Saturday, May 05, 2018

Flying Polish Cloud at Bondi

If I’m gonna tell a real story, I’m gonna start with my name.
—Kendrick Lamar



In Interview On Record-Breaking Episode, ‘Simpsons’ Creator Matt Groening Puts His Foot In It

With its 636th having aired last weekend, The Simpsons now holds the record for most episodes of any scripted prime-time series. Said Groening, “I actually sometimes meet a famous actor and say, ‘Aw, you should do The Simpsonssometime.’ And they say, ‘I already did.'” But that’s not where he put his foot in it – his comment aboutthe Apu controversy is what has Twitter a-twitter.

Would You Ever Want To Be Able To Tap Into Someone Else’s Memories?

At some point in the future, could an A.I. company manufacture something akin to a neural bridge, allowing ordinary people to occasionally share their experiences? Maybe. Elon Musk recently announced the founding of Neuralink, a company that aims to put A.I. inside the head, merging humans and machines. Neural lace, the artificial hippocampus, brain chips to treat mood and memory disorders—these are just some of the mind-altering A.I. technologies already under development. While it may not be around the corner, a device akin to a temporary neural bridge—something that users can occasionally insert when they wish to share experiences—isn’t that far-fetched. … Read More

Hollywood given $140m incentive to shoot Cold River blockbusters in Australia



Kevin Roberts on Happiness and Inspiration from The Past (Part II).

 


In British Movie Theatres, Polish Immigrants Are Now A Major Demographic


"Like Bollywood, Polish cinema has flourished" - with some titles even making the weekly top 10 at the box office - "in UK multiplexes rather than arthouses, without any help from the British media. It is only partly true to say that the mainstream press has ignored these releases; what's more significant is that its attention and approval were never sought in the first place. With Polish now the second most commonly spoken language in England, English-speaking viewers are not part of this particular success story." … Read More

       They've announced the winner's of this year's NSW Premier's Literary Awards, one of the leading Australian literary prizes. 
       The Christina Stead Prize for Fiction went to The Book of Dirt, by Bram Presser -- and it also picked up the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, as well as the People's Choice Award; see the Text publicity page. 
       Unfortunately, the NSW Premier's Translation Prize is only biennial, and this was an off year for it. 
Melbourne writer, criminal lawyer and punk rocker Bram Presser wins three of the 12 categories at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards with his inventive mix of family history and fiction 

First-time novelist scores hat-trick at NSW Premier's Literary Awards


Wooden Shigir idol found to be over twice as old as Egyptian pyramids Phys.org 

A VULTURE CAPITALIST, A COURAGEOUS JOURNALIST: When the Boulder Daily Camera hired veteran journalist Dave Krieger in 2014, the publisher couldn’t stop praising his new hire. Krieger was popular on his return to his hometown; he told it like it is, even publishing one op-ed critical of the paper’s cost-cutting owner, known in the industry as the “destroyer of papers.” On Tuesday, Krieger was fired by that same publisher. “The verb the publisher used was ‘terminated,’” Krieger tweeted Tuesday night, adding: “As a euphemism for fired, it's actually way worse. I'd much rather be fired than terminated.” Krieger said he’d add more detail later, “but right now I'm going to have a cocktail.” Supporters wished him well.

NO WAY: Tina Brown says she was approached by disgraced talk show host Charlie Rose to produce a series in which he’d interview Matt Lauer, Louis C.K. and other men fired or shunned after widespread reports of sexual harassment. She rebuffed the overture. “These guys are already planning their comebacks!” the New York Post quoted an outraged Brown as saying at a luncheon this week.
DECEPTIVE LOAN PRACTICES: A self-described journalist who claimed to specialize in student loan debt was so good at his hobby that he became widely quoted in major media outlets, including the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and CNBC. But Drew Cloud wasn’t real, the Chronicle of Higher Education found out. And now the company that created his persona — complete with a photo of the supposed expert — is apologizing, saying it is “Deeply sorry.”



Soft terms like ‘open’ and ‘sharing’ don’t tell true story of your data
VIEWPOINT: The government’s proposal does not make data more open. It encourages us to consent to vast exposure of our personal information, with or without de-identification measures.



LITTLE AWARD ON THE PRAIRIE: She had written about failure, really — an undercapitalized family trying to dry-farm on parched land unsuitable for it. Caroline Fraser, author of “Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder,” was in her Santa Fe home office two weeks ago when her husband walked in, a funny smile on his face. “You just won the Pulitzer Prize,” Fraser recalled him saying. “It was quite surprising.” By Matt Grubs of the Santa Fe Reporter.



POUR: This Hawaiian island got 50 inches of rain in 24 hours. Scientists say it's a warning of the future. By LAT's Heidi Chang.

BLESSED BE THE FRUIT: Quartz’s Lila MacLellan uses the weekend’s start of season 2 of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” to tell us almost everything we need to know about its remarkable creator — the 78-year-old Canadian poet, novelist and social media superstar Margaret Atwood. One factoid: Atwood began writing “Tale” in Berlin and finished it a year later during a teaching stint in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
 
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