Daily Archives: June 7, 2020

Since the lockdown began, Devin Townsend has kept himself busy with his Quarantine Concerts and podcast series.

And now the Canadian musician has uploaded a stream titled Guitar Improvisation #1 a flowing ambient piece which clocks in at just over an hour.

Townsend says: Its been a strange week and I have been writing a lot of strange music. Amidst the more tumultuous stuff thats appeared, I often find it therapeutic for me to just simply play guitar in the mornings, and over the years I've kind of 'developed' a sort of chilled-out, ambient guitar technique.

This isn't meant to be focussed on, its meant to be a sort of wash that you can play while working, chilling, or creating something thats my hope at least.

I like playing like this, and in fact, I would say 80% of what I play with a guitar in my hand over the last decade or so ends up sounding something like this.

I had recorded some of it in the background of the podcasts which I will be continuing and was asked to post it, but it made more sense to me to do a fresh one here.

Townsend adds: Lots of people still think Im secretly the same raging metalhead I was in my mid 20s, but it has been a few decades since I legitimately felt that way.

This improvisation is one take with a bathroom break I edited out and I used a Sadowsky Telecaster and a Fractal AX-8 for the sound. Art for this and the podcast are done by my good friend Travis Smith at Seempieces.

Hopefully its helpful to some of you who need a sonic break. Thanks again for the ability to do this. Ill release this in a physical form if theres any interest. I really like echo.

Townsend will also release Empath: The Ultimate Edition this coming Friday (June 5) through InsideOutMusic.

The revamped version of his 2019 album will be spread across 2CDs and 2 Blu-ray and, along with the original album, will feature a wealth of bonus material, including demos and live cuts.

Devin Townsend: Empath - The Ultimate Edition

CD11. Castaway2. Genesis3. Spirits Will Collide4. Evermore5. Sprite6. Hear Me7. Why?8. Borderlands9. Requiem10. Singularity: Adrift11. Singularity: I Am I12. Singularity: There Be Monsters13. Singularity: Curious Gods14. Singularity: Silicone Scientists15. Singularity: Here Comes The Sun!

CD21. The Contrarian (Demo)2. King (Demo)3. The Waiting Kind (Demo)4. Empath (Demo)5. Methuselah (Demo)6. This Is Your Life (Demo)7. Gulag (Demo)8. Middle Aged Man (Demo)9. Total Collapse (Demo)10. Summer (Demo)

Blu-ray 11. Castaway (5.1 Surround Mix)2. Genesis (5.1 Surround Mix)3. Spirits Will Collide (5.1 Surround Mix)4. Evermore (5.1 Surround Mix)5. Sprite (5.1 Surround Mix)6. Hear Me (5.1 Surround Mix)7. Why? (5.1 Surround Mix)8. Borderlands (5.1 Surround Mix)9. Requiem (5.1 Surround Mix)10. Singularity: Adrift (5.1 Surround Mix)11. Singularity: I Am I (5.1 Surround Mix)12. Singularity: There Be Monsters (5.1 Surround Mix)13. Singularity: Curious Gods (5.1 Surround Mix)14. Singularity: Silicone Scientists (5.1 Surround Mix)15. Singularity: Here Comes The Sun! (5.1 Surround Mix)16. Castaway (Stereo Mix Visualizer)17. Genesis (Stereo Mix Visualizer)18. Spirits Will Collide (Stereo Mix Visualizer)19. Evermore (Stereo Mix Visualizer)20. Sprite (Stereo Mix Visualizer)21. Hear Me (Stereo Mix Visualizer)22. Borderlands (Stereo Mix Visualizer)23. Why? (Stereo Mix Visualizer)24. Requiem (Stereo Mix Visualizer)25. Singularity: Adrift (Stereo Mix Visualizer)26. Singularity: I Am I (Stereo Mix Visualizer)27. Singularity: There Be Monsters (Stereo Mix Visualizer)28. Singularity: Curious Gods (Stereo Mix Visualizer)29. Singularity: Silicone Scientists (Stereo Mix Visualizer)30. Singularity: Here Comes The Sun! (Stereo Mix Visualizer)

