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This Summer’s Movie Box Office Is Dramatically Down. But There’s Good News?

Movie ticket sales in North America are running roughly half a billion dollars behind last summer’s box office, making this one of lowest-grossing summers in years. The 12.4 per cent downturn comes at a critical juncture for Hollywood, with constantly swirling fears about the impact of streaming, television and the bazillion other entertainment options out there.

Theatre Wants To Let Non-Theatre-Attenders Help Determine Its Programming

“Called the Visionari scheme, the initiative is looking for 20 people who are “regular, irregular and importantly non-theatre attenders”. The advisory group will spend a year learning about the theatre through workshops led by the venue’s staff. After the initial year the group will begin to guide, challenge and inform programming decisions at the theatre.”

The Glossaries That Define Africa

“When African writers get together on our own, we talk about glossaries. These additions to the main text, often vetted, if not entirely decided, by publishers, are crucial to how it will be received by readers. But when African writers talk about glossaries, we don’t just exchange tips. (How long? How comprehensive? By whom?) We talk about whether to include one at all, whether to offer glosses within the text or omit all glossing entirely. To gloss, or not to gloss? That is the question.”

Intergalactic Culture: Here’s How Voyager’s Golden Record Was Made

Etched in copper, plated with gold, and sealed in aluminum cases, the records are expected to remain intelligible for more than a billion years, making them the longest-lasting objects ever crafted by human hands. We don’t know enough about extraterrestrial life, if it even exists, to state with any confidence whether the records will ever be found. They were a gift, proffered without hope of return.

Our Universities Have Lost Their Way And Are Facing Crisis. Let’s Get Back To Basics – Like Teaching

Universities have been growing for a decade, but most of the resources fuelling that growth have gone into expanding university administration, not faculty. One US study found that between 1975 and 2008, the number of faculty had grown about 10% while the number of administrators had grown 221%. In the UK, two thirds of universities now have more administrators than they do faculty staff. One higher education policy expert has predicted the birth of the “all-administrative university”.

How Big Tech Took Over Our Culture And Subverted Democracy

Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple—Europeans refer to the group simply as gafa—didn’t eliminate the gatekeepers; they took their place. Instead of becoming more egalitarian, the country has become less so: the gap between America’s rich and poor grows ever wider. Meanwhile, politically, the nation has lurched to the right. In Franklin Foer’s telling, it would be a lot easier to fix an election these days than it was in 1876, and a lot harder for anyone to know about it. All the Big Tech firms would have to do is tinker with some algorithms. They have become, Foer writes, “the most imposing gatekeepers in human history.”

Ugly Incident At Teen Event At Atlanta’s High Museum Stirs Charges Of Racism

“Driven by a climate of mistrust and doubt, many questioned the sincerity of the letter written by Rand Suffolk, Nancy & Holcombe T. Green, Jr., Director of the High Museum. How could this happen at the High? Why were the police called on this young man? Surely there was no need for the violence, and would this signal the end of the popular Teen Night events?”