Discourse

You could almost feel sorry for Justin Timberlake, attempting a return after being reappraised as the villain in two massive pop miscarriages of justice. His career endured after the 2004 Super Bowl – during which he ripped off Janet Jackson’s clothing – while she was censured. But the cultural misogyny of that moment is now self-evident, as it is in the treatment of Britney Spears after their 2002 breakup, when she was painted as unfaithful and subject to disgustingly invasive scrutiny. Her 2023 memoir told a different…

After Palworld started sliding down the Steam charts, the usual it’s a dead game or dying chatter spun up, but I’m not inclined to go exclusively off of Steam’s player count to determine a game’s long-term health, and the same appears true for Pocketpair. The studio’s community manager, Bucky, seems to feel the same if their recent Twitter post is anything to go by.  It’s not very often that a game, especially one from a smaller studio, becomes as much of an overnight success as Palworld did. The stories of broken…

Anyone seeking to understand how the internet works in 2024 need only glance at the many charged conversations around Barbie’s Academy Award nominations. Averting one’s eyes, though, may understandably be more preferable.That a film based on the most famous doll of all time—no disrespect to Raggedy Ann or Chucky—managed to score eight Oscar nods, on top of being the year’s top grosser and a critical hit, would have probably seemed preposterous a year ago. What should have been a victory lap when those nominations were…

Yesterday the Academy announced the nominees for the 2024 Oscars, and Barbie did very well for itself. Best Adapted Screenplay! Two original song nods! Ryan Gosling for Best Supporting Actor and America Ferrera for Best Supporting Actress! A Best Picture nomination! But alas, this has proven to not in fact be enough in an unhinged way.Spoilers of the Week | June 17thAlmost immediately since the dust settled on the nominations reveal, commentators have looked to the fact that both star Margot Robbie and director Greta…

Rasmus Nielsen / Financial Times: Despite the focus on generative AI misinformation, much of the policy discourse ignores that politicians pose the gravest threat, ahead of big elections in 2024 — As we head into a big election year, beware the risks of misleading statements from those at very top Rasmus Nielsen / Financial Times: Despite the focus on generative AI misinformation, much of the policy discourse ignores that politicians pose the gravest threat, ahead of big elections in 2024 …

She's an important figure behind today's artificial intelligence boom, but not all computer scientists thought Fei-Fei Li was on the right track when she came up with the idea for a giant visual database called ImageNet that took years to build. Li, now a founding director of Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, is out with a new memoir that recounts her pioneering work in curating the dataset that accelerated the computer vision branch of AI.The book, “The World I See,” also…

She's an important figure behind today's artificial intelligence boom, but not all computer scientists thought Fei-Fei Li was on the right track when she came up with the idea for a giant visual database called ImageNet that took years to build.Li, now a founding director of Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, is out with a new memoir that recounts her pioneering work in curating the dataset that accelerated the computer vision branch of AI.Elevate Your Tech Prowess with High-Value…

Apurva Bose Dutta trained as an architect but chose not to practise architecture in the conventional sense. Instead of designing buildings, she practises through architectural design writing, journalism, criticism, communications, discourse, and curation – her preferred career path since she graduated from the Chandigarh College of Architecture in 2005 and followed that up with a diploma in freelance journalism. PREMIUM The Museum of Architecture in Chandigarh by Shiv Datt Sharma 154pp, ₹1990; Altrim…

Every time a woman monetizes the absurd, she’s accused of making fetish content. It’s a symptom of the anti-sex moral panic sweeping pop culture — and this time, it’s coming for TikTok’s NPC creators.  Snippets of these creators’ livestreams keep going viral, and because the internet loves to hate on women, the nonsensical mannerisms that these creators use in their content has been written off as disturbing, cringe and definitely a sex thing. Sex workers, meanwhile, are unfairly dragged into dehumanizing…

This article contains spoilers for The Flash. The Flash may have been a massive disappointment for fans, but the creator of Mortal Kombat, Ed Boon, has his own concerns when it comes to the internet’s negative disposition. There’s just something about the internet that makes people meaner. Perhaps it’s the anonymity combined with the echo chamber that amplifies negative opinions over positive ones but either way, there’s no doubt that harsh opinions and ridicule spread around the web faster than positive or even…