Who Gets To Decide How A Theatre Audience ‘Should’ Act?

Why Aren’t Rich People Happier? A Wealth of Commonsense. “Well, money is money. I mean you can’t buy happiness, sir, but it sure takes the sting out of being unhappy.” –John D. MacDonald, Darker than Amber.

The 12 Most Unforgettable Descriptions of Food in Literature, including Proust's madeleine, Calvino's Under the Jaguar Sun, and Harriet the Spy's tomato sandwiches.  theatlantic.com

The Curious Afterlife of Pop Stars

Who Gets To Decide How A Theatre Audience ‘Should’ Act?

Critic Marty Hughley responds to an opinion piece by the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and he's fine with audiences quieting the heck down. For instance: "Why is the shushing rude, but the intrusive sound that precipitates it isn’t?" - Oregon ArtsWatch

Standup Comedians Say Audience Behavior Just Keeps Getting Worse

"There's something in the water,” said Nish Kumar. ... "I've had a few conversations with other comics and there's a sense that something doesn't quite feel right."  And while the shift seems more noticeable since the pandemic, COVID lockdowns don't seem to be the sole explanation. - The Guardian

When They Dug Up The Cobblestone Streets, They Found Beautifully Preserved Roman Mosaics

"A group of ancient Roman mosaics dating from the second century CE were hidden under the city streets of Stari Grad, on the idyllic Hvar Island in Croatia. Archaeologists discovered the stunning mosaic floors in February, before the city began construction on sewage and water pipes." - Hyperallergic

Why Researchers Are Leaving Australia In Droves

My peers are burnt out, despondent and thinking of leaving the sector. Everybody has told me to leave the country, even if I am able to find a job here. Alongside precarious short-term contracts and chronic overwork, which are common everywhere, the government has cultivated a set of policies which...

NEWS YOU CAN USE:  The Best Sandwich Spreads

The sound made by the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 was so loud it ruptured eardrums of people 40 miles away, travelled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away.

Think, for a moment, just how crazy this is. If you’re in Boston and someone tells you that they heard a sound coming from New York City, you’re probably going to give them a funny look. But Boston is a mere 200 miles from New York. What we’re talking about here is like being in Boston and clearly hearing a noise coming from Dublin, Ireland. Travelling at the speed of sound (766 miles or 1,233 kilometers per hour), it takes a noise about 4 hours to cover that distance. This is the most distant sound that has ever been heard in recorded history.

How Loud Can Sound Physically Get?

 

 

BUT THEY CAN HOLD IT UP TO YOUR FACE IF YOU HAVE FACE ID ENABLED, WHICH YOU SHOULDN’T: No, police cannot force you to unlock your cellphone without a search warrant. Likewise thumbprint ID.

The Twitter Account That Collects Awkward Writing

The account tracks the ways that writers strive to express the same thing differently, with examples taken mostly from newspapers and magazines around the world. 

I first encountered Second Mentions in 2017, when I was working as a reporter in Sydney, Australia. News writing, by necessity, brings you up against repetition as an occupational hazard, and the account was shown to me by an editor, who shared it with a self-aware, nerdy, professional glee. The account tracks the ways that writers strive to express the same thing differently, with examples taken mostly from newspapers and magazines around the world. (A “second mention”—also known as a second reference—is the account’s name for these ways of avoiding repetition.) Take, for example, Adele, who is frequently “the singer Adele” on first mention, and then maybe “the Tottenham soul-pop titan” on second mention. Cheese, if you are saying “cheese” too much, can be “the popular dairy product.” A “pair of armadillos,” who, for some reason, were put on a diet? “The oval-shaped duo.” The account is addictively funny, and its discoveries are—variously—charming, insane, perfect.

- The New Yorker

What drives people to extremist YouTube videos?

by  Tyler Cowen

There is a new and very interesting paper on this topic by Annie Y. Chen, Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifler, Ronald E. Robertson and Christo Wilson.  Here is the abstract:

Do online platforms facilitate the consumption of potentially harmful content? Despite widespread concerns that YouTube’s algorithms send people down “rabbit holes” with recommendations to extremist videos, little systematic evidence exists to support this conjecture. Using paired behavioral and survey data provided by participants recruited from a representative sample (n=1,181), we show that exposure to alternative and extremist channel videos on YouTube is heavily concentrated among a small group of people with high prior levels of gender and racial resentment. These viewers typically subscribe to these channels (causing YouTube to recommend their videos more often) and often follow external links to them. Contrary to the “rabbit holes” narrative, non-subscribers are rarely recommended videos from alternative and extremist channels and seldom follow such recommendations when offered.

I am traveling and have not had the chance to read this paper, but I do know the authors are very able.  I am not saying this is the final word, but I would make the following observation: there are many claims made about social media, and many of them might be true, but for the most part they are still largely unfounded.