Increasingly, we’re surrounded by fake people. Sometimes we know it and sometimes we don’t. They offer us customer service on Web sites, target us in video games, and fill our social-media feeds; they trade stocks and, with the help of systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, can write essays, articles, and e-mails. By no means are these A.I. systems up to all the tasks expected of a full-fledged person. But they excel in certain domains, and they’re branching out.
Meteorologically speaking, we're in the final month of spring, but time has got away from us and we never had the chance to fully appreciate this season that comes before our favourite. For it's at this time of year, that the earth awakens from its deep sleep, shedding the icy weight of winter's discontent.
FOR SOME strange reason, springtime always makes me feel like completely renovating the powder rooms. What seems to be fine in the winter, suddenly feels oppressive and in dire need of a makeover when the days get longer and the sun fills everything with its warm golden light. Can't wait until it's warm enough to throw open all the windows again and let the fresh air in, fluttering the gauzy curtains in the bathrooms here at the cottage.
It’s been 25 years since Ben Affleck became the youngest person to win the Oscar for best original screenplay at age 25 for Good Will Hunting, which he wrote with Matt Damon; 16 years since he directed his critically acclaimed first feature, Gone Baby Gone; and a decade since he won best picture for Argo, a film Affleck directed, starred in and produced. His four features as a director — all thrillers and dramas instead of the kind of franchise films that drive the modern box office — have made nearly $450 million worldwide.
Many social scientists agree that contemporary American men are mired in malaise, even as they disagree about the causes. In academic performance, boys are well behind girls in elementary school, high school, and college, where the sex ratio is approaching two female undergraduates for every one male. (It was an even split at the start of the nineteen-eighties.) Rage among self-designated “incels” and other elements of the online “manosphere” appears to be steering some impressionable teens toward misogyny.
THIS WEEK’S Two Lovely Things features the romantic scalloped wicker accent. While we're known to love wicker for pretty much anything, in the form of scallops, it adds an extra-special charm. Here, the scalloped wicker accent comes in the form of a pretty window valence over white linen curtains in a cosy home office in the French countryside, and as a decorative element along the top edge of a wicker storage basket set beneath a console in a bright entryway ...
HAVE YOU ever looked at real estate listings for décor inspiration or just out of curiosity about real people's interior design choices? We do that often and sometimes come across amazing properties that we always share with you. This particular listing is a large, historically significant Grade II-listed manor house in Bitton, Gloucestershire that is over 5,870 sq ft with six bedrooms and sits on three acres of land ...
THIS WEEK'S Two Lovely Things features the front door curtain, something we've been coming across quite a bit recently, especially in English countryside décor. There are many reasons why one might hang an entrance curtain over their front door: as a beautiful way to frame the doorway, but also as a chic solution for reducing heat loss at home, as a heavy fabric curtain can help prevent cold air from passing through a draughty entranceway.
NEVER REALISED the need for outdoor curtains until coming across it again and again, mostly in archways and doorways, sometimes from the windows of juliet balconies on old apartment buildings and saw how utterly charming it is ...
PERHAPS IT IS the shortening days that fade even before 7:30 now, or the evening chill that flutters leaves and creeps in before suppertime. Whatever the reason, we find ourselves drawn to deeper, darker hues lately, and especially to a variation of pinkish brown (or brownish pink, if you like) that we seem to be seeing everywhere lately ...
WE ACTUALLY DISCOVERED the ultra-chic Paris apartment of Christine d’Ornano via Barbara, who used to write for TIG. d’Ornano, who works for the French botanical beauty brand, Sisley Paris, moved from London to Paris when she moved up in the company to the position of global vice president in 2018 ...
A FEW MONTHS ago I turned a tall shelf on its side to use a console, leaving the now vertical shelf spaces below for storage. It looked good on top, but the spaces below looked cluttered, so I thought about getting a curtain made to hide everything. I was thinking about how, in European kitchens, the lower cupboards are often covered using curtains instead of cupboards, and always liked the idea for its versatility: just change up the fabric from a stripe to a floral for an entirely new look, or swap linen for silk to go from casual to formal ...