Month: December 2018

Oh, good

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Q: You know why editors die earlier than reporters?
A: Because they want to.
Photos 1981 by Tom Warren, Corvallis Gazette-Times

From Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:

Here’s a guess: the first serious use of AI in the newsroom will be to replace editors, not writers. Roughly speaking, AI will take reporters’ notes or rough copy—or even what we humans laughingly call finished copy—and turn it into great prose. We’ll still need someone around to nag us about issues of substance, but the robots will compose sentences and paragraphs better than us. What’s more, they’ll be able to churn out multiple versions of our writing instantly: the magazine version, the 6th-grade version, the TV script version, the Spanish version, the PowerPoint deck, etc. Just tell it what you need and you’ll get it.

Reporters will last a little longer, but just a little. I’m giving editors until, oh, 2035. I think that’s generous. Reporters will be out of business by 2040. Better get ready.

I’m totally ready. By 2035 I’ll be 81, which in O’Grady years is stone cold dead.

The Sky is falling

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Nothin’ but blue Skys do I see.

Sky will leave pro cycling at the end of next season to focus on other projects, according to The Guardian.

One of these projects includes Sky Ocean Rescue, a push to encourage businesses and individuals to give up single-use plastic.

Was the Wiggins jiffy bag plastic? I can’t recall. But Froome’s gotta be, though you can’t argue that Sky only got a single use out of him.

Hey, what could I tell you? Times are tough. WADA ya gonna do?

Wheeling to the Roundhouse

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
Rep. Rubio (bicycle not included).

There’s more than one way to Santa Fe from Las Cruces, and Rep. Angelica Rubio has found a lively one.

The Las Cruces Democrat will be riding her bike to the City Different for the upcoming legislative session, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

Rubio hopes to use the ride in part “to raise awareness about a proposal to create a new state office of outdoor recreation, an idea that’s supported by Gov.-elect Michelle Lujan Grisham,” according to the Journal.

No word whether she’ll be on an e-bike, the flavor of the moment. But she will be riding gravel whenever possible, so she’s got that going for her, which is nice. Follow along via www.rubiosride.com.

Thousands are sailing

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Hm, we seem to be on something of an Irish-music kick here.

They’re sailing in the other direction these days, at least some of them. Zio Lorenzo and The Professor are settled in Italy and not missing Sioux City one iota, unless I miss my guess.

And now our friends Mike and Liz are bidding adieu and relocating to Lyon, France.

We had them over for green-chile stew last night and caught up. They’ve bought an apartment there, the house here is for sale, and come springtime they will be well positioned to observe Le Tour in its native habitat. Stage 8 will be right in their backyard, or arrière-cour, as we say in le français.

Novelist and poet Jim Harrison thought highly enough of Lyon to write, “If I were given the dreary six months to live, I’d head at once to Lyon and make my way from bistro to bistro in a big stroller pushed by a vegetarian.”

The place suffers from a dearth of New Mexican-style green-chile stew, however, and thus we were compelled to revive them after the house-hunting excursion. We couldn’t find a vegetarian with a two-seater stroller to push them home, though.