Steinway-piano dot com has the story of the meeting of the two perhaps most influential musicians among the piano community of the first half of the 20th century. Horowitz: the rising of a star Vladimir Horowitz and Sergei Rachmaninoff had each suffered great losses in the Russian Revolution of 1917. “We lost absolutely everything,” Horowitz told author, radio personality, and Steinway Artist David Dubal, as reported in Dubal’s book, Reflections from the Keyboard....

In Horowitz, fire sings through metal, glass, water and ice. The Carolina Philharmonic has the story “Zen and the Art of Piano | Vladimir Horowitz”, by David Michael Wolff. It’s about the artistic style of pianist Horowitz and his inspirational friendship with Rachmaninoff. The time was around the beginning of the 20th century—artists flee from the war and revolution in Russia to arrive in US: The young Horowitz had just landed off the boat in NYC and with all the sights the New World had to offer, his first stop was Rachmaninoff’s Manhattan apartment....

Andante Cantabile, generally means “singing and walking”, is a musical term—a descriptive marker atop a score to delineate the mood or tempo intended by the composer. It . This trend is particularly poignant in compositions of grand scale, where each movement, each phrase, carries its own distinct direction. Among the luminaries of the Andante Cantabile, Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1 in D Major resonates profoundly, a masterpiece that I’ve previously explored in an older post....

landscape A significant portion of blood donations in China comes from college students. In 2016, 14 million people donated blood, with donation rates per thousand population among civil servants, college students, army personnel, and medical staff notably higher than the national average of 10.5—reaching 69.2, 78, 55.8, and 52.5 respectively, according to Xinhua News. Do a little bit more math unveils how much college students account for blood donation: in 2016, total Chinese college student is 36990000, so total people who participated in donation is 2,885,220—so, about 20% of blood donation comes from college students....

This is one of the scenes that resonates with my current phase and inspires me a lot. [Joe] (After the successful performace) So uh, what happens next? [Dorothea] We come back tomorrow night and do it all…[pause] What’s wrong, teacher? [Joe] It’s just i’ve been waiting on this day for my entire life. I thought I’d feel different. [Dorothea] I heard this story about a fish. The fish swims up to this older fish and says, “I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean....

Strava, a fitness-tracking company, faced criticism after its global heatmap unintentionally exposed the locations of sensitive military bases worldwide. The heatmap aggregates and anonymizes public data from users who share their exercise routes, but in remote areas, this data can reveal concentrations of military personnel. Strave included a total 1 billion activities from all Strava data through September 2017. They claim to have a global heatmap that is the largest, richest, and most beautiful dataset of its kind....

I’m excited to present the Cookie series—a collection of everything you need to know about internet Cookies. This Cookie series is a one-stop guide to understanding everything about internet cookies—what they are, how they work, and why they matter. Let’s open and see what’s inside the Cookie Box! technical basics What are Cookies Who collect data via Cookies, and how? Cookie syncing How data is used for ad targeting regulations The rule for cookies GDPR and CCPA: the major regulation landscape China’s stance Industry Trends and Reactions, staring from July 2024 market landscape The Value of Cookies AdTech Landscape Demand-Side Platforms Market size and market shares of Ad-Tech industry the key when buying ads — targeting Data brokers Google Gossip Surprising News: Google stopped decaprecating Cookies the Cookies Confusion and the Antitrust Avalanche extras supplementary materials...

One important rule for Cookies is that, a Cookie stored locally on a user’s computer can only be accessed by whoever placed that Cookie. Websites thus have their own distinct user-unique identifications. Sometimes though, websites want to mutually “align” that the person they’re recommending ads to, is the same one. More precisely: Cookie syncing works when two ad platforms share and match the information they’ve gathered about the same user in their separate databases....

Google plays a central role in advertising. The story unfolds in the following three aspects: just what it is that makes Google so prominant and omnipresently annoying? First, Google itself generates more than 75% of its revenue from online advertising in 2023—by delivering both performance and brand advertising that appears on Google Search & other properties, YouTube, and Google Network partners’ properties (“Google Network properties”). Other main income: cloud, subscriptions, platforms (mainly Google Play), and devices(i....

China’s privay landscape China’s privacy landscape presents stark contrasts with the U.S. In the U.S., users enjoy a measure of anonymity, often completing online purchases without even logging in. In contrast, China mandates the registration of phone numbers for almost any online service, driven by legal requirements and platforms’ strategies to build robust first-party databases. While the U.S. retains a relatively decentralized approach to privacy, where data brokers and advertisers freely exchange third-party data, China has erected massive digital “walled gardens....