Posts by Sophie Clearwater
The A.I. Boom Is Stress-Testing America’s Power Grid
[ad_1] Explosive A.I. growth is compressing decades of grid planning into years, forcing utilities and investors to rethink infrastructure. Unsplash+ Artificial intelligence has quickly become the focal point of nearly every major technology debate today—the safety of each system’s model, algorithmic bias and its impact on the future of work. The challenge isn’t theoretical. Beneath…
Read MoreWhy Bill Ackman Is Making a $2B Bet on Mark Zuckerberg’s A.I. Vision
[ad_1] Bill Ackman’s $2 billion Meta investment signals confidence in Zuckerberg’s long-term A.I. strategy. Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images Meta’s reputation as one of Silicon Valley’s biggest A.I. spenders, but with little to show for it so far, is spooking much of Wall Street. But hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman isn’t fazed.…
Read MoreOsaka’s Long-Overdue Luxury Hotel Moment Has Arrived
[ad_1] Osaka is not Tokyo. It has never tried to be. Whereas the country’s capital exudes a buttoned-up beauty and a cosmopolitan charisma found in only a handful of global megacities, “tenka no daidokoro,” which translates to “Japan’s kitchen”—a nickname dating to the Edo period when the city was a major rice-trading hub—has a far…
Read MoreWhat to Say When Someone Tells You to Smile More
[ad_1] Four words have echoed across every boardroom, dating app, and city street in the world: You should smile more. Anastasia Ryan has heard it her whole life, but perhaps never more than in a role where the people she was speaking to couldn’t see her at all. “The majority of what I did was…
Read MoreWhy You Should Handwrite Someone You Love a Card
[ad_1] Dashing off an email or text takes seconds. Handwriting a card takes a little courage—and five minutes with a pen. Putting in the extra time and effort matters more than you might think. “We all have a need to matter—to be considered and to be seen,” says Alison McKleroy, an art therapist in San…
Read MoreGallop Into the Year of the Horse With These Five Amazing Equine Discoveries
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/e5/bd/e5bdaaf6-4436-4e39-88e5-01a9ed506d4a/leadimagetest.jpg?w=1024&resize=1024,1024&ssl=1 "Gallop Into the Year of the Horse With These Five Amazing Equine Discoveries")
[ad_1] Since their domestication, horses have changed the course of human history. It’s no wonder the Chinese zodiac associates them with prosperity and success [ad_2] Source link
Read MoreOne Fine Show: “Michael Rakowitz, Proxies for Poets and Palaces” at the Stavanger Art Museum
[ad_1] Michael Rakowitz, The Ballad Special Ops Cody, 2017. Photo: Erik Sæter Jørgensen, Courtesy the Stavanger Art Museum Welcome to One Fine Show, where Observer highlights a recently opened exhibition at a museum not in New York City, a place we know and love that already receives plenty of attention. Few contemporary artists create work about…
Read MoreLondon School Icons from the Lewis Collection Will Headline Sotheby’s March Sales
[ad_1] Francis Bacon, Self-Portrait, 1972. Estimate: £8-12 million. Courtesy Sotheby’s As the London auctions approach in March, we are beginning to learn more about the major consignments the top houses have secured for this sales cycle—an auction round that will once again test the market, which entered 2026 with renewed hope following the positive close…
Read MoreA First Safari in the Serengeti, Where Every Drive Is a Game Drive
[ad_1] Welcome to the Serengeti. Courtesy Four Seasons One of the first things I learned on safari is that every drive is a game drive. I landed at Seronera Airstrip in Serengeti National Park at 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and within an hour, I was looking out the side of our 4×4 gaping…
Read MoreElon Musk Loses Half of xAI’s Founding Team—Where They’ve Gone Next
[ad_1] Elon Musk’s xAI has lost half of its 12-person founding team. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Just days after Elon Musk merged his A.I. startup, xAI, with SpaceX in preparation for a widely anticipated trillion-dollar IPO later this year, two of xAI’s founding employees—Yuhuai (Tony) Wu and Jimmy Ba—announced their resignations. That means half…
Read MoreIn Chicago, Yoonshin Park Explores the Boundaries of the Book
[ad_1] Park’s work explores the boundaries of the book as both object and language, inviting viewers to “read” through form, texture and absence. Courtesy Hyde Park Art Center “Sometimes stories can be delivered without saying words,” artist Yoonshin Park tells Observer. “They can be delivered through shapes, materials, colors—a more direct way of delivering messages.”…
Read MoreStarting in the Dominican Republic, Elsa Maldonado and Nicole Bainov Are Forging Global Pathways for Caribbean Art
[ad_1] Installation view: “The Fragility of Ancestral Time” at Casa Velazquez in Santo Domingo. Courtesy Heliconia Projects While contemporary Caribbean artists—particularly those working within the diaspora—are beginning to receive greater commercial and institutional attention internationally, much of what is unfolding in the region’s local scenes remains disconnected from the global art world. The newly launched…
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