Arts & Humanities - News, Articles, Books, Photo-Art, and Videos.
CURIOUSMINDS
A weekly serving of great articles we curate, and original content we produce. So, all you have to do is pick, read, watch and listen. |
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Stories from Around the World that Affect Us |
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Netanyahu to Announce Hostage Release
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he hopes to announce the release of hostages being held in Gaza "in the coming days". In a televised statement, he also said "Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarised – either the easy way or the hard way, but it will be achieved."
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US Government Shut Down
Aljazeera (Politics)
The United States government shutdown began on October 1 after Democrats and Republicans in the Senate failed to agree on a short-term government funding plan. Here is what happens next. Republicans control both chambers of Congress, but failed to gather consensus to pass their bill laying out funding for government operations until November 21. Without this bill, the government cannot function.
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Mini Human Brains to Power Computers?
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The Dangers of Protecting the Environment
Environments
Across the globe, standing up for the planet can be a death sentence—and the perpetrators are almost never held accountable. Take Juan López, an environmental activist from Honduras. He was shot dead in front of his family, friends and neighbors last fall as he was traveling home from church. López had been fighting to protect the Carlos Mejía Escaleras National Park from iron oxide mining which has ravaged the area with pollution. Having faced years of prior threats and even jail time over his activism, López was supposed to be under special protection by authorities in Honduras. But those protections failed to materialize. Image by Dream Studio
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How Artificial Intelligence Works Yascha Mounk Technology Environment |
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David Bau is Assistant Professor at Northeastern University and Director of the National Deep Inference Fabric, researching the emergent internal mechanisms of deep generative networks in both Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and David Bau explore the technology behind AI, why it’s concerning that so many computer scientists don’t understand how it works, and how to embed morals and values. Image by Leonardo |
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Quote of The Week
There are times when things stop making sense. They are often the times when everything falls into place.
- James King -
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Top Stories from our favourite publications to stimulate your curious mind, |
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How Humanity Saved the Ginkgo
The improbable presence of four ancient trees native to Asia in Communist Bulgaria is a microcosm of the story of the ginkgo itself. Earth’s oldest surviving tree genus, ginkgos were there before the dinosaurs existed, before Africa and South America parted. But after a long epoch of triumph over droughts and floods and mass extinctions, they came teetering on the brink of extinction for reasons entombed in mystery.
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Never Again?
THE LONG MEMO (Human Rights/Politics)
But America is headed in the wrong direction—if you care about the founding of the Republic, the postwar order, America’s role in that order, and the trajectory we’ve been on since 1945. There are no torchlit parades. No secret police dragging people from their homes at midnight. No leader’s portrait staring down from every schoolhouse wall. We still have elections worth stealing, courts that occasionally tell a president to shove it, and a press that—though often craven—remains uncaged. And yet—The guardrails are melting away. The driver keeps swerving toward the cliff. |
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How Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews
It was an act of violence that shocked a factory owner into becoming a saviour. These events were depicted in Thomas Keneally's novel Schindler's Ark and Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List. But in 1982, Keneally told the BBC that Oskar Schindler's story was handed to him during a chance meeting with a luggage salesman. Oskar Schindler was living in relative obscurity when his story was first featured on the BBC in 1964. |
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A Third of America wants its Destruction
Trump’s approval rating—after his barking-mad performance at the United Nations—sits at 41%. That number translates into ~114 million voting-age Americans. And of those, about 80 million—nearly 29% of the entire adult population—aren’t dabblers. They are fanatics. A structural bloc, the size of Germany, larger than France, and more numerous than the voters who put him in office in 2024. |
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Why do Birds Swarm?
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (Natural Environment)
Scientists may now know the answer
Before descending to their nighttime roosts, the birds put on one of nature’s most spectacular displays. They pulse, ripple, and wheel as if they were a single entity—an amorphous, shape-shifting creature with the delicate beauty of calligraphic brushstrokes and the erratic chaos of flickering flames. How could so many birds be so tightly coordinated? That’s a mystery that researchers have sought to solve for more than a century. In 1931, the ornithologist Edmund Selous argued that a starling murmuration, which he described as “a madness in the sky,” could only arise through telepathy.
