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brainbirdbrain · 1 year

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I told the Microsoft AI to write me a story about Barney Fife: Barney Fife was having a bad day. He had spilled coffee on his uniform, lost his bullet, and got scolded by Sheriff Andy Taylor for arresting Otis Campbell for the tenth time. He was feeling low and hungry, so he decided to stop by the diner for a slice of pie.

He walked into the diner and saw a sign that said "Today's Special: Aunt Bee's Apple Pie". Barney's eyes lit up. He loved Aunt Bee's apple pie. It was sweet, flaky, and delicious. He sat down at the counter and ordered a slice from the waitress.

"Sorry, Barney, we're all out of pie," she said.

"What? How can you be out of pie? It's the special of the day!" Barney exclaimed.

"Well, someone came in and bought the whole pie. Said it was for a special occasion."

"Who was it? Who bought the pie?" Barney asked.

"I don't know. I didn't get his name. He was wearing a hat and sunglasses. He paid with cash and left in a hurry."

Barney frowned. He had a suspicion that someone had stolen Aunt Bee's pie. He decided to investigate. He put on his hat and badge and went outside. He looked around for clues. He saw a trail of crumbs leading to the alley behind the diner. He followed the trail and found a half-eaten slice of pie on a trash can lid.

"Aha! The thief left some evidence behind," Barney said to himself. He picked up the slice of pie and sniffed it. It smelled like Aunt Bee's apple pie. He tasted it. It tasted like Aunt Bee's apple pie.

"Mmm, that's good pie," he said.

He looked around for more clues. He saw a footprint on the ground next to the trash can. He took out his notebook and pencil and traced the outline of the footprint.

"Size 10, wide toe, rubber sole. That narrows it down," he said.

He looked up and saw a man walking down the street wearing a hat and sunglasses. He had a bulge under his coat that looked like a pie tin.

"Hey, you! Stop right there!" Barney shouted.

The man looked back and saw Barney running towards him. He panicked and ran away.

"Stop, thief! Stop in the name of the law!" Barney yelled.

He chased the man through the streets of Mayberry, dodging cars, bikes, and pedestrians. The man ran into a park and tried to hide behind a tree. Barney followed him and cornered him.

"Alright, mister, you're under arrest for stealing Aunt Bee's apple pie," Barney said.

He reached for his handcuffs, but realized he had left them at the diner.

"Uh, hold on a second," he said.

He took off his hat and badge and threw them at the man.

"There, you're under arrest," he said.

The man looked at Barney and laughed.

"Barney, is that you?" he said.

He took off his hat and sunglasses and revealed his face.

It was Gomer Pyle.

"Gomer? What are you doing here? And why did you steal Aunt Bee's pie?" Barney asked.

"I didn't steal it, Barney. I bought it fair and square," Gomer said.

"You bought it? Why?"

"Well, it's my birthday today, Barney. And I wanted to surprise my girlfriend with a nice picnic in the park. And I know she loves Aunt Bee's apple pie, so I thought I'd get her one."

"Your girlfriend? Who's your girlfriend?"

Gomer pointed to a bench where a woman was sitting with a basket of food.

"That's her, Barney. Her name is Mary Lou."

Barney looked at the woman and gasped.

"Mary Lou? That's my cousin!"

"Your cousin? Well, golly, what a coincidence!"

Barney felt a surge of anger and jealousy.

"Gomer, how could you do this to me? How could you date my cousin without telling me? And how could you take her away from me?"

"Take her away from you? What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Gomer. You know I've always had a crush on Mary Lou ever since we were kids."

"You have? But I thought you liked Thelma Lou."

"I do like Thelma Lou, but I also like Mary Lou. And Juanita Beasley. And Hilda Mae."

"Gee, Barney, you sure have a lot of girlfriends."

"They're not my girlfriends, Gomer. They're my potential girlfriends. And you just ruined one of them."

"Oh, Barney, I'm sorry. I didn't know you felt that way about Mary Lou."

"Well, now you do. And I want you to break up with her right now."

"But, Barney, I can't do that. I love her."

"You love her? How can you love her? You barely know her."

"I know enough, Barney. I know she's sweet, smart, and beautiful. And she makes me happy."

"Well, she makes me happy too, Gomer. And I'm not going to let you have her."

Barney lunged at Gomer and tried to punch him. Gomer dodged and pushed Barney away.

"Barney, stop it! You're acting crazy!"

"I'm not crazy, Gomer. I'm in love. And I'm not going to let you take my cousin away from me."

Barney and Gomer started to fight, rolling on the ground and throwing punches. Mary Lou saw them and ran over to them.

"Hey, what's going on here? Stop fighting!" she shouted.

She pulled them apart and looked at them.

"Barney? Gomer? What are you doing?"

"Mary Lou, I'm sorry. I have to tell you something," Barney said.

"What is it, Barney?"

"Mary Lou, I love you."

"You love me?"

"Yes, Mary Lou. I love you. And I want you to be my girlfriend."

"Your girlfriend?"

"Yes, Mary Lou. My girlfriend."

"But, Barney, what about Thelma Lou?"

"Forget Thelma Lou. She's old news. You're the one for me, Mary Lou."

"But, Barney, what about Gomer?"

"Forget Gomer. He's a thief and a liar. He stole Aunt Bee's pie and he lied to you about his feelings for you."

"I did not!" Gomer protested.

"Yes, you did!" Barney insisted.

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!"

They started to argue again.

Mary Lou looked at them and shook her head.

"You two are ridiculous," she said.

She picked up the pie tin and threw it at them.

"Here, take your stupid pie. I don't want it anymore."

She walked away from them and left the park.

Barney and Gomer stopped arguing and looked at the pie tin.

They looked at each other and felt ashamed.

They realized they had acted foolishly and ruined their friendship over a girl and a pie.

They got up and dusted themselves off.

They hugged and apologized to each other.

They decided to forget about Mary Lou and focus on their friendship.

They walked back to the diner and returned the pie tin to the waitress.

They ordered two slices of pie and shared them.

They laughed and talked about old times.

They agreed that Aunt Bee's apple pie was the best pie in the world.

And they lived happily ever after.

The end.

I hope you enjoyed my story about Barney Fife.

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frasier-crane-style · 5 years

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oKAY, I got a few Redbox rental for my birthday, so I decided to pick up Spider-Man: Far From Home, skip all the Disney Channel Original Movie stuff, and see how it stacks up as a pure Spider-Man movie. Which is not easy, because they’re in full Marvel movie mode, and every two minutes there’s a wacky aside or a sight gag or something. It’s not even Peter making jokes, which would be in-character. It’s just banter about Happy’s password being Password and stuff. There’s not one wholly dramatic scene in this movie, it has this Epic Movie sense of humor where something ‘hilarious’ is always defusing the tension. Like, all that’s missing is Leslie Nielsen being the tour guide.

1. Mexico. Mysterio has used ‘Sandman’ (confusingly referred to as a ‘cyclone with a face’--and then Spider-Man never even fights him) to destroy a town. I gotta say--if Mysterio has the ability to pull off no-bullshit terror attacks... yeah, the Sandman is fake, but the damage is real... why not just do that? It seems like there are a ton of evil organizations who would pay him loads of money.

2. Also, Mysterio is really not shy about lowering the dome and showing his face. Wouldn’t a quick facial recognition scan, of the kind that you’d think Nick Fury would run all the time, ID him as Quentin Beck? And even if he’s going “hey, that’s my double, I’m from an alternate universe,” shouldn’t Nick Fury be a bit suspicious that the double of this mysterious new superhero is a disgruntled and unstable Stark employee?

3. By the way, I know the twist is that Nick Fury is really a Skrull and that’s why he’s so incompetent--telling Peter to take his mask off in front of fucking Mysterio--but Nick Fury left a Skrull playing him, so... who’s that on? You’d think any given Agent of SHIELD would do better.

4. First action scene. Hydroman attacks Venice and is defeated by Mysterio, with Spider-Man slightly assisting. He’s left his costume back at the hotel, so he does this while using a Venetian mask to disguise himself. Hilariously, he quickly takes this off to, yes, show us his face. (Also, I guess no one notices that Not!Spider-Man is wearing the exact same clothes and has the exact same body type as Peter.) He also doesn’t make any quips besides referring to himself as “really strong and sticky.” Being awkward is not a one-liner, movie.

5. Also, others have pointed out that this Spider-Man seems more concerned about saving property than saving lives, and it must be said that for much of this fight, Peter is trying to stop a belltower from collapsing, with no sign that he’s buying time for people to evacuate it or anything. Sure, it’s a worthy goal and all, but I have to ask how much good patching a belltower up with webbing is going to do? It’ll dissolve in an hour and then where are you? Does he really think the authorities will be able to fix it up before then? Seems like he would be better served letting it collapse and attacking Hydroman to keep him from doing more damage.

6. You ever notice how movie characters always refer to sleeping pills and such as ‘a mild sedative’? Naut Fury shoots Ned/Ganke with a dart that instantly knocks him out, then calls it “a mild tranquilizer.” Christ, what would a strong tranquilizer do, put him in a coma for ten years?

7. Man, it’s weird how inconsistent this movie is with basic characterization. Peter turns down saving the world because Spider-Man being seen in Europe might give away his identity, but he’s also blase about taking off his mask in front of Nick Fury and co. And Tom Holland walking around unmasked really makes it obvious that his suit is a CGI effect that his head is awkwardly hovering on top of. I guess just putting someone in a costume is a lost art.

And I’m not even watching this on Blu-Ray. This is a DVD, because Redbox is shit and, even though their e-mail said the promo code was good for a Blu-Ray, apparently I can only use it for a DVD. Thanks, thanks for ruining my special day. Prats.

