Manipulated video will ultimately destroy faith in our strongest remaining tether to the idea of common reality. As Ian Goodfellow, a scientist at Google, told MIT Technology Review, “It’s been a little bit of a fluke, historically, that we’re able to rely on videos as evidence that something really happened.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
“Hamilton” Wins Seven Awards At London’s Oliviers
The West End production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s show about US founding father Alexander Hamilton won best new musical and outstanding achievement in music.
English Theatre’s Olivier Awards Broadcast Sees A 40 Percent Ratings Drop
It attracted an average of 600,000 viewers over the two-hour programme, down 40% on the average of one million people who tuned in last year when the show was moved to a prime-time slot (8pm-10pm) two days after the ceremony.
What Data Teaches About The Differences Between Disruptive And Radical Innovation
While disruptive innovation is inextricably linked to variations of business models and low-end market encroachment, radical innovation is reliant on organizational capabilities and individual and organizational human capital. Whereas incremental innovation — e.g. a razor company’s fifth razor blade — helps firms to stay competitive in the short-term, radical innovation focuses on long-term impact and may involve displacing current products, altering the relationship between customers and suppliers, and creating completely new product categories.
Why It’s So Difficult To Grapple With Consciousness
I have discovered that most people, including any number of scientists, remain cloudy on the issues involved in struggles over consciousness. Another analytical philosopher, John Searle, has referred to the consciousness “scandal.” The “scandal” is that no one agrees either on a definition of consciousness or how it comes about.
Is Handwriting Dying? Probably Not, Despite The Evidence
If script is dying, it cannot complain that its day has been short. Its solitary reign may have been ended by the printing press, but it lived on as a citizen in the new republic of letters: official records, account books, botanical drawings, not to mention works for private circulation and personal epistles, continued to be produced by hand for centuries. Then came the typewriter, but even its keys could not strike the death knell of handwriting. Perhaps that machine’s close descendants, the keyboards of our computers and their avatars on our screens, are administering the coup de grâce. Perhaps.
Robert Buck, 79, Former Director Of Brooklyn Museum, Knox-Albright
Mr. Buck, who died March 30 at 79 after a battle with cancer, was an instrumental figure in Buffalo’s visual arts scene, both at the gallery and in the community. His decade-long stint as director at the Albright-Knox was defined by a bookish enthusiasm for the work of contemporary American artists and an involvement in Buffalo’s burgeoning avant garde art scene that set a precedent for future directors.
Saudi Arabia To Create New $20 Billion Cultural Heritage Site
“Under the contract, France will help create a blueprint for museums, archaeological digs and conservation in the region, as well as develop transport, hotels, crafts, education and training, urban planning and other infrastructure projects. The tourism plan is described as ‘the most important ever seen in the Arab world’. The cost has not yet been determined, but a source close to the project says the whole budget could amount to more than $20bn. Saudi Arabia has pledged to finance everything, according to a diplomatic source.”
High Special Exhibition Fees Spark Debate About UK Museum Policies
General admission to the main sites of all the UK’s national museums has been free since 2001, and has helped make Britain’s museums and galleries some of the most visited in the world. But it means they rely on government funding or special exhibitions to survive. Critics say this has created a two-tier system, whereby only tourists and higher spenders can afford the special exhibitions.
Opera Theatre Of St. Louis Picks A New General Director
In Washington, Andrew Jorgensen worked with Francesca Zambello on casting of such highlights as the 2016 “Ring” cycle and “Appomattox,” as well as the new operas commissioned for the annual American Opera Initiative. Jorgensen will only be the fourth leader in St. Louis’s 43-year history, after the founding director Richard Gaddes and his successor Charles MacKay, both of whom subsequently led the Santa Fe Opera.