Instead, at the other end of the decade, ebook sales seem to have stabilized at around 20 percent of total book sales, with print sales making up the remaining 80 percent. – Vox
Author: Douglas McLennan
Our Fears Of A World Shaped By Algorithms
Within the monoculture obsession, there are two concerns. The first is that in the digital streaming era we have lost a perceived ability to connect over media products as reference points that everyone knows… The second concern is that, because of the pressures of social media and the self-reinforcing biases of recommendation algorithms that drive streaming, culture is becoming more similar than different. – Vox
Modernist Architecture Is Uncomfortable, Doesn’t Wear Well, And Depresses People. So Why Did It Catch On?
“The single undoubted success of the modernist movement was to spread through clever propaganda: first by co-opting the term “modern,” then by covering up a long string of practical failures. Buildings in the modernist canon weather poorly, and post-occupancy evaluations are largely negative.4 To promote such viscerally unattractive architecture, modernism’s supporters had to deprecate the neurological and physiological responses of its users.” – Inference Review
How Opera Is Dealing With #MeToo
“Within the past year, most opera companies have started holding regular sexual harassment workshops, and many distribute and read aloud their sexual harassment policy to incoming casts before the start of rehearsals and distribute contact information for reporting incidents.” – The New York Times (AP)
Best TV Of The Decade? Try Best Types Of TV
“I know readers only have time anymore to read lists, but bear with me. Here are the best kinds of shows we watched over the past 10 years. Many of them belong to more than one category — a sign of their greatness.” – Washington Post
Is The Internet Our Salvation Or Our Damnation? The 2010s Exploded Myths
“The second decade of the 20th century began at the apex of naivete about the potential for the internet to enhance democracy and improve the quality of life on Earth. By the end of 2019, very few people could still hold such a position with honesty.” – Wired
Why Some Pop Bands Are Giving Up Encores
The banality of encores has long been a frustration for some musicians, but, in recent years, a growing number of notable acts have taken a stand against performing them at all. – Toronto Star
The Man Who Made “Cats” And What He Was Thinking
“Like all stories, it’s just about cats, but none of these stories work without the big issues underneath. Eliot was writing as much about humans as cats; he was writing about humans through a feline prism. Ultimately, why I wanted human cats, not actual cats, [in the film] was that, if they’d been actual cats, it would have totally missed the point of the duality of the poetry.” – The Atlantic
Producing A Movie Is An Arduous Slog. It Just Is
“Writing is lonely; directing and acting, if you’re overlapping them, is challenging but fun. But producing is just pushing a rock up a hill. And sometimes it rolls over you on the way back down.” – Los Angeles Times
I Knew These Things I Bought Would Transform My Life! (A List)
“Every morning, I wake up before dawn to take a walk with my dog around the countryside, before I return to my home (still before dawn) to bake a loaf of bread and write for four hours in my notebook.” – The New Yorker