Blu-ray 21. Empath Documentary2. Empath Album Commentary3. Genesis 5.1 Mixing Lesson4. Acoustic Gear Tour5. Intro (Live in Leeds 2019)6. Let It Roll (Live in Leeds 2019)7. Funeral (Live in Leeds 2019)8. Ih-Ah (Live in Leeds 2019)9. Deadhead (Live in Leeds 2019)10. Love? (Live in Leeds 2019)11. Hyperdrive! (Live in Leeds 2019)12. Terminal (Live in Leeds 2019)13. Coast (Live in Leeds 2019)14. Solar Winds (Live in Leeds 2019)15. Thing Beyond Things (Live in Leeds 2019)16. King (Official Video)

Originally posted here:

Devin Townsend shares an hour of new ambient music - Louder

Can AI have intent, and if so, how will we know.

Lets start with a bit of a game or puzzle if you will.

These remarks all have something in common:

The devil made me do it

I didnt mean to be mean to you

Something just came over me

I wanted to do it

You got what was coming to you

My motives were pure

Whats that all about?

Ill wait a moment for you to mull over that question and form a potential answer.

Okay, now that you gave that some thought, you could answer that those are all various ways in which someone might express their intent or intentions.

In some instances, the person is seemingly expressing their intent directly, while in other cases they appear to be avoiding being pinned down on their own intentions and are trying to toss the intent onto the shoulders of someone or something else.

When we express our intent, there is no particular reason to necessarily believe that it is true per se.

A person can tell you their intentions and yet be lying through their teeth.

Or, a person can offer their intentions and genuinely believe that they are forthcoming in their indication, and yet it might be entirely fabricated and concocted as a kind of rationalization after-the-fact.

Consider too that a person might be offering acrid cynical remarks, for which their intention is buried or hidden within their words, and you accordingly need to somehow decipher or tease out the real meaning of their quips.

There is also the straightforward possibility that the person is utterly clueless about their own intention, and thus are unable to precisely state what their intent is.

And so on.

This naturally leads us to contemplate what intent or intention purports to consist of.

The common definition of intent or intention is that it involves the act of determining something that you want and plan to do, and usually emphasizes that the effort of intent encompasses mentally determining upon some action or result.

By referring to the mind or mental processing, the word intent opens quite a Pandoras box.

Simply stated, there is no ironclad way to know what someones mind contains or did contain.

We do not have any means to directly and fully interrogate the brain and have it showcase to us the origins of thoughts and how they came to exist. Our brains and our minds are locked away in our skulls, and the only path to figuring out what is going on consists of poking around from the outside or marginally so from the inside.

Now, yes, you can try using an MRI and other techniques to try and gauge the electromagnetic or biochemical activity of the brain, but be clear that this is a far cry from being able to connect-the-dots directly and be able to definitively indicate that this thought or that thought was derived from these neurons and those neurons.

We have not yet reversed engineered the brain sufficiently to make those kinds of uncontestable proclamations.

Overall, one could even argue that the whole concept of intent and intentions is somewhat obtuse and perhaps a construct of what we want to believe about our actions. Some would say that we want to believe that we do things for a reason, and therefore we offer that there is this thing called intent and thus it offers a rational explanation for what otherwise might be nothing of the kind.

For those that relish debating about the topic of free-will, perhaps none of us have any capability of intent and we are all pre-programmed to carry out acts, none of which relates to any personal intent and we are simply acting as puppets on a string (for more on my remarks about AI and free will, see this link here).

I dont want to go too far off the rails here but did want to mention the philosophical viewpoint that intent might not exist in any ordinary manner and we cannot assume as such that it does.

