and other genocides, the musical preferences of Al Qaeda militants and neo-Nazi skinheads.”
Let’s Just Stop Reviving The Tarzan Franchise, It’s Embarrassing
“In the DNA of the character is the idea that a clever white man can bring order to the ‘dark continent’ through his own brand of clearly delineated, culturally specific morality. That’s not exactly the most modern idea of a hero.”
What You Know Versus What You Say – It’s Complicated
“I am surrounded by colleagues who study members of our species by presenting them with questionnaires. They trust the answers they receive and have ways, they assure me, of checking their veracity. But who says that what people say about themselves reveals actual emotions and motivations?”
How Do You Make A Really Tiny Apartment Livable? These Hong Kong Architects Have Some Ideas
“A group of architects from one of the world’s most densely populated cities has created the kind of convertible spaces that make it possible for two humans and three cats to reside in the same 309-square-foot area.” (video)
Seeking Equity In The Arts (As Opposed To Equality)
“It falls to those seeking fair equity to propose a new way to allocate resources, with all the pros and cons on the table, for there to be a basis of discussion. Put another way, those who call for redressing inequity — and here I’ll expand this discussion to include diversity and inclusion, which suffer from the same definitional complexities — must propose ways to achieve the equity they seek.”
Vote For The Best Illusion Of The Year!
“Most of us love perceptual illusions, and … from 4 p.m. EDT on June 29 to 4 p.m. EST on June 30, participants around the world are invited to visit illusionoftheyear.com to check out this year’s top 10 finalists and cast their votes.” (includes video)
Suspect Arrested In Case Of Stolen Trailer With Matisses And Chagalls Inside
“Robert Michael Slayton was taken into custody Thursday on suspicion of grand theft, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. … Detectives found the stolen trailer in Slayton’s backyard … But not all of the stolen art has been recovered.”
‘The Man, The Myth, The Yannick’ – Philadelphia Is Marketing Its Maestro As A Tourist Attraction
“As you descend the Penn Station escalator to Track 3 for New Jersey Transit, your eyes are ambushed by an ad with a blazing headline … And there he is, Philadelphia Orchestra music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, in a raspberry pink vest, baton in hand, and head somewhere in heaven.”
Athens Has An Impressive New Cultural Center – But For Now, It’s Sitting Empty
“Backed by the might of private philanthropy, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre was launched at the weekend to a grand fanfare of concerts and fireworks. Except it hasn’t actually opened, nor has an opening date been announced. Both the national library and opera house have been gifted a further €5m to relocate here, but funding beyond that remains up in the air.”
Carnegie Hall’s Pugnacious Ex-Chairman Gives $75 Million For World Trade Center Arts Complex
“Less than a year since he stepped down as the chairman of Carnegie Hall after clashing with its staff, Ronald O. Perelman, the billionaire businessman, announced Wednesday that he was donating $75 million to revive plans to build a performing arts center at the World Trade Center site.”
Violinist Who Stormed Into Woman’s Hotel Room Naked And Tried To Strangle Her Goes Free
“[Stefan] Arzberger, who had faced a charge of attempted murder, instead pleaded guilty to a less serious charge of reckless assault in the third degree, and was given an unconditional discharge. He faces no jail time or fine.”
New York Times Classical Music Editor Says Lincoln Center Should Combine All Its Summer Festivals Because He Can’t Tell Them Apart
Zachary Woolfe: “Even critics paid to know the ins and outs of all the presentations find themselves confused at what belongs in what container – and how, exactly, audiences are served by the clutter of brands. … I propose that all of these be rolled into a single entity called, say, Lincoln Center Summer.”
Andris Nelsons Walks Out On Bayreuth Festival
“The 37-year-old podium star, currently chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and soon to take up the baton at Germany’s Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra [as well], had been scheduled to conduct the premiere of a new production of Richard Wagner’s final opera Parsifal this year.”
Alvin Toffler, Author Of ‘Future Shock’ And ‘The Third Wave’, Dead At 87
“Mr. Toffler wrote more than a dozen books charting the cultural shift from manufacturing-based economies to those driven by knowledge and data in the 20th century. Working with his wife, he predicted the unfolding of what he coined ‘the Information Age’ and became a guru of sorts to world statesmen.”
Broadway’s First Live-Stream Hits The Web (Why Did It Take So Long?)
“The fairly new online video service BroadwayHD … [on] Thursday night … offers up the first-ever live stream of a Broadway show, the musical revival She Loves Me. And in the process, the start-up hopes to cement its status as the ‘Netflix of Broadway’.” Jonathan Takiff looks at why the Great White Way is so late to the streaming party.
Shakespeare Was A Social Climber Who Fought For A Coat Of Arms
“Considered with previously known records, [the scholar who found the evidence] argues, the documents suggest both how deeply invested Shakespeare was in gaining that recognition – a rarity for a man from the theater.” And some argue that this evidence proves that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon really did write those plays.
‘Speak The Speech, I Pray You’ – The Multitudes Of Possibility In Shakespeare’s Great Monologues
Michael Billington: “I thought I’d look at five key Shakespearean speeches and see how various actors have handled them. I stress that there is no right or wrong – simply a wealth of differences.” (includes video links)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.29.16
A small suggestion
I get a lot of ineffective pitches from classical music publicists. In fact — sad to say — I think most of the pitches I get from classical music publicists aren’t very strong. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-06-29
Progress Report With Guitar Accompaniment
Not to bore Rifftides readers with internet trivia, but two more days of extended conversations with Apple technicians seem to have led us out of the digital black hole that captured us for a few … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-06-29
This Week in Audience: The Latest Fronts On Understanding Who’s Paying Attention
Is social media communication, marketing, art, or all three? … The perils of market research when it drives your art … The latest front on artists’ war on cell phone use … How NPR discovered a ton of information about its listeners … How the internet is changing our perceptions of the world. … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts Audience Published 2016-06-28
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