Stories

The Canadians Who Want To Stop AI In Its Tracks

Canadians are hugely wary: a Leger poll found 85 percent of respondents want the government to regulate the technology. But that number doesn’t convey just how frightened many are. - The Walrus

Meet The Book Hoarder

The stacks kept rising as Uminer added his hauls from thrift shops, book dealers and eBay deliveries. “I don’t think of myself as a hoarder,” he said, “but I guess my building did.” - The New York Times

Major Collection Of Mexican Art, Including Kahlos And Riveras, Is Going On Tour. Angry Mexicans Fear It Won’t Come Back.

The privately-owned Gelman Santander Collection, whose 68 pieces include 10 paintings by Frida Kahlo along with works by Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and others, is scheduled to spend two years touring Europe. Some citizens, unconvinced that the art will come home, are suing to keep it in Mexico. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)

Revisiting Mark Twain In The Age Of Trump

Satire makes fun of something to expose its truth in a way that can be notoriously difficult to decode. What is often misread in Twain’s most famous novel is this: he satirically uses racism to ridicule racism. - Adi Magazine

EU To Cancel Venice Biennale Grant Over Russia Participation

Over the weekend, a European Union commission followed up on its earlier threats to cancel a €2 million grant to the Venice Biennale, citing Russia’s participation in the event this year as its reasoning. - ARTnews

Trump Admin’s Critique Of The Smithsonian Is Laughably Wrong

Even when judged by the standards of the form, the White House’s anti-woke polemic is a shoddy piece of workmanship not unlike the peeling blue sealant in the $15 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool. - The New Republic

US Publishers And Authors Sue Google Over Its Training Of AI

“Publisher Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier, as well as author Scott Turow, are the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, … contending that the tech giant has engaged in widespread copyright infringement in developing its Gemini AI models.” - Publishers Weekly

The Van Cliburn Competition Expanded. Should It Have?

A focus on how well individuals conduct a specific orchestra with limited repertoire at a given moment in time makes little sense to me when I think about what makes a great conductor and how one judges such greatness. - Nightingale's Sonata

Silicon Valley’s Science Fiction Problem

Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, gave expression to this ethos in 2017 when he said: ‘We are the people who make fantasies real.’ It sounds inspiring, but it is important to know which parts of those fantasies they’re choosing, and which parts they’re leaving out. - Aeon

A Punctuational Divide (We Need To Evolve)

Now that we can react to a friend’s needy text or an enemy’s infuriating post in real time and with minimal reflection, we need reliable substitutes for extraverbal cues more than ever.  - The Atlantic

Wyoming’s Public Television Station To Drop PBS Branding

Said the station’s CEO in a statement, “While we will continue to provide the full suite of PBS programming and member benefits like Passport, we want our local vision to not be limited by a national brand. We are Wyoming’s storyteller first and a member station second.” - Current

The Paradoxical Problem Of Pernambuco Wood Bows

“The relationship between pernambuco and music is not ... environmental overconsumption. It is the primary consumers of this resource, the bow makers, who have tried hardest to conserve the wood. ... They have worked to document legal stockpiles and trace provenances of finished bows, and have replanted trees by the millions.” - The New York Times

Pat Oliphant, One Of US’s Leading Political Cartoonists, Has Died At 90

“Across his six-decade career, he was just as likely to go after D.C. Mayor Marion Barry — whom Mr. Oliphant depicted as an Idi Amin-like, tea-addicted ‘King of Kolumbia’ — as he was President George H.W. Bush, whom he skewered as a purse-carrying wimp and a would-be Lawrence of Arabia.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)

Louvre Jewel Robbery Suspects Say They Were Hired To Steal By Mastermind Client — Who Was “Disappointed”

“The suspects, named locally as Abdoulaye N and Ghelamallah A, claimed they had broken into the Louvre’s Apollo gallery on the orders of a client they refused to name out of fear for their families. … The alleged mastermind … ‘wasn’t happy’ with the outcome. ‘He thought we could have taken more.’” - The Guardian

Trump Administration Is Keeping Smithsonian Board Seats Vacant, And Nobody Is Saying Much About It

“There have been three openings on the board since April, and by October, the terms of three more trustees will have expired. But the names proposed by the board, which have not been publicly disclosed, have yet to make their way to Congress, and without clear explanation.” - The New York Times

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