Since we are on a roll here about thinking widely, there is a handy catchphrase about intent from George Bernard Shaw that offers additional food for thought: We know there is intention and purpose in the universe, because there is intention and purpose in us.

Notice that this is quite reassuring, namely that since we generally believe that there is intention within us, ergo this somehow implies that there is an intention in the universe, and therefore we are able to remain sanguine and be comforted that everything has a meaning and intention (though some might counter-argue that the universe and we are all completely random and purposeless).

While we are on teetering on the edge of this precipice, lets keep going.

Maybe intent and intention is really a cover-up for the acts of humanity.

If you do something adverse, the intent might be a means to placate others about your dastardly deed and act as a distractor from the act committed.

On the other hand, maybe your act was well-intended, yet it led to something adverse, inadvertently and not by design, therefore your intention ought to be given due weight and consideration.

Time to quote another riveting insight about intent, this one by the revered George Washington: A mans intentions should be allowed in some respects to plead for his actions.

Note that Washingtons quote refers to mans intentions, but we can reasonably allow the meaning to include all of mankind, making the quote to encompass both men and women, restated as a persons intentions should be allowed in some respects to plead for their actions.

Overall, mankind certainly seems to have accepted the stark and generally unchallenged belief that there are intentions and that those intentions are crucial to the acts we undertake.

That being the case, what else has intentions?

Does your beloved pet dog or cat have intentions?

Do all animals have intentions of one kind or another?

There is an acrimonious debate about the idea that animals can form intentions.

Some say that it is obviously the case that they do, while others contend that they quite obviously cannot do so. The usual basis for arguing that animals cannot have intentions is that they mentally are too limited and that only humans have the mental capacity to form intent or intentions. Be careful making that brash claim to any dog or cat lover.

Can a toaster have an intention?

I ask because the other day, my toaster burnt my toast.

Did the toaster do so intentionally, or was it an unintentional act?

You might be irked at such a question and immediately recoil that the toaster obviously lacks any semblance of intent. It is merely a mindless machine that makes toast.

There isnt any there, there.

Without the ingredient or essential component of mental processing, you would seem to be hard-pressed to ascribe intent to something so ordinary and mechanical.

This brings us to a most intriguing twist and the intended focus of this discussion, namely, where does AI fit into this murky matter of intent and intention.

AI systems are increasingly becoming a vital part of our lives.

There are AI systems that do life-impacting diagnoses of X-ray charts and seem to discern whether there is disease present. There are AI systems that decide whether you can get a car loan that you wanted to obtain. Etc.

Is AI more akin to humans and therefore able to form intent, or is AI more similar to a toaster and unable to have any substance of intent?

Lest you think this is an entirely abstract point and not worthy of real-world attention, consider the legal ramifications of whether AI is able to form intent and whether this is noteworthy or not.

In our approach to jurisprudence, we give a tremendous amount of importance to intent, sometimes referred to as scienter in legal circles, and in criminal law make use of intent to ascertain the nature of the crime that can be assigned and the penalty that might ride with the crime undertaken.

As such, this AI-related intent insight by a legal research scholar seems especially apt here: Because intent tests often serve as a gatekeeper, limiting the scope of claims, they may entirely prevent certain claims or legal challenges from being raised when AI is involved.

And, after providing examples of AI used by the government and AI used by financial planning systems, the researcher offers these sobering thoughts: All of these problems threaten to leave AI unregulated either because defendants that use AI may never be held liable (e.g., the governments use of AI may prevent a showing of discriminatory intent) or claimants that rely on AI may be left without redress (e.g., because a plaintiff that uses AI to make investment decisions is unable to show reliance).

A toaster that goes awry will hopefully be a mildly adverse consequence (I can choose to eat the burnt toast or toss it into the trash), while if an AI system that is able to drive a car goes awry, the result can be catastrophic.

Using AI for the driving of cars is a life-or-death instance of AI that is emerging for use in our daily lives.

