Articles Archive - Page 19 of 155 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Opera Shines at Maecenas Read More »

On Saturday night, 200 attendees celebrated the Pittsburgh Opera and the 38th annual Maecenas Gala at the Bitz Opera Factory. The Maecenas Award was presented to Mary Louise Gailliot and the late Henry J. Gailliot. The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Janet Sarbaugh, who served as the Vice President of the Creativity Program for The Heinz Endowments until …

100 Pittsburgh Leaders

We asked 100 top leaders across Pittsburgh to respond in 100 words or fewerto this question: According to the U.S. Census, in 2021 the Pittsburgh MSA had the inauspicious distinction of having the highest natural population loss — more deaths than births — of any metro area in the country. Pittsburgh lost 10,838 people, followed …

100 Pittsburgh Leaders

The Thrilling Conclusion!

The Thrilling Conclusion! Read More »

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” — Arthur C. Clarke I began this series on generative AI because an irate reader had suggested that my blogs were written by a particularly doltish AI bot. Now that we know a lot more about generative AI we can decide whether my irked reader could even …

Sports

Pittsburgh’s Golden Era of Slow-Pitch Softball

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

Pittsburgh’s slow-pitch softball home-run king, Paul Tomasovich passed away March 5 at the age of 89. Described in his obituary as “the man, the myth, the legend,” he was fabled in the 1960s for his tape-measure home runs. His obituary mentions two of the most remembered Herculean home runs hit by Tomasovich. In a game …

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100 Pittsburgh Leaders

Sympathy for the Devil: Quantum Theatre Conjures a Postmodern Faust Read More »

Arts

Sympathy for the Devil: Quantum Theatre Conjures a Postmodern Faust

by Stuart Sheppard

Perhaps the second most essential question in life after “Why are we here?” is “Whom should we trust?” The obvious answer would seem to be, trust in God, but we all know how often human beings end up putting their faith in that more convenient, self-serving, and nefarious alternative, the devil. In fact, one of …

People

100 Pittsburgh Leaders

What’s All the Panic About?

What’s All the Panic About? Read More »

“I don’t think there is a single task you can assign a junior analyst, banker, developer, teacher or lawyer that can’t be accomplished more quickly, more smartly and much more cheaply with [generative AI].” Ben Hunt “Every new technology is the Full Employment Act for ethicists and scolds.” Andy Kessler Previously in this Series: Look at What …

Culture PQ Poem

October

by David Thoreen

On his birthday she whispered, bereft,and understood her place in the scheme of things.The man next door walked his cocker spaniel,a plastic bag in his hand. The kettle began to steam. At the park she found her bench was takenby a man in an Irish sweater, so went a little furtherand sat beneath the linden. …

October Read More »

100 Pittsburgh Leaders

A Couple of Rare Birds Read More »

Birds

A Couple of Rare Birds

by David Liebmann

The couple walked briskly down the road, binoculars around their necks. Spring had come to western Pennsylvania and with it migratory birds, but they were only interested in one species, the cerulean warbler, and the check mark they could add to their life list once they saw it. Bird watchers come in many varieties. At …

Look at What AI Can Do

Look at What AI Can Do Read More »

“[Generative AI] bids to transform the human cognitive process as it has not been shaken up since the invention of printing.” Henry Kissinger et al. Previously in this series: Poems and College Essays by Chat GPT, Am I a Bot? Part IV “I don’t think anybody’s job is safe. I am so excited to be …

History

Renewing the Promise of Pittsburgh

by David McCullough

Editor’s note: Historian David McCullough delivered the following words on a Pittsburgh riverboat in a speech to a select group of local leaders at the launch of the Riverlife Task Force. We are publishing this essay for the first time with permission of The Heinz Endowments on the occasion of the launch of a new …

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Arrivals People

DeCardy, Cohen, Ingram, Merson, McKinney, Bondoc, Myers, Hammond

DeCardy, Cohen, Ingram, Merson, McKinney, Bondoc, Myers, Hammond Read More »

Chris DeCardy becomes president of The Heinz Endowments in April. Most recently, DeCardy was acting CEO with the San Francisco-based ClimateWorks Foundation, leading a team of researchers, strategists and collaborators working on climate science. Previously, he served as vice president and director of programs with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which awards $340 million in annual grants in …

People

Efforts So Far Haven’t Worked

by Jeffery Fraser

Another year has passed in which more southwestern Pennsylvanians moved out of the region than newcomers arrived. The decades-long trend continues to slowly drain people from the region and frustrate ambitions of boosting its population. Southwestern Pennsylvania is a chronic loser in the flow of people between states that offer consistently warmer weather. And the …

Efforts So Far Haven’t Worked Read More »

Poems and College Essays by Chat GPT

Poems and College Essays by Chat GPT Read More »

“LLMs [that is, large language model generative AI systems] are essentially ‘conventional wisdom’ machines.” – Bruno Massarelli Previously in this series: The Bully Effect, Am I a Bot? Part III Why is generative AI – like Chat GPT – such a threat to Google’s internet search revenue? To understand why, let’s engage in a thought …

Pittsburgh Immigration Pittsburgh Today Regional News

Pittsburgh’s Immigrant Puzzle

by Jeffery Fraser

Allegheny county’s small population bump from 2010 to 2020 owes much to a spike in the number of immigrants who decided to make it their home. They accounted for more than 60 percent of the 27,000 residents the county added overall. Without the gains in foreign-born residents, southwestern Pennsylvania as a region would have been …

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People

Noteworthy Spring ’23

Noteworthy Spring ’23 Read More »

Après Ski Bar For restaurateur Rick DeShantz, a little imagination has gone a long way — and turned into a lot of fun for Pittsburgh this winter as he opened Après Ski Bar at Butcher and the Rye. It’s several tiers of Swiss-themed spaces, with fur-covered lodge furniture, antler chandeliers, assorted fondues on the menu …

Arts Culture

The War Against Aesthetics in Contemporary Art

by Stuart Sheppard

Often when I walk through a gallery of contemporary art, I can hear a murmuring between the works that echoes journalist Herbert Morrison’s voice describing the crash of the Hindenburg in 1937: “Oh, the humanity!” It’s as if the depiction of suffering in any form has become the criteria by which we judge art, rather …

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Banks – and Reputations – Go Poof