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01-09-08
Apple To Cut UK Download Prices
Apple has announced that it will cut the price it charges for music downloads in the UK from its iTunes music store within the next six months. The cut will bring the UK into line with the charges in the rest of Europe. Source: BBC.
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01-08-08
Decline Of The Public Intellectual
While advances in science and technology cannot be doubted, the humanities do not necessarily keep pace. Today we may be no better positioned than 20 years ago to appraise our intellectual situation. Of course, few like to believe that we live in an era of mediocrity. Source: Chronicle of Higher Education.
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01-08-08
Golden Globes Cancel Awards Broadcast
The Writers Guild strike sank the show. Instead, the Globe winners will be announced at a press conference. Disrupting the awards show season, a huge promotional showcase for the entertainment industry, is one way the guild can flex its power and attempt to bring producers back to the table to resume talks that collapsed Dec. 7. Source: Yahoo!
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01-08-08
Recording Industry Scrambles For New Model
Among the business models music fans are likely to see more of: music subscriptions bundled with the price of Internet access, and services like Nokia Corp.'s upcoming Comes With Music, which would give users of select mobile phones a year's worth of unlimited access to music, for no extra charge. Source: Orange County Register.
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01-07-08
Inner Hope, Outer Pessimism
People are not generally negative about their own lives. In fact, we systematically exaggerate the control we have as individuals. So why the pessimism about the larger world? Source: New Statesman.
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01-07-08
Welcome To The Age Of The Cultural Omnivore
An Oxford University study says that the notion of a cultural elite made up of upper class individuals is no longer relevant to modern culture. Univores,' 'Omnivores,' 'Paucivores' and 'Inactives' are the new categories we can all find ourselves in. Source: Toronto Star.
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01-07-08
Map Quest
No matter the age, maps have always inspired that eternal human penchant for dreaming of far-off places, for locating oneself in the universe. As vessels of wishful thinking, they transform us into explorers lured by the mystery of the unknown, if not a lust to conquer it. Source: Washington Pos.
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01-04-08
Grounds For New Music
If contemporary music is to thrive, it must do so in a pluralist and eclectic culture. Then, the best of modernism can be appreciated alongside the parallel strands in new music. The young do not appreciate being lectured by sniffy cultural snobs, reliving their own glory days of 1968. Time and music have moved on. Source: The Guardian.
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01-04-08
What Do Philosophers Talk ABout When They Get Together?
Two presentations outlined how computer software could change the way philosophy is both taught and disseminated. One professor discussed how artificial intelligence can help to improve individualized instruction, while another laid out a radical framework for online publication that would leave most of today's academic press apparatus in the dust. Source: InsideHigherEd.
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01-04-08
How TV Failed Us
One might have thought that the television industry, with its history of rapid adaptation to technological change, would have become a center of innovation for the next radical transformation in communication. It did not. Nor did the ability to transmit pictures, voices, and stories from around the world to living rooms in the U.S. heartland produce a nation that is more sophisticated about global affairs. Instead, the United States is arguably more isolated and less educated about the world than it was a half-century ago. In a time of such broad technological change, how can this possibly be the case? Source: MIT Technology Review.
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01-02-08
Have We Finally Got Tired Of Overly LOUD Music?
A number of sound engineers and artists are taking a hard look at the effects of the so-called loudness war and producing albums at lower volumes. One producer who says he made loud records for years has started an organization called Turn Me Up, which aims to show artists, music labels and fans that louder doesn't always mean better. Source: Chicago Tribune.
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01-02-08
This Is The Year We'll Create Life In The Lab
The cobbling together of life from synthetic DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial - and forcing a rethinking of what it means to be alive. This raises a range of big questions about what nature is and what it could be. Evolutionary processes are no longer seen as sacred or inviolable. Source: Philadelphia Inquirer.
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01-02-08
So What Literary Generation Just Ended?
Critics love the idea of literary generations, but it would be a challenge to find themes or ideas to link the disparate work of Norman Mailer, Grace Paley and Kurt Vonnegut. Source: Los Angeles Times.
