“All stories about the future are actually about the now. However, it’s also true that you generally look ahead of you to see where you’re going and that’s what those kinds of books are like. They’re like blueprints of the possible futures that help us to decide whether that is where we want to go. 1984 was actually about 1948 and looking down the road what might happen should England become like the Soviet Union of the now. So the Handmaid’s Tale was about trends that were already there in the now event, and what might happen if those trends continued on in that way. Would we like that? Is that where we want to live?”
Blog
Silent Movies Return – As GIFs
We are living in the golden age of the silent video. Though we may still pop headphones in to watch a YouTube rant, social media has cultivated its own mute visual culture. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are designed to encourage endless scrolling, and that boosts videos that are made to catch the viewer’s eye without offending her ear with grating bursts of noise.
Robert Fulford: The Secret To Being Glenn Gould
Alberto Guerrero, the Chilean-Canadian who was Glenn’s second and last piano teacher (the first was his mother) said “The secret to teaching Glenn is to let him discover things on his own.” He felt that if Glenn claimed not to have learned anything from Guerrero, “I’d take that as a compliment.”
The Future Of Technology (And Culture) In Amish Country
“For people bound by a separation from much of the outside world, new tech devices have brought fears about the consequence of internet access. There are worries about pornography; about whether social networks will lead sons and daughters to date non-Amish friends; and about connecting to a world of seemingly limitless possibilities.”
The ‘Monkey-Selfie’ Copyright Case Is, At Long Last, Over
Six years after a macaque in Indonesia picked up photographer David Slater’s camera and took photos of herself, three years after the U.S. Copyright Office supposedly settled the matter, and two years after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals claimed standing and filed a lawsuit, PETA and Slater have settled the case. Reporter Sudhin Thanawala explains the terms.
The Knotty, Difficult Conceptual Problem Of Grappling With What Consciousness Is
“Computers are ingenious devices that exploit electronic states to control other devices—screens and loudspeakers—that make images and sounds. There are no images or sounds literally inside your computer, the way there are coins in your pocket. Information does not exist as a physical substance. It is a word we use, a form of shorthand if you like, to describe a process that allows a message to go from sender to receiver. However, in this theory, information, understood as the multiplication and arrangement of bits, at a certain point metamorphoses into conscious experience.”
Why Science-Fiction Writers Couldn’t Imagine The Internet
Indeed, scientists couldn’t really imagine the World Wide Web much before it appeared. As Lawrence Krauss puts it, “the imagination of nature far exceeds that of human imagination. If you had locked a group of theoretical physicists in a room 50 years ago and asked them to predict what we now know about the universe, they would have missed almost all the key discoveries we have made since.”
We’re All Living Inside A Giant Computer (And Our Realities Are Being Changed By It)
“After a while, successful simulated machines displace and overtake the machines they originally imitated. The word processor is no longer just a simulated typewriter or secretary, but a first-order tool for producing written materials of all kinds. Eventually, if they thrive, simulated machines become just machines. Today, computation overall is doing this. There’s not much work and play left that computers don’t handle. And so, the computer is splitting from its origins as a means of symbol manipulation for productive and creative ends, and becoming an activity in its own right. Today, people don’t seek out computers in order to get things done; they do the things that let them use computers.”
How We Staged ‘Merchant Of Venice’ In The Old Venice Ghetto
Director Karin Coonrod writes about the process, from getting set materials to the site by boat and hand-truck to the dilemma of casting Shylock (and her unconventional solution) to reworking the unsatisfying-to-us-in-2017 ending, all in the places where the story would have happened.
Power Of Music: Study Reports That Women Rate Men’s Attractiveness Higher If A Little Brahms Is Playing
“These results generally support the idea that the experience of music may play a role in women’s social behavior in a mating context,” the researchers conclude. “High-arousing (i.e., more complex) music affects the perception of male facial attractiveness and dating desirability.”