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Looking At All The Web What if you could look at the entire world wide web all at once and make all the possible connections between information? "If this process was applied across billions of web pages—in effect, looking at the entire web at once—it would be possible to spot trends. A new film, for example, might have received terrible reviews from critics, but proved popular among middle-aged women. A new camera model might have some features that are popular, but others that users find too complicated. In short, there might be information hidden on the web that cannot be gleaned from any individual page, but becomes apparent when many pages are examined together. And that information could be of great commercial value." The Economist 09/04/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 9:09 pm
Boston's MFA Alters Expansion Designs Boston's Museum of Fine Arts has made a series of design changes to its $425 million expansion plan. "Most dramatically, the crystal spine designed by architect Norman Foster will be lowered from 100 to 70 feet. Locals had raised concerns about shadows that would be cast on the Emerald Necklace behind the MFA. In addition, the museum has agreed to keep Museum Road open." Boston Globe 09/24/03
Posted: 09/24/2003 6:28 am
Trying To Save The Color In Color Photos "All colour photographs fade. According to best estimates, the average colour print has a shelf life of about 200 years. Now, in Basel, Switzerland, the Cesar Foundation, chaired by Claudio Cesar, an American photography collector who runs a company that specialises in coloured glass is trying to reverse this deterioration." The Art Newspaper 09/20/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 7:02 pm
5000 Year-Old Mask Returned To Iraq Museum One of Iraq's National Museum's most prized artifacts has been found and returned to the museum. "The 5000-year-old mask was "found after an intensive investigation by US troops and Iraqi police that led them to a farm just north of Baghdad. The Warka Mask was discovered buried under six inches of dirt, but has remained intact." BBC 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 6:58 pm
WTC Sculpture Sold On eBay Arouses Protests An official sculpture made from steel of the fallen World Trade Center has been sold on the internet, infuriating relatives of victims of 9/11. "The 5-inch sculpture - one of nearly 3,000 created from mangled steel beams - sold for $255 in an auction on the eBay Web site last week. It wasn't immediately clear how one of the sculptures - distributed exclusively to victims' families - got into the hands of the company that hawked it on eBay." New York Daily News 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 6:46 pm
Pittsburgh Musicians Ratify Contract "The musicians of the deficit-ridden Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra ratified a three-year contract yesterday that calls for a 7.8 percent wage cut for the first two years and a major wage increase in the 2005-06 season. The third-year increase - considered risky by some - will bring the PSO musicians' salaries to 95 percent of the average of the wages at the Chicago, Cleveland, New York and Philadelphia orchestras, all of whom negotiate contracts in the next year." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 09/24/03
Posted: 09/24/2003 7:20 am
File-Share Company Sues Recording Companies The company behind the Kazaa file-sharing software is suing recording companies who are trolling Kazaa for copyright violators. "Sharman said the companies used Kazaa Lite, an ad-less replica of its software, to get onto the network. The lawsuit also claims efforts to combat piracy on Kazaa violated terms for using the network. Entertainment companies have offered bogus versions of copyright works and sent online messages to users." The Star-Tribune (Mpls) (AP) 09/24/03
Posted: 09/24/2003 6:48 am
EMI's Play For Warner Not Playing Well With Banks Recording giant EMI confirms that it is in talks to buy Warner Music. But analysts say that EMI's enormous debt is an imprediment to the deal, and its creditors are ready to downgrade its borrowing capacity. "They have very limited debt capacity and if they were to buy a valuable and profitable business it would have some earnings with it, but our concern is that there is not a lot of scope to increase the overall debt leverage." The Guardian (UK) 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 6:06 pm
Malaysia Lowers CD Prices The Malaysian government has decreed a new maximum price for CDs sold there. And it's a significant cut in price from the previous ceiling. Artists are trying to be philosophical: "Without compromising on quality, we can still release a good album. But instead of recording 10 songs at the cost of RM50,000, we can produce five songs under RM25,000. It's just a matter of choosing between quality and quantity. After all, who said an album should comprise 10 songs? And for this new format to work, the industry should work together and not go against one another." New Straights-Times (Singapore) 09/24/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 5:52 pm
Hot Ticket Item: Stars Come Out For Disney Hall The three opening galas in late October for Los Angeles' new Disney Hall are the hot ticket of the season. "The first night is virtually sold out. Sure, the performing arts community is feeling pressure to attend the Disney galas — it can't be easy to send regrets. 'I wouldn't want to be sitting home those nights. I'd feel so left out!' But mostly the events are selling themselves, say organizers, who hope to net $7 million." Los Angeles Times 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 5:14 pm
Zankell Hall - The Roar Of The Subway Carnegie Hall's new Zankell Hall has the potential to change New York's music scene. But there's one rather large problem (as practically every critic who's written about the place has mentioned): the rumble of subway noise. "The problem is doubly frustrating because Zankel's intermediate size and clear acoustics favor music in the quiet to moderately loud dynamic ranges, and that's when the noise is most audible, especially on the auditorium's right side." OpinionJournal.com 09/24/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 4:26 pm
