All posts by She Seeks Serene

My Journey of Reimagining Life, Love and Education

Technology Review: AI Vs White-Collar Workers

Wall Street Journal (July 3, 2023) – Artificial intelligence doesn’t just make fantastical images. For white-collar workers, generative AI like ChatGPT can make jobs easier by creating drafts of documents or presentations.

Video timeline: 0:00 AI software 0:42 Why white-collar jobs? 2:01 AI and job cuts 3:52 What’s next?

Initial images, video and product designs could be taken over by machine learning tech. In fact, one report says nearly 4,000 workers lost their jobs in May to AI. Dropbox cut 16% of its workforce in part to invest more in the tech, while IBM sees a future where 30% of clerical work could be taken over by AI.

WSJ explains why AI may take some white-collar jobs – but also add new ones.

#AI #Layoffs #WSJ

REVIEWS: ‘Warfare After Ukraine – Battlefield Lessons’ (The Economist)

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The Economist – Special Reports (July 8, 2023): The war shows how technology is changing the battlefield. But mass still counts, argues Shashank Joshi.

Like the first world war, but with high technology

The war shows how technology is changing the battlefield. But mass still counts, argues Shashank Joshi

The latest in the battle of jamming with electronic beams

Jamming is knocking drones and missiles out of the sky

Read full report

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – July 10, 2023

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The New Yorker – July 10 & 17, 2023 issue:

On Killing Charles Dickens

A man with a top hat hovering over London.

I did everything I could to avoid writing my historical novel. When I finally started “The Fraud,” one principle was clear: no Dickens.
By Zadie Smith

For the first thirty years of my life, I lived within a one-mile radius of Willesden Green Tube Station. It’s true I went to college—I even moved to East London for a bit—but such interludes were brief. I soon returned to my little corner of North West London. Then suddenly, quite abruptly, I left not just the city but England itself. First for Rome, then Boston, and then my beloved New York, where I stayed ten years. When friends asked why I’d left the country, I’d sometimes answer with a joke: Because I don’t want to write a historical novel. Perhaps it was an in-joke: only other English novelists really understood what I meant by it. And there were other, more obvious reasons.

The Tyranny of the Tale

Scheherazade behind a colonnade of pens.

We’re told that story will set us free. But what if a narrative frame is also a cage?

By Parul Sehgal

After a millennium, she remains the hardest-working woman in literature. It was not enough to be saddled with a husband who had the nasty habit of marrying and murdering a new virgin every day to assure himself of spousal fidelity. Nor was it enough to produce a series of nested stories under such deadlines (truly, I complain too much), stories so prickly and tantalizing that the king postponed her murder every night to wait for the next installment. That’s to say nothing of the entirely forgotten three children she bore over those thousand and one nights. Who recalls that there was always a new baby in Scheherazade’s arms?

International Art: Apollo Magazine – July/Aug 2023

July/August 2023 | Apollo Magazine

Apollo Magazine – July/August 2023 issue: At the new National Portrait Gallery, The unswerving art of Ellsworth Kelly, A Futurist family home in Rome, and more…

News: Riots Rattle France, Wagner Troops In Africa

The Globalist Podcast, Monday, July 3, 2023: Riots continue to rock France and threaten to impede preparations for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, Russia expert Jenny Mathers examines the fate of Wagner troops in Africa.

Also, the future of local news in Canada as Meta and Google block content. Plus: film critic Karen Krizanovich on the latest in Hollywood and new space technology is put under the microscope. 

The New York Times – Monday, July 3, 2023

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A Climate Laggard in America’s Industrial Heartland Has a Plan to Change, Fast

The silhouette of a person, back to the camera, with a fishing rod extended toward a river. A second rod is propped up on its own nearby. On the other side of the river is an industrial complex, with smokestacks, buildings and electrical towers.

Lawmakers in Michigan have long fought tough pollution controls. But the toll of flooding, lost crops and damage to the Great Lakes appears to be changing minds.

As 2024 Voting Battles Heat Up, North Carolina G.O.P. Presses Forward

North Carolina has grown increasingly competitive in recent elections. Donald J. Trump won the state by just over a percentage point in 2020.

Republicans, whose edge in the state has narrowed in recent years, have gone on offense politically, leading to clashes over voting access and control over elections.

Cracking Down on Dissent, Russia Seeds a Surveillance Supply Chain

An illustration shows, on the left, an image of Vladimir Putin’s face on a red background and, on the right, a hand holding a mobile phone.

Russia is incubating a cottage industry of new digital surveillance tools to suppress domestic opposition to the war in Ukraine. The tech may also be sold overseas.

A Rubik’s Cube, Thick Socks and Giddy Anticipation: The Last Hours of the Titan

Five voyagers climbed into the Titan submersible in hopes of joining the select few who have seen the wreck of the Titanic up close. But within hours, their text messages stopped coming.

Travel Guides: A Tour Of Edinburgh, Scotland

Attaché Travel Films (July 2, 2023) – Edinburgh is Scotland’s compact, hilly capital. It has a medieval Old Town and elegant Georgian New Town with gardens and neoclassical buildings.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Intro 01:49 – Transport 05:25 – Sponsor 06:27 – Food 13:15 – Money

Looming over the city is Edinburgh Castle, home to Scotland’s crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny, used in the coronation of Scottish rulers. Arthur’s Seat is an imposing peak in Holyrood Park with sweeping views, and Calton Hill is topped with monuments and memorials

California Views: John Muir Wilderness Area

CBS Sunday Morning (July 2, 2023) – The John Muir Wilderness area extends along the crest of the Sierra Nevada of California for 90 miles, in the Inyo and Sierra National Forests. Established in 1964 by the Wilderness Act and named for naturalist John Muir, it encompasses 652,793 acres.

Videographer: Scot Miller.

Travel: A Guided Tour ‘Day Trip’ To Riga In Latvia

DW Travel (July 2, 2023) – Explore Riga with DW’s Hannah Hummel. Riga, Latvia’s capital, is set on the Baltic Sea at the mouth of the River Daugava. It’s considered a cultural center and is home to many museums and concert halls.

Video timeline: 00:00 Intro 00:30 Breakfast at Rigensis 01:12 Riga’s Old Town 01:32 The House of the Blackheads 02:04 Art noveau architecture 02:26 View from Radisson Blu Hotel Latvija 02:55 Bastion Hill park 03:18 Freedom Monument 03:46 Museum of the Occupation of Latvia 05:41 Riga Central Market 06:23 Dinner at the market 08:07 Riga Black Balsam

The city is also known for its wooden buildings, art nouveau architecture and medieval Old Town. The pedestrian-only Old Town has many shops and restaurants and is home to busy Livu Square, with bars and nightclubs. 

Travel: An Aerial Tour Of The Empire State Building

the Dronalist Films ( July 2, 2023) – The Empire State Building is a steel-framed skyscraper rising 102 stories that was completed in New York City in 1931 and was the tallest building in the world until 1971. It is located in Midtown Manhattan, on Fifth Avenue at 34th Street. It remains one of the most distinctive and famous buildings in the United States and is one of the best examples of Modernist Art Deco design.

At the time of its construction, there was fierce competition to win the title of tallest building in the world. The Chrysler Building claimed the title in 1929, and the Empire State Building seized it in 1931, its height being 1,250 feet (381 metres) courtesy of its iconic spire, which was originally intended to serve as a mooring station for airships. A