Although she will occasionally, now that she is two, sleep on her own, Missy still prefers to have a couch buddy.
Couch buddies
Month: February 2023
AI art
The subject of AI art has come up in my conversations and feeds several times this month, so I thought I would investigate further and give a few bots a prompt: line art, art nouveau, black and white, tattoo, silk moth, spider web, spider, flax flower, hemp leaf, cotton bloom. I’m working on a design incorporating fiber sources and wanted to see what the bots came up with.
Each time the prompt is given the results are slightly different for all the bots. Dream.ai, Deepai.org, and Craiyon.com were easier to use because it was a single page website interface. The Midjourney bot did the finest work, but was nestled in the Discord app and relied on a message board which was bombarded with prompts. I had to continuously scroll back to find my own prompts (and probably inadvertently used all my free queries getting the feel for the format). I wouldn’t use any of the images, they all have botanical accuracy issues, and wonky bits, but that could also be my choice of prompt words. They also feel like stock art. (Hm, there is something to ponder.) However, the exercise did give me examples of what I don’t want, and as an artist, sometimes that is valuable data. Starting with a blank canvas can be daunting.
Is it art? I think it is. The human is crafting with words and a bot, rather than paper and pen. The AI is learning and adapting according to prompts and feedback, but it is humans that give the image its story (for now). Will it surpass human art? In some cases, but not all. It is certainly faster. Will artists lose their jobs? Not the good ones, although it is extremely difficult to make a living wage on just art anyway. It is the story or the package, not just the image itself that gives value. Will humans stop making art? Are you kidding? Some people can’t stop, it is a driving force to doodle and create and refine, whether or not there is monetary gain. Will there be contention? Duh. We’re human.
Counting chickens
I know my chickens and I are spoiled. They have a nice big coop and run with an automatic coop door, and I have two video cameras, so I can count chickens without wandering out in the dark.
The outside camera has a memory card, so I can scroll back through time and watch them disappear one at a time into the coop. I’ve tried counting them using the inside camera, but there is so much jostling and repositioning that it is like playing a cup game. The inside camera can see them on their roost once they are settled, but the angle is terrible for counting.
Yay for technology when it is working.
I think he likes it!
It took a couple weeks, but my eldest’s snake is now using the new basket as a hide! He has crawled over and around it and squished it out of shape, but not crushed it. I’m calling it a successful creation.
Spindle development
I thought I would share the current spindle development timeline. I started with wooden spindles; the first was shaped with a band sander and hand tools, the second on my lathe and with hand tools. Then I turned to computer design and 3D printing to control dimensions. Third and fourth from the left are printed in resin and very brittle, even more so than wood. The spindles on the right are printed with PETG, which in clear shows the printer pattern and looks cool. Second from the right is a little small, and the last one on the right is a little big, so I need one that is just right.
When photographing, I sent the newest spindle flying off the table and onto the concrete floor. Ouch. I have dropped the smaller one many times without breakage, not so for the larger one. Darn it. Another factor to suggest a scale down.
I glued the head back on and am spinning with it to see if there are any other aspects that need adjusting before I request another print. I am making sure I spin over a cushion or carpet.
Critters and Craft 