https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGib6vIuVds Artificial intelligence may be one of the major topics of our historical moment, but it can be surprisingly tricky to define. In the more than 30-year-old interview clip above, Isaac Asimov describes artificial intelligence as “a phrase that we...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3cab5IcCy8 She’s worked with Stanley Kubrick *and* “Weird Al” Yankovic, and helped Robert Moog in the development of his eponymous synthesizer. Wendy Carlos is also one of the first high profile transgender artists–credited as Walter Carlos for Kubrick’s A Clockwork...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_N04XVwlqg In most places across the world, speak the name of Dante, and your listeners will think of Inferno. Since its first publication more than 700 years ago, its depiction of Hell has become influential enough to shape the perceptions...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lotbZQ55SgU Although it’s certainly more plausible than hypotheses like ancient aliens or lizard people, the idea that slaves built the Egyptian pyramids is no more true. It derives from creative readings of Old Testament stories and technicolor Cecil B. Demille...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YjQLHCezOo Prada, Alfa Romeo, Pellegrino, Ferrari, Illy, Lamborghini, Gucci: these are a few Italian corporations we all know, though we don’t necessarily know that they’re all from the north of Italy. The same is true, in fact, of most Italian...
Just out of curiosity, and apropos of nothing, we asked Grok (the AI chatbot created by Elon Musk) the following question: If a president of a superpower wanted to destroy his own country, what steps would he take? Here’s what...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLkdWhqbqgY Nobody reads books anymore. Whether or not that notion strikes you as true, you’ve probably heard it expressed fairly often in recent decades — just as you might have had you lived in the Roman Empire of late antiquity....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxQxajcOyCI Here’s a remarkable short film of the great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, violinist Stéphane Grappelli and their band the Quintette du Hot Club de France performing on a movie set in 1938. The film was hastily organized by the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JpCg-j_rHQ Ultra-tall high-rises against dark skies. A huge distance between the rich and the poor. Robber barons at the helm of large-scale industrial operations that turn man into machine. Machines that have become intelligent enough to displace man. These have...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npsB1xWh5hA ?si=l7KWVf9NZBUkPyM6 In July 1963, Bob Dylan made his first appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. On opening night, he captivated a crowd of 13,000 with a performance of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” accompanied by Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and...
