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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
Jan232011

State of the Union -- Prognostications

CW: As usual, there has been a lot of hoohah, some of which I've ignored, about what the President will say in his State of the Union Address. As this year's address date approaches -- Tuesday -- I guess we'll have to pay some attention to the prognostications, warnings & last-minute advice. We'll start with what the guy who actually knows what's in the address has to say:

Jack Calmes & Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times: "President Obama will outline an agenda for 'winning the future' in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, striking a theme of national unity and renewal as he stresses the need for government spending in key areas and an attack on the budget deficit. Mr. Obama previewed the themes in a video e-mailed Saturday evening to supporters who had helped in his election campaign. But the video made plain that his speech would be geared more broadly toward the political center, to independent voters and business owners and executives alienated by the expansion of government and the partisan legislative fights of the past two years."

Julie Pace of the AP: "Heading quickly into re-election mode, Obama is expected to use Tuesday's prime-time speech to promote spending on innovation while also promising to reduce the national debt and cooperate with emboldened Republicans."

Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal: "In his video address, Mr. Obama echoed the famous pledge to end the era of big government that was delivered by President Bill Clinton after Republicans swept to power on Capitol Hill in 1995."

Peter Wallsten & Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post: interest groups lobby for a favorable mention in the address.

The New York Times publishes opinions from a host of policy wonks (click here for the master link) on what each would like to hear in the SOTU address. Contributors are Elliott Abrams, Tom Daschle, Andrew Revkin, Alice Rivlin, Michelle Rhee, Jon Cowan & Jim Kessler, Robert Reich, & Dan Savage. (author-specific links).

"Sputnik II." Howard Fineman, January 21: in his State of the Union address, President Obama will model JFK & "rather than focus on new government programs..., will highlight targeted tax cuts, spending restraint and the need to rebuild our technological and educational base for the long term. The president may have no choice but to face stubbornly high unemployment and foreclosure rates throughout his term. So, as he has done on other issues, he will widen the lens, and suggest that we are at an historic -- and hopeful -- pivot point."

See also Robert Reich & Paul Krugman, linked in Sunday's Commentariat, who touch on the State of the Union address.

Just Like Junior High. Jennifer Steinhauer & Carl Hulse of the New York Times, January 22: "... on Capitol Hill, the talk for the last few days has been all about the seating for the president’s [State of the Union] speech and just who will be next to whom. Ever since Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, pushed for lawmakers of both parties to mix it up rather than sit among their own in the House chamber as if the other side has cooties, there has been a mad scramble among lawmakers for just the right partner."

The Washington Post has a slideshow of photos & very brief sketches of State of the Union addresses going back to FDR.

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