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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

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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Tuesday
May282019

King Donnie's Weekly To-Do List

By Akhilleus


1. Ratchet up tensions in the Middle East. Tell the losers I don't want war but then order troop deployments. That oughta make those towel heads shit their pants. Always keep 'em guessing, is say. Besides, wars are good and easy to win.

Check.

2. Ratchet up the trade war with China. So what if farmers lose and rural Americans have no cell service? As long as they can all still watch Fox, they'll know what a tough and generous king I am. And so what if we have to pay billions in bail out money and hundreds of millions to clean up after my poorly thought out bullshit plans? It's just tax money. And I don't pay taxes. So, hahahahahahaha...

Check.

3. Best of all, continue to make the people investigating MY treason look like traitors themselves. Threaten them with death. Tee-hee. That'll get the Democrat Party hopping.

Check.

Continue to tell congress to fuck off. I'm the king. Who are they? Peasants.

Check.

4. Insult, insult, insult. Attack, attack, attack. Whoever and whatever. Thank you Roy Cohn wherever you are. Best advice evah.

Check, check, check, and check.

5. Go to Japan and piss on the Democrats. Embarrass the shit out of Abe.

Check and check.

6. Ignore warnings from allies, experts, and every intelligence service in the US about North Korea. Kim loves me. He won't do anything without telling me first.

Check

7. Make jokes with the murderous dictator of an antagonistic foreign power (wait, which one? Oh, yeah. This time it's Kim.) about Joe Biden. Or is it Bidan? Who fucking cares? Besides I'm king. I can spell it Bitin' if I want to.

Check

8. Destroy the environment. Fucking Obama thought he could save the planet. Fuck him. And fuck the planet too. I'm the king, I can do whatever I want.

Check, check, and check

9. End the Fourth of July celebrations. From now on, it'll be King Trump Day Celebrations. After all, I deserve it. I'm a very stable genius. (Which reminds me. Call IRS and have them audit that fucking Randy Rainbow.)

Check and check

10. Call the Speaker of the House crazy. How dare she make fun of the king!

BIG CHECK with flowers and hearts and little horses around it.

Well, that's enough for one week. Who says I don't work hard? Trying to start a war, destroy the planet, ruin the economy, and dismantle two centuries of legal precedence while eviscerating the country is hard work.

Yawn....time for a nap, then Egg-zecutive time to listen to my pals at Fox talk about my greatness.

(Editor's note: And this is just one week. Does Nancy Pelosi really need more?)

Comments Off

Reader Comments (3)

The thing is, this is not much of an exaggeration.

May 28, 2019 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Idle digits are the devil's workshop.

May 28, 2019 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

Everyone should follow the lead of Nancy Pelosi. Pray for him, ridicule him, make him the fool. All opposition should realize by now that he has no sense of humor and can not stand being laughed at. All his statements should get the response, there he goes again, that silly old man talking silly. Who is watching him, do they know he is out. Ignore him on issues but question his spelling , his thinking, his appearance and his audience of clowns. Do not challenge him on issues as that gives him a chance to give stupid things credence.
Challenge his enablers .Make his Senate defend him on every issue. The Senate must be charged with every act that has harmed the Country. Call attention to the terrible thing that have been done and ignore the things Trump says.
Stop letting Trump establish the day's story.

May 28, 2019 | Unregistered Commentercarlyle
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