If you read one piece on early computer scientist Alan Turing that’s come out in celebration of his 100th birthday last Saturday (if you were wondering about Friday’s Google Doodle) you might do very well to make it this one in the Atlantic on how his reading of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution influenced his work and continues to shape the way we work with computers. It’s also about the limits of artificial intelligence.
Competence without comprehension
Now Turn to Page Thirty
Rebecca Schuman argues in an essay for Slate that extraordinarily long course syllabi are killing the college classroom. If it’s academic homicide you’re after, you might also want to check out Cathy Day’s piece for The Millions in which she suggests that academia might just be killing the novel, too.
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HomeWORK More Like HomeFUN
“Heidi Maier, the new superintendent of the 42,000-student Marion County public school district in Florida, said in an interview that she made the decision based on solid research about what works best in improving academic achievement in students.” In place of traditional homework, 20,000 elementary school students will spend 20 minutes reading a book of their choice each night, reports The Washington Post. Pair with T.K. Dalton on books, kids, and gender.
Little Prince, Lots of Translation
This month, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s iconic children’s book Le Petit Prince will be translated into Hassanya, a rural Arabic dialect spoken in portions of Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Senegal, and Mali. This marks the 300th translation of the book.
Next Up, Denmark
After waking us up to their favorite Brazilian novelists, the editorial board at Granta is turning its gaze to Norway. In the first issue of Norwegian Granta, you’ll find a slew of stories by illustrious contributors (among them Jennifer Egan, Roberto Bolano and Alice Munro) alongside new stories from authors native to the country. At Granta’s website, you can read an interview with the magazine’s online editor, Ted Hodgkinson.
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“This Website is Pretty Good…”
I had no idea Kanye read The Millions. Apparently, he’s not that impressed by our recent comments about him.
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So Far So Good
Recommended reading (and reading, and reading): Oyster has listed the “100 Best Books of the Decade So Far,” led by Teju Cole‘s Open City, which was reviewed for the Millions here.