When you see a car going down the street and there isnt a human driver at the wheel, you are tacitly accepting the belief that the AI is able to drive the car and will not suddenly veer into a crowd of pedestrians or plow into a car ahead of it.

You might counter-argue that the same can said of human drivers, whereby when a human driver is at the wheel, you likewise are accepting the belief that the human will not suddenly ram into pedestrians or into other cars.

If the human did so, wed all be quickly looking for intent.

Can we do the same for AI driving systems in terms of the actions that they undertake, and does it make sense to even try to ascertain such AI-based intent?

Todays question then is this: As an example of AI and intent, do we expect AI-based true self-driving cars to embody intention and if so, what does it consist of and how would we know that it exists?

Lets unpack the matter and see.

The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars

True self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isnt any human assistance during the driving task.

These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-ons that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).

There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we dont yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.

Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).

Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars wont be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so theres not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as youll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).

For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public needs to be forewarned about a disturbing aspect thats been arising lately, namely that in spite of those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.

You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.

Self-Driving Cars And AI Intent

For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there wont be a human driver involved in the driving task.

All occupants will be passengers.

The AI is doing the driving.

Lets return to the discussion about intent.

Is the AI that can perform self-driving the same as a toaster?

Intuitively, we might right away proffer that the AI is not at all like a toaster and that making such a callous suggestion undercuts what the AI is accomplishing in being able to drive a car.

Before we dig further into this aspect, Id like to set the record straight about the AI that is able to drive a car.

Some assume that the AI needed to drive a car must be sentient, able to think and perform mental processing on an equivalent basis of humans. So far, thats not the case, and it seems that well be able to have AI-based self-driving cars without crossing over into the vaunted singularity (the singularity is considered the moment or occurrence of having AI that transforms from being everyday computational and becoming sentient, having the same unspecified and ill-understood spark that mankind seems to have, for more on this topic see my analysis here).

For the moment, remove sentience from this discussion as to the capabilities of AI, and assume that the AI being depicted is computer-based and has not yet achieved human-like equivalency of intelligence. If AI does someday arrive at the singularity, presumably we would need to have an altogether new dialogue about intent, since at that point the AI would be apparently the same as human intelligence in one manner or another and the role of intent in its actions would rightfully come onto the table, for sure.

Consider then these forms of intent:

1.Inscrutable Intent

2.Explicated Intent

3.AI Developer Intent

4.Inserted Intent

5.Induced Intent

6.Emergent Intent

Each of these forms of intent are significant in their own right and are not mutually exclusive, indeed they are overlapping and at times closely interrelated.

Understanding AI Intent

Lets start with the notion of inscrutable intent.

It could be that the AI system has an intent and yet we have no means to figure out what the intent is.

For example, the use of Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) oftentimes uses large-scale artificial neural networks (ANNs), which are essentially computer-based simulations of somewhat along the lines of what we believe brains do, though the ML/DL of today is extremely simplistic in comparison and not at all akin to the complexities of the human brain.

In any case, the ML/DL is essentially a mathematical model that is computationally being performed, out of which there is not necessarily any logical basis to explain the inner workings. There are just calculations and arithmetics taking place. As such, it is generally considered inscrutable if there is no ready means to translate this into something meaningful in words and sentences that would constitute an articulated indication of intent.

Next, consider explicated intent.

Some believe that we might be able to do a type of translation of what is happening inside the AI system, and as such, there is a rising call for XAI, known as explainable AI. This is AI that in one fashion or another has been designed and developed to provide an explanation for what it is doing, and thus one might say that could showcase explicated intent.

Many argue that you can just drop the whole worry about AI intention and look instead at the AI developer that crafted the AI.

Since AI is a human-created effort, the human or humans that put it together are the intenders, and therefore the intention of the AI is found within the intentions of those humans.

View post:

On The Beguiling Question Of Whether AI Can Form Intent, Including The Case Of Self-Driving Cars - Forbes

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The stock and options markets are suffering from what might be called Neropathy. Just as the Roman emperor Nero played his fiddle as Rome burned around his palace, the markets are seemingly oblivious to the pain and destruction that has enveloped much of the U.S. and the world.

