Chipotlai Max is an AI agent that runs on “stolen...
Chipotlai Max is an AI agent that runs on “stolen compute” from Chipotle’s AI chat bot. They are looking to borrow from bots from Ikea, Expedia, Home Depot, and others.
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Required Reading
This week: Esperanto on Duolingo, a Black Panther Party stud grandma, Arsenal and Africa, queer fish, the secret leftist history of Renaissance faires, and more.
The Life and Death of Sports Fans
Team Spirit is a wonderful short film for ESPN by Errol Morris about the funerals of die-hard sports fans. I love the Steelers fan laid out in a recliner under a Steelers blanket in front of a television with a Steelers game on as if “he just fell asleep watching the game”.
The Black Photographers Who Exposed My Own Brainwashing
An exhibition at The Getty gave me the peculiar feeling of peeking behind a curtain in my own house and discovering new things about a topic I thought I knew well.
The official trailer for season three of Silo . Looks...
The official trailer for season three of Silo . Looks like we finally get some origin story stuff (well, more than a brief scene at least).
Don’t Feed the Ducks! A Zany Animation Predicts the Absurd Outcomes of Ignoring the Rules
How many people actually heed the warnings about not feeding ducks waddling around public parks? Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Don’t Feed the
Pace Gallery Cuts 50 Workers and 50 Artists, Citing a “Broken” Gallery Model
The layoffs and reductions come amid ongoing market uncertainty and the disastrous collapse of crypto-backed art ventures, of which Pace was an early adopter.
Pace Cuts 50 Workers and 50 Artists, Citing a “Broken” Gallery Model
The layoffs and reductions come amid ongoing market uncertainty and the disastrous collapse of crypto-backed art ventures, of which Pace was an early adopter.
On this date in 2004, the Killdozer rampage took place ....
On this date in 2004, the Killdozer rampage took place . “The bulldozer effortlessly demolished cars and buildings, including the home of a former mayor, the office of a newspaper that had sided against him in an editorial…”
Jamelle Bouie: The cruelty is still the point of the...
Jamelle Bouie: The cruelty is still the point of the Trump regime . “This isn’t a border security policy. It’s cruelty as governance — directed at people this administration has decided don’t deserve dignity.”
Jeanne Vicerial’s Ethereal Sculptures Dot Historic Spaces in Aix-en-Provence in ‘Incarnation’
The French artist's textile-focused practice taps into history and femininity with precision and reverence. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Jeanne
How Three Chess Friends Battled Demons and Saved Two Lives
"A homeless chess hustler, a scholar and an aging recluse found hope in a trashed apartment by Central Park."
We Are Manipulating the Weather Every Day
Throughout most of human history, the weather has resisted humanity’s desire to change it . For thousands of years, we have sacrificed children, sung songs and danced, brewed alchemical concoctions, chanted prayers, fired cannons, and made many other futile efforts in the
The Best Part of “Moss and Freud” Is When It’s Over
In the film, Kate Moss is looking for the right man to get her sober, and Lucian Freud is a Great Man who magically sees the “truth” in young women.
As time passes, efforts to document the Tiananmen Square...
As time passes, efforts to document the Tiananmen Square protests intensify . “History cannot only be written by officials. If you don’t have real information, it’s difficult for you to have independent thought.”
America Today: Voices in Contemporary Print
On view at The Print Center through July 25, the exhibition highlights the power of print as a medium for expressing political ideals and urgent societal concerns.
“ Cameron’s World is a web-collage of text...
“ Cameron’s World is a web-collage of text and images excavated from the buried neighbourhoods of archived GeoCities pages (1994–2009).”
From Apocalypse to Renewal, Amy Casey Paints a Surreal World in Distress
Casey's paintings meditate on what it means to be in a world in constant flux. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article From Apocalypse to Renewal, Amy
USPS Reissues Popular Mister Rogers Stamps
Every so often, the US Postal Service reissues old stamps. This time around, they polled the public about which past stamp they’d like to see reissued and the results were decisive: the people love Mister Rogers . The Mister Rogers stamp, originally released in 2018, is new
Ted Chiang is emphatic: LLMs are nowhere close to being...
Ted Chiang is emphatic: LLMs are nowhere close to being conscious . “We don’t need to fully understand the nature of consciousness to definitively say that certain things are not conscious, and conversational transcripts fall in that category.”
How Austin’s Sandlot Baseball Scene Became a Magnet for Indie Rockers, Filmmakers, Designers, and Brands
"If you build it, they will come."
Marjane Satrapi, author of the excellent Persepolis, has...
Marjane Satrapi, author of the excellent Persepolis, has died at age 56 . Friends said she “died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life”.
The Rise and Rise of Balloon Racing’s First Family
"Joe Heartsill and his sons, Rhett and Lucas, are international eminences in a very obscure corner of professional sports."
Artists Threaten to Sue Venice Biennale
Plus, Trump’s threats to arts education and why artist Saif Azzuz should be on your radar.
The Fugitive Childhood of a Cocaine Smuggler’s Daughters
"When their parents ripped two young sisters from their privileged lives, gave them fake names, and took them on the lam, they thought it was because their father was in trouble with the IRS. It would be years before they learned the truth about his life of crime."
Georgia O’Keeffe Ignored Advice to Mimic Great European Masters. Her Goal Instead Was to Be a Great American Painter
The genius of her work was in painting things as she saw them through her own eyes. So when she surrounded herself with beauty, her work reflected it
Transparency and trust
In simple situations with obvious metrics, transparency earns trust. Voting, for example, benefits from audit trails and inspectability. But transparency can also undermine trust. Walking through the typical restaurant kitchen on the way to dinner probably won’t increase the
Hear the First Book of Homer’s Iliad Read Aloud in the Original Greek
You can, of course, learn the Greek language as it’s spoken today. You can also learn Greek as it was spoken in antiquity — and as it was, until fairly recently in historical time, taught to students in the modern West. But it’s a fairly different endeavor again to learn Greek
Leonard Cohen on the Antidote to Anger and the Meaning of Resistance
One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do it in our personal lives and we do it in our political lives. We are living through a time of uncommon helplessness and uncertainty, touching every aspect of our lives, and in
Einstein and the Eagle: How Relativity Is Saving Earth’s Rarest Raptor
At the hazy dawn of the twentieth century, through the byways of mental meandering and mathematical play, Albert Einstein arrived at a revelation about the nature of the universe while working as a clerk at the Swiss patent office — a new relationship between space and time,
New Trump Rule Could Cut Enrollment at Nearly Half of Arts MA Programs
The controversial proposal would measure alumni income to determine whether a program can matriculate students who take out federal loans.
‘Masters of the Stitch: Threaded Stories’ Spotlights Narrative Quilts by Black Americans
The exhibition at Claire Oliver Gallery spotlights remarkable narratives in fabric. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article ‘Masters of the Stitch:
Can you go 82-0? “The objective of 82-0 is to...
Can you go 82-0? “The objective of 82-0 is to construct a historical NBA roster capable of achieving a perfect undefeated season.” You get to “draft” 5 players from randomly chosen teams & decades, then that team plays a simulated season.