Tech – Page 18 – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

Sunday Morning Reading is back while we continue to unpack. The environs are different, but everything remains the same.

Everything changes and everything remains the same. We’ve completed the Big Move and are now in our new abode. Heads sleep on the same pillows, coffee is sipped from the same mugs, but we’re still living out of boxes and unpack others. That’ll be the state of things for a bit still. That’s life on the home front as everything has changed but remains the same. That seems to be the case in the world in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Kicking things off is an excellent series of articles from The New Republic. What American Fascism Would Look LIke is a collection of essays by a collection of writers, each one worth your time. Start with Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s The Permanent Counterrevolution, but check them each out.

The Roberts Supreme Court continues to show its true colors witih all sorts of flag flyiing controversy from Samuel Alito. Blaming your wife is becoming a thing also. Check out Alitio and Thomas Aren’t Really Jurists. They’re Theocratic Leninists by Michael Tomasky.

There was lots of big news on the Artificial Intelliegence front. There was also not much new in much of that news. LLMs still bung things up. Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI pushed their newest in a race that feels very much like the runners keep tripping over themselves. Nico Grant in the New York Times points to the ongoing snafu in Google’s A.I. Search Errors Cause a Furor Online. At some point this is all going to end up like the streaming entertainment wars. Once all the players are on the field there will be consolidation. There will still be problems. Those new subscription prices will rise. And everyone will complain.

Even so, Steven Levy says It’s Time to Believe The AI Hype.

Naveen Kumar takes a quick look at how AI might be worming its way into live performance in AI Is Getting Theatrical.

David Todd McCarty takes on the contradictions of believing that more than one thing can be true at the same time in An Angel With An Incredible Capacity for Beer.

NatashaMH pens a nifty piece about how the act of writing gives a teacher a window into the mind of her student in Writing The Unpretentious Prose.

And while we were busy moving, Apple released new iPads. Not surprisingly everything changed and everything remained the same. The new software that may or may not yield potential changes is due to roll out in a few weeks, but until it does, those iPads remain behind the software curve while setting the hardware pace. Or at least that’s the accepted line in Apple circles. Federico Viticci penned an excellent summary of what he feels iPads are still missing in Not an iPad Review: Why iPadOS Still Doesn’t Get the Basics Right and Steve Troughton-Smith also put out The iPad Pro Manifesto (2024 Edition ).

Closing things out this weekend as I try to get these old bones moving again to unpack some more boxes, check out Margaret Dean’s A Mutiny of Bones about recalcitrant bones and aging and how it’s not just the joints that stop bending. The one constant as everything changes around and within you, some things just don’t work the same as they once did.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

But the Demos Aren’t Lying

Steven Levy has seen enough AI demos to think we should believe the hype. I’m still in wait and see mode.

Call me curious. Call me skeptical. Two sides of the same coin. The tech industry is dancing on the edge of a coin called Artificial Intelligence waiting to see which side lands face up. As they dance, we also dance, because the promise/hope/hype/hyperbole is that the technology will make lives better, fill lots of coffers, and set us all free (except for that sure to increase every year subscription price) to enjoy more of life.

Artificial intelligence new technology science futuristic abstract human brain ai technology cpu central processor unit chipset big data machine learning cyber mind domination generative ai scaled 1 2048x1366.

Steven Levy has apparently seen enough demos that he has penned a piece telling us that It’s Time to Believe the AI Hype. It’s a well reasoned piece, as usual from Levy, and worth a read if you’re trying to follow what all of this means. But the moment that caught me was this quote:

Skeptics might try to claim that this is an industry-wide delusion, fueled by the prospect of massive profits. But the demos aren’t lying.

“But the demos aren’t lying.” They may not be. It all might come true. Or some of it. Or enough of it to matter. Even so, I’ve been around enough blocks too many times to stake anything on any demo for any product. Some do pan out. Too many do not. Given the pace of things in tech these days, I’m guessing that once the inevitable explosion yields to the equally inevitable contraction, there’s a better than average chance that we’ll be eyeing some other piece of universe altering tech within a year or two.

The reality is what’s coming in AI is coming. We’ll all get a taste. The proof wil be in how we digest whatever tech related nutrional value it offers.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Some serious stuff in our world this week, but we must dance on. Here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share.

