The Wizard of Oz‘s Glinda the Good Witch of the North was the first sorceress figure not to wear black, cackle, have a cartoonishly ugly face, or do evil — and so became the grandmother of Samantha Stevens (Bewitched), Sabrina, and Hermione Granger. Writer Pam Grossman makes the case that Glinda was much more than a “silly pain in the neck” (as Salman Rushdie had it) — and locates Glinda’s likely origin in L. Frank Baum’s mother-in-law. – The Atlantic
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We Need A Plan To Survive Artificial Intelligence
“The more time we have to prepare before superintelligent AI is achieved, the more likely we’ll survive what follows. But you’ll get total disagreement from scientists on how soon this might happen, and even whether it will happen at all.” – LitHub
Why Household Appliances Are Now Getting Their Own Little Melodies
“No longer do household machines merely bing or plink or blamp, as they might have in a previous era when such alerts simply indicated that the clothes were dry or the coffee was brewed. … You may be skeptical that an electronic jingle, however holistic, can make doing the dishes a life-affirming endeavor — or even one that might bind you, emotionally, to your dishwasher. But companies are betting otherwise, and not entirely without reason.” – The Atlantic
In The Public Glare, Museums Think About Who Gets To Give Them Money
“In the case of working with particular individuals, it’s clear there is a line. We would not accept donations from high-level visible criminals, or organisations that are egregious and violate our own values or mission,” he says. “At the same time, we are fundamentally supported by and we operate on the basis of philanthropy. That’s the American model.” – The Art Newspaper
Creating Comic Books For The Blind
“Working in a highly visual art form, [Chad] Allen managed to create an auditory experience that closely mimics the sensation of reading a comic book. A whooshing sound occurs whenever a panel changes; the intentionally stilted delivery of lines, as well as narration that prompts mental images, conjure a feeling of being inside a high-stakes comic book world.” – Los Angeles Times
How Wealthy Collectors Now Collect Museums
“At the highest levels of art collecting, board memberships and other institutional affiliations are table stakes: it can be almost impossible to collect the most coveted art without them. In other words, increasingly we live not in a world where museums collect collectors, but rather in a world where collectors collect museums.” – The Art Newspaper
Using Science Fiction To Teach Computer Science Students Ethics
“There’s a long, tangled debate over how to teach engineers ethics — and whether it’s even worth doing. … But Team Ethics is making a comeback. With the morality of Big Tech again called into question, schools like MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Stanford have launched new ethics courses with fanfare” — and with the quandaries posited in many science fiction narratives making them very useful texts. – Wired
New York’s Public Theater Tries Doing Without That Long, Long Ticket Line In Central Park
For years, standing and sitting in that hours-long queue for free Shakespeare in the Park tickets has been almost as much a part of the experience as the performance itself. But not everyone is able to take a day off work and sit out in the elements. So, for its last Central Park production of the season, the Public is making its tickets available only by lottery. – The New York Times
Composers Putting Listeners In Headphones: Innovation? Or Control-Freakiness? (Or Both?)
Headphones can enable an intimate listening experience even in a busy venue such as a train station. They can make up for the acoustic inadequacies of a room (or the outdoors), so that there’s no bad seat in the house. And “live processing sound allows composers and sound designers control over everything from volume and blend to reverberation and saturation.” – San Francisco Classical Voice
Moving Toward Fair Pay For Dancers
“The dance field isn’t immune to the ‘gig economy’ that’s disrupting everything from buying groceries to getting a ride to the airport. … So it’s no surprise that artists feel anxious about making ends meet. But this can also be an opportunity to discard old ways of doing business.” Zachary Whittenburg looks at “three movements towards fair pay in dance [that] have gained the most traction.” – Dance Magazine