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New and Experienced Climbers over 50 #39
Alan Rubinwrote: Yes, Shockley, the Nobel laureate, had some very reprehensible beliefs. And he did have a son who was a great climber (a Stonemaster) and very good person, according to a friend who was a close friend of his. Interesting how people in the same family can be so different. https://www.climbing.com/culture-climbing/a-climber-we-lost-richard-dick-shockley/ |
Ward Smithwrote: While out marinating on a favorite ledge this morning I was thinking about you, Ward. You have been the inspiration and the reminder that we are now playing the Long Game in the climbing world, and in life. Nothing comes fast and easy anymore, but maybe that's because we pick the big/best challenges now. Ones worthy of lengthy effort. I hope you made progress on your boulder. I hope you had (are having) a wonderful time in Arizona, trying even if not yet sending. But hopefully sending. --- I haven't climbed in months, so this is working my patience. But thinking about Ward's boulder, mine will be there too when I get back. From this perch I can look up and left to see this incredible formation, and I always gasp at its beauty. How did I ever manage this? Like... I'm OLD. I'm not an athlete. I just really wanted it.    I have been wondering if there is possibly an alternate route up the right side, all the way to the top. (no climbing on the upper face). --- Not to pick a fight, but I think of the conversation we have had here re AI music... almost all on the negative side. But, I've continued to listen. At this point I've listened to a large part of Eminem's catalogue, music I would never have otherwise heard. Not that I'm the expert... but those who love Eminem say things like "Really highlights how good Eminem's raw songwriting skills are." "Straight fucking fire". "I freaking love this. "Good lord, this is beautiful, and painful and perfect. Holy Cow." I've had the chance to sit down and read through some of his brilliant wordcraft. I just wouldn't have even followed along his original rap but I'm grateful for the emotion and talent. I've been missing a lot. So, I'm still not sure what the harm is. First, it's here, it ain't going away. Second, Eminem is credited on every song. Third, it's driving people TO his original work. Does the artist get paid when another band does a cover? Who gets paid when someone rewrites a song or puts a different spin on it? https://youtu.be/oyKCazChE7g?si=Qc3dQZC-U4ZURJwz ---- BTW, I re-listened to an early Honnold podcast, Climbing Gold #4, "The Invisible Cord" interviewing John Gill. It's a great interview and highlights John's early contributions to modern bouldering. I really liked the story of one of John's early hiking scrambling adventures in Colorado, a total novice, just going for it. I wish I had an 'invisible cord'. I got shorted somehow. --- Carl, I'm with you. You're past your depression season, though, right? Wonder what the deal is. |
Brad Youngwrote: Uh-oh, hopefully the stories painted us all in a good light! Brad, we obviously both have no recollection of this past meeting! maybe someday we will meet again. |
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Periodically, I feel the need to take a break from road trips. Right now I could be climbing with two different lovely sets of people that I really like, who invited me to join them in two places I really like, but instead I decided to stay home and clean some areas rugs and re-seal my concrete floors. In between floor coats, I got a really good workout with my sweetie in at the climbing gym on Thursday:  And today we did our "backyard hike" from Manker Flat (elev. 6100') to the Baldy Notch (7800'), 7 miles RT. The parking at Manker Flat was crazy packed and as we started hiking we realized today was the day of the Hike for Heroes for Veteran's Day. The trail itself wasn't crowded at all, I think we must have started a lot later than the participants. The skytrail is from four planes flying in very tight formation. Thanks to all the Veterans here for their service. You all made and make huge sacrifices for the rest of us.  We are expecting a significant rain later next week and I wonder if this is the last week we'll see the Bowl and summit free of snow. |
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All this Shockley talk, I have probably posted this before but here I am in the 70’s as a high school hippie on the crux. My friend Steve had a great day today and onsighted a crimpy 5.8+ and an amazing 18 bolt 5.8. I am going to hit the boulder hard tomorrow.  |
Lori Milaswrote: Hi Lori, an issue with the “ai“ generated covers is that many artists believe that they are violations of intellectual property and can be created and released at a pace that suing or other legal means like injunctions can‘t be effective. Please realize that undertaking legal action is a very expensive and slow process that most likely is the last thing any artist want to spend time and resources on. Eminem has already sued Meta for copyright violations and has spoken of his belief in the idea of intellectual property. Jimmy Page has also shared his thoughts about how “ai“ generated music is a violation of IPR. If you‘re on instagram you may find some of what he said on his page. It may have been part of his stories so it might not be up any longer. I definitely don‘t think that you‘re picking a fight about this. I‘m not either. It is a complex topic worthy of discussion, but so far I stand with the opinions of the human artists over a machine of aggregation. |