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01-01-08
Study: Mac Users Listen To More Music
In the third quarter of 2007, exactly half of Mac owners paid to download music at least once, while only 16 percent of PC owners did. In part, the disparity reflects the ways Apple Macintosh and PC owners use their computers: Mac owners are more likely to listen to music on their computers and to upload music to digital music players. Source: The New York Times.
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01-01-08
How True Is That "Based On A True Story"?
Because the cinema -- with its outsize scale, sensory immersion and heightened realism -- tends to colonize our imaginations so completely, biographical and historical dramas are graded on a higher curve than any other genres. Source: Los Angeles Times.
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01-01-08
The World's great Universities - Live & Online
There has never been a more exciting time for the intellectually curious. The world's top universities have come late to the world of online education, but they're arriving at last, creating an all-you-can eat online buffet of information. And mostly, they are giving it away. Source: Wired.
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12-29-07
Brainy Art
A group of scientists is convinced that Michelangelo painted a barely concealed image of a human brain into his fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and that other famous paintings are hiding brains as well. According to the theory, the artists were fascinated by the scientific discoveries being made by anatomists, but their theories had to be concealed in the imagery of their paintings. Source: The Guardian.
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12-29-07
A Dreadful Year For Art In Lebanon
For the contemporary art scene in Beirut, 2006 was a tough year, as it was for nearly every other sector in the country, creative industries and otherwise. Twelve months ago, few might have guessed that 2007 would be worse. But it was. Source: The Daily Star.
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12-29-07
Sleep Deprived? We've Got A Spray That Can Fix That
A nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys, allowing them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests. Source: Wired.
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12-27-07
Egypt Plans To Copyright The Pyramids
Egypt is planning to pass a law that would exact royalty payments from anyone found making copies of the country's ancient monuments or museum pieces, including the pyramids. Source: The Guardian .
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12-27-07
2007 - The Year Of The Play
Let it be noted that in 2007, a wearying year in which audiences might have been excused for staying home with a mystery or drowning sorrows in bubbly musicals, people were lining up for tickets. Source: The New York Times.
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12-27-07
Mass-Producing Exclusivity
While the broad story of luxury's fate in the contemporary market is often told as a steady decline from class to mass, the brand is an example of an equally pronounced countertrend: lux-ing up previously workaday products. Source: New York Times Magazine.
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12-26-07
Iran Wins Case To Force Return Of Stolen Artifacts
Iran won an important court ruling Friday in its bid to force an international art dealer in London to return 18 ancient artifacts that allegedly were stolen from the country's tombs. Source: Yahoo!
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12-26-07
A Peek Inside A Philosophical Dispute
A nasty book review has reignited a feud between the two philosophers that shows how bitter, unforgiving and (to outsiders) unwittingly hilarious academic disputes can be. It certainly makes the bear pit that is journalism seem like sunshine and lollipops by comparison. Source: The Guardian.
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12-26-07
US State Department Could Learn From Hollywood About Selling America
In Muslim countries, the U.S. has a popularity rating about the same as for waterboarding. And a recent Pew Research Center study found that America's image is deteriorating even in traditionally friendly countries. Ironically, though, when it comes to bolstering America's image abroad, showbiz could teach the State Dept. a thing or two about reaching its intended audience. Source: Variety.
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12-24-07
Was Cubism A Dead End?
Cubism didn't just change what pictures after it looked like. It changed almost everything about the way an artist could come at the world. And here's what makes that cubist watershed even more notable: A century later, and it's hard to find a clearly cubist touch in much of anything young artists are making. Can there truly be a watershed that doesn't water what's downstream? Source: Washington Post.
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12-24-07
Eastern Europe Vies For Hollywood Shoots
In the early 1990s, Eastern European cities could entice Hollywood producers with a simple combination of Old World charm and significant cost savings. Now they must dangle technology, experience and even tax reductions in order to lure the multimillion dollar productions. In Hungary, the government has approved a huge tax break for movie productions, and the Romanians may follow suit. Source: Houston Chronicle.
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12-24-07
Is Copyright Law The Wrong Way To Protect Creative Products?
