REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- January 1

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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.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

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Dec312010

The Commentariat -- January 1

New Year's Eve, Times Square, New York City, 2011. CLICK TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.New York Times readers pick their top political moments of 2010. The Caucus writers pick a few more.

Robert Reich has a realistic; i.e., depressing, prediction for the U.S. economy in 2011.

Filibuster "Reform." Look for a watered-down, meaningless change you can't believe in:

... Brian Beutler of TPM: "A handful of junior Democrats, including Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), have done an impressive job building momentum for a package of modest, but meaningful, changes to the Senate's filibuster rules. But their plan could be completely upended and replaced by even more modest reforms, if Democratic and Republican leaders successfully negotiate a bipartisan rules reform compromise. In a phone interview with me Wednesday, Udall described negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) as a 'separate track' from his own efforts." ...

... David Waldman of the Daily Kos has a little on the history of "negotiated filibuster reforms." ...

... David Dayan of Firedoglake on the elements of the Merkeley plan. ...

... Here's more from Beutler on how the arcane procedure for changing procedures is supposed to proceed. ...

... Speaking of the do-nothing Senate, Steve Benen has more on Chief Justice John Roberts' plea to them to get off the dime on judiciary appointments. Senate Judiciary Committee Pat Leahy concurs with Robets. And Benen opines,

... Senate Republicans will do what they've been doing -- slowing everything down, blocking as many nominees as they can. But don't forget, the Senate will have very little else to do for the better part of two years. Over the last two years, Reid and the Democratic leadership had a lengthy to-do list, and couldn't eat up the calendar on nominees. GOP obstructionism meant it took at least three days for the Senate to consider one nominee, during which time the chamber could do nothing else, so more often than not, Reid just didn't bother. But that won't be much of a hindrance in 2011 and 2012, when the entire lawmaking process goes from difficult to impossible. ...

... Ezra Klein on filibustering judicial nominees.

Politico's "most memorable moments" video is okay till the end, which devolves into Palinostalgia:

... Stephanopoulos does a much better job:

I don't call [President Obama] a socialist because he's not. I don't doubt that he was born in Hawaii because he was. I don't call him a Muslim because he says he's a Christian. And I didn't say anything about death panels because there weren't any in that health care bill. -- Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC), on why he lost his primary race to a teabagger

Irony Alert! Amy Gardner of the Washington Post profiles Gena Bell, a grassroots tea party activist who was so opposed to President Obama & all that government spending -- that she decided to take a job with the government.

Rose Aguilar in Common Dreams: the public believes myths because well-paid spinmeisters repeat them over & over again & "teach" them to members of Congress who repeat them, and reporters & interviewers seldom or never challenge the spinners.

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones makes what amounts to a general apologia for liberal compromisers (oh, you may want to think President Obama here). CW: personally, I'm not buying it. I think liberals compromise because they've done a piss-poor job -- compared to conservatives -- of explaining why their programs are better than conservative programs. Liberals compromise because they have failed to gain support for causes that are good for the majority of the public.

Linda Greenhouse interviews retired Justices Sandra Day O'Connor & David Souter on civics education. The interview begins about 7 min. in:

Evelyn Rusli of the New York Times: "U.S Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ... sold his Washington D.C. home at a $1 million loss last week.... Mr. Paulson ... first put his home on the market in April.... But don’t feel too bad for the former Treasury secretary. As Reuters pointed out, the loss will barely dent Mr. Paulson’s personal fortune, last estimated at $700 million."

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