Creative

Bigfoot eating pancakes

Adobe has gotten into the text AI business and claims their system avoids the whole “using artistic works without the artist’s permission” thing–which is great! They’ll probably attach a hefty subscription price to the service once it’s out of beta, which is…vintage Adobe.

For now, it’s free, and I’m in the beta, so here is Bigfoot eating pancakes on a sunny outdoor deck.

Proposed site logo, 2023 edition

Yeah, I’m still mulling the site redesign. I’ll get to it eventually. Probably.

In the meantime, I used Canva and some stock objects and background to make this:

And this:

Both are magical. I didn’t even notice I’d used a Star Trek font in the second one until later.

Also, apparently I have a thing for pickles? How Freudian!

Now, I won’t actually use these for site logos, but part of me really wants to. I will continue to mull what to really do…

Caution: Sign ahead

I saw this sign in a washroom today and felt compelled to edit the text. I’d thought of doing this before, but today I did it.

It’s also possible that I already did it and forgot, too. Regardless, enjoy! And be careful out there.

Bird art: song sparrow

I normally use “rejected” photos for my bird art, ones that are a little blurry or have some kind of defect, but I usually have good luck with song sparrows. Saturday’s birding did produce some slightly fuzzy photos, so at last I have a song sparrow to add to the collection.

A haiku to Daylight Saving Time

I had no issue getting up this morning after the “spring forward” due to the switch to Daylight Saving Time. It’s one hour, I don’t get the big deal. People are weird. And I appreciate the extra hour of daylight in the evening, it feels welcoming and inviting. So here’s a haiku to the time switch.

Daylight Saving Time

Spring forward today
Body clock forced to adjust
But now run at night!

Although I’ve switched mostly to running in the morning, I like the option of being able to run in the evening, which has its own ambience and positives. And it’s just generally nice to have a stretch of daylight after dinner, it lets the day unwind more gradually, unlike winter where it’s pitch black at 6 p.m. and you feel weird going outside.

Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Next stop: Permanent Daylight Saving Time! (please)

In which AI gets sued by Disney

silhouette of person standing near a doorway with bright light
This is apparently a parallel dimension. OK! Photo by Mo Eid on Pexels.com

Years ago, I wrote an (unfinished) novel for National Novel Writing Month that involved a parallel dimension. I never had a good title for it, and used the clunky working title “Start of the World”, which sounds a bit like a bad translation. Then I thought, why use my brain to come up with a title when I can ask an AI chat program to do the mental lifting for me?

It turns out the answer is because it comes up with incredibly banal titles. Or maybe my prompts suck. In any case, I asked ChatGPT for 10 titles and #10 would likely to result in a call from Disney’s legal department1Actually, tittles can’t be trademarked, but try telling that to Disney less than a year after the second Dr. Strange movie..

Give me 10 titles for horror novels that involve alternate dimensions

  1. “The Shadow Realm”
  2. “Parallel Terrors”
  3. “Through the Void”
  4. “Twisted Realities”
  5. “The Other Side”
  6. “Gateway to Horror”
  7. “The Fourth Dimension of Fear”
  8. “Infinite Nightmares”
  9. “Beyond the Veil”
  10. “The Multiverse of Madness”

These are all so bland, I wouldn’t use any of them. Yes, even the one Disney actually used. Undaunted, I asked ChatGPT to give me 10 more:

  1. “Dimensional Descent”
  2. “The Darker Side”
  3. “Alternate Realms of Horror”
  4. “The Otherworldly Terror”
  5. “Twilight Dimensions”
  6. “The Doppelgänger Effect”
  7. “The Abyssal Gate”
  8. “The Haunted Multiverse”
  9. “The Sinister Parallel”
  10. “Terror from Beyond”

A few of these are not horrible, but they’re all still incredibly generic. I especially like the on-the-nose “Alternate Realms of Horror.” That’s a novel name that is very much “what it says on the tin.” Maybe the prompt itself was too generic. I tweaked it a little. Probably too little.

Give me 10 titles for a modern horror novel featuring parallel dimensions

  1. “Interdimensional Nightmare”
  2. “The Multiverse Horror”
  3. “Parallel Panic”
  4. “Beyond Our World”
  5. “The Alternate Abyss”
  6. “Dread Dimensions”
  7. “The Parallel Paradox”
  8. “The Multidimensional Menace”
  9. “The Terrifying Twinverse”
  10. “Portals of Horror”

These are also pretty uninspired, but I like the alliteration it leaned into, especially for “Parallel Panic” and “Dread Dimensions”. “The Terrifying Twinverse” made me laugh, so there’s that.

I’ll try this again at some point when I can think of a prompt that will at least produce bizarre results, if nothing else.