Was it that bad? Well, it certainly wasn’t smooth.
New Zealand Is Not Middle Earth!
Ed Power argues that, if Peter Jackson really wanted to represent the setting of Tolkien’s novel on screen, his homeland was exactly the wrong place to do it.
The Case For The Serial Comma, Made In One Screenshot
(Slate‘s always-lively commenters are not all convinced, however.)
Digital Language Death (Yes, It’s A Thing)
In the 21st century, can a language survive for long if no one uses it on the Internet?
Will Learning a “Logical” Language Make You Think More Logically?
If the vocabulary and grammar of our languages shape the way we think (e.g., the presence or absence of verb tenses affecting the way we perceive time), then would inventing a completely logical language require its speakers to become more logical thinkers? James Cooke Brown decided to try it.
What It Feels Like For A Girl – To Read Roth, Kerouac, And Other “Midcentury Misogynists”
Sara Marcus: “I remember putting On the Road down the first time a woman was mentioned. I was just like: ‘Fuck. You.'” Emily Witt: ““I read the [coming-of-age novels] by men instead, until I was like, ‘I cannot read another passage about masturbation. I can’t.’ It was like a pile of Kleenex.”
Most Humans Hate Creativity (And Treat Creative People Badly)
“People’s partiality toward certainty biases them against creative ideas and can interfere with their ability to even recognize creative ideas.”
The Next Industrial Revolution – Things That Make Themselves
“When you 3-D-print an object, it’s a fixed, static thing. If you want something more complex, you need to print it as parts and then assemble it. We thought, instead of assembling intelligence into it afterwards, why not print intelligence into it?”
So Objectifying People Is Okay?
“If we view people as capable of feeling, but not capable of action, we’re still failing to understand them as fully human. Someone who is incapable of thinking for herself, and yet feels very much, is essentially a puppy.”
Irony: Giant Retailer Walmart Sells Anti-Capitalist Banksy Art
“Apparently, a third-party vendor sold the prints to Walmart, which in turn thought nothing of selling ripped off versions of the most famous anti-consumer street artist in the world.”
The Real-Life Folksters Who Inspired The Coen Brothers’ New Movie
For the dozen or so of us who don’t remember the New York folk music scene circa 1961, David Haglund provides an illustrated tip sheet for Inside Llewyn Davis.
What Happens When The Machines Can Tell How We Feel?
“If the future of advertising lies in the processing of nonlinguistic traits, then whoever controls the sensory infrastructure for analyzing and monetizing them—the “emotion sharing apparatus,” as Samsung calls it in one its patents —will be the successor to today’s moguls of online advertising.”