Its moving along thanks to some great friends who have done such a great job editing, structuring and shaping the book. But one thing I turned my attention to a while ago, is the illustrations.
I did pay for an artist out of my own money but wasn’t quite happy with every single illustration for each chapter, so only had about half done. The rest I’m talking to another artist about but recently been quite impressed with the AI art generators like DALL-E 2, Midjourney, Nightcafe.
The generated works are strange and abstract enough to fit with what I’m looking for in the book. Not only that, the ownership and copyright seems to be working out (from what I read using DALL-E 2).
(c) Copyright. OpenAI will not assert copyright over Content generated by the API for you or your end users.
I certainly seen the AI bias in some of the images generated. For example if I don’t say what gender or race the person is, the AI defaults to male and white. Its only when I deliberately say Black male / female it then switches. I would also say the images of black women are not as fully thought out as white women. Because I’m generating pictures of dating, it always defaults to straight dating unless I add something to the query. Likewise the women are always thin never curvy unless specified. Actually a few times, I got women who were pregnant. Of course every single time I make a query, it takes credit (money) making it costly to really test its bias, sure someones already on this.
The big question I have is, if I was to use DALL-E for illustrations in my book, what would that say or mean for my stance around AI, bias and data use? To be honest, I’m actually thinking about generating the front & back covers in full colour, rather than the in book illustrations.
Maybe I should be less worried about this? Or even better I was thinking about ways to not just make clear it’s AI generated but show the process of selection or something similar?
During a recent holiday to Lisbon, I of course took my Pacemaker Device to create a brand new mix. This time, I went very trancey. Maybe it was the incredible sunshine, the fun of exploring Lisbon or just being in Europe again?
Whatever it was this mix is a much more pacey 135bpm and frankly kicks those tired legs with some force. I’d say this is a excellent mix and full of hands in the air moments. Its also full of new tracks alongside some old classics.
Blood Angels (Chris Liebing mix) – John Starlight
Catch (Martin Roth remix) – Blank & Jones
Humming the lights – Armin Van Buuren & Gaia
Venture (Nifra Extended remix) – Super8 & Tab
Music is more than mathematics (Extended mix) – Protoculture
Communication (Tomas Heredia remix) – Armin van Buuren
To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Ian thinks: Mozilla’s internet health report is usually across the board but this year they have deep dived into AI harms. Its not a surprise but the detail is surprising in part.
Ian thinks: This short video from Amnesty International and Wired Magazine is simply the surveillance state utopia some have dreamed about. For the rest of us its a dystopian nightmare, but this is no nightmare… its now.
Ian thinks: I have always found the Matrix protocol incredible and this frank interview will give you a real scope of what a open distributed protocol can actually do. The stance on bridging is certainly refreshing.
Ian thinks: The influence and lobbying of Uber was bad but picking through the uber files, its insane the high ranking people who have been influenced by Uber. There is something deja-vu about this?
Ian thinks: The freakonomics team look at many things from a economics point of view. Hearing their unique view on some of the battle for the next internet is quite insightful.
Ian thinks: Not many saw or were affected by this almost complete network outage. But its important to remember Rogers has been pursuing the merger of another Canadian telcom.
Ian thinks: The EU joining the fediverse is refreshing but I saw so little about this trial by the EU. I really hope they don’t expect huge numbers of people because that would defeat the purpose of the fediverse.
Ian thinks: You can read the slides in English here and there are subs for an excellent talk which he admits would never be selected. Asking the question do we really want to live in a trust-less society, which crypto is setup to support?
Ian thinks: A clear reminder that environmental change/collapse will massively affect the way the internet works and is shaped into the future. Our expectations of servers always up and instantly available needs to shift.
Ian thinks: I have seen a few of these decentralised slack, discord, element systems. The introduction of everything over TOR will excite certain people along with IPFS support, but its clear the track record of Holmes Wilson is another key feather in the hat.
I found this piece from Channel 4 quite interesting, especially when Sue was talking with passion and then the change of tone when talking about the lack of women of colour in the team.
Of course I know little about Football and likely even less about womens football (although that might change over time). However in 2022, something feels deeply a miss?
However one thing, I didn’t enable record on the Pacemaker device. It was kind of gutting because it was a good set and 90mins got extended to 2hrs, even with the mixer power supply getting overloaded half way through.
Because of the lack of recording, I remembered most of the tracks I played including the starting tune (Stella) and the last one (Anahera), I did a remix of the night also on the Pacemaker device.
Its good mix with some pace and sums up that amazing night after midnight in the laser & smoke filled null sector.
I have always liked the idea of kinetic energy and always wanted things like kinetic energy watches. However the light ball really got me thinking about the LED lights on my Diabolo.
Kinetic energy on a diabolo is not a problem, so some of it could really be used for something else, like to keep a LED kit going almost endlessly?
I thought this must be done right? But from what I can find there are no LED kits or Diabolos which actually use kinetic energy at all. I did find a yoyo which doubles as a charger for your phone. If you know of one, do let me know as I’m considering prototyping one out of a kinetic wheel or something else.
Of course not as noble as the light ball but could be interesting?
