Tuesday, March 14
Computers That Play Hunches Computers aren't good at making intuitive choices. But a new "hunch engine" promises to improve things. "When the user starts the hunch engine he is presented with a seed -- a starting point -- and a set of mutations. The user selects mutations that look promising in his eyes, and the application uses that selection to generate another set of mutations, continuing in that fashion until the user is satisfied with what he sees. Call it guided natural selection, where the selector for fitness is what looks good to the human in front of the monitor." Wired 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 6:13 pm
Click here for more Ideas stories...
Ideas stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Warhol, Picasso Top Art-Trading Action Picasso and Warhol were the most actively traded artists last year. "Picasso collectors raised $153.2 million last year from 1,409 works sold at auction, Artprice said. Owners of Warhols realized $86.7 million from 660 images, while 22 Monets took $61.5 million and 18 Canalettos $55.5 million, it said. Auction volumes are a guide to which works are becoming more liquid or expensive and which may be harder to buy and sell over time." Bloomberg.com 03/14/06
Posted: 03/14/2006 8:40 am
A Skyscraper Where It Ought Not To Be? Boston's Mayor Thomas Menino proposes a skyscraper in a place Robert Campbell calls the worst possible place for it. "The question we ought to be debating, perhaps, is whether we want to be America's Florence or its Milan -- a cultural and educational capital, or a business one. Or both? Exactly how much do we want to grow, anyway? And with what kind of growth cells? That's a debate that should be public and vociferous." Boston Globe 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 8:34 pm
The Missing (Unauthenticated) Pollock "On Nov. 18, 2005, "Winter in Springs," a 40-by-32-inch drip painting attributed to Jackson Pollock, was stolen from the Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science and Art in Scranton, Pa. But "Winter in Springs" was never authenticated and is not in the the four-volume catalogue raisonné, or complete listing, of Pollock's work, regarded as the definitive word on authenticity. Nor was it insured. Authenticated Pollock works of similar size sell for about $10 million." The New York Times 03/14/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 8:27 pm
Curators Remove 12-Year-Old's Gum From Frankenthaler "The saga of the $1.5-million abstract Helen Frankenthaler painting defaced two weeks ago at the Detroit Institute of Arts by a 12-year-old boy who stuck gum on it during a school outing is heading for a happy ending. After intensive research, experimentation and surgical work with high-performance tweezers, hand-rolled Q-tips and a fast-evaporating solvent -- plus some purposeful fooling around with gum -- the quarter-sized residue on Helen Frankenthaler's 'The Bay' is gone." Detroit Free Press 03/11/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 6:46 pm
Seattle's Hammering Man Takes A Rest The giant Jonathan Borofsky sculpture has had its swinging arm stilled. "Some ball bearings fell out of the arm's mechanism Saturday and it was making 'different noises.' So a contractor turned off the motor that moves the arm in a hammering motion." Seattle Post-Intelligencer (AP) 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 5:16 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
Visual Arts stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
A New Generation Of Three Tenors Scores Top Ten For the first time, three places in the UK Top Ten music charts are taken up by tenors. "Newcomer Vittorio Grigolo and BBC One's Just the Two of Us winner Russell Watson are set for new entries in the top 10, according to mid-week figures. Andrea Bocelli's album Amore, out last week, could stay in the chart." BBC 03/14/06
Posted: 03/14/2006 8:36 am
Spano Joins The Conductors' Sick List The list of prominent conductors on the sick list is getting longer. Latest to join is Robert Spano, who's canceled out of a performance with the Pittsburgh Symphony because of bronchitis. Spano joins a who's who of big-name conductors who have canceled for various reasons this month: James Levine, Kurt Masur and Christoph von Dohnanyi.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 03/14/06
Posted: 03/14/2006 8:24 am
A Women's Music Fest Looking For An Audience Cal State University at Fullerton throws a women's music festival and few people show up. "Is it the women themselves who are scary? Their music? Ironically, this annual festival, created five years ago by Pamela Madsen, a composer on Fullerton's faculty, strives for inclusion. The attitude, and one rehashed in the panel, is that no one can really say what women's music is. Some women address gender issues, some don't." Los Angeles Times 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 8:08 pm
Chart-Fixing Downloading Discovered, Disallowed Over-eager fans of a band tried to promote the group by buying multiple downloads of the group's new recording to boost them in the charts. But the buying was discovered and disqualified. "Due to over-enthusiastic members of the band's fans and family, an unacceptable number of records were ordered per person online. Sadly, rather than these sales ending up supporting the band, this has resulted in The Modern's chart position of number 13 being deemed invalid according to The Official Charts Company's strict rules and regulations." BBC 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 4:55 pm
Click here for more Music stories...
Music stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
The Cure For Bad Handwriting? "We have a national affliction, and it's called cacography - that means illegible handwriting. That's why we're a 'Please print' nation. Nobody says, 'Please write in your lovely cursive handwriting'. At a time when the computer is king and toddlers type, some educators believe it's even more imperative to teach a speedy handwriting technique that others can read.' Rocky Mountain News 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 10:36 pm
Click here for more Arts Issues stories...