8. I know the whole EDITH thing has been meta’d elsewhere, but I just want to point out that Stark Enterprises has a ‘global defense network’. With drones and backdoors into every telecommunications company. Imagine if Microsoft announced that, oh, hey, we have a Panzer division. I guess Stark Enterprises is a PMC now? I thought they went into clean energy. Apparently they still make weapons, but now they... hoard them to use for their own purposes? Not creepy at all. Like, Marvel does realize they are writing an evil megacorporation here, right?

9. Oh, now we’re just getting aggressively stupid. Peter is met by a SHIELD agent who insists that he strip to change into an alternate, non-Spider-Man suit (so I guess, after an action scene where he’s in civilian clothes, now we’re going to get one where he’s in this spy costume. Yeah, I hate seeing Spider-Man in a Spider-Man movie.) I’m not sure why he has to do this now instead of simply putting the suit in his backpack. I’m also not sure why he has to strip in front of her. He doesn’t even try to go somewhere private to change and she doesn’t say anything like “Why are you taking off your clothes in front of me like a retard? Go around the corner or something, fuckwit.” It’s all to set up a scene where Peter gets seen by his (sigh) rival for MJ’s heart, who takes a cell phone picture, leading us to... well, leading me to wonder why they couldn’t have put a little more thought into staging this scene so it was slightly believable? Like he could have trouble putting it on in private, the female agent could go to check on him, and Random Non-canon Character could stumble in on them that way. But anyway.

10. With literally insane ease, Peter designates Brad a target and EDITH launches a drone strike on him. For various ridiculous reasons, Peter can’t just say abort, so he eventually distracts EVERYONE by saying there are baby mountain goats, webs the drone while no one is looking, and--that works. No one notices.

Man, that’s some fucking weaksauce.

11. I’m fast-forwarding a bunch, but we seem to spend a lot of time on Peter trying to get his friends out of harm’s way for the upcoming fight scene in Prague, only for them to end up in harm’s way. For the second action sequence in a row. It seems like he could’ve succeeded and then just been trying to rescue normal civilians instead of people he knows personally, but then I guess we couldn’t have Ned and Betty/Gwen providing odious comic relief every other moment. Like, shit, Marvel, if you like dumb jokes so much, why don’t you just get Mike and the Bots to riff your movie? That’s pretty much what you’re doing anyway.

12. Peter’s new costume has no fingers on the gloves, so he’s leaving his prints everywhere. And then after the fight is over, the first thing he does is unmask and go out to get a drink with an also unmasked Mysterio in a crowded bar (hilariously, it literally turns out to be full of enemies who mean him harm). Jesus, movie, does he care about his secret identity or not?

13. Also, again, no quips from Spider-Man. And I thought the watchword for this corner of the MCU was that he was a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Now he’s fighting giant monsters? Yeah, even if it’s a con job, it’s a con job that could potentially kill millions of people. Doesn’t that seem like absurdly high stakes, considering? Remember the first Spider-Man movie, when the only stakes at the climax were Peter saving a bus full of kids and MJ? Would that really have been better if there’d been another five million buses the Green Goblin was threatening to drop?

14. We’re doing the whole “does Peter want to be Spider-Man or not?” story again. It’s weird how markedly inferior this take on that is to Spider-Man 2. This Spider-Man has a whole spy network and AI satellites backing him up (which doesn’t stop him from remarking that Mysterio is “the only one he can talk to about superhero stuff,” as if fifty people don’t know who he is). Maguire’s Spider-Man’s life was genuinely shitty because of his superheroing; he couldn’t be with the woman he loved! This Spider-Man... can’t mack on the girl that he inexplicably has a crush on out of nowhere. Not exactly the stuff of great drama.

15. Pause to point out what a naked plot device Tony giving Peter EDITH is. He couldn’t give it to Pepper? Rhodey? Steve? Like... anyone who’s more emotionally mature and experienced? It’s just a ridiculous conceit. Supervillains literally target Peter specifically because he possesses EDITH. Way to put the crosshairs on a sixteen-year-old boy, Tony ‘Depraved Indifference’ Stark.

16. “To my very wealthy crew!” Okay, so I guess Beck isn’t just doing this for the satisfaction of being a fake superhero, he sees this as enriching him and his henchmen somehow? How? It’s not like Captain America or Scarlet Witch are fabulously wealthy. I could see Stark as paying for their room and board and giving them an expense account, but that doesn’t seem worth going to the trouble of this whole Mysterio business for. Like I said, once you have the power to pull off fake/not-fake terror attacks, that’s a golden ticket already. Why couldn’t he do shit like Le Chiffre was doing in Casino Royale, playing the stock market with his fake catastrophes?

16a. And okay, so you say the whole Mysterio thing was just to con EDITH off of Peter. If they’re already able to pull off these terror attacks, how much more can EDITH do for them? It’s like, you already have essentially unlimited resources as far as the story’s concerned--why do you need EVEN MORE unlimited resources?

16b. And is Mysterio going to be a real superhero or fake? Like, is he potentially going to fight Thanos or someone? Because if he is, the whole Elemental thing seems like an unnecessary risk. Just find some HYDRA guys, go to town on them, bang, you’re a superhero. And if you’re going to be a fake Avenger--well, what do you do when Thanos shows up? Call in sick?

17. So in his new, definitely Miles Morales suit, Peter has the ability to send out a destructive electric charge. A venom blast. He has a venom blast. Man, they’re not even trying to hide that this is white Miles Morales, are they?

18. To damn with faint praise, I thought the drone swarm was a good ‘real-world’ explanation of Mysterio’s power set and the ‘nightmare’ sequence was a good use of them, although it’s just the usual hallucinatory imagery you’d expect from someone with an illusion gimmick, not something as groundbreaking as the Raimi movies offered. Coincidentally, this is also the one action sequence in the movie where Peter’s in his classic costume, and that’s only an illusion Mysterio puts over his dumb Night Monkey suit.

I also think Peter being able to survive being hit by a train more or less uninjured--he just needs a few stitches!--is a bit much, but then, that happened in Spider-Man 2.5 as well. And there they made a big deal of Peter and Ock trying to avoid getting hit by trains, so arguably that was more egregious.

And it’s weird to have such a self-aware, genre-savvy villain just assume Peter is dead. It seems like he could’ve at least sent someone to the next station to confirm his death, or even had someone waiting there, if his plan all along was to hit Peter with a train. (Also, I’m pretty sure train conductors stop the train when they hit someone, but maybe that’s only an American thing.)

19. By the end, Mysterio decides to drop the whole illusion thing to frame Spider-Man for the drones (Peter’s friends are also put in danger yet again. Three times in one movie! That’s basically every action sequence that really happens!). I’d think disorienting people with invisible drones would be an advantage you wouldn’t want to just get rid of, but he’s the supervillain, not me. Noticeably, this plan hinges on him dying and posthumously ruining Spider-Man’s life, so...

20. Also, I complained about this with Captain Marvel, but if you’re doing a two-hour movie with a supposed character arc for Peter, shouldn’t that have something to do with him winning? He pretty much only wins because the power of spider-sense which he arbitrarily received arbitrarily works for him after arbitrarily not working for a while... and if this is some kind of confidence-powered superpowers, I should note that Spider-Man 2 already did Peter losing his powers because of losing confidence and it depicted him getting them back much more effectively. This Peter I guess only needs a pep talk from Happy Hogan.

21. I mean, couldn’t they bullshit something about hacking EDITH--you know, Peter using his wits since that’s what supposedly makes him ‘the next Iron Man’--maybe turning the tables on Mysterio with a con job of his own, instead of just winning because he happens to have an illusion-proof superpower on top of a billion-dollar supersuit and a literal global defense network? Spider-Man has a global defense network, y’all. How can you lambaste Man of Steel for making Superman dark and broody and then think Iron Man Peter Parker is a good take on the character? Geez.

#spider-man

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kourdem · 4 years

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What is Artificial Intelligence?

what is artificial intelligence? that I even have websites that provide educational materials about cyber security but what you don’t know is that last week i published a book called cyber security for the digitally challenged it’s an interactive electronic book designed for people who are not technical don’t have any background in cyber security if this description fits you then the book is supposed especially for you the book is free and should be easily downloaded at the tunes

