The application of game design principles like leaderboards, progress bars, points, badges, levels, challenges, and activity streaks to nongame ends has seeped into just about every domain of modern life, from sleeping and exercising to studying and social credit systems. - The New Republic
Nearby business owners said the Comcast Service Center has been playing loud music from a surveillance system with a speaker for about a month now. The loud music is described as classical or elevator music. - KOMO TV
NBCUniversal, Paramount Global and Walt Disney together own dozens of underperforming cable networks that are quickly losing relevance in the age of streaming. - Variety
Roxana Silbert has quit as the north London theatre’s artistic director because of the financial constraints it is facing after Arts Council England’s decision not to renew its £766,455 annual grant. - The Guardian
Nadhi Thekkek and her San Francisco company, Nava Dance Theatre, use the style and vocabulary of bharatanatyam to tell contemporary stories taken from the lives of real people, bringing them to the level of the Hindu mythological tales typically retold in traditional Indian dance. - San Francisco Chronicle
“It was our belief that cord-cutting losses would be offset by gains in streaming. This has not been the case. We are primarily a content company and the mechanisms for the monetization of content are in disarray.” - The Hollywood Reporter
"As well as offering workshops in ballet, contemporary dance, hip-hop and singing, she explains, the Paris Opera will also launch an apprenticeship programme for production skills, such as make-up and set design" in the South American territory, over 4,000 miles from mainland France. - Radio France International
Qatar spent a reported $220 billion preparing for the tournament, conjuring new buildings, new neighborhoods and even an entirely new city. To be here now is to exist in a bubble of high unreality. - The New York Times
He was a lifelong alcoholic, so the common assumption has been that he died of alcohol poisoning or related organ failure — but medical observations of his last few days don't resemble typical alcoholic deaths. There are two other theories, one from the time and the other from much later. - MSN
"A survey of professionals across the performing and visual arts found overall incomes for women were 25% less than their male counterparts, ... almost double the size of the pay gap in the overall workforce, research commissioned by the Australia Council has found." - The Guardian
It’s a story about how to structure a company like Disney. Then you add in the complexity of the shift to streaming, the future of TV and movies generally, and the gigantic reputation of a character like Bob Iger, who many people think could plausibly run for president. There’s just a lot going on here. - The Verge
Joshua Barone writes about becoming one of the throngs of supernumeraries in the Triumphal March of the Met's very grand production of Verdi's very grand opera Aïda. - The New York Times
The selections: a word that describes 2022 entirely too well; an all-too-common behavioral M.O. these days; a now-overused term derived from a Hollywood movie; a color used to designate independent legislators; and a common American word that confused the rest of the world when it was the answer to Wordle. - BuzzFeed
A thinly veiled swipe at playwright William Inge (and at himself), the play seems to have been deliberately omitted by Albee from his collected works, but it has just resurfaced at a theater in L.A. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
"Dozhd — also known as TV Rain — had been fined earlier this month for airing a map labeling Crimea as Russian territory, and calling Russian forces 'our army.'" The head of Latvia's broadcast regulator attributed the revocation to "threats to national security and public order. ... Everyone should respect Latvian law." - Politico