The world is a very serious and uncomfortable place based on what I’ve been reading this past week, so the topics for this edition of Sunday Morning Reading will lean that way. Good writing all around that meets the seriousness we’re all dancing around.

The United States Supreme Court is about to alter the world we’ve all thought we’ve lived in. Rick Wilson of Everything Trump Touches Dies fame writes:

“The Supreme Court will delay Trump’s case and then make the most cataclysmic legal mistake in American history.

We’re not talking Dred Scott bad, Plessy bad, and Korematsu bad.

We’re talking about previously unimagined levels of bad.”

He’s correct. Check out The Red Court Strikes Again.

Bryan Tannehill says The Court Just Sealed Everyone’s Fate, Including It’s Own. Again, correct.

While this may be a bit less current than most articles inlcuded this week, Brian Gopnik reminds us that it takes more than one man to turn the world upside down in The Forgotten History of Hitler’s Establishment Enablers.

Wars, protests and political shenanigans about those wars abound. Mo Husseni has laid out his thoughts about what’s happening in the Middle East and our reactions to it on Threads and published them as an essay on Medium. Well worth your time to read his piece titled Hmmm… do I need a title?

A few topics on the tech front, the mechanism that one way or the other bring us all this news and writing about that news, Edward Zitron tells us about The Man Who Killed Google Search.

Craig Grannell tells us to Just Say No: Not Every Piece of Tech Needs Subscriptons and AI. He’s correct and he nails the reason why this is becoming pervasive.

I don’t agree with everything Allison Johnson says in The Walls of Apple’s Garden Are Tumbling Down, but she makes good points and provides a piece of the necessary frame around this unfolding story.

Changing the subject, it is tough to laugh given all that is swirling around us. But laugher is crucial. Always. As unprovoked a release of emotion it is, laughter does take on different forms and come from different places. Christie Nicholson takes on The Humor Gap between men and women. Hat tip to David Todd McCarty for this excellent piece.

A Summer Place by Natasha MH reminds us that whatever we’re mired in, we should always dance on and quoting Neil Gaiman we should

Face Your life

It’s pain,

It’s pleasure,

Leave no path untaken.

Sunday Morning Reading

Silver linings, taking stock, a revival of the Avant-Garde, and the future of chocolate all in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading to Share

Weekends used to be for taking a breath. That seems so long ago it’s tough to measure it conventionally as it somehow sadly just slipped away. Even so, there’s still time to share some Sunday Morning Reading.

Artificial Intelligence remains on the tip of all the digital tongues these days, though it’s yet to show any real promise that I’ve seen. Except for those who got in early on the cash grab. Steven Levy has an interesting piece, Tech Leaders Once Cried For AI Regulation. Now the Message is ‘Slow Down.’ Sounds like the cash isn’t as easy to grab as much as it used to be.

Speaking of AI, Chris Castle has an interesting piece on Music Technology Policy called Has The Ship Sailed On The Myth of “Responsible AI”? I’m not even sure it ever qualified for myth status, but whatever it is, that ship is out of the harbor. Hat Tip to Stan Stewart.

Kyle Chayka thinks The Dumbphone Is Real. This comes as so many blame smartphones for the decline of civilization among other smaller sins. Call me when every company in the world no longer begs you to pay your bills online, you can reach your doctor’s office via a phone, or tech companies (including those that make dumb phones don’t put you through hell trying to get techncial support from a person. I’ll take that call on my smartphone.

Most things get recycled. Including art movements. Helen Shaw takes a look at one such revival/remount in The Avant-Garfde Is Back On The Launchpad about the Wooster Group’s remounting of Richard Foreman’s Symphony of Rats.

Jamelle Bouie’s When Politicians Invoke the Founding Fathers, Remember This is interesting. First, because the title changed from when it first appeared in The New York Times. Originally it was The Founding Fathers Don’t Have the Answers To Every Question. I wrote about that here. My points remain, so does Bouie’s (which are excellent). The headline writing still suffers.

Richard Stengel suggests that 2024 election coverage should be free and out from behind paywalls. He makes a good argument in Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls.