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Some pics from my hike today.        |
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“Hi Lori, an issue with the “ai“ generated covers is that many artists believe that they are violations of intellectual property and can be created and released at a pace that suing or other legal means like injunctions can‘t be effective. Please realize that undertaking legal action is a very expensive and slow process that most likely is the last thing any artist want to spend time and resources on. Eminem has already sued Meta for copyright violations and has spoken of his belief in the idea of intellectual property. Jimmy Page has also shared his thoughts about how “ai“ generated music is a violation of IPR. If you‘re on instagram you may find some of what he said on his page. It may have been part of his stories so it might not be up any longer. I definitely don‘t think that you‘re picking a fight about this. I‘m not either. It is a complex topic worthy of discussion, but so far I stand with the opinions of the human artists over a machine of aggregation.” Daniel… Thank you for being so gentlemanly about this. I’m going to be brave and keep airing some thoughts here. Appreciate your response above. First of all, from a purely practical point of view, AI is here and it’s staying, right? I am shocked how much AI is added to YouTube and Instagram every day. So it’s not going away. I don’t see any way to get rid of even what’s already here. (it reminds me a little of the ongoing argument over vinyl records versus CD. A true purist swears he/she can tell the difference. I have youngish acquaintances who will only listen to vinyl records.) So how much legal control do artists have over their own creations? Can they control who can perform their music and in what manner? What if a singer or band completely rewrites a melody, but credits the original artist with the lyrics? What if a singer or band uses advanced computer technology to change the original song—isn’t that the equivalent of AI? Selfishly I gotta admit some joy over having a whole new catalog of music to listen to that is really great and really satisfying. Heck, I actually liked Dr. Dre and a song called “Sorry” by Justin Bieber. Then I went back to the originals and enjoyed those. So this opens up a lot of new music for me. I’m sure Apple Music and Spotify and all the rest are having plenty of board meetings over this. The public is going to have this music one way or another… now how do they make it right for the artists? (Except Jimmy Page. No one can touch Page’s music, ever. ) |
Lori Milaswrote:
Just read your posts about AI music. AI companies are spending billions of dollars to overwhelm the internet and world with AI in order make people believe it is inevitable. It seems to be working, unfortunately. I don't accept that. Your positive reception of these AI cover songs reminds me of a recent video that talks about Joe Rogan loving this one AI cover of a 50 cent song and he says it's his favorite song. He tries to push it onto all of his guests. It's so sad to see people buy in to this. https://youtu.be/DUIo20nsBEQ?si=vGZvJ6G9rF0RD_H3 |
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Anybody know how to get Spotify to not include AI generated music in playlists they generate (I.e. ‘Release Radar’)? That’s not gonna stop the impending singularity, but would be nice to control the influence of such things, at least in small ways. |
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Dibs on "Impending Singularity" as a new route name.... |
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I’m taking offense here but I’ll try to throttle back. Sounds like the consensus is I’ve been duped, bamboozled, targeted with crap AI music and I’m too dumb to know the difference. I’m just being honest about my surprising response to some of what I’ve recently heard. I listen to A LOT of music. And I’m asking legit questions about how it all works… how it’s different from any other artist or musician doing a cover or reworking an established song. How or whether the original artist is credited and compensated. Some of it is godawful and won’t get a second listen. Some of it is brilliant and a few renditions are better than the original. It occurs to me that this could be distantly related to a new series on Apple TV called Pluribus where all the humans on planet Earth have been infected by an alien virus that makes them happy and homogenous – – and the few uninfected would say unhuman. The question is if you could be completely happy and peaceful with this virus, would you take it? BRAD: I think that route name would fit right in on Cap Rock where there already exists “Event Horizon” and “Space Odyssey”. |
