AI-generated alternate history automobiles

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., science, science fiction  No Responses »
Sep 232022
 

And now AI software can show you cars that never were. The images produced are all flawed in some way… some slight, others rather blatantly; and some of the cars are downright goofy, like the 1970 Model T. But still, a lot of them are not half bad extrapolations of what might have been.

What If: AI Generated Cars That Never Were

1940 Chevrolet Corvette. Note weirdness with the grill and the soft top. But other than those… this is a creditable design.

 

Curiously, no late-model Deloreans on display. I want to see the 2015 edition.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 7:28 am

“Real Genius” in 4K

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, history, models, news, science, science fiction, spacecraft  No Responses »
Sep 182022
 

It’s about time:

It never had a real Blu Ray release, which always seemed odd to me.

And why not:

 

And why the hell not:

Update: it was once again brought to my attention that Amazon Text+Image links are nuked by ad blockers. So here are the text links to the 4K movies I linked to:

Real Genius [4K UHD]

Poltergeist (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)

Red Dawn – Collector’s Edition 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray [4K UHD]

Star Trek I: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition Complete Adventure

Star Trek: The Next Generation 100-Piece Engineering Field Kit Tool Set

 Posted by at 1:50 am

What a full restoration of “Metropolis” could be

 art, awesomeness, history, science, science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Sep 042022
 

Someone jacked footage from “Metropolis” up to 4k, boosted it to 60 frames per second and colorized it. It’s incomplete and imperfect; the scenes from the utterly craptacular recently discovered archival bits were not fixed up. Doing so would be a *major* chore, but with new software and AI, it might be practical soon. Convert the whole movie to this level of quality, and it looks like I’m springing for another copy. Add an alternate soundtrack where actual dialog and sound effect are added and include a fully restored and upgraded yet still B&W version, and that’s a hundred-dollar package any day.

Same folks did the same to the 1902 “A Trip to the Moon.” The colors tend to jump around a bit.

 Posted by at 2:26 pm

AI starts to replace artists

 art, history, Hmm..., news, science, science fiction  No Responses »
Sep 032022
 

Womp womp….

An AI-Generated Artwork Won First Place at a State Fair Fine Arts Competition, and Artists Are Pissed

The “artist” used a piece of software called “Midjourney” that used his text prompts to produce the image, which he upscaled and printed off. And then he won, and artists are cheesed off because, like the factory workers before them, they are finding that automation can do a better job than they can.

 

It’s definitely an interesting piece of art, and the controversy is likely to make it popular enough to make a few bucks off of.

 

We are rapidly approaching the day when AI *and* robotics can do anything humans can do, and do it better. This is a subject science fiction has covered over the years, and it’s something that society had damned well better figure out how to deal with before it comes along and drives *everybody* out of a job.

But for now…. *snerk.*

 Posted by at 11:55 pm

Iron from sand

 art, awesomeness, history, Hmm..., science, youtube, YouTubers worth watching  No Responses »
Sep 012022
 

The “Primitive Technology” channel shows how to process iron from river sand. The level of effort and the raw materials needed in order to produce a *tiny* amount of iron are impressive, but the results show that it can be done at a very low tech level. A bit of refinement and a useful amount of workable iron could be produced on a fairly regular basis by a small family, tribe or village. Why you’d want to go to the bother *today* I’m not so sure, but maybe this sort of thing would be useful for those of a prepper mindset, or planning on colonizing new worlds or time traveling. I’m not here to judge.

A couple months back the same guy showed how to make an iron knife – admitted a bad one, but an iron knife nonetheless – from bacteria. I was *certain* that I’d posted this video, but a concentrated, detailed search of the blog for more than ten seconds did not turn it up. Shrug.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 10:23 pm

Nope. Not AT ALL creepifyin’

 AARRRGH, art, awesomeness, Crazy, Gah., Hmm..., news, science  No Responses »
Aug 232022
 

What does a black hole sound like? I suspect Lovecraft would have recognized it…

 

 

 Posted by at 12:46 am

The pandemics march on

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, science, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Aug 162022
 

How thrilling.

Texas toddler presumed positive for monkeypox

Regardless of how the kid contracted the disease… A) it’s not the kids fault and B) kids tend to crawl all over each other. The more morons who couldn’t control their baser actions get the disease, the more likely they are to pass them on to kids, and then the more likely those kids are to pass them on to *other* kids. And soon enough… BAM, the schools shut down again.

A dog tested positive for monkeypox, and may have contracted the virus from his owners, raising questions about human-to-animal transmission

One more reason for the barbarians in charge of China to whack all their pets. If I lose pets due to this nonsense, I’m at the very least going to join a  class action suit against any organization that put on “Pride Month” events that spread this. My cats busting out on pustules because a bunch of perverts and weirdos could keep it in their pants for a few weeks would be the sort of thing that I would not forgive.

Polio May Have Been Spreading in New York Since April

Yay. I know Progressives think that FDR was actually a good President with a lot to emulate… but come on.

And it’s good to see how well Our Leaders  follow the science:

 Posted by at 11:52 pm
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