One of my favorite writers, NatashaMH gets quite poignant and, protestations aside, quite brave in doing so, in The Distance Between a Breath And Sadness. I think we should all learn how to better measure that distance.

David Todd McCarty uncharacteristically goes Searching for Silver Linings.

And to close things out on a bitter sweet note, Isable Fattal takes a look at The Future of Chocolate. It’s a summary for articles about the future of chocolate as she tells us to savor our favorites whlle we can. Apparently, yet another in a long line of sweet life things where we need to measure the difference between a breath and sadness because there may not be a silver lining.

Slam! Destroy! What’s With This Boring Bullshit SEO Headline Writing?

Click bait headline writing has become so ever present, overused, and tired that it has certainly lost all meaning to anyone except the chronically bored or the algorithmically programmed.

Whether it was “Pow!” or “Bam! Zoom!” it was usually the preface to “Right in the Kisser!” That’s what Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Cramden would exclaim to his wife Alice in The Honeymooners when she got under his skin. For some reason SEO experts think we’re attracted to this kind of cartoonish, wrestlemania-type of violence and have slobbishly skewed that assumption into the seemingly never ending stream of headlines saying “So and So Slams So and So” or “So and So Destroys So and So.” Internet publications and ad mills have followed the gravy train right along. “Rips,” “blasts,” and “bashes” also seem popular.

This type of click bait headline writing has become so ever present, overused, and tired that it has certainly lost all meaning to anyone except the chronically bored or the algorithmically programmed. As lazy as it is, I guess it works. Which is not only a sad commentary on humanity but a sadder one on algorithms and the SEO industry.

I mean where’s the creativity? Why not use “lambasts,” “harangues,” “admonishes,” “berates,” “objurgates?” Or for those with syllabaphobia how about “dress down,” “haul over the coals,” “lays into,” “lace into, or “slag off?”

And just imagine how many of those boringly inept and inutile headlines are being fed into AI training engines.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

The price of chocolate is through the roof and even ideas seem to be melting away in some fashion or the other in this Easter edition of Sunday Morning Reading.

The price of chocolate is through the roof and even ideas seem to be melting away in some fashion or the other in this Easter edition of Sunday Morning Reading.

Leading off this Easter Sunday morning it appears the price of cocoa is soaring leading to worry for chocolate makers and chocolate lovers. Aliina Selyukh covers it in Pricier Easter Bunnies and Eggs. Half-Dipped Kit Kats. What’s Up with Chocolate?

Much of this week’s news was dominated by the Baltimore maritime disaster at the Francis Scott Key Bridge. This is an fascinating take from Will Bunch: A Ship Crashed Into a Baltimore Bridge and Demolished the Lies About Immigration.

Less fascinating perhaps, but also timely, A.W Ohlheiser says The Slow Death of Twitter Is Measured in Disasters Like the Baltimore Bridge Collapse.

David Todd McCarty tackles the power and the mystery of ideas in The Idea of Things.

Moving into the poltical world Marc O. De Girolami may be late to the party but he’s correct when he says Something Other Than Originalism Explains This Supreme Court.

Perhaps the most important political piece written this week comes from Chris Quinn, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Check out Our Tump Reporting Upsets Some Reades But There Aren’t Two Sides To Facts: Letter From the Editor. Better yet, forward it on to the editor, publishers, and programmers of your local media sources.

Andres Marantz wonders Why We Can’t Stop Arguing About Whether Trump Is A Facist. It begs the question as to who is arguing this anymore, but it’s a good read.

Will Knight takes a look Inside The Creation of the World’s Most Powerful Open Source AI Model.

Meanwhile Erik Hoel says A.I.-Generated Garbage Is Polluting Our Culture.

And to round out this week’s edition, Catherine Rampbell tells us The Internet Was Supposed To Make Humanity Smarter. It’s Failing.

Sunday Morning Reading

The line between Winter and Spring can be as confusing as it is normal. That fine line between confusing/normal runs through most this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. Enjoy!

It’s a Spring Sunday morning in Chicago. Nippy temps frustrate the daffodils that keep brushing off the snowflakes. As confusing as the weather may be, it’s also quite normal. That fine line between confusing/normal runs through a lot of this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. Mostly tech, some music, some marketing, some fear, and a troll or two, Enjoy!