Despite massive unemployment and severe economic contractions sparked by an as-yet incurable virus, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 index are nearing their highest levels ever. Not even days of nationwide protests sparked by the death of George Floyd while he was being arrested in Minneapolis have tarnished the stock markets momentum.

Tens of thousands of people are demonstrating in the streets, venting their anger about police brutality and social inequities that never seem to go away. President Donald Trump is bellicose. He berated governors for being weak, while his defense secretary told them to dominate the battlespace in their cities.

Earlier in the week, the Congressional Budget Office warned that it could take more than a decade for the economy to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Yet the stock market marches ever higher. A key measure of the risk of owning stocks, the Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, is purring like an innocent kitten that is lapping up dour economic reports like sweet milk.

Some credit the Federal Reserve for rescuing stocks for the second time in a decade with low rates and easy-money policies, but others fret that the mighty Fed put could ultimately be overcome by the added risks of the latest events.

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Michael Schwartz, Oppenheimer & Co.s chief options strategist, told Barrons that he is increasingly struck by the singularity of this moment in market history.

I have lived through many unique events over the past five decades on Wall Street, he says, but this market seems to defy all logic based on historical experiences and data.

Stock prices are driven by corporate earnings, and earnings are influenced by economic conditions here and abroad. The equity market doesnt seemingly reflect reality.

Since the S&P 500 bottomed on March 23, it has gained more than 37%, while many stocks and sector funds have experienced more dramatic advances.

Chris Jacobson, a Susquehanna Financial Group strategist, told clients that investors appear eager to look past headwinds including deteriorating relations between the worlds two largest economies, U.S. and China, that should suppress investor enthusiasm to buy equities.

The market is done with Buy the dip and sell the rip. Its now Buy the dip and buy the rip, Dennis Dick, a Bright Trading proprietary trader, tweeted on Wednesday.

Many investors are caught in the middle. They arent willing to sell and miss this extraordinary rally, but dont want to put new money in stocks at these high levels. We know that people are curious about how to participate in the stock market without taking on incredible risk. A solution: selling put or call options on the S&P 500.

Calls give a buyer the right to buy stocks at a certain price and time; selling them is a bet on the markets expected trading range. Puts give a buyer the right to sell stocks at a certain time and price; selling them expresses a view that prices will rally higher.

If the sellers are right, they collect a wad of cash, and if they are wrong, they roll the trade to another month and try again. Tax treatment is favorable60% of gains are taxed at long-term rates, while 40% are taxed as short-term gains.

The traditional S&P 500 trade is selling puts or calls that are 100 points above or below the indexs level, but some investors are updating the strategy to reflect the current market. They are using strike prices that are 200 points away from the market, reflecting the extraordinary price swings that now define this Neropathic market.

Email: editors@barrons.com

See the original post:

How to Play a Market That Shrugs Off Everything - Barron's

The big question around any new handheld is always: what's going to be the new Tetris? For the DS, I'm tempted to say Tetris was Zoo Keeper. For the PSP, Tetris was definitely Lumines, a game that, on a good day, is arguably even better than Tetris in the first place. The Switch? The Switch is such an idiosyncratic console, so strange and yet so familiar. It makes sense, really, that the Switch's Tetris was Tetris.

Kind of. In fact it was Puyo Puyo Tetris, and I don't care what you have to say about Zelda, this cut-price puzzle game, a port of a game first released in 2014, was all you needed for the Switch in the early days. (I appreciate it just missed launch.)

Puyo Puyo Tetris is Tetris and Puyo Puyo. It plays a lovely game of Tetris, with simple readable blocks, lots of colour, and all of the various upgrades like hold and soft- and hard-drops and ghosts. It also plays a lovely game game of Puyo Puyo, the stickiest, sugariest puzzle game of all time in which little blobs of gel fall from the ceiling and must be dealt with.

