Online games are hugely popular around the world. Now China wants to monitor and censor what games its citizens play. “Ministry of Culture officials said all online and wireless games produced outside the country will now be subject to examination first before they can be legally distributed within the country. Foreign producers of online games already in distribution must submit those products to MOC examinations by Sept. 1, or face punishment.”
Tag: 06.05.04
What World Problem Would You Try To Fix With $50 Billion?
What would you do if you could spend $50 billion fixing one of the world’s great problems? “To answer that question, Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician and environmental iconoclast, brought eight economists, including three Nobel Prize winners, to this harbor city last week to rank the world’s 10 worst problems. Forget politics, they were told, just look at how to get the most bang for the buck. After studying all the contenders and running the numbers, the economic “dream team” decided”
Oakland Ballet Running Out Of Time
“The financially troubled Oakland Ballet has given itself another month to raise the $500,000 it needs to keep from going under. And it has laid off two staff members as part of its bare-bones survival plan. In April, the respected company, which has a $250,000 debt, canceled its fall season, didn’t renew the contracts of its 22 dancers and announced it would fold if it couldn’t raise $500,000 by May 31. So far, the ballet has raised $300,000…”
The Crowd Knows
Crowds are more often right than the individual. “The simplest demonstration of this is the jellybean experiment. Ask a group of 50 people how many jellybeans are in a jar, and the group’s average answer will be uncannily accurate — within 2% of the right number — and it will be better than the answers of nearly everyone in the group. And though the jellybean experiment is artificial, the truth is that groups demonstrate the exact same intelligence in the face of far more complicated problems.”
Sexual Politics Of Dance
“It’s remarkable how prevalent is the assumption that dance draws up its skirts in panicked withdrawal from anything resembling real life. In the arena of sexual politics, for instance, there is no art form better equipped to portray the physical dynamics of relationships or to confront the issue of body image. In fact, rewriting the roles of men and women has been one of the major choreographic projects of the past 100 years.”
Museum Rats Out Houdini Trick
An exhibition in a museum in Wisconsin reveals the secret behind one of Harry Houdini’s great magic tricks. Contemporary magicians are not amused…
Next Generation’s Most Exciting Poets
The Arts Council and the Poetry Book Society have named the 20 most exciting young poets in the UK. “More than one-and-a-half million volumes of poetry were sold in Britain last year, yet nine out of every 10 volumes sold are by dead authors.”
Our Next Poets
A list and profiles of the UK’s Next Generation poets.
BritArt Fire Next To Burgled Warehouse
The London warehouse stuffed with BritArt that went up in flames last week wwas next to another storage building that had been burgled just before the fire, say police. “One of the smaller units where the fire actually began appears to have suffered a burglary, but it is yet to be established if the fire was deliberately started.”
Amazon Gets Into The Movie Business
One of the strengths of Amazon.com has been its ability to track customer demand and preferences and meet them. Now Amazon hopes to use some of the information it generates from its site to help create new products. Like movies, perhaps? “Amazon hopes to not just sell movies but also help Hollywood make them by connecting agents, producers and talent using the same sort of data analysis that helps Amazon sell stuff.”