‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (September 11, 2023) – Three essential articles read aloud from the The Economist. This week, how much will artificial intelligence affect the elections of 2024? Also, the ways cynical leaders are using scaremongering tactics both to win and to abuse power (9:35) and why everyone wants to own an airline these days (17:00).
Category Archives: Reviews
Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Sept 11, 2023
The Transformative, Alarming Power of Gene Editing
A rogue scientist showed that crispr gives humans the ability to transform ourselves. But should we?
Crispr, which may be the single most transformative biological technology of the twenty-first century, is a natural phenomenon, evolved over billions of years. It was first observed in the nineteen-eighties, when researchers noticed unexplained sequences of viral DNA in E. coli. Eventually, they realized that these sequences played a role in the bacteria’s immune system: they could find and destroy other pieces of viral DNA.
The Holy Heresies of George Eliot
Her greatest rebellion against Victorian moralism was to reclaim the sacred for herself.
By James Wood
Literature bores me, especially great literature,” the narrator of one of John Berryman’s “Dream Songs” says. George Eliot sometimes bores me, especially the George Eliot draped in greatness. Think of the extremities of nineteenth-century fiction: labile Lermontov; crazy, visionary Melville; nasty, world-hating Flaubert; mystic moor-bound Brontës; fanatical, trembling Dostoyevsky; explosive Hamsun. There’s enough wildness to destroy the myth of that stable Victorian portal “classic realism.” It was not classic—certainly not then—and not always particularly “real.”
Art Profiles: California Painter Jodi Bonassi’s “Spectacular” Bird Series
The Museum of Modern Art and HIstory in the MOAH Cedar Annex gave her a solo exhibit “Bird By Bird” in February 2022. The birds have led to many other exhibition opportunities.
“I think of myself as a drawing informed painter. This means that I mainly draw my images beforehand and during the painting process. My desire to contribute to society on a deeper level drives me in the nature series to create narrative stories around my birds. I wish to connect humans to nature and to each other. Even in nature I desire to record history and people and how we all connect to nature. It is important to preserve our wildlife and question the environment that humans create.”
Jodi Bonassi: ‘Bird Series 2019 – 2023’
Culinary Views: A One-Day Foodie Tour Of Seville
Video timeline: 00:00 Las Teresas 01:53 Casa Morales 03:17 Bodeguita Romero 04:47 P&O Cruises (Arvia) 07:19 Lama La Uva 08:53 Marabunda
Seville is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula.
Books: Literary Review Magazine – September 2023
Literary Review – September 2023: The new issue features Yoga Goes To Hollywood by Dominic Green; How England Lost France; Who’s Afraid of AI?; Don’t Mention Tiananmen; Anne Boleyn’s Ascent and Tastes of China….
Dates with Destiny
RICHARD VINEN
Turning Points: Crisis and Change in Modern Britain, from 1945 to Truss By Steve Richards
In the good old days, dates were for foreigners. France, to take the obvious example, had repeatedly been turned upside down by war, revolution and changes of regime. But the English tourist in Paris rarely bothered to find out which of these distasteful events might be commemorated by, say, the rue du Quatre Septembre. The history of England (this was less true of Scotland and not at all true of Ireland) was a smooth and mostly benign progression. Educated people could tell you what the Glorious Revolution was but might be hazy about when exactly it had happened.
Cyborgs Old & New
BLAKE SMITH
The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs By David Runciman
Artificial intelligence, it is commonly acknowledged, will pose one of the gravest challenges to humanity in the coming years. In the minds of some, it is already the most urgent problem we face. While there are a number of possible dangers that might bring about the extinction of our species, AI confronts us with a particularly dire situation, because it may well be that we have only a brief amount of time – perhaps a generation – in which to set up norms and constraints on the development of autonomous, non-human intelligences that may otherwise escape our control.
World Economic Forum: Top Stories – Sept 2, 2023
0:15 India lands a spacecraft on the moon – India made history by landing a spacecraft on the Moon’s south pole for the first time. The mission, called Chandrayaan-3, is designed to search for water ice on the Moon. The data and images collected by the lander and rover will help scientists to better understand the Moon’s water resources and the future of Moon exploration.
1:11 These are the results of an 85 year study on happiness – The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the world’s longest-running happiness study. It launched in 1938, following 724 men from teenagehood to old age. Later, the study incorporated their spouses and 1,300 of their descendants. Participants answer regular questions about their health, habits, income and relationships as well as their hopes, joys, disappointments and regrets.
2:43 GPUs are powering the AI revolution – The H100 is a graphics processing unit (GPU) chip manufactured by Nvidia. It is the most powerful GPU chip on the market and is designed specifically for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The H100 is in high demand due to its powerful performance and its ability to accelerate AI applications.
