Tag Archives: Artificial Intelligence

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – June 17, 2024

People play chess in Washington Square Park.

The New Yorker (June 10, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Victoria Tentler-Krylov’s “Pawns in the Park” – The artist captures a corner of calm contemplation in the midst of New York’s hustle and bustle.

A Striking Setback for India’s Narendra Modi

The truly disquieting thought was that the cult of personality around the Prime Minister had become suffocating and seemingly impossible to pierce—until now. By Isaac Chotiner

A Journey to the Center of New York City’s Congestion Zone

A Journey to the Center of New York City’s Congestion Zone

After Governor Kathy Hochul’s flip-flop on congestion pricing, a cop reconsiders his retirement while inching his Lexus through snarled-up traffic on the F.D.R.

By Ben McGrath

How Liberals Talk About Children

Many left-leaning, middle-class Americans speak of kids as though they are impositions, or means to an end.

By Jay Caspian Kang

The Economist Magazine – June 8, 2024 Preview

A triumph for Indian democracy

The Economist Magazine (June 7, 2024): The latest issue features A triumph for Indian democracy

Billionares’ bad bet on Trump

A Trump victory would reward them. But not enough to justify the risks

In Crimea, Ukraine is beating Russia

The peninsula is becoming a death trap for the Kremlin’s forces

Robots are suddenly getting cleverer. What’s changed?

There is more to AI than ChatGPT

Research Preview: Science Magazine – June 7, 2024

Current Issue Cover

Science Magazine – June 6, 2024: The new issue features ‘Cellular Deformation’ – Rapidly stretching Protists snag a snack…

Little-known virus is on the rise in South America

Deforestation and climate change may be helping Oropouche virus spread far beyond the Amazon Basin

‘Google for DNA’ indexes 10% of world’s known sequence data

Achievement demonstrates feasibility of making all of life’s code easily searchable, researchers say

The evolution of thermogenesis in mammals

Comparative genomics elucidates the steps enabling heat production in fat tissue

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – June 7, 2024

Times Literary Supplement (June 5, 2024): The latest issue features Reading the Raj – E.M. Forster’s ‘A Passage to India’, Way-Out Philosophy, Michelangelo at the British Museum…

Culture: The American Scholar – Summer 2024

THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR (June 4, 2024): The latest issue features ‘An Olympian for the Ages’ – Why George Eyser’s feats at the 1904 Games deserve to be celebrated today; Joshua Prager on a forgotten Olympian, Mickalene Thomas and the art of remixing, new poetry from Ange Mlinko, and more…

A Forgotten Turner Classic

Who was George Eyser, the one-legged German-American gymnast who astounded at the Olympic Games?

Femmes Fantastiques

Mickalene Thomas and the art of remixing

We Are the Borg

Is the convergence of human and machine really upon us?

The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI by Ray Kurzweil

In the fall of 2014, an MIT cognitive scientist named Tomaso Poggio predicted that humankind was at least 20 years away from building computers that could interpret images on their own. Doing so, declared Poggio, “would be one of the most intellectually challenging things … for a machine to do.” One month later, Google released an AI program that did exactly what he’d deemed impossible.

Previews: Country Life Magazine – June 5, 2024

Country Life Magazine (June 4, 2024): The latest issue features Britain’s Wildlife Safaris; Tulips, tanks and teddies – The great passions….

Stuff and nonsense

Collectors explain their peculiar passions, from tanks to taxidermy, tulips to teddy bears, to Kate Green, Agnes Stamp, Tiffany Daneff and Octavia Pollock

A walk on the wild side

Ben Lerwill embarks on a great British safari, seeking out the best places to witness the full colour of Nature, from red deer to golden eagles and brown argus butterflies to grey seals

Standing on ceremony

The spectacle of The King’s Birthday Parade will summon up a vision from a bygone age, suggests Simon Doughty, as he chronicles the evolution of the ceremonial uniform

Beccy Speight’s favourite painting

The CEO of the RSPB chooses a dramatic and evocative work

Crossing the channel

Carla Carlisle reflects on the 80th anniversary of D-Day and wonders ‘what comes next?’

