All posts tagged: couldnt

3 things I do with ChatGPT Work that I couldn’t with ordinary ChatGPT

3 things I do with ChatGPT Work that I couldn’t with ordinary ChatGPT

Published by Miika Tikkanen

ChatGPT is one of the apps I open daily. I already use ChatGPT as a deep research tool when I need to dig into a topic. If I opened a download page that made it hard to find what I was looking for, I had to ask ChatGPT where to click, then click everything myself. That started to change when OpenAI launched ChatGPT Work on July 9. OpenAI says Work is available on every plan in the desktop app, though it’s still rolling out to eligible accounts. It can take over a task for me, so I don’t waste time staring at the screen not knowing where I should click. That sounded too good to be true, so I spent several days testing it. Some things worked surprisingly well, and others had me wondering why I’d bothered. I connected ChatGPT Work to a folder on my Windows 11 PC It erased the images in a little over a minute I can upload files to a Chat mode, but it can’t open a folder on my …

I couldn’t tell my weeds from my berries — a few Claude photos sorted the bed out

I couldn’t tell my weeds from my berries — a few Claude photos sorted the bed out

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Last spring I planted blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries along the back of the yard, with tomatoes at the open end. This year the bed got away from me early, and by the time I dealt with it everything had filled in and started setting fruit. That should have made things easier. It didn’t. Brambles refuse to stay where you put them, wild ones look identical to the ones you paid for, and I had a cane fruiting in a gravel strip where I have never planted anything. So I photographed the plants one at a time and sent each shot to Claude with a note about what went in last year and where. I’d already had it clear a two-year photo backlog off my Mac, so pointing it at dirt wasn’t much of a leap. Naming the plants was never the hard part A berry bed that gets away from you stops being legible Raspberries push horizontal roots out under the soil and send up suckers as far as four to six feet from …

The Man Who Couldn’t Do It

The Man Who Couldn’t Do It

Published by Daniella Wilson

In the past decade, Britain has churned through leaders faster than the average fringe revolutionary sect. Earlier today, Keir Starmer became the sixth prime minister to announce his resignation since 2016. He managed just over 700 days in power. Departures from Downing Street have become so frequent that Starmer’s announcement followed a well-established grammar: A lectern was dragged in front of the black door of Number 10, the doomed leader’s loyal staff gathered at the side of the road, and an irritating protester disrupted the speech by blasting music outside the gates. Two years ago, an activist named Steve Bray greeted the departure of Starmer’s predecessor, Rishi Sunak, with D:Ream’s song “Things Can Only Get Better.” Today he played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” People often talk about how this is a country paralyzed by inaction, where nothing can get built and, as in the sketch show Little Britain, the computer always says no. Our failure to prevent moments of national importance—and personal devastation for the politicians involved—from being interrupted by one guy with a boom …

Tessa Thompson’s Three Latest Works Are Full of Rage—and She Couldn’t Be Happier

Tessa Thompson’s Three Latest Works Are Full of Rage—and She Couldn’t Be Happier

Published by Sam Flores

Tessa Thompson has at least one thing in common with her character, Anna, from the hit Netflix limited series His & Hers: They both went into hiding for a bit, though for very different reasons. Thompson, known for starring in a mix of blockbusters (the Creed and Thor franchises) and beloved indies (Sorry to Bother You and Passing), stepped out of the spotlight for about two years (her last films were Creed III and The Marvels, both released in 2023), in a purposeful move to focus on the work she wanted to do behind the camera. “It really required being honest with myself—if I could take the time away to not work, to not be on a set, to not be on a red carpet, to not be promoting something, but to be quiet and really be in the process of building something and developing something,” she tells Vanity Fair. “It’s been really generative for me, just to slow the pace a little bit.” This period of behind-the-scenes work allowed her to shape her production …

‘I Couldn’t Have Done It Without You’ | Frances Wilson, Chandler Fritz

‘I Couldn’t Have Done It Without You’ | Frances Wilson, Chandler Fritz

Published by José Betancourt

Halfway through her review of Liza Minnelli’s memoir, in our May 28 issue, Frances Wilson talks about love. Minnelli, she writes, has the “capacity to fall in love instantly, as though hypnotized.” This kind of helpless love is a trait that seems to unite many of the subjects Wilson has written about in the Review. Sybille Bedford’s “hunger for love was insatiable”; Patricia Highsmith could fall “in love at first sight and she could fall in love several times in one night.” In the Mitford family, the women “fell in love with their masters, whom they then worshiped,” and in Iris Murdoch’s world, “falling in love always happens instantly.” It also provides Wilson a window into her subjects’ deeper concerns, whether it’s George Orwell’s love for roses demonstrating the value he gave to pleasure or Minnelli’s love for her mother reflecting her fear of becoming her. This is not to say that love defines these people, but it certainly sets the stage. “Enter Minnelli’s ghoulish fourth husband,” Wilson writes, “the one we have all been …