Listen, though. There is the special harmony of disharmony here. Tetris is sharp and hard-edged, all about shape rather than colour. Puyo Puyo is soft and squishy and as concerned with colour as it is with anything else. You clear Puyo by matching colours, which is very different to clearing Tetriminos by making a line. It's the difference between making a dessert and building a garage. What would ever happen if these two games came together?

Reader, they come together. They come together in Fusion mode. I cannot pretend Fusion mode is my most played part of Puyo Puyo Tetris - in truth I am so committed to Tetris in its purity that I find it hard to pull myself away for long. But Fusion mode still waits there on the select screen and makes me wonder. Something frightening about it really. You know how there's meant to be a supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy, and sometimes it's nice to just sit there of an evening and stare at the sky and be gently creeped out by the idea of this huge, largely incomprehensible force of nature roaring away at the middle of everything above our heads? So it's nice to play Tetris, a game I feel I understand, and consider Fusion, a game that is constantly surprising and alarming.

Fusion is something else. It's not just that you sit there while Puyos fall one minute and Tetriminos fall the next like the whole universe is broken. It's not just that these things refuse to actually fuse when they're in the well together - you still have to think about colour with Puyos and lines with Tetriminos. It's that occasionally something weird happens. Okay, not really occasionally. Tetriminos have weight in this world, which means that when they land on Puyos, they sink through them, and then the Puyos rain down again from above.

I wish I could tell you this is the end of it. But in fact it's the start of it. The start of your understanding, the start of the long road to Fusion mastery. Chains! Blocks that shift between Puyo and Tetriminos as they fall! The absolute wild heresy of a couple of new shapes of Tetrimino!

At the end of this is the Smash-Stack, in which you add to a smashing Tetrimino even as it's still moving. Yes. Take a moment to consider that. And at the end of the Smash-Stack is the eight-line clear Smash-Stack. Eight lines.

This is the puzzle game singularity, right here, where time stops and matter is compacted, whole galaxies served up on a teaspoon. Fusion is a game where strange, improbable things can happen. One day, I tell myself, I will master it and understand all of this for myself.

Read the original here:

The Double-A Team: Puyo Puyo Tetris takes puzzling beyond the infinite - Eurogamer.net

"Chromatica," Lady Gaga

In the 12 years since Lady Gaga dropped her first album, the singer has exceptionally shown that she knows how to create a killer album. "The Fame" was danceable and clever. "The Fame Monster" was an epic adventure into her darker mind. "Born This Way" brilliantly wove in elements of rock and house with her signature pop. Though she might have tripped over her disco ball on "ARTPOP," the album still had direction and character. And "Joanne" was a deep, emotional set of songs that paved the way for the sound of "A Star is Born," a flawless album that captures all the great sides of Gaga. Enter "Chromatica," her sixth studio effort, and her return to the electro dance-pop sound that made her a multiplatinum pop star. It's an album made for the clubs, though during this current pandemic, that's equivalent to dancing alone in front of your floor mirror. But instead of bopping along to the album, you'll want to social distance from it. "Chromatica" is a letdown from one of pop's best voices. The production, which is basic, is the album's biggest problem and the flat sound doesn't help bring the heavy themes of the album to life like Gaga has been able to do in the past. BloodPop works as lead producer, co-crafting most songs on the project. But other helpers are also part of the process, including Max Martin, Skrillex, Ryan Tedder, Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, Justin Tranter, BURNS, Rami Yacoub and Tchami. Too many cooks in the kitchen could be the reason the album lacks real flavor. Where is the salt, or spark? "Alice," one of the better songs on the 16-track set, opens the album as Gaga sings, "My name isn't Alice/But I'll keep looking, I'll keep looking for Wonderland." Her search isn't over if "Chromatica" is any indication this feels like a watered-down version of the creative Gaga we all love. In an interview to promote the album, she explained that "Free Woman" was about her sexual assault and "Rain on Me" was partly about her overdrinking. The topics are real and at times, extremely heavy, and Gaga gets points for sharing her real-life feelings and experiences in her music. But the album's production doesn't serve as the best vessel for those deep emotions to breathe. And her vocal performance, surprisingly plain and unmemorable, doesn't help either. Sometimes it feels like Gaga isn't even present. Some of the lyrics feel lazy, too. On "Plastic Doll" she sings, "I've lived in a pink box so long/I am top shelf, they built me strong." Enter side-eye emoji here. Gaga fares better on tracks such as "Replay," or even "911" and "Babylon," though both songs sound like leftover tracks from "Born This Way." But most of "Chromatica" is problematic: First single "Stupid Love" is forgettable; "Enigma" is predictable; and the inclusion of the chart-topping Ariana Grande on the bouncy but super-mediocre "Rain on Me" screams, "I JUST WANT A NO. 1 HIT RIGHT NOW." Having little depth, the best way to describe "Chromatica" might be shallow. Mesfin Fekadu, The Associated Press

