Ed Milliband: “I come here with an offer: to put policy for arts and culture and creativity at the heart of the next Labour government’s mission. … The arts and culture define our character as a nation … [But] I can’t make promises about what funding’s going to look like in the future.”
Tag: 02.23.15
Beyond The Turing Test: Artificial Intelligence Will Never Be Human Intelligence
“Some insist that ‘hard A.I.’ (with human-level intelligence) can never exist, while others conclude that it is inevitable. But in many cases these debates may be missing the real point of what it means to live and think with forms of synthetic intelligence very different from our own. … A mature A.I. is not necessarily a humanlike intelligence, or one that is at our disposal.”
What Philly Cheesesteak Does To The Brain (The Science Of Appetite)
And then there’s scrapple. The researcher’s name for the appeal of these two Philadelphia delicacies is dynamic contrast. (podcast)
Bruce Sinofsky, 58, Documentary Filmmaker
He is best known for the series of three Paradise Lost films he made with co-director Joe Berlinger about the West Memphis Three, defendants in a controversial Arkansas murder case.
Why Satire Is Important (Especially When It’s Offensive)
“If I try, in the aim of cool-headed analysis, to contain that dismay, I find that my American colleagues’ quasi-rationalization of the assassination of caricaturists is rooted in a failure to distinguish between certain basic varieties of the exercise of the freedom of expression. In particular, there seems to be a broad misunderstanding of the social function, and therefore also the necessity, of satire.”
So London Needs A New Concert Hall For Simon Rattle? Is This The Real Priority?
“Is this more than a vanity project? Is Simon Rattle’s musicianship really worth it? Would such a “world-class hall” be sustainable after his departure? At 63 he would be, even by the gerontocratic standards of classical music, not a young man when his Berlin contract runs out in 2018.”
Big Improvements Ahead For Sydney Opera House?
“The proposed upgrades include a permanent function centre at the Opera House overlooking the harbour and a new waterfront public square at Walsh Bay. About $202 million would be spent on the opera house, which was completed in 1973 and attracts 8 million tourists a year.”
René Magritte Was A Comedian
“A good comic can take something mundane and familiar and make you see it an unexpected way, whether it’s Dave Chappelle talking about ‘grape drink’, or Louis CK ranting about his four-year-old daughter. Magritte will do the same by sticking a silk mask on an apple. Or having a cloud enter a room by a door.”
Suzan-Lori Parks Wins $100K Playwriting Prize
“The critically acclaimed epic play Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3) by Suzan-Lori Parks has won the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for a theatrical work inspired by American history … A check for $100,000 will also go to Ms. Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner for the drama Topdog/Underdog.”
Rothschild Family Treasures Find A Resting Place In Boston
“The gift all but closes the book on a collection that was started in the mid-1800s by Baron Nathaniel von Rothschild and his brother, Albert, and became entwined with 20th-century history.”