Traditionally, linguists have tried to decipher ancient languages by matching vocabulary. But “findings published in the journal Science indicate that a linguistic technique that borrows some features from evolutionary biology tools can unlock secrets of languages more than 10,000 years old.”
Blog
When Technology Outstrips Human Intelligence (It’s Coming)
Ray Kurzweil believs that “today’s human beings, mere quintessences of dust, will be as outmoded as Homo Erectus. All this, Kurzweil believes, will come about through something called The Singularity.” What is the Singularity? “It refers to the future point at which technological change, propelled by the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, will accelerate past the point of current human comprehension. In Vinge’s prevision, once artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence there will be no turning back, as ever more intelligent computers create ever more superintelligent offspring.”
How Podcasting Can Help Radio
Podcasting is catching on in a big way with radio producers. “It is a phenomenon that could have been a big threat to conventional radio’s business because suddenly they were not the only ones making and distributing programmes. Instead, it is being seen as a big opportunity, for both “professionals” and “amateurs”, according to both the BBC and Virgin Radio.”
The Language Of Global Warming (Where Is It?)
“Where is the literature of climate change? Where is the creative response to what Sir David King, the government’s chief scientific adviser, has famously described as “the most severe problem faced by the world”? Cultural absences are always more difficult to document than cultural outpourings. But the deficiency of a creative response to climate change is increasingly visible. It becomes unignorable if we contrast it with the abundance of literature produced in response to the other great eschatological crisis of the past half-century – the nuclear threat.”
A Call To Replace Italy’s Outdoor Art With Replicas
Some of Italy’s most famous public artworks have been vandalized, and experts are calling for originals to be removed and copies put in their places. “It may sound extreme to suggest that cities such as Florence and Rome could be stripped bare in the future, their historic statues and monuments moved indoors and copies put in their place, but calls are growing for a debate on whether many of the most vulnerable works of art should be removed from public locations for their own safety.”
Professor Objects To Mandela Statue In Trafalgar Square
Professor Glynn Williams, the head of the school of fine art at the Royal College of Art is objecting to plans for a statue of Nelson Mandela to be erected in Trafalgar Square outside the National Gallery. “My main objection to the proposed sculpture is the quality of the work on offer. I believe this to be a run-of-the mill mediocre modelling in an attempt to get a mimetic likeness. The sculpture proposed by Ian Walters is an adequate portrait but nothing more. In my opinion a sculptor of more originality and inventiveness should have been chosen, so a lasting piece of artistic heritage will be left.”
Racial Divide, Some Illumination?
Today’s UK is increasingly becoming racially divided. It’s important to take on political issues like this in art. But how to bring some clarity?
Tate Cancels Display For Fear Of Offending Muslims
Tate Britain has canceled display of John Latham’s God Is Great because the museum says it is afraid of “offending some Muslims after the London terrorist bombings.” The Tate says “that it had to take the ‘difficult decision’ to avoid its motives being misunderstood given the attacks, which killed 52 people in July, and the present political climate. However, it admitted it had not consulted the Metropolitan Police or the Muslim Council of Britain. Latham, 84, who insists that the piece is not anti-Islamic, says: ‘Tate Britain have shown cowardice over this. I think it’s a daft thing to do because if they want to help the militants, this is the way to do it.”
Peter Hall: What Shakespeare Intended
“We cannot be sure of Shakespeare’s intentions. Indeed, some would say we can’t be sure of anything about Shakespeare. Who was he? Did he really write the plays? We are living through a time when a barrage of nonsense is making the rounds about Shakespeare’s supposed or hidden identity. Shakespeare, whose genius uncovers every aspect of the human condition, has been identified as a dry essayist moonlighting as a playwright, or as one or another of a couple of extraordinarily privileged aristocrats, who, for some reason (which varies according to their proponents), could never reveal their involvement in such a lower-class pastime as the theatre. It is true that we don’t know very much detail about Shakespeare’s life, or his theatre, and therefore what he expressed as his intentions.” But, it turns out, there is quite a lot we do know…
Enough With The Shakespeare Already!
Why the ongoing obsession with Shakespeare? His presence runs through every new theatre season. “Is it audiences that clamour for such well-worn tales or the powers that be? Are Mr Darcy, Anne Boleyn and Macbeth so much more interesting than what’s going on today? In this turbulent time of war and money, of natural disasters and manmade destruction, are our contemporary stories so dull, so unfabulous, so irrelevant?”