Arts Issues stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Saying Goodbye To Wendy Wasserstein More than 1000 friends and admirers of playwright Wendy Wasserstein attended a memorial for her. "The memorial, which was also broadcast via closed circuit to an audience assembled nearby at the Juilliard School, drew scores of Broadway's biggest stars and backstage players, many of whom counted Ms. Wasserstein — whose social calendar might include everything from nights at the opera to days at the mall — as an old, and close, friend." The New York Times 03/14/06
Posted: 03/14/2006 7:39 am
Miles Davis In The Rock Hall Of Fame... Really? "This seems provocative for a second, and then a little meaningless. It is not some sort of timely argument for underappreciated work; adventurous musicians like those in the Black Rock Coalition have been claiming Davis's electric period as an inspiration for decades. There are some jazz adherents who never liked Davis's long electric phase and will be mildly outraged. But after all the jagged turns of his career, and its thorough box-set gilding, most of us have long since let Davis's body of work just assume its own meaning." The New York Times 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 8:24 pm
A Popular LA Radio Figure In Legal Limbo Chris Douridas made a name for himself in Los Angeles with his musical taste, first as musical director for KCRW and then in his work on a number of movies. But it all threatened to unravel earlier this year. "Though many details of what happened are unknown, law enforcement officials paint a lurid picture of events that led to Douridas' arrest Jan. 6 on suspicion of drugging and trying to kidnap a 14-year-old girl." Los Angeles Times 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 8:13 pm
Click here for more People stories...
People stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Harold Pinter On Whether He'll Write More Plays: "I've been writing poetry since my youth and I'm sure I'll keep on writing it till I conk out. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I've written 29 damn plays. Isn't that enough?" The Guardian (UK) 03/14/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 8:43 pm
The Broadway Wrapped In Failure A new book chronicles the backstage perils and failures of Broadway bombs. "Dramas are hard enough. Musicals, to judge by the on-the-scene accounts by several critics and journalists assembled here, seem particularly fraught with a special kind of peril. 'When disparate elements don't gel, panic sets in. With the clock running out, and the bankroll running low, and superegos running amuck, strange things can happen'."
Posted: 03/13/2006 8:48 am
Deaf Theatre Loses Funding, Might have To Close The 38-year-old National Theatre of the Deaf has lost a major grant and the theatre's leaders fear the company might not be able to continue. "Without the $680,000 annual grant, administered by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Theatre of the Deaf slashed its annual budget from $1.2 million to $300,000." Hartford Courant 03/12/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 8:06 am
Click here for more Theatre stories...
Theatre stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Teens Read Up More young teen readers are turning to adult fiction. "The growing exodus of young adults to adult books might be partly attributable to how bookstores display Young Adult fiction. Many lump YA in with baby lit. The YA sections in many Indigo stores, for example, are either swarming with ankle-biters or utterly deserted. Either way, it’s anathema to attracting teens." CBC 03/14/06
Posted: 03/14/2006 8:44 am
Google's New Book-selling Scheme Google is offering to broker sales of books online for publishers. "The new offering would allow people to sign in and purchase immediate, browser-based access to books, Google said on its site. Purchasers would not, however, be allowed to save a copy of the book to their computer or to otherwise copy pages from the book. Google is marketing the new program as the first of several tools intended to help book publishers boost their revenues, though it was unclear Monday how many had signed up. Pricing would remain entirely at the book publisher's discretion." ZDNet 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 5:10 pm
Brown Testifies In Plagiarism Case Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown started testifying in his plagiarism trial. "Mr Brown said Mr Baigent and Mr Leigh were just two of a number of authors who had written about the theory. 'Yet I went out of my way to mention them for being the ones who brought the theory to mainstream attention. I would like to restate that I remain astounded by the claimants' choice to file this plagiarism suit. For them to suggest, as I understand they do, that I have hijacked and exploited their work is simply untrue'." BBC 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 4:47 pm
Click here for more Publishing stories...
Publishing stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Radio People Meters To Replace Ratings Diaries Arbitron, the leading radio ratings company, says it will replace listener diaries with people meters. "Arbitron has measured radio station listenership since 1965 by collecting handwritten diaries from volunteers who mail them in. The people meters have been in trials since 2001. The company plans to have the meters in place in the top 10 radio markets by the fall of 2008 and in the top 50 markets by 2010 or 2011." Yahoo! (Reuters) 03/14/06
Posted: 03/14/2006 9:16 am
TV Where Anything Can Happen (Even Death) "As audiences are opting to stay out of movie theaters and spend more time on the sofa, shows such as "24," "Lost," "The Shield" and "The Sopranos" are fulfilling the appetite for drama. This renaissance in television also attracts A-list actors, directors and writers who are willing to experiment with genres and storytelling that leaves viewers with their jaws dropped." Los Angeles Times 03/14/06
Posted: 03/14/2006 7:25 am
NY's Film Tax Credit Might Be Working Too Well Four years ago New York started offering tax breaks to film and TV projects filming in the city in an attempt to lure more of them. "Since 2002, the number of production shooting days in the city has more than doubled and the number of television pilots rose to 14 in 2005 from one the year before, according to the city. Now New York even occasionally stands in for other cities. But the good news for the city's film industry is a mixed blessing for the city's treasury." The New York Times 03/14/06
Posted: 03/14/2006 7:05 am
UK Group: Ban TV Product Placement A UK consumer group has argued against allowing product placement in TV programs, saying it would undermine viewers confidence. "Commercial broadcasters want new ways to raise money as audiences fragment and it becomes easier to skip adverts." BBC 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 5:01 pm
Click here for more Media stories...
Media stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Wanted - Boys To Dance Two years ago, Liverpool dance schools got a big boost when Strictly Come Dancing landed on TV. But the new recruits were girls rather than boys. Now they're looking for some girls. "Out of 84 students, we have only got 18 male students and they are getting a bit worn out dancing and lifting all the girls. They are very macho boys but there just aren't enough of them to go round." IC Liverpool 03/13/06
Posted: 03/13/2006 8:54 pm
Click here for more Dance stories...
Dance stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
|