"Carry Me Home. A Reggae Tribute to Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson," The Archives

The Archives, a reggae band from Washington, D.C., pay an inspired tribute to the late, groundbreaking soul and jazz poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron and his collaborator Brian Jackson on songs from the 1970s that are still powerfully relevant today. Founded and led by keyboardist Darryl "Trane" Burke, who produced the album with Eric Hilton of Thievery Corporation, The Archives play at a very high level. With some notable guests, including Jackson himself, they've made a very fine album. The band's homebase is a connection Scott-Heron and Jackson lived in the city and the area for years and the reggae versions aren't a random stylistic choice either, as Scott-Heron's father was a Jamaican soccer player. Opener "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" is like a first-person update of John Prine's heartbreaking "Sam Stone." Instead of the addict's child lamenting the father's torment, the junkie himself tells the tale "Home is where I live inside my white powder dreams." Puma Ptah's vocals and a horn section both add degrees of drama. Scott-Heron's best-known composition, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," is stripped of most of its lengthy lyrics, a sensible choice as, for example, neither Spiro Agnew nor John Mitchell mean today what they did during the Nixon era and trying to update the references may have been an unnecessary step too far. "Who'll Pay Reparations on My Soul?" draws power from its harsh questions and all-too-familiar life story, while "Must Be Something" features Jackson as one of three vocalists, their singing the best part of a great arrangement. Raheem DeVaughn puts some very touching Marvin Gaye-like vocals on "A Toast to the People" and Jackson plays a Grandmother Moog on "Winter in America," another classic he co-wrote with Scott-Heron. "Carry Me Home" is a true labor of love that respectfully but bravely re-imagines a selection of great songs while placing a much-deserved spotlight on a pair of pioneers whose messages continue to ring too true. Pablo Gorondi, The Associated Press

"Time Traveler," Jason Wilber

Lucky man, Jason Wilber. For 24 years he traveled the world with a stage pass to every John Prine concert. Wilber was Prine's lead guitarist, and a terrific one at that. "Time Traveler" features the sideman doing his side gig as a singer-songwriter himself, and the album carries poignancy because of Prine's death last month at age 73 from coronavirus complications. The album's 12 songs don't really echo Prine, or the twang of Nashville. Wilber sounds more like a seasoned balladeer at a campus coffeehouse in, say, Bloomington, Indiana, which happens to be his hometown. The album was recorded there well before Prine's death, so it's a coincidence the songs are appropriately reflective and wistful, the tempos mostly mid, the arrangements intimate. Wilber simultaneously is releasing a four-song EP titled "Honey Bee," which has a bigger sound and even makes a late push into bouncy pop on "Free (The Singularity)." Wilber's plaintive tenor wears well throughout as he touches on a wide range of topics. He makes like Rocket Man on "Living In Space," gets the seasonal blues with "On Holidays," and considers the tangled web known as the internet on "Spider." "If We Were Free" seems especially pertinent to the present moment when Wilber sings, "Outside our walls a world burns." While Wilber goes solo, he doesn't solo much. For a better sample of his guitar skills, check out the 2010 set "John Prine: In Person & On Stage." Steven Wine, The Associated Press

