Hotels are particularly adaptable settings for fiction. They bring strangers together in temporary communities, creating opportunities for encounters, misunderstandings and suspicion. In detective fiction, they can also provide a ready-made sense of enclosure: a place where characters are brought together and escape becomes difficult. - The Conversation
The Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, Italy’s art crime squad, has been using an AI algorithm to identify stolen artworks and artifacts since 2023. The platform they use is called SWOADS—or Stolen Works of Art Detection System—and was developed by Salvatore Rapicavoli, an IT engineer who joined the art crime team in 2023. - ARTnews
Our curiosity may be or could be one of the best things about us (though when we describe someone as a curious person we can sometimes mean that they are a bit odd, as though we admire curiosity but it makes us uneasy). - London Review of Books
“The moment I heard these recordings, I knew that they would drastically change our understanding of this language,” Dr. Mayeux said. His research findings were published in the journal “Language Documentation and Description.” - The New York Times
Kennedy Center leaders jeopardized the institution’s operations by tying millions of dollarsin funding to keeping President Donald Trump’s name on its building, a Democratic congresswoman who serves on its board alleges in a court brief filed Friday. - Washington Post
Book publishing houses have also been inundated with AI writing, and the industry is scrambling to respond. “There is a high level of concern and I think maybe anxiety among editors,” Friedman said. “They’re not sure how to detect it.” - WNG
Mr. May, a prolific and inventive author of nearly 30 thrillers, including “The Blackhouse,” which would become a global best seller and would lift the fortunes of his earlier work, died on Sept. 25 at his home in Gassin, a village in southeastern France, near Saint Tropez. He was 74. - The New York Times
Even actors like Elliot Page and Asia Kate Dillon have said it's harder to find work in a world where roles for them are, according to them, vanishing. - CBC
The Georgian style Festival Theatre - now the Cambridge Buddhist Centre - had recently undergone some intense architectural changes when its owner invited future Royal Ballet founder Ninette de Valois to choreograph there. - BBC (Yahoo)
"As we’re all waiting for traffic to clear, I could feel the motion of the bridge, slightly pulsating up and down. Curiosity got to many people, who got out of their cars to see if they could see anything." - San Francisco Chronicle
“'Today’s newspapers have fallen out of the habit of rewarding their readers with chunks of fiction. ... So it has fallen to us to pick up the slack.' But it seems worth asking why 'chunks' of fiction are their own reward." - LitHub
"Ireland increasingly has become a destination for American movies, television series and the once-quintessentially L.A. creation: the game show." - Los Angeles Times
"A representative for Mann said in a statement on Sunday that the director’s weapon had 'accidentally discharged while holstered.' The incident, the representative said, resulted in a 'superficial injury.'" - Los Angeles Times
"Most of those bowls and sandwiches available in the lunchtime hours are sold by fast-casual chains, the kind of establishments that give private equity investors wet dreams thanks to their sky-high margins, low labor costs, and simplistic, trend-driven menus." - Ravenous
"It’s a highbrow-meets-lowbrow thing," said the Dutch tattoo artist completing the requests. He's done it before, but "this time, had a greater ambition: to reproduce one of Rembrandt’s most famous etchings, The Descent From the Cross, from 1633, across a man’s back." - The New York Times
