Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

I probably attended about 250 MLB games, Orioles, Senators, and Nationals. And maybe 100 minor league games. I enjoyed myself just as much and often even more, at the minor league games.

I find baseball games to be like that. Good as background or good for paying attention to. Maybe no long America’s game but still America’s pastime. Charlotte, NC deserves a MLB team. I think that the metropolitan area would support it.

Pandora remains a work in progress (of course, that's true for virtually everything in our virtual world] ... SiriusXM bought Pandora a while back, and I think that that was good for Pandora. Some of the stations have gotten much deeper playlists. I have never paid for my access to it. I guess the advertising does that.

SiriusXm is just about essential for us ... and that goes way beyond being able to hear what we want to in the car. I really like archived programs, like Chris Hillman's Burrito Stand on The Bakersfield Beat channel. Hillman had a great interview with Bernie Taupin (Elton John's lyricist) that I was listening to this week. Every Burrito Stand episode that I've listened to has been great.

Cynda, first a great summary of what Scribd has become.

And you have really illuminated how Scribd, born in times of piracy, has actually with the help of publishers tried to move away from its trove of pirated content. The new app Everand is exactly an attempt to do that.

Music companies could have helped Napster in a similar way. But music companies never wanted to share anything … most of them still don’t. They take a massive cut of what music streaming sources distribute.

One comment about subscriptions in general ... it often seems that a subscription is the only way to read something, but I've found that many periodicals and other media have more than one legal way to access them. (I say "legal" because many people seek out pirated material, which I think is wrong for several reasons).

I'll give two examples. The first is the New York Times, whihc I subscribed to for the last two years. It's a great newspaper, but what frustrated me was that the NYT Book World was not available as a digital image ... while it was available as exactly that for free though ProQuest (available free through my public library). It's easier to look at the table of contents on ProQuest and then jump to the pdf of the pages with the reviews that I want to read ... than it is to read the book reviews online with a purchased subscription. As John knows, the WaPo has the digital images of each section of the newspaper ... and this is very good.

Next, consider this recommendation by Bill Gates: "Online economics lectures by Timothy Taylor. I’ve watched a lot of lecture series online, and Taylor is one of my favorite professors. All three of his series on Wondrium are fantastic. The New Global Economy teaches you about the basic economic history of different regions and how markets work. Economics is best suited for people who want to understand the principles of economics in a deep way. Unexpected Economics probably has the broadest audience, because Taylor applies those principles to things in everyday life, including gift-giving, traffic, natural disasters, sports, and more. You can’t go wrong with any of Taylor’s lectures."

SOURCE: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Holiday-li...

But Wondrium costs $12.50 a month. I don't want to pay that. But I can get all those three courses for free through my Audible subscription.

I'll just say that much content is available in more than one way ... if you embrace and explore the digital world ... but that embracing and exploring does come at a real cost ... namely the time you spend in the digital world is time you don't spend in our analog world.

Great piece by Michael Dirda on the Grinch and Dr. Seuss. Carol can read it on my FaceBook page, where I posted a link to it as a gift article.

We drop back into the 20s for two nights (WED & THU) … but generally mild weather returns over the next 10 days. It used to be that you could count on coastal NC being about 10 degrees warmer than the DC area in the winter. These days you just have to check the weather daily to know what it’s going to be here … and down where you are.

That rain you are getting now, John, gets to us later today and stays for more than a day as the system works itself north. We also need it a lot. The last few days the weather has been like it is in Monterrey, California. Sunny and between 55 and 60 … just wonderful for a December day. But I still will welcome the coming rain.

Cynda will back full time 2024 wrote: "I used to subscribe to National Geographic. I subscribed to it for both the articles and the photography. Then I noticed that the articles were not as well researched, the photography still beautif..."

The son of a friend actually worked for National Geographic until maybe four years ago as a video producer/editor. He got out while the getting was good. His experience was good at first but it just slowly but progressively worse. That said, I am not sure what could have been to maintain/save the large subscriber base. We found ourselves--after years of being happy subscribers--not even opening many issues. So many other things have an attraction for our interest.

John, after the $29 subscription ends in March, 2025, if the WaPo doesn’t offer something similar, I’ll cancel and my wife will start a subscription. I am happy to pay something but not $150 annually.

I just cancelled my WaPo subscription which runs through 3/12/2024 and they immediately offered me another year beginning on that date for $29 ... for one year. I guess I'll have to keep on cancelling and taking special offers.

John, I can always read the WaPo Book World through my public library’s ProQuest app.

John, my current rate is $120 annually. That is too high for me also. When my subscription is due to renew in March, I’ll try to find a cheaper rate.

I am so sorry, John. Keep us posted as you recover.

John, that matter of who is doing the injections is both good and scary to know.

I am glad to know that you are working on a routine to maintain conditioning.

Ctbk wrote: "I've some fiction books I want to read in the next weeks, so I don't think it's fair for me to propose something I am not sure I will able to read in January/February.
Also, I want to read S..."</i>

A good response, Ctbk. When you read [book:SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, if you want to Buddy Read it, I'll be happy to follow your comments and thoughts. I've read it twice and thought it was amazing. I've probably said about ten times that Mary Beard is one of the few historians who can actually make historiography fun.

John, how are you today? Better, worse, or about the same?

Sometimes a discussion just wanders off, Meka. :-)

A month with no nominations. That's the way it is, I guess.

Meka, I am more fascinated than troubled by your use of A.I. here. We’ll see how it goes. Are you using ChatGPT or something else.

Here’s something that I posted on Facebook this morning.


Forget about ChatGPT (well, maybe not, but more powerful AI tools are coming soon) … incredible tools, that have some troubling side-effects … tools like Google’s NotebookLM.

“NotebookLM is an experimental AI-powered note taking tool that helps you learn faster by reading and understanding your documents, generating summaries, answering your questions, and even helping you brainstorm new ideas.” It’s an impressive summary that came backed by 10 citations, but it did not reflect the most important point of view—mine. That’s appropriate, because it’s up to me to provide that. I’m also glad that NotebookLM didn’t try to impress with a (pathetic) attempt at stylish language, because that’s my job too.

But here’s my worry. Users of NotebookLM, who simply want to get a good job done quickly might not take the time to do that hard work of thinking. They might not even bother to pore through the research materials themselves. Why take the time when your AI buddy has gone through the material much more closely than you and has already reached some nifty conclusions about it?”



https://apple.news/Az_MwVku-Q7-Id0Zyu...