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If you've ever found yourself thinking about a problem or a situation over and over again, you might be an over-thinker like our storytellers. In this week's episode, both of our storytellers think about something too much and for too long. Part 1: Clinical psychologist Saren Seeley can't stop obsessing about her research. Part 2: In therapy, comedian Nat Towsen realizes he's always thinking too much. Saren H. Seeley is a postdoctoral fellow in the Psychiatry Department at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her neuroimaging research investigates mechanisms of adaptation (or difficulty in adapting) after life-changing events – such as the death of a loved one or trauma exposure. Originally from New York, Saren completed a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Arizona where she received an NIH F31 fellowship for her dissertation work on dynamic brain network functioning in partner-bereaved older adults. Nat Towsen is a comedian and nonfiction writer from Manhattan, New York. He has written for Esquire, Vice, CollegeHumor, and The Onion. He also works at Botnik Studios, using AI to write comedy. In pre-pandemic times, he toured the country and abroad to perform standup and work with cultural programs, teaching about comedy as a tool in activism and for addressing mental health. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bob Mankoff, Cartoonist and Author talks about why you should "Work in batches of 10", why "Talent is the ticket but that's all " and the why you should "Appreciate when 'good' is 'good enough'". Hosted by Duff Watkins. About Bob Mankoff For over 40 years, Bob Mankoff has been the driving force of comedy and satire at some of the most honored publications in America, including The New Yorker and Esquire. He has devoted his life to discovering just what makes us laugh and seeks every outlet to do so, from developing The New Yorker's web presence to integrating it with algorithms and A.I. Mankoff is currently the cartoon editor at the weekly online newsletter Air Mail. A student of humor and creativity, Mankoff's presentations largely focus on the creative process, from writing a successful New Yorker cartoon to inspiring creativity in others and enhancing ideas with A.I and big data. With his storied career of editing literally thousands of cartoons, Mankoff brings a hugely entertaining night of laughs, tips to bring humor to the workplace, and the option of participating in a cartoon caption contest. In 2018, Mankoff founded and launched Cartoon Collections, parent company to CartoonStock.com, a new spin on the Cartoon Bank, the world's most successful cartoon licensing platform that he founded in 1992. At CartoonStock.com, Bob has brought together cartoons from the New Yorker and previously unavailable cartoons from National Lampoon, Esquire, Playboy, and Barron's to create the largest cartoon licensing source on the planet. With comedy writer and developer Jamie Brew, Mankoff runs Botnik Studios, a network of writers, artists, and programmers who create software that augments human creativity with big data analytics. During his recent stint at Esquire, Mankoff revived the magazine's legacy of satire and humor, editing humor pieces, providing story ideas, and drafting his own cartoons. For twenty years as Cartoon Editor for The New Yorker, Mankoff pored over thousands of submissions each week, analyzing, critiquing, and selecting each cartoon. He mentored cartoonists, new and old, toward the laughs readers expect. In 2005, he helped start the “New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.” With 5,000 reader submissions a week and millions of entries to date, Mankoff partnered with Microsoft and Google Deep Mind to develop algorithms to help cull the funniest captions. Bob is the author of numerous books, including his New York Times bestselling memoir, How About Never – Is Never Good For You?: My Life In Cartoons, of which the Washington Post wrote, “Mankoff's deep understanding of humor, both its power and its practice, is the live wire that crackles through his book.” His latest book, Have I Got a Cartoon for You!: The Moment Magazine Book of Jewish Cartoons, was released in October, 2019. Mankoff's career started, unexpectedly, by quitting a Ph.D program in experimental psychology at the City University of New York in 1974. Shortly after, he began submitting cartoons to the New Yorker. Three years and over 2,000 cartoons later, he finally made the magazine and has since published over 950 cartoons. His story and day-to-day at the magazine were the focus of the 2015 HBO documentary Very Semi-Serious. Mankoff has taught classes at Swarthmore, Fordham, and led workshops on the creative process Episode Notes Lesson 1. Work in batches of 10 06:25 Lesson 2. Amateur's love their own work, professionals don't 11:14 Lesson 3. More problems are caused by respect than disrespect 14:44 Lesson 4. Talent is the ticket but that's all 17:39 Lesson 5. Don't rue and stew 24:40 Lesson 6. Originality is overrated 32:33 Lesson 7. Appreciate when 'good' is 'good enough' 36:39 Lesson 8. Find your sweet spot of fame 40:16 Lesson 9. Play the cards you're dealt but know the game you're in 47:32 Lesson 10. The office will always be there, your talent and opportunity won't 55:38
This week, we are joined by writer and comedian Nat Towsen from Botnik Studios! He shares a bit about his…
This week, we get an update on a ProcJam 2019 entry and a hilarious Harry Potter piece from Botnik Studios.…
This week’s guest is Nat Towsen, a stand-up comedian and writer for Botnik Studios. Nat talks about curating a wardrobe, traveling with that wardrobe, the freedom of dressing with limitations, and shopping internationally (oh, the sales!). You can follow Nat on Instagram at @nattowsen. Follow @enlightenmyloafers on Instagram for show notes, style inspo, and more.
