Author: Matthew Westphal

Smartphones And Siri Don’t Understand Icelandic, And That Has Icelanders Really Worried

The 1,200-year-old language isn’t among the many options available on smartphones, virtual assistants, voice-activated devices, and even many computers – and with a small base of speakers (fewer than 350,000), Silicon Valley has little reason to spend money to add Icelandic. The worry: “The less useful Icelandic becomes in people’s daily life, the closer we as a nation get to the threshold of giving up its use.”

Police Forced To Intervene To Keep Nationalists From Disrupting Controversial Play In Croatia

“Carrying a banner reading ‘Satan, leave our city,’ about a dozen right-wing supporters Monday chanted extremist slogans and sang nationalist songs inside the theater in the coastal town of Split before police pushed them out.” The local Catholic archdoicese had called for the play, Oliver Frljić’s Our Violence and Your Violence, to be banned due to some extreme imagery.

Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.24.17

Who Gets What? David Rockefeller’s Art Bequests
Of all his art interests, we have long known that the Museum of Modern Art came first for David Rockefeller, who died last month. But there were in his will a few other bequests for museums. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-04-24

Monday Recommendation: Krukowski, The New Analog
Book: Damon Krukowski, The New Analog (The New Press)
The introduction of the compact disc in 1982 made analog sound delivered by phonograph records and landline telephones obsolete – didn’t it? If not, then … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-04-24

 

The Human Brain’s Propensity To Make Stuff Up And Believe It – And How Most Of Us Control It And Some Of Us Manipulate It

Confabulation does seem to be innate: consider the stuff that people imagine they’ve done when they have brain damage, and that children come up with while the prefrontal cortex is developing. Neurologist Jules Montague writes about the phenomenon and the “doubt tags” people use to keep it in check – and how they can be induced to miss those tags and develop false memories.

The Original Elevator Music: A Potted History Of Muzak, Its Antecedents, And Its Huge Influence

“The sounds frequently referred to as elevator music are, at least officially, no more; over five years ago the company folded in a deal with its new owner, Mood Music. Muzak often amounted to the sonic equivalent of a Pan-Am smile, inspiring the listener to a bland, blinkered contentedness. In part, its reputation has obscured much of what made the company viable, and the extent to which its style fed others in its wake.”

Battle Over The (Existence Of The) Armenian Genocide Plays Out In Rival Movies

“If history was any guide, the director Terry George figured, there’d be weirdness around his new film, The Promise, about the Armenian genocide. Sure enough, he was right” – there was a concerted pile-on at IMDb, and the unanticipated release of a competing film on strangely similar material, The Ottoman Lieutenant. Cara Buckley lays out the strange circumstances around the two titles.

The Tragedy Of Google Books: How ‘The Most Significant Humanities Project Of Our Time Was Dismantled In Court’

“Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them.” James Somers runs down the history of the massive book-scanning project and of Authors Guild v. Google – and how “perhaps the most adventuresome class action settlement ever attempted” was taken apart despite the best interests of all the parties.

Getting A Southern Accent Right Is One Of The Big Challenges Of Making Audiobooks

“Southern accents are like hot sauces: dozens of varieties that can be difficult to distinguish, but they can be subtle or heavy-handed; they can add color or be a one-note distraction. … When some people detect their presence, that’s all they can focus on. In the wrong hands they can be dangerous.” John Adamian talks to a professional audiobook narrator about the pitfalls involved.