“In a blog post on Monday, Oyster’s founders said they were ‘taking steps to sunset’ the company’s service, which launched in 2012. ‘We believe more than ever that the phone will be the primary reading device globally over the next decade,’ they wrote. ‘Looking forward, we feel this is best seized by taking on new opportunities to fully realize our vision for e-books.’ Those opportunities may happen at Google.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
An Annotated History Of Annotations
From Humpty Dumpty’s explication de texte of “Jabberwocky” to the endless loops of comment on everything from rap lyrics to campaign speeches at Genius.com, Evan Kindly leads us down the (annotated) rabbit hole.
France Tries To Enforce ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ On Google Worldwide, Not Just Google.fr
“On Monday France’s data-privacy agency ordered Google to delist certain links (that is, remove them from search results) everywhere it operates and in every service it offers” whenever anyone asks for them to be removed under French law. “It’s unlikely that even Louis XIV thought French regulatory authority should stretch so far.”
French Ideas And Philosophy Once Enthralled The Western World. No More. What Happened?
Sudhir Hazareesingh suggests that some of the French habits of thought that made its great minds so influential from the Enlightenment through the 1960s contained the seeds of their own decline.
Look, No Tutus! Paris’s Ballerinas Cut Loose At The Opera House
“Dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet leave the stage behind and perform in the public space of the Palais Garnier for 20 Dancers for the 20th Century, conceived by choreographer Boris Charmatz as part of his project Musée de la Danse.” (slide show)
Yogi Berra Wasn’t Dumb, And He Wasn’t Trying To Be Witty – So How Did The World Come To Think Of Him As A Mr. Malaprop?
We can blame sportswriters who weren’t above making up quotes for some of it, and we can blame Berra’s boyhood friend and former colleague, sportscaster Joe Garagiola, for spreading the image nationwide. But Berra – who was, among other things, a real shark at negotiating a contract – really did utter some of those famous lines, and he wasn’t above using them to his own advantage.
09.23.15
Is It Possible To Be A Perfectionist Without Driving Yourself Nuts?
“Because perfectionism, judging by the raft of books and listicles on the subject, is something Americans have generally decided is a negative trait. Much of the research backs this up, even going so far as to suggest that perfectionism can be potentially dangerous, leading to anxiety, depression, and, in extreme cases, possibly suicide.”
Rare 1915 Films Show Rodin, Monet, Renoir, and Degas in Their Twilight Years
“In 1915, with the newly innovated film camera, a young Russian-born, French actor named Sacha Guitry captured some of France’s greatest artists and authors. His footage of Auguste Rodin, Claude Monet, Edgar Dégas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and other luminaries in their twilight years appeared in his first cinematic work, a 22-minute silent film called Ceux de Chez Nous (Those of Our Land).”
Royal Albert Hall Refuses To Accept Result Of Staff’s Union Vote
“A ballot was held earlier this year over whether or not employees should be recognised by BECTU, with 117 of those who took part in favour and 109 against … RAH chief executive Chris Cotton has now written to staff to inform them that the vote did not have ‘the support of the majority of the employees within the hall’.”
Is Hearing Voices Necessarily A Sign Of Illness? Or Could It Sometimes Do Some Good?
“An increasing number of researchers and practitioners have gone from dismissing hallucinated voices as worthless ravings symptomatic of psychosis to listening carefully to what they say. What they have heard has been infinitely varied and surprisingly complex. And the effort to deal with these complexities is leading to entirely new, even inventive forms of treatment.”