“At the petabyte scale, information is not a matter of simple three- and four-dimensional taxonomy and order but of dimensionally agnostic statistics. It calls for an entirely different approach, one that requires us to lose the tether of data as something that can be visualized in its totality. It forces us to view data mathematically first and establish a context for it later.”
Tag: 06.23.08
How “Reality” TV Is Changing Documentaries
“In filming a sequel to a 2000 series about Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, ABC News producers found that reality television had changed how they could present reality on television.”
Publishers Expect More From Their Star Writers
“In an age when reading for pleasure is declining, book publishers increasingly are counting on their biggest moneymaking writers to crank out books at a rate of at least one a year, right on schedule, and sometimes faster than that.”
Web Video Finding Audiences. But Where’re The Audiences?
“It’s easier and cheaper than ever for individuals to produce their own work and put it up for global audiences – on sites like YouTube, Revver, Veoh and My Damn Channel – but it’s almost impossible to make a living outside of the established TV and film industry. While media analysts agree that the future of television will be online – the number of viewers who access video via the Web is expected to nearly quadruple by 2013 to at least 1 billion, according to a new study from ABI Research – no one knows what form Internet TV will take or how it will make money.”
Twyla Tharp – It’s A Guy Thing
“It is perhaps a disappointment, politically, that America’s foremost female choreographer has such an obsession with manliness, and with telling us that men can perform ballet without becoming homosexuals. But Tharp has a point: the movement style associated, in this country, with standard-issue virility–the way men get around on those big, shambly legs of theirs–is beautiful, and is rarely featured in ballet.”
Greek Government Embarrassed Over State Of Cultural Sites
“Extra staff have been dispatched to guard the great cultural gems of Greece as the government in Athens tries to deflect growing criticism of its handling of national treasures.”
For Certain Movies? Critics Not Welcome!
“Distributors and publicists are now increasingly trying to stop newspaper reviewers from seeing certain movies before the public does. These embargoes prevent daily critics (whose pieces traditionally appear on Thursday or Friday mornings) from noticing the films at all and force weekend writers to rush to multiplexes at lunchtime before their usual Friday night deadlines.”
America’s 40 Greatest Paintings. And Britain’s?
“As a result of John Updike’s efforts, every school there will shortly receive 20 double-sided posters. On each side will be a reproduction of an artwork. Taken together, these 40 images are intended to trace the history of painting in the US. The campaign has not been without controversy. It strikes me that Updike’s central idea – providing 40 reproductions of paintings, free, to the nation’s schools – is needed urgently in Britain.”
Islamic Scholar Voted World’s Top Thinker
“A hitherto largely unknown Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gülen, has been voted the world’s top intellectual in a poll to find the leading 100 thinkers. Gülen, the author of more than 60 books, won a landslide triumph after the survey – which is organised by the British magazine, Prospect, and Foreign Policy, a US publication – attracted more than 500,000 votes.”
Britain’s Tallest Sculpture
“Aspire, a landmark for the university, will be three times taller than The Angel of the North and more than eight metres higher than Nelson’s Column. At 33 metres, the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, would have paled against it.”