WEC Class Notes

 1. Stadiums are among the oldest forms of urban architecture: vast stadiums where the public could  watch sporting events were at the centre of western city life as far back as the ancient Greek and Roman Empires, well before the construction of the great medieval cathedrals and the grand 19th- and 20th-century railway stations which dominated urban skylines in later eras. 2. Today, however, stadiums are regarded with growing 1 scepticism. Construction costs can soar above £1 billion, and stadiums finished for major events such as the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup have notably fallen into disuse and disrepair. 3. But this need not be the case. History shows that stadiums can drive urban development and adapt to the culture of every age. Even today, architects and planners are finding new ways to adapt the mono-functional sports arenas which became emblematic of modernization during the 20th century. 4. The amphitheatre of Arles in...

1. You may have seen photographs that suggest otherwise, but former president Donald Trump wasn’t arrested last week, and the pope didn’t wear a stylish, brilliant white puffer coat. These recent viral hits were the fruits of artificial intelligence systems that process a user’s textual prompt to create images. They demonstrate how these programs have become very good very quickly—and are now convincing enough to fool an unwitting observer. 2. So how can skeptical viewers spot images that may have been generated by an artificial intelligence system such as DALL-E, Midjourney or Stable Diffusion? Each AI image generator—and each image from any given generator—varies in how convincing it may be and in what telltale signs might give its algorithm away. For instance, AI systems have historically struggled to mimic human hands and have produced mangled appendages with too many digits. As the technology improves, however, systems such as Midjourney V5 seem to have cracked the problem—at leas...

 1. If you’ve ever eaten a piece of fruit, a vegetable, or a packaged food made with corn or soy, it’s likely that you’ve eaten a genetically modified organism (GMO). These are foods that have been changed in a laboratory to have specific traits, like being pest-resistant or being able to grow in certain conditions. 2. Though GMOs have been around for a few decades, people are sometimes concerned about whether or not they’re safe to eat. So far, studies don’t show any health risks associated with eating genetically modified foods, but there are still unknowns and concerns about their safety. Here, we’ll review what GMOs are used for, some common concerns about them, and what the research says so far. 3. What are GMOs? GMOs are living beings that have had their DNA (genetic material) changed. This is done in a lab through a process called genetic engineering. With this process, scientists can move desirable genes from one plant, animal, or microorganism...