As an early advocate for AI (Artificial Intelligence) I get some pushback from people who don’t know anything about the technology and who just want to persecute the entire idea of AI anything. They argue AI text responses are wrong; they bray that AI images are stolen. I have little patience for having a conversation with those types of Luddite deniers because, in the end, their arguments are both boring and wrong. Here’s why.
Every so often, we get someone who steps forward to decide our shared, national, record of events isn’t good enough in standard black and white — and so they take the task upon themselves to “convert” the established, memed, facts of black and white history into their color-coded version of hues — to reset, in their mind, what really happened.
This modernizing filter of alleged aesthetic and absolutely craven creativity is just as disturbing to me today as it was 30 years ago when I was an undergraduate Freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln taking a film class with the great Dr. June Perry Levine.
At the time of Dr. Levine’s course, Ted Turner was in full-burst mode in his effort to “colorize” old black and white movies and television shows by adding color to give them new life on his cable channel.
Turner’s effect was horrible and gross as skin colors were orange and backgrounds were dark blue and clothing was all a shade of a mossy green: Time travel at its complete worst.
Adding new color to old black and white images is like repainting a fresco of Christ. The ultimate effect of each effort is the shared shameful same.
Continue reading → Coloring History: Should Facts Remain Black and White?
The great street artist Banksy is in New York City for the month of October and he is leaving his mark tagging the urban core. We have celebrated the enigmatic work of Banksy and we have always appreciated his mocking of vulgar American institutions.
The arrival of Banksy in New York City has set expectation of Art and commerce in whole new, confrontational, context that confounds the commonplace understanding of what we want to last in society and what was created to simply disappear or be defaced.
Continue reading → Breaking Banksy: Painting New York City Red… with a Balloon
With the arrival of our new iPhone 5S smartphones, Janna and I have been delighting in the new technology. I can’t believe how lightweight the 5S is compared to my old clunker of a 4s. Weight makes a mighty difference in the tote along tone and temperature of your day.
Here’s a caveat about the iPhone 5S camera: When you shoot in bright sunlight — as I did on September 26, 2013 — you cannot see the screen, and you are basically taking blind photographs. You rely on your iPhone to focus and try to frame what you’re hoping the camera is seeing.
There is also a new “slider set” of features on the iOS 7 iPhone camera — “square” and “pano” and “video” and such — that, if you are not careful in your screen blindness, can change the way your iPhone shoots and frames the images. Yesterday, my fingers tended to slide and select things on the new camera that I had no idea were being activated.
I like tall photographs for blog images, but some of the shots you’ll see here are the new “square” feature that I had no idea was a feature until I got home and saw the infuriating results. I did not crop any of these images. With the iPhone 5S camera, it’s “live to live again!”
Here’s the first image taken with my iPhone 5S. It’s a view of the Empire State Building in New York City and I am standing in Riverview Park.
The quickest way to lose any social argument is to hide behind claiming the wellbeing of your children is at risk while not standing in front of them and offering them direct protection. If you’re truly concerned about the welfare of your offspring, instantly act on their behalf, and don’t slog into the courts to beg a remedy to a simple matter of privacy that could be solved simply by drawing the curtains.
There’s an old saying in the Deaf Community when it comes to watching other people’s Sign Language conversations from across the room — “eyes for for?” — meaning “my eyes are for watching, and if you don’t want to be watched, then move out of my line of sight. Make your own privacy.”
Today, we could say the same thing about a camera in situ — “photos for for?”
There’s a big hoo-hah here in New York City over the right of a family to demand privacy in their floor-to-ceiling windowed apartment — even though they leave the curtains open — so anyone, and everyone, can see directly into their living space.
One neighbor, Arne Svenson, found the patterns of the family’s windows intriguing and took a series of images of them as part of his “The Neighbors” photography series. Here’s an example from his fascinating collection:
Time to go what we had come to Vienna for — one of music’s “superstars” and a once in a lifetime chance to see Robbie Williams perform live on his Take the Crown Tour. It was time to be entertained by the best in the business.
Time to go and see one of the stars my romantic heart had grown up with and with whom I had developed a connection. Robbie had owned a little piece of my heart from the Take That days and at times he sung the words I needed to hear with the voice of an Angel.
Our tickets cost 118 Euros for seats in the stadium –rather than the pit — cheap in comparison to the UK concerts which were our other main option.
The NSA scandal has me thinking a lot about how other PRISM identifying marks of us — on the biometric side — are, in fact, also poisoning our privacy. Here’s a comment I made in a recent article thread concerning the loss of our biologic privacy:
Yes, we’re all stuck! The fact that they now want our weight is a new metric. Our height rarely changes, so once they have that number they have us in adulthood — but weight can fluctuate like crazy for some people — so having our weight “re-evaluated” and remarked down with every medical visit is an important identification portrait for them. All of our doctors now scan our insurance card and also take a photo of us — to prevent medical fraud — uhm…. riiiiight… so our MDs now have our mug shots, height, weight… quite a lovely new arm of the NSA, eh? Some doctors even want palm scans!
Continue reading → Mugshots at the Doctor’s Office and Other Biometric Poisonings
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