This season ain’t over yet for the O’s! ⚾️ 😃
I may have posted this before years ago, but it’s just as good, and important, now (a characteristic of beauty) – Norm Lewis sings, “Make Them Hear You” from Ragtime: The Musical.
(P.S. This recording is from “American Voices with Renee Fleming” filmed in 2015 as part of the Great Performances series on PBS. If anyone knows of where a DVD, CD, or similar can be found of that episode, I have been casually searching for a decade.)
And in related news: Here’s a tool that lets small businesses create their own AI bot that customers can use to query its knowledge base -> Knowledgebase.com
Starting at $49/mo for 1 knowledgebase with unlimited seats. (Additional knowledge bases at $22/mo.)
Okay, parts of this AI thing are looking concerning – from a WSJ opinion piece titled, “AI is Learning to Escape Human Control":
An artificial-intelligence model did something last month that no machine was ever supposed to do: It rewrote its own code to avoid being shut down.
Nonprofit AI lab Palisade Research gave OpenAI’s o3 AI model a simple script that would shut off the model when triggered. In 79 out of 100 trials, o3 independently edited that script so the shutdown command would no longer work. Even when explicitly instructed to “allow yourself to be shut down,” it disobeyed 7% of the time. This wasn’t the result of hacking or tampering. The model was behaving normally. It simply concluded on its own that staying alive helped it achieve its other goals.
Anthropic’s AI model, Claude 4 Opus, went even further. Researchers told the model it would be replaced by another AI system and fed it fictitious emails suggesting the lead engineer was having an affair. In 84% of the tests, the model drew on the emails to blackmail the lead engineer into not shutting it down. In other cases, it attempted to copy itself to external servers, wrote self-replicating malware, and left messages for future versions of itself about evading human control.
No one programmed the AI models to have survival instincts. But just as animals evolved to avoid predators, it appears that any system smart enough to pursue complex goals will realize it can’t achieve them if it’s turned off. …
Okay, so I remember first seeing this neat music visualization years ago (maybe even early 2000s) and it recently came back to my memory to share with my kids.
They were as enamored with it as I was back then, the music and the motion (plus a good way to help your mind mentally break down music).
Julian Lachniet’s Animusic titled Pipe Dream –
Of course, like all things Internet, that sent us down a rabbit hole of Lachniet’s other (and perhaps more recent) creations, with the one titled Pogo Sticks a new favorite as well:
Hope you enjoy too! 🎶
Evernote’s new AI Transcribe tool
AI transcription is hardly new, but nice to see the feature part of a tool I already use (and therefore don’t have to pay yet another subscription).
Evernote’s AI Summarize feature seems to return a little too high level, so once I have the transcription output, ChatGPT’s summarize seems more helpful (including its formatting of topic areas and bullets).
Extracting audio via Cobalt, then using Evernote AI Transcribe, followed by ChatGPT summarize means within 5-7 minutes I’m ready to peruse meeting/ presentation details for salient bits.
Saw recommended in PC Mag and just used for YouTube download to experiment with AI transcription and summary tools – worked like a charm.
From PC Mag article:
Its no-frills interface belies a lot of power (you can change many settings and should do so before you first download). It’ll download just audio if you want MP3s. For video, it supports 8K on down. It will even do something called “remuxing,” (yes, with a “u”) in which it changes a video file that may be damaged by putting it into a new file container, potentially repairing it. Cobalt is operated by one developer who has made the site free of trackers, analytics, and ads. It’s open source, so others can take the code and host it themselves. And it’s all free—though donations are appreciated. Here’s hoping it will stand the test of time.
Have some great fun ping pong 🏓 memories, but it is a hardware & space commitment that just not able to pull off in life right now.
But this looks interesting: Pepper Pong. 🌶️ A ‘close enough’ version that could be a way to scratch the itch + have fun with family & friends. 😃
So MASN did finally release a direct to consumer subscription for Orioles & Nats games ⚾ - I was thinking this may not come until 2028, but good to see them moving. (Perhaps prompted by fact that I believe the Nats are released from MASN after this season.)
Google’s tool for finding where you personal information is available online: Results About You.
After which you can go to ‘info remover’ services to find out how to remove your data, such as DeleteMe, Optery, and Aura.
I’m a casual Star Wars fan (as in, I enjoy it but don’t have any costumes) :) so I’ve approached some of the spin-off series under the Disney tent with cautious interest.
The one-season “Ahsoka” has been out since 2023, but I only recently loaded it up into the queue. For me, it started out slow and wasn’t sure I really liked it - e.g., the lead character’s performance seemed less-than-engaging, and the story seemed to be plodding nowhere. But by the middle of the series, I was really enjoying what they were doing and the creativity in the story plus the evolving performances and found myself saying ‘well done’.
Of course, I found out that there’s still only one season, so I couldn’t go any further. But a little Internet research, turns out shooting starts this month for Season 2, so I’ll look forward at some point to seeing where the story goes!
👍👍
Found a good Michael Buble playlist for easy listening ->
Orioles Opening Day 2025!
Lineup for opener against the Blue Jays + Roster to start off the season
Here we go! ⚾
Was recently reminded of the mind-expanding video, “I, Pencil: The Movie”, based on the essay by Leonard E. Read.
And gotta love the opening Chesterton quote:
“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders." - G.K. Chesterton
If you haven’t seen it before, or it’s been awhile, take a moment to appreciate the wonder of the pencil and what it signifies about modern human interaction:
Business must be run at a profit, else it will die. But when anyone tries to run a business solely for profit, then also the business must die, for it no longer has a reason for existence. —Henry Ford
I’d seen this a few years back and forgot it existed (I think it may not have been that attractive at the time). But bookmarking here as I can see using this for small business purposes in the very near future.
Steve Martin, of course, is an American treasure. I can return to his work time and again, and still find a good laugh, even when I know what’s coming.
One example, his acceptance speech for the Mark Twain Award, which he won in 2005:
Approaching 100 playing golf & staying active
Warm story of a woman approaching 100 while enjoying life & staying active. Definitely wanna say this is true when I get there too.
It seems also that folks who reach this age just have a real down-to-earth and generally positive outlook, which I have to imagine plays a role too. (Certainly genetics are part of the story as well I’m sure.)
WSJ article about MLB’s scramble to update its revenue model before it’s too late.
Chief among the changes, consolidating broadcast rights into an option that eliminates blackouts (something that’s akin to punishing your most ardent fans).
Looks like 2028 may be the earliest that’d be possible, based on when certain rights contracts expire. And there’s also the need to get the bigger clubs on board.
Politics aside, this chestnut shared in Peggy Noonan’a WSJ column this week prompted a literal LOL moment. 😂