A Georgian vision

John Martin Robinson visits Gatewick in West Sussex and finds a modern country house harbouring an 18th-century spirit

The legacy

Kate Green hails F. M. Halford’s contribution to dry-fly fishing

The longest day and the shortest night

Harvest hopes and the magic of midsummer, with Lia Leendertz

Her green and pleasant land

Mary Miers paints a picture of Peggy Guggenheim’s rural idyll

Fresh as a summer breeze

Natasha Goodfellow picks out botanicals to add complexity and character to both food and drink

Interiors

A lambing shed turned home office wows Arabella Youens

London Life

  • Russell Higham on London Zoo memories)
  • Garden squares and gasholders
  • Gilly Hopper tucks into canal-side dining
  • Nick Foulkes indulges in The Emory experience

Floreat Etona

Education and horticulture still go hand in hand at Eton in Berkshire, as George Plumptre discovers

Kitchen garden cook

Savour tart gooseberries this summer, says Melanie Johnson

Native herbs

John Wright extols the virtues of the underused wild marjoram

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell’s deck-shoe shuffle

Travel

  • Emma Love sets sail on luxury yachts
  • Lauren Ho puts her best foot forward in Zambia
  • Pamela Goodman aces it

A little to the left

Being left-handed is no barrier to greatness, finds Bernard Bale

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – June 10, 2024

Donald Trumps small hands reach toward outstretched handcuffs.

The New Yorker (May 30, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features John Cuneo’s “A Man of Conviction” – The former President is found guilty on all thirty-four counts.

Trump Is Guilty, but Voters Will Be the Final Judge

The jury has convicted the former President of thirty-four felony counts in his New York hush-money trial. Now the American people will decide to what extent they care.

When the Verdict Came In, Donald Trump’s Eyes Were Wide Open

In the courtroom with the former President at the moment he became a convicted felon.

The Economist Magazine – June 1, 2024 Preview

Meet America’s most dynamic political movement

The Economist Magazine (May 30, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Meet America’s Most Dynamic Political Movement’ – A backlash against abortion bans is energizing the middle ground in America

The three women who will shape Europe

At a crucial moment they encapsulate the dilemma of how to handle populism

The pro-choice movement that could help Joe Biden win

A backlash against abortion bans is energising the middle ground in America

What penny-pinching baby-boomers mean for the world economy

They are saving like never before. But even that may not bring interest rates down

Research Preview: Science Magazine – May 31, 2024

Current Issue Cover

Science Magazine – May 230, 2024: The new issue features ‘Cuckoo Coevolution’ – Host matching drives lineage divergence…

After crisis in interstellar space, stream of Voyager 1 data resumes

Before its computer crashed, venerable NASA probe may have entered mysterious new region beyond the Solar System

Theory of sleep as a brain cleanser challenged

Mouse study contradicts landmark finding, but some question its methodology

Mysterious sea urchin plague is spreading rapidly

Pathogen that kills victims within days leaps from Caribbean to Red Sea

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – May 30, 2024

Volume 629 Issue 8014

Nature Magazine – May 22, 2024: The latest issue cover features ‘Vision Mixing’ – Image chip combines cognition and action to sense the real world…

How does ChatGPT ‘think’? Psychology and neuroscience crack open AI large language models

Researchers are striving to reverse-engineer artificial intelligence and scan the ‘brains’ of LLMs to see what they are doing, how and why.

Found at last: long-lost branch of the Nile that ran by the pyramids

Geological survey reveals the remains of a major waterway that ancient Egyptian builders could have used to transport materials.

Pig-organ transplants: what three human recipients have taught scientists

As researchers mark the loss of the first living recipient of a pig kidney, they share what they’ve learnt about xenotransplantation.