"Some more enterprising major-media columnists sometimes compare Substack to the broadsheets of journalism’s early decades in the 1800s, though they do this, invariably, as a means of dismissing digital newsletters as retrograde." - Seth Abramson
Enormously useful mathematical tools that have been put to work during the pandemic—from classical differential equations to more recent techniques such as Monte Carlo methods and Markov chains—were in many cases invented by mathematicians who had no particular goal in mind. - Nautilus
It is "one of the first attempts to apply a new copyright directive adopted by the European Union intended to force internet platforms like Google and Facebook to compensate news organizations for their content." - The New York Times
Over six centuries in the Habsburg empire and most of another in Yugoslavia, the tongue of this tiny Alpine land might well have faded away. But one dedicated (or obsessive) 18th-century priest/author/publisher led the effort to mold a bunch of hillbilly dialects into a serious language. - Atlas Obscura
And it isn't just Downton Abbey and Killing Eve: MasterChef and Naked Attraction air in dozens of countries. In fact, other nations are now considering mandated limits, fearing that UK programming is crowding out their own industries. - The Guardian
Our research found that a complex blend of social inequalities, labour market failures, and outright discrimination are making these jobs so exclusive and keeping talented working-class people from making it. - The Conversation
AI software isn't designing the sculptures in the Italian quarry town (yet), but it is controlling precision machines that do the strenuous grinding and chiseling of rock that used to wear out human sculptors' bodies. - The New York Times
“Imagine being a theater owner and realizing studios need you less and less every day. Leverage is shifting rapidly in the streaming era toward the studios.” - Deadline
"The more we see diverse body types on stage, the more people understand that dance as an expressive art form can have this wide range. It doesn't have to be a narrow version of what a sylph is like." - The Guardian
Nifty’s, which launches on Monday, is all about making NFTs more accessible to the average person who may not want to spend money (let alone millions) on a digital file that’s stored on a blockchain network. - Fast Company
Charles McNulty: "The Dumb Waiter lampoons the subservience to authoritarian power by focusing on the behavior of the stooges. Pinter humorously captures their moral rationalizations, their willingness to answer even the most nonsensical of demands, the way their own brutality suffuses them with fear." - Los Angeles Times
"Weaving elements of pop, jazz, blues and rock into an old-timey approach to his instrument, Mr. Berline contributed instrumentals" to recordings by Bob Dylan, The Band, and The Rolling Stones. Yet "he was considered a musical visionary in his own right" as well. - The New York Times
Artificial intelligence software can now create very convincing reproductions of people's vocal timbres and speech patterns. Could this be a tool to let voice performers accept more work, a tool for taking work from them, or both? - BBC