It’s the summer episode, man! Allison and Justin are on vacation this week and all about good chilled out fun.…
This week, we are joined by a special guest, Jonah Cooper, from one of our favorite creative forces, Botnik! Jonah…
Today on Talkward is musical comedy extraordinaire Jessica Delfino! Jessica is a critically acclaimed and award winning comedic musician who has performed her quirky comedy songs all over the world. She launched the New York Comedy Music Festival (first called the Funny Songs festival) in 2012. We discuss her newest album ‘Songs To make War to (14 Anarchist Anthems for the Whole Family)' Botnik Studios, Mom Comedy shows and she reads me with her 40% accurate Psychic powers!Called “Lower East Side’s Queen of Obscene” by The Village Voice and awarded a “Voice Choice” Award for “Best Guitar Slinging Comedian”, the “ECNY Best Comedic Musician” award, and a finalist in the Andy Kaufman Award, Jessica has appeared on Good Morning America, The Jim Gaffigan Show, CNN’s Stroumboulopoulos, at the infamous Reading and Leeds Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Fest, Dublin Comedy Festival, on stage with Weird Al Yankovic in the Apocalypse Tour and much more. Follow her on twiter and insta at @jessicadelfino and jessicadelfino.com
Can AI be creative? If you believe the hype, AI will one day automate even the most creative jobs in advertising, fashion design, art, music and literature. But will it? To find out, host Jessica Chobot turns to Botnik Studios and its AI software to write a sitcom script—with an ocean of sitcoms from the 1980s and 90s providing the universe from which predictive text will draw inspiration. And then she delivers these bot-generated lines in front of a live audience. Will she get laughs, or will she need to be saved by a laugh track? Find out in the “AI for Creativity” episode of AI: Hype vs. Reality. But first, hear from AI-augmented artist Harshit Agrawal, Machine Learning Musician Pierre Barreau, and Taryn Southern – a real human but an AI pop-artist. They'll discuss the myths and realities behind what creativity really can be, what the limits of our imagination and AI’s capabilities are, and wonder just how long it will be before AI does most of the work in the studio, in the writers’ room, or on a canvas— if ever. Can math be art? Can machines be creative? Find out in this episode of AI: Hype vs. Reality, an original podcast from Dell Technologies. And head to our YouTube channel to watch Jessica perform an AI-generated sitcom in front of a live audience. Please let us know what you think of the show by leaving us a rating or review in Apple Podcasts.
What does it mean to sound more like yourself? Voice teacher Daisy Press guides us through some pretty unusual vocal exercises. Maya and Bosco Kante are the founders of ElectroSpit, a family business devoted to helping people sing like robots. They tell us how an ungainly vintage instrument and a disappointing performance with Kanye West inspired them to create it. As a teenager, people told Ionnalee that she had a good voice… for singing backup. She started the mysterious Iamamiwhoami project to find her artistic edge and reconnect with the way she sang as child. What would an AI want to sing about? Botnik Studios uses predictive text to create new creative works. Hear a preview of The Songularity, their forthcoming album of computer-aided pop songs. Daisy Press does a voice lesson with our coworker Maura Lynch, who sings in the indie rock band Blush. Can Maura add some vocal pizzazz to her favorite Karaoke song? Music in this episode Ionnalee Iamamiwhoami Bosko Kante Botnik Studios’ The Songularity Balún Find a full transcript with photos here.
This week, Allison talks about an exciting collaboration – the hilarious predictive text sketch written by the Botnik Studios team…
Support us and More Banana Podcasts! Writers Nat Towsen and Amy Barnes give Anita an inside look into the creative process behind Botnik Studios’ viral predictive text Frasier script. They did a Star Trekone, too! Follow host Anita @anitajewtina
The Songularity is upon us! Allison tells Justin about the new project from Botnik Studios – a pop album by…
Ryan Reynolds for Kitty Pryde This week, we learn that Gambit might actually make his comeback in the MCU. It also looks like Kitty Pryde will also have her chance on the big screen. James Hetfield to star in “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile”? Botnik Studios’ Predictive text made the best Star Trek episode, … Continue reading "LAT #24 – LATs Prescribe Ibuprofen"
Pilot episode of our series, Automaton Anthologies, stories made using bots with predictive text algorithms. This story this episode is based on was written by Botnik Studios. Production: * Writer - Scooter * Director - Hank Romanesco * Engineer - David Allen * Engineer - Brandon Strader Players: * David Allen - Death Eater 2 * LJ Donnell - Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall * Matt "Olaf" Hinton - Hermoine Granger * Max Baskin - Mr. Staircase, Death Eater 1 * Patrick Kempter - Ron Weasley * Scooter - Narrator Special Guests: Brandon Strader, David Allen, Hank Romanesco, LJ Donnell, Matt "Olaf" Hinton, Max Baskin, and Patrick Kempter.
A writing team at Botnik Studios used a ‘predictive keyboard’ – a text generator that tries to guess what the next word typed will most likely be - to create a truly hilarious piece of Harry Potter fanfiction. Anthony and Jeff take a look at the new chapter of the Potter-verse and decide if they're ready to read AI created novels. ET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcerns.com/shop Hey! If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate/review it on whatever service you use to listen. Here’s the iTunes link: http://bit.ly/wehaveconcerns And here’s the Stitcher link: http://bit.ly/stitcherwhconcerns Or, you can send us mail! Our address: We Have Concerns c/o WORLD CRIME LEAGUE 1920 Hillhurst Ave #425 Los Angeles, CA 90027-2706 Jeff on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffcannata Anthony on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acarboni Today’s story was sent in by Katherine Tuck: https://www.boredpanda.com/predictive-software-writes-harry-potter-chapter-botnik-studios/ If you’ve seen a story you think belongs on the show, send it to wehaveconcernsshow@gmail.com, post in on our Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/WeHaveConcerns/ or leave it on the subreddit:http://reddit.com/r/wehaveconcerns