19thnews.org
19thnews.org
She changed the world by being a witness.
VW Wolfsburg Emblem
VW Grill Emblem
The New Yorker
The New Yorker“I would never have gotten to see what was underneath if there hadn’t been this forced interruption,” she said. “You know when botanists bisect a tree, and can tell by the thickness of rings what the conditions were like that year? This feels like we had that year, and this is what happened.”Beautiful photographs by Elinor Carucci.
apnews.com
apnews.com"After leading the world in new cases and deaths over much of the last year, the rapid vaccination program in the U.S. now positions it among the leaders of the global recovery. Nearly 64% of adults in the U.S. have received at least one vaccine dose and the average numbers of new positive cases and deaths in the U.S. are lower now than at any point since the earliest days of the pandemic."Thanks Biden.
osoberry
Strawberry season is go
VQGAN + CLIP + Unreal Engine + Surrealism
I enjoyed Rusty's explanation of the VQGAN + CLIP Unreal Engine trick in Today in Tabs yesterday (subscribers only, sorry). The gist is that people have found a way to improve images created with machine learning by including the phrase "unreal engine" (yes, the Mandalorian-powering video game technology) with their prompt when they ask a GAN to generate an image of that prompt.
Rusty included a link to a colab notebook that could run this particular GAN—VQGAN+CLIP—so I started playing around with it. I know next to nothing about AI or Machine Learning, but I can run code! I tried out the unreal engine trick and the results reminded me of Yves Tanguy paintings.
My next thought was, "why not feed it some lines from surrealist poetry"? (Or their English translations anyway.) So here are a few of those:
"a meaningless castle rolled along the surface of the earth."
– André Breton, Soluble Fish
"it is the star struck under my heel in the night."
– Robert Desnos, The Landscape
"The river I have under my tongue"
– Paul Eluard, The River
"where we live the flowers of the clocks catch fire"
– Tristan Tzara, The Great Lament of my Obscurity Three
The other day I linked to Nick Cave saying that AI lacks the nerve to create great music. How about visual art? Seeing machines struggle to make what humans make is interesting, but I don't think the results are inspired. Again, I have no idea how to tune these tools to get more interesting results and maybe further tuning or more attempts would create better images. Right now I think we haven't progressed beyond Hayao Miyazaki's thoughts on art by artificial intelligence. (spoiler alert: "I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.")
Rusty included a link to a colab notebook that could run this particular GAN—VQGAN+CLIP—so I started playing around with it. I know next to nothing about AI or Machine Learning, but I can run code! I tried out the unreal engine trick and the results reminded me of Yves Tanguy paintings.
My next thought was, "why not feed it some lines from surrealist poetry"? (Or their English translations anyway.) So here are a few of those:
"a meaningless castle rolled along the surface of the earth."– André Breton, Soluble Fish
"it is the star struck under my heel in the night."– Robert Desnos, The Landscape
"The river I have under my tongue"– Paul Eluard, The River
"where we live the flowers of the clocks catch fire"– Tristan Tzara, The Great Lament of my Obscurity Three
The other day I linked to Nick Cave saying that AI lacks the nerve to create great music. How about visual art? Seeing machines struggle to make what humans make is interesting, but I don't think the results are inspired. Again, I have no idea how to tune these tools to get more interesting results and maybe further tuning or more attempts would create better images. Right now I think we haven't progressed beyond Hayao Miyazaki's thoughts on art by artificial intelligence. (spoiler alert: "I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.")
vinylsleeves.tumblr.com STAT
STAT"If the global pool of flu viruses has truly shrunk to this degree, it would be a welcome outcome, flu experts say, making the twice-a-year selection of viruses to be included in flu vaccines for the Northern and Southern hemispheres much easier work."Our work to keep COVID-19 from spreading may have killed some strains of the flu. [via mefi]
NPR
NPR"The incentive structure that has been created is one in which so far we've seen zero accountability for lying and pushing these narratives," Masterson, the former DHS official, said. "We don't see anyone really, truly being held accountable."With no accountability why would they stop? This looks like a pilot program or practice for invalidating future valid elections.
twitter.com
twitter.com"One thing you see a lot on here is people pointing out the contradictions in the putative views of Trump’s GOP. COVID is a Chinese plot but also a hoax. The insurrection was antifa but also a tour of patriots."Twitter thread explaining why the contradictory beliefs of Trumpism are a feature not a bug.