John Wick: Chapter 4
Here’s the final trailer for John Wick: Chapter 4.
Looks as amazing as the previous three installments. What a cool world.
World Series champion, TV analyst Tim McCarver dies at 81
Tim McCarver has died.
I will miss hearing his voice and his insight.
America’s unique, enduring gun problem, explained
Li Zhou, Nicole Narea, Ian Millhiser, and Cameron Peters, writing for Vox, has a story on the gun problem in America.
Call me cynical, but nothing is ever going to change. There is literally nothing that will change people’s minds about this subject. There is no amount of people killed that would do it. No one person killed by gun violence would motivate a wholesale change. Someone could kill every member of Congress and nothing would change.
It’s pathetic to have to live in this kind of society. I don’t have any hope for change and that’s sad.
Future Letter
Future Letter is a website that allows users to write a letter to their future selves. The website has a simple design. Just type your message, select a time frame, and click “configure.” The letter will come to your future self through your email address. You can choose to receive your letter in six months, a year, five years, or ten years.
I just sent myself a letter to receive in 5 years. Due to my bad memory, I assume that by the time my letter comes back to me, it will catch me off guard as a pleasant surprise.
Gods and Monsters
James Gunn shares his vision for the future of the DC Universe and the upcoming slate from DC Studios.
I wish him all the luck in the world.
The Flash - Official Trailer
The Flash – Official Trailer is here. It looks good.
Even though Ezra Miller is problematic, I’m pretty hyped for this one.
The Flash is all about time travel and explores the commonly-discussed paradox of meeting your past self, which happens to the Flash’s alter ego Barry Allen. Also, the paradox of changing the past big time and ruining everything is the main plot. However, the real hook in this trailer is the return of Michael Keaton as Batman. I am not making this up. In fact, there are two Batmans, the other played by Ben Affleck, and two Flashes. And, of course, a whole bunch of other superheroes and supervillains. The Flash hits theaters on June 16.
ChatGPT is a Blurry JPEG of the Web
Ted Chiang explains how ChatGPT is better understood as a lossy compression algorithm:
Imagine what it would look like if ChatGPT were a lossless algorithm. If that were the case, it would always answer questions by providing a verbatim quote from a relevant Web page. We would probably regard the software as only a slight improvement over a conventional search engine, and be less impressed by it. The fact that ChatGPT rephrases material from the Web instead of quoting it word for word makes it seem like a student expressing ideas in her own words, rather than simply regurgitating what she's read; it creates the illusion that ChatGPT understands the material.Reframing the technology in that way turns out to be useful in thinking through some of its possibilities and limitations:
There is very little information available about OpenAI’s forthcoming successor to ChatGPT, GPT-4. But I’m going to make a prediction: when assembling the vast amount of text used to train GPT-4, the people at OpenAI will have made every effort to exclude material generated by ChatGPT or any other large-language model. If this turns out to be the case, it will serve as unintentional confirmation that the analogy between large-language models and lossy compression is useful. Repeatedly resaving a jpeg creates more compression artifacts, because more information is lost every time. It’s the digital equivalent of repeatedly making photocopies of photocopies in the old days. The image quality only gets worse.The rephrasing of information from the internet adds to the illusion of understanding and intelligence, rather than just being a tool for retrieving information.Indeed, a useful criterion for gauging a large-language model’s quality might be the willingness of a company to use the text that it generates as training material for a new model. If the output of ChatGPT isn’t good enough for GPT-4, we might take that as an indicator that it’s not good enough for us, either.
I really like this whole analogy, and I think it pairs really well with experiments using Stable Diffusion as a lossy image compression algorithm.
Burt Bacharach, visionary pop composer, has died at 94
Elizabeth Blair, writing for NPR, has the obituary of Burt Bacharach.
So many songs. What a body of work.
My favorite is “What the World Needs Now is Love.”
Behind the Essence of Matthew Mayer
Joey Wagner, writing for the Illini Inquirer, has a well-written profile on one of the most interesting dudes in college basketball and one heck of a player.
Matthew Mayer is a little weird, which is a good thing. I think.
Critical Ignoring
Ralph Hertwig, Stephan Lewandowsky, Anastasia Kozyreva, and Sam Wineburg have an interesting article in The Conversation.
