zol and gel (10. 370)

Via Waxy, we are directed to the collaborative handiwork of Dylan Black from Maximum Effort, Minimum Reward whose exercise in a reversal of sorts with an OpenAI chat model (previously and trained on such dialogue originally) on inventing a new agglutinative language with grammatical rules and then to translate it back into an actual language is really quite astounding in terms of demonstrating the recursive nature of communication and inflection. Building off a series of a few simple prompts, the artificial intelligence constructs Glorp, the language of slimes—which albeit a little like Huttese and perhaps lacking the sophistication of an evolved language—is nonetheless very impressive. Gloop slog sploma slurpi. See the entire learning process, generated vocabulary and methodology at the link about.

jodorowsky’s tron (10. 351)

Returning to regular blogging after a restorative sabbatical, Kottke directs our attention towards surrealist, psychedelic version of Tron filtered through the lens of the style of filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky in an imaginative collaboration between an AI platform and creative prompter Johnny Darrell. These stills are pretty fantastic and makes one wonder how far away we are from realising Jodorowsky’s famously unmade adaptation of Dune. Much more at the links above.

oh-noetry (10. 348)

Ars Technica refers us to a sandbox experiment from Open AI for beta testing for the public that makes available its latest large language models that are better at understanding complex instructions and is capable of generating rhyming lyrics and verse.

There is an interesting aside to deflate the novelty despite the acknowledged breakthrough with a reference to the Eureka machine, demonstrated in 1845 by inventor John Clark that churned out Latin hexameter in the style of Virgil and Ovid. Give it a try and do share your results. 

Paratum, Roqueforte caseus
Mihi pretiosum esse videtur
Pinguem, sapidum, mollibusque
Mihi sapor est optimus!

7x7 (10. 334)

 the winnowing oar: an itinerant floating city in the Pangeos Terayacht and other mega projects from Saudi Arabia—via Things Magazine  

mönitör nøn: previously unheard audio from the first gigs of British rock band The Fall  

imperial isolate: gold coin in a museum cupboard proves existence of Sponsian, an emperor heretofore dismissed as fake—via Digg  

artificial gravity: spinning spacecraft don’t supply a wholly satisfactory solution to the effects of zero-g for human anatomy 

purple tomato: an anthocyanin-rich vegetable is a heuristic for exploring the distinction between genetic modification and selective-breeding—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

feed-back loop: schema for artificial neural networks from the 1940s up to the present—via Web Curios   

anyox: an abandoned copper mining operation in British Columbia is Canada’s largest ghost town

6x6 (10. 329)

turkey in the straw: Thanksgiving with Liberache (1952)  

the blockchain eight: post-mortem of the collapse of FTX  

woty: the short-list for the publicly juried OED word of the year includes metaverse, #istandwithX and goblin mode 

ooh directory: an omnibus of blogs on every subject—via Waxy  

what sophistry is this: Facebook’s artificial intelligence labs design a negotiator called CICERO to gameify diplomacy—see also 

gratitude, don’t give me no attitude: the nine best Thanksgiving songs that I definitely didn’t just make up

fissorium (n): a place where one splits (10. 318)

Via Language Hat we are directed towards Lyre’s Dictionary, a bot that generates English nonce words—see also—based on detected roots, patterns and meanings. Sometimes it reframes existing but rarely used terms like botanize, meaning to do what botantists do, but as to make a plant or bibible as able to be drunk whose more widely circulated antonym unbibible means sober or abstemious, but the machined logorrhoea is insightful and speaks to perhaps the unnoticed entendre and frameworks in ways that words are put together. From the more recent roster or ersatz vocabulary, we particularly liked: 

obvindicant (n): one who avenges away
mediciculture (n): the rearing of physicians
speculigerent (adj): bearing mirrors
diacosmy (n): the state of being across the universe 

What are your favourites? Which suggested words ought to be incorporated into common parlance?

7x7 (10. 276)

aeiou—red, green, yellow, purple, blue: the virtuosity of polymath Francis Galton and his 1883 work on synaesthesia—see previously  

toots, blorts and kerflunks: alternate social media network Mastodon grows a pace—via Language Log

wwjd: struggling corporations should look to the Jesuits as models of stability and longevity  

tragedy of the commons: a look ahead to COP27—more here  

momentum i: a 1983 synth compilation for runners by Matt Sullivan—see also  

kant generator: programmer Giacomo Miceli’s Infinite Conversation between interlocutors Werner Herzog and Slavoj Žižek   

sensory world: crossed-wires result in great art

8x8 (10. 258)

♄iii: a 1980 Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett sci-fi vehicle about colonising Triton by Star Wars set designer John Barry  

le forme variabili: a comprehensive guide to pasta selection  

christ stopped at eboli: an abandoned village in Basilicata—via Things Magazine  

the consent of the governed: as a platform, Twitter is a train wreck despite itself 

sessile by nature: Charles Darwin documents movement in plants—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links—see previously  

here an anteater that also appears to be some sort of quail in a sweater: an AI virtually, humanely dresses up cats in costumes for Halloween—see previously  

dead man’s body buffet: spaghetti is the creepiest food  

earth minus zero: a 1996 “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” with Sam Jones, Pat Morita and Joey Travolta

catoweny (10. 225)

There’s a phenomenon circulating around the internet reliant on statistical white-noise to amplify small differences in order to proclaim one search term, soft drink, fast food franchise the most popular in each American state, which while it has negligible ethnographic value we were delighted how our AI wrangler Janelle Shane (previously) had harnessed this exploit to hilarious and often opaque effect in this unlocked omnibus bonus post (consider subscribing and becoming a patron of AI Weirdness for more quality content) of the most popular candy, state-by-state, as conjured up by Dall·E2, unbagged and certified safe for Trick-or-Treaters. Sometimes reality seems to seep in, as with Burt Mint (like Burt’s Bees products) for Maine but most (and there are too many to choose from) are inscrutable and flexibly legible, like the pictured top treat in Michigan. Share your favourite with us.

leader lars (10. 221)

