Sak Tz'i' was an ancient but small city, caught between more powerful neighbors; scholars weren't aware it had existed until they found inscriptions describing its defeats. Nobody knew where Sak Tz'i' had been, until a Chiapas rancher showed a researcher a carved limestone slab he'd found. - The New York Times
Most college students, according to a FIRE report published this week, do not believe that speakers who hold various conservative beliefs should be allowed on campus; I am grateful that these students do not (yet) run a whole country, as the ayatollahs do. - The Atlantic
The arrival of widely available image synthesis models such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion has provoked an intense online battle between artists who view AI-assisted artwork as a form of theft (more on that below) and artists who enthusiastically embrace the new creative tools. - Ars Technica
These new AI capabilities confront the world with a mountain of questions over the rights to the images the programs learned from, the likelihood they will be used to spread falsehoods and hate, the ownership of their output and the nature of creativity itself. - Axios
"His use of long takes, jump-cuts and actors’ asides to the camera all changed the filmmaking vocabulary. He once famously stated that every film needs a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order." - MSN (The Washington Post)
Runway's "Text to Video" demonstration reel shows a text input box that allows editing commands such as "import city street" or "make it look more cinematic" (applying an effect). It depicts someone typing "remove object" and selecting a streetlight with a drawing tool that then disappears. - Ars Technica
"It’s absolutely beyond creepy—and therefore totally in keeping with Facebook’s general vibe—that adults are spending time avidly thumbing through children’s books to look for anything they might consider vaguely 'pornographic' (or, you know, vaguely affirming of non-white or queer identities)." - LitHub
Editors have been doxxed, threatened, and arrested. "Doronina of the Wikimedia Foundation’s board of trustees said that Russia’s state agencies could target one of those editors any day. 'You cannot predict who is going to attack. It’s not a bear, it’s a pack of bears,' she said." - Nieman Lab
"Audience members generally rustle their programs and shift in their seats when performers are onstage. But on that late October evening inside Lincoln Center in 2021, 'it was so quiet,' remembers. 'Absolute silence.'" - Mother Jones
Free speech requires a robust exchange of views without the coercion of threats and violence, and self-censorship in response to social pressure is a genuine risk. Yet by definition, there is no free speech if one person is allowed to make an argument and another is not allowed to object to it. - The Atlantic
Several lines of contemporary scholarship emphasize what might be gained by moving from a focus on science education to a focus on reciprocal power-sharing, cooperation, and exchange between researchers and citizens. - Boston Review
“You are the last orchestra and the most important orchestra where I have been music director. Your memory will accompany me in my heart to the end of my life. You, Chicago, are the Symphony of my heart. Grazie.” - New City
Some of the images, like Grant Wood's American Gothic and van Gogh's The Night Café and Hokusai's The Wave, work pretty well. Others, like Munch's The Scream and Kehinde Wiley's portrait of Barack Obama, wellll ... (We can't decide about Leonardo's Last Supper and Picasso's Guernica.) - Artnet
The concert itself was cancelled, but that doesn't mean the orchestra didn't perform: instead, these musicians from the capital of the rebellious 13 colonies played a two-piece tribute to Her Majesty that moved just about everyone. - The Philadelphia Inquirer
An avant-garde likes to present itself as insurgent and radical, yet the logic of the metaphor suggests that a new group will soon be coming along to replace it. Today’s avant-garde is always liable to congeal into tomorrow’s orthodoxy. - The Nation
"(He) was the cable news channel's lead anchor for two decades until his retirement in 2001. During his tenure, Shaw anchored major breaking news events, like the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981, the Tiananmen Square student revolt in 1989 and every presidential election." - The Hollywood Reporter
Located on Benjamin Franklin Parkway just opposite the Rodin Museum and Barnes Foundation, Calder Gardens will include both a building (designed by Herzog & de Meuron) and landscaped outdoor spaces to display a rotating selection of Calder's mobiles and stabiles. - The Philadelphia Inquirer
"At a time when Philadelphia architecture rarely rises above the goal of extracting money from land, Calder Gardens promises to be a work of art itself. Ideas about Calder's creativity and Philadelphia's history are embedded in every detail. Yet the design is no mere intellectual exercise." - The Philadelphia Inquirer
‘When you get it right, it affects our health policy, our education policy, our environment policy, foreign affairs, trade, veterans’ affairs, tourism… A nation with a strong cultural policy is a nation where we know ourselves, know each other and invite the world to better know us.’ - ArtsHub
