Category Archives: The World That’s Coming
A.I.rtist
So I was watching a few music videos on youtube when I saw a video in the sidebar – “The Electric Prunes: I Had Too Much to Dream (an AI interpretation).” Given the song, I thought it would be perfect subject for AI to try making a video.
Pretty wild, as expected. The camera motion panning across scenes was unexpected, but worked fairly well, and the slight dissonance in perspective actually worked with this song, with its psychedelic feel. It was uploaded a month ago, so I figured it’s fairly cutting edge, as these things go.
I went to the channel to see what other videos were there. The next one I checked out was “Dreamboat Annie” by Heart.
The video was pretty good, although now some limitations were becoming apparent. Certain repetitions tend to appear. But it worked pretty well, and had a a feel to it that went from warm and sunny and ethereal to a hard-edged city setting and back again.
Then I saw “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty. This should be fun, I thought. I love the song but the subject matter is very down-to-earth and mundane, how would an AI that has been producing trippy visuals process this?
Awesomely, is how.
The video moves from ultra-detailed city scenes to snapshots of people living their lives to cosmic vistas of time passing and back again. And it’s animated. Or some of it is, anyway. There are people walking and musicians playing in real time… or as real as time gets in an AI-generated video. Somewhat stiff and rigid, but considering it’s all machine-created, quite stunning.
The editing is somewhat choppy, but it’s still a compelling vision, and it smooths out as the video goes along. The sax players are vivid and colorful but still recognizably human. The guitar solo could have been handled better, but that’s a small complaint.
How much of this is the machine doing its thing and how much is due to human editing, or even from human-generated prompts, I have no idea. But it’s still extremely impressive. It was uploaded 7 days ago (August 7), and is a leap over the “Dreamboat Annie” video, which was posted 12 days ago.
The sad part is, these are better than most videos I’ve seen in years.
What’s The Freakquency, Kenneth?
Or, perhaps, “Bittersweet Xhe.”
Michael Stipe and his crew from Athens Georgia have reached a zenith of enlightenment worthy of their hometown’s namesake, as the members (heh) of REM are now a brand new pronoun.
Someone really should tell rem about this.
H/T to David Thompson
2020 Is Cyberpunk
On New Year’s Day 2020, I noted that we are not living in a future with flying cars, much less floating cities patrolled by superheroes. As I said then, that’s the downside, but the upside is that we’re not living in this either…
How quickly reality likes to disabuse us of our quaint notions.
Ok, so it’s not exactly like the way the 80s envisioned 2020, but let’s look around us –
- Computer and communications networks linking nearly the entire world
- Global economy teetering on the brink of collapse
- People being socially ostracized for thinking outside the Officially Approved Narrative
[from the sourcebook NeoTribes, 1995] - Corporations essentially ruling, or at least strongly influencing, the world
- Worldwide pandemic, with people wearing facemasks outside to avoid breathing the “bad air”
I’m sure you can think of more. The Cyberpunk book even mentions something called “Storm Technologies” coming to prominence into 2019 and 2020, which might amuse any Qanon fans out there.
But not William Gibson, not Rudy Rucker, not “The Mighty Bruces” Bethke and Sterling, not even Mike Pondsmith and the crew at R. Talsorian predicted this.
A smart toilet could identify you by your ‘analprint’ and detect diseases
A prototype smart toilet that can identify you by your “analprint” and monitor your trip to the loo has been created by researchers at Stanford University. It’s equipped with cameras and sensors that collect information on your bodily waste, and it uses that data to look for any health issues you might have.
The “analprint” is the toilet’s primary way of identifying each user. Much to the authors’ dismay, it’s also the aspect of the toilet that’s gotten the most attention since the paper describing the proto-toilet was published in a press release and the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering on Monday.
“It’s a minor part of our system,” Seung-min Park, a senior research scientist at Stanford University and the paper’s lead author, told The Verge.
The article reports that the inspiration for “analprints” was Salvador Dali. Somehow not surprised.
It’s not a bad idea, in theory. It could help people discover health problems before they become serious. But of course, it can’t be that simple.
The article cites privacy concerns, which are well-founded in a bizarrely disturbing way – the government has always been up your ass, but this makes it literal. But the article also notes “due to the fixed camera angles of the GoPro, the smart toilet would film female genitalia in addition to the anal region, which is why the first study included an all-male participant pool.”
Imagine your toilet being hacked.* Not only are you at risk for identity-theft-by-ass-recognition, you might end up the star of the show on the internet somewhere. With your identity clearly known.
The forthcoming game Cyberpunk 2077, dark and oppressive as it is, might be looking a little too optimistic.
______________________
H/T to this Redstate article I found while researching , and to Ace of Spades HQ, your go-to source in all toilet-related concerns.
*Now there’s a phrase I never envisioned writing.
Happy New Year!
