From TripleC: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, a special issue on the difference that makes a difference, including Wolfgang Hofkirchner (TU Vienna): Emergent Information: When a Difference Makes a Difference; Jose M. Diaz Nafria and Rainer E. Zimmermann (HMUS): Emergence and Evolution of Meaning; Syed Mustafa Ali (Open): Race: The Difference That Makes a Difference; and Jan Sliwa (BUAS): Do We Need a Global Brain? From New York, a special issue on Reasons to Love New York 2012. From Aeon, Roger Scruton on the great swindle: From pickled sharks to compositions in silence, fake ideas and fake emotions have elbowed out truth and beauty; and going to an art gallery is like going to church — a spiritual experience; but what makes a painting worthy of veneration? Mindy C. Reiser reviews What Are You Looking At? The Surprising, Shocking and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art by Will Gomper. Professor and poet Paul Stephens turns to technology explosions past — think typewriters, gramophones, and radios — to map the modern intersections of information and art. A.W. Purdue reviews The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die by Niall Ferguson.