Excerpt from:

Album Reviews: Lady Gaga, The Archives and Jason Wilber - Worcester Telegram

By JOHN KAMAU

By making subtle changes within the structure of government, including the name of his office from The Presidency to the Executive Office of the President, President Uhuru Kenyatta has left many confused on the hidden political agenda.

Executive Order No. 1 of 2020 issued Wednesday evening caused a stir with some commentators interpreting the changes to mean the Deputy President's office had been downgraded and tucked under the Executive Office of the President.

This innocent looking nomenclature change has huge legal implications... President denotes singularity of power ... Presidency is shared power, lawyer Donald Kipkorir said in a message on Twitter.

But some constitutional lawyers said nothing has changed, explaining the order as a mere regularisation of changes in government.

In the reorganisation, the National Development Implementation and Communication Committee, headed by Dr Fred Matiangi is not listed as one of the functions of the Interior ministry. Instead, a new role designated as Oversight and Co-ordination in delivery of National Priorities and Flagship Programmes has been created.

Whether the creation of the Cabinet as an institution under OP will lead to power shifts is not clear.

In the previous order, the Cabinet did not exist under institutions and was only listed as a function within the Presidency. It now means that President Kenyatta will have to appoint a substantive Secretary to the Cabinet, a position that is highly regarded within the government.

With the ongoing shifts in the political arena, whoever gets the seat will assume a superior position. The position was scrapped after President Kenyattas attempt to appoint Monica Juma into the seat hit a snag when he failed to get parliamentary approval in 2015.

By renaming the Presidency, the President also appeared to whittle down some of the glamour that comes with a presidential system perhaps in preparation for the constitutional changes proposed under the Building Bridges Initiative.

With this arrangement, DP William Ruto does not get any portfolio, and has to wait to be assigned duties. While he did not appoint his own staff, and his accounting officer was the State House Comptroller, Dr Ruto appears not to have lost anything other than glamour.

Also now within the Office of the President is the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) headed by Major General Mohamed Badi.

The NMS will now draw its funding from the Consolidated Funds Services (CFS), according to the new order. The order of January 14, and revised last month, thus gives NMS legal backing.

Without a legal instrument, the legitimacy of NMS has always been a subject of discussion with opinion among MPs divided whether it should draw funding from the CFS or the County Revenue Fund (CRF).

The PO shall also now be in charge of parliamentary liaison as well as co-ordination of constitutional commissions. The latter is likely to raise eyebrows considering that the commissions are supposed to be independent from the other arms of government.

In February, State House brokered a deal with Nairobi City County that saw the national government take over key functions from the devolved unit. Planning and management, transport, public works, health and ancillary services were transferred in the deal, which became effective on March 15. However, the NMS ran into headwinds in executing its functions after Governor Mike Sonko declined to sign the Countys Supplementary Appropriation Bill, 2020, effectively locking out of the Sh15 billion to implement the functions.

To save the NMS from a financial crisis, the national government allocated it Sh1.5 billion in the Supplementary Budget II approved by the National Assembly in April. In the 2020/21 budget estimates, the National Treasury has allocated NMS Sh27.9 billion.

This week, President Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga were sighted in Nairobi, at night inspecting the work being carried out by the NMS. The NMS is one of the projects that the President is updated on daily.

The executive order is copied to all key government institutions includng the Attorney-General, Cabinet Secretaries, Chief Administrative Secretaries, Principal Secretaries.

Why an executive order that was issued on May 11 was released Wednesday remains baffling.

Additional reporting by David Mwere.

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Changes in Executive Order raise eyebrows - Daily Nation