Data Can Increasingly Predict Success Of Creative Work

“Not that long ago such a pursuit would have been considered utter folly and best left to soothsayers and astrologers. Thanks to the sheer scale and quality of data that’s now becoming available, and to the development of better algorithms through events such as this, it is now not only quite feasible but rapidly becoming a way of doing business in many industries.”

No, Not Everyone In London Is Happy With The Olympics, Says Writer Iain Sinclair

“When you’re close, it actually becomes an invaded city. We have armed helicopter gunships flying overhead to shoot down any planes that come within. And where are they going to crash? We’ve got surface-to-air missiles put on top of occupied blocks of flats. We’ve got more troops in place now than have been used in the whole of the Afghan campaign.”

Another Classical Music Store Bites The Dust (Wait, There Still Was One Somewhere?)

“What! No more wandering up and down those creaky-floorboard aisles tucked below the high-octane din of Music Millennium’s bigger, brassier boom of sound next door? Entering Classical Millennium was – is – like tumbling into a particularly inviting rabbit hole, with rarefied attractions so exotic and alluring that you might not reemerge for hours. And when eventually you do, you’re likely to be ever so slightly, and fortuitously, changed.” But not after September, when the Portland, Ore., institution folds into its parent company.

Walter Pichler, 75, Austrian Architect And Artist Who Walked Away From Fame

“Pichler was a sculptor and illustrator whose works included a white, torpedo-shaped helmet with a television inside it (Portable Living Room), a rusty bed frame supporting a humanoid form divided by sheets of jagged glass, and numerous drawings and models of fantastical structures, among them floating cities and underground buildings.”