To the best editor I’ve ever had
Paolo once told me that cats came to Earth to enslave the standing monkeys. While funny and in some ways true, cats can be more and other than that. They can be as loyal as dogs (and both species far more loyal than grown humans to each other), and friends (again, like dogs) in the truest sense.
In The Cat Who Woke Me Up, Sy Safransky shares a story that I wish I also typified the pets who have co-occupied my life. Only one of those beings lived a long life, and none meant as much to me (or me to them) as Sy’s cat Cirrus meant to him. If you want to know how well a companion’s soul exceeds the dimensions imposed by the label “pet,” read that piece.
What matters most to me about Sy’s story is that he is not just one of the best writers I have ever known, but by far the best editor. No other model or mentor has meant more to me and my writing than Sy. I’d submit a piece and get back an edited version that was half as long and ten times better.
I met Sy half a century ago, when he was selling copies of The Sun for 25¢ apiece in front of the Post Office on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. On that spot he turned me from a customer to a contributor. Since then (and owing very little to me), The Sun has become (IMHO) the best magazine on Earth. One reason for that is the quality of its writing and imagery. Another is its absence of advertising. But the biggest reason is Sy himself. Hats off.
Please go to hell. Seriously.
That’s what I want Microsoft to do with Copilot.
How about them Knicks!
I might say the Spurs did the Knicks a favour by ending the Thunder’s winning streak and making it easier than it might have been for the Knicks to win the NBA Cup. But the Knicks are better than that. They are the cream that has risen to the top of The East, and (mark my words) the team that will face the Thunder at season’s end and win the championship. In my biased opinion, they really are that good. And fun to watch.
Like Rob Reiner did for movies
Colleen Kenny: “The future belongs to whoever can translate that heart-level understanding into language that machines can parse and serve. It’s not about dumbing down art for algorithms… It’s about making the mercurial whimsy of the human heart more understandable to the bots who connect the dots.”
IOW, same shit, new chamber pot
In respect to the item above, Col also says,
“Marketing teams are still trying to talk at humans with 2010 media tactics, rather than tuning into their frequency and ensuring their content is legible to 2025 machines… Content owners need to stop thinking about “beating” the algorithm and start thinking about teaching it. This is Artificial Intelligence Optimization (AIO), and it means ensuring your entire digital ecosystem speaks human vernacular and fluent LLM. To be found, creators must not optimize for machines, but rather optimize for meaning across math-friendly representations of context, and be clear about their core identity. This requires: Semantic Metadata: Architecture built around how people actually speak to each other (”Show me a fast-paced thriller that isn’t too violent”), not how marketers write Tweets, Insta posts, and press releases.”
In other words, because it’s free
My answer to Why is AM talk radio almost exclusively Right Wing?
Time to sell?
Dana Blankenhorn: “There’s a demographic cliff ahead. We’re racing toward it with all speed. Japan has fallen off it, its centenarians finally succumbing to the pull of entropy. They have empty houses, even abandoned towns. That’s the reality coming to America, to Europe, and to China. It’s coming faster as we build walls against the South Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans who might like to bail us out.All this means that at some point, housing prices will fall, hard.”
BS legal jive is inna house
Did you know Netflix has a house? Actually, two of them? I didn’t. Anyway, Drey says their terms suck. I say Netflix is just covering its ass with the largest possible diaper.
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