9 Things a Woman Couldn’t Do in 1971

9 Things a Woman Couldn’t Do in 1971

Published by José Betancourt

More than a cen­tu­ry after women’s suf­frage in the Unit­ed States, it’s not enough to bone up on the plat­forms of female pri­ma­ry can­di­dates (though that’s an excel­lent start). A Twit­ter user and self-described Old Crone named Robyn urged her fel­low Amer­i­cans to take a good long gan­der at a list of nine free­doms that women in the Unit­ed States were not uni­ver­sal­ly grant­ed in 1971, the year Helen Red­dy released the soon-to-be anthem, “I Am Woman,” above. Even those of us who remem­ber singing along as chil­dren may expe­ri­ence some shock that these facts check out on Snopes. CREDIT CARDS: Pri­or to the Equal Cred­it Oppor­tu­ni­ty Act of 1974, mar­ried women couldn’t get cred­it cards with­out their hus­bands’ sig­na­tures. Sin­gle women, divorcees, and wid­ows were often required to have a man co-sign. The dou­ble stan­dard also meant female appli­cants were fre­quent­ly issued card lim­its up to 50% low­er than that of males who earned iden­ti­cal wages. PREGNANT WORKERS: The Preg­nan­cy Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act of 1978 pro­tect­ed preg­nant women from being fired because of their impend­ing mater­ni­ty. But it came with a major …

‘I couldn’t see, breathe or sing. I blacked out twice’: why are so many metal bands wearing masks?

‘I couldn’t see, breathe or sing. I blacked out twice’: why are so many metal bands wearing masks?

Published by Sam Flores

When US avant garde metal band Imperial Triumphant decided that their image needed a shake-up in 2015, they considered putting on corpse paint, the ghastly makeup popularised by 90s black metal. But, their singer/guitarist Zachary Ezrin says, they then realised how much effort it would take – and how uncool the post-gig rituals would feel: “You just rocked a show, and now you have to sit backstage and wipe off your makeup.” (Perish the thought of being the average female pop star.) They instead chose to wear striking gold masks modelled after 1920s art deco architecture, though these brought their own problems when they got lost in transit. “We had to do one show where Steve [Blanco, bass] was wearing a new mask that we put together from parts. We went to some Hungarian costume shop and just started grabbing stuff and piecing it together.” Or as Alpha, the masked and nameless frontman of Portuguese black metal band Gaerea says, “When you start to sweat, you can’t see shit, or breathe, or sing” if you’re …

Pam Bondi Couldn’t Possibly Succeed

Pam Bondi Couldn’t Possibly Succeed

Published by Sam Flores

Pam Bondi’s 421 days as attorney general of the United States came to an end in the only way they could have: with her being fired ignominiously via a social-media post. Donald Trump announced that Bondi, though a “Great American Patriot and a loyal friend,” will be “transitioning to a much needed and important new job” that, despite its great importance, remains a secret. Also, her new job will be in the private sector, which makes it a strange thing for a president to be determining—or at least this would be strange if the administration still observed traditional boundaries between public and private, which it does not. The attorney-general position under Trump has become a short-term gig not unlike the drummer in This Is Spinal Tap. Back in 2017, Trump chose his first nominee, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, specifically for his loyalty—Sessions was the first senator to endorse his campaign. But Sessions disappointed his boss by recusing himself from the Russia investigation and generally following department procedure, leading to his termination. From the March …

The Lecture I Couldn’t Give

The Lecture I Couldn’t Give

Published by Daniella Wilson

Last May, I gave a lecture at the Air War College, the Air Force’s senior service school for officers. I have taught at West Point and spoken at several other senior service schools. At the Air War College, I presented my work on the history of U.S. civil-military relations—research that later led to a book that was favorably reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and the military’s Joint Force Quarterly. The college was complimentary of my presentation and invited me to reprise my talk this school year. But last week, I was asked not to come after all. The professor who gave me the news was polite and professional, apologetic even. In a statement to The Atlantic, a spokesperson for Air University, the college’s parent institution, said, “Air University adjusted its academic schedule following the recent government shutdown, including the Air War College program, to prioritize core curriculum and program requirements. As a result, the scheduled guest lecture by Dr. Kori Schake was unable to be accommodated within the revised schedule. This was a command …

She wants my DACA boyfriend deported. I couldn’t forgive her

She wants my DACA boyfriend deported. I couldn’t forgive her

Published by Sam Flores

Sunday nights: an apartment overlooking the Pacific, Manchego and hummus, then down to the rec room for ping-pong. That was our ritual — sometimes four of us, sometimes six or seven, paddles rotating. I’d insisted on one rule: no politics. Meredith lived just up the street. In Los Angeles, where friendships often hinge on traffic patterns, that proximity mattered. She collected people like her dog collected burrs — random encounters in the park that somehow stuck. We were her strays, but for those hours each week, we became a small tribe bound by the sound of a ball against wood. This past March, we held a celebration of life for Peanut, Meredith’s ancient mutt who’d been our Sunday mascot. My boyfriend José came with me. Cara found us in a big armchair at the edge of the party — José and I snug together while 30-some people mingled, drinks in hand. “You two look so beautiful together,” she said, pulling out her phone. “It’s all about love, guys. I did ayahuasca once, and that’s what …