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Intellectual Dark Matter
In analyzing the functional institutions of our society, we are not able to see for ourselves most of the knowledge that created them. Knowledge of this sort includes trade secrets, tacit technical knowledge, private social networks, private intelligence-gathering operations, management and persuasive skill, cooperation and collusion among founders and their allies, and founders’ long-term plans for their institutions. There are many forms of intellectual dark matter, but the three principal ones are lost, proprietary, and tacit knowledge.
Read the article to learn more. |
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UPGRADE to PAID
CURIOUSMINDS content and opinions contain important information curated from reliable sources. We rely on reader support to keep it FREE. We want it to reach as many people as possible. If you value what we do and would like to help us sustain it, please consider a small monthly or annual contribution. Contributing subscribers get full access to all James King Publications including archives of CURIOUSMINDS, and a valuable BONUS: FREE ebook versions of all James King’s published books.Click - View them at Amazon · Donate via the - Choose a subscription plan - page. If you are not a subscriber already - Go to the Welcome page |
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James King Blog offers valuable resources for students of Arts and Humanities. Particularly those interested in Environments, Literature, Performing Arts, Visual Art, Philosophy, Travel, and Human Rights. The articles provide insights into complex interactions between humans and their environments, and the ethical and moral dimensions of environmental issues. The Blog is relevant to students of all ages and those who are just fascinated by the Arts and Humanities. |
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 The Most Ancient Cities in the World – Timeless Treasures
Among the most ancient cities in the world are those with histories spanning millennia, reflecting both continuity and change across the centuries. The intricate details of these cities’ architecture, urban planning, and art bear evidence of the skills and innovations of early human settlements. |
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FREE BOOKS116 Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense FreebiesThis Promo Closes between October 20 and 31 October Thriller authors join forces in joint promotion campaigns to introduce themselves to readers. You can download as many books as you like.
I hope you find plenty to entertain you. CLICK THE BANNER BELOW TO VIEW THE PROMO - AND GRAB AS MANY BOOKS AS YOU WANT |
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KINDLE UNLIMITED PROMOTION176 Thriller Books - Mystery, and Suspense This Promo Closes 31 October Thriller authors join forces in joint promotion campaigns to introduce themselves to readers. You can download as many books as you like.
I hope you find plenty to entertain you. CLICK THE BANNER BELOW TO VIEW THE PROMO - AND GRAB AS MANY BOOKS AS YOU WANT |
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ALFIE GOES TO THAILAND - SERIES
If you like thought-provoking drama, romantic tragedies, and damaged characters, then you’ll love the tropical sauna and wry humour of POST- IT NOTES and the other books in this Psychological Thriller series. The Series is a story of human challenge, manipulation, rejection, abuse, and a search for peace. |
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THE KENRIGHT CHRONICLES - SERIES
The Kenright Chronicles is a psychological thriller series. Jack Kenright, a young investment banker gets involved in an international art swindle. which cripples his business and threatens his life and his family. He ends up a recluse, working for the FBI undercover and exposes massive corruption in the gambling world. |
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The Crime at Black DudleyBy Margery Allingham
The first novel in Margery Allingham's renowned series introducing the legendary aristocratic sleuth Albert Campion.
Pathologist George Abbershaw is on holiday in Suffolk attending a social weekend at the remote Black Dudley manor. His friend Wyatt Petrie has organized a party to provide some diversion for his elderly uncle. With charming young Meggie Oliphant in attendance, George hopes to win her affections. But the lighthearted gathering soon takes a dark turn as the guests are caught in a deadly game.
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Red HarvestBy Dashiell Hammett From a crime writer and "an acknowledged literary landmark," a PI heads west and battles corruption and a rising death toll in this 1920s classic mystery (The New York Times Book Review). Summoned to Personville, the detective known as Continental Op discovers the real reason locals call the western mining town "Poisonville." The whole community has been divvied up into warring factions of gangsters and petty criminals. As the body count continues to rise, starting with the newspaperman who called in the detective for help, the Op decides to stick around. He is determined to clean up the criminal element, even if it means interrogating the whole town. But corruption knows no bounds and soon enough, the trusty detective finds himself a prime suspect of murder.
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Substack - Creative Xellence -
Join us at Creative Xellence where we are building a home for James King's Poetry, Short Stories and serialised Novels. Subscribe for Free and you will be notified of new content and recieve the Newsletter.
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Medium
At Medium we curate high value informative articles related to A&H from major publishers and authoratative sources. And we publish a smattering of selected articles from James King Blog and articles written by James King for Medium Publications.
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