The big tech news this week was the U.S. going after Apple as a monopoly. It’s brought out the the explainers and turned legions of Apple fan boys into anti-trust lawyers. Even the lawyers are going to need lawyers to figure this one out in my view. One of the best early inning reactions to this was from Jason Snell at Six Colors in U.S. versus Apple: A First Reaction.

When Marketing is everything, everything eventually gets reductive. Doc Searls of The Cluetrain Manifesto fame tackles this in Getting Us Wrong, a piece from December that recently resurfaced in my feeds and is always a timely read. So too is The Cluetrain Manifesto.

The Disparity Between Fear And Progress by David Todd McCarty strikes a chord (actually chords) that I think many of us hear vibrating these days.

Grim Tales, Fairy Dusts And All That Makes Us Gullible At Bedtime by NatashaMH jumps into the space between wanting to know and suspending disbelief. An interesting troll on it’s own.

Social Media always seems to be at war with itself over most things, misinformation being one in a long list. I’m not sure Social Media presents more or less of that than other means of socialization, but Scott Duke Kominers and Jesse Shapiro think It’s Time To Give Up On Ending Social Media’s Misinformation Problem.

Joan Westenberg thinks the creator economy is a dead end for most creators. Is there an alternative? Check out The Creator Economy Trap: Why Building On Someone Else’s Platform Is A Dead End.

Musician and composer Stan Stewart thinks it’s dangerous to explain something before he does it, but he does so anyway in I’ve Got Some Explaining To Do. With all that’s going on in the world there’s something cooking up inside of Stan and I’m looking forward to the music that comes from this.

Christopher Mims spent a couple of weeks using AI tools to do his work and comes out convinced we’re on the cusp of a ‘Cognitive Revolution.’ As he puts it: “Here’s my verdict: The last time I had an experience this eye-opening and transformative was after I bought my first smartphone.” Check out his thoughts in Want To Know If AI Will Take Your Job? I Tried Using It To Replace Myself.

Apple and the DOJ: You Can Do Anything You Want As Long As You Don’t Get Caught

You can do anything you want in the land of the free and the home of the brave. As long as you don’t get caught. Or as long as you have enough cash in the bank to hire the right legal beagles. That’s the American way. Always has been. The bigger you are the more you can toss around your weight. That works more times than it doesn’t. In the case of the United States vs. Apple, Inc, not so much. Thus far.

The Department of Justice swooped in on Apple charging that the iPhone is the crown jewel of an illegal monopoly. You can read the lawsuit here. I’m not going to get in to all of the legal issues. Not really my game. As to that lawsuit I’ll take the liberty of saying the following:

I don’t understand the equation that led to the monopoly designation. It seems odd given similar such cases in history. The fact that different percentages for different types of valuations is being tossed around in all of the first reactions I think bears that out.
I’m in deep in the Apple ecosystem. I use the hardware and software. I enjoy the tech (when it is working as designed), and I hope they’ll continue to make the high quality products and software they do. Having used hardware and software from other makers, I find Apple’s superior and better for my needs. When and if that changes so will I.
For the most part I buy Apple’s pitch about security and privacy. There are times I think the marketing around security and privacy leans too much towards myth-making, but in my experience the myth seems to have some foundation.
I’ve listened to the complaints from developers and other users through the years and find most of those I understand justified. Apple may have indeed created problems by creating and running the App Store the way it has. I personally don’t feel victimized by that, but I understand the issues presented by those that see it differently.

Bigger picture I will say the following. Apple, like some other familiar tech giants of note (Microsoft, Google, and Amazon), largely brought this on itself with a too big for its bank account britches attitude.

Arrogance and swagger isn’t just a feature of big tech companies. It’s a bug that infects any company or anyone who gets too greedy for their own good. I’ve seen it happen too many times.

History is full of these stories and many American myths are built on that foundation. You work hard, you make your pile, and you do it your way. The world beats a path to your door and you think you own the path and the world. You made your own rules along the way and bent some existing ones to your will. Perhaps broke a few.

That mythical song of good old American capitalism has been sung so often everyone knows the tune and the lyrics. When it comes to Apple’s stanza, you add in a chorus about Apple’s rise from an almost near-death experience and it becomes a siren song with a powerful resonance.

