From Andreas Babst for Neue Zircher Zeitung: “In 1969, the Intercontinental Hotel, Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel, opened. It was built in a time that feels much further away than the year suggests. Afghanistan was at war for more than forty years. Rulers came and went, and every one of them was here, at the Intercontinental. Its former luxury has faded, but the Intercontinental has remained a symbol: Those who rule Kabul rule Afghanistan, and those who rule Kabul rule the Intercontinental. Today, the hotel is run by the Taliban. The new government is forcing Taliban and non-Taliban to work together – in the administration and in government-related businesses. Young men share an office with young fighters they once feared, and young fighters sit next to young men they once despised. A lot depends on this experiment.”
The first algorithmically generated music was developed in the seventeenth century
From Amelia Soth for JSTOR Daily: “The first device for algorithmically composing music comes to us surprisingly early: in the 1600s. Looking something like an overcomplicated and miniaturized chest of drawers, it allowed even complete amateurs to compose four-part church music. They could start with a text in verse to set to music, choose whether they wanted music in a simple or florid style, and the rest was achieved by mixing and matching the entries carved into the device’s many little wooden tablets, ultimately converting the results into musical notes. Only a few examples of the device, known as the Arca musarithmica or “Musical Ark,” remain today. The famous diarist Samuel Pepys owned one, as did Ferdinand III of the Holy Roman Empire. The idea for the device came from polymath and all-around oddball Athanasius Kircher.”
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