The Musician Class Is Being Wiped Out

“Roughly 90% of our members are affected,” said Horace Trubridge, general secretary of the Musicians’ Union. “This will force musicians out of the profession. Our members also do a lot of event work – weddings and conferences – that has also fallen off a cliff, coupled with the fact that most of our members subsidise their income from live performance by teaching and studio recording work which of course they can’t do now either.” The idea that universal credit is going to keep these people’s heads above water is a nonsense. – The Guardian

This Book Fair Isn’t Being Cancelled, It’s Making Itself Virtual

“Book festival Wordplay, originally slated to take place in Minneapolis in May, will now happen virtually in April and May in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. All of the original 100+ participants, including Alison Roman, Michael Ian Black, Charles Yu and Scott Pelley, are still slated to take part in the festival.” Steph Opitz, Wordplay’s founding director, tells a reporter how it’s coming together. – Forbes

Buffering … — Why Video Teleconferencing Is Still A Pain In The Wherever

“[Online conference calls] come with problems — technical, cultural, and practical. And a lot of the challenges we have with [them] come down to the many small quirks of the internet. … Despite four decades of evolving technology, video conferencing is a sort of low-level magic that still konks out half the time. Here’s why.” – Tedium

Is This Chatbot My New Best Friend?

To give users a personalised experience, the deep learning bot gathers information about conversation partners by asking them questions, adapts to their conversational style and, over time, attempts to mimic them. Beyond companionship, Replika’s creators believe that the technology could eventually serve as a conversational stand-in for deceased loves ones. – Aeon

Maybe Figuring Out How To Get Your Work To An Audience Is Part Of The Creative Challenge

Playwright Nick Green created the Social Distancing Festival website to host rehearsal videos, designs, photos, excerpts and other pieces of work that have been cancelled or postponed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. He put out a call for submissions on Saturday, March 14. By the next day he had 23,000 page views and, as of Thursday, 270,000 unique visitors. – Toronto Star