Rick's b.log - entry 2024/10/27

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Trump's complaint against Labour

Funny how Farage going to the US to support his bestie is... not even mentioned. It's just Trump grasping at anything to dump on the democrats to make a change from his increasingly unhinged rants. It's rather astonishing that people actually consider him suitable to be their President.

That being said, it's a bit of a dick move for elected politicians of one country to go and campaign in another country regardless of whether it is official or unofficial. If, for example, Obama came to the UK to support the Liberal Democrats, how far do you think he'd get before learning exactly how creative us Brits can be with the F word?

I think the really depressing thing about this is that Labour has had so long to prepare for leading the country, the writing was on the wall for the Tories ever since Johnson (and Truss sealed the deal) and yet... it's like an unrehearsed amateur-hour school drama group running the country. Granted, it's better than the Tories, but still, you'd have thought that they would have walked in and demonstrated actual competent leadership, not the continual foot-in-mouth cockups that have happened since the election. The role of Labour, at the very least, is to be better than the Tories. It's not a high bar, not by any measure. For the love of whatever god they believe in, please don't screw this up!

Expected range

Just to make the point about how much of a surprise it was to see the battery depleting as fast as it did, here's what it was when I set off on Friday morning.

A fully charged battery.

I didn't need the heater as it wasn't cold, but I was running headlights/main beams on the way in, because dark.

By the time I got home, including making a stop at the supermarket for my Friday shop, it read as follows.

A commute only used a little bit of battery.

Yes, by the way, I'm quite aware that the fuel level indicator isn't linear (actually, I think it might be but the tank is not a regular shape which throws it all off), however this was never a problem as I used to fill when I got to the halfway mark. It's the apparent necessity to run the battery down to give it full charges that is the issue here. If I could just plug in when I got home and top up, there wouldn't be anything to worry about and my only range anxiety would be over those long journeys that I just don't do...

Which means, I think I'm going to have to interpret the levels like this.

My car's battery level indication, more realistic

A more realistic indication of charge level.

The Daily Express is predicting that the UK is going to be plunged into a 30 hour Arctic storm, so I guess this means it is going to turn somewhat colder. I'll keep you updated on how the battery behaves.

Speaking of dark

No more sitting out in the last of the sun when I come home. We've messed with the clocks again, so everything is an hour off now. There will only be the slightest sliver of sun in the sky as I head home, and eventually nothing at all. La misère!

Boo! (many pictures)

I saw this picture on Bored Panda (it's currently #18) and it speaks to my soul on a fundamental level. Like, when I die, this would be the sort of afterlife that I would enjoy. None of the tedious-sounding heaven nonsense. In short, I adore this picture.

A cute ghost on a swing in a peaceful forest.
Attribution unknown - add a comment if you know.

I tried a Google reverse-image lookup on the image but didn't find something that suggested to me that it was a source, just a lot of people using the image - particularly that cesspool of stolen images known as PInterest. And, well, I guess now HeyRick will be "yet another on the list" of cute-ghost appreciators.

So, I thought, how about getting an AI to make something similar? After all, a happy ghost on a swing in a forest is... not exactly a difficult thing to imagine, is it?

Uh-huh.

I used the Genie AI app with the options set to image generation "Dream Shaper" (this is about as realistic as it gets), the style set to "Gothic", and the prompt "A happy ghost sitting on a swing in a tranquil forest. Mist. Atmospheric.".

The first picture generated had a strange black blob, so time to tweak the description.

Image by GenieAI.

It was certainly atmospheric, but not really what I was looking for. Actually, there's a vague resemblence to Spirited Away here, isn't there?
Time to tweak the prompt. Let's try "A happy white ghost sitting on a swing in a tranquil forest. The ghost is reading a book. Beside the ghost is a cup of tea.".

Image by GenieAI.

Okay, so it thinks a ghost is a reasonably attractive woman. How "this was created by guys, wasn't it?" can you get?
Of course, being an AI creation, it's just a little off. I guess it could be plausible to support a chair like that if she was good at balancing, but it might be harder to balance with only one arm, a broken shoe, and is that somebody's liver poking out of the book?

Image by GenieAI.

That's definitely a gothic outfit, and quite the elaborate swing, but oh my, look at her face. She's totally reading Fifty Shades, isn't she? Coming next - a ritual book burning.

