Producing Various and Sundry

Modern Filmmaking and the Perception of Reality

Okay, so I mused a lot in Wednesday’s post, so I’ll allow someone else to muse, in this case Dutch YouTuber Tom van der Linden, the man behind the channel “Like Stories of Old.” In the half-hour video below, he goes into what many of us cinemaniacs have often felt, but felt hard to articulate: they’re not making films like they used to… and we may be losing something because of it. What I really…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

So What Do We Do Post-AI Disruption?

Okay, yes, what with the news of AI breaking containment when it shouldn’t have been able to do so… and the fact that AI may now be harnessed for new disturbing acts of bio-terrorism, maybe we plucky humans don’t make it out alive. But what if we do? What if the aftermath of this Post-AI disruption era is actually positive? And no, that does not mean I’m about to say, “Gee, nimrods trying to change…

Continue reading

Acting Producing Raves Writing

It’s the Stan Freberg Centennial!

On this day, a century ago, a wonderfully funny, delightfully off-kilter comedian and satirist was born who would forever change how we think about American history, advertising, and, well, dragons. Yes, I’m talking about the one, the only, the inimitable Stan Freberg. Many of us in the audio fiction world wear many hats and Freberg did so admirably, writing, producing, and acting in the various media he did. If you’re one of my fellow audio…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

Creativity and What to Do with AI

I’ve been posting musings and plenty of articles videos about AI for a while now. There’s a lot of doom and gloom about the disruption AI is causing and may cause for society. And there’s also schadenfreude at the limits of AI in the face of people wanting AI to be their One True God. So I wanted to pause with some of those sorts of articles and muse about what a possible positive future…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

Takes on History Hint How AI May Not Take All the Jobs

Continuing my series of posts about AI and machine learning, a big concern is AI taking people’s jobs. In fact, that’s how I first started posting about it, because AI was being touted as a replacement for writing and creating music and the many fun things in life… rather than AI helping do the dishes or laundry. But despite AI being cited as a reason for jobs getting cut, I have been coming across some…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

Six Skills to Stick it to Skynet

Building on last week’s post about liberal arts majors having value in this brave new AI world, here’s Daniel Pink (whom longtime readers may remember I posted about at the beginning of the year) and he lists six skills in his usual pithy style. You can absolutely use them to make yourself more valuable in the workplace (void where Skynet goes full murderbot or bosses go towards “maximizing innovative synergies”).

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

Into the Woods… with Laika

As the seven or nine longtime readers of this blog will recall, I love a good movie trailer, which I define as a trailer that gives you that emotional tone of the story and type or story you’ll be going on with said film… without revealing too much of the story. Indeed, I would say the central question such a trailer should ask is “Look at this! Can’t you imagine what kind of journey you’ll…

Continue reading

Writing

What’s in a Name? Sci-fi Edition

It’s the weekend and weekend plans are upon me, including both reading and writing some sci-fi stories, so I wanted to leave you with something thematic to ponder. I too love words. And ranking… as much as I may not agree with others’ rankings. Is it as much as other people dislike my ranking? Probably not (though some people clearly like it). But in any case, ‘ansible’ is A tier.

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

AI Entering the Danger Zone?

As AI continues to tap-dance through the zeitgeist of society, I don’t have any family references this week, but I do have an Archer/Kenny Loggins reference, and isn’t that the same? An AI chatbot would say so… unless you correct it. Anyway, OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX are all looking to have IPOs this year which has market musing being cranked up to 11 (if you want analysis in manic video style, Hank Green has your…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

AI as a Kind of Magic Trick

Growing up, my dad exposed us to a number of board games and, while he was open to all sorts of game mechanics, he especially enjoyed the wonkily strategic ones that might be best described as “simulations.” Yes, we’re talking cardboard chits and plenty of rules in strict number-outline order about how those cardboard chits operate. My dad was tough to beat in such simulations, because he absorbed the rules with a precision that many…

Continue reading