"A 22-year-old German man has been detained in Florence, accused of damaging a statue in the 16th-century Fountain of Neptune in the Piazza della Signoria (while posing for a photo). The city estimates the damage to the statue is around €5,000 ($5,400)." - CNN
"The fee, initially 5 euros ($5.50) per day-tripper, is 'not a tool for making cash,' (but) to improve the quality of life for Venice's dwindling number of full-time residents as well as overnight visitors, who already pay a lodging tax. The (fee begins) in 2024 on spring holiday and summer weekends." - AP
Corpus linguistics is a branch of linguistics which uses computers to explore the use of words in huge collections of language. It can spot nuances that might be overlooked by linguists working manually, or large patterns that a lifetime of studying may not reveal. - The Conversation
Few believe that LLMs are truly sentient, but some argue that they show signs of genuine intelligence and of having a conceptual understanding of the world. These claims, whether right or not, are forcing us to revise ideas about what intelligence and understanding actually are. - Prospect
Experimental work was the soul of the New Ohio, a producer and presenter that closed for good on Aug. 31. The publicity line has been that the shutdown is the end of 30 years, but that’s a give-or-take number. - The New York Times
Australia is the first nation to estimate sources of income and investment for the cultural and creative industries using a new classification system or typology developed by the OECD based on original work by experts from EU member states. - Limelight
It’s not just that some of us believe we might have to rethink the standard model of cosmology; we might also have to change the way we think about some of the most basic features of our universe — a conceptual revolution that would have implications far beyond the world of science. - The New York Times
At first, our hominid ancestors probably did not count very high. Many body parts present themselves in pairs—arms, hands, eyes, ears, and so on—thereby leading to an innate familiarity with the concept of a pair and, by extension, the numbers 1 and 2. - Lapham's Quarterly
"He is now able to bend down, squat, grab his toys and clothes with both hands from his closet without falling or dropping them," say his parents. "More importantly, he now only uses his wheelchair for long outings." He walks with a cane; he falls down sometimes, but less than before. - BBC
For critics, Books3 isn’t a boon to society—instead, it’s emblematic of everything wrong with generative AI, a glaring example of how both the rights and preferences of artists are disregarded and disrespected by the AI industry’s main players, and something that straight-up shouldn’t exist. - Wired
Two-thirds of this year's programming is at five hubs; one-half — 150 productions — is at Cannonball, which offers a stage, lighting and sound equipment, and people to run it. "Lots of independent artists are hungry for platforms where they don't have to do every single step of producing themselves." - WHYY (Philadelphia)
The 81,800 professional artists who reside in Ontario account for 40% of the 202,900 artists in Canada. As a percentage of the overall labour force, artists represent 1.0% in both Ontario and Canada. A finer analysis shows that 1 in every 96 Ontario workers and every 102 Canadian workers is an artist. - Hill Strategies
"Musicals can be shotgun weddings, their authors joined by necessity, not love. But in most cases, they're at least both breathing. Not so this fall. On Broadway, Off Broadway, in special events and out of town, living authors are collaborating with dead ones." - The New York Times
The company is on the hunt for anything it can do to get users to pay up. After pouring billions into podcasts and audiobooks to little effect, it seems to have largely given up on the idea that exclusive content is the path to riches. - The Verge
"'At one point I couldn't move my left leg at all, and my therapist told me, just move it on a molecular level.' It was an interesting reply to a choreographer who would often give this same rehearsal note to his dancers. 'We forget how many things the brain controls.'" - iNews