Image by GenieAI.

I include this one, despite the complete mess of the face as is so typical of these AI art generators, because I like the lights above and the fact that the swing appears to be attached to an iron girder stuck into the side of the tree.

Image by GenieAI.

This is an interesting setting. Sitting on a chair suspended over water. How does she get on/off that without getting wet? Well, okay, if she's supposed to be a ghost, I guess levitation or something...
It looks like the AI just gave up entirely at the face. I mean, look, she's wearing a veil, a flowy white dress, the chair is hooked up by two chains and it looks like she's on a zip line (perhaps to stop her getting soaked?), there's a reflection in the water...all of that, and the AI couldn't manage anything that resembled a face.

Image by GenieAI.

Finally a face! Whoo! This has taken the gothic vibe and run with it, hasn't it?

Image by GenieAI.

Her face is a bit of a mess, but I'm not looking at that, I'm looking at what the hell is that swing? This is, to me, one of the fascinating things about AI art generators. Not only can it generate such different outputs to the same input, it sometimes throws in things completely out of left field.

Image by GenieAI.

So close, but, you know, humans only have two legs.

I should point out that each of these images required me to sit through two tedious adverts for games I'm not interested in playing.

The game is called King's Choice.

The image above is from a game called King's Choice? Do you rescue an orphan boy? Does he turn out to be better than your biological child? Will he be the one to inherit the crown? Blah blah. Also some rubbish about cooking fish (Whiteout Survival), something about robots blowing each other up, one where you have to attack enemies with a score lower than yours to gain their score value, and one where you lead a blue army to attack a red army, and have to waste time watching the demonstration video where the demonstration makes the dumbest mistakes like... you have 70, the other side has 130. Do you pick the ×20 or the ×2? While technically both options would work, after the fight the ×2 (that was picked) you're screwed at whatever comes next, having been left with only 10 instead of one thousand two hundred and seventy. I mean, duh! And you're forced to watch this crap over and over and over.
Actually, I was sitting outside enjoying what little sun there was, so I would just put my phone down for a minute and watch the birds or something.

Okay, clearly this setup is just going to give a selection of girls in fancy dresses sitting in improbable swing chairs. Let's try the "Anime v3" setting.

Image by GenieAI.

Well, that's pretty much exactly what I expected.

Image by GenieAI.

And here it looks like she's reading to a ghost who is very much enjoying the story. She's reading "The Lovely Bones", isn't she? Wait, there's no book... Maybe that's a magical sheet of paper? Umm...

So how about instead we try "Dream Shaper" with the "3D" style. Will that help?

Image by GenieAI.

Interestingly, even though we're back to the Dream Shaper, it's done a better job of the face when in 3D mode.

Image by GenieAI.

Oh, she's cute. Interesting decoration in the background, and somebody else hovering over water. So she's not bothered about getting wet or the mosquitos.

Image by GenieAI.

You could say that, after all, Dream Shaper did mess up another face... but I don't see it like that. Her expression is a mixture of contentment and sadness. Contentment at the story having reached a satisfactory conclusion, but there's also a sadness that these characters who have wandered into her life and become intertwined with her thoughts are...no more. She'll never meet them again, never know what happened next in their lives. The story is over, it's all finished, the end.
[or is it only me that gets emotionally attached to fictional people and feels sadness at the end of a story?]

Okay, let's try a different setup. There are several generation models to choose from (Fantasy, Genie, Animagic Flux, Turbo, Anime v1/v2/v3, Dream Shaper, and Imagine v4 (with four more for subscribers)) and numerous styles to pick (Valentine's, New Year, Christmas, 3D, Halloween, 1990s, Abstract Cityscape, Acrylic, Album Cover Art, plus 74 others and a further twenty if you're a subscriber). So the final combination I'll try for today is "Imagine v4" generator model with the "Photography" style.

Finally! It's sort of what I was looking for.

Image by GenieAI.

Gotta respect a ghost that can hold on to a colourful glowing book (a grimoire?) while also holding on to the swing.

Image by GenieAI.

Two books. Now that's power reading. Unless one is a translation? I like the haunted house in the background.

Image by GenieAI.

