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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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Monday
Nov282011

The Commentariat -- November 29

If it's Tuesday, it must be time to deal with David Brooks. My column in the New York Times eXaminer is here. The NYTX front page is here.

** Poll of the Month. "Fox 'News' -- Making Americans Ignorant 24/7." Fairleigh Dickinson University: "Sunday morning news shows do the most to help people learn about current events, while some outlets, especially Fox News, lead people to be even less informed than those who say they don’t watch any news at all.... People who watch Fox News ... are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all.... Exposure to Sunday morning news shows helps respondents on" a question about the Occupy movement. "Listening to NPR also helps, but the biggest aid to answering correctly is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart...." ...

... In our Continuing Education series dedicated to making sure Reality Chex readers are way better informed than Foxbots, we bring you Jon Stewart lecturing on "competitive shopping":

** Dahlia Lithwick profiles Justice Elena Kagan in New York magazine.

Joe Nocera writes an excellent column explaining why Germany has screwed up the European Union & rendered the collapse of the euro almost inevitable. He also makes a good argument about why they should have known better & why they'll be sorry.

Half of them think like Michelle Bachmann and the other half are afraid of being primaried by someone who thinks like Michele Bachmann. -- Barney Frank, on Congressional Republicans

Paul Kane of the Washington Post profiles Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who announced his retirement today. See also Monday's Ledes. ...

... Charles Pierce of Esquire, who was a Boston reporter, writes a fine remembrance of Frank's career.

Garrett Epps of The Atlantic with the News from Brownbackistan. How teenager Emma Sullivan stood up to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. The First Amendment lives, even in Brownback's Kansas. CW: Read Epp's essay; he gives you more than the she said/he said.

E. J. Dionne calls out so-called "moderate" pundits like Tom Friedman of the New York Times and Mark Miller of the Washington Post (without naming them) for the third-party advocacy. "We need moderation all right, but a moderate third party is the one way to guarantee we won’t get it."

Right Wing World

"Here We Go Again." CNN: "An Atlanta businesswoman accused GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain of having had an affair with her that lasted 13 years, an Atlanta television station reported Monday."

      ... Here's the original report from Dale Russell Atlanta's Fox5 TV. Update: the interview of Ginger White:

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: Michele Bachmann claimed last week that she had never said "anything inaccurate" during the Republican presidential debates. "The record clearly shows that Bachmann has said many inaccurate statements during the debates, sometimes repeatedly."

Glenn Kessler: Grover Norquist appeared on "Press the Meat" this weekend and made up stuff. "Norquist has every right to his opinions on the dangers of excessive government spending and taxation, but he needs to come up with a better set of facts to make his case. His description of recent budgetary history bears little relation to the historical record. His comment on the stimulus bill was also highly misleading."

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "A judge on Tuesday sentenced Dr. Conrad Murray to four years behind bars -- the maximum punishment possible -- for his part in Michael Jackson's death, saying the doctor’s role in the singer’s fatal overdose was 'money-for-medicine madness.' In blistering and lengthy remarks, Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor lambasted Murray for failing to express any remorse for the pop star’s death and suggesting in a recent documentary that Jackson bore responsibility for his own demise." With video.

New York Times: "Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived [in Baghdad, Iraq] on Tuesday for a historic visit meant to inaugurate a new relationship between the United States and Iraq, just weeks before the last American troops are scheduled to leave the country."

Washington Post: "Businessman Herman Cain told senior members of his campaign on a conference call this morning that he is reassessing whether or not to remain in the Republican presidential race. On the conference call, which National Review listened to and transcribed, Cain denies the allegation of an affair with an Atlanta woman named Ginger White, which came to light on Monday, but acknowledged that the 'firestorm' had caused a rethinking."

New York Times: "The AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines, said on Tuesday that it had filed for bankruptcy protection in an effort to reduce labor costs and shed a heavy debt burden."

Guardian: "Dozens of Iranian protesters have forced their way into the British embassy in Tehran, tearing down the Union flag and throwing documents from the windows."

Guardian: "The former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain has been told by the Metropolitan police that they are investigating evidence that his computer, and those of senior Northern Ireland civil servants and intelligence agents, may have been hacked by private detectives working for News International [Rupert Murdoch's company]. The suggestion that the minister's computers, containing sensitive intelligence material, may have been compromised is the most serious sign yet that newspaper malpractice extended far beyond the hacking of mobile phone voicemail, into the realm of other electronic data." ...

... Guardian: Rupert Murdoch's son "James Murdoch has seen off a revolt by nearly a third of BSkyB's independent shareholder to be reappointed as chairman of the satellite broadcaster at the company's annual general meeting.Provisional figures announced at the meeting in London on Tuesday gave him 81.24% of the vote, with 18.76% against."

Al Jazeera: "Egypt's first free elections for decades have entered a second day, with turnout so far described as 'very high'. Logistical problems plagued many polling stations on Monday but the first day of voting passed mostly peacefully. Egyptians are voting to create the first democratically elected assembly in the country's history."

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