Stories

When Tamara Rojo Danced With Robots

Such an opportunity was bound to present itself to the director of San Francisco Ballet in the 2020s. It’s no surprise that she took the opportunity — but what she has to say about the experience, while quite perspicacious, isn’t much of a surprise either. - The Times (UK)

Netflix Challenges France’s Requirement On What It Spends On Production In France

“These new rules cross a line,” claims the streaming giant. “They attempt to fix in law the exact genre balance of our slate, constrain our ability to back other types of French works – drama, comedy, unscripted – and do so only for streamers, while traditional broadcasters are spared.” - Deadline

White House’s “Report” Criticizing Smithsonian History Is Riddled With Errors

The report often doesn’t even bother to engage with many of the claims it ridicules — like obvious and well-documented facts about anti-Chinese sentiment in post-Civil War America — or takes them as self-evident proof that the Smithsonian is misrepresenting history. - Washington Post

How AI Is Changing How Humans Write

The problem is that not only does AI train on human writing, but humans are stylistically influenced by AI, the interplay creating a kind of linguistic hall of mirrors. Short of an author admitting it, it’s hard to say for certain whether an individual piece of writing is AI or not. That uncertainty is a recipe for paranoia. -...

This Year’s Black British Theatre Awards Are Cancelled

In a statement released on social media, the organisers said: “To Our BBTA Community, due to unforeseen circumstances, we have made the difficult decision not to hold the Black British Theatre Awards ceremony in 2026. We know this will be disappointing news … and it was not a decision we took lightly.” - WhatsOnStage (UK)

When Innovation Scrambled Everything At The Turn Of The 20th Century

At the time, Americans did not understand that they were living through the largest energy transition in human history. Instead, they perceived a series of disconnected events. Unable to discern or conceptualize an underlying cause, they often declared the transformations around them were “kaleidoscopic.”  - MIT Press

Richard Glanton, Combative Former Head Of The Barnes Collection, 79

“The problems at the Barnes were so obvious,” he told The New York Times in 1993, “Ray Charles could see them in a swamp at midnight.” - The New York Times

Theatre Historian Robert Kimball, 86

Robert Kimball, a musical theater historian and champion of American popular song who unearthed hundreds of pieces long thought to be lost and helped rediscover the work of the seminal Black Broadway songwriting team of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. - The New York Times

The Legit Classical Composer Who Can Sell Out Madison Square Garden

Joe Hisaishi developed his huge following with his scores for Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films for Studio Ghibli. Yet he’s long had a parallel career as a conductor of standard orchestral repertoire in Japan. Now he’s shifting his focus to classical music, and he’s been appointed the Philadelphia Orchestra’s composer-in-residence. - The New York Times

Research: Learning From Short-Form Video Doesn’t Stay With You

Using social media applications to digest bite-sized educational content actually reduces a person’s ability to remember the information, according to new research. - Psypost

AI Labs Are Recruiting Philosophers

A.I. labs, and the related nonprofits around them, have been recruiting workers as versed in Consequentialism and John Stuart Mill as in neural networks and reinforcement learning. - The New York Times

Get A Load Of Shanghai’s Grand New Opera House

One of the key features is the dramatic spiral roof, which takes cues from an unfurled Chinese folding fan, a space that is accessible to visitors and serves as an observation deck overlooking the Huangpu River and the city's skyline. - New Atlas

The Congresswoman Who Sued Trump For Renaming The Kennedy Center — And Won

Joyce Beatty, a seven-term representative from Ohio, became an ex officio Congressional member of the Kennedy Center’s board in 2019. She says that the resolution to add Trump’s name to the complex was introduced without advance notice at a meeting in December, and she was muted when she objected. - The New York Times

AI “Actress” Tilly Norwood To Star In AI-Scripted Feature Film — And It Will Be Honest About What She Is

“Set inside the ‘Tillyverse,’ a digital world located somewhere up in the Cloud, the film” — titled Misaligned and made by Particle 6, the AI-oriented studio which prompted Norwood into existence — “will follow Tilly, an AI being with no real body … or lived experience of her own, only access to everyone else’s.” - Variety

Thieves Steal $5.1 Million Worth Of Crystal And Jewelry From Lalique Museum In France

“Three thieves targeted the Lalique museum in Wingen-sur-Moder in northeastern France at around 5:30 am on Sunday, … (and) made off with 27 pieces of jewelry worth an estimated €4.5 million ($5.1 million), prosecutors said Monday.” - AFP (Yahoo!)

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