Maybe not. Take a look at comedy performers. "People usually talk about how the Internet destroys intellectual property," says Christopher Sprigman. "But here the Internet enforces intellectual property. It helps to protect creativity by shaming pirates." Source: Boston Globe.
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12-20-07
Interim Writers' Deals In The Works
David Letterman's production company will meet with officials from the Writers' Guild later this week in an effort to craft an "interim agreement" that would allow striking writers to return to CBS's two late-night talk shows when production resumes in January. The Guild is hoping to negotiate multiple such agreements with individual production companies, thereby giving them leverage over the major studios. Source: Washington Post.
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12-20-07
Music On The Spot
What if an improvised performance is more than an improvised performance? Does improvised music open a door to possibilities for social change? And if that's the case, shouldn't more people be paying attention? Source: NewMusicBox.
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12-20-07
The Celebrity Judge Problem
Most big literary awards have a star judge nowadays. Prizes gain exposure as a result, but they also lose credibility. If an accolade for literary merit is to have much meaning, it should be awarded by people capable of discerning literary merit - rather than wielding a pair of oars or sitting in a TV studio. Source: The Guardian.
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12-19-07
New Orleans' Impending Architectural Tragedy
If the government gets its way, a rich architectural legacy will be supplanted by private, mixed-income developments with pitched roofs and wood-frame construction, an ersatz vision of small-town America. That this could happen in a city that still largely lies in ruins is both sad and grotesque. Source: The New York Time.
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12-19-07
Are Humans Too Boring To Interest Aliens?
Humans have so far sent four messages into space intended for alien listeners. But they have largely been made up of mathematically coded descriptions of some physics and chemistry, with some basic biology and descriptions of humans thrown in." The problem? "After reading it, they will be none the wiser about us humans and our achievements. In some ways, we may have been wasting our telescope time. Source: New Scientist .
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12-19-07
Italian Movie Industry Has Record Year
According to the cinema monitoring company Auditel, the 120 million ticket mark was passed Sunday(Dec. 16), breaking the modern-era record set in 1986. In Italy, the modern era is the period that started in the 1970s, after television had become popular. Source: Hollywood Reporter.
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12-18-07
Is Our Digital Progress Coming To An End?
The digital age has been driven by the ability to make smaller and smaller chips. Preparing for the day they can't add more transistors, chip companies are pouring billions of dollars into plotting new ways to use the existing transistors, instructing them to behave in different and more powerful ways. Source: Wired.
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12-18-07
Chronicling The Decline Of Reading
The Book Industry Study Group estimates that sales fell from 8.27 books per person in 2001 to 7.93 in 2006. According to the Department of Labor, American households spent an average of a hundred and sixty-three dollars on reading in 1995 and a hundred and twenty-six dollars in 2005. Source: The New Yorker.
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12-18-07
Three National Ballet Of Cuba Dancers Defect
The dancers -- Taras Domitro, Hayna Gutierrez and Miguel Angel Blanco -- defected after a double joint presentation of the Nutcracker Suite by The National Ballet of Cuba and the Canadian Ballet Youth Ensemble. Source: Miami Herald.
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12-17-07
The Guerrilla Poets
Drive-by poetry... entails loading the students into a van, cruising around a commercial area in Trenton, and pulling over near targeted pedestrians. One of the students sticks his or her head out the passenger window and serenades -- or accosts -- the startled pedestrian with some passionately recited lines by Walt Whitman or Pablo Neruda. Source: American Scholar.
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12-17-07
A New Era For Musicians
It opens up the creativity right at the band level to let us explore any idea we come up with, as opposed to the old days when the record company dictated what you looked and sounded like. Now, we can build a fan base without even leaving our living room. We don't need a record contract to be heard. Source: San Diego Union-Tribune.
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12-17-07
Researcher: World Isn't Really So Flat
Pankaj Ghemawat found that the average level of globalization in investments, phone calls, tourism and immigration is just 10 percent. And some measures, like the international share of total Internet traffic, are actually decreasing. This calls into question the other common myth that even if the world isn't quite flat today, it will be tomorrow. Source: Yahoo!
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