2025 took the the USA to new depths with unrestricted piracy on the high seas, government sanctioned masked gunmen snatching people off the street, and people sent to foreign concentration camps without a trial.
Thankfully on the home front, we managed to have a very good year, We had an engagement (looking forward to a 2026 wedding) and a first time house purchase. Our hard work and thrifty lifestyle is paying off with IRAs that allow us to remain comfortable despite rising inflation.
I hope all of you in Cleo-land had good 2025 and have great 2026’s
Noooo… He’s got enough on his shoulders, keeping this site together.
Making him a scapegoat for what he can’t control might make him run away, and I wouldn’t blame him.
Do you want to lose Cleo, and our playground?
How about we blame you? You’re just as guilty!
But no, I’m not really suggesting that… It’s just an example. We really should blame WordPress, which is inscrutable when it comes to figuring out some functions.
Artists and cartoonists shouldn’t have to be programmers to make their blogs work correctly.
My goodness, I wasn’t opening a formal complaint. The legitimate ‘blame’, if it must be leveled, is time zones. Between westies posting after I’m done on-line for the day, and old-worlders posting long before I rise, page 1 fills up.
On the bright side, I can’t say “there’s noting here to read”, when I do get on.
It gets more and more “realistic”… in that it doesn’t make as many clumsy mistakes… at the same time as more and more able to convey fantasy. Before we know it, it may make physically created special effects outmoded.
My main objection to it isn’t the skillfulness of it, or even the uncanny valley effect of so much of it.
I object to a couple of things… one, that’s sad, but we may have to get used to it, is that there are artists and creative types who guide it skillfully and use it to accomplish their own vision, there are many more who manage to use it to replace skill and talent. Their work is not as good, but often acceptable.
Some are technical masters with little artistic vision. The arts will be flooded with people who know how to tell a machine what they want to create, but not how to create it themselves. Eventually, it will be dominated by the “vision” of computers, not humans, b and something will be lost.
The big thing though, and I’ve said it over and over, is that most AI is out and out THEFT. The programs are fed massive amounts of artwork and writing done by real people, to who are never credited, and churn it into new works that are pastiches of what it has absorbed. Not only is that unfair, bordering on evil, it leads to nothing but derivative work, and snuffs out originality and creativity.
If someone personally does all the artwork that is fed into his ir her AI program, which then makes a mishmash of only that work, without throwing in a little Rembrandt and Rockwell and whoever, I can’t object, unless that batch is the limit of that person’s creative output, and it eventually becomes repetitive and stale. I can dislike it at that point but it’s not evil.
It’s a tool, and it can be as evil or as good as the people who wield it make it. Kind of like chainsaws – if you’re using one to cut up a tree before it falls on my house, it’s a useful tool and you’re not evil. On the other hand, if you’re wearing a mask and chasing after me while planning to cut off my legs, it’s still a useful tool, but you’re evil to use it that way.
At the same time, stealing other people’s intellectual property is definitely wrong, and there should be appropriate punishments & fines (or licensing fees if those people choose to make their intellectual property available to you and your AI tool).
Looking northeast from the platform at Attadale station, at Loch Carron on the Kyle of Lochalsh Line, towards Strathcarron. The Highlands, Scotland.
Golden-cheeked Woodpecker.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
2025 took the the USA to new depths with unrestricted piracy on the high seas, government sanctioned masked gunmen snatching people off the street, and people sent to foreign concentration camps without a trial.
Thankfully on the home front, we managed to have a very good year, We had an engagement (looking forward to a 2026 wedding) and a first time house purchase. Our hard work and thrifty lifestyle is paying off with IRAs that allow us to remain comfortable despite rising inflation.
I hope all of you in Cleo-land had good 2025 and have great 2026’s
Congrats on your good fortune. Hopefully 2026 brings improvements elsewhere.
Jeez, it’s only 8:15am and I’m already relegated to page 2 🙁
I was relegated to page two over three hours ago…..
It’s almost never used to happen, and now it happens most days, but AFAIK the criteria haven’t changed.
I’ve been wondering why.
Let’s blame Nighthawks. Even though he has no control over it, it’s his fault! {^¿^} Finding a scapegoat seems like we’re doing something about it!
Noooo… He’s got enough on his shoulders, keeping this site together.
Making him a scapegoat for what he can’t control might make him run away, and I wouldn’t blame him.
Do you want to lose Cleo, and our playground?
How about we blame you? You’re just as guilty!
But no, I’m not really suggesting that… It’s just an example. We really should blame WordPress, which is inscrutable when it comes to figuring out some functions.
Artists and cartoonists shouldn’t have to be programmers to make their blogs work correctly.
I would gladly take the blame if it means we can keep Nighthawks and Cleo & Company.
My goodness, I wasn’t opening a formal complaint. The legitimate ‘blame’, if it must be leveled, is time zones. Between westies posting after I’m done on-line for the day, and old-worlders posting long before I rise, page 1 fills up.
On the bright side, I can’t say “there’s noting here to read”, when I do get on.
https://archive.org/ is online again.
Another “Not available in your country” message.
Here’s an example of AI art, and some directions that we may see it going. For better? For worse? Who in the heck knows?
Kinda depends on what you’ve been smoking!
It gets more and more “realistic”… in that it doesn’t make as many clumsy mistakes… at the same time as more and more able to convey fantasy. Before we know it, it may make physically created special effects outmoded.
My main objection to it isn’t the skillfulness of it, or even the uncanny valley effect of so much of it.
I object to a couple of things… one, that’s sad, but we may have to get used to it, is that there are artists and creative types who guide it skillfully and use it to accomplish their own vision, there are many more who manage to use it to replace skill and talent. Their work is not as good, but often acceptable.
Some are technical masters with little artistic vision. The arts will be flooded with people who know how to tell a machine what they want to create, but not how to create it themselves. Eventually, it will be dominated by the “vision” of computers, not humans, b and something will be lost.
The big thing though, and I’ve said it over and over, is that most AI is out and out THEFT. The programs are fed massive amounts of artwork and writing done by real people, to who are never credited, and churn it into new works that are pastiches of what it has absorbed. Not only is that unfair, bordering on evil, it leads to nothing but derivative work, and snuffs out originality and creativity.
If someone personally does all the artwork that is fed into his ir her AI program, which then makes a mishmash of only that work, without throwing in a little Rembrandt and Rockwell and whoever, I can’t object, unless that batch is the limit of that person’s creative output, and it eventually becomes repetitive and stale. I can dislike it at that point but it’s not evil.
It’s a tool, and it can be as evil or as good as the people who wield it make it. Kind of like chainsaws – if you’re using one to cut up a tree before it falls on my house, it’s a useful tool and you’re not evil. On the other hand, if you’re wearing a mask and chasing after me while planning to cut off my legs, it’s still a useful tool, but you’re evil to use it that way.
At the same time, stealing other people’s intellectual property is definitely wrong, and there should be appropriate punishments & fines (or licensing fees if those people choose to make their intellectual property available to you and your AI tool).