To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Ian thinks: America’s decision on Roe vs Wade is deeply shocking but can you hear the silence from the tech companies who are on the very sharp end of this all. Very few public announcements, even today.
Ian thinks: The new griftonomics podcast is something wotth subscribing to. In this episode there is a genuine discussion about how laws must catch up with the new range of cyrpto based ponzi schemes.
Ian thinks: The consistent bashing of RSS in podcasting has recently gotten pretty bad. Dave cuts right to the heart of debate and outlines the advantages of ownership.
Ian thinks: I’m always interested in how the mainstream picks up subjects like tech monopolies. Jon Oliver would have made Cory Doctorow pround with well thought out arguments, many we could use.
Ian thinks: I was not aware of this till someone pointed it out during a meeting. Really positive to see it develop and who is on board with these core principles.
Ian thinks: What is it with Google and AI? LaMDA is a curious tale but there is a much deeper problem of AI Bias which hasn’t been picked up by the other outlets in connection with the story.
Ian thinks Jack Dorsey’s raves about Web 5 is quite something. Although easily ignored as bluster, there is tiny bit of sustenance which shines some light on other community efforts. Just ignore the crypto stuff and focus on the decentralisation.
Ian thinks: Talking about Web5 and other community efforts, Decentralized identifiers or DIDs is something the W3C have been working on for years. Explaining them is difficult but this does a good job trying to covering most questions.
Ian thinks: Its a mouthful and I did wonder whats broken? But then reading through the future changes from a speed and adaptability point of view. It all started to make a lot more sense.
I have been to Portugal quite a few times previously but only spent 2.5 days in Lisbon and really enjoyed it. Not only that I find the Portuguese pretty relaxed and easy going, with the benefit to myself that most people can understand some English (which massively helps me). The process is quite straight forward compared to other digital nomad visas at least.
So I need to spend time time really getting to know what its really like in Lisbon, under all the tourist stuff.
You have a terrible night from suspected flu and have to cancel plans to head down to Bath for a festival you are talking at. You are slightly concerned it might be Covid but having recently survived it, expect its not. Regardless you are hot and cold then decide to leave your 31c bedroom for a living room with a bigger fan and window which opens wider.
In your light dressing-gown, you attempt to open the window which you left open the night before. Thinking well maybe I got it wrong, heck flu does that to you. You go to the window and its stuck, looking at the inner restrictors which can be taken off if you choose so with a little key, which was given to us. The restrictors is off but one bent like someone pushed the window back on its self under some pressure from outside. This something which couldn’t have been done with the wind you puzzle.
External restrictors to stop the windows opening
Its not long after trying the window you come to notice a white plastic wire attached to the outside window and the outside frame. The temperature is high (31.8c) and the 20inch fan is simply blowing around hot air in the apartment. You start to wonder why this has happened?
You start to think its the window cleaners or builders as a temporary solution for me opening the window off its inner restrictors. So you look at the facebook group for the development. This is when you see a large thread about the exact same thing, which has happened to others.
So of course I demand answers from the management agent (who didn’t know anything about it) and also the owners (Waterside places). It turns out that at some point they may need to put extra restrictors on windows for when they are changing the glass on the building but failed to gain any consent from any of the residents. It was decided the day before and that was it! Zero notice.
This is the email response I got from Waterside places…
Hello Ian,
MS will be removing these first thing tomorrow and a formal notification of this will follow next week before any restrictors are reinstated.
Apologies for the inconvenience caused today. We have acted as soon as we were made aware of this.
In the meanwhile I had already started cutting my way out, I just don’t trust that they will do it the next morning. Plus its still a greenhouse in my flat.
Myself actively trying to cut away at the plastic and metal from the inside
The biggest problem is anything which could cut the cord was too big to fit between the window and the frame. So ultimately I was left to using tiny pliers, knifes, etc.
The next morning, they did remove the restrictors but they float around like they can be reapplied at any time. Foreshadowing whats coming back soon?
The external restrictors removed and my internal one is damaged now
Here is their message the next morning, with some kind of apology?
Dear Residents,
You may be aware that Morgan Sindall Construction installed window restrictors on a number of Block B apartments yesterday. The purpose of these restrictors was to ensure that the mast climber could safely operate on the façade of Block B without clashing with open windows.
Due to the high temperatures currently, residents raised concerns regarding available air flow into your apartments.
Accordingly, Waterside Places immediately instructed for these external restrictors to be removed promptly yesterday, and we have had confirmation this has been completed this morning.
We are awaiting our contractor’s revised proposals for dealing with the safety of the mast climbers. We will come back to you shortly on how we intend to proceed, ahead of the restrictors being re-instated and sincere apologies to those affected.
Window cleaning at Islington Wharf from many years ago
Due to the architecture of Islington Wharf, when we have window cleaning (meant to be 3-4x a year, lucky if we get even 1) the window cleaners abseil down the building. All residents are informed this will take place and to not take their windows off the safety restrictors. This mainly works but there is lots of notice beforehand. Obviously this wasn’t true of a few days ago and I like others think this might actually be illegal?
Wall climbers for the works on the new glass replacement
Wall climbers, abseiling window cleaners, whatever it may be. You can’t actively restrict peoples windows from the outside.
