“To some cynical journalists or techno-skeptics, this maneuvering might seem like Facebook just being Facebook—that the Cambridge scandal is merely the latest in a litany of privacy intrusions; that Facebook’s de facto response is, as Dance noted, disingenuous. But this scandal really is different, and everyone in Silicon Valley knows it. Since the story broke a significant investor and entrepreneur, who has worked in tech for over two decades, recalled to me that the incident reminded him of what happened to Microsoft in the 1990s, when years of pugilistic corporate behavior caught up to the company in the form of significant antitrust regulation.”
Blog
The Arts’ ‘Spillover Effect’
“If we could fully understand the impact of arts and culture on wider society, would this change arts strategies and policies? Jonathan Vickery charts the progression of thinking on the ‘spillover’ effect.”
University Drops Humanities Courses For Those With “Career Pathways”
The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point has proposed dropping 13 majors in the humanities and social sciences — including English, philosophy, history, sociology and Spanish — while adding programs with “clear career pathways” as a way to address declining enrollment and a multimillion-dollar deficit.
Why Don’t American Playwrights Today Ever Write About Labor Unions?
“Why are unions off-limits? For the same reason corporate boardrooms and the 1% who haunt them are usually left out of the dramatic picture. A fear of looking at the ‘invisible’ levers of power in the real world, a reluctance to invite charges of being didactic, and anxiety about alienating audience members and the moneyed classes (bankers, corporate leaders, lawyers, etc) who fund or support performance events.” Bill Marx focuses on the issue – and on one new play that deals with it (partly).
Research: Successful Bands Do Better With Married Members
It looks like we owe Yoko an apology. New research finds rock bands have more critical and commercial success if they contain a mix of married and single musicians.
Pineal Psychedelics: Does The Human Brain Produce Its Own Hallucinogens?
“A potent, short-lasting compound that has been found throughout the plant kingdom” – notably, in ayahuasca – “DMT can induce the sensation of leaving the body, producing profound changes in sensory perception, mood and thought, when it is administered externally – for instance, when it’s smoked or injected. Those under the influence sometimes compare the episode to the near-death experience, complete with perceived sentient beings who transmit information, often in the form of visual language.” Anthropologist Graham St. John looks at the history of DMT research and the debate over whether or not humans’ pineal glands can produce it themselves (and what it would mean if they did).
‘In Our Nightly Dreams – Our Dark, Beautiful, Horrifying Dreams – We Are All David Lynch’: A Homage By Michael Chabon
“‘To see what is in front of one’s nose,’ George Orwell said, ‘needs a constant struggle.’ … What about the hidden truths, the buried drives and desires? The things that lie beyond distant doorways, behind the curtains of dreams, deep in the sea-bottoms of memory? Who’s going to see all that while you’re busy looking just past the Orwellian tip of your nose? Over the past half century, no one has taken a harder, clearer look behind those doors, beyond those curtains, and into those deep oceans than David Lynch.”
We Know Video Games Don’t Cause Real-Life Violence, But Do We Know Why That Is? Here’s A Researcher Who Does
In the wake of the last Florida school shooting, and as a lead-up to this weekend’s March for Our Lives, here’s a conversation with Villanova University research psychologist Patrick Markey, co-author of Mortal Kombat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong.
Conductor Irwin Hoffman, Founder Of Florida Orchestra, Dead At 93
After debuting at age 19 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and later conducting under three different titles (including acting music director for one season) at the Chicago Symphony, he became the first music director of what was then called the Florida Gulf Coast Symphony (formed from the merger of ensembles in Tampa and St. Petersburg). He then molded it – sometimes with harsh criticism of musicians – into an accomplished professional orchestra.
An Oratorio About DACA And The Dreamers (Now There’s Relevant Classical Music For You)
Dreamer, with music by Jimmy López (the opera Bel Canto and text by Nilo Cruz (a Pulitzer winner for the play Anna in the Tropics), was commissioned two years ago by Cal Performances in Berkeley. In those two years, of course, quite a lot about the situation of the Dreamers has changed, and, as reporter Michael Cooper found out, that changed the piece itself.