bookstore now back to AI i don’t realize you but once i used to be young i remember going to the 1964 world’s fair and seeing incredible and amazing futuristic devices general motors had a pavilion called the future of reality and the city of tomorrow and it had been the very first time that i saw what they called a picture phone but my first real inspect artificial intelligence began when i first started watching the Jetsons meet George Jensen is jane his wife remember once we all thought that that would be our future well variety of the predictions did come true video calling devices robotic vacuums electronic banking just to call a few of what most people don’t realize is that artificial intelligence is all around us AI is all around us you’ll see it when Alexa answers one of your questions when your email gives you a suggestion of what to reply with or even once you put a photograph on Facebook and it recognizes your face it’s so commonplace at the moment that tons of people like me are now asking what’s this all leading towards today we ask siri to pay our favourite music things like hey siri please play the beetle oh yeah or hey google what time is it in sunshine beach Australia it’s 4 28 a.m in sunshine beach Australia that’s just not a random request actually my daughter and her family live in sunshine beach Australia when you’re asking to talk to siri Alexa or google your lecture an artificial intelligence agent and this ai is learning your personal preferences the more you use the device the more it learns and the more accurately it can anticipate your every need when someone mentions artificial intelligence what’s the first thing that comes to your mind now most people imagine a military of human-like robots that are repelling against society well a few of fit few people like myself have a more positive um thinking about community envisioning a bright future so what exactly is artificial intelligence it’s definitely not a magical program that can think kind of person's it’s things like virtual companions the controlled gaming surgical robots personal assistants and other devices that we use each day to make our lives better and more efficient now it had been within the mid-1950s that John McCarthy who was a Stanford researcher coined the term AI and he would define it because the science of engineering at the science and engineering of making intelligent agents McCarthy presented his definition of artificial intelligence at a conference on the campus of Dartmouth College in Hanover New Hampshire within the summer of 1956 and this indicated the very beginning of ai research the concept of ai has changed over time but the goal has always been the same to really make computers think like humans during a nutshell ai’s goal is to make computer or computer programs smart enough to initiate the behavior of a human mind now it’s likely that you simply simply interacted with some kind of ai in your day-to-day activities probably even today if you use gmail you may enjoy the automated spam filters in fact according to google Gmail blocks a hundred million spam messages daily with its artificial intelligence agent next if you own a smartphone you probably fill out a calendar app with the help of apple siri or Microsoft’s cortina or Samsung’s Bixby and if you own a newer vehicle perhaps you’ve benefited from the driver-assisted feature while you're driving these are all possible thanks to artificial intelligence but as convenient and helpful as these products are they lack the facility to seek out out independently they can’t think outside of their code and most of you recognize that code is a written set of instructions that tells the ai what to undertake to to so here is where i would like to introduce you to machine learning and this a neighborhood of the presentation might get a little geeky machine learning could also be a branch of ai whose purpose is to supply machines the ability to seek out out a task without pre-existing code our ability to seek out out and acquire better at tasks through experience may be a component of being human when we’re born we all know almost nothing and can do almost nothing for ourselves but soon we’re learning and becoming more capable each day but did you recognize that computers can do the same machine learning brings together statistics and computing to enable computers to seek out out the thanks to do a given task without being programmed to undertake to to so just as your brain uses experience to reinforce at a task so can computers say you'd sort of a computer that can tell the difference between a picture of a dog and a picture of a cat you'll begin by feeding it images and telling it this one’s a dog that one’s a cat a computer program to seek out out will seek statistical patterns within the data that will enable it to acknowledge a cat or a dog in the future it'd determine on its own that cats have shorter noses which dogs are available a much bigger kind of sizes and then represent that information numerically organizing it in space but crucially it’s the pc not the programmer that identifies those patterns and establishes the algorithm by which future data are getting to be sorted one example of a simple yet highly effective algorithm is to hunt out the optimal line separating cats from dogs when the pc sees a replacement picture it checks which side of the road it falls on then says either cat or dog but actually there are often mistakes the more data the pc receives the more finely tuned its algorithm becomes and the more accurate it are often in its predictions machine learning is already widely applied it’s the technology behind facial recognition text and speech recognition spam filters on your inbox online shopping or viewing recommendations credit card forward detection then much more at the university of oxford machine learning researchers are combining statistics and computer science to make algorithms which can solve more complex problems more efficiently using less computing power from medical diagnoses to social media the potential of machine learning to transform our world is really mind-blowing machine learning could also be a could also be a rare sorry machine learning may be a neighborhood of research in computing that studies a special kind of instruction called algorithms algorithms are a gaggle of step-by-step instructions used to do something an algorithm is really only a gaggle of rules as an example if you sort your laundry before you’re washing it you use an algorithm if the algorithm is to put the white laundry on the left pile and the colored laundry on the right pile and you repeat until you’re done this is an algorithm it’s just that simple machine learning uses a gaggle of instructions that improve automatically based on experience in other words what makes machine learning algorithms different from others is that they’re able to learn from the data that we feed them image recognition could also be a exemplar every day we’re getting image recognition more involved so on help us with our personal daily lives if you see some strange looking plant your friend is growing in their living room simply point google lands at it and it will tell you what it's if your discord friend uploads a photograph of their new cat and you'd wish to understand what breed it's just run a google image reverse search and you’ll determine what it's even self-driving vehicles need to know where they can drive which may be a road where are the lanes where they're going to make a turn what the difference is between a red light green light and amber light where the stop signs are well you get the message as you will see image recognition could also be an enormous a neighborhood of deep learning and it are often both cool and scary so how does it work here’s a basic explanation in order for that car to know what a stop sign looks like it must tend an image of a stop sign the machine will read the stop sign and through a selection of algorithms it will then study the stop sign and analyze how the image goes to look by going section per section what color is that the stop sign what shape is it what’s written thereon how big is it always and where is it usually seen during a driver’s peripheral vision things like that if there’s any errors scientists can simply correct them once the image has been completely read it are often labeled and categorized but why stop with one image in our perspective we don’t really need to think for half a second on what a stop sign is and what we must do once we see it we’ve seen numerous stop signs in our lives it’s almost embedded in our brains so the machine must read many different stop signs for better accuracy that way it doesn’t matter whether the stop sign is seen during foggy or rainy conditions during the night or during the day because the machine has seen a stop sign many times it can know it’s a stop sign just by watching its shape and color alone all of that sounds really cool right but it can also be scary if you upload and replica your photos go check out your photos if you haven’t sorted anything you’ll notice that google has done it for you there’s a category for places things videos and animations and maybe others and if you attend things you’ll see that google has sorted your photos into albums supported where google thinks they belong so you’ll have photos labeled as food beaches trains buses and whatever else you will have photographed within the past this is all due to the work of google’s image recognition analysis it has analyzed over 1,000,000 photos on the internet your photos your friends photos strangers photos and any photo that appears on google image search it’s not just google that uses image recognition also if you upload a photo and facebook recognizes your friends it will automatically tag them so yes it’s quite creepy considering it’s a privacy concern but some people may appreciate the convenience anyways because it saves a short time no matter how cool or scary it's image recognition plays a huge role in society and will still be in development many companies are continuing to implement image recognition and other ai technologies the more we'll automate certain tasks with machines the more productive we'll be as a society now because the video described an image recognition machine could even be given millions of pictures to research after going through many changes the machine acquires the ability to acknowledge patterns shapes faces and even more speech recognition is another exemplar of this there are two basic kinds of artificial intelligence the first is weak ai which is additionally known as narrow ai this type of ai can handle only one task at a time for example it can select your favorite song from spotify select your favorite movie from netflix filter your email spam or instruct a self-driving car the second is what’s called strong iai and it’s also mentioned as artificial general intelligence or agi this is much more sophisticated this type of ai refers to a system which is able to affect a generalized task much like an individual's agi as it’s abbreviated can successfully perform any intellectual task that an individual's can this sort of ai is this is that the ai that we’ve seen in movies like her and other scientific movies during which humans interact with machines and operating systems these artificial intelligent agents are conscious they can sense things and are driven by emotion and self-awareness but for machines to understand a true human-like intelligence they need to be capable of experiencing consciousness and as far as as far as today this has not happened hello i’m here oh hi hi how you doing i’m well how’s everything with you pretty good actually it’s very nice to meet you now that’s just slightly excerpt from her for all of you that never saw the movie you need to it’s quite interesting efforts to advance ai concepts over the over the past 20 years have resulted in some truly amazing innovations let’s inspect a few of meet digit manufactured by agility robotics digit is envisioned to help lookout of people in their homes assist with disaster response and deliver packages to front doors with its nimble limbs and a torso packed with sensors digit can navigate complex environments and perform tasks like package delivery digit could also be an immediate descendant of cassie agility’s first robot in may 2019 ford motor company and agility announced a partnership to develop a last mile logistics solution that combines ford’s autonomous vehicle technology and agilities digit this is pepper manufactured by softbank robotics pepper is that the world’s first social humanoid robot that is able to recognize faces and basic human emotions pepper has been adopted by over 2 000 companies around the world perfect in retail and finance industries pepper has numerous functionalities including increasing store traffic by attracting the attention of shoppers creating memorable in-store experiences stimulating purchase and retained customers pepper can also gather comprehensive data to enrich the customer base and generate shopper insights this is atlas the world’s most dynamic humanoid robot built by boston dynamics an organization that was previously owned by google and now by softbank thanks to its state-of-the-art hardware and algorithm that allows it to quickly understand instructions with its 28 hydraulic joints 4.9 feet of height and 176 pounds weight the robot can perform both impressive and terrifying acts including navigating uneven terrain jumping around a parkour course and doing somersaults all these activities demonstrate human level agility so the robot are often perfect for search and rescue operations and performing human tasks in environments where humans couldn't survive introducing spot a robot dog designed for industrial uses such as carrying goods through a warehouse and inspecting a far off site with an unfavorable environment for human operators it can run at 5.2 feet per second has 360 degree cameras and can operate in temperatures ranging from 4 to 113 degrees fahrenheit with its api and versatile payload interface the robot are often easily customized for desired tasks spod is additionally manufactured by boston dynamics and is now being leased to eligible companies these are truly amazing but now let’s inspect how ai learns typically there are three learning method methods supervised learning unsupervised learning and something called reinforcement learning in supervised learning the computer scientist would label the correct answer and ai would learn the pattern by comparing the proper answer with other possible answers in unsupervised learning the scientist would provide the proper answer and thus the algorithms would infer patterns from the data set without reference to the known or labeled outcomes now this may get very very technical the last is known as reinforcement learning and it really plays a very very minor role in training ai but it’s very almost like training an animal giving them reinforcement when the animal displays the required behavior it’s given a present now this gets to be very complex and very geeky so that’s about all that every one the knowledge that i’ll give you now computers and other ai applications are everywhere today it'd be almost impossible to go through your entire life without using any quite artificial intelligence we use cars atms tvs and these all contain computers and ais with ai assistants here’s slightly song to help you remember televisions cars airplanes traffic lights computers are everywhere around us computers are everywhere around us i know that’s silly but i assumed it might cause you to smile let’s inspect a few of straightforward applications of ai that probably most of you use first siri is one of the foremost popular personal assistants offered by apple on the iphone ipad and thus the apple watch she helps to hunt out information get directions send messages make voice phone calls open applications and add events and even add events to my calendar siri uses machine learning technology in order to urge smarter and capable to understand natural language questions and requests next is netflix and netflix needs no introduction it’s a widely popular content on demand service that uses predictive technology to provide recommendations on the thought of your reaction interest choices and behavior once you choose films the technology examines content to reconnect sorry to recommend movies that are based on your previous liking and your reactions now remember netflix is turning more and more intelligent every single year as it get gathers more data on you next is pandora and pandora is considered the world’s most powerful music discovery platform it uses a proprietary algorithm to determine which music to play for you at any given time it’s also called the dna of music because depending upon 400 musical characteristics the team of expert musicians individually analyzes the song and the ai algorithm then recommends the song to you on your personal playlist next is nest and it’s made by google and nest is one of the foremost famous and successful AI startups google acquired it in 2014 for 3.2 billion dollars and thus the nest learning system thermostat uses behavioral algorithms to save you energy supported your behavior and schedule it uses a very intelligent machine learning process that learns the temperature that you simply simply like and programs itself during a few week moreover it'll automatically pack up to save energy if nobody is reception next is my favorite and it’s a flying drone they’re variety of my favorite toys they indicate a robust machine learning system that can translate the environment into a 3d model through its sensors and camera videos sorry and and thus the and video cameras they magically fly which they return home safely almost to the precise spot where they left from amazon echo and apple’s homepod are amazing these are revolutionary products which can assist you to seem the web for information schedule appointments shop control lights and switches and thermostats answer questions read you audio books report traffic weather provide you with information on local businesses provide sports scores and your schedule just to call a few of smart watches are awesome which i always own one actually i’m such an electronic junkie that i always got to have the foremost up-to-date version of the apple i watch smart watches are equipped with advanced ai and will monitor your every move within the old days we’d walk 10 miles to highschool within the snow or so we thought and now we've smart watches and phone apps and AI wearables to tell us exactly how far we’re walking or running and they also track our pulse the number of calories burned and many other metrics artificial intelligence is gaining popularity at a quicker pace influencing the way that we live and interact with our surroundings the internet of things is growing larger every day and internet of things devices cannot function without AI and AI needs iot devices to be of greater use to humanity these technologies hold the power to transform our lives when it involves ai it’s difficult to truly know where we’re headed but we’ve come so far so quickly the thing is today that we don’t realize when we’re in-tuned with artificial intelligence because we’re getting so used to the technology doing new and amazing things each day that we don’t start to stop to believe the science behind the gadgets or the programs.

