Tag: technology

Fridazed and confused…

WiwohkaLeave a comment

It’s been an unusual week, to say the least. Things seemed normal, at first. We had our annual inspection of the apartment which went fine, and didn’t last longer than about 5 minutes. I think they’re actually wanting to just make sure we weren’t trashing their property. After living here for the last year, I can fully understand why.

Not fifteen minutes after the inspection ended, someone on the fourth floor decided to light the garbage room on fire, setting off the entire floor’s fire suppression ceiling faucets, thereby drenching every apartment below, and nearby. We had responders crawling all over the building, and water flowing freely from light fixtures, as well as power outlets. Needless to say, we pulled all our computers free of any plugins… and then waited for the water to stop.

Eventually we stopped leaking everywhere, but it took a full two days of de-humidifiers humming nonstop in all the hallways, to help the drying process. We are still waiting for maintenance to get to us, in order to replace the bad light fixtures and outlets that were affected by the water. Thankfully, we really didn’t have any damage to our personal belongings, but it did scare me enough to do an updated triple back-up of all my literary and illustration work. There’s far too much material to just do over again, before I’m ever even able to submit them to someone for publishing.

That last word, publishing, has me headed to the next issue I’ve been mulling over… trying to produce a manuscript that might rival all those new fangled ai editing and content creating applications. We now have to compete with computer generated books. I woke this morning to a commercial offering a program that will write all your ebooks for you from start to finish… it’s kind of sickening to me, if I’m to be honest.

If everyone is filling their carts with no-brainer e-books, what are us real authors left to work with? How on earth am I to get these books into readers hands, if they don’t care to look beyond their little electronic brain suckers?

I feel truly sad for all those amazing and fantastic authors out there, who slaved away to create such beautiful works of art, in literary form. They were the real trailblazers for most of us wordsmiths, and they didn’t need a smart phone to do it! Will anyone ever put proper guidelines, rules, and stipulations to how much we should use a computer to do our thinking, talking, acting, singing, writing, and surviving this world. Guess what folks? A computer is only meant for housing usable information for us to access when necessary, but the computer doesn’t think, feel, or have any awareness of itself, beyond what someone programmed it to believe.

Sorry, but that commercial really rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t disagree with the helpful usability that modern technology affords us, including some areas of ai technology. The problem I have is the lemming mentality that much of society has begun to propagate. That means when one person jumps in a particular direction, and everyone in their proximity chooses to jump along with them, just so as not to be left behind.

Seriously, are we in that much of a hurry to dumb ourselves down, and allow government, news media, and most of TikTok to regulate how we think, act, and behave? No Thanks!

Anyway, now that I got that off my chest, how about we all celebrate the end of the work week, yaaaayyyyyyyyyyy! Gooooo Frrrriiiidddaaaayyyyy!!!!!

I shall now head into an Icarus adventure, donning my high powered Sniper Rifle, and collecting my pack of wolves, in order to do some hunting for our prospecting crew. Have no fear… my puppies will keep me safe. Plus, I ride an arctic Moa named Kevin. If he doesn’t like you, he’ll swing his neck and smack you with his head. It’s rather unpleasant for whatever predator thought he’d be an easy meal.

NOOOOOOO… The Horror…

Wiwohka4 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
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I was born in the late 60’s, spent my earliest years on a farm with only a single Black and White television that was encased in wood that came from Atilla the Hun’s battlefields… nothin like stubbing your toe on the corner of a 300 lb block! While I understand that my numbers are, in most probability, grossly over exaggerated, are they really… really?

Anyway, my point is that I’ve lived in both non-computer days and the current computer age, so yes, things looked different.

But is that different a good or bad thing… or is it just the times, or progress, if you will.

I remember taking typing classes in high school, and excelled at typing, matter of fact… I got skills! The thing was though, outside of a class at school, or my part-time job at an insurance agency, I never used a typewriter. In fact, I’d wager that most of the other student’s parents didn’t buy them one for personal use at home. Could you imagine having to bring your own typewriter with you, packed up in your backpack, or better yet, stuffed in your school locker? Nowadays, you can wear it on the right lens of your glasses. That’s only if you’ve the pocket change for one… their ridiculously expensive!

While I fully miss talking to others out loud, instead of texting, and writing letters on paper and sending them in the mail, one cannot deny the convenience and speed of using a computer. One single solitary box (in some instances, no bigger than a stick of gum), you can hold numerous differing translation of the bible, a building worth of encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesaurus’, and past news publications from eons past. You can access a plethora of books on fiction, history, science, religion, and more… from your cell phone/smartphone/pda/tablet/kindle/ and of course, those glasses I mentioned.

It’s undeniable that computers have incredible uses in today’s modern society…

But, we all know that too much of a good thing can spoil it’s goodness, in the end.

