ceoln @ceoln@qoto.org

Judd Legum looks at the global elite meeting at Davos, Switzerland, now — Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Mancin are featured there — and asks what are the priorities of the elite.

He concludes that with only 81 billionaires holding more wealth than 50% of the world combined, extreme wealth inequality is a policy choice "pushed for by corporations and the wealthy and enacted by government officials."

#EconomicElites #KyrstenSinema #JoeManchin

https://popular.info/p/the-true-priorities-of-the-global

Another 🔥 example of how behind 'automation' there are always HUMANS involved maintaining and sustaining it. This is what @ubiquity75 calls brand safety in her work on content moderators. As I talk in my work these low paid workers are an integral part of the service/channel!

https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/

I can't find anything about this from googling - but, does anyone know/have any good sources on how the TikTok text-to-speech narration was developed, specifically the voice inputs* that were used to develop it?

*Prob not the right term - I mean, I think, the training data that informs the sound of the synthetic voice output

Marjorie Tayor Greene claimed 9/11 did not happen --now the GOP has put her on the Homeland Security Committee. Today's GOP is a threat to our nation's safety! https://www.mediamatters.org/congress/qanon-candidate-marjorie-taylor-greene-911-conspiracy-theorist-who-claimed-theres-no

Okay. Migrated from masthead.social to mastodon.social. Meanwhile, here's the Substack on my decision to leave Twitter.

https://popehat.substack.com/p/goodbye-twitter

Let's put it bluntly: the Democratic Governor of New York can't team up with MAGA to push her conservative nominee through the Senate by suing her own party and attacking her own base. It simply can't happen. #LaSalle

"What is the city today, for us? I believe that I have written something like a last love poem addressed to the city, at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult to live there. It looks, in-deed, as if we are approaching a period of crisis in urban life; and Invisible Cities is like a dream born out of the heart of the unlivable cities we know."

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41806854

My contribution to #thicktrunktuesday #midjourney #aiart

#waterfallwednesday #aiart #midjourney

Almost missed this one but today we have a nail salon trade dress infringement complaint. I always considered this "Early 00s Long Island Mom" style and not really associated with any particular Ohio nail salon. US Nails Inc. v. KH&SN LLC, No. 23 cv 28 (SDOH Jan. 17, 2023)

archillect:

archillect:

Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe

I never believed in offsets anyway. It's like trying foist your debt onto someone else's credit card. #climatechange #climate #politics

This week in 1961, US, British and Belgian forces couped and assassinated Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of the Republic of Congo, because he sought to restore national control over the country's mineral wealth. Remember Lumumba.

Peacock showing off.. 🦚

This is not "one lone senator submitting a crazy bill" anymore, and I want to confront that line of logic early.

We are now at 7 states with proposed drag bans.

Most have multiple sponsors.

This bill has 4 senate sponsors.

“Someone with a 1-hr car commute needs to earn 40% more to be as happy as someone with a short walk to work. On the other hand, if someone shifts from a long commute to a walk, their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love.” #CityMakingMath

Just one of 50 reasons why everyone should want more walkable streets. In Fast Company Magazine.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3062989/50-reasons-why-everyone-should-want-more-walkable-streets

#cities #urbanism #walking #streets #cars

37 years ago, there were 50 companies in charge of most American media
Today,90% of the media in the U.S is controlled by just 6 corporations,
Bloomberg, Hearst, Newhouse, Murdoch, and Ochs-Sulzberger,plus various billionaires.
Now includes elon musk..

There's always an agenda
#thinkingcap