Convention Center Trumps Arts "A proposed arts complex for Vancouver's waterfront has been pushed aside in favour of expanding a trade and convention center. The city announced Friday it will shelve plans for the arts complex." CBC 09/23/03
Posted: 09/24/2003 8:05 am
Finding Spirituality In Shopping Where is the new spiritual center of Britain? A shopping complex. "Shopping — in the sense of the ceaseless search for the next object that will thrill for a moment and satisfy for a minute — is the main interest of people without purpose. The problem with the British is that they are not even very good at shopping, just as they are not very good at their other passion, football, to judge by the results. For to be good at shopping requires discrimination, which itself requires some mental cultivation. And it is precisely the lack of this that makes British shops (on the whole — of course, there are exceptions) so deeply dispiriting." The Spectator 09/29/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 7:13 pm
Gambling On The Performing Arts Civic leaders in Las Vegas are trying to diversify the city. They want to build a new performing arts center. "With the billions of dollars in revenue the industry takes in every year, you would think it would be easy for gaming to foot the bill for the $125 million project. But that isn't happening. The Performing Arts Center Foundation got the city of Las Vegas to donate five acres of prime downtown real estate to the project. But rather than assuming responsibility for bankrolling the project, the casino industry has found a way to pass it off to the car rental agencies which, unlike gaming, already are heavily taxed and naturally opposed to the hike." Las Vegas Sun 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 5:56 pm
Tony-Winning Theatre In The Red The Children's Theatre Company won a Tony and saw one of its plays go to Broadway. But the company still lost money this year. "The Minneapolis theater, which in 2003 advanced its production of 'A Year With Frog and Toad' to Broadway and won the Tony Award as outstanding regional theater, ended its fiscal year with an operating deficit of $350,000 on a budget of $15 million. It's the first operating deficit in four years for CTC, and it came despite increases in attendance and contributions to the theater's annual fund." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 09/24/03
Posted: 09/24/2003 7:27 am
Harry Potter For Adults "Having conquered the children's market, Scholastic Inc., the U.S. publisher of J.K. Rowling's multimillion-selling series, is targeting adults, ages 18 to 35. Potter ads featuring bikers, skateboarders and couch potatoes will appear in Rolling Stone and other magazines throughout October. 'We felt we needed to think out of the box and reach out to readers who would not normally pick up a copy of Harry Potter unless somebody placed it in their hands'." Washington Post (AP) 09/24/03
Posted: 09/24/2003 7:47 am
What's A Language Without Snollygoster? The new Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary is out, and it includes 10,000 new words. But there were many words that had to be taken out to make room. "Among these ghost words, the most unjustly cashiered may well be "snollygoster." A snollygoster is . . . a snollygoster is . . . actually, without a previous edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary handy, there's no telling anymore what a snollygoster is. Luckily -- and here's a phrase that must give every last lexicographer at Merriam-Webster the fantods - - that's what Google's for." San Francisco Chronicle 09/24/03
Posted: 09/24/2003 7:33 am
Dewey Sues Hotel... Who Knew? Many people were surprised this week that a library-themed hotel in New York was being sued for using the Dewey Decimal System as a theme. Who knew someone actually "owned" Dewey? "The Online Computer Library Center is seeking damages of three times the profits the hotel has made since it opened. Dewey, a librarian, invented the Dewey Decimal Classification in 1874 and devoted his life to spreading it. Over time, it became the most widely employed cataloging system in the world, used today in 95 percent of public libraries in the United States." The New York Times 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 7:05 pm
- Previously: Dewey Decimal Sues Hotel "The nonprofit library cooperative that owns the Dewey Decimal system has filed suit against a library-themed luxury hotel in Manhattan for trademark infringement. The Library Hotel, which overlooks the New York Public Library, is divided according to the classification system, with each floor dedicated to one of Dewey's 10 categories. Room 700.003 includes books on the performing arts, for example, while room 800.001 has a collection of erotic literature." Washington Post (AP) 09/22/03
CBC Gets $10 Million Less Canada's CBC is getting $10 million less this year than it had been promised by the government. Viewers and listeners likely won't see the cuts on-air, but the reduction will impact investment in projects. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/24/03
Posted: 09/24/2003 6:40 am
Foul Language On TV is Up The use of "foul language" on American TV is up dramatically in the past five years, says a new study by the Parents Television Council. "During the so-called 'family hour,' from 8-9 p.m., foul language increased by 94.8 percent between 1998 and 2002, the study found. It rose by 109 percent during the 9 p.m. hour in the same period." Miami Herald (AP) 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 6:41 pm
Old Time TV Characters Get New Lives Vintage children's characters are showing up on British TV in increasing numbers. "Given that nostalgia means nothing to children, the main targets for these programmes are mothers at home. In children's television, particularly pre-school, the shows that kids watch are generally chosen by their parents. For us, it's valuable to have programmes that parents recognise from their own childhood." The Independent (UK) 09/23/03
Posted: 09/23/2003 6:18 pm | 