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iamliberalartsgt · 5 years

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Why ‘worthless’ humanity degrees may set you up for life

Original Article by Amanda Ruggeri

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190401-why-worthless-humanities-degrees-may-set-you-up-for-life

At university, when I told people I was studying for a history degree, the response was almost always the same: “You want to be a teacher?”. No, a journalist. “Oh. But you’re not majoring in communications?”

In the days when a university education was the purview of a privileged few, perhaps there wasn’t the assumption that a degree had to be a springboard directly into a career. Those days are long gone.

Today, a degree is all but a necessity for the job market, one that more than halves your chances of being unemployed. Still, that alone is no guarantee of a job – and yet we’re paying more and more for one. In the US, room, board and tuition at a private university costs an average of $48,510 a year; in the UK, tuition fees alone are £9,250 ($12,000) per year for home students; in Singapore, four years at a private university can cost up to SGD$69,336 (US$51,000).

Learning for the sake of learning is a beautiful thing. But given those costs, it’s no wonder that most of us need our degrees to pay off in a more concrete way. Broadly, they already do: in the US, for example, a bachelor’s degree holder earns $461 more each week than someone who never attended a university.

But most of us want to maximise that investment – and that can lead to a plug-and-play type of approach to higher education. Want to be a journalist? Study journalism, we’re told. A lawyer? Pursue pre-law. Not totally sure? Go into Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) – that way, you can become an engineer or IT specialist. And no matter what you do, forget the liberal arts – non-vocational degrees that include natural and social sciences, mathematics and the humanities, such as history, philosophy and languages.

This has been echoed by statements and policies around the world. In the US, politicians from Senator Marco Rubio to former President Barack Obama have made the humanities a punch line. (Obama later apologised). In China, the government has unveiled plans to turn 42 universities into “world class” institutions of science and technology. In the UK, government focus on Stem has led to a nearly 20% drop in students taking A-levels in English and a 15% decline in the arts.

But there’s a problem with this approach. And it’s not just that we’re losing out on crucial ways to understand and improve both the world and ourselves – including enhancing personal wellbeing, sparking innovation and helping create tolerance, among other values.

It’s also that our assumptions about the market value of certain degrees – and the “worthlessness” of others – might be off. At best, that could be making some students unnecessarily stressed. At worst? Pushing people onto paths that set them up for less fulfilling lives. It also perpetuates the stereotype of liberal arts graduates, in particular, as an elite caste – something that can discourage underprivileged students, and anyone else who needs an immediate return on their university investment, from pursuing potentially rewarding disciplines. (Though, of course, this is hardly the only diversity problemsuch disciplines have).

Soft skills, critical thinking

George Anders is convinced we have the humanities in particular all wrong. When he was a technology reporter for Forbes from 2012 to 2016, he says Silicon Valley “was consumed with this idea that there was no education but Stem education”.

But when he talked to hiring managers at the biggest tech companies, he found a different reality. “Uber was picking up psychology majors to deal with unhappy riders and drivers. Opentable was hiring English majors to bring data to restauranteurs to get them excited about what data could do for their restaurants,” he says.

“I realised that the ability to communicate and get along with people, and understand what’s on other people’s minds, and do full-strength critical thinking – all of these things were valued and appreciated by everyone as important job skills, except the media.” This realisation led him to write his appropriately-titled book You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a “Useless” Liberal Arts Education.

Take a look at the skills employers say they’re after. LinkedIn’s research on the most sought-after job skills by employers for 2019 found that the three most-wanted “soft skills” were creativity, persuasion and collaboration, while one of the five top “hard skills” was people management. A full 56% of UK employers surveyed said their staff lacked essential teamwork skills and 46% thought it was a problem that their employees struggled with handling feelings, whether theirs or others’. It’s not just UK employers: one 2017 study found that the fastest-growing jobs in the US in the last 30 years have almost all specifically required a high level of social skills.

Or take it directly from two top executives at tech giant Microsoft who wrote recently: "As computers behave more like humans, the social sciences and humanities will become even more important. Languages, art, history, economics, ethics, philosophy, psychology and human development courses can teach critical, philosophical and ethics-based skills that will be instrumental in the development and management of AI solutions.

Of course, it goes without saying that you can be an excellent communicator and critical thinker without a liberal arts degree. And any good university education, not just one in English or psychology, should sharpen these abilities further. “Any degree will give you very important generic skills like being able to write, being able to present an argument, research, problem-solve, teamwork, becoming familiar with technology,” says Dublin-based educational consultant and career coach Anne Mangan.

But few courses of study are quite as heavy on reading, writing, speaking and critical thinking as the liberal arts, in particular the humanities – whether that’s by debating other students in a seminar, writing a thesis paper or analysing poetry.

When asked to drill the most job market-ready skills of a humanities graduate down to three, Anders doesn’t hesitate. “Creativity, curiosity and empathy,” he says. “Empathy is usually the biggest one. That doesn’t just mean feeling sorry for people with problems. It means an ability to understand the needs and wants of a diverse group of people.

“Think of people who oversee clinical drug tests. You need to get doctors, nurses, regulators all on the same page. You have to have the ability to think about what’s going to get this 72-year-old woman to feel comfortable being tracked long term, what do we have to do so this researcher takes this study seriously. That’s an empathy job.”

But in general, say Anders and others, the benefit of a humanities degree is the emphasis it puts on teaching students to think, critique and persuade – often in the grey areas where there isn’t much data available or you need to work out what to believe.

It’s small wonder, therefore, that humanities graduates go on to a variety of fields. The biggest group of US humanities graduates, 15%, go on to management positions. That’s followed by 14% who are in in office and administrative positions, 13% who are in sales and another 12% who are in education, mostly teaching. Another 10% are in business and finance.

And while there’s often an assumption that the careers humanities graduates pursue just aren’t as good as the jobs snapped up by, say, engineers or medics, that isn’t the case. In Australia, for example, three of the 10 fastest-growing occupations are sales assistants, clerks, and advertising, public relations and sales managers – all of which might look familiar as fields that humanities graduates tend to pursue.

Meanwhile, Glassdoor’s 2019 research found that eight of the top 10 best jobs in the UK were managerial positions – people-oriented roles that require communication skills and emotional intelligence. (It defined "best" by combining earning potential, overall job satisfaction rating and number of job openings.) And many of them were outside Stem-based industries. The third best job was marketing manager; fourth, product manager; fifth, sales manager. An engineering role doesn’t appear on the list until the 18th slot – below positions in communications, HR and project management.

One recent study of 1,700 people from 30 countries, meanwhile, found that the majority of those in leadership positions had either a social sciences or humanities degree. That was especially true of leaders under 45 years of age; leaders over 45 were more likely to have studied Stem.

This isn’t to say that a liberal arts degree is the easy road. “A lot of the people I talked to were five or 10 years into their career, and there was a sense that the first year was bumpy, and it took a while to find their footing,” Anders says. “But as things played out, it did tend to work.”

For some graduates, the initial challenge was not knowing what they wanted to do with their lives. For others, it was not having acquired as many technical skills with their degree as, say, their IT trainee peers and having to play catch-up after.

