Irene Cara and Christine McVie, and so it goes.
"The man who brought us Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the whole Peanuts gang would (have turned) 100 (Nov 26th)."
"On Monday, first lady Jill Biden revealed this year's Christmas decorations, under the theme "We the People," which she selected months ago. The White House says more than 150 volunteers came together to decorate the building over the course of a week."
John Scalzi has some opinions on AI generated art. "Second, some thoughts about AI-generated art I’ve had recently, which I posted on my personal Facebook account but am reposting here to open up the discussion a bit." I have my own thinky thoughts, but I think John is taking a solid look at the issue. I have a feeling the rise of AI generated art will change the illustration (and eventually photo retouching, where it's already in limited commercial use) industry's practices in the same way Desktop Publishing changed graphic design. It will democratize the tools, there will be a rush to use them, illustrators will be constantly asked which AI they use, and (in general) graphic design quality will be taken down a few more notches. I see a big future in editorial illustration for AI art (once issues of copyright are resolved, and maybe even if they aren't). There also exists the questions surrounding how these tools are taught, and the legalities of using existing artists' work to produce these images. I'm not entirely convinced of the arguments here as many of us "artists" (note, I'm a graphic designer) studied and copied the masters to get better and to learn our craft. In some ways, using existing art to train a computer isn't that far removed from redrawing masterworks or tearing apart a design to learn how it works (although there are legal differences between my mind and computer storage). And I think the question of "reuse of copyrighted materials" also hinges on how these training images influence the rendering engine. Style and illustrative "voice" (lexicon, individual preferences, etc) are not copyrightable. If, however, the engine samples existing work in the way musicians sample sound, then the illustrators may have a case. The problems for the overall scheme of AI generated art comes when they destroy the market for human illustrators, what will be left for the AI engines to learn from? Stagnation and degeneracy in the visual arts is a huge blinking red light in the fall of civilizations.
"Three Tribal communities in Alaska and Washington that have been severely impacted by the effects of climate change on their homes are getting $75 million from the Biden administration to help relocate to higher ground."
"Some of the brightest light in the Universe comes from supermassive black holes, in fact. Well, not actually the black holes themselves; it's the material around them as they actively slurp down vast amounts of matter from their immediate surroundings."
"The World Health Organization has renamed monkeypox as mpox, citing concerns the original name of the decades-old animal disease could be construed as discriminatory and racist."
"About 1.8 million more chickens must be killed in Nebraska to prevent the spread of a highly pathogenic bird flu virus, state officials said, as the U.S. sees its worst outbreak of the disease in seven years… The state's latest spate of bird flu was found on an egg-laying farm in northeast Nebraska's Dixon County, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture said Saturday."
"In the past year, the rural hospital’s cash reserves have plummeted, and patient traffic has slowed. Many of those who do come are uninsured, meaning unless they pay out-of-pocket, or pursue some other form of financial assistance, the hospital is unlikely to be reimbursed for their care. And the Medicare loan that helped the hospital in the pandemic now costs Greenwood Leflore more than $100,000 per month."
"The U.K.’s ambulance service is seizing up in some areas as the country’s health system faces an inferno of pressures, including rising demand for care after pandemic restrictions were eased; a surge in flu and other winter viruses after two lockdown years; and staff shortages from pandemic burnout and a post-Brexit drought of European workers in Britain. Thousands of hospital beds are also occupied by people who are fit to be discharged but have nowhere to go because of a dearth of places for long-term care."
"Indiana's Republican attorney general on Wednesday asked the state medical licensing board to discipline an Indianapolis doctor who has spoken publicly about providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled from Ohio after its more-restrictive abortion law took effect." Because she told the truth, was believable, and damaged the anti-abortion steamroller.
"Today, that joy is overshadowed by fear that his access to treatment may soon disappear because of a 2021 law passed in Arkansas, Brandt's home state, that bans gender-affirming care for transgender youth like himself. Brandt is now part of an ACLU lawsuit seeking to overturn the ban, and says that if the law is upheld, he and his family would have to leave the state."
"Just weeks later, the Jacksons were en route to Cumberland, a small city near the Allegheny mountains in western Maryland, where Cass’ older sibling lived. Cass’ sibling, Bug, is also transgender and would provide a new home for Cass, their mother and their other sister. Unemployed and without a plan, the family felt their only option was to flee a state they had never intended to leave. They were leaving their home."
"The House has passed a resolution 290-137 that would force unions to accept a tentative agreement reached earlier this year between railroad managers and their workers and make an imminent strike illegal… President Biden has been leading the effort to head off a strike that could upend transportation of goods and services, skyrocketing prices on everyday items, including gasoline."
