From personal assistant robots acting as companions, to robots who offer reminders of daily tasks when our memories fail, to surgical precision robots that remove human error, the future of aging looks a lot different from today. Today’s strategy is to develop basic AI capabilities in home companion robots while technology develops. But how far is too far?
Tag: 05.20.18
The Onion May Never Have Faced A Bigger Challenge Than President Donald Trump
Editor-in-chief Chad Nackers: “Obama was more of a traditional president as far as his decorum and even his preparation and policy. … You leap off of that and so things can be more surreal and absurd when you’re making fun of him. Whereas Trump is kind of starting from this point of already being kind of absurd. … The other challenge about this administration is that so many of their policies and things, like for the EPA, they almost feel like satire. … In a way, it almost feels like the resistance stuff is even more fun to make fun of. They are just so self-serious.”
Patricia Morison, 103, Stage And Screen Star Of 1930s, ’40s and ’50s
“An actress who combined ravishing beauty with cool sophistication, [Morison] was promoted as the ‘Fire and Ice Girl’ when she landed in Hollywood in the late 1930s. She appeared opposite some of the most popular stars of the era — from Spencer Tracy to Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller — but her career stalled from typecasting as a well-coiffed vamp. [She] did not emerge to public recognition until returning to her Broadway roots in 1948 to perform in Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, which became one of the most popular stage musicals of all time.”
Him, Too: Chief Of Cape Town’s Contemporary Art Museum Resigned After Accusations Of Harassment
When Mark Coetzee resigned as the first executive director and chief curator of Zeitz MOCAA on Cape Town’s waterfront, and the museum’s trustees said they were investigating his “professional conduct” and the museum’s “institutional practices,” reporting suggested that the concerns were about a too-close relationship with a group of collectors. But the problem was nothing so highbrow: “Numerous high flyers in the art world, who did not wish to be named, said they had witnessed Coetzee making lewd and sexually suggestive comments at work and inappropriate advances and suggestions of a sexual nature towards men in public.”
Cannes Crowns A Winner. But Can The Festival Stay Relevant?
The Grand Prix went to Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman,” an American racial drama that just about pops with relevance. From the lofty heights at the top of the carpet, Cannes carried on business as usual. Yet that didn’t stop a great many people, throughout the festival, from asking: Has Cannes lost its luster, its excitement, its relevance? Has its status as the world’s most prestigious and sexy and important film festival been dimmed? Has it been undermined by a perfect storm of elements, from the rise of Netflix to the power of awards season? To put it in the most blunt terms possible: Are the great films now playing somewhere else?
The Two Sides Of Absurdity (Necessary For Insight)
Thomas Nagel argued that when we sense that something – or everything – in life is absurd, we’re experiencing the clash of two perspectives from which to view the world. One is that of the engaged agent, seeing her life from the inside, with her heart vibrating in her chest. The other is that of the detached spectator, watching human activity coolly, as if from the distance of another planet.
Protesters Disrupt Philadelphia Orchestra Concert Over Plans To Tour Israel
Two of the protesters that entered the hall led music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin to slam his baton on the podium and walk off the stage. Some musicians began to leave, too, before the protesters, who were loudly booed by the audience, were forcibly removed. After the 10-minute disruption, the orchestra’s interim co-president, Matthew Loden, told the audience: “We live in an age where dissent is important. It matters. It should be heard. But the sanctity of the concert hall should be respected.”
It’s Almost Impossible For An Artist To Make A Living In Philadelphia
Bill Gold, Backstage Superstar Designer Of Famous Hollywood Posters, Has Died At 97
Gold designed the posters for Casablanca, A Streetcar Named Desire, Alien, and thousands more. “Long before poster artists turned to photography and computer-generated images in the 1980s and ’90s, illustrators like Mr. Gold billboarded movies with freehand drawings, based on scripts and first screen prints, that hinted at plots and moods and mysteries, without giving away too much — priming audiences for love, betrayal, jealousy, murder.”
Catching Up With Apple’s Siri, The Google Assistant And Amazon Alexa *Finally* Have Male Voices
Why does that make a difference? “The vocal variety now offered by these companies minimizes the subservient female assistant vibe. And as these assistants are increasingly being adopted in households with children, bossing around not just a female-voiced assistant seems like a healthy step in teaching gender equality and eliminating traditional gender role expectations. For younger children anthropomorphizing the bot, a changing voice may also make it clear that this is a computer entity, not a person.”