Regarding the Trib using the AP to cover local sports, at least these sports are getting coverage. I can’t remember if it was last Friday or last Saturday, but the Trib sports’ section had 2 sentences - 2! - on the Women’s U.S. Open.
RE: F-bombs in the workplace. It seems like the meaning of swearing at work has changed over my 30 years of office work. I think 30 years ago dropping an f-bomb was a way to convey "I am so important that the rules don't apply to me."...which is somewhat amusing. It gradually became more acceptable. About 8 years ago I told one of my female colleagues that I refrain from swearing at work because it distracts from whatever I am saying. She said that she makes a point to swear occasionally because there are some men who think that rules are different for women. I thought that was a good point in an office environment was common among people who worked together day-to-day. Now, depending on the context, swearing at work signals that closeness to the person you are talking to. It is like saying "we can speak freely with each other even though we cannot with most other people".
As my Mom said when she saw my brother and I rough-housing: "it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt". Given the risk of complaints to HR and the resulting career consequences, I think that foul language in the workplace is a bad idea. Being overheard or misunderstood is not necessarily a defense to accusations of creating a hostile work environment, bullying, or abuse of subordinates. Also, the 'pal' of today is not necessarily the 'pal' of tomorrow. Retrospective reassessment of tone, intent, audience, and effect should be expected. Best to keep work conversations polite, impersonal, factual, and task focused.
I lived in a co-ed dorm my freshman year. I swear like a stevedore, but try to tone it down for the squeamish amongst us. Not surprisingly, i believe Dennis Farina's quote about the forking beautiful sunsets in Los Angeles in Get Shorty is one of the forking funniest lines ever.
What a pleasure to watch that VERY old recording of Sir Georg Solti conducting Mahler’s Fifth. My uncle, Leonard Chausow (RIP), was acting principal cellist, and it was very cool to see him! Wow.
Wow, that was a blast from the past. I joined the orchestra six years after this video was shot and I didn't realize how many of my former colleagues I missed. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I'm not a fan of swearing under most circumstances, perhaps because with the right tone of voice even a G-rated word can fully convey what cursing usually attempts. I learned that when visiting my folks years ago, when my father bit into an apple, breaking off a tooth, and exclaimed "NUTS!" in a tone that would have made a sailor blush. (Yes, he always used that term to refer to the things found in a Planter's can, not genitalia.) Nonetheless, I treasure the scene from The Wire when the two plainclothes cops investigating a site conveyed an amazing range of feeling, meaning, cause and effect, disdain, and dismay, with never a hint of ribaldry, speaking nothing but the f-word over the course of several minutes. Masterful acting, directing, and, yes, writing.
The Icon of the Seas looks like it was designed to appeal to people who genuinely enjoy driving on the Kennedy Expressway at rush hour or getting in line to Disneyland rides at peak hours. Everything about it screams percussive, and it does not in any way look like a relaxing vacation getaway.
Baseball has a longer season than other sports; you get to know the beat writers intimately. The beat writers know the team and the game, unlike sports columnists, who usually just shoot off their mouths. A good beat writer gives me the consistency and insight I want. If a paper is going to ghost a game, better to use the MLB writer assigned to the team. In the SOX case, Scott Merkin is great.
(For an opinion no one has asked for, the "Chicago American/Chicago Today" had the best sports section that I can remember.)
On a Threads thread you said Twitter needs to be “fixed.”. What is broken about it? I don’t see any loss of functionality. And community notes so far are a plus.
I can gain insight from people I respect on twitter.
That being said, Elon an idiot, and he has ruined it.
If someone could get up on stage and say we're all going to this specific platform, that would be great. More and more big names are going to Threads. I want to as well, but time is finite, and I don't want to spend time on two platforms.
I'll be glad when this all shakes out so we can go back to seeing which ladies' hats are in style this year.
I don't think it is a particularly good thing to have a further concentration of users in Meta. I am sure that many Twitter users also have accounts in some Meta product, but they would be further concentrating their traffic and personal profile data into a single corporate entity. The market gets more benefit from competitive providers. I am not sure that the increased personal profile data concentration is a net negative vs multiple compilers/exploiters, but it seems bad on its face. So, it would seem that if one wants a Twitter alternative, if would be better to boost a non-Meta player. Otherwise, users could only hope for future anti-trust or regulatory action to address the reach of Meta.
Also, I recommend a funny and interesting episode of "Black Mirror" on Netflix called "Joan is Awful" on the ultimate exploitation of personal data, AI, and quantum computing.
The cruise ship does not look like fun to me, but I also would not go to Times Square on New Years Eve. I also don't like crowded clubs or concert venues. To each their own. But population density has economic benefits and energy/resource efficiency benefits. Many climate-change mitigation proposals include much higher density cities and concentration of services (the cruise ship in a building). Also, isn't a large group of people coming together for community, shared experience, and non-virtual activity supposed to be a good thing?
So nudity in National Geographic (RIP, BTW) was "bad naked," to quote that Seinfeld episode, like opening a pickle jar? If you want a scene that I guess is neither good naked nor bad naked but hilarious naked, check out "No Hard Feelings." Surprisingly solid comedy! I was laughing a lot, even responding to the movie's plot points with audible commentary -- e.g., "Oh, no!" -- like a fucking idiot.
Regarding the Trib using the AP to cover local sports, at least these sports are getting coverage. I can’t remember if it was last Friday or last Saturday, but the Trib sports’ section had 2 sentences - 2! - on the Women’s U.S. Open.
