Author: Douglas McLennan

New Tech Could Revolutionize How We Reproduce Art

RePaint, a resin-based 3D printer that renders reproductions in color four times closer to the original than the next-best tool, utilizes a palette of 11 different inks: cyan, magenta, yellow, black, green, blue, orange, red, violet, transparent white and opaque white. Comparatively, traditional 2D printers typically operate in CMYK, or cyan, magenta, yellow and black, which is the keyline color. – Smithsonian

American Heritage Dictionary’s Word “Usage Panel” Is No More

What always seemed most remarkable about the American Heritage Dictionary was its promise to be more discriminating than other dictionaries, and the evidence for this was always its panel of expert language users whose opinions were solicited on many contentious points of usage. This usage panel was presented as a major feature of the dictionary and became a point for endorsement and criticism. – The Weekly Standard

Has Gossip Gotten A Bad Rap?

There’s an important distinction to make here about how most of us define gossip – as a way of trash-talking someone not present – and how scientists do. In social science, gossip usually is defined as communication about a person who isn’t present in a way that involves evaluation of that person, good or bad. This kind of informal communication is crucial for sharing information. Gossip is necessary for social cooperation; it’s largely this kind of talk that cements social bonds and clarifies social norms. – BBC

Have We Made Technology Too Easy To Use?

There is nothing wrong with making things easier, in most cases, and the history of technology is filled with examples of amazing advances brought about by reducing complexity. Not even the most hardened Luddite, I suspect, wants to go back to the days of horse-drawn carriages and hand-crank radios. But it’s worth asking: Could some of our biggest technological challenges be solved by making things slightly less simple? – The New York Times

Alas, Netflix Is Unlikely To Save Art Films

Netflix may seem like a savior to these filmmakers right now, but the promise is illusory. Streaming services are also under tremendous economic pressure of their own, such that they’re unlikely to commit for the long term to arty, mid-budget films like Roma and Buster Scruggs. They may temporarily slow the increasing homogenization of filmmaking in America, but they cannot reverse it. – The New Republic

AI Will Make Humans Better But Cost Us Control

The experts predicted networked artificial intelligence will amplify human effectiveness but also threaten human autonomy, agency and capabilities. They spoke of the wide-ranging possibilities; that computers might match or even exceed human intelligence and capabilities on tasks such as complex decision-making, reasoning and learning, sophisticated analytics and pattern recognition, visual acuity, speech recognition and language translation. They said “smart” systems in communities, in vehicles, in buildings and utilities, on farms and in business processes will save time, money and lives and offer opportunities for individuals to enjoy a more-customized future. – Pew Research Center 

The Tension Between Voice And Form

By way of continued labor, poets attempt to craft language that can carry their ideas beyond the passing moment, reframing their experiments as steps toward the ultimate realization of their aesthetic visions. The poet’s will toward synthesis of voice and form is about having something vital to say and knowing time is always running out. – The Atlantic

How Words Change Their Meaning

Language is a system. Sounds, words and grammar do not exist in isolation: each of these three levels of language constitutes a system in itself. And, extraordinarily, these systems change as systems. If one change threatens disruption, another change compensates, so that the new system, though different from the old, is still an efficient, expressive and useful whole. – Aeon