“Despite a heady term that calls to mind algebraic equations requiring chalkboard walls that lift up to reveal entire second sets of chalkboard walls, game theory’s a relatively easy concept: It’s using math, rather than your intuition, to make decisions. It’s Moneyball, not just peering from a distance and saying, ‘Looks like an athlete to me.'”
Tag: 05.12.15
Suck It Up: Nicholson Baker Writes About His Lifetime Of Vacuum Cleaners
“There are many pleasures to vacuum cleaning, and then sometimes there’s rug rage.”
Catherine Deneuve: Social Media Is Destroying Hollywood’s Ability To Make Stars
The invasive and non-stop nature of online social networks puts too much exposure on stars, while at the same time turning regular people into instant celebrities, Deneuve said. “To be a star, that requires glamour and secrecy,” she said, speaking in French.
How A Producer Made Canadian History Videos Cool Again
“Nearly 25 years since they were first broadcast across Canada, Heritage Minutes have got their swagger back. Their original target audience – young, impressionable Canadians – is now a huge, digitally savvy slice of the country’s makeup, and there’s little they crave more than nostalgia and parody.”
Smart Machines Are Now Teaching Us How To Look At Art In Deeper Ways
“One application of the new algorithms is to pick out paintings with similar characteristics (see images). That provides a new and powerful tool for historians to look for influences between artists that may never have been aware of. It also allows a new form of art exploration, jumping from one image to another similar one, in a process that is visually equivalent to finding synonyms.”
Three Women And A Housing Project Are Finalists For 2015 Turner Prize
The housing project, a Liverpool complex revamped by the young architecture collective called Assemble, is joined on the shortlist by a study room, a chamber opera, and fur coats sewn onto Marcel Breuer chairs.
Picasso’s Stepdaughter Has Paris Dealer Arrested For Trying To Steal Her Picassos
“Catherine Hutin-Blay, the only daughter of Picasso’s second wife Jacqueline, … believes that some of the works the art dealer was hired to transport have gone missing. Prosecutors would not say which works were involved nor give their estimated value.”
Soprano Montserrat Caballé Fails To Attend Court For Tax Evasion Sentence
Always notorious for cancelling, the diva missed a hearing to ratify the plea deal that would allow her to avoid jail time for defrauding the Spanish government of €500,000 in taxes owed. Her attorney, fed up, dropped her as a client over the weekend. (in English)
Defendant Loses First Round Of Lawsuits Over Collapse Of Broadway ‘Rebecca’
“That publicist, Marc Thibodeau, who had been hired to help bring to Broadway the gothic musical based on the Daphne du Maurier novel, had sent foreboding emails under phony names to a potential investor and his lawyers, warning that the show’s producers had been tricked by a fraud scheme.”
A Brief History Of AOL (Now That Verizon’s About To Swallow It Whole)
A suggested reading list of journalism, ranging from the early days (1996), through the late ’90s “chat wars,” the failed experiment with Patch, and the disastrous merger with Time-Warner.