I’d never heard of this concept before.
Critical ignoring is more than just not paying attention – it’s about practicing mindful and healthy habits in the face of information overabundance.
Something we all need.
54 Small, Nice Things To Do for Yourself
The editors at Fatherly made a list of things every father should do for themselves.
It’s important to spend a little time every day attending to your mental and physical health. Why? Simple: Finding—no, making—the time to go for a walk, work on a hobby, establish a better relationship with your phone, give yourself some joy, push yourself, or make yourself sweat can lead to a better, more available you.
I liked #20, #28, #33, #44, #53, and #54. Of course, they are all good ideas.
The Big Hollywood Quiz
This Saturday Night Live sketch was on point. Everybody remembers the finale of _MAS*H _and All About Eve, but we don’t share those experiences as a society anymore. There’s hundreds of streaming choices on dozens of platforms that anybody can watch anytime.
There just aren’t any touchstones.
The Multi-Faceted Genius of Drummer Stewart Copeland
Brandon Toews of Drumeo took a deep dive into the incredible, multi-faceted genius of legendary drummer [Stewart Copeland](The Genius Of Stewart Copeland). He further notes how Copeland’s international upbringing, sense of adventure, and search for knowledge gave him the percussive tools to make him one of the most distinctive drummers in the world, both with The Police and beyond.
Much later in my musical journey, I discovered how amazing Copeland was and continues to be. I love deep dives like this.
The GOP is Just Obnoxious
David Frum, writing in The Atlantic, thinks the GOP is obnoxious.
I believe Frum is spot-on here. It will take a transformative candidate to really make a difference in this political landscape. I’m not sure who that person is.
Who in the Republican party can exorcise him or herself from the Trump stink? Is there a Republican governor who is moderate?
De-Aging for the Super Wealthy
Ashlee Vance, writing for Bloomberg, has a story about Bryan Johnson (no, not the one from AC/DC), who made $800 million in cash by selling his company to eBay. He decided to do everything in his power to de-age himself.
Johnson, 45, is an ultrawealthy software entrepreneur who has more than 30 doctors and health experts monitoring his every bodily function. […] Getting the program up and running required an investment of several million dollars, including the costs of a medical suite at Johnson's home in Venice, California. This year, he's on track to spend at least $2 million on his body. He wants to have the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, tendons, teeth, skin, hair, bladder, penis and rectum of an 18-year-old.What a weird dude. Of course, how cool is it that this is possible? Also, it screams to be a movie with a not-so-happy ending.“The body delivers a certain configuration at age 18,” he says. “This really is an impassioned approach to achieve age 18 everywhere.” Johnson is well aware that this can sound like derangement and that his methods might strike some as biotech-infused snake oil, but he doesn’t much care. “This is expected and fine,” he says of the criticism he’s received.
Johnson, Zolman and the team are more than a year into their experiments, which they collectively call Project Blueprint. This includes strict guidelines for Johnson’s diet (1,977 vegan calories a day), exercise (an hour a day, high-intensity three times a week) and sleep (at the same time every night, after two hours wearing glasses that block blue light).
[…]
There are some obvious signs that Johnson is at least healthier than most 45-year-olds. The dude is way beyond ripped. His body fat hovers between 5% and 6%, which leaves his muscles and veins on full display. But it’s what has happened inside his body that most excites his doctors. They say his tests show that he’s reduced his overall biological age by at least five years. Their results suggest he has the heart of a 37-year-old, the skin of a 28-year-old and the lung capacity and fitness of an 18-year-old. “All of the markers we are tracking have been improving remarkably,” says Toll.
Chip Caray, New Cardinals Broadcaster
Katie Woo and David O’Brien, writing in The Athletic, has the story on Chip Caray joining the announcing team for the St. Louis Cardinals.
I’m excited about the prospects of this change. I haven’t really followed Chip Caray’s career, but I love the Cardinals and St. Louis connection and I expect he will be here for the rest of his career.
David Sedaris on Word Choice
Humorist/National Treasure David Sedaris went on CBS Sunday Morning to share his thoughts on “irritating word choices” like being called “boss” by other dudes. It’s completely spot on, I mean, perfect.