jack, thank you for introducing us to radek baborak (wonderful name) about whom wiki has this to say:
Radek Baborák was born into a musical family. He commenced his horn studies at the age of eight under the tutelage of Karel Krenek. At the age of twelve he was a winner of the Radio Competition Concertino Prague. Three years later he was a prize winner at the Prague Spring Competition.
From 1989 to 1994 Baborák studied horn with professor Bedřich Tylšar.
Baborák has appeared as guest artist with many notable orchestras worldwide, ….. He has appeared several times on television and given recitals at international festivals worldwide.
At the ARD-Competition in Munich 1997 he performed with the Afflatus Quintet, winning first prize in the wind quintet category.
…. He has arranged Bach’s solo cello suites for Horn, and on one memorable occasion at a concert in Teplice in 1998, entertained an audience with one of his Bach arrangements when the concert was delayed because the lights went out, due to testing the power supply in preparation for the Teplice-Sparta football match the following day.
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic came to town in 2020, I have been working from home. Before that — starting in 2009 — I had the option of working from home or going to the office, depending on what the day’s job required. As a result, I can sympathize with the hundreds of workers who walked out of Amazon’s Seattle headquarters on Wednesday to complain about the company’s new requirement that they be in the office a minimum of three days a week.
Working from home has many benefits, most of all the flexibility to shift work hours around to deal with the demands of private life more easily. There is no commute, less wasted time and, for many, more productivity.
Nevertheless, I am very glad I had all those years earlier in my career working surrounded by colleagues in an office. For one thing, most of my closest friends today are people I met at work and my life would be bereft without them. Professionally, I cannot imagine having the successes I’ve had in my career without the good counsel and example of the skilled, savvy journalists who were my mentors. A long, dull succession of Zoom calls would not have sufficed.
Then there is office politics. It pays to know the people who have the power to fire you and to have them know you. One’s work does not always speak for itself; sometimes a face-to-face relationship counts for more.
Living life remotely has many rewards, but so does being on a team. Many of the peak hours of my career were spent working alongside other journalists in a newsroom bursting with action as a big story unfolded. Maybe an Amazon office lacks those kinds of exciting moments, but I suspect there are still times when the communal efforts and camaraderie make a drive to work worth it.
So, Amazonians — and all you other folks who have escaped from downtown office towers and are reluctant to return — I get it. Home is where the heart is. But, sometimes, there is nothing like a stimulating day at the office. Besides, where else are you going to make friends?
the fate’s really are handing it to FL these days as if hurricanes, sea rise, citrus blight and duh saneless weren’t enough
It might have been one of Alfred Hitchcock’s fanciful tales of the supernatural: a 5,000-mile wide blob of murky seaweed creeping menacingly across the Atlantic before dumping itself along the US shoreline.
But now giant clumps of the 13m-ton morass labeled the Great Atlantic sargassum belt are washing up on Florida’s beaches, scientists are warning of a real-life threat from the piles of decomposing algae, namely high levels of the flesh-eating Vibrio bacteria lurking in the vegetation.
[continues]
I love the smell of Mozart in the morning.
Smith getting closer. A likely chance he’s got the green light from Garland and bringing Grand Jury back to issue the indictment…
“Grand jury in Trump classified documents case expected to meet this coming week after hiatus”
Lock him up…before he flees to Russian and becomes the new prime minister
Thank you Jack,
Mozart with his too many notes and a great musician are always a good choice for Sunday.
Chuck Todd OUT at “Meet the Press”
Not crazy about Kristen. She lost me in 2016 with constant beating of the Whataboutyeremails drum. They likely “made her do it” but still it turned me off.
So lets go back to the original idea of meet the press, as a mini press conference. I haven’t bothered with MTP for years. I’ve never seen Mr Todd perform his monkey act, I got too bored with his predecessor, Mr Russet’s act. After all when you have seen one monkey you’ve seen them all.
Jack
Interesting trip, grocery shopping yesterday, eggs were down to a $1.10 a dozen at the local Aldis, I bought two dozen and made me a 3 egg omlet for breakfast. Also interesting to see how somethings are coming down in price as other inferior products stay high. Aldi’s imports, for the summer German smoke brats and knockwurst. They also have a cheaper inferior, US made version. Yesterday their Good version was cheaper than their inferior version, by almost a dollar/lb. So, it looks like a good time to be paying attention to prices.
