NBC apologizes for the Don becoming our problem, AI audiobooks; well, are all books just AI now? and an orange hair in your fries. Enjoy! The AI one is long; it is of interest, though, and is important to authors and readers, and not only romance authors and readers. A great deal of work & lots of info went into the article.

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We Created a Monster: Trump Was a TV Fantasy Invented for ‘The Apprentice’

NBC’s former chief marketer regrets selling an illusion that has had dire consequences for the world.

By John D. Miller | ContributorOct. 16, 2024, at 5:35 p.m.

I want to apologize to America. I helped create a monster.

For nearly 25 years, I led marketing at NBC and NBCUniversal. I led the team that marketed “The Apprentice,” the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City, where he was better known for overextending his empire and appearing in celebrity gossip columns.

To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty. That was the conceit of the show. At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.

In fact, Trump declared business bankruptcy four times before the show went into production, and at least twice more during his 14 seasons hosting. The imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV.

Trump may have been the perfect choice to be the boss of this show, because more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV and didn’t want to hire random game show winners onto their executive teams. Trump had no such concerns. He had plenty of time for filming, he loved the attention and it painted a positive picture of him that wasn’t true. (snip-MORE. And US News and World Report leans right, even. It’s a fine read.)

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AI Audiobook Narrators in OverDrive and the Issue of Library AI Circulation Policy

by SB Sarah · Oct 21, 2024 at 6:00 am

OverDrive is the company that provides a lot of digital content to libraries. If you’ve borrowed an ebook or an audiobook in Libby,  or read a magazine in Kanopy, that’s OverDrive.

It seems there is some AI weirdness with audiobook narration on OverDrive, and the narrator is only part of the story.

On Monday, October 14, librarian Robin Bradford posted on Bluesky that she’d purchased an AI audiobook for her library system and she was really upset about it: (the Bluesky post is embedded; I can’t get it here.)

Over 100 titles by AI “narrators” were in their catalog, and Robin was having trouble finding indications that the authors themselves are real?

Interesting. (snip-MORE)

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This is fun, also full of info.

An orange hair in your fries

It’s Monday. There are 15 days until Election Day. Elon tries to buy America, the Central Park Five sue Trump and America loves Harris-Walz.

ADAM PARKHOMENKO AND SAM YOUNGMAN OCT 21, 2024

Be advised: This newsletter uses profanity like it just found a gross orange hair in its fries. 

Note: Sexy Patriots! It’s so great to see you. We missed you yesterday, but it’s probably best that we took the day off. Otherwise we were gonna do one of our fake interviews with one of Arnold Palmer’s testicles (it was the left one), and nobody needs that. But can you really judge us for being a little goddamn loopy these days? This shit is intense! And dumb. So so dumb…

What the effing fuck?! Look, there are a million things that bothered us about Trump’s cheap stunt yesterday — the credulity of the media, his ducking questions about raising the minimum wage, the fact that his man boobs clearly dipped into the french fry grease — but we’re oddly stuck on this notion that Trump voters are so goddamn dumb that they had to practice going through the drive-thru…

Is this it? Am I doing it right?

No, Brenda. You’re talking to a trash can. Try talking to the box with the speaker. 

This is so confusing! Am I doing it right?

No, Brenda. You just stuck a chicken McNugget in your ass.

Oh no! I’m going to starve to death! 

Anyway, America, be smart and be healthy and just say no to Trump and McDonald’s. Y’all have a blessed day.

Note two: How’s everybody holding up? Yeah, we’re pretty freaked the eff out and fired the eff up too. It’s a weird and exhausting combination of emotions. The good news is we got one of those polls you should admire. It’s been a while since we’ve seen some high-quality polling, and today we got some swing state polls from the Washington Post that show Kamala Harris winning a tight race after taking Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The poll has us tied in Nevada and losing in Arizona and North Carolina. Let’s run the table and end this fucker. More: Washington Post

Note three: Yikes! The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says that Trump’s proposals would drain Social Security in six years. It’s kind of amazing how all of Trump’s plans would be totally destructive. There aren’t even any that are like neutral. They’re just all dumb and dangerous. More: CRFB

Note four: VP Harris’ fundraising will be studied for years because she has just crushed it. Politico reported over the weekend that the VP outraised Trump 3-to-1 in September. Dayum. She brought in $222 million for the month while Trump limped to the barn with $63 million for the month. Hers is bigger. More: Politico (snip-MORE)