In 1942, a young man at war wrote a defense of the liberal arts to his family, and to his favorite professor - letters that have inspired his relatives to understand how central ideas are to democracy. - The Atlantic
"With their offbeat B-movie feel, these stories are ‘managing to mess with this dichotomy between the good representation and the bad representation,’” one expert says of such movies as Bottoms, Love Lies Bleeding, and Drive-Away Dolls. - The New York Times
Or so says SNL’s Bowen Yang. "You look at a Hopper painting , and it’s like people being in rooms regarding the arrangement of the city, which is people in close proximity who are still isolated on some level." - The New York Times
Basically, “Just because you see something done in a movie, that doesn't mean you should try it yourself.” But let’s talk physics, including “fake forces.” - Wired
“For years, no one has known where the bus used in Stephan Elliott’s film went. Not long after the 38-day shoot finished in 1993, it seemingly vanished without a trace." - The Guardian (UK)
"Don’t use Shazam on your Apple Watch to figure out the songs on the music round. … Don’t throw your arm up in the air while Shazam is still on your Apple Watch so everyone can see that you’re using it to cheat.” - Washington Post
Making thoughtful and defensible decisions requires practice and self-discipline. And this is where the hidden harm that AI exposes people to comes in: AI does most of its “thinking” behind the scenes and presents users with answers that are stripped of context and deliberation. - The Conversation
A consequence of the cultural obsession with self-improvement is the hyperfixation on the self. From elaborate skin care regimens to the culling of “toxic” friends from your social circle, some will go through extreme lengths in the name of self-preservation and betterment. - Vox
How do artists think? As I considered my flailing artistic efforts, I realized I was begging for entrance into the artist’s head. If I could somehow make the process legible, I might find making art myself less intimidating. - New York Magazine
Victims of nostalgia, as Hofer identified, were primarily young people and adolescents sent to alien lands, regions and cities. He was very clear about the malady’s prognosis: it was potentially fatal, particularly if left untreated. - History Today
Ever more powerful systems developed by OpenAI, Google and others require larger oceans of information to learn from. That demand is straining the available pool of quality public data online at the same time that some data owners are blocking access to AI companies. - The Wall Street Journal
Science fiction prides itself on being visionary, but like any literary genre, it just ends up examining whatever issues the author is working through in the present. We just do it more allegorically. - Nautilus
Why are we so afraid to use words freely, to offend with impunity? Whence arose this fetish for the ‘purity’ of the text? I trace the origins of this obsession with textual purity to the triumph of linguistic philosophy in the early 20th century. - Psyche
The heart of the problem is that chatbots are designed to identify the quickest path to an answer, which rarely involves reading everything. It is simply never a wild guess to predict that the heroine of a 19th-century romance will get the guy. - Nautilus
"Chilean politicians have been plundering for years. So I thought: why not explore theft almost as if it were an artistic intervention, and see what happens next? My life at the time was quite punk. I was in a rock band and interested in radical artistic ideas.” - The Guardian (UK)