Lori Milaswrote: Attempting to clearly state what influences an individuals preference regarding art and music seems like an impossible situation. Some forms appeal to some people sometimes and some forms never appeal to some people anytime. Simply stated, some people prefer the color blue and some people prefer the color red. It‘s just subjective preference. Artists who dedicate energy and time to hone skills to create works that moves other people are like athletes who dedicate their lives to training and discipline to achieve their goals. People who use “ai“ to manipulate the work that human artists create are like athletes who use performance enhancing drugs to shortcut training and discipline. The results of both groups can be interesting, but at the end of the day, the first group is the real deal and gets my utmost respect and admiration. My path in life is about overcoming my perceived limitations and working on this with the woman that I love. If a virus made us happy and peaceful what would be our purpose? This virus scenario sounds like a recipe for a dull and listless society. Maybe the real threat of “ai“ is the homogenous reality that it encourages. For me, the beauty of live music is the improvisation and harmonics that happen when the artists performs in different emotional states. Cueing up prompts to generate a product is like a virus that generates “happiness“and both shortcut methods lack the variability that makes life exciting and sustainable. I hope that you don‘t take offense to what I have written, it‘s not my intent to offend anyone, it‘s just my unique perspective. |
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Excellent post Daniel!!!' I've really tried to avoid thinking about this AI stuff too much, but you encapsulated my feelings. Realistically I know that I will no longer be around when the full impact hits humanity, but I fear for our children's, grandchildren's and future generations. |
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Its pure Evil and the bad people in the world will take full advantage of it. Everything you saw in the Terminator movies back in the 80's is all true now.. |
Alan Rubinwrote: Thank you Alan, that means a lot to me coming from a man with your experience. I really hope that the flavor of life that we‘re fortunate to experience is not lost for future generations. Your realism about not being around to see the full impact is exactly what my 84 year old father says too, and he also avoids overthinking the situation. It‘s a good reminder to me as well. |
Brad Youngwrote: It’s all yours, man. If you could embed credit for it in the metadata of the name, that would be a nice gesture. |
apogeewrote: My friend Steve just retired from being a software engineer for that big red fruit computer company. I'll ask him what this ^^^ means and if it is a good idea ;) And Lori, I like your thinking on route names, but I suspect that Cap Rock has no room for new climbs. |
Lori Milaswrote: You say that you want to understand why AI music is bad. This guy explains the current situation quite well in simple terms. He goes over how people use simple text prompts to create songs in seconds with little to no effort and flood the market with this slop. Please take a few minutes to watch. It is only 5 minutes long. |
Brad Youngwrote: OMG Brad.... I would not challenge a good climber here to find space for a new route. They'll find it. I have a favorite route on Cap Rock... Black Ice... neither here nor there, but it's just one of those to try. It's just a perfect patch of blackish rock, smooth, and hard. I've been wanting to go back and try a little harder. Got it all but one move. The rock is so nice. --- I do hope we can return to this AI conversation from time to time. It's SO new, and took a lot of us by surprise. In theory, I would have said "NO WAY". Nothing fake or phony for me. But in practice, I wonder if it might be better to look at along the lines of any consumer purchase: if it's good, it's a keeper, and if it's bad music, no one will want it. If AI has figured out a way to make music more delightful, compelling, resonating.. then we'll find a way to have it. (Not to throw Tony under the bus, but he's been so ADAMANT that he hates rap, and will not listen to it, ever. So, I played my favorite version of Love The Way You Lie... just to see his reaction. He got very interested in the lyrics, the poetry... and had to admit that he loved the song. Now he would consider listening to actual Eminem... I doubt he will love it.) I was also thinking about Musak. Wasn't that the 'elevator' version of Stairway to Heaven that we all hated? (My mother loved it). Pretty much shredded popular songs into bland instrumental... I'm not sure how Zep would feel about what they did to The Immigrant Song. Was it copyright infringed? Did anyone clutch their pearls over this? It was awful... most importantly we refused to buy it. I think life progresses, and this may be a part of that evolution. |
