flameweeder

Is a website by Charlote Cotton, the photo curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  There’s a new essay every month about some aspect of the current state of photography.  This months‘ is by Cotton, and its long, but worth the read.

These guys came up with a computer algorithm to find cloning/copying in digital images.

The above is a picture of me with my friend Rachel’s adorable and sweet pit bull mix Cessie. I include it as a preface to this hilarious/tragic story from Gothamist.  The story is about a pit bull thats allowed to wander the halls of an UWS apt, terrorizing tenants.  I wanted to counteract the idea that pit bulls are dangerous (although Gladwell does this way better than me in blink) even while promoting a story about  pit bull attacks.  Clearly the best part of the story is the following:

Elisa Schindler and her boyfriend said they were returning to their apartment with their Pomeranians Pumpkin, Sugarplum, and Marshmallow when Tyrus  lunged at them. He knocked Schindler down and proceeded to maul four-pound Pumpkin, who survived, but required a hundred stitches. Schindler said that the attack left the hall spattered with Pumpkin’s blood and fur.

As the owner of a tiny dog i feel bad. At the same time I own only one tiny dog, and it is not named after something tasty.

Good looking book from Princeton University Press.  Review here on wemakemoneynotart, and buy here on amazon.

I’m not even sure where to begin.  My friend showed me the internet archive, filled with copyright free movies, music, and images.

“IF YOU WANT TO BE AN ICON OF VIRTUE, THIS IS THE MOMENT BECAUSE YOU’LL STAND OUT”
Dave Hickey
29.10.07
The question of how to sell without selling out is especially relevant in the contemporary art world and there are few people better qualified to grapple with this thorny topic than Dave Hickey. Not only is he Professor of English at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Hickey is also one of America’s best known art and cultural critics, admired for his aversion to academicism and his robust analysis of the effects on art of the rough and tumble of the free market. Last month he delivered a keynote speech at Frieze: “Schoolyard art: playing fair without the referee.”
The lecture is available as a podcast, and a transcript (unformatted right now, but hopefully not for long) is after the elevation.

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An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything

The current issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article about endowment spending at universities, and while it essentially has nothing to do with the rest of the discussion on this blog, those of you who went (or go) to universities with endowments might be interested in it.

To summarize briefly Charles Grassley wants to force universities to spend at least 5% of their endowments every year with the assumption that this will lower tuition. The Chronicle disagrees.