Coffee, #214

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#ThisIsTrue

This here’s a city mouse!

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Scientist Mouse

So I’ve heard

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En…gage

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En….gage

Dunno. Thinking about a new line of work…

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Dunno. Thinking about a new line of work…

I Like this Message

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PROVIDE A SAFETY NET, NOT A HAMMOCK
Deng Ming-Dao

How do you show someone you love them, that you’ll take care of them, that they will always be able to feel safe in life? By all means, give them a safety net—but not a hammock.

One of my in-laws was a painter on the Golden Gate Bridge. He and his crew would start from one end, paint the entire bridge, then start over. He did this for decades and he’s now retired. Of course, he had safety gear and nets.

So this is what we have to do for our family, spouses, children, friends, and students. Give them safety nets so that they will have the confidence to try. In most cases, the net will rarely be needed. But don’t give them a hammock and let them give in to inertia.

Encourage their initiative. Then they’ll be both confident and accomplished. In turn, they’ll secure other safety nets for others to make unimaginable leaps.

https://www.facebook.com/dengmingdao/posts/pfbid02dWzyKDjs5RxaU3hWaXNeSKFmsT32jEq6h9rDr34gpaE8NNwg3y23347Vjetf3m8ul

 

“This American Carnage”

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“This American Carnage”
Text: Donald J. Trump
Artists: Georgia O’ Keeffe, Roy Lichtenstein, Grant Wood, Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michel Basquiat
Prompt: John Lyon
AI: Stable Diffusion

So I had an idea that I would use the phrase from the former guy’s inaugural, “This American Carnage,” and see what the AI did with it using different American artists. I got some interesting results, but one of my prompts started creating these really crazy pieces. This is the least disturbing of the more interesting ones:

AI has the ability to create visually arresting images. Is it art? Maybe? It’s artlike. I think about my friend Carol. She does encaustics, and while the AI can generate an “encaustic” like file, there’s no physicality there. I can print these, and hang them on the wall, but there no physicality to them outside of that. Nothing to show that a human created it. Some intention, yes, in the prompt crafting the AI uses, and in the settings chosen. But no layers of paint. No brush strokes. No carving away of wax to leave behind something wholly…human.