Walmart must have a hidden mike in their produce isle. Last month,I had a discussion with another shopper about the ridiculous price on some produce. I had just looked at their ginger at $3.50 for 8oz. and told her, I could always buy it in an Asia store in Kansas City for under $1.50. and at that price it paid to drive up there. Well, I was in the same Walmart grocery and they had ginger at $1.50. I’ve got ginger lemonade in the fridge, life is good.
Jack
Jack – Todd was a big fan od the repubs. Rarely bothered to overload with Dems. And he almost never questioned the lies. Uck
As with almost everything on TV I stopped watching a long tme ago.
Off now to the celebration of my little brother and sister-in-law’s 50th wedding anniversary. Got married as kids in college, beat all the odds and predictions they wouldn’t make it. Four daughters and twelve grandchildren later, they’re still babes and still going strong! Love you both.❤️
One way I read the economy is by the number of “painted” trucks on the road. Used to be magnetic signs, now it’s a preponderance of trucks with their business info painted on.
Check it out.
BB, did you hear this? We did not..
WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) – A sonic boom heard in Washington D.C. on Sunday was caused by an authorized Pentagon flight, the Annapolis Maryland Office of Emergency Management said.
Hi everyone,
I’m on Cape Cod. We are here until the end of the week… but rain is expected every day. No matter… lots of fresh seafood to eat… and the ocean is still beautiful! Don’t know if we’ll make it out to see OldSeaHag on Martha’s Vineyard on this trip.. the rain will probably rule that out.
Here’s to hoping the world doesn’t end this week. We probably wouldn’t notice it.
Craig – we were rocked. It shook the house very hard, I first thought an explosion, then a truck had rolled into the house, and finally sonic boom there were two fighter jets overhead. After ruling out the first two, no sirens and no truck, it had to be a boom. Because the military did not give warnings or announcement after the boom there was lots of speculation. Meteorite was the first good one, plus a RING video showed the sky light up a bit. But, it was the D.C. National Guard given permission to blast through the sound barrier, and they did. Now I have to go through and put all the hanging pictures back level. Most likely the two were shooting up instead of horizontal to create a big sound like that, think of an upside down funnel. Where I live there is very little land to absorb the shock wave so it could travel on the Bay very easily to still be strong when it hit.
“AI in the Arts Is the Destruction of the Film Industry.”
“The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) is currently on strike against the AMPTP, the representation of the Hollywood studios and streamers. A number of demands were made and were met with the expected pushback, but one pushback was alarming: the refusal to even have a conversation about the potential for AI to displace screenwriters in films and series.”
“AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, but I refer to it as “Automatic Imitation.” In short, AI is an algorithm that is fed a wealth of information and given a task, and it then delivers the result based on the information it’s been fed. There are more complexities, but that is the basic design and function of AI. And it is being used in the Arts for greed, trained on all our past work.”
“It starts with AI-written scrips and digitally-scanned actors, either image or voice actors. This scanning is already in practice; in fact, some talent agencies are actively recruiting their clients to be scanned. What this would mean for the actor is that they would get 75 cents on the dollar, and their digital image can be triple and quadruple booked. Of course, you’re not getting the actor; you’re getting a copy of them.”
“The next step will be films customized for a viewer based on their viewing history, which has been collected for many years. Actors will have the option to have their image “bought out” to be used in anything at all. Viewers will be able to “order up” films—for example, “I want a film about a panda and a unicorn who save the world in a rocket ship. And put Bill Murray in it.”
“From there I believe viewers will be given the ability to be digitally scanned themselves, and pay extra to have themselves inserted in these custom films. You’ll also start to see licensing deals made with studios, so that viewers can order up older films like “Star Wars” and put their face on Luke Skywalker’s body, and their ex-wife’s face on Darth Vader’s body, and so on.”
“All to say, AI has to be addressed now or never.”
“Bateman — who has acted, written, produced and directed in her prolific career — says it’s artificial intelligence that the writers and the entire entertainment industry need to worry most about. She also has a degree in computer science from UCLA.”