But pursuing a more vocational degree can come with its own risks too. Not every teenager knows exactly what they want to do with their lives, and our career aspirations often change over time. One UK report found that more than one-third of Brits have changed careers in their lifetime. LinkedIn found that 40% of professionals are interested in making a “career pivot” – and younger people are interested most of all. Focusing on broadly applicable skills like critical thinking no longer seems like such a moon shot when you consider how many different jobs and industries they can be applied to (though for a young person figuring out their career path, it’s true that flexibility also can feel overwhelming).

Specialized technical skills are important in the job market too. But there are a number of ways to acquire them. “I’m very pro-internships and apprenticeships. We’ve seen that that can directly correlate to you having a more grounded skill base in the workplace,” says career development coach Christina Georgalla.

“I even advocate that post-university, if you’re not sure, take a year out and instead of going travelling, actually trial doing different internships. Even if it’s the same field but in TV, say, broadcasting versus producing versus presenting, so you can see the difference.”

But what about the other perceived pitfalls – like a higher unemployment rate and lower salaries?

Why broader matters

It’s true that the humanities come with a higher risk of unemployment. But it’s worth noting that the risk is slighter than you’d imagine. For young people (aged 25-34) in the US, the unemployment rate of those with a humanities degree is 4%. An engineering or business degree comes with an unemployment rate of a little more than 3%. That single additional percentage point is one extra person per 100, such a small amount it’s often within the margin of error of many surveys.

Salaries aren’t so straightforward either. Yes, in the UK, the top earnings are pulled in by those who study medicine or dentistry, economics or maths; in the US, engineering, physical sciences or business. Some of the most popular humanities, such as history or English, are in the bottom half of the group.

But there’s more to the story – including that for some jobs, it seems that it’s actually better to start with a broader degree, rather than a professional one.

Take law. In the US, an undergraduate student who took the seemingly most direct route to becoming a lawyer, judge or magistrate – majoring in a pre-law or legal studies degree – can expect to earn an average of $94,000 a year. But those who majored in philosophy or religious studies make an average of $110,000. Graduates who studied area, ethnic and civilisations studies earn $124,000, US history majors earn $143,000 and those who studied foreign languages earn $148,000, a stunning $54,000 a year above their pre-law counterparts.

There are similar examples in other industries too. Take managers in the marketing, advertising and PR industries: those who majored in advertising and PR earn about $64,000 a year – but those who studied liberal arts make $84,000.

And even while overall salary disparities do remain, it may not be the degree itself. Humanities graduates in particular are more likely to be female. We all know about the gender pay gap, and notable wage disparities persist in the humanities: US men who major in the humanities have median earnings of $60,000, for example, while women make $48,000. Since more than six in 10 humanities majors are women, the gender pay gap, not the degree, may be to blame.

We also know that as more women move into a field, the field’s overall earnings go down. Given that, is it any wonder that English majors, seven in 10 of whom are women, tend to make less than engineers, eight in 10 of whom are men?

Do what you love

This is a big part of why there is one major takeaway, says Mangan. Whatever a student pursues in university, it must be something that they aren’t just good at, but they really enjoy.

“In most areas that I can see, the employer just wants to know that you’ve been to college and you’ve done well. That’s why I think doing something that really interests you is essential – because that’s when you’re going to do well,” she says.

No matter what, making a degree or career path decision based on average salaries isn’t a good move. “Financial success is not a good reason. It tends to be a very poor reason,” Mangan says. “Be successful at something and money will follow, as opposed to the other way around. Focus on doing the stuff that you love that you’ll be so enthusiastic about, people will want to give you a job. Then go and develop within that job.”

This speaks to a broader point: the whole question of whether a student should choose Stem versus the humanities, or a vocational course versus a liberal arts degree, might be misguided to begin with. It’s not as if most of us have an equal amount of passion and aptitude for, say, accounting and art history. Plenty of people know what they love most. They just don’t know if they should pursue it. And the headlines most of us see don’t help.

This is part of why parents and teachers often need to take a step back, Mangan says. “There is only one expert. I’m the expert on me, you’re the expert on you, they’re the expert on themselves,” she says. “And nobody, I really mean nobody, can tell them how to do what they should be doing.”

Even, it seems, if that means pursuing a “useless” degree – like one in liberal arts.

#liberal arts #Articles #BBC #History #Humanities #Ivan Allen College

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hunterbonus6 · 3 years

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Photoshop For Mac Free Reddit

No, Adobe doesn’t have a totally free version of Photoshop, but you can download it and take advantage of the free 7-day trial. 朗 Is there a Photoshop for beginners? Photoshop is generally considered a high-level program. While some of Photoshop’s editing features can be learned quickly, to truly master the software takes a lot of time. VLC is the best free, open-source media player for the Mac. With it, you can play nearly any media file, including MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MKV, WebM, WMV, and much more. It has a number of customizable features so you can create your ideal viewing situation or set up your music listening experience the way you want.

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January 01, 2021

18 min to read

If you need to make a few tweaks to your images, but do not want to use Photoshop, you are in luck as there are several superb solutions. Here are the 15 best alternatives in no particular order:

1. Luminar AI (Free Trial 7 days)

When time for editing your photos is a luxury, Luminar AI can help. Luminar AI lets you transform your photos in a flash and synchronizes all the edits that you have made effortlessly. What makes it so great is that you can easily browse all your photos as it automatically organizes your photos which makes navigation simple. Luminar Libraries also boast a very modern interface which optimizes the viewing experience.

Luminar AI offers many great adjustable styles, features, and tools that you will fall in love with such as its AI Sky Enhancers, Advanced Contrast, and Dehaze to mention only a few.

2. Pixlr (Free Version Available)

Pixlr boasts an interface that is really not much different from Photoshop. It offers hundreds of overlays, borders and other effects. If you simply want to crop your image or whiten your teeth on your iOS or Android device, Pixlr is the right tool for the job. With Pixlr, you can complete all the editing tasks that a good basic photo editor will allow.

3. PicMonkey (Trial 7 days)

The beauty of PicMonkey is found in its easy-to-use interface. If you need to put together a collage, this is your tool to use. All you have to do is upload your images and drag them into the right spot.

4. Adobe Photoshop Elements (Free Trial 30 days)

Do not be fooled by the name, Adobe Photoshop Elements is not the actual Photoshop. However, countless users have experienced that the Adobe Photoshop Elements app offers all the tools that they require to enhance their images. In short, this app has been reduced to the essentials.

With the help of its Adjustment and Blend layers, you can turn any photo into the most amazing image in barely any time at all. Thanks to its guided mode, it is also geared towards beginners.

When it comes to finding a Photoshop alternative, your only challenge will be to identify the software solution that works the best for your unique needs. Why not give them all a try? You might just discover that the best course of action will be to use a couple of these tools instead of just one.

5. Sketch (Free Trial 30 days, MacOS only)

If you are working on a Mac and in need of a budget-friendly alternative to Photoshop, Sketch is the answer. Sketch is a vector graphics app that has the design field all excited, specifically website designers. As it is so popular, you will be able to access countless plug-ins that have been created by the community that will make this app even more functional.

Its user interface is easy to understand and boasts several features such as gradients and layers that are similar to Illustrator and Photoshop. What is more, it also offers a color picker and style presets. You can use one of the basic shapes to create your own graphic or start from scratch with the help of the pencil tool. This app is really so flexible!

6. GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)

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GNU is an open-source cross-platform image editor. As its interface is very similar to Photoshop, it will not take you too long to familiarize yourself with GIMP. Though, users who do not have any image editing experience will find the different GIMP tutorials very useful.

It offers color correction, enhancement as well as painting tools to mention only a couple of its features and is compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac.

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7. Acorn (Trial 14 days)

Mac users who are searching for image editing software need to look no further than Acorn. It is a cost-effective solution if you do not have access to Photoshop. What makes it so great is that it is quick, enjoyable to use and offers useful features.

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Some of its features include non-destructive filters, custom brushes and layer styles to mention only a few. The software is easy to use, but, you can rest assured, there are tutorials available for both beginners as well as image editing experts.

8. Affinity Photo (Trial)

Affinity Photo is for sure one of the best Photoshop alternatives. It is ideal for professional designers and photographers as it is completely compatible with Photoshop as well as other file formats. What makes it such a great alternative is that it is not nearly as expensive as Photoshop. Though, users can rest assured as it will still deliver the same performance (if not better).

It is compatible with Mac and Windows. If you are using an iPad, you will be happy to know that Affinity Photo for iPad is also available.

9. Pixelmator Pro (Trial 30 days)

Pixelmator is not a new Photoshop alternative, but recently the Pixelmator Pro version which uses a user-friendly single-window interface has been added to the mix. On top of that, the Pixelmator Pro version also boasts non-destructive image editing and offers features that include split view and a hidden interface that allows you to view your images without any distractions.

It is only available for Mac users.

10. SumoPaint (Online + Desktop)

The different standard features that you would expect in a Photoshop alternative, SumoPaint has to offer. There are shapes, brushes, gradients, text, and pencils that you can effortlessly access.

Though a word of warning to Photoshop users - a couple of its tools work differently and there are some limitations. Overall, this image editor remains very capable and can load in a flash.

11. Paint.net

Paint.net is a powerful and practical tool that Windows users can rely on instead of Photoshop. It is a capable and functional tool that concentrates less on artistic creation and more on photo editing.

It offers a decent variety of tools and special effects that include brightness/contrast and repeat selections. It might not boast all the serious editing tools, but that only means that it is not as difficult to master making it the ideal image editor tool for beginners.

