Crochet enthusiasts asked ChatGPT for patterns. The results are ‘cursed’ | ChatGPT | The Guardian
A typical crochet pattern resembles coding in its own way, with abbreviations and punctuation marks denoting the creation process. “Ch” is used to denote “chain”, and “sc” is “single crochet”, for example. Meanwhile, an asterisk (*) implies an instruction should be repeated and brackets [] are used to separate repeatable steps in the instructions.
Woolner was impressed to find that ChatGPT returned comprehensive instructions that resembled a typical pattern. Following the pattern exactly, they created what was described as an “AI-generated narhwal crochet monstrosity”. Woolner said although the product was anatomically disturbing, it was impressive the language-learning tool created a pattern that actually yielded a sea creature.
“The consensus among people who have seen it is that it looks wrong and ugly, but also very cute,” they said. “It came out shockingly very accurate while still being very, very wrong. It’s a weird mix, kind of an uncanny valley.”
“Photos from the Gillies Archive of post-WWI facial reconstruction surgery were used in Bioshock, meaning that zombie-type Splicer enemies had the faces of recognisable individuals” - @ dannybirchall
Source: Biernoff S. Medical archives and digital culture: from WWI to BioShock. Med Hist. 2011 Jul;55(3):325-30. doi: 10.1017/s0025727300005342. PMID: 21792255; PMCID: PMC3143874.
Rainbow Plane on Google Maps
Via: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps (ycombinator), Joseph G.
Drones raining from the sky in Zhengzhou
Word on the street is that a rival drone company that lost the bid interfered to overwhelm the drones nav system!
Twitter: pitdesi
Video: 吴文行wenxingwu
The human eye can’t really tell just how well plants have already been fertilised. But robotic eyes – in other words, multispectral cameras combined with the right software – can assess the nutritional status of the wheat at a glance. To this end, Argento is using the drone to make an aerial photo of the wheatfield – not in the visible spectrum, but in the so-called near-infrared radiation range. This shows the ‘emotional state’ of the plants, as it were. “When plants reflect a lot of near-infrared radiation, then they’re doing well. If they only reflect a little, they are under stress”, says Argento. Plants can get stressed when they are given either too much or too little fertiliser.
“Pre-tiled imagery“ - ultrazool on Twitter
Iowa, United States (41.9°N 94.8°W), 06 Sep 2021
![Tibetan woman holding flowers, only they’re not flowers they’re cryptocurrency mining PSUs. [Reddit, h/t Will S.]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/707f0fe1291c279a653400375a0142cb/84e672dc70efc9e7-a3/s500x750/e828b9e11ca831421b6e66f18919c414228e275a.jpg)
Tibetan woman holding flowers, only they’re not flowers they’re cryptocurrency mining PSUs. [Reddit, h/t Will S.]
stml:
“My train ride home took a Hito Steyerlian turn. This is a CCTV test target. I had no idea such things even existed. I am obsessed.”
https://twitter.com/_MichaelOswell_/status/1403049605831462914
Deepfake satellite imagery poses a not-so-distant threat, warn geographers - The Verge
When we think of deepfakes, we tend to imagine AI-generated people. This might be lighthearted, like a deepfake Tom Cruise, or malicious, like nonconsensual pornography. What we don’t imagine is deepfake geography: AI-generated images of cityscapes and countryside. But that’s exactly what some researchers are worried about.
Specifically, geographers are concerned about the spread of fake, AI-generated satellite imagery. Such pictures could mislead in a variety of ways. They could be used to create hoaxes about wildfires or floods, or to discredit stories based on real satellite imagery. (Think about reports on China’s Uyghur detention camps that gained credence from satellite evidence. As geographic deepfakes become widespread, the Chinese government can claim those images are fake, too.) Deepfake geography might even be a national security issue, as geopolitical adversaries use fake satellite imagery to mislead foes.
In 2014, Facebook filed a patent application for a technique that employs smartphone data to figure out if two people might know each other. The author, an engineering manager at Facebook named Ben Chen, wrote that it was not merely possible to detect that two smartphones were in the same place at the same time, but that by comparing the accelerometer and gyroscope readings of each phone, the data could identify when people were facing each other or walking together. That way, Facebook could suggest you friend the person you were talking to at a bar last night, and not all the other people there that you chose not to talk to.
Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens
Over the past few years, cops sure have become increasingly vocal about their disdain of average citizens exercising their constitutional right to record interactions with authorities. It’s almost as if many of them feel they are above the law itself, but we digress. Now, some officers appear to be trying to evade videos of them circulating on social media through a crafty — if not exactly airtight — strategy: playing copyrighted music loudly and for long enough to be flagged by automatic censoring software on apps like Instagram.
Are cops playing copyrighted music while being recorded to trigger takedowns?
“This installation collapses together images and objects referencing American colonialist expansion in the Philippines during the early 1900s, as well as contemporary racial politics and historical amnesia. Archival research of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair collides with contemporary protest imagery, political references, and textiles. Chroma key green, traditionally deployed in digital video post-production, is used in intricate handsewn garments, backdrops, and props, including a 19th Century American dress, MAGA hats, tiki torches, and artificial houseplants. The allusion to postproduction and image manipulation is a direct reference to the construction of an American narrative that is itself a problematic construction.”
https://www.stephaniesyjuco.com/projects/dodge-and-burn-visible-storage