“After commissioning several technical surveys, the trust has posted a feasibility study by structural engineering firm Robert Silman Associates that assesses three possible solutions to the ever-worsening threat of floods: permanently elevating the house by putting a nine-foot hill underneath it, relocating it to higher ground on the site, or building the aforementioned hydraulic lift, which would use a set of four steel trusses to raise the house by nine feet when needed.”
Tag: 06.11.14
London’s National Gallery Reconfigures To Show Less Art
“Contrary to the widespread belief that it is among the few very large museums anywhere in the world that shows nearly all its collection, in fact nearly half of its works are off view.”
Turing Test For Intelligence Of Machines Needs A Serious Update
“Alan Turing’s vision, while resonant, has proved ill-suited to the online world. With even crude spambots fooling humans every day, his test now seems more to do with human gullibility than machine smarts.”
Why Does Classical Music Advertising Suck?
“So why is the opera audience proving so stubbornly socially stagnant? I’d point at least one finger in the direction of an unlikely villain that has never really been properly dragged into the elitism debate: the total ineffectualness and inappropriateness of large-scale classical music advertising.”
Conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, 80
The beloved maestro, who said just last year, “I will continue until I drop. If I die on stage, so much the better,” had announced only last week that he was ill with cancer and was retiring.
Music Industry: Rights/Royalties Rules Need Change (But How?)
“In the music industry, an overhaul of the copyright laws is seen as needed to keep up with the rapid pace of technological change in the marketplace, with streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and YouTube taking the place of CD sales and even downloads.”
Seattle Symphony’s ‘Baby Got Back’ Video – Enterprising Viral Hit Or Cheap And Tawdry Gimmick?
That’s the (predictable) debate that has arisen since a video of the orchestra’s performance with Sir Mix-a-Lot and a few dozen boogie-ing women started racking up the YouTube views. But that clip came from an actual concert of contemporary classical music, including a premiere by one Gabriel Prokofiev.
Composer Elodie Lauten, 63
“[Her] style, which incorporated elements of minimalism, pop, jazz, blues, classical composition, electronic music and improvisation and often combined traditional orchestral instruments with ambient sounds like bird song, sirens and amplified heartbeats – defied handy categorization. While not every critic warmed to that style, many praised her as a skilled melodist who could write music of surprising, satisfying consonance in a dissonant age.”