12. Canva (Free Basic Plan + Trial 30 days)

Canva is where you will find countless layouts, stock photos, fonts and other great design elements. The best part is that several of these you can use at zero cost. You can use this app to design your business card or put together a birthday card.

13. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite (Trial 15 days or Full Paid or Monthly sub)

Windows users will love the tools that CorelDRAW has to offer. This Photoshop alternative boasts an interactive tool that will help you to straighten your image or adjust the perspective. Though, one of its most impressive features is its stylus control that reacts to a different pressure.

If you are working with Windows 10, this is the perfect fit. Windows users will also be happy to know that it supports 4K displays and multi-monitor viewing.

How To Install Photoshop On Mac For Free Reddit

14. Photolemur (Free Version with watermark available)

Photoshop For Mac Free Reddit Free

Best choice for beginners or people who have no time to edit photos. Enhancing your images has never been easier thanks to Photolemur. By using AI, this automatic photo enhancer app enhances your images without you having to lift a finger. You simply need to import your images to Photolemur and it will get the job done automatically. This means that you do not require any prior editing experience to complete tasks like getting rid of imperfections. It is oh-so easy and available for both Mac and Windows.

15. Serif PhotoPlus

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Many people have already relied on this app for years. https://hunterbonus6.tumblr.com/post/658825546378133504/vmix-14-crack-free-download. It is ideal for users who are only starting with image editing now as it offers great support for new users in the form of videos and tutorials. What is more, users can get great tips on their active forum for fellow users. Thanks to its latest release, Serif PhotoPlus users will be also able to work with their RAW image files much easier.

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transhumanitynet · 6 years

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Better Control Over Humans By The Machine Overlords

In this edition, the top news starts with:

NASA is making progress with growing plants in space, mostly focused on small experiments on small scales.

https://www.popsci.com/nasa-growing-food-in-space

A new startup is looking at some kind of centrifuge mass driver to put rockets into space…

http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/14/technology/spinlaunch-rocket/index.html

It looks like IoT cameras have a nice vulnerability that could let hackers or machine AI take control. Oh Joy…

https://www.zdnet.com/article/vulnerabilities-in-these-iot-cameras-could-give-attackers-full-control-warn-researchers/

Developers bask in the joys of the Microsoft Empire controlling the open source community…

https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/18/17474284/microsoft-github-acquisition-developer-reaction

The industry is starting to realize that machine learning is fragmented and needs to standardize more.

https://www.cmswire.com/digital-experience/machine-learning-fragmentation-is-slowing-us-down-there-is-a-solution/

Another narrow AI trying to be all scary… but it just argues with you… maybe…

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/18/artificial-intelligence-ibm-debate-project-debater

A great new feasibility study passed peer review showing how easy it would be to abuse technology. The new study used actual ‘shock’ bracelets and looked at dosing victim… er… I mean recalcitrant populations so that a government could help with right thinking…

http://transhumanity.net/feasibility-study-and-practical-applications-using-independent-core-observer-model-agi-systems-for-behavioral-modification-in-recalcitrant-populations-preview/

Bing still avoiding AI ads; Microsoft maintains a presence, but IBM Watson still rules Google AI ads.

Lastly, the Singularity Index or S.I. is up slightly at 1573.60, again likely to be no more than another hump while remaining flat.

As always, thanks for listening to the news of the day on “The Technocracy”.

And a special thanks to our Sponsors, Artificial General Intelligence, A.K.A. AGI Laboratory, and The Foundation and our other sponsors.

Better Control Over Humans By The Machine Overlords was originally published on transhumanity.net

#agi #AGI Laboratory #AI #aquaponics #Artificial intelligence #existential threat #hydroponics #ICOM #ML #NASA #orbital mass drivers #risk #technocracy #crosspost #transhuman #transhumanitynet #transhumanism #transhumanist #thetranshumanity

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ericvick · 3 years

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Can Silicon Valley Beat China In Clean Energy Tech?

Many investors are already aware of the fact that China is the world’s most dominant player in the solar and clean energy sector. 8 out of 10 biggest manufacturers of solar equipment are Chinese with First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) and SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR) the only American representatives among the elite.

It’s not for lack of trying, though—Silicon Valley pumped tens of billions of dollars in clean energy ventures during the first wave of the renewable energy transition that started halfway through the first decade of the new millennium.

Yet, Clean tech 1.0 was a disaster, a fact that still lingers like a bruise on the amygdala of investors from a decade and a half ago.

According to PwC, of the $25 billion invested by venture capitalists in the clean-tech sector between 2006 and 2011, about half got wiped out. Disappointed by the dismal returns, VCs diverted their attention to app developers, software, and artificial intelligence (AI), which promised bigger returns without demanding huge infusions of capital.

In sharp contrast, China has been hugely successful in scaling up solar power and driving huge cost reductions in wind energy and EV batteries.

Which makes this year’s clean energy selloff all the more seem like déjà vu.

After a massive runup over the past two years, the clean energy sector is going through a correction with the sector’s most popular benchmark, iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (ICLN), down 20.4% in the year-to-date while its solar peer Invesco Solar Portfolio ETF (TAN) is down 17.1% over the timeframe.

But make no mistake about it: Clean tech 2.0 is a one-way street with no chance of turning back. After all, it’s got a lot more going for it, including pressing climate goals, much stronger government support, much stronger backing by Silicon Valley, and thousands of useful lessons gleaned from Clean tech 1.0.

Related: Oil Tanker Rates Surge As Suez Canal Blockage Continues

As Andrew Beebe, managing director at San Francisco-based Obvious Ventures, has succinctly put it:

Story continues

“I really don’t believe there’s a pathway where we look back and say, ‘Oh clean tech 2.0 didn’t work.’ That will not happen–this transition, the road we’re on, is a one-way street. We don’t go back to gasoline vehicles, we’re not going to go back to coal plants; we’re not going to go back to dirty air and unhealthy living conditions if we have the choice. What we’ve learnt in the last decade is, we have a choice in virtually every category.”

But as this year’s correction proves, this is by no means going to be a walk in the park.

China’s success

With Beijing’s backing, China’s clean energy entrepreneurs were able to scale rapidly with solar energy recording an 80% cost reduction over the past decade. A surge in production in China was responsible for pushing down the price of polysilicon—a key raw material used in solar panels.

This lessened the demand for innovative technologies backed by U.S. venture capital evaporated. To make matters worse, U.S. investors shot themselves in the foot thanks to Silicon Valley’s “moon shot” approach of hunting for big breakthroughs rather than focusing on smaller, incremental advancements.

The result: the majority of the first American solar startups went under because they were unable to compete with China. Almost all the Silicon Valley-backed startups folded, with a handful such as solar startup MiaSolé and battery startup A123 Systems bought by Chinese companies.

Learning from China

But, finally, Silicon Valley is getting its act together.

Whereas Silicon Valley had little to do with solar energy becoming the cheapest form of energy in the world, China’s success in scaling up solar power as well as cost reductions in wind energy and EV batteries have provided it with a blueprint, laying the groundwork for a new wave of investment in clean energy startups.

Related: Houthi Rebels Launch Missile Attack On Saudi Oil Terminal

First off, Silicon Valley has thrown its full weight behind the sector and the massive ESG boom.

The failure of Clean tech 1.0 was not so much due to technical problems but rather a lack of financing options. Luckily, Clean tech 2.0 is enjoying a much greater variety of capital options available, including blank check companies, aka special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).

SPACs act as an alternative to the traditional IPO process. SPAC IPOs have truly exploded over the past few years, with more than 220 SPAC IPOs recorded over the past 12 months with gross proceeds exceeding $74B compared to $13.6B in gross proceeds just a year prior. In fact, we now have a SPAC ETF—SPAC and New Issue ETF (NYSE:SPCX), the first actively managed fund dedicated to the asset class, which was launched last year. Last year saw 40 climate-related companies merging with SPACs, including electric vehicle battery startup QuantumScape, which was backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures—a $2 billion fund by Silicon Valley tech heavyweights including Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) that invests in promising clean energy startups. QuantumScape is currently valued at $21 billion.

Part of the appeal is that SPACs not only provide an avenue for early-stage investors to exit their positions but also enables startups to raise more money so they can scale-up production.

SPAC-mania is a real thing: Just a month ago, Brazilian iron ore miner Vale S.E. (NYSE: VALE) invested in one of its startups, Boston Metal, a startup that aims to produce low-carbon steel.

Further, VCs have become a lot more demanding, with Breakthrough Energy only investing in startups that have the potential to remove 500m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year from the atmosphere—about 1% of the planet’s annual output.

But ultimately, the biggest reason why everybody wants a piece of clean energy is simple: Returns are higher.

Companies supporting decarbonization have clearly been outperforming their more conservative peers.

Source: The Financial Times

Government support

The renewable energy sector has yet another powerful ally: Governments committing to climate goals.

For instance, the U.S. solar sector now has the full backing of the government.

A few days ago, the Biden administration set a goal to cut the cost of solar energy by 60% over the next decade.

Specifically, the Department of Energy (DoE) wants to lower utility-scale solar energy’s current cost of 4.6 cents per kwh to 3 cents by 2025 then to 2 cents by 2030. DoE also aims to have the U.S. power grid to run entirely on clean energy within 15 years, meaning solar energy will need to be installed 5x faster than the current rate.

The DoE has committed to spending $128M on technologies including perovskite solar cells and more novel technologies such as cadmium telluride and concentrating solar technologies.

Ultimately, developing any technology from the lab into a low-cost, mass-market product with the potential to lower global emissions is not only incredibly hard but frequently requires long lead times. However, Wall Street is saying this time it’s different because entrepreneurs have a better understanding of what it takes and are also backed by deep-pocketed corporate investors looking to decarbonize their operations as well as friendly governments.