RE: F-bombs in the workplace. It seems like the meaning of swearing at work has changed over my 30 years of office work. I think 30 years ago dropping an f-bomb was a way to convey "I am so important that the rules don't apply to me."...which is somewhat amusing. It gradually became more acceptable. About 8 years ago I told one of my female colleagues that I refrain from swearing at work because it distracts from whatever I am saying. She said that she makes a point to swear occasionally because there are some men who think that rules are different for women. I thought that was a good point in an office environment was common among people who worked together day-to-day. Now, depending on the context, swearing at work signals that closeness to the person you are talking to. It is like saying "we can speak freely with each other even though we cannot with most other people".
As my Mom said when she saw my brother and I rough-housing: "it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt". Given the risk of complaints to HR and the resulting career consequences, I think that foul language in the workplace is a bad idea. Being overheard or misunderstood is not necessarily a defense to accusations of creating a hostile work environment, bullying, or abuse of subordinates. Also, the 'pal' of today is not necessarily the 'pal' of tomorrow. Retrospective reassessment of tone, intent, audience, and effect should be expected. Best to keep work conversations polite, impersonal, factual, and task focused.
I lived in a co-ed dorm my freshman year. I swear like a stevedore, but try to tone it down for the squeamish amongst us. Not surprisingly, i believe Dennis Farina's quote about the forking beautiful sunsets in Los Angeles in Get Shorty is one of the forking funniest lines ever.
What a pleasure to watch that VERY old recording of Sir Georg Solti conducting Mahler’s Fifth. My uncle, Leonard Chausow (RIP), was acting principal cellist, and it was very cool to see him! Wow.
Wow, that was a blast from the past. I joined the orchestra six years after this video was shot and I didn't realize how many of my former colleagues I missed. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I'm not a fan of swearing under most circumstances, perhaps because with the right tone of voice even a G-rated word can fully convey what cursing usually attempts. I learned that when visiting my folks years ago, when my father bit into an apple, breaking off a tooth, and exclaimed "NUTS!" in a tone that would have made a sailor blush. (Yes, he always used that term to refer to the things found in a Planter's can, not genitalia.) Nonetheless, I treasure the scene from The Wire when the two plainclothes cops investigating a site conveyed an amazing range of feeling, meaning, cause and effect, disdain, and dismay, with never a hint of ribaldry, speaking nothing but the f-word over the course of several minutes. Masterful acting, directing, and, yes, writing.
Regarding the Icon of the Seas, I think of Shel Silverstein's song verse "Build me a floating Zoo!"
Also, "Covid? Covid? We ain't got no stinking Covid!" from 'Treasure of Sierra Madre'.
I'm no shipbuilder, but look at that "Icon of the Seas."
Can anyone from Chicagoland look at this and not think of the Eastland disaster?
The Icon of the Seas looks like it was designed to appeal to people who genuinely enjoy driving on the Kennedy Expressway at rush hour or getting in line to Disneyland rides at peak hours. Everything about it screams percussive, and it does not in any way look like a relaxing vacation getaway.
I'm a baseball fan. (SOX)
Baseball has a longer season than other sports; you get to know the beat writers intimately. The beat writers know the team and the game, unlike sports columnists, who usually just shoot off their mouths. A good beat writer gives me the consistency and insight I want. If a paper is going to ghost a game, better to use the MLB writer assigned to the team. In the SOX case, Scott Merkin is great.
(For an opinion no one has asked for, the "Chicago American/Chicago Today" had the best sports section that I can remember.)
On a Threads thread you said Twitter needs to be “fixed.”. What is broken about it? I don’t see any loss of functionality. And community notes so far are a plus.
I'm torn.
I can gain insight from people I respect on twitter.
That being said, Elon an idiot, and he has ruined it.
If someone could get up on stage and say we're all going to this specific platform, that would be great. More and more big names are going to Threads. I want to as well, but time is finite, and I don't want to spend time on two platforms.
I'll be glad when this all shakes out so we can go back to seeing which ladies' hats are in style this year.
I prefer the tweet describing the above cruise ship picture as Dante's Nine Circles of Hell, but I don't remember who posted it.
I don't think it is a particularly good thing to have a further concentration of users in Meta. I am sure that many Twitter users also have accounts in some Meta product, but they would be further concentrating their traffic and personal profile data into a single corporate entity. The market gets more benefit from competitive providers. I am not sure that the increased personal profile data concentration is a net negative vs multiple compilers/exploiters, but it seems bad on its face. So, it would seem that if one wants a Twitter alternative, if would be better to boost a non-Meta player. Otherwise, users could only hope for future anti-trust or regulatory action to address the reach of Meta.
Also, I recommend a funny and interesting episode of "Black Mirror" on Netflix called "Joan is Awful" on the ultimate exploitation of personal data, AI, and quantum computing.
The cruise ship does not look like fun to me, but I also would not go to Times Square on New Years Eve. I also don't like crowded clubs or concert venues. To each their own. But population density has economic benefits and energy/resource efficiency benefits. Many climate-change mitigation proposals include much higher density cities and concentration of services (the cruise ship in a building). Also, isn't a large group of people coming together for community, shared experience, and non-virtual activity supposed to be a good thing?
The SOCRATES tweet is the funniest, confirmed by coming in last. BTW is the all caps some kind of academic in joke?
So nudity in National Geographic (RIP, BTW) was "bad naked," to quote that Seinfeld episode, like opening a pickle jar? If you want a scene that I guess is neither good naked nor bad naked but hilarious naked, check out "No Hard Feelings." Surprisingly solid comedy! I was laughing a lot, even responding to the movie's plot points with audible commentary -- e.g., "Oh, no!" -- like a fucking idiot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKWxpuiUEk8
https://apnews.com/article/national-geographic-layoffs-newsstand-e114363d6abb3568e02df42e14fb81b4