In my view, limited as it may be, Apple could have easily made some adjustments along the way and possibly avoided this current mess. But the powers that be obviously thought different. They also thought they could swagger their way through and beyond this. That may well prove out in the years to come. And it will take years.

Meanwhile, here’s some good early inning commentary on this story so far. I’m sure there will be much more ahead.

John Gruber on Daring Fireball

Jason Snell on Six Colors

M.G. Siegler on Spyglass.org

Stephen Robles on Beard.fm

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

It’s a Sunday morning of a somewhat lost, yet restorative weekend. Simultaneous with spring daffodils starting to bloom, the cast from my recent gig, The Lehman Trilogy, made a suprise trip from Memphis to Chicago to visit for the weekend. Made we think and feel deeply. Made me laugh. It was glorious. Bonds don’t get any deeper. I needed that. That said, and still recovering, here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share.

First up David Todd McCarty is searching for the answers on why we do the things we do in Frittering Away What’s Left of Eternity. Terrific piece with no frittering. Resonated with me when it was published earlier this week. After this weekend it resonates with stronger vibrations.

Radley Balko delves into The War On the Woke in an excellent piece The War on the Woke Trumps the Truth for Heterodox Thinkers.

Sarah Jones takes a look at The Exvangelicals Searching for Political Change. I think she coined “Exvangelical.” Regardless of the label credit, its meaning sticks.

Jim Sciutto sees current global tensions as a 1939 Moment in his new book The Return of The Great Powers. Russia, China and the Next World War. I’m looking forward to reading it. You should too. In the meantime, David Smith talks about Sciutto’s book in ‘A 1939 Moment’: Jim Sciutto On Russia, China and the Threat of War.

Once a teacher always a teacher. I grew up in a family of teachers. NatahsMH in The Blind Leading the Blind recounts her experiences of teaching young ones what it’s like to experience being disabled for only an hour. I’m not talking comedy, but here’s the punch line: “And you experienced being disabled for one hour. Imagine a lifetime. Now go design the world a better, smarter place.”

It’s been 10 years? On the anniversary David Pierce wonders Who Killed Google Reader? I remember that death. The internet remains, but there’s a hole left by it.

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday Morning Reading as the time shifts and some are racing against the clock to turn back the hands of time in our political and social lives. Yes, some politics but also some history and some tech today.

Laughter may be the best medicine, but not when it can be used against us. Fintain O’Toole in the New York Review of Books takes a look at how cruel humor can be used as a weapon. Laugh Riot is an excellent if not troubling (also long) read.

(Side note: some folks get upset at links I offer here that are behind paywalls or require registration. I get it. Two thoughts: Writers deserve to get paid. Also, there are only a gazillion ways around circumventing these kinds of things on the Internet. Use your smarts.)

Taylor Lorenz offers up The Word ‘Viral’ Has Lost Its Meaning. I think she’s correct.

The use of Artificial Intelligence continues to baffle. Charles Bethea takes a look at The Terrifying A.I. Scam That Uses Your Loved One’s Voice.

Speaking of baffling tech, Steven Aquino takes a look at How Smart Home Technology Made My Home More Accessible. Why do I say baffling? Steven’s post isn’t, but in the potential gold mine and boon for those with accessibility issues that is Smart Home Tech, no one has gotten this right yet. When it works it’s great. When it doesn’t it’s a mess.

Apparently back in 2022 the US was quite nervous that Putin would launch a nuke towards Ukraine. Check out Jim Sciutto’s piece Exclusive: US Prepared ‘Rigoursly’ for potential Russian Nuclear Strike in Ukraine in 2022. It’s a good read, although I’m not sure why it’s an exclusive as I recall most of us being worried about this.

Josh Kovensky in Talking Points Memo takes us Inside A Secret Society of Prominent Right-Wing Christian Men Prepping for a ‘National Divorce.’

Sascha Pare tells us that Scientists Just Discovered A Massive Reservoir Of Helium Beneath Minnesota. Sounds like the Iron Range might be getting a new nickname.

And returning back to time, David Todd McCarty is searching for answers. I think we all are. Well worth your time to read Frittering Away What’s Left of Eternity.