rod boyle

More, CGI and AI Driven Nonsense

Meh, every time I take a screenshot of some absurdity to share Facebook thinks I'm loving it and feeds me more.

Maybe I do. These are interesting times, for sure.

Anyways, some more "Dream Homes" and doubtless endangered birds that Facebook wants to use to engage me.

Now, worth noticing, how frequently these posts show up, Sabina Catour (above) if you look at her profile posts every hour.

If she's real.

Which I doubt, I'm more of a mind to believe she's a bot that simply creates Midjourney images and posts them to Facebook, and promote those that do well.

There is no need for any human intervention, merely keep your visitors engaged.

On that note, noticing the title of the AI app - "Midjourney" - and this is where it's going - what, then, in the end, is the destination?

Meanwhile, enjoy these completely realistic renderings of endangered birds.

Details: Category: Rants; Created: 01 December 2023

Shane (1953)

So, in my quest to see all the great westerns, this, yeah, no, more cheese than I could bear.

I mean, really cheesy.

2 hours of movie leading up to an entirely predictable 3 minute gunfight.

It would be curious to take an audience from the day - 1953, specifically, and show them something a little more contemporary, say "John Wick", which has roughly the same level of emotional involvement but breaks it all up with a bit of action.

On the plus side I recognized Jack Palance, whom I remember as the stock villain from every childhood movie. Not "Every", but enough. Which made me laugh, he does it well. But all that means is I'm getting old. And the scenery from the Grand Tetons, which I had to Google to confirm, but, yep, that's where it all was shot.

Otherwise, well, you win some, you lose some.

Details: Category: Film; Created: 01 December 2023

A Desk

A Desk...

Small, but it holds all the books I've read the past couple of years.

Which leads to some choices, and I begin the cull today:

Mark Twain, letters...gone

Anais Nin....gone

Henry Miller...gone...

Nabokov...gone

Now, my removing books is not necessarily an indication of quality, it's indicative of whether I will possibly in time return to them.

These are books I have no need to revisit.

And so, all in all, at the end about 30 books, culled from the shelf. The bookstore takes all but three: "6 Fictional Walks in the Woods" - Eco, "Republic of Whores" - Czech, and "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" which I never read but probably picked up for someone at work and failed to give to them. Clearly I didn't give a f*ck.

And this, the lightest of purges, I could go again, go deeper, I mean, there is not enough life left to revisit every book I've read, and while there are those I want to keep - eg: Bernal Diaz - "The Conquest of New Spain", and I have a copy already, but damn, as sideways as my adventures go I've got nothing on him.

And there are others, and I can see a slight unconscious process at work, clear the debris of my learning and the path becomes clear, this is where I am, this is where I'm going, the shelves are due a few more scourings, but it's a start.

Otherwise, the desk, it lends a nice wooden tone to an apartment completely lacking in character. Oak, small, but suited to the space, it lights the fire under my ass to get rid of the rocks cluttering the living room and make the space "livable", after a fashion, it would help a great deal to make some commitment towards entertaining...

As for my writing, it's taking a bit of a hit, I'm out of internet for the month, a week to go before the new plan kicks in, so as time and the library permit...

Details: Category: Blog; Created: 01 December 2023

Playing with Openart.ai

Trying to get it to generate pictures in the style of Edward Gorey. It's mastered (?? - somewhat) the style, but is having difficulty reading my prompts. For example, all images were generated from variations on the prompt: "A group of police officers chasing a masked bandit down the street at night, in the Style of Edward Gorey." I added a cat to one image. Results as follows: