“It’s no longer controversial to give other authors a share in Shakespeare’s plays—not because he was a front for an aristocrat, as conspiracy theorists since the Victorian era have proposed, but because scholars have come to recognize that writing a play in the sixteenth century was a bit like writing a screenplay today, with many hands revising a company’s product. The New Oxford Shakespeare claims that its algorithms can tease out the work of individual hands—a possibility, although there are reasons to challenge its computational methods.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Why Great Critics Are Sometimes Wildly Wrong
“So how does it happen — how can someone on the order of Voltaire (we can insert many other illustrious names here) end up missing the mark so completely? We first need to dispense with the most obvious and least savory explanation, that the nasty judgment is directed more toward the writer than his or her work.”
European Union Baroque Orchestra Decides To Relocate Out Of Britain Because Of Brexit
General manager Emma Wilkinson said that while no one knows what the future may look like, the orchestra decided that moving to Antwerp now would be wise. She fears that the loss of free movement would make life for musicians very difficult: “I do worry that European orchestras will not be inviting talented British musicians to work with them. It will just be too bureaucratically difficult.”
The Rebuilding Of The World Trade Center Reveals The Glaring Failures Of Our New Cities
“Although all major construction schemes face tremendous problems, the World Trade Center rebuilding encapsulates everything that is wrong with urban development in a period when, as in so many other aspects of our public life, the good of the many is sacrificed to the gain of the few.”
Study: College Might Not Be The Great Equalizer Many Assume
“A new study says that the economic impact of college — in postgraduation wages — is very much tied to the income of students’ families growing up, with students from wealthier families earning more than others. Some might assume that this difference is due to enrollment patterns, in that wealthier high school students are more likely than their less well-off counterparts to enroll at highly competitive colleges whose graduates are more likely to earn more in their careers. But the study found this impact even after controlling for a number of factors, such as competitiveness of college attended.”
Soon Machines Will Be Able To Tell When Something Goes Wrong Just By Listening
“We’re developing an expert mechanic’s brain that identifies exactly what is happening to a machine by the way that it sounds,” says Amnon Shenfeld, founder and CEO of 3DSignals, a startup based in Kfar Saba, Israel, that is using machine learning to train computers to listen to machinery and diagnose problems at facilities like hydroelectric plants and steel mills.
Stuart McLean, 68, Storyteller and Host Of “Vinyl Cafe”
“When we’d go on vacation, he couldn’t stop interviewing people, even if he didn’t have his tape recorder. And people would tell him the damnest things. They would confess their inner secrets to him.”
After 187 Years, A Venerable Theatre Bookshop Closes In London
The news was announced yesterday, with the publishing and theatre licensing company blaming an “unsustainable rental increase” of up to 300% at the Fitzroy Street premises over the past five years.
What We Know About How People Use Music In Their Daily Lives
“I think one of the most interesting things is the number of people who really don’t have music playing in their homes. It’s quite striking across the nine countries we surveyed. Something as simple as entertaining friends and family: 84% of people in Sweden, 83% of people in the U.K., 79% of people in the U.S. don’t play music when they have friends over.”
Is Science Moral?
“To label science as moral or immoral completely misses the point. Science is amoral. Science is a collection of facts about the natural world painstakingly carved out by a community of scientists who engage in detailed quantitative research and data analysis. This is true even for computer simulations of detonation shock fronts of explosive devices, for example, and even of engineers and technicians putting bombs together in an assembly line.”