******
Entertainment is just one industry (it feeds many others, from electricians to catering) that will be destroyed. It’s not just software that plagiarizes the work of real humans. AI will come for everything. That is, those who control AI will remake things to their liking. ~sweet dreams~
BB, they were chasing a plane that ultimately crashed in SW Virginia, CNN reporting
Craig – I just read that. It is sad, but this has happened several times before. Most likely is that after take off the oxygen failed or was not turned on. The pilot and passengers passed out and died of oxygen depravation. The plane was on autopilot and any course corrections were from the pilot flopping about on the controls.
The military jets, F-16, popped through the sound barrier and then chased down the Citation, confirming no active people in the cockpit. That it ended up flying in the most restricted air space in the U.S. was just something that happened. The crew and passengers did not suffer, they went to sleep.
en route from TN to NY violating DC airspace and crashed in…
SW VA?? 🤔
bink – yeah sounds strange. Speculation, they died soon after take off and the aircraft was on its own. There is heat dome over D.C. which could bounce things a bit.
“ABC News has suspended its relationship with contributor Chris Christie ahead of the former New Jersey governor’s expected entrance into the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.”
He’s announcing on Tuesday, the anniversary of D Day.
NEW THREAD
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jack, thank you for introducing us to radek baborak (wonderful name) about whom wiki has this to say:
so while enjoying upbeat music by radek also enjoy david horsey’s upbeat unusually personal op ed A cat can’t compete with office camaraderie | The Seattle Times:
the fate’s really are handing it to FL these days as if hurricanes, sea rise, citrus blight and duh saneless weren’t enough
the guardian:
I love the smell of Mozart in the morning.
Smith getting closer. A likely chance he’s got the green light from Garland and bringing Grand Jury back to issue the indictment…
“Grand jury in Trump classified documents case expected to meet this coming week after hiatus”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/grand-jury-trump-classified-documents-case-expected-meet-coming-week-h-rcna87599?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma&s=01
Lock him up…before he flees to Russian and becomes the new prime minister
Thank you Jack,
Mozart with his too many notes and a great musician are always a good choice for Sunday.
Chuck Todd OUT at “Meet the Press”
Not crazy about Kristen. She lost me in 2016 with constant beating of the Whataboutyeremails drum. They likely “made her do it” but still it turned me off.
So lets go back to the original idea of meet the press, as a mini press conference. I haven’t bothered with MTP for years. I’ve never seen Mr Todd perform his monkey act, I got too bored with his predecessor, Mr Russet’s act. After all when you have seen one monkey you’ve seen them all.
Jack
Interesting trip, grocery shopping yesterday, eggs were down to a $1.10 a dozen at the local Aldis, I bought two dozen and made me a 3 egg omlet for breakfast. Also interesting to see how somethings are coming down in price as other inferior products stay high. Aldi’s imports, for the summer German smoke brats and knockwurst. They also have a cheaper inferior, US made version. Yesterday their Good version was cheaper than their inferior version, by almost a dollar/lb. So, it looks like a good time to be paying attention to prices.
Walmart must have a hidden mike in their produce isle. Last month,I had a discussion with another shopper about the ridiculous price on some produce. I had just looked at their ginger at $3.50 for 8oz. and told her, I could always buy it in an Asia store in Kansas City for under $1.50. and at that price it paid to drive up there. Well, I was in the same Walmart grocery and they had ginger at $1.50. I’ve got ginger lemonade in the fridge, life is good.
Jack
Jack – Todd was a big fan od the repubs. Rarely bothered to overload with Dems. And he almost never questioned the lies. Uck
As with almost everything on TV I stopped watching a long tme ago.
Off now to the celebration of my little brother and sister-in-law’s 50th wedding anniversary. Got married as kids in college, beat all the odds and predictions they wouldn’t make it. Four daughters and twelve grandchildren later, they’re still babes and still going strong! Love you both.❤️
One way I read the economy is by the number of “painted” trucks on the road. Used to be magnetic signs, now it’s a preponderance of trucks with their business info painted on.
Check it out.
BB, did you hear this? We did not..
WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) – A sonic boom heard in Washington D.C. on Sunday was caused by an authorized Pentagon flight, the Annapolis Maryland Office of Emergency Management said.
