"Developed by the Philadelphia-based company Music: Not Impossible, the device consists of two ankle bands, two wrist bands and a backpack that fastens with double straps over the rib cage. ... (These) suits are unique because the devices turn individual notes of music into specific vibrations." - The New York Times
"But a new analysis by BookScan shows that BookTok's effect on sales is diminishing. The most notable sign of that softening came in July, when, for the first time, sales from the roughly 180 BookTok authors BookScan follows fell compared to the prior year." - Publishers Weekly
Different layers of soil, ash and guano created a floor that absorbed shocks while emitting resonant sounds when people stomped on it. This ceremonial surface worked like a large drum that groups of 20 to 25 people could have played with their feet. - Science News
According to the PA news agency, the missing items are believed to have been taken over a "significant" period of time. Some of them reportedly ended up on eBay, being sold for considerably less than their actual estimated value. - BBC
"For me, generative AI has been instrumental in tasks that previously demanded hours of effort. It’s helped me create engaging and targeted marketing copy in a fraction of the time than before, allowing me to customize and iterate on messaging manually in ways that would be nearly impossible without AI assistance." - Publishers Weekly
Even before the comparatively meek technology of two-channel stereo sound was standard in every home, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others were using more complex mixes for works involving electronics or taped elements. - The New York Times
Creating interactions in public space turns the urban space into a playful and social venue that could attract residents of all ages. However, there are challenges when designing interactive urban installations. - The Conversation
"Fra Mauro’s map organized state-of-the-art knowledge about the world beyond Murano, but it was also art for the state. Venice was a mercantile superpower. World maps were not made for sailors, but for “intellectuals, aristocrats and members of government.” In the Venetian oligarchy, the three were much the same." - The Wall Street Journal
A problem becomes a crisis when it challenges our ability to cope and thus threatens our identity. In the polycrisis the shocks are disparate, but they interact so that the whole is even more overwhelming than the sum of the parts. - Aeon
The European tendency to mistake Europe for the world – what might be called “the Eurocentric fallacy” – has obscured our understanding of the EU and its role in the world. It has led to an idealisation of European integration as a kind of cosmopolitan project: what I call the myth of cosmopolitan Europe. - The Guardian
Rather than the rightness of going after Harry, I was questioning the heat with which I’d done so. I scolded myself: It’s not your comeback. It’s not your mother. For the thousandth time in my ghostwriting career, I reminded myself: It’s not your effing book. - The New Yorker
"Most confusingly, we once had distinct writerly lanes (hers being women’s bodies, sexuality, and leadership; mine being corporate assaults on democracy and climate change). But by the time Occupy happened, the once-sharp yellow line that divided those lanes had begun to go wobbly." - Vanity Fair
Damage to Ukraine's cultural sites has been extensive, according to Unesco (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). Its Red List of Cultural Objects at Risk records verifiable damage to more than 259 cultural sites since the war began. - BBC
Over the last decade or so, with the vast expansion of social media networks, a new, seemingly sophisticated language sits on modern society’s tongue. Some call it therapy-speak. Or psychobabble. But despite its prevalence, the language is divisive. - The Guardian
Digital culture functions today as the Enlightenment cosmopolis once did: as a fantasy in which society reshapes itself along the lines of affinity. “If settled norms, practices, laws, and places are our roots, digital culture is uprooted and uprooting." - The New Atlantis
