“An ‘express’ library has opened in a new metro station in Warsaw, aiming to provide an appealing cultural space to encourage residents and commuters to forgo smartphones in favour of books. … About 16,000 books are on offer … and can be borrowed through an ‘express’ checkout machine using contactless chips.” - The Guardian
“On Friday, authors Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Roberson filed a lawsuit in Northern California targeting Apple's ‘OpenELM’ large language models, alleging the company ‘copied protected works without consent and without credit or compensation.’” - Publishers Weekly
Writers aren’t getting this settlement because their work was fed to an AI — this is just a costly slap on the wrist for Anthropic, a company that just raised another $13 billion, because it illegally downloaded books instead of buying them. - TechCrunch
At the Jewish Theological Seminary in Budapest, Hungary, "about 20,000 books and many valuable manuscripts have been missing since the end of World War II.” But some books have, with great effort and care, made their way back. - The New York Times
“We don’t judge Elizabeth harshly for going against polite strictures, because she’s often revealing some hypocrisy or injustice. ... Lizzy generally punches up, directing her barbs at and refusing the marching orders given by those more powerful than she is.” - LitHub
Roy: “‘What have we done to democracy? What happens when it’s been used up and emptied of meaning, and every institution has been turned against you? But … you have the most incredible people fighting back too.”- Irish Times (Archive Today)
The reverse of the probable portrait of the Earl of Southampton, a representation of a playing card heart, is defaced with a spade, or a spear. And that brings “thoughts of Shakespeare, whose coat of arms, drawn up c1602, incorporated a spear as a pun.” - The Guardian (UK)
Truly, says another indie bookstore in town, what were they thinking?! And on the venerable store's Instagram sort-of apology, the comments are, hm, not super favorable. - KATU (Portland)
For instance, before the Rosetta Stone, scholars had assumed the symbols were ideographs or pictographs. Were they, in fact, phonetic symbols? Turned out that they can be both. And in which direction were they read? (Well, that depends.) And what about that quasi-cursive called hieratic script? - Artnet
The settlement allows Anthropic to avoid going to trial over claims that it violated copyrights by downloading millions of books without permission and storing digital copies of them. The company will not admit wrongdoing. - Washington Post
“Books Inc. is seeking bankruptcy court approval to be acquired by Barnes & Noble for $3.25 million. The privately held company, which filed for voluntary Chapter 11 reorganization in January, announced B&N’s interest (this week). If the acquisition goes through, Books Inc. intends to keep nine out of its 10 locations open.” - Publishers Weekly
The corporate urge to replace art-making humans with machines is profoundly anti-human. It’s an old story: we have always tried to mechanize creativity and to remove messy human emotions. - LitHub
I’ve never encountered a complete description of what the magazine wants its checkers to check. A managing editor took a stab in 1936: “Points which in the judgment of the head checker need verification.” New checkers, upon receiving their first assignment, are instructed to print out the galleys of the piece and underline all the facts. - The New Yorker
“The Onion has more than 53,000 subscribers paying as much as $9 a month. The publication has a new deal to sell its papers at Barnes & Noble, and is expecting about $6 million in revenue this year — up from less than $2 million in early 2024.” - The Wall Street Journal (MSN)