2020. Wow! It’s really here.
Back in 1980, Superman comics depicted the future world of 2020…
So no, we are not living in floating cities with flying cars and controlled weather. Much less having a superhero around.
That’s the downside. On the upside, we’re not living in this either…
…yet.
Ya know, if DC Comics had any smarts at all, they would be selling a Superman 2020 collection right now, maybe with a new story or two included. Not just to coincide with the arrival of the year 2020, but the concept was perfectly suited to our Current Year in its wokeness.
See for yourself…
It’s got nazis! And a sop to concerns about overpopulation as well.
The nazis even have their own cool salute…
…and predicted the soyboy epidemic.
And best of all…
…even though these “Purists” are totally racist, they’re also not racist at all. Now that’s a hell of a trick.
Seriously, DC could make sales from a high-concept series and score virtue-signaling points all at once. They accidentally stumbled across a form of wokeness that might actually make a profit.
Then again, they might get in trouble for this…
Even in the imaginary future, some things never change.
Happy New Year!
Is It NYE Already?
The future is very soon indeed.
Will the New Year bring self-aware Ratlicants? As if the original isn’t bad enough…
Goat must have a rosy view of the future with those beer-colored glasses.
$2400 + 420 = LAZERS!
If there is a God and he is indeed omniscient, it is also true that he foresaw the human race’s ability to create a great many things that would change the world, improve the overall quality of life here on Earth, and maybe even one day move beyond it. I can’t help but wonder what the hell he would make of this $2,400 laser bong.
More Power, More High!
The B-LAZE Laserbong, made by Silicon Cali, uses a 2W, 445Nm frequency laser. And you have to wear protective eyewear.
Protective eyewear. To smoke weed. Seriously.
The company founder, Justin Zelaya, described potential customers as ranging from “Bitcoin core developer” to “mad scientist, like myself.” Yeah, I can see that.
Video –
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd0VWTaHuRI/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again
I really, truly, honestly do not know whether this is better or worse than this other use of lasers.
Perhaps an enterprising snack company can appeal to the secondary market among cyberpunk laserstoners with products displaying the integration of corn chips and high technology. Frito-Layzer, if you will.
Don’t Hit Me With Those Laser Beams [Kinda NSFW]
Relax
Don’t do it
when you stick lasers up your
Guess what’s happening now? Well…
A commenter posted this at Vox Popoli yesterday, but I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s Christmas with something so… so… I don’t even know what it is. The thread is here and the comments are quite amusing.
Shooting the Right’s direction, the Left lives those dreams and schemes those schemes. This is somehow supposed to protest Trump
So bold! And it’s gender neutral! That’s very important!
I really don’t understand what trouble this will cause for Trump, or what “awareness” will be raised, other than awareness of which way to point a burning beam of light. But any excuse for retarded behavior while calling it “art.”
Ass As if anyone needed more proof that the left is totally talking out of their…
Self-Absorption Singularity
Swiped from here… enter the Ouroboros Cafe –
A customer drinks a ‘Selfieccino’ coffee at the Tea Terrace in London, Britain, December 19, 2017. REUTERS/Simon Dawson
The Tea Terrace, based in House of Fraser’s Oxford Street branch, has become Europe’s first location to deliver the “Selfieccino,” which features an image of customers’ faces on the frothy topping of their drinks.
…The process takes around four minutes before an image is presented on the froth, ready to be photographed and sent to all points via social media before drinking, and costs around 5.75 pounds. ($7.5)
”Due to social media, the dining experience has completely shifted,“ Ehab Salem Shouly, owner of The Tea Terrace told Reuters. ”It’s not enough any more to just deliver great food and great service – it’s got to be Instagram worthy.”
Because, you know, it’s nothing if it’s not Instagram-worthy!
The customer becomes their own singularity, sucking themselves into themselves.
Reaching The Music Singularity
“Better keep it real –
Or whatever”– Steely Dan, “Pixeleen”
Steely Dan quit touring in 1974, saying they hated it. In 1993, they starting touring again, and now Donald Fagen is announcing a new tour at the age of 69. So, if they don’t like touring, why go back to Annandale, as it were? The Don tells the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall, unfortunately) –
When the bottom fell out of the record business a bunch of years ago, it deprived me of the luxury of earning a living from records. I don’t sell enough albums to cover the cost of recording them the way I like to. For me, touring is the only way to make a living.
Turns out The Dan is not the only band touring to make some cash. Guns ‘n’ Roses is hitting the circuit to make some pay as well. The fact that the band hasn’t released a new album since 2008 is no obstacle. Proving that a band does not need to be creating new stuff to make money.
Or even alive. Ronnie James Dio is going on tour despite being currently dead. A hologram of Dio will perform with a live band.
No word on whether Jem will be the opening act.
One awaits the inevitable “Steely Dead” tour.
H/T to Ace of Spades HQ and Quartz
nightskyradio 