Grant Sanderson has a video explainer that shows you how machines are learning to learn. – Aeon
Tag: 07.09.19
Mapping Where The Creative Class Wants To Live
The creative class has seen remarkable growth in the past decade, increasing from 44 million members in 2005 to more than 56 million in 2017, as virtually all large U.S. metros saw growth. The rate of creative class growth (27.2 percent) was more than double the growth rate of overall U.S. workforce (13.6 percent) over this period. – CityLab
The Christian Publishing Industry’s Biggest Scandal: The Boy Who Now Says He Didn’t Come Back From Heaven
In 2004, six-year-old Alex Malarkey’s skull and spine were separated in an automobile accident and he spent months in a coma. Six years later, his father (who was driving at the time) published, with himself and Alex listed as co-authors, The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, an account of the visions of (Christian) heaven Alex had while in the coma and afterward, and it became a major bestseller. Six more years later, Alex (still a quadriplegic) turned 18, said that nothing in the book was true, and sued the publisher. Journalist Ruth Graham talks to Alex, both his parents, and others about the writing and publication of the book and the messy family history behind it. – Slate
Jewish Museums — What Are They For? Whom Should They Serve? And Who Should Or Shouldn’t Be Able To Run One?
“These questions are swirling around the future of the Jewish Museum Berlin, one of the city’s most popular visitor attractions, after the abrupt departure last month of its director, Peter Schäfer. He left after a string of controversies in which critics — including the Israeli government and the main organization representing Jews in Germany — said the institution had gone beyond its mission and become overly political.” – The New York Times
A Push To Create Immersive Virtual Reality Experiences In The Arts
UK digital minister Margot James described the initiative’s vision in an opening event. “Imagine being inside the world of a Shakespeare play, or in a video game as professional players battle it out for millions of dollars, or immersed in a national museum, solving a detective narrative involving dinosaurs and robots with fellow virtual museum-goers.” – Ludwig Van
Christopher Knight Takes Issue With Peter Zumthor’s Comments About How Museums Work
“Presumably you didn’t mean to insult these folks, who represent a core museum constituency. Every art museum serves two publics — an art public and a general public. After the affront, your interview puts a thumb on the scale for the latter.” – Los Angeles Times
Really Good Nature Documentaries ‘Are Great Art, Maybe The Greatest Art Of Our Time’
Sebastian Smee: “I realize the claim sounds odd. After all, they weren’t really intended as high art. They’re television documentaries. They were created primarily to educate and to entertain. And yet a lot of things we now display in our museums and think of as art were never intended as such. African carvings. Russian icons. Minoan ceramics. Egyptian statues. … The best nature documentaries … [are] great in this important sense, too: Like those Impressionist paintings, they are ahead of their time. We are not yet ready to see them from the perspective of the future. But soon we will be.” – The Washington Post
Hollywood Is Betting Big On Remakes. But New Study Suggests Audiences Aren’t Thrilled
The study found that fully 91 percent of remakes drew a less positive audience score than the original. Among critics, the remakes received a lower Metacritic score just slightly less frequently -— 87 percent of the time. – Washington Post
Hungary’s Government Building Huge, Multi-Million-Euro Cultural Complex In Budapest Park
“The so-called Liget project, initiated in 2011, aims to transform Budapest’s city park (Városliget) into a cultural hub, including the new National Gallery, Museum of Ethnography and House of Hungarian Music, alongside the existing thermal baths and an expanded city zoo. The project hit a major milestone in May, as the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán opened one of Europe’s largest museum collections centres on the nearby site of a former hospital.” – The Art Newspaper
Vivian Perlis, Who Founded And Ran Who Founded Yale’s Oral History Of American Music, Dead At 91
“[Her] oral history project includes some 3,000 recordings of interviews with composers and other major musical figures, from Aaron Copland to Elliott Carter, from Duke Ellington to John Adams. The eminent musicologist H. Wiley Hitchcock described it as an ‘incomparable resource.'” – The New York Times