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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. ~~~

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.”

Page Links

Sunday

Jul072019

The Price of Soap

By Akhilleus

This is the actual face of Trump's Amerika. A place where only the chosen few are protected. The rest are not only NOT protected, they are actively tortured if it suits the fuhrer.

This is not just moral midgetry, it's depraved indifference to human suffering, suffering imposed with willful intent by this administration. This is how Trump makes America great? Anyone voting for this monster needs to reassess their sense of what it means to be a decent human being.

And while we're talking monstrous, how 'bout this?

The little king swears that he can't give these kids soap because A. Obama won't let him, and B, He doesn't have the money for it so he can't pay for the soap.

Wow. How could we possibly pay for these kids to be able to maintain basic hygiene and get something to eat other than a piece of bread and slice of baloney?

"The same way that we just 'paid for' $700,000,000,000 for a single year of military funding.

The same way that we just 'paid for' $1,500,000,000,000 in tax cuts for the wealthy.

The same way that we 'paid for' a $1,300,000,000,000 fighter jet in 2016.

The same way that the United States has always 'paid for' all of the fantastically-expensive things that benefit the powerful: Immediately and without discussion. Because they want it."

And get this, the fighter jet mentioned above is the glitchy F-35 which has been on the drawing board since Bush stole his first election. It's a technical marvel, so they say, if it ever really works. Added to the marvels is the pilot's helmet. Price tag? $400,000. Each.

How 'bout we trade a single F-35 helmet for soap, fresh water, clean clothes and decent food for babies being tortured in Trump's concentration camps? You can buy a 12 pack of Irish Spring soap bars at Walmart for less than six bucks. So, six bucks for soap for 12 kids, divided into $400,000....let's see, 6 into 40....okay, then multiply the quotient by 12....

You could buy soap for about 800,000 kids for one helmet. So, okay, we only need a small piece of that helmet, maybe the backup chin strap. Even more disgusting, Trump has billed the US taxpayers--as of a few weeks ago--$500,000 For use of his own golf carts. So right there is soap for a million kids. Can we get some of that money to feed and clean babies?

Not on your life.

Depravity incarnate. Besides fatty can't be expected to walk when he's golfing. So those kids can go fuck themselves.

Animals are better off.

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Reader Comments (3)

But really, helpless children aren't worth all that much--if you don't value your soul.

My wife wondered earlier today about the political leanings of people who apparently travel across the country at their own expense to "rescue" dogs. How compassionate!

I hadn't been aware there were such dog devotees, but I suggested the R's ability to compartmentalize, to not allow one part of their brain to talk to another, would make it hard to draw any firm conclusions.

July 7, 2019 |

Ken Winkes

According to Ak's math his golf travel expenditures would equate to 216 million bars of soap. How many per refugee is that?

July 7, 2019 |

unwashed

Re: “The Price Of Soap”

“ . . . it's depraved indifference to human suffering, suffering imposed with willful intent . . . “

Indeed!
Thank you, Akhilleus.

July 7, 2019 |

Hattie

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