“Using Google Earth, researchers have discovered an archeological gem in northern Kazakhstan—more than 50 previously unknown geoglyphs of different geometric shapes and sizes sprawled across the landscape. Geoglyphs are large designs created on the surface of the ground, usually made by arranging stones or sculpting the earth.”
Tag: 09.24.14
Tech Companies Begin To Understand That Changing The World Isn’t Just About Tech, It’s Politics Too
“A new generation of tech companies, however, have made Silicon Valley’s political needs less theoretical, and more immediate. They are taking on pre-existing, real-world industries. (The purely virtual ideas — search, portals, email — have been taken.) It’s harder to ignore politics when you’re changing the world, not just the web. And so these companies — Uber and Airbnb are the most obvious — have found a sweet spot where founders’ disdain for politics and regulators meets the smartest political strategy money can buy.”
A Remarkable Career: Soprano Magda Olivero Dies At 104
The spell she cast could win over even skeptics like Schonberg, who began his review of her now-legendary Met debut by inexplicably claiming, “It wasn’t Magda Olivero’s evening, as it turned out.” But he then went on to aver, “It was history come to life last night, as the soprano, despite her age, gave us a feminine, fiery, utterly convincing Tosca.”
Two Lancaster, Pa. Museums Merge (No Hostile Takeovers Involved)
“The Demuth Museum and the Lancaster Museum of Art will merge into one museum at two locations. … The museums will not change their names, nor will they unite under an umbrella title, Lampe said, because the community has strong ties to both museums. … [but] they will be a single 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with one staff and one board of trustees.”
At Least It Worked: Delaware Art Museum Will Pay Off All Its Debt (With Money From Raiding Its Collection And Endowment)
“On Wednesday, museum officials announced they would retire [its] remaining $19.8 million in debt by the end of this month. The cost: Two masterpieces and at least another $5 million subtracted from the institution’s investment fund.”
Hilary Mantel Is Not An Assassin, She’s A Fiction Writer, Okay?
“Lest Americans think we have cornered the market on boneheaded, reductive and entirely symbolic political arguments, the British are currently discussing whether Hilary Mantel – the two-time Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall – ought to be investigated for fantasizing about killing a dead woman.”
How a Second Language Trains Your Brain for Math
The key is executive function, and you’ll find it in the basal ganglia.
Maria Callas’s House In Athens To Become Opera School
“Dubbed the Maria Callas Opera Academy, the project was a long-term goal of soprano Vasso Papantoniou and her husband, writer Vassilis Vassilikos. Yesterday at a gala concert, the artistic director of the Greek National Opera Myron Michailidis announced the organization would support the construction plans.”
Remembering The Remarkable Christopher Hogwood
“Hogwood’s scholarship, symbiotically related to his performances, is just as important as his music-making, and he leaves an outstanding legacy of books, articles, and lectures that are required reading and listening for anyone interested in Handel, Haydn, or the wider story of how music relates to social and cultural contexts from the baroque to the 21st century. To talk to Hogwood was to encounter a mind and personality of inspirational perspicacity, intellectual clarity, and delicately mischievous wit.”
Why America Celebrates Ignorance (There’s Big Money In It)
“For starters, there’s more money to be made from the ignorant than the enlightened, and deceiving Americans is one of the few growing home industries we still have in this country. A truly educated populace would be bad, both for politicians and for business.”