The tech is now so good, it can impersonate voices you know. “The main takeaway is that human brains may not be able to distinguish a speaker’s voice from its morphed version, which means that people would be susceptible to voice impersonation attacks at a fundamental biological level.” – The Daily Beast
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Wawa The Destroyer, Chewing Up Philadelphia Architecture And Spitting Out Identical Boxes
The iconic Philly convenience store/sandwich chain, writes Inga Saffron, “is on a relentless march through central Philadelphia, where it picks off architectural trophies, runs them through the brand’s blanderizing machine, and spits them out as indistinguishable clones.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Be The Better You! Audio Books Are Assaulting Our Leisure Time
They’re the fastest-growing segment of the books industry, a real success for an industry that has struggled to reinvent. Learn while you’re doing something else. That’s what successful people do, right? Maximize their efficiency? But listening isn’t reading, and attention spans being what they are… – The Baffler
In Rome, Tourists And Locals Alike Rebel Against City Government That Can’t Provide Services
“[The Italian capital is] a city in a perennial state of disrepair, from its rubbish-strewn streets, potholes, scrappy parks and medieval buildings marred by graffiti to closed metro stations and buses that either never come or occasionally combust.” Yet taxes are high, and the per-night levy on tourists is the highest in Europe. Now people are demanding that the city government start giving them their money’s worth. – The Guardian
The Culture Of Competitive Masculinity At The Iowa Writers’ Workshop
This “masculinist logic” infected the classroom. Criticism had always been central to the Workshop experience, and it was harsh by design. Engle believed “that young writers overestimated their creative powers, a flaw that only astringent criticism could overcome.” Cisneros put it more simply: “There was no love.” The poet Robert Bly described how “the aggression went against each other,” as students tore apart works in progress. Praise was uneven, and favoritism was everywhere. – The New Republic
Notre-Dame Isn’t Just An Architectural Monument And A Place Of Worship — For Centuries It Was The Intellectual Center Of Paris
“Influential medieval thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Erasmus, John Calvin, several popes and many other intellectual luminaries studied or taught [at the cathedral’s school] in its early centuries. The opportunity to study with famous scholars drew students from across Europe.” Indeed, it was Notre-Dame’s school that grew to become the University of Paris. – The Conversation
When What We Think Will Make Things Better Makes Them Catastrophically Worse
“Our very attempts to stave off disaster by introducing safety systems ultimately increases the overall complexity of the systems, ensuring that some unpredictable outcome will rear its ugly head no matter what. Complicated human-machine systems might surprise us with outcomes more favorable than we have any reason to expect. They also might shock us with catastrophe.” – The Atlantic
From Noh To Manga Musicals, A Survey Of Theatre In Japan
“This special issue … looks at theatre and performance in the Land of the Rising Sun, from its foundational traditions to its most up-to-date innovations, and considers its place within contemporary Japanese culture, among East Asian cultures broadly, and in the global context.” – American Theatre
The Ten Commandments Of Translating The Hebrew Bible (Or Any Scripture, Really)
Robert Alter, who finished a new three-volume translation of the text last year, offers thou-shalts and thou-shalt-nots. For example:
“4. Thou shalt not multiply for thyself synonyms where the Hebrew wisely and pointedly uses repeated terms.” (includes interview podcast) – The American Scholar
Subtitling Movies Is A Serious, Difficult Craft (And Studios And Filmmakers Need To Remember That)
An outcry over the quality of translation in the subtitles of Roma has received a frustrated response from top professional subtitlers. Yes, they say, subtitling is getting worse — because the industry wants it done on the cheap. “A film-maker wouldn’t outsource their colour correction or audio mix and just think: ‘I’ll leave them to it, I’m sure it’ll be fine.’… Subtitles are the conduit allowing you to communicate your film’s ideas around the globe.'” – The Guardian