The metal band Mötley Crüe has filed a lawsuit against NBC claiming the network “violated the group’s free-speech rights and weakened its sales by banning it after Vince Neil, the lead singer, used an expletive on the air in a Dec. 31 appearance on The Tonight Show.”
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How Computers Got Their Soul
According to a new book, scientists might have built the computer, but “longhairs liberated computers from I.B.M. and the military industrial complex and profoundly shaped the technology that is ubiquitous today. Formerly sequestered behind forbidding glass walls, computers went on to become accessible, usable and friendly. The industry had its consciousness raised – became a vehicle of togetherness.”
Upload Your Brain To A Supercomputer? (Scientist Says It’ll Happen)
‘If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it’s not a major career problem. If you’re rich enough then by 2050 it’s feasible. If you’re poor you’ll probably have to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it’s routine. We are very serious about it. That’s how fast this technology is moving: 45 years is a hell of a long time in IT.'”
Group Ends Disney Boycott
The fringe American Family Association has ended a nine-year boycott of Disney, saying the AFA’s point had been made. “The organization objected to movies like 1995’s Kids being made by Disney through its Miramax subsidiary, as well as the company’s decision to grant benefits to the common-law spouses of homosexual employees. It also wanted to put an end to gay-themed events at Disney’s parks.”
American Textile Museum To Sell Its Home, Reduce Hours
The American Textile History Museum in Lowell Mass. is reducing hours and selling its building. “The museum, which draws about 50,000 visitors a year and has an annual budget of $2.2 million, originally opened as the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum in North Andover in 1960. It spent about $8 million to renovate a former manufacturing building in Lowell and, after being renamed, opened in the 160,000-square-foot space on Dutton Street. But it didn’t raise enough for the move to offset the increased costs. That has forced the museum to draw regularly from its endowment, which has plummeted from $7 million in 1999 to its current $2.8 million.”
Canada’s South African Connection
Traditionally, Canadian partners in movie production have come from the US, France and Britain. But recently, a more active partner has moved onto the scene: South Africa, “described by the folks who shoot there as a cinematographer’s dream because of its varied topography, fabulous light and eternal summer.”
A New Tone For The Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale’s new director has big changes planned in an attempt to bring some order to the event. “Bringing a touch of rigorous business thinking to proceedings, he has announced a programme for the next three years, starting with next month’s edition of the festival, which he hopes will present “a clearer picture of where we are, and how we got there” to the world. This year’s 51st Biennale, directed by two Spanish curators, María de Corral and Rosa Martínez, (the first co-curatorship, and the first women to do the job), is already much slimmed down in terms of artists involved: just 91 contenders will bring their work to the city.”
Umberto Eco At 73
“He is one of the fathers of postmodern literary criticism – the general gist of his approach being that it doesn’t matter what an author intends to say, readers are entitled to interpret works of literature in any way they choose. He was also a pioneer of semiotics, the study of culture as a web of signs and messages to be decoded for hidden meaning. Doesn’t it drive him mad, always seeing meaning where others just see things? “
Whitney Expansion Plan Approved
New York’s Landmarks Commission has approved a modified expansion plan for the Whitney Museum. “The vote, which was unanimous, was a mixed victory of sorts for the architect, Renzo Piano. After heated arguments from preservationists in previous hearings, he submitted an alternative plan halving the size of a proposed new entrance for the museum so he could spare the brownstone and win the commission’s approval.”
Paul Ricoeur, 92
Paul Ricoeur, the great French humanist philosopher, died last Friday at the age of 92. But “it is Tuesday already, and nobody in the American media has insulted Ricoeur yet. What’s going on? Have our pundits lost their commitment to mocking European intellectuals and the pointy-headed professors who read them?”