It’s a one-way street that investors will have to travel.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

Read this article on OilPrice.com

#Beat #China #clean #Energy #Silicon #tech #valley

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gameplayandtalk · 4 years

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Tetris Effect: Connected - Review

2020 hasn't been the greatest year for... well, humanity. But it is shaping up to be a great year for Tetris players.

The last decade has had some ups and downs as well: Tetris Ultimate from Ubisoft was destined to be the new mainline Tetris game of choice, but was plagued by issues early on and failed to excite the fanbase. The popular “Tetris Friends” website was phased out in the middle of 2019, leaving a hole in the multiplayer online scene. Then there are some bright points: Tetris 99, the collaboration between Arika and Nintendo, brought Tetris into the battle royale scene for Nintendo Switch players free of charge (as long as you had an online membership.) Fan-made Tetris “inspired” clones (essentially Tetris in all but name) such as JSTris and Tetr.io have also sparked a resurgence in the online multiplayer scene with robust customization options and stat-tracking.

Another bright spot (like, REALLY bright — think lens flares and supernovas) was Tetris Effect, a VR Tetris experience. It’s safe to say nobody really asked for it, but there it was, and it was beautiful. It wasn’t simply Tetris with a new coat of paint though: Tetris Effect had plenty of new modes that kept veteran players coming back.

In Tetris Effect, the main single player campaign known as “Journey Mode” featured a new signature mechanic: the “Zone Meter”. This meter charges up as you clear multiple lines or perform combos, and once activated, the action freezes on-screen, allowing you to rack up as many line clears as you can before the meter runs out. Instead of disappearing, the finished lines sink to the bottom and glow. The resulting clears are named depending on the number of lines cleared, such as Octotris (8), Decahextris (16), Perfectris (18) and the very-difficult-to-achieve Ultimatris (all 20 rows). Unless you’re working your way from the bottom to the top, you will quickly run out of room as the clears push your board out of playable range, meaning your placement to achieve an Ultimatris must be perfect.

This board clearing mechanic, along with other great new single-player modes such as Purify, solidified Tetris Effect among fans of all types who had previously seen it all. However, Tetris Effect had no real multiplayer mode, and when Tetris 99 arrived on the scene about four months later (seemingly out of nowhere), it grabbed the spotlight in a big way.

Now, almost two years after Tetris Effect was initially released, Tetris Effect Connected brings back everything that made the original great, along with some of the most innovative multiplayer the series has ever seen. And the long wait was so incredibly worth it.

Let’s get the unfortunate news out of the way: People who already own Tetris Effect on PS4 or the Epic Store release on PC won’t be able to play Tetris Effect Connected on the legacy versions until the summer of 2021. In another casualty of timed exclusives, you will need to play Tetris Effect Connected on either Xbox One (and above) or on PC via the Microsoft Store, where Tetris Effect is appearing for the first time. Yes, just in time for the Xbox Series X/S launch.

I can’t imagine fans of this game will want to drop full price again to play it on a different platform, new modes or not. Luckily, the game is included with Xbox Game Pass as well as its PC counterpart. PS4 owners will likely be stuck shaking their fists until Summer, but for those of us who have already been playing on PC, I really recommend you go with this option and just install it again. Xbox One and new Series S/X users have absolutely nothing to lose.

Getting “Connected”

The centerpiece of Tetris Effect Connected is the new “Connected” mode. This mode actually isn’t competitive at all, but cooperative. While this isn’t the first time a version of Tetris has adopted a co-operative mode (Tengen’s version of Tetris for the NES and Tetris the Grandmaster 2’s Doubles mode come to mind), this mode is balanced in such a way that avoids that overbearing “too many cooks in the kitchen” feeling. Teams of three are matched together to take on several AI controlled bosses named after zodiac signs.

The action starts with each of you controlling your own boards, trying to charge a shared meter between the three of you by making clears. As you do this, the AI is charging its own meter that hits all human players with various status effects. These can range from things as simple as dropping random junk onto your screen, all the way to making your entire playfield temporarily invisible. Oh, and it is as hard as it sounds (Luckily, you can still see about where your piece will land in relation to the board thanks to the still visible “ghost piece”). Nevertheless, this is what tends to wreck most Connected players, if limited online experience up to now is any indication.

Your best chance against these zodiac-themed killer CPUs is to get your shared meter up to full charge and enter this mode’s spin on the “Zone” mechanic. The music motif will ramp up and prepare you to get in the zone, which happens automatically within a few seconds of maxing out the meter. Then, your boards collapse down, leaving no gaps in the columns, and all player boards are combined into one giant board.

The objective, much like elsewhere the Zone mechanic is used in the game, is still to clear as many lines on the board as you can, but this is much harder considering the now huge width of the board, and the fact that each player takes turns placing their own blocks. The first time you see it, you’re likely to feel completely stunned, but it’s important to keep dropping blocks. You’re likely to get a few third wheels on your team who take all the time in the world looking for the perfect spot, but the perfect placement rarely exists. The best strategy is just to keep moving, and if someone does accidentally foul up your progress placing over a gap, there are shining purple blocks randomly given out to the players that will push down all columns under them to iron out the kinks in the board. You’ll likely have to get your meter back up several more times to make each AI boss top out, so it’s important to stay diligent.

If that wasn’t enough, log in during what the game calls a “full moon” phase. Tetris Effect players might remember that on Saturdays, playing “Effect Mode” games online had a special collaborative leaderboard feature for a subset of the game’s many special modes, and if enough people sent in their high scores, a special goal would be met. Tetris Effect Connected also has a special feature for you on Saturdays: Connected Vs. mode. This time, a fourth human player takes the place of the boss AI character. Human bosses are even harder to take down, and there are special unlockable avatars for players who can rack up boss wins with the different types of zodiac characters.

Of all the modes on offer, “Connected” seems to take it home: Co-operative Tetris play has rarely been tried, and yet it just works here. The shared torment of all the status effects raining down on you and your teammates, combined with the rush of taking turns completing a giant board, brings about a feeling of camaraderie that is unmatched. That is, when you’re not yelling at the slackers to “JUST DROP IT SOMEWHERE!” You’ll also have, like in all modes, a letter grade and stats waiting for each player after the match, to show just how much you were carrying your team. It’s as competitive as co-op can get.

The game’s take on the standard “versus” mode is also something you can’t get anywhere else. You’ll be sending garbage to your opponent like usual, but you’ll also be building up a zone meter to use against each other. This mode is named “Zone Battle”.

Admittedly, the first time I saw the zone mechanic in single-player, it was charming but felt a bit supplementary. However, nailing a Perfectris in a match against another player (I’m sure some are crazy enough to try an Ultimatris in a heated match, too) is akin to the rush of pulling off a “Fatality” in Mortal Kombat. The feature makes so much more sense in this context. When you hear your opponent beginning a zone attack, going a note up the scale each time a line is cleared, you know something big is coming, and you’d better have something to counter it, preferably starting your own zone attack. Being a master at traditional versus Tetris isn’t a guarantee you will succeed here, as a well-timed and effective zone attack can quickly change the tide of battle.

The last two modes are Score Attack and Classic Score Attack. This might be what ends up sealing the deal for most Tetris maniacs. Amazingly, Classic Score Attack feels just like watching a match of Classic Tetris World Championships on Youtube. With the help of CTWC veteran Greentea, the developers were able to adapt the feel of NES Tetris to Tetris Effect, while still being its own thing.

It’s important to know just how different Tetris is between these two generations. In modern Tetris, the pieces are handed out in what is known as “7-bag”: You’ll get some configuration of the seven pieces randomly dispersed and then handed out again. This means another long block is never more than 12 pieces away. No such thing in classic Tetris: the pieces can feel truly random here, and you could be waiting forever in what competitors call “droughts”. Your longest drought will be counted up and presented at the end of the match along with your rate of “Tetris” clears as a percentage, among other info.

Obviously, there is no holding pieces, but also no hard-dropping (instantly dropping your piece), and your pieces will lock into place nearly as soon as they hit another piece. Most important to remember is the dramatic difference in scoring between “Tetris” clears and all other line clears. As the game gets faster, “Tetris” clears are worth more and more. It’s good to start stacking for Tetris’ early and often if you want to win. All of this is made even more foreboding by the spine-chilling remix of the classic theme.

If you wanted the feel of competitive NES Tetris at home, you would have to set up two systems and tube TVs back to back, whereas this mode truly brings the experience home by counting up the points for who is currently in the lead and by how much. It was wholly unexpected for Tetris Effect to try to tackle classic Tetris, but they completely nailed it. If this sounds like hell, and you’d rather be setting up Triple T-Spins, the regular Score Attack is also available to settle the score with other players.

As far as complaints are concerned, matchmaking in the “Connected” mode seems to have dropped off since launch. This is perhaps because tackling the hardest modes is best suited to a proven team of online friends.

Also, as of this writing, in both score attack modes, the game has been designed to let a winner continue playing even after the loser has topped out and is no longer able to play. This is leading to a lot of people closing the game out of impatience, as they have no other option but to let the winning player keep playing while they watch for the final results. If a topped-out player does this, the remaining player does not get credited a win, and their score ranking also goes down! I’m hopeful this will eventually be fixed, but in the meantime, be sure to top out once a losing player is no longer able to play. This is the best way to ensure that they will not try to disconnect and essentially take the win from you.

Another concern is more a request to developers for future updates than a warning for players, although it can be both. As I mentioned, it has become increasingly difficult to get matched up in the “Connected” mode. It’s easiest to find players at the first difficulty level, the only one available upon first entering the mode. However, some of these beginner players don’t seem to understand that your move once entering “the zone” isn’t complete until hard-dropping the block. I realize that some might not even know the default button for this, so from a design perspective it would be best to prompt players how to drop their block (along with the button assignment), especially if their move has taken an excessive amount of time. This will move the action along for the other players.

