“That radical critique of technology in America has come to a halt is in no way surprising: it could only be as strong as the emancipatory political vision to which it is attached. No vision, no critique. Lacking any idea of how sensors, algorithms, and databanks could be deployed to serve a non-neoliberal agenda, radical technology critics face an unenviable choice.”
Tag: 03.15
Oh, Just Get Over It! (Or Turn It Into Art)
We live in an injury culture. I don’t mean to sound cynical, I’m just being practical. Besides, wallowing is one of life’s great unacknowledged pleasures.
The Two Competing Projects To Revive New York City Opera
Brian Kellow looks at the contents – and backgrounds – of the plans submitted to the bankruptcy court for the purchase of City Opera’s name and assets and the hoped-for rebirth of the company.
Why Hollywood Is In Love With Data
“Newly emerging tools are empowering big studios to convert massive quantities of movie-goer reactions into meaningful, actionable insights into what works and what doesn’t. With big data analytics, movie executives are keeping one ear to the audience and the other to the craft in a way that is dramatically altering how movies get made, marketed and distributed.”
Neuroscientists Wonder: Can Our Brains Retain A Child’s Capacity To Learn?
“The possibility of reawakening our youthful, receptive brains has piqued a lot of interest among educators, therapists, and those in search of expanded experience or thought. I might be able to immerse myself in music lessons and absorb them more effectively. Others might disable the plasticity brakes before a trip abroad, quickly learning a new language.”
The Great Pianist Who Keeled Over Dead Performing In Carnegie Hall
“In the 1950s world of classical music, Simon Barere was mentioned in the same breath as other superpianists of the era – Georgy Cziffra, Ignatz Friedman, Vladimir Horowitz and Josef Lhevinne. But his most ardent admirers say he was actually in a class by himself. Barere had given frequent solo recitals, sometimes twice a year, at Carnegie Hall to packed houses, with such musical giants as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Leopold Godowsky and Vladimir Horowitz often in the attendance.”
Here’s A Provocative Essay About Reasons For Decline Of Classical Music
“To gain a proper and complete understanding of what we call “classical” music is to appreciate that it was all written within the context of societies which were predominantly Christian in nature, and where celebrations of traditional national attributes were not seen as old-fashioned or backward-looking as they often are today.”
The Immortality Of The Written Word (Yeah, All That Is Changing…)
“In making the transition from an age of scarcity to an age of glut, the nature of fame itself undergoes a change. One sign of the difference is that it would be hard to find a poet, in the 21st century, who openly claims to write for glory, fame, or immortality. Yet the idea that great poetry was the surest way to achieve fame and outwit death has been very long-lived.”
Are Humans Smarter Than They Were 100 Years Ago? Here’s The Evidence
“Our improved ability to reason abstractly may also be the result of the spread of scientific thinking-reason, rationality, empiricism, skepticism. Thinking like a scientist means employing all our faculties to overcome our emotional, subjective, and instinctual brains to better understand the true nature of not only the physical and biological worlds, but the social world (politics and economics) and the moral world (abstracting how other people should be treated) as well.”