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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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Monday
Apr162018

Things I Learned Yesterday Filing My Taxes

You can pay your estimated federal taxes online, something I'm about to try as I'm snowed & iced in today. Update: I did it. It's a bit more complicated that writing a check as you may have to dig up a previously-filed 1040 for verification purposes. But it appears to have worked, & was less perilous (I hope) than hiking through snow, sleet, ice & rain to my local PO dropoff box.

You can pay any federal taxes due online, too. For once I overpaid my estimated taxes, so I didn't try this.

Having trouble getting your computer & printer to communicate? I was able to scan from my PC to the printer yesterday, but I could no longer scan from the printer to the computer (which I needed to do to send the signed tax docs back to my accountant -- [tho to save time, I sent her a electronic signature first]). I spent about 6 hours doing all things sensible & superstitious to rectify the matter & finally gave up & called Best Buy's Geek Squad. It turns out that Windows has an app built into the software called "Windows Fax & Scan." You should be able to find it by typing "WFS" in the Windows search box (bottom left-hand corner of the screen). The Geek guy made me a desktop button for the app, which is helpful if you're going to use it a lot. Of course you have to have already established a wireless connection between your computer & printer, but my annoying Canon printer would tell me the connection was good -- until I wanted to scan. The Windows Fax & Scan is super-easy to use; the instructions are self-explanatory.

The Trump-Ryan-McConnell Republican tax "reform" law will raise my federal taxes by 15% to 20% next year, according to my accountant. ...

     ... Update: To add insult to injury, Trump went to the town where I grew up -- Hialeah, Florida -- to lie about all the big tax breaks ordinary people like me would get under his favorite tax bill. Then he left to go to Mar-a-Lago, the resort he owns which I could not afford to visit if I wanted to (and I don't).

If you have any wise tips (or corrections to mine) learned in the tax-filing process, please share.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (2)

Tangentially relevant?

An old idea updated recently on "Vox".

Makes sense so it probably has a snowball's chance.

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/13/11417676/elizabeth-warren-tax-return-free-filing-tax-day-intuit-hr-block-turbotax-automatic-simple

April 16, 2018 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Bea, you are a far braver woman than I am. The very thought of filing electronically is alarming to me. My accountant knows I will only file on paper and via certified mail. Yeah, she always makes me sign a document that this is what I want...but, I have a deep skepticism about how well the IRS online security is...that goes for Social Security, too. With budget cuts...I have to wonder how much money goes into supporting and creating the safety factors needed for sites where such invaluable info goes.

Yeah, I know...once they get my paper filings they probably have someone input the data into their computer system so it is there electronically anyhow. But, at least I don't feel complicit.

April 16, 2018 | Unregistered CommenterMAG
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