In the past several years, they have gone from a relatively niche productivity tool—an antidote to the distractions of the open office—to a near-universal accessory, and, thus, something of a scourge. - The New Yorker
Of course, selling books is as much a business as selling grill brushes. But the gross margins are small, and bookstore owners tend to be what the sociologist Laura Miller calls “reluctant capitalists.” - The New Yorker
Why spend precious time, in an age of nearly infinite media, plopped in front of a bad show to pick it apart? It’s like gorging yourself on a disgusting meal not because you’re hungry, but because you want to gripe about it later. - The New York Times
After a century of ignoring the very arteries that allowed them to grow in the first place, cities are learning to love their rivers again. - The Guardian
Oddly enough, we’re seeing an increasingly samey musical landscape, in which taste has become trapped in a feedback loop of the algorithm’s making. - The Guardian
Over the course of the day, about 30 people sat with Emily. Some used their three minutes for quiet reflection. Others wanted conversation, asking her questions or sharing why they had come to see her. Usually you’d describe a project like this as performance art, but Emily isn’t an artist. - The Guardian
Originally called “Pacific Standard Time” and funded by the Getty, “PST Art,” on its third iteration, will explore connections between art and science. Artists are digging into topics ranging from climate change and ecofeminism to environmental justice and medieval astrology. - The New York Times
Across the years — he moved from Dayton to Chicago in 1974, and then to New York in 1985 — he interviewed presidential candidates and Hollywood stars, consumer advocates and feminist pioneers. He also televised a child’s birth, an abortion, a reverse vasectomy and a tubal ligation. - The New York Times
Generative AI has “pretty much ruined the integrity of online classes,” which are increasingly common as schools such as ASU attempt to scale up access. No matter how small the assignments, many students will complete them using ChatGPT. - The Atlantic
Sped-up listening emerged in the early 2000s as “nightcore”. This is now commonplace on our social media apps, where the speed of podcasts, voice notes, movies and more can be increased so that we can consume them in less time. - BBC
“Ninety percent of the audience is coming from outside San Francisco. And most of these people are not just coming in for the show, they’re coming and spending the weekend or longer. So it’s going to be a big economic impact for the city.” - Los Angeles Times
Federal authorities on Friday arrested and charged a Missouri woman in connection with the scheme to fraudulently auction Elvis Presley’s historic Graceland mansion. - Los Angeles Times
Unsurprisingly, the arrival of fully fledged generative AI has done nothing to improve the situation for commercial translators. But there’s no impact on literary translators, right? Wrong. - Eurozine
Rather than collecting domestic works, people of means wanted art with a richer historical past. They were seduced by the appeal of Europe’s long history of artistic production and its canonical creators. - JSTor
