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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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Sunday
Dec242017

December 25, 2017, CE

Medlar & I are so pleased to finally be able to say

                                                          -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Thanks to Patrick for reminding us earlier this year of this seasonal classic:

We owe it to the film "Home Alone" (1990) for reviving this version of Irving Berlin's 1940 classic:

In memory of My Damned Cat:

Speaking of animals, Bob Rivers' "Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire" is too offensive to embed here, but it is pretty tasty.

Hellellujah Chorus with lyrics:

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town:

Comments Off

Reader Comments (6)

If any of you, like me, have "world enough and time" on this day of days, you might want to dip into these two pieces on religion, both from the Times: the first one by Peter Wehner, tries to convey how he can possibly believe that faith is better than doubt. It's a thoughtful but failed attempt. Interesting to read some of the comments.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/opinion/faith-christmas-religion.html?ribbon-ad-idx=2&rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article

The other piece follows below.

P.S. thanks to Marie for all the glee!

December 25, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Can't leave out my fave carol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg7HvF3a_Iw

December 25, 2017 | Unregistered Commentermaxwells demon

The treasury secretary received a special Christmas gift.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/12/man-who-left-manure-at-treasury-secretarys-home-calls-it-act-of-political-theater.html

Cheers.

December 25, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterPeriscope

Another Christmas song "All I want for Christmas"
Wishing you all happiness over the Christmas holiday time, and beyond.

December 25, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterGloria

Thanks for all the love, grace, warmth and intelligent discourse throughout this rotten year— to you all, and especially to Marie, safari and the others dedicated to keeping us all sane and in the loop. I am proud to feel a part of a community as we simply careen along. My delightful son and his wife gave us the Pete Souza book of Obama photographs and we actually teared up on opening it. Feels like such a loss—

December 25, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne
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