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INAUGURATION 2029

Marie: I don't know why this video came up on my YouTube recommendations, but it did. I watched it on a large-ish teevee, and I found it fascinating. ~~~

 

Hubris. One would think that a married man smart enough to start up and operate his own tech company was also smart enough to know that you don't take your girlfriend to a public concert where the equipment includes a jumbotron -- unless you want to get caught on the big camera with your arms around said girlfriend. Ah, but for Andy Bryon, CEO of A company called Astronomer, and also maybe his wife, Wednesday was a night that will live in infamy. New York Times link. ~~~

Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:

~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.

CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~

     ~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play. 

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts. 

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Thursday
Dec242015

December 25, 2015

Defunct videos removed.

National Christmas Tree 2015.In keeping with my seven-year tradition of doing nothing useful on Christmas Day, following are some popular 20th-century Christmas songs I can bear:

Nat King Cole sings "The Christmas Song," written by Bob Wells & Mel Torme: 

"The Little Drummer Boy," written by Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941 & performed by the Harry Simeone Chorale (1958):

Bing Crosby sings "Do You Hear What I Hear," lyrics by Noël Regney and music by Gloria Shayne Baker. Regney & Baker, who were then married to each other, "wrote it as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis."

So maybe not Christmas music exactly, but from "A Charlie Brown Christmas:

Bob Dylan's version of "Must Be Santa" ended up on my Worst Christmas Songs Ever list for a couple of years. Then I got used to it. Dylan's version sure beats Mitch Miller's original:

Top hillbilly Christmas song: Elvis Presley & Martina McBride sing "Blue Christmas":

My Favorite: The Drifters' "White Christmas"; cartoon by Joshua Held:

Comments Off

Reader Comments (5)

I'm torn between the Drifters and Charlie Brown. And, if one viewing of the Peanuts gang doesn't get you in the dance mood, try this non-stop 10 hour version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOCrBa8peCg

Dylan's "Must Be Santa" is a new side of Bob for me! Fun!

Merry Christmahannukwanzadan to RC'ers one & all!

December 25, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

Nice selection. I got a little depressed looking at the Elvis track - what a shame to compare those days to how he ended.

December 25, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterWalt Garage

Charlie Brown Christmas! Maybe it's just my baby boomer sensibilities, but to me it's the most Christmas-y of all Christmas music. We play it at full blast coming out of the outdoor speakers to serenade the whole neighborhood.

Merry Christmas to all - just because you don't celebrate it as a religious holiday (I don't) doesn't mean you can't have a Merry Christmas...

December 25, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterRockygirl

Maybe this one will make it on CW's list next year, An MST3K Christmas.

December 25, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterUnwashed

@Unwashed: Thanks a bunch. That's right up there with Perry Como's "O Holy Night" & Andrea Bocelli's "Ave Maria" (Schubert).

Merry Christmas -- if that's okay.

Marie

December 25, 2015 | Unregistered CommenterMarie Burns
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