4:50 Britain builds its first women-only apartment building – It will offer 102 flats at affordable rates for women facing abuse or social disadvantage. The block will stand in Ealing, West London. The flats will be designed specifically for women with features such as lower kitchen counters and ventilation for menopausal women experiencing hot flushes. Only single women can take a tenancy. Men can live there too but only if they’re in a relationship with a tenant. Transgender women will be allowed but nobody with a history of violence against women.
_____________________________________________
The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.
Profiles: Japanese Painter Setsuko – “Into Nature” Exhibition In Switzerland
SETSUKO – Into Nature
July 1–September 10, 2023
Gstaad
Since 1977, Setsuko has resided in the Grand Chalet of Rossinière, close to Gstaad, making this an opportunity for her to exhibit within reach of her Swiss home. Into Nature furthers the bodies of work presented in Into the Trees, Setsuko’s debut exhibition at Gagosian Paris in 2019, and Into the Trees II, a solo presentation at Gagosian Rome in 2022.
On view in Gstaad are new ceramic sculptures, produced at Astier de Villatte’s Paris workshop and made of terra-cotta glazed in white enamel. Setsuko’s renderings of trees, with their delicately modeled representations of acorns, blooms, foliage, and fruit, emphasize the rooted solidity of their trunks to convey lasting strength and emergent growth. Reminiscent of Japanese ceramics dating back to the age of Jōmon earthenware (c. 10,500–300 BCE), these works also refer to the animistic Japanese religion Shintō, to which trees are of central symbolic importance.
Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – Sept 4, 2023
BARRON’S MAGAZINE – SEPTEMBER 4, 2023: The new issue feature a Fall Investment 2023 preview.
Warner Bros. Discovery Has Big Challenges. The Barbie Movie Won’t Solve Them.
The Warner Bros. Discovery CEO has a big salary and a big task at the parent company for CNN and Max: turning around a media giant saddled with high debt and multiple challenges
Coinbase’s Winning Streak Looks Shaky. Why the Stock Isn’t a Buy.
Shares of the crypto exchange have soared, but legal challenges are mounting along with competitive threats.
Hedge Funds Challenge the SEC’s New Rules
Just as they threatened to do, the hedge fund and private equity industries are challenging new rules imposed on them by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trade groups for those private fund advisers filed their petition Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fift…
Student Loan Payments Are Back. Your Biggest Questions Answered
Federal student loans will resume soon, more than three years after the government paused them du…
Views: The New York Times Magazine – Sept 3, 2023
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (September 3, 2023) – The 9.3.23 Issue features Michael Steinberger on how the war in Ukraine turned tennis into a battlefield; Keri Blakinger on the Dungeons and Dragons players on death row; Jennifer Szalai on Naomi Klein’s new book about her doppelganger; and more.
How the War in Ukraine Turned Tennis Into a Battlefield
For Ukrainian players, as well as those from Russia and its allies, the unceasing conflict at home has bled into the game. Now they face off at the U.S. Open.
By Michael Steinberger
It was a few days before the start of Wimbledon this summer, and Elina Svitolina, just off a flight from Geneva, had come to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club to check in for the tournament. She was returning after a year’s absence. “It feels like it has been 10 years,” she said as she got out of the car. A lot had happened since she last competed at Wimbledon, in 2021. She had given birth to a daughter named Skaï, the first child for her and her husband, the French player Gaël Monfils. Also, her country, Ukraine, had been invaded by Russia.
When Your ‘Doppelganger’ Becomes a Conspiracy Theorist
If you’re Naomi Klein, you write a book about it.
In June, the Canadian journalist and activist Naomi Klein was sitting in the dark gray booth of a recording studio in Lower Manhattan. Dressed simply for the New York City heat — white linen top, light cropped pants, white sneakers — she was reading from a script, and there was a line that was giving her a bit of trouble.
The New York Times Book Review – September 3, 2023
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (September 3, 2023): The new issue features “THE EXHIBITIONIST“, a barbed comic novel about a midwardly mobile London family by Charlotte Mendelson; “THE GUEST“, by Emma Cline, “about one woman’s week of lying, scamming and conning her way through the Hamptons; CROOK MANIFESTO, the sequel to Colson Whitehead’s 2021 novel “Harlem Shuffle” (and the middle volume of a planned trilogy), and more….
In Stephen King’s Latest, Beware the Kindly Old Professors
His new novel, “Holly,” charges into thorny contemporary debates with a pair of unassuming fiends.
Boomers Daily 