According to this opinion piece in the Farmington Independent, computer programs are attempting to take over dull newspaper article writing for topics such as local sports, financial news, and restaurant reviews.

From the article:

The machines are branching out, though. They’ve started generating stories about restaurants.To be fair, that’s another situation where “stepped to the dish” is a useful turn of phrase. Other sports terms are, of course, less useful. Particularly useless for restaurant-reviewing robots: “We’re gonna shock the world!” and, particularly, “It’s gut-check time.”

“Grand slam” could be useful, but only in the very specific situations when the computer is reviewing a Denny’s.

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Besides, there will always be things I can do that no robot can replicate. I bet I take better pictures than a computer, which can really only photograph the cubicle walls around it.

How many different articles do you think are worthy of being written automatically by a computer? Do you think that the majority of stuff that the local weeklies put out could be replaced? With most newspaper articles sticking to the facts and interjecting random quotes from those who are interviewed, do you think that it would be possible to do more automation in this area? What about opinion pieces, like restaurant reviews? Could I be out of a “job” and relegated to the back page now that a computer could do my job?

What would make you switch to a robot generated restaurant review over one written by a human? Would it be the pictures as mentioned in the article or would it be that there’s simply no way for a computer to understand the finer points of food? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.

According to this article via SunThisweek, following the announcement that one of the worst Commissioners to ever disgrace our fine county planned to step down, one of the worst mayors ever to disgrace Dakota County has announced that she plans to run to fill his spot.

From the article:

Having worked with Branning on city-county collaborations such as the Cedar corridor project and creation of the Dakota Communications Center, Hamann-Roland said her decision to run for county commissioner was motivated by a desire to continue the partnership-focused, community-building approach Branning brought to the board.

While no one is a stranger to my dislike of Mayor Mary, I have to admit the woman is very slick when it comes to the media and she can certainly fool people into thinking that she isn’t having her city staff members break the law while she campaigns for another four years she doesn’t intend to fully serve or convincing everyone that a $21 million transit station, which hasn’t been used in over a year, is art. However, considering that Will Branning was a mastermind of lying to the public while convincing them that he was working so very hard to waste our tax dollars so that his possible future replacement could hold the County ransom to get her way and have more bridges running over Cedar to unused transit stations.

While it’s likely Mayor Mary will become Commissioner Mary due to the poor pool of possible candidates to run against her, this comes down to one simple line item: Mayor Mary knowingly and purposefully misused city resources during her campaign in an attempt to win and should have been removed from office when she did. The fact that she is now happy to go to the County level and have at her disposal and even wider array of services and people to operate in an inappropriate manner is unacceptable. While negatively and illegally affecting the lives of 50,000+ people is awful and reprehensible, having the opportunity for her to negatively impact the lives of 400,000 is not something the voters should allow.

Mayor Mary should do herself and all of her potential constituents a favor and bow out of the Dakota County Commissioner race immediately. She is unfit for local office, never mind county office. She has purposefully misled taxpayers and attempted to hold millions of dollars in funding ransom so that she can tack her name on another plaque spanning a road which no one likes to drive in the first place. While she is mostly harmless at the city level, Mary Mayor does not deserve to be allowed to represent us at the County level. As taxpayers we must stand against her clearly unethical behavior and reject her in this coming election.

What do you think about Mayor Mary attempting to become Commissioner Mary? Do you agree that her unethical actions at various times in her career as mayor should weigh heavily on the voters as they mark who they believe should represent them at the county level? Do you think that Mayor Mary is capable of being an effective Dakota County Commissioner or do you see her doing more of the same–championing the buzzwords and fooling her constituents and the media into believing that her words are more than the paper they’re written on? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.