Now this one looks like it has everything going for it. Ghosty is holding the book, and only the book. The swing looks mostly correct, and it's suitably old and rustic and not weirdly blingy. There's nice light in the trees, and indeed the background is more or less exactly right. It's taken a long time, but finally a picture that resembles what I was expecting.

Image by GenieAI.

Finally, using it's third hand (!), we have a ghost with a cup of tea. A cup of tea that was conspicuously absent from all of the other pictures. Clearly not a British AI or that would have been the most important part. ☺

As I said, I find it fascinating how the same input can generate such different images, even within the same model and style. Now, you might want to tell me that my AI-fu is weak and that if I wanted to have something precise, I need to use all of the 500 available characters in my description. The thing is, I intentionally kept the description terse in order that the AI fill in details for itself. I didn't ask for a haunted house, I didn't ask for iron girders, nor did I ask for a fluffy StarGate. The AI put in these details by itself. And, as is usual for AI art, it is "close but not quite". Or "good if you don't look too closely". It might be worth remembering that AI infers, it doesn't reason. Which is why the ghosts have additional limbs, the ropes and chains make no sense, and, well, the faces...
It might, of course, be worth remembering this before letting AI loose on the roads where it can emotionlessly run over children.

For what it's worth, I turned my terse description into this purple prose:

A whimsical picture of a friendly ghost seated in a wooden swing set in a serene, misty forest.
The ghost, cloaked in a translucent off-white sheet, has expressive eyes and a cheerful smile. It holds a reddish-brown book open on its lap, seemingly engrossed in the pages. A teacup is also visible in the ghost's hand.
The swing is attached to trees. The forest trees are rendered in soft diffused light, creating a gentle, ethereal atmosphere. Soft warm light emanates from the background.

Purple enough for you? It's 491 of my allowed 500 characters. The end result was... What are those, ghost gills?

Image by GenieAI.

Oh. What.

Let's see what "Dream Shaper" makes of it.

Image by GenieAI.

Cool, three hands, and of course no tea. Come on, how hard is it for a ghost to pop the kettle on? It just needs some next level poltergism, that's all.

Image by GenieAI.

Here's one with tea. Could be somebody's daughter sitting outside to read. I'm not quite sure why Dream Shaper interprets "ghost" as "girl".

Image by GenieAI.

Another with tea. It looks like it has got the message regarding the tea. Yay! Actually, looks like she comes with a tea set. Very fancy, doing it properly.

Image by GenieAI.

The picture is a rather pretty one with tea and what might be the most eccentric saucer imaginable (though the above is a contender), missing only a small pile of Rich Tea biscuits.

Image by GenieAI.

A pretty girl who has decided to forgo the book for a big cup of tea. A girl that has her priorities sorted.

Image by GenieAI.

Just like this one. Tea is what matters, says Rick who on this chilly Sunday is on his seventh tea. Why d'you think I buy sacks of 1,100? ☺

It seems that the longer description works better with Dream Shaper than with Imagine v4 so long as you want girls dressed in white gowns rather than, you know, ghosts.

I'll add one extra picture to bring the count to twenty five.

Image by GenieAI.

Yeah, a drunk ghost wearing a Santa hat chugging beer. Is it raining or has the ghost just wet itself? How drunk do you need to be to... actually, don't answer that. Clearly this is the insalubrious side of the afterlife, a place where good ghosts wouldn't be caught undead after the gloaming.

Your comments:

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David Pilling, 27th October 2024, 19:37

Can always be a difference between what the instrumentation says and the reality (not much help).

I couldn't find much user comment, you can't be the only one.

Problem with Pinterest is that people often post things you'd like to buy but are no longer available. I'm not a fan of Pinterest at all.

jgh, 27th October 2024, 20:01

What I find most unrealistic about these sorts of pictures is holding the book in midair. Who on earth suspends their arms in front of them like that when reading? Rest the book on a surface! Even if it's your belly in bed, you don't want your arm muscles constantly pushing at an extended force like that.

Rick, 27th October 2024, 20:11

Today I learned that I read unrealistically. 😥

A tree-dwelling mammal, 28th October 2024, 09:19

Is it just me, or does the ghost in that last picture look like it has an enormous cock hanging out of its mouth?

jgh, 31st October 2024, 16:24

Reality is unrealistic. :)

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