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I stole Uncle B’s lime. I mean, his lime picture. It gives him great pleasure to grow citrus fruit in the UK. Also, he likes limes.
I finally got AI to bend to my will. After using three services and dozens of prompts, I had a brainstorm. I told it “Make me a book cover for a book called ‘name of the book I need a cover for'” and it did a really good job!
Points if you recognize the subject line. More points if you can explain to me how it relates to the above, because I can’t quite draw a line between them.
April 15, 2025 — 6:53 pm
Comments: 6
Soon to be spuds
I had a meeting of my art club this afternoon, so I left Uncle B to do what he does best – dig holes. I am informed this is a well-respected second early potato called Jazzy. It will render up tubers on July 21.
I am unaccustomed to potatoes with names. As far as I’m concerned, there are three kinds of potatoes: new potatoes, red potatoes and Idaho bakers.
It is a complicated place.
April 14, 2025 — 6:10 pm
Comments: 8
First world problems
BBC pissing and moaning about the ‘critically endangered’ Sussex trug.
Why is it critically endangered? Because nobody wants to pay £50 for a handbasket, is why. It doesn’t say that in the article, but it’s the truth.
This is a thing we see a lot – people doing working class jobs expecting middle class money. Somebody retires to the country to start a little business making cakes or blacksmithing or basket weaving and they bring their city salary expectations with them. Which they can get away with for a while, but ultimately it’s hard to justify paying stupid money for a piece of cake, even if it’s a very nice piece of cake.
Anyway, Sussex trugs are kind of cool. They’re tacked together out of flexible strips of wood so tightly you can carry water in them, so they say. We see people making them at every country show we go to, so nuts to critically endangered. I don’t own one, though.
Have a good weekend!
April 11, 2025 — 5:08 pm
Comments: 7
That’s a lot of satellite dishes
We’re going out tonight, so I’ll leave you with another of the images MidJourney gave me after I yelled at it for giving me the wrong building.
April 10, 2025 — 3:46 pm
Comments: 7
Learning curve? I was promised there wouldn’t be a learning curve
I’m getting there. I have a very specific task for our robot masters: I upload a picture of a specific real-world building and you put it in a night-time landscape with a full moon. It’s for work.
What I’m getting: I take your building and I turn it into a gigantic Disney fairy princess castle. Also full moon.
I mean, it’s making some astonishing images, but they aren’t what I need.
Finally, I got mad and typed in “that’s the wrong building, you stupid AI” and it gave me this.
Huh.
Uncle B said, “wouldn’t it be easier just to do the illustration yourself?” and I’m, like, “SHUT UP!”
April 9, 2025 — 6:28 pm
Comments: 5
That’s not…what…
I asked for an image of a hand pushing a rope and this is what I got. Not exactly what I had in my head.
I’m having a hard time getting MidJourney to give me what I want. Complicated by the fact I’m paying for it and there are limits to the number of images I can generate per month. It’s giving me awful performance anxiety.
What are the limits? Nobody can say. It’s based on how hard your images hammer their GPU. That’s what you’re paying for: GPU cycles.
I could just go my merry way and see what happens when I run out, but I have an actual work image I need to generate this month.
This? I made this one in Chat GPT. There’s a limit to how many images I can make with it, too, but at least I’m not paying for it.
April 8, 2025 — 4:42 pm
Comments: 6
My journey to obsolete myself continues
I’ve continued to be fascinated with making AI draw me pictures. The mother of them all is MidJourney, and I haven’t gone there yet.
Have a look at the gallery. This top page changes every day and showcases images created that day. Creators can’t opt out!
The image above I thought was especially lovely. I don’t know if links to it will work after it moves off the front page, but here it is.
The cool thing about these images is that they publish the prompt that produced them. Some of them are long and complex and will include the names of several artists.
The prompt for the above is “geometrical, minimalist logo design, abstract fusion of words “ALLA PIXEL” in center of illustration, paintbrushs, splral from rough fabric, rose flowers, ethereal elegance, high fashion branding style, smooth curves with sacred geometry, soft golden and ivory tones, modern luxury aesthetic, vector style, centered composition, ultra clean lines, futuristic yet mythical, elegant symbol, ivory background, isolated,” and it cuts off there, so there was more to it.
I’m going to have to jump in, but there is no free option. It’s not much ($8 a month for the most basic), but I hate the subscription model.
Eh. Hold my beer.
April 7, 2025 — 6:49 pm
Comments: 4
Dead Pool 183: weasels can’t count edition
Nana1’s pick of Val Kilmer finally paid off. I think of Kilmer as an up and coming young actor. It was a shock to learn he was a year older than me. And dead.
Rich Rostrom, the conscience of the Dead Pool, tells me I had two Dead Pool 181s, so the previous is actually 182 and this one is 183. You’d think I’d know how to count by now!
Ready?
0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution date is circled on the calendar. Also, please don’t kill anybody. Plus (Pupster’s Rule) no picking someone who’s only famous for being the oldest person alive.
1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).
2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.
3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.
4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay? Also, make sure you have a correct spelling of your choice somewhere in your comment. These threads get longish and I use search to figure out if we have a winner.
5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.
6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.
7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you’ve won before, send me your address again. I don’t keep good records.
8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.
The winner, if the winner chooses to entrust me with a mailing address, will receive an Official Certificate of Dick Winning and a small original drawing on paper suffused with elephant shit particles. Because I’m fresh out of fairy shit particles.
Note: I am woefully behind on dick deliveries. If I owe you one, you’ll know how long. I ain’t gived up, but I haven’t drawn much since lockdown. Some day, your heirs might hear from my heirs.
April 4, 2025 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 54
We liked Flow. Would recommend.
The environments were very beautiful. I was less sure about the art style of the animal models (they clearly concentrated on the cat and got him mostly right). The plot was meandering and could have been tightened (it was only 86 minutes, but it still felt too long). Way too much drowning cat anxiety (it would have freaked me out as a child).
BUT would recommend. It was a lovely dreamy experience.
We haven’t been to the movies in a long time. This was a small local theater (I am contaminated – I really want to change that to theatre). We got a small old people discount and the tickets were £18.50 each.
Itching to know – how much is a movie ticket in the States now?
Nana1 finally got her man with Val Kilmer. New Deadpool tomorrow! Six GMT. Be here or at least think about it!
April 3, 2025 — 6:43 pm
Comments: 12
Going to the movies!
I can’t remember the last time I went to the movies. We’re going to see Flow.
It’s Latvian. It was made by a small team with the free program Blender. And it won an Oscar!
Uncle B said, “I bet it has a sad ending” and I thought “oh no! I bet he’s right!”
Pray for a happy ending, folks. I hate sad stuff mixed with animals.
April 2, 2025 — 3:04 pm
Comments: 7