Daniel Wu, now starring on Into the Badlands on AMC, is from the Bay Area and attended architecture school at the University of Oregon. Then he visited Hong Kong, and was spotted by a talent scout. He says, “As a kid growing up in the ’70s, ’80s, as a person of color, I didn’t see a future for that. In my field, there was a roadblock. And so, I basically had to go to Asia and get successful there in order to come back here to have success here.”
Month: July 2018
A Challenge To All Architects: Walk Through Your Building Wearing A Skirt
Transparent walkways and glass walkways are quite, quite common – including in architecture schools. “This not only affects the women who work and study in those buildings — according to the Assn. of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, 42% of accredited architecture degrees were awarded to women in 2013 — but it normalizes the idea among architecture students that transparent walkways are just a benign architectural feature. They are not.”
Artificial Intelligence Only Understands People With A Very Specific Accent
Turns out Alexa, Siri, Google’s Assistant and other AI voice responsive systems really understand West Coast English. Everything else? Wellllllll … let’s say that even if you’re a native English speaker, but you’re from the South or Midwest? They’ll understand you less often. Worse: “People with nonnative accents, however, faced the biggest setbacks. In one study that compared what Alexa thought it heard versus what the test group actually said, the system showed that speech from that group showed about 30 percent more inaccuracies.”
The Me Too Moment Of Photojournalism
Wow: “Photojournalists described behavior from editors and colleagues that ranged from assault to unwanted advances to comments on their appearance or bodies when they were trying to work. And now, as the #MeToo moment has prompted change across a range of industries—from Hollywood to broadcasting to the arts—photojournalists are calling for their own moment of reckoning.”
You Want A Legacy? Get Your Info On Microfilm, Because It Lasts For 500 Years
University libraries are giving them away, but “the microfilm machine is still widely used. It has centuries of lasting power ahead of it, and new models are still being manufactured. It’s a shame that no intrigue will greet their arrival, because these machines continue to prove essential for preserving and accessing archival materials.”
Shinobu Hashimoto, One Of The Collaborative Writers Of Kurosawa’s Movies, Has Died At 100
“Of the writers in Kurosawa’s stable, Mr. Hashimoto was among the longest-serving, contributing to eight screenplays from 1950 to 1970. Their other pictures together include Throne of Blood (1957), a reworking of Macbeth set in feudal Japan; The Hidden Fortress (1958), an adventure film about a princess escorted in disguise through enemy territory; and Dodes’ka-den (1970), about the residents of a Tokyo slum.”
Baltimore’s Independent Popular Music Artists Are Rewriting The City’s Sound
It’s all about local in Baltimore, and musicians know it as well as anyone. “The city’s emerging musicians represent a collage of perspectives, aesthetics and reasons for being. Some of them are decidedly activists; others wear their political views more lightly, or express skepticism about art’s ability to effect change. Most of the artists acknowledge the influence of jazz and hip-hop in their music, even as it defies categorization. And each in their own way believes Baltimore informed their creativity.”
Anti-Opioid Activists Protest At Harvard’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum
On Friday, “a few minutes after 4 p.m., around 70 protesters poured into the Harvard Art Museums’ courtyard to chants of ‘Sacklers lie, people die, fund harm reduction now,’ ‘People over profit,’ and ‘Shame on Sackler.'”
Angela Bowen, Dance Teacher And Black Feminist Lesbian Activist, Has Died At 82
Bowen “shaped countless young lives through the Bowen/Peters School of Dance in New Haven, which she ran from 1963 to 1982 with her husband at the time, Ken Peters. For the students, many of whom were black and came from less-than-affluent homes, the dancing they did was only part of the instruction.” She later shaped more young lives as an English professor in California.
China Gets Its Own ‘Ishtar’
Whew, yeah, the extravaganza Asura, which cost more than $100 million to make, has tanked rather spectacularly. “It aimed to spawn a trilogy based on Tibetan mythology by following a classic Hollywood playbook: pair a time-tested story with sumptuous visual effects, big-name actors and industry veterans.” Instead, it made $7 million last weekend – and was yanked immediately.