READING IS FUN

  Artificial artist? Can computers really create works of art? The Painting Fool is one of a growing number of computer programs which, so their makers claim, possess creative talents. Classical music by an artificial composer has had audiences enraptured, and even tricked them into believing a human was behind the score. Artworks painted by a robot have sold for thousands of dollars and been hung in prestigious galleries. And software has been built which creates are that could not have been imagined by the programmer. Human beings are the only species to perform sophisticated creative acts regularly. If we can break this process down into computer code, where does that leave human creativity? ‘This is a question at the very core of humanity,’ says Geraint Wiggins, a computational creativity researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London. ‘It scares a lot of people. They are worried that it is taking something special away from what it means to be human.’ To some extent, we are al...

  Why being bored is stimulating – and useful, too This most common of emotions is turning out to be more interesting than we thought A We all know how it feels – it’s impossible to keep your mind on anything, time stretches out, and all the things you could do seem equally unlikely to make you feel better. But defining boredom so that it can be studied in the lab has proved difficult. For a start, it can include a lot of other mental states, such as frustration, apathy, depression and indifference. There isn’t even agreement over whether boredom is always a low-energy, flat kind of emotion or whether feeling agitated and restless counts as boredom, too. In his book,  Boredom: A Lively History , Peter Toohey at the University of Calgary, Canada, compares it to disgust – an emotion that motivates us to stay away from certain situations. ‘If disgust protects humans from infection, boredom may protect them from “infectious” social situations,’ he suggests. B By asking people abou...

            Case Study: Tourism New Zealand website New Zealand is a small country of four million inhabitants, a long-haul flight from all the major tourist-generating markets of the world. Tourism currently makes up 9% of the country’s gross domestic product, and is the country’s largest export sector. Unlike other export sectors, which make products and then sell them overseas, tourism brings its customers to New Zealand. The product is the country itself – the people, the places and the experiences. In 1999, Tourism New Zealand launched a campaign to communicate a new brand position to the world. The campaign focused on New Zealand’s scenic beauty, exhilarating outdoor activities and authentic Maori culture, and it made New Zealand one of the strongest national brands in the world. A key feature of the campaign was the website www.newzealand.com, which provided potential visitors to New Zealand with a single gateway to everything the destination ha...

1.  https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/best-startup-books 2.  https://smeportal.unescwa.org/sites/default/files/2019-12/The_Startup_Owner%20s_Manual-A%20step%20by%20step%20guide%20for%20building%20a%20great%20company.pdf -o0o- 1. 8 Ways to Read More Books—And Why You Should https://time.com/6251239/how-to-read-more/?fbclid=IwAR1TT5y41bkmET8JxQwEYYFHEnHr8fuIs7j-sTxG9dGZ-IS5_fdKMfdCpDE I carry one of the most useful lessons of childhood with me to this day: always take a book. That rule served me well in third grade, when I sneakily read The Baby-Sitters Club under my desk during math class. (After my teacher confiscated it, I pulled out another.) It’s kept me busy on airplanes, during long drives, while taking a breather in the middle of a hiking trail, and in the corner of social gatherings. (Yes, I’m a blast at parties…if you want to debate the umpteenth remake of Pride and Prejudice.) I love to read—and wish I could do more of it—because it’s an effective and ...