Bradley Cooper is getting criticized by Jewish activists who are accusing him of “Jewface” for wearing a prosthetic nose in an upcoming biographical movie about Leonard Bernstein.
To be fair to Cooper, early versions of the movie had him wearing a clown nose, so the current version is better.
Want to read: Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient World by Mary Beard 📚A new book of Roman history by the author of “SPQR”? Yes, please.
The same lawmakers who want to rob their constituents of the right to bodily autonomy have also begun to treat democracy as an obstacle to avoid, not a process to respect. If the people stand in the way of ending abortion, then it’s the people who have to go.
— Republicans Won’t Stop at Banning Abortion, by Jamelle Bouie at the New York Times.
Me, watching @manton ’s video demo of the Epilogue app for micro.blog: “Hey, I just added that book to my want-to-read-list! And that one too! And I’m currently reading that one! OMG, Manton is looking at my blog! I’m Internet-famous now!”
Are kids ever unsupervised anymore?
When I was a kid, we rode bicycles for miles every day, unsupervised. Also unsupervised: We played in schoolyards and playgrounds, went into stores, and went to the movies. Even when we were playing in another kid’s backyard, often the adults weren’t outside with us. I can’t even remember if the adults were home.
And I was, by the standards of my childhood, a sheltered, sedentary, bookish kid. Other kids were having even MORE adventures than I was.
And of course Generation X, the generation younger than mine, were famously latchkey kids.
I don’t see any of that anymore. Kids seem to be always, always supervised by adults.
I saw this while walking with the dog this morning. I was disappointed that I did not see the pig, but it’s probably just as well because I totally would’ve put my fingers through the fence.
I never see pre-teens outdoors unsupervised by adults. Not playing in their front yard, not walking, not in a park, not at a playground, not riding bikes. Are pre-teens supervised all the time nowadays?
The Case of the Internet Archive vs. Book Publishers
David Streitfeld at the NY Times:
In the pandemic emergency, Brewster Kahle’s Internet Archive freely lent out digital scans of its library. Publishers sued. Owning a book means something different now.
Lunch yesterday with friends at Shakespeare’s, a British pub here in San Diego. One of the restrooms had two walls covered with dozens of “cheeky postcards.” Here’s one example. 📷
A quick look back at the first IBM PC that launched 42 years (and two days) ago My Dad had one of these. I was living at home and going to college at the time, and I spent a lot of time using it to write papers and noodle around.
Three things Elon Musk and I have in common.
I’ve been listening to the Age of Napoleon podcast for months now, which covers Napoleon’s life, career and world in exhaustive detail. I am coming away a great admirer of Napoleon, while also acknowledging that Napoleon did terrible things. (Haiti.) That is one thing I have in common with Musk.
I also love Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast.
So that’s two things I have in common with Elon.
Also, like Musk, I have not and never will fight in a cage match with Mark Zuckerberg.
The Marion County Record was investigating sexual misconduct charges against police chief Gideon Cody before police raided the newspaper, according to publisher Eric Meyer. Meyer says the allegations, and the names of the people making the charges, are on computers the police seized.
Police in the small town of Marion, Kansas, raided the local newspaper office, leading to worldwide protest by free speech organizations. The newspaper publisher’s 98-year-old mother died the following day; the publisher says the raid triggered her death.
What if generative AI turns out to be a dud?
… we are building our entire global and national policy on the premise that generative AI will be world-changing in ways that may in hindsight turn out to have been unrealistic.
I have found generative AI uses to be limited at best.
I use it to generate illustrations for articles. In the past, I used public domain and Creative Commons images, and those were just as good as AI imagery.
AI produces mediocre writing that’s filled with errors. In the time it would take me to bring AI writing up to standard, I can just do the writing myself. And that’s what I do.
So yeah maybe generative AI will be the biggest thing since the invention of electricity or fire, but I don’t see evidence that will happen.
The most promising application for generative AI is to deliver voice-activated Star Trek like computers. That would be a big deal—but we’re not there, and may never get there.
Want to read: Sh*tshow by Richard Russo 📚
Want to read: Chances Are . . . by Richard Russo 📚
Want to read: Triage by Richard Russo 📚
Want to read: Elsewhere by Richard Russo 📚