Category: words

“The AI algorithm, developed by Chinese retail giant Alibaba, outscored humans in the Stanford Question Answering Dataset—a global reading test consisting of more than 100,000 questions. Using natural-language processing, the machine-learning model developed by Alibaba’s Institute of Data Science of Technologies beat rival humans with a score of 82.44 versus 82.305, the company said.”

“It was a debate that many journalists likely never expected to face.” The problem isn’t just with the unaccustomed vulgarity: while the original term’s individual components are easy to translate, the combination is not. Samantha Schmidt looks at some of the attempts international news outlets made.

“Reflecting on the aftermath of war over three generations, 29-year-old Vuong’s first collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, has already landed the Forward prize for best first collection, as well as the Whiting and the Thom Gunn awards.”

“The truth is that, in writing, as in any profession, merit is only tangentially related to success, if at all. I’m not a hugely well-known writer, so I’m not the sort of person who generally gets asked for writing advice by eager young up-and-comers. But as a mid-level freelance content generator, with some decent bylines but no real chance at reaching that Times column in the sky, I do have some thoughts about how you (yes you!) can become a successful writer.”

“The last person who spoke fluent Quinault passed away in 1996. By using recordings of those who spoke the language in the 1960s, a handful of people in the Olympic Peninsula tribe are slowly and painstakingly piecing it back together — and teaching it to a new generation. Last year, Alyssa Johnston was the first person in recent memory to earn a world-language credit at the University of Washington by showing she had achieved “intermediate low-level proficiency” in that language.”

TV, movies, books, stories … and balls with people in pink rabbit costumes. “Fans of Sherlock Holmes — Irregulars and other smaller Holmesian societies from across the country — have been convening in Manhattan every January to celebrate his presumed birthday: Jan. 6, 1854. They host lectures, cocktail parties, brunches, lunches, dinners, costume galas and presentations of scholarly papers.”

The governor tweeted that it was canceled – for the time being. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on Twitter: “I am directing the Dept. of Corrections to rescind its flawed pilot program that restricted shipment of books & care packages to inmates. … Concerns from families need to be addressed, while we redouble efforts to fight prison contraband.”

More than 250 Irish poets and other writers have already signed a pledge not to participate in any anthologies, conferences, or festivals where women writers aren’t represented in fair quantities. What was the tipping point? “The pledge was conceived after the publication of the Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets in 2017. Covering Irish poetry from the 17th century to the present, it features essays on four women poets and 26 men, with just four female contributors.”

Randall Hansen is a historian who lives in Canada and who wrote The Fire and the Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany, 1942-1945 in 2009. People had been buying it here and there over the years; after all, it’s not as if WWII goes out of style. Then he checked after Michael Wolff’s book about the president of the United States came out. “And saw that I had moved from very, very low sales onto three best-seller lists,” Hansen says.