“Analyzing the works, the AI identified 80,000 individual strokes, and, through the neural network, learned what features in the strokes were specific to which artists. A machine-learning algorithm was also taught to look for these features, such as the differences in line weight, which reflect how hard the artist was pushing. By combining the neural network and the machine-learning algorithm, the study found that AI was able to correctly identify a work’s author 80 percent of the time.”
Blog
Why Are Teachers Still Giving Lectures?
Seth Godin: “I know why we used to do it. We used to do it because a lecture is a thoughtful exposition, a reasoned, researched argument that delivers a lot of information in a fairly condensed period of time. And before technology, the best way to deliver that exposition was to do it live. But now?”
Winners And Losers If Net Neutrality Goes Away
Winners? Big internet providers and marketers. Losers? “You. If you’re a normal person and you want access to the Internet, get ready for all kinds of airline industry-style charges. You’ll either accept a slower connection or pay extra for going over a threshold on your unlimited data plan. In practice, you’re likely to get amazing speed and service for video content you don’t care about and terrible service while trying to use the things you really want. The solution … pay more.”
Study: Singing Musical Theatre Can Help Slow Alzheimer’s
Researchers working with elderly residents at an East Coast care home found in a four-month long study found that people who sang their favorite songs showed a marked improvement compared to those who just listened.
The Dismantling Of The Oregon Bach Festival
It’s sad how easily a great arts organization can fall apart. The Oregon Bach Festival, which had already shrunk in size in 2017 compared to previous years, appears to be getting even smaller in the wake of the firing of its artistic director Matthew Halls.
Actors In London Lead A ‘No Gray Area’ Protest Of Sexual Harassment In The Theatre
The silent protest, an action performed with the support of the National Theatre, was meant to be for solidarity with those who can’t yet speak up and for visibility of the problem. “Those attending were asked to wear black and white clothing and were provided with white ribbons to wear.”
What Might Happen At This Year’s Oscars, As Parts Of Hollywood (And The Government) Seem To Implode?
It seems almost impossible to predict. Yet “one narrative threatens to overwhelm all others — the Movie That Speaks to Our Present Crisis.” (All eyes are on Get Out.)
The Mini-Films Set To Help Canada ‘De-Colonize’
One of the filmmakers (all of them are riffing off a Buffy Sainte-Marie commentary on the hoopla around Canada 150) says, “To me, decolonization has not been about a return to a way of life. No one is saying everybody has to give up their house and live in a longhouse. … It’s about understanding that colonialism has established structures that we all live under.”
Can ‘China’s Tolkien’ Conquer The West?
Hard to say, because the task of translating author Jin Yong’s hugely bestselling Legends of the Condor Heroes defeated many an English translator before a young Scotswoman won through with the first volume in a planned 12-volume series. “Agent Peter Buckman, who sold the rights to the series to the publisher, came across the works almost by chance as he searched the internet for’“bestselling authors’. ‘Jin Yong was in the top 10, though I’d never heard of him; nor did I read Chinese,’ he said.”
Bertha Calloway, Who Founded The Great Plains Black History Museum, Dies At 93
Calloway founded the museum in 1976 as part of the outgrowth both of her activism and of a historical society in Omaha, Nebraska. Her son called her one of the last of the “true icons” of north Omaha. Her museum had been through both good and hard times, but it just reopened in a new facility earlier in the fall.