James Frey's Blog, page 15

Chopsticks

Ive On The Move

from The New York Times

After Apple, Jony Ive Is Building an Empire of His Own

by Tripp Mickle

Many people have wondered what Jony Ive has been up to since he left Apple five years ago.Credit…Carolyn Fong for The New York Times

Five years to the week after he walked away from the top job designing the iPhone, Jony Ive leaned over a hulking model of a San Francisco city block. The dozen buildings, with each brick carved to scale in Alder wood, had become a prototype for his future.

“We’re standing right now, here,” Mr. Ive said, pointing with his black, Maison Bonnet reading glasses at a two-story, 115-year-old building in Jackson Square, a Gold Rush Era neighborhood wedged between San Francisco’s Chinatown and Financial District. “We bought this building first, but then we noticed that it had access to this huge volume in the center.”

[ click to continue reading at NYT ]

Starlink Messin’ Stuff Up

from Semafor

Starlink is increasingly interfering with astronomy, scientists say

by Paige Bruton

Mike Blake/Reuters

An international team of astronomers reported in a study Wednesday that the second generation model of Starlink satellites is hampering radio astronomy, which is essential for the study of the non-visible universe, like black holes, for example. The satellites, which are part of SpaceX’s internet constellation, were found to have interference 32 times stronger than the first generation.

The number of satellites in orbit around Earth is rapidly increasing, with some 100,000 expected to be in place by 2030. And as their numbers grow, so does the difficulty of observing the universe from Earth. In some cases, satellites, such as those of Texas company AST Spacemobile, are so big and bright that they appear more luminous all but the brightest objects in the night sky.

[ click to continue reading at Semafor ]

Poetry Rules

from Tom Klingenstein

Can Poetry Save a Nation?

By David P. Goldman

David Playing the Harp Before Saul, by Silvestro Legga, c. 1852.

In a globalized world, why should anyone want to be German, French, Spanish, or Hungarian? “None of the above” isn’t a full-credit answer to the question of national identity. This is the great existential question for the West. Nations are the carriers of cultural continuity. Without the hope that future generations will speak our language, remember our struggles, understand our prayers, and continue our labors, we lose our motivation to bring children into the world. There exists a lullaby in Esperanto, but it has never put a baby to sleep. Only national language embedded in a national culture can provide a bridge between past, present, and future.

Poetry plays an irreplaceable role in the enlivenment of the past and the evocation of the future — not just the national classics, but the less pretentious efforts of popular poets. Molière’s bourgeois gentleman was surprised to learn that he had been speaking prose all his life. The precise opposite is the case: Wittingly or not, we cannot help but speak poetry. Every national language inherits unique poetic expressiveness from its particular tradition. The great poets, and even popular poets on occasion, refine and elevate the poetic content of everyday language. That explains why poetry resonates so powerfully: It awakens a dimension of our thought that lies dormant in everyday speech and makes us conscious of our identity.

[ click to continue reading at Tom Klingenstein ]

Go, Little Pony! Go!

from The Mercury News

Wildly popular ’80s toy has another shot to overcome long-running snub

My Little Pony has again made the list of finalists for the National Toy Hall of Fame

By BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

The 12 finalists being considered for induction this year. (National Toy Hall of Fame via AP)

My Little Pony has again made the list of finalists for the National Toy Hall of Fame. Maybe the seventh time will be a charm.

The pastel toy horse with the silky mane is among this year’s 12 contenders, said the announcement Wednesday from the Strong National Museum of Play, in Rochester, N.Y.

Introduced in the early 1980s, My Little Pony became an immediate hit, for a time outselling Barbie and spawning movies and TV shows. The 2010 animated series “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” led to the baffling trend of “bronies,” a fandom of grown men.

Despite the popularity, My Little Pony has always fallen short in the annual balloting for the Toy Hall of Fame — taking a backseat to not only Barbie, American Girl and Cabbage Patch Kids but a stick and a cardboard box.

[ click to continue reading at The Mercury News ]

Rectal Respiration

from CNN

Scientists who discovered mammals can breathe through their anuses receive Ig Nobel prize

By Issy Ronald

The world still holds many unanswered questions. But thanks to the efforts of the research teams awarded the IG Nobel Prize on Thursday, some of these questions – which you might not even have thought existed – now have answers.

We now know that many mammals can breathe through their anuses, that there isn’t an equal probability that a coin will land on head or tails, that some real plants somehow imitate the shapes of neighboring fake plastic plants, that fake medicine which causes painful side-effects can be more effective than fake medicine without side-effects, and that many of the people famous for reaching lofty old ages lived in places that had bad record-keeping.

Among those collecting their prizes was a Japanese research team led by Ryo Okabe and Takanori Takebe who discovered that mammals can breathe through their anuses. They say in their paper that this potentially offers an alternative way of getting oxygen into critically ill patients if ventilator and artificial lung supplies run low, like they did during the Covid-19 pandemic.

[ click to continue reading at CNN ]

James Earl Jones Gone

from CNN

James Earl Jones, iconic actor and memorable voice of Darth Vader and Mufasa, dead at 93

By Brandon Griggs and Alli Rosenbloom

Jim Spellman/WireImage/Getty Images

You can’t think of James Earl Jones without hearing his voice.

That booming basso profundo, conveying instant dignity or menace, was Jones’ signature instrument. It brought power to all his stage and movie roles, most indelibly as Darth Vader in “Star Wars,” Mufasa in “The Lion King” and as the voice of CNN.

That remarkable voice is just one of many things the world will miss about the beloved actor, who died Monday, according to his agent. He was 93.

[ click to continue reading at CNN ]

Outfuckingstanding

Ellison’s Paramount

from Bloomberg

Larry Ellison Will Control Paramount After Deal, Filing Says

Story by Christopher Palmeri

Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) — Paramount Global, the parent of CBS, will be controlled by software billionaire Larry Ellison after a group led by his son David completes its purchase of the Redstone family’s interest in the film and TV company, according to a regulatory filing.

Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle Corp., is backing his son’s proposal to buy the Redstone’s National Amusements Inc. and take control of Paramount for more than $8 billion. According to a filing with the US Federal Communications Commission, the older Ellison will own 77.5% of National Amusements through a trust and series of corporations.

[ click to continue reading at Bloomberg ]

Across The Worst

from Observer

Hemingway’s Worst Novel Gets Worse: ‘Across the River’ Is a Dull, Pointless Misfire

Liev Schreiber and Venice can’t save this lifeless adaptation of Hemingway’s least beloved work.

By Rex Reed

Matilda de Angelis and Liev Schreiber star in ‘Across the River and Into the Trees,’ a lifeless stump destined for box-office doom. Courtesy Tribune Pictures

Does anyone know how to make a movie these days that makes sense, with enough plot, narrative coherence and character development to keep a viewer from falling asleep? Hope springs eternal, but the answer, from almost everything I’ve seen lately, is no.

The newest time-waster is Across the River and Into the Trees, a dismal disappointment based on the last full-length novel written by Ernest Hemingway and published to abysmal reviews in 1950 (later came The Old Man and the Sea, but that was a short novella, not a novel). Now, more than 70 years later and for reasons unexplained, along comes a dull, pointless movie version of Across the River, proving Hemingway’s worst book has not improved with age. Director Paula Ortiz, obviously obsessed with the source material but understandably realizing how resistant it has always been to film, has changed practically everything about the book, including the plot, the characters and even the postwar years in which it takes place. Nothing, I regret to say, helps. It’s lifeless as a stump, and destined for box-office doom.

[ click to continue reading at Observer ]