In the range of importance, celebrities’ reading lists typically weigh in heavier on the superficial “dieting secrets” side of things than revealing anything about their day-to-day thoughts. Taking his unsurprisingly insightful turn on the ‘summer reading’ circuit is philanthropist extraordinaire and sworn enemy of tech snobs Bill Gates. The globetrotting nerd dictated five of his recently beloved books on his blog GatesNotes, a title he no doubt labored over for as long as he did Windows 7. As you could’ve probably seen coming from miles away, Gates’ summer reading list is heavy on books that expouse the virtues of math and science, encourage a symbiotic relationship …
As I’m sure you’re already aware, Stephen King’s The Shining is a standout work of fiction. It was a quick hit after its 1977 release and is still one of the truest examples of an ‘instant classic’. Three years later, Stanley Kubrick’s film brought a roundly disturbing depth to the book’s characters and themes. Both are considered masterworks, so what more could you do to tell this story? If you’re first thought was ‘opera’, you most likely work for an opera. But you’re also right. An operatic adaptation of The Shining had its world primere on May 7th at the Minnesota Opera, beginning …
A lot of people have much to owe George R.R. Martin. Twenty years of writing A Song of Ice and Fire has generated countless science fiction and fantasy awards for the author and made his work a touchstone for a new generation of the genre’s fans. The adaptation of his writing, Game of Thrones (as if you didn’t already know), has been nominated for more than 500 televison industry awards and won a record-breaking 12 Emmy Awards in one year alone. He’s at the forefront of the combination suspender-and-kepi-hat fashion revolution. So what else can he do to make us love him more? Pictured: Martin not …
We have been fascinated/terrified by the possibility of robots learning how to love for what feels like the dawn of society. In news that will only galvanize those curiousities and fears, the most influential tech company in the world is one step closer to making that comic book plot a fact of life. Engineers at Google have been exposing their app’s artificial intelligence (AI) to text from lusty romance novels in order to adjust its stiff responses to more naturalistic, conversational stentence structures. Titles like Ignited and Jacked Up are now in its vocabulary, which workers say elevate the Google app’s personality, making …
Oprah Winfrey, inarguably the most important Oprah in the public eye, has just been announced as the leading role in HBO’s adaptation of the nonfiction phenomenon The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The movie has just been greenlit for production and will begin shooting this summer. Henrietta Lacks tracks the legacy of an African-American woman whose cervical cancer cells, harvested without her knowledge while in treatment, became the first set of human cells to be able to reproduce in a lab. While these cells helped find treatments for polio, cancer, and AIDS, the ethical questions that arise make the reader contemplate the tradeoff …