"A measure of inflation that is closely monitored by the Federal Reserve eased but remained at an elevated level in October, likely reinforcing the Fed’s intent to keep raising interest rates to cool the economy and slow the acceleration of prices."
"Black Friday sales raked in a record $9.12 billion from online shoppers this year despite concerns of inflation and higher prices, according to estimates… The $9.12 billion figure is up from $8.92 billion in 2021 and $9.03 billion the previous year, according to Adobe Analytics. Inflation accounts for some of the increase this year, with people paying more to buy less."
"A top European Union official warned Elon Musk on Wednesday that Twitter needs to beef up measures to protect users from hate speech, misinformation and other harmful content to avoid violating new rules that threaten tech giants with big fines or even a ban in the 27-nation bloc."
"Another crypto company has fallen, as contagion from the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX spreads across the industry: BlockFi says it has filed for bankruptcy."
"Mortgage rates soared over 7% just a month ago, but since then they have fallen more than half a percentage point. Still, mortgage loan application volume decreased 0.8% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index." So now you know that all the talk about how mortgage rates are tied to the Fed overnight rate is bullshit.
"The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits came back down last week, hovering near levels suggesting the U.S. labor market has been largely unaffected by the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes."
"Hundreds of coal miners in Brookwood, Ala., reached a milestone Thursday: They've spent 20 months on strike… That's well past the six-week average for strikes, according to Bloomberg Law. The miners believe it's the longest strike in Alabama's history."
"On the southern outskirts of Ezhou, a city in central China’s Hubei province, a giant apartment-style building overlooks the main road. But it is not for office workers or families. At 26 storeys it is by far the biggest single-building pig farm in the world, with a capacity to slaughter 1.2 million pigs a year."
"The Biden administration on Saturday eased some oil sanctions on Venezuela in an effort to support newly restarted negotiations between President Nicolás Maduro's government and its opposition."
"With police out in force, there was no word of additional protests against strict government anti-pandemic measures Tuesday in Beijing, as temperatures fell well below freezing. Shanghai, Nanjing and other cities where online calls to gather had been issued were also reportedly quiet."
"Russia’s foreign minister accused the West on Thursday of becoming directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine by supplying the country with weapons and training its soldiers." That's not what being directly involved entails, Sergey.
"The European Union proposed Wednesday to set up a U.N.-backed court to investigate possible war crimes Russia committed in Ukraine, and to use frozen Russian assets to rebuild the war-torn country."
"The Department of Justice is suing the City of Jackson for violations of the Clean Drinking Water Act and is seeking to revoke the city’s control over its water systems. Jackson is already under two federal court orders for violating EPA water standards."
"The officer pressed his weight into the subject's small body while school staff watched it all unfold. The person he was restraining was 7 years old… That child — a second grader with autism at a North Carolina school — was ultimately pinned on the floor for 38 minutes, according to body camera video of the incident. At one point, court records say, the officer put his knee in the child's back. "
"Officials in a northeastern Pennsylvania county where paper shortages caused Election Day ballot problems deadlocked Monday on whether to report official vote tallies to the state, effectively preventing their certification of the results."
"Two counties in a couple of swing states turned what is usually an uneventful step in the election process into a political flashpoint on Monday… Officials in rural, Republican-controlled Cochise County of southeastern Arizona, near Tucson, voted to delay certifying the results of this year's midterm elections and to miss the state's legal deadline of Monday, despite finding no legitimate problems with the local counts."
"The extended Senate campaign in Georgia between the Democratic incumbent, Raphael Warnock, and his Republican challenger, football legend Herschel Walker, has grown increasingly bitter as their Dec. 6 runoff nears. With Democrats already assured a Senate majority, it’s a striking contrast from two years ago, when the state’s twin runoffs were mostly about which party would control the chamber in Washington."
"House Republicans are promising aggressive oversight of the Biden administration once they assume the majority next year, with a particular focus on the business dealings of presidential son Hunter Biden, illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and the originations of COVID-19."
"A Florida prosecutor suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis opened his federal civil trial against the governor Tuesday with testimony that alleged his removal was based on his personal political positions on abortion and transgender rights."
"According to a report from former Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitchell Epner at the Daily Beast, Donald Trump's legal problems may be growing exponentially because there appears to be evidence he attempted to use the IRS to persecute political enemies before he lost re-election."
"The defense rested Monday at the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud trial after a contentious day in court, putting the case involving former President Donald Trump’s real estate empire on track for deliberations next week."
"The author knocks on the doors bearing the darkest symbols, behind which lie guns, ammo, antisemitism, antiabortion dogma—and a belief in the coming civil war."
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