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Daily Archives: October 21, 2019

How the Louvre’s Leonardo Blockbuster Shows a Master’s Progress

The New York Times – Eight highlights from the exhibition plot Leonardo da Vinci’s trajectory as an artist and show the breadth of his talents. “No institution in the world owns more Leonardo da Vincis than the Louvre. There are five paintings in its collections — including, most famously, the Mona Lisa, which the Renaissance artist had with him, along with two other masterpieces, when he died in France in 1519. To mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, the Louvre is staging a retrospective featuring some 160 works. The blockbuster show, which opens on Thursday and runs through Feb. 24, is one of the most ambitious surveys ever of the artist’s work. On display are eight paintings by Leonardo (plus the Mona Lisa, which remains in her usual, mobbed gallery upstairs but can be seen with the same exhibition ticket). The exhibition also contains 22 drawings from the Louvre’s own collection, and paintings and drawings from institutions such as the Vatican Museums, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Royal Collection and the National Gallery in Britain, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Objects drawn from private collections include the “Codex Leicester,” a set of scientific writings owned by Bill Gates…”

‘The perfect combination of art and science’: mourning the end of paper maps

UK Guardian – Digital maps might be more practical in the 21st century, but the long tradition of cartography is magical – “Some for one purpose and some for another liketh, loveth, getteth, and useth Mappes, Chartes, & Geographicall Globes.”So explained John Dee, the occult philosopher of the Tudor era. The mystical Dr Dee would, perhaps, have… Continue Reading

How to create RSS Feeds from Twitter

RSS.app: “Twitter is a great tool to stay up-to-date with everything that is happening: news, hobbies and interests, celebrities and influencers. However, some users prefer to consume and monitor this information via RSS feeds using RSS readers or custom integrations within their own apps. RSS.app allows users to create RSS feeds from any public Twitter… Continue Reading

Alexa and Google Home abused to eavesdrop and phish passwords

ars technica – Amazon- and Google-approved apps turned both voice-controlled devices into “smart spies”. – “By now, the privacy threats posed by Amazon Alexa and Google Home are common knowledge. Workers for both companies routinely listen to audio of users—recordings of which can be kept forever—and the sounds the devices capture can be used in criminal… Continue Reading

Equifax used ‘admin’ as username and password for sensitive data: lawsuit

Yahoo Finance: “Equifax used the word “admin” as both password and username for a portal that contained sensitive information, according to a class action lawsuit filed in federal court in the Northern District of Georgia. The ongoing lawsuit, filed after the breach, went viral on Twitter Friday after Buzzfeed reporter Jane Lytvynenko came across the detail. “Equifax… Continue Reading

NYT Opinion – The Chinese Threat to American Speech

American companies have an obligation to defend the freedom of expression, even at the risk of angering China. “China’s assertive campaign to police discourse about its policies, even outside of its borders, and the acquiescence of American companies eager to make money in China, pose a dangerous and growing threat to one of this nation’s… Continue Reading

The Best Cities in the World: 2019 Readers’ Choice Awards

Conde Nast Traveler – “There’s a striking amount of diversity among the global superpower cities, which are filled with everything from centuries-old palaces to neon-lit skylines and staggering skyscrapers. For our 32nd annual Readers’ Choice Awards survey—yes, readers have been voting for more than three decades—a record 600,000 registered voters weighed in. The impressive number… Continue Reading

Copyright Law Should Not Restrict AI Systems From Using Public Data

Commentary – Center for Data Innovation: “In March 2019, IBM created the “Diversity in Faces” dataset to provide a set of photos of peoples’ faces of various ages and ethnicities to help reduce bias in facial recognition systems. Even though IBM compiled the dataset from photos people shared online with a license which allows others… Continue Reading