Checks and balances, moderation, and wisdom, should rule at the end of the day, wouldn’t you agree? Just make sure you don’t forget the old school days and ways, because you never know when we may need to use it again.

Take a moment to think on this…

If all our power grids went offline, indefinitely, how long might it take before the war over toilet paper returns?

Don’t forget your cookie…

Tuesday Tinkering…

WiwohkaLeave a comment

While I’m not in the mood for writing today, there is always room for tinkering, right?!

Remember when you were little and stuck in the house for whatever reason, with nothing to do but entertain yourself? We didn’t have cell phones, tablets, or computers when I was little. There was a radial phone attached to the wall in the kitchen, and we had one of those televisions that were encased in half a tree. Those old televisions didn’t come with cable, so forget Netflix, YouTube, or even a video recorder. Music came out of our car radio and television was only for Saturday morning cartoons and Sunday night Disney specials… otherwise, it was meant for the grown-ups.

So…. what did we all do for fun when left to our own devices? I don’t know about the boys, but us girls played dress-up! We loved to sneak into our mother’s closet and pretend to be a grown-up, stumbling around in her high-heeled shoes, tripping over the hem of the dress we’d been parading around in. My mother was an avid Avon customer, having boxes under the bathroom sink that were filled with sample lipsticks and perfumes. By the time I was finished with my self-makeover masterpiece, I both looked and smelled like an old French whore, as some might say.

Well, I’m far older and no longer even wear make-up or fancy dresses. I probably don’t own more than half a dozen outfits, mostly sweats… and high-heels left the building years ago! Thanks to modern technology, I’m able to enjoy a little playtime, sort of like I did as a child, but virtually! Back then it was dress up for myself and my baby dolls, alone in my bedroom. Today, I use a computer program to create beautiful, imaginative and entertaining things… and I get to see myself as the younger me, the way I remember.

Not just me, but you get to see all the barnyard babes going and doing things that I don’t get to do in the real world. Speaking of going and doing things, we’ve been adrift for days without the tiniest bit of wind to fill our sails. It’s been stiflingly hot in the cabins below deck, but brutally hot on deck, where the sails hang limp and useless. With nothing to do, compounded by the discomfort of the heat, all crew have holed up in the galley. It’s mid level of the ship, and nearest our water supply. Plus, I built a make-shift wading pool for us to put our feet in, for a little relief.

I think the nautical term for things is called Doldrums, not that it makes things any better in the knowing of such a term. I don’t even know what brought it to mind. Since we’re all too hot to touch each other, let alone don a bunch of hot and cumbersome outfits out of a smelly old chest, I pulled out my laptop… yes, I do happen to have a magic laptop that has an imaginary extension cord attached to it, so what! Think inner child, here…

It all started with Nugget! Well, a picture of today’s dress-up star, as I needed a volunteer subject. Who better to tinker with than our quirky little sailher… get it? Sail her, Sailher! Well, hopefully you got it…

Anyways, back to our magic make-over session, for today’s tinkering adventures! In the editing section of my AI program there’s this drop down list labeled “Stylize”. It’s where you can choose from a number of color/style/backdrop environments to enmesh with your character/model. I’ve never really used it before, due to being so picky about facial expressions and the mix between realism and whimsical in nature… basically, I’m a control freak with an overactive imagination. At times, I really do feel sorry for my AI assistant!

I took the above image of Nugget and simply began going through the list, making two images in each template, with the creativity setting on 7 out of 10. The higher the number, the more creativity I give over to the AI. It would take all day for me to run you through the dozen or so templates, so I’ll just show you some of the ups and downs and then my favorites, if you’re still actually here. I’m bored, ok! So suck it up Buttercup, as I like to say, and enjoy the goofy pics…

While they were fun to play with, it was merely for testing out of this particular feature, not for altering Nugget, in any fashion… get it? Fashion… oh, for Pete’s sake! I refuse to give disclaimers each time I do an incredibly corny play on words! I can’t help it that I am married to a man who loves to turn everything into a bad Dad Joke… it’s worn off on me, I think.

As far as the future use of this particular tool, I’m not so sure I like it for much of what I do, but it did render some positive results, as far as enhancing a backdrop or something like that. I’ve noticed that the program has a tendency to alter the appearance of my character’s face, or replace my model for an entirely different one, which isn’t what I wanted. Unfortunately, I also discovered that it only works on artificial characters… it doesn’t recognize my character, nor Mini-me or even the puppy, Bailey. Mainly, it worked with artificial and animated creatures. At least, it was the overall result from today’s two hour tinkering session.

Out of the entire experience, I really only found one image that was able to really hold onto Nugget’s key facial features, well, maybe two. I’ll show them both and let you decide…