“Mayor R.T. Rybak says under the guidance of the new plan, the city will develop cultural leaders, double funding for public art, and promote Minneapolis arts and culture both locally and nationally. He says a key aspect of the plan is to support those small and mid-sized arts organizations that don’t have a large staff or wealthy boards. But this is the same mayor who drastically cut back his Office of Cultural Affairs four years ago in an effort to dig the city out of some major debt.”
Tag: 09.22.05
Hollywood Goes For The Church Audience
Hollywood studios are marketing their movies to big religious groups, giving them sneak presevies. “The Walt Disney Co. is marketing “The Greatest Game Ever Played” to faith-based groups even though the film, about Francis Ouimet’s improbable win in the 1913 U.S. Open, isn’t overtly religious. ‘Its themes are about family, about not giving up on your dreams, courage. They are very secular virtues, but they also could potentially be Christian virtues’.”
Time Change – Get Rid Of The “Leap Second”?
“An international argument has developed between British astronomers and scientists working for American telecommunications firms who have called for the abolition of the “leap second” – the additional time unit used to keep modern atomic time-measuring systems in line with the earth’s movement round the sun. Removing that extra second would make some communication systems run more smoothly, but very slowly the clock would start to fall out of sync with the sun, eventually leading to 12 noon falling in the middle of the night.”
How The Internet Is Changing Scientific Research
The internet is changing the way scientific research is being shared and published. “The internet—and pressure from funding agencies, who are questioning why commercial publishers are making money from government-funded research by restricting access to it—is making free access to scientific results a reality. This week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued a report describing the far-reaching consequences of this. The report… makes heavy reading for publishers who have, so far, made handsome profits. But it goes further than that. It signals a change in what has, until now, been a key element of scientific endeavour.”
TV On Your Cell Phone?
A test of broadcasting live TV to mobile phones is being conducted in the UK. “Sixteen channels will be available to the triallists, including BBC One and Two, ITV 1 and 2, and Channel 4. TV is touted as the next phase of mobile entertainment.”
New Rembrandt Declared
After two years of exploration, a painting has been declared a Rembrandt. “X-rays showed many layers to the painting. Around the woman’s neck was the fur collar, but under it there was a black layer of paint, and under that what Rembrandt had originally intended: a whitish collar. That explained the reflections, since light could well reflect off a white collar, but not off dark, fur.”
Is Los Angeles Deadly For Singers?
“The more singers you talk to, the more the impression emerges of Los Angeles as a prime booby trap for anyone who contemplates a serious vocal career…”
Oprah Books Back To The Present
After two years of reading classics, Oprah’s Book Club is going contemporary again. Oprah has chosen James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” It “was No. 1 on Amazon.com as of Thursday night. “I wanted to open the door and broaden the field. That allows me the opportunity to do what I like to do most, which is sit and talk to authors about their work. It’s kind of hard to do that when they’re dead.”
Are iPods Destroying Hearing?
Audiologists have long expressed concern about hearing loss stemming from the use of headphones, but according to some, the new generation of digital music players pose a particular threat, allowing consumers to listen for long periods at high volume, and eliminating so much of the distortion and background noise common to, say, cassette players, that many listeners won’t even realize how much sound they’re pumping into their head. “Even with the sound piped directly into the ear canal, noise from the outside often competes with the music, and listeners turn it up louder. People listening to music while riding [commuter] trains, for example, frequently increase the volume levels to drown out the sound of the commute.”
TiVo On A Hollywood Leash?
“Among the functions included in TiVo’s latest software upgrade is the ability to allow broadcasters to erase material recorded by TiVo’s 3.6 million users after a certain date. That ability was demonstrated recently when some TiVo customers complained on TiVo community sites that episodes of The Simpsons and King of the Hill they recorded were ‘red-flagged’ for deletion by the copyright holder.” The company insists that the deletions were a glitch, and that there are currently no plans to allow studios to remotely delete programs from TiVo hard drives. Of course, that kind of denial begs the question: why install the technology for something you don’t plan to use?