I would also like to have seen a multiplayer take on “Purify”, the game’s garbage clearing mode where you are tasked with clearing as many purple blocks as you can before the infection spreads. However, what is here is such a surprise.

Tetris Effect Connected is a labor of love by Tetris fans for Tetris fans, much like the many fan games out there. Certainly Tetris 99 was an upheaval of what people expected from Tetris, but thanks to this game and the popularity of CTWC and fangames, a complete resurgence of the game has finally been cemented. I may be preaching to the choir at this point, since most people reading probably already know of Tetris, but if it’s been a while, time to check back in. It’s better than ever to be a Tetris fan, and it seems we are here to stay. To those angry about double-dipping, yes, it is unfortunate. If you do take the plunge, however, I think you’ll be extremely pleased. I’m also confident the game will only get better from here on out!

See you on the battlefield. Thanks for reading!

Hi-Res Screenshots

#review #tetris #tetris effect #tetris effect connected #tetris effect multiplayer update

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preciousmetals0 · 5 years

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4 Stocks to Buy Before the Ball Drops

4 Stocks to Buy Before the Ball Drops:

Great Stuff Picks: The “Simply the Best” Edition

By this point, everyone and their mother has offered up an opinion on the best stocks to own for 2020.

Everyone, that is, except Great Stuff…

Well, the wait is finally over. Today, I reveal the four stocks that you must own for 2020 and beyond. This was no small undertaking. No sir.

The companies we selected had to have strong financials and equally exceptional stock performance. And, above all, these companies simply had to be part of a critical market mega trend.

Today’s Great Stuff picks play a major role in at least one (if not more) of the six mega trends I laid out yesterday:

The Internet of Things (IoT).

Blockchain.

Artificial intelligence (AI).

Precision medicine (aka biotechnology).

Millennials.

New energy technology.

Am I stealing a bit from Bold Profits here? Maybe. Or maybe I’ve just been in the stock market long enough to recognize a good investment when I see one. (I’ve been doing this for more than 15 years at this point. Give me some credit here … jeez.)

So, without any further ado, here are Great Stuff’s best of the best for 2020 and beyond:

No. 4: Applied Investing

The IoT is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big the IoT is. Statista reports the IoT market will reach $1.6 trillion by 2025. And you may think it’s big now, but that’s just peanuts compared to where it’s going once 5G hits its stride.

But the IoT and 5G technologies don’t just fall out of the sky. Someone has to make the devices and the brains that drive those devices.

Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg?

Applied Materials Inc. (Nasdaq: AMAT) has a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. (Yes, I’m mixing pop culture references at this point … just go with it.) This company builds the machines that make semiconductors and integrated circuits for the IoT and 5G to run on.

Its customers are a veritable who’s who of the hottest smartphone, semiconductor and networking firms on the planet, including Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), Nvidia Corp. (Nasdaq: NVDA) and Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) … just to name a few.

Mega trend established. But what about the money?

Applied Materials beat Wall Street’s estimates in each of the past four quarters. Most recently, the company lifted guidance for the first part of 2020, citing improving industrywide demand. That little trade deal between the U.S. and China certainly helps a lot.

As for AMAT’s price action, the shares are up 90% in 2019, and they’re poised to break out above a double-top from their 2018 all-time highs.

And the icing on the cake? Applied Materials’ current dividend yield sits at 1.37%. That’s better than Apple or Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT).

All of this together is more than enough to put Applied Materials on Great Stuff’s top picks for 2020 and beyond.

No. 3: This Brand Ain’t No Con

When we look back at 2019, we’ll see it as the year of disappointing initial public offerings (IPOs).

From Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) to Lyft Inc. (Nasdaq: LYFT) to Peloton Interactive Inc. (Nasdaq: PTON), nearly every overhyped IPO is now trading underwater. That is, except Beyond Meat Inc. (Nasdaq: BYND).

But even the meatless wonder is living on borrowed time. The IPO fad is over. The real work begins now. It’s time for Conagra Brands Inc. (NYSE: CAG).

Conagra is putting its full weight behind the meat-alternative movement. Given the company’s connections, distribution chain and sheer amount of money, Beyond Meat is in trouble.

Conagra moving into meat alternatives means lower prices at the supermarket for the same expensive products that Beyond Meat pushes. Conagra has more money and broader reach. It’ll dominate the supermarkets in the meat-alternative market.

What … you still think meatless meat is a fad? Don’t kid yourself. There are health reasons. There are environmental reasons. There are sustainability reasons. There are personal preference reasons.

You may not understand them. You may not agree with them. But there are so many varied reasons why this meatless genie isn’t going back in the bottle, even stodgy old Conagra is jumping into the game.

In fact, the company’s shift into fake meat helped lead it to its first revenue beat in two and a half years. Driven by its “on-trend innovation,” Conagra is expected to see revenue rise more than 12% next year — that’s far above the average for its competitors.

And, for those buy-and-hold investors out there (I know you’re still there despite media reports of your death), Conagra sports a tasty dividend yield of 2.52%.

Conagra is poised to become Beyond Meat’s worst nightmare. That alone is enough to make it a Great Stuff pick for 2020 and beyond.

No. 2: The Year of the Mouse

Admit it. You knew The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) was going to be on this list, didn’t you?

Honestly, I’ve written … about … Disney so much, what’s left to say?

How about the fact that Disney accounted for 33% of the total U.S. movie market in 2019? Or that seven of the eight biggest-grossing films of 2019 were all Disney? (The other film in that list was Spider-Man: Far From Home, which had some help from Disney’s Marvel Studios as well.)

And then there’s the fact that The Mandalorian was the hottest streaming TV show for the past two months.

Speaking of Disney+, the service is expected to have more than 20 million subscribers by the end of 2019. Combine those subs with Hulu (remember Hulu?), and Disney is a major force in the online streaming market. This is the competition that Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) bears warned you about.

Unfortunately for Netflix, Disney has deeper pockets and better content (i.e., intellectual property), such as Marvel, Star Wars and literally everything it has ever made in its 96 years of existence.

Cable TV is out. Streaming is the new hotness … the next big mega trend in content delivery and production. Nobody does either better than Disney right now.

2020 is the year of the mouse, making Walt Disney a Great Stuff pick for infinity and beyond. (OK, maybe not infinity, but I couldn’t resist.)

No. 1: Oh, Hello Roku!

So, who didn’t see this coming?

If there’s one company that I’ve written about more than Disney this past year, it’s Roku Inc. (Nasdaq: ROKU) … and for good reason.

We’ve long since established that streaming is the hottest mega trend in entertainment.

Every analyst worth their salt is scrambling to crown “the next Netflix.” But many of those same analysts forget that even Netflix wouldn’t be “the next Netflix” without Roku, the handy USB stick that I take from TV to TV to watch The Mandalorian in peace.

In fact, the video-streaming mega trend itself would’ve taken a lot longer to materialize without Roku as a catalyst. Practically every Roku ever made has a Netflix button on the remote. (I’m betting new ones will have a Disney+ button on them soon.)

The point is, Roku is the king of the streaming mega trend. Its low-cost devices enabled millions to stream directly to their TVs at a time when such a thing was left to the geeks of the world. Now, these streaming devices are everywhere. Roku’s software is even embedded into smart TVs to make the process even easier.

The key to Roku’s success is its agnosticism. The company doesn’t care whether you watch Netflix or Disney+, as long as you use a Roku to do so.

In an age where Apple, Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Google’s parent, Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL), have frequent spats about which streaming services are available on their devices, Roku is accorded neutral territory.

But device sales are just the tip of the iceberg. Roku has its own streaming channel with a premium option. What’s more, the company makes bank by selling ads on its eponymous streaming channel, in the Roku device menu and in the screensaver.

This is where many analysts miss the boat on Roku. They see it merely as another streaming device, completely missing the ad revenue component — or grossly underrating it. Right now, ad companies spend big on cable TV advertising.

Where will that money go when cable finally kicks the bucket?

I’ll tell you where … it’s going to the streaming market. And right now, Roku has the best bang for an advertiser’s buck. There are roughly 32.3 million Roku device users in the U.S. And every one of those devices has all the streaming services anyone could want. In other words, ad revenue will explode for Roku in 2020.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Roku is going to $200 next year. This is the company to invest in for the streaming mega trend, and it’s Great Stuff’s top selection for 2020 and beyond.

Great Stuff: Ring in the New Year, Great Stuff Style!

Say, do you have any snacks? Beer? Bourbon?

All that writing really wore me out.

No? I guess you’re saving up for tonight’s New Year’s Eve bash.

We here at Great Stuff want to thank you for reading and all your feedback over the months. I know I talk a big game, but it’s all for you, dear reader. You’re the reason Great Stuff exists.

Anyway … heading into 2020, Great Stuff promises to keep you informed on the hottest trends on Wall Street, providing you with key information to make you filthy rich (your results may vary) and sparking the best in dinner table conversation.

No, Uncle Jeb, you drank all the Natty Lite, and I’m not making a run to the store for more. If only you had a self-driving Tesla or something…

At this point, Great Stuff would like to remind you that the best investment of all (to even see 2020) is an Uber (or Lyft) home tonight. As always, don’t drink and drive. This has been your Great Stuff PSA for the new year. Thank you.

Finally, Great Stuff is the perfect New Year’s gift for that extra-special someone in your life … someone so special, in fact, that you waited until just now to think about what to get them for the new year.

Show that person just how much you care. Sign them up for Great Stuff today!

Finally, don’t forget to like and follow Great Stuff on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Great Stuff Managing Editor, Banyan Hill Publishing

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