One of the first things I’d learned about optimization was that something is optimal if it is equal or preferable to any alternative. To optimize an experience, then, is to shepherd it toward the preferable. - Wired
One of the advantages of RadioGPT is that it knows about an artist or a song or about a current event, so it can speak to a broad range of topics concisely and in an entertaining way. When we set up RadioGPT voices, this is not text-to-speech. This is setting up character and personality in A.I. - Slate
"The rules of physics that apply in a real scene appear to be optional in a painting; they can be obeyed or ignored at the discretion of the artist to enhance the painting's intended effect. ... Our visual brain uses a simpler, reduced physics to understand the world." - The MIT Press Reader
Idaho Code 18-8705 states that public funds cannot be used “to perform or promote abortion, provide counseling in favor of abortion, make referral for abortion, or provide facilities for abortion or for training to provide or perform abortion.” - Hyperallergic
The first four episodes of the updated version of Homer's epic will be produced in Stoke-on-Trent, Doncaster, Trowbridge, and Sunderland, with each episode adapted by a local playwright. For the finale, the teams from all four towns will converge at the NT headquarters in London. - The Guardian
The BBC, as the biggest commissioner of music and one of the biggest employers of musicians in the country, has a vital part to play in the British cultural landscape and a duty to future proof what we deliver for the public. - BBC
"Though complicated and sometimes fraught, these transformations can feel organic: They apply the ideals of creative practice to administrative practice. ... Not all dancers want to supplement exhausting rehearsal schedules with leadership responsibilities. But for those weary of inhabiting the performer-as-obedient-vessel cliché, that level of involvement can be refreshing." - The New York Times
Fiction or not, the sort of backstage backstabbing depicted in “Tár” is, alas, very real. We conductors do not generally like our colleagues, and we delight in denigrating one another — that is, until one of us dies. - The New York Times
"A new documentary ... brought together musicians, artists and journalists who used music and art to rebel against their imprisonment and to assert their right to a multicultural identity amid Serb nationalist attempts to destroy them and their cultural heritage." - The Guardian
“He brought the attitude of a businessman and an entrepreneur to a sector that, as you well know, is much less focused on that than on the present moment.” - Artnet
"It seems particularly odd that the Academy would give an award for Best Visual Effects but not for Best Stunts. Visual effects could be said to be the flip side of stunts: Both are disciplines designed to make the people onscreen look like they're doing the impossible." - Vulture
"(These honors have been) created from a desire to not only highlight great stunt work over the past year (and there was great stunt work this year), but to underscore the obvious awards-worthiness of action storytelling. To do so, we created our own academy of voters." - Vulture
"(In Florida and) along other fronts of the culture war, bookmobiles are motoring around the country to bring banned books to all, especially in Texas, which has censored more books than any other state." - WBUR (Boston)
Artist Leo Villareal's "Bay Lights" was supposed to be up for two years, and it wasn't designed to withstand the elements for a decade. Enough lights had burned out that it was taken down — to be redesigned and reinstalled, if $11 million can be raised to do so. - The New York Times
"Alda, who hosts a podcast called Clear+Vivid, had decided to ask the tool to write a scene for M*A*S*H in which Hawkeye accuses B.J., his right hand man and fellow prankster, of stealing his boxer shorts. ... Did it work? Not quite." - The New York Times