Hi everyone,
I’m on Cape Cod. We are here until the end of the week… but rain is expected every day. No matter… lots of fresh seafood to eat… and the ocean is still beautiful! Don’t know if we’ll make it out to see OldSeaHag on Martha’s Vineyard on this trip.. the rain will probably rule that out.
Here’s to hoping the world doesn’t end this week. We probably wouldn’t notice it.
Craig – we were rocked. It shook the house very hard, I first thought an explosion, then a truck had rolled into the house, and finally sonic boom there were two fighter jets overhead. After ruling out the first two, no sirens and no truck, it had to be a boom. Because the military did not give warnings or announcement after the boom there was lots of speculation. Meteorite was the first good one, plus a RING video showed the sky light up a bit. But, it was the D.C. National Guard given permission to blast through the sound barrier, and they did. Now I have to go through and put all the hanging pictures back level. Most likely the two were shooting up instead of horizontal to create a big sound like that, think of an upside down funnel. Where I live there is very little land to absorb the shock wave so it could travel on the Bay very easily to still be strong when it hit.
https://www.newsweek.com/ai-arts-destruction-film-industry-we-cant-go-quietly-opinion-1800983
“AI in the Arts Is the Destruction of the Film Industry.”
“The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) is currently on strike against the AMPTP, the representation of the Hollywood studios and streamers. A number of demands were made and were met with the expected pushback, but one pushback was alarming: the refusal to even have a conversation about the potential for AI to displace screenwriters in films and series.”
“AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, but I refer to it as “Automatic Imitation.” In short, AI is an algorithm that is fed a wealth of information and given a task, and it then delivers the result based on the information it’s been fed. There are more complexities, but that is the basic design and function of AI. And it is being used in the Arts for greed, trained on all our past work.”
“It starts with AI-written scrips and digitally-scanned actors, either image or voice actors. This scanning is already in practice; in fact, some talent agencies are actively recruiting their clients to be scanned. What this would mean for the actor is that they would get 75 cents on the dollar, and their digital image can be triple and quadruple booked. Of course, you’re not getting the actor; you’re getting a copy of them.”
“The next step will be films customized for a viewer based on their viewing history, which has been collected for many years. Actors will have the option to have their image “bought out” to be used in anything at all. Viewers will be able to “order up” films—for example, “I want a film about a panda and a unicorn who save the world in a rocket ship. And put Bill Murray in it.”
“From there I believe viewers will be given the ability to be digitally scanned themselves, and pay extra to have themselves inserted in these custom films. You’ll also start to see licensing deals made with studios, so that viewers can order up older films like “Star Wars” and put their face on Luke Skywalker’s body, and their ex-wife’s face on Darth Vader’s body, and so on.”
“All to say, AI has to be addressed now or never.”
https://laist.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/justine-bateman-rings-warning-bell-on-ai
“Bateman — who has acted, written, produced and directed in her prolific career — says it’s artificial intelligence that the writers and the entire entertainment industry need to worry most about. She also has a degree in computer science from UCLA.”
******
Entertainment is just one industry (it feeds many others, from electricians to catering) that will be destroyed. It’s not just software that plagiarizes the work of real humans. AI will come for everything. That is, those who control AI will remake things to their liking. ~sweet dreams~
BB, they were chasing a plane that ultimately crashed in SW Virginia, CNN reporting
Craig – I just read that. It is sad, but this has happened several times before. Most likely is that after take off the oxygen failed or was not turned on. The pilot and passengers passed out and died of oxygen depravation. The plane was on autopilot and any course corrections were from the pilot flopping about on the controls.
The military jets, F-16, popped through the sound barrier and then chased down the Citation, confirming no active people in the cockpit. That it ended up flying in the most restricted air space in the U.S. was just something that happened. The crew and passengers did not suffer, they went to sleep.
en route from TN to NY violating DC airspace and crashed in…
SW VA?? 🤔
bink – yeah sounds strange. Speculation, they died soon after take off and the aircraft was on its own. There is heat dome over D.C. which could bounce things a bit.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4030038-abc-news-suspends-relationship-with-christie-ahead-of-expected-campaign-launch/
“ABC News has suspended its relationship with contributor Chris Christie ahead of the former New Jersey governor’s expected entrance into the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.”
He’s announcing on Tuesday, the anniversary of D Day.
NEW THREAD