July 17 2023 - AI Generated Art

 

I read a blog post from Sebastian Michaels cautioning about AI Art.  He showed the images below that were generated by AI Art based on the single term “woman”.  I took those images and searched the Google image feature which looks for similar images.  And that got me to AI Art - the website selling AI Generated Art.  And there were more like the ones below.  All kinds of art.  Even an AI Art Generator for us to use.  Their proprietary AI algorithms have carefully selected and managed images by their team of art experts.   Will we all be intermixed on Fine Art America?  Real people works of art and AI generated art?  Will I say in my profile “I am a real person.”  How might I prove this?  How curious it seems. Here are the AI generated images below.

How did the AI software get to choosing this version/interpretation? It seems to me that there is a a gathering of collective intelligence.  If one is scanning all the literature or pictures and then creating from that wealth of infomation, then won’t a dominant view prevail?  I don’t know how artificial intelligence assembles the result.  I know this seems a strange interpretation of “woman.” Here’s a retrieval of images that match the AI-Generated one on the left.  Ever so similar - which is by a real artist and which isn’t?  So on we go to the picture of the day - a collage of images from the Design competition in the Lily Show.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 16 2023 - Lily Show Weekend

 

It was the Ontario Lily Show yesterday at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington.  RBG is again under renewal.  I can’t help but contrast the funding in the U.S. and in Canada.  I expect that it isn’t that the US receives more government funding. It is that there are more super-rich people there who support and fund their favourite institutions.  Brian was recently in Chicago and commented that the Chicago Botanical Gardens were large and  perfect with immaculate maintenance.   That’s not the case with RBG.  It isn’t that I want immaculate gardens, but when gardens are presented as ornamental display gardens, then they end up with the expectations of an ornamental garden. That means weeding and caretaking that matches with this ornamentalist approach.  It is like having a lawn and then maintaining it poorly - not mowing it regularly and having major weed infestations.   With that, there still is great delight in the Royal Botanical Gardens displays.  The lily ponds are beautiful and the rose garden is a showplace.  Its renovation a few years ago make it more inclusive of all kinds of plants and has been very successful.  The Lily Show has decilned in numbers of lilies each year.  Members are growing older, the lily beetle has diminished interest in growing and showing lilies, and competitive flower shows have dwindled in numbers and interest. - young people have other inclinations.   It still remains a wonderful show and in particular, the floral arrangements are creative and beautiful.

Isn’t the black water of the RBG lily pond so amazing!    Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

To Not Come back or Not Get There

I would say that considering someone flaky is not a compliment.  I heard that one of the applicants to be in the MARS One crew was 80 years old. I would consider this to be a flaky person - wacky, unconventional and off-beat. And it makes me wonder about the Mars One selecting team and what their criteria were.  There is an extensive list of requirements - with categories resiliency, adaptability, curiosity, ability to trust, creativity/ resourcefulness , and then age (18 or older), medical and physical requirements, country of origin and language.   From Round One: Among the people that were selected to move on to round two, 159 have a master's degree, 347 have bachelor's degrees and 29 have Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degrees. The majority of the applicants are under 36 and well educated. Round Two: Medically cleared candidates were interviewed, and 50 men and 50 women of the total pool of 660 from around the world were selected to move on. Applicants are mostly from the U.S. The youngest is a 20-year-old and the oldest is 61. Round Three:  The company had intended to have a reality television show documenting group challenges, but no TV deal has been reached.  The audience was to select one winner per region, and experts select additional participants.   40 people will be selected. Round Four:  This is the isolation test - the forty candidates will spend nine days in an isolation unit.  (that's 9 days vs 7 months it will take to reach Mars). Thirty will be selected. Round Five: This is the Mars Settler Suitability Interview.  Supposedly to last 4 hours, to measure suitability for long-duration space missions and Mars settlement.  Twenty-four candidates would be selected. Then we move on to the section in the Wikipedia article on Bankruptcy HERE.  The company was permanently dissolved in January 2019 with a total debt of $1 million Euros. Back to flaky - here's what German former astronaut Ulrich Walter had to say in January 2014,  He estimated the probability of reaching Mars alive at only 30%, and that of surviving there more than three months at less than 20%. He said, "They don't care what happens to those people in space... If my tax money were used for such a mission, I would organize a protest." Two pictures today - one that we will never see on Mars, but can see at a model railroad show.  And then Brian's favourite new seedling that won in the Lily Show this summer.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Calgary Stampede

A festival I know little about is the Calgary Stampede.  It started on July 5th and runs until July 14th.  There are record-breaking crowds this year - over 1 million every year.  It is a rodeo, exhibition and festival.  It is considered the top rodeo in the world. There are rodeos from the beginning of July onwards.  Even Santa Rosa has a wine country rodeo.  They  are generally in the western provinces and states.  But the last one of the season is in Florida in November - the Newberry Lions Club Rodeo.  There are more than a hundred listings. I can't imagine what would happen if the Caribana Festival met the Calgary Stampede. Here are our cowboy/rodeo jokes for the day: How do you kill a rodeo clown? Go for the juggler! What do you call a rodeo bull with a sense of humor? Laughing stock.  A cowboy rides into town in the Wild West and shoot an artist. The sheriff asks him, "Why did you do that?" The cowboy says, "I thought he was going to draw." Where do cowboys cook their meals? On the range. If you wear cowboy clothes are you ranch dressing? A cowboy walks into a German car showroom and says, "Audi!" What do you call a retired cowboy? Deranged. Our Lily Show showcased Martagon lilies this year - they are the earliest to bloom.

Richest Person Ever

The Globe and Mail reported this week that the richest man in the world has $150 billion.  He's Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.  He's the richest person in history. This is more wealth than anyone since Forbes started its rich list in 1982.  Bill Gates had a net worth around $149 billion in 1999, and has since given away billions to charity so has 'lost ground'. The Independent UK article says that the nine richest men in the world have more combined wealth than the poorest 4 billion people.  In another article by author Tim Worstall in Forbes, he says that the average American today is 90 times richer than the average person in Central Africa.  And richer than the historical human being.  He proposes that outside addiction or mental health problems, there is no one in the U.S. today who suffers from the usual human description of poverty.  Real poverty is defined as $600 a year.  Brad Delong pointed out that historical living standards never fell very far below $600 for long, because if they do then they become dying standards. Tim Worstall, the author, makes a poignant observation: "...we sure do have a lot of people still talking about poverty so what are they on about? The truth is they're not talking about poverty at all. They're talking about how some have more than others: inequality." Which is where we started: wondering over the wealth of the richest person ever.