perishthethought

Most people know that robots no longer sound like tinny trash cans. They sound like Siri, Alexa, and Gemini. They sound like the voices in labyrinthine customer support phone trees. And even those robot voices are being made obsolete by new AI-generated voices that can mimic every vocal nuance and tic of human speech, down to specific regional accents. And with just a few seconds of audio, AI can now clone someone’s specific voice.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings, he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body. During his life, he enjoyed significant popularity in France and the United States, was given numerous official honors, and received top prices for his work. As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde.

Bouguereau was a student at the École des Beaux-Arts. To supplement his formal training in drawing, he attended anatomical dissections and studied historical costumes and archeology. He was admitted to the studio of François-Édouard Picot, where he studied painting in the academic style. Dante and Virgil in Hell (1850) was an early example of his neo-classical works.

More antiquity: https://artvee.com/artist/william-bouguereau/

SubUrbia is a 1996 American comedy drama film directed by Richard Linklater from a screenplay by Eric Bogosian, based on his play of the same name. It follows the relationships between a few young adults as they spend their time standing on "the corner" outside a local convenience store. Filmed mainly in Austin, Texas, the film stars Jayce Bartok, Amie Carey, Nicky Katt, Ajay Naidu, Parker Posey, Giovanni Ribisi, Samia Shoaib, Dina Spybey, and Steve Zahn.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubUrbia_(film)

Captain's looking good for his age

Guess where and when a picture was taken.

Prisoners' Round (after Gustave Doré), also known as The Prisoners' Round, or Prisoners Exercising, or Penitentiary (after Doré), (F669) is an oil painting of February 1890 by Vincent van Gogh. This late work was painted at Saint-Paul Asylum in Saint-Rémy, inspired by an 1872 engraving by Gustave Doré of the exercise yard (le bagne) at Newgate Prison. The original oil painting is held by the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners'Round(after_Gustave_Dor%C3%A9)

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

Won't you tell your dad get off my back? Tell him what we said 'bout Paint it Black

From this here CD -- Not The Singer But The Songs... An Alex Chilton Tribute (1991)

If you think covers are neat, then I recommend this here fine podcast

https://www.coverville.com/

Look what you've started, @[email protected] I'll try not to spam the channel tooooo much.

Don''t play it cheap

A new alternative to Uber and Lyft aspires to give workers more income and more say over their working conditions.

Sorry if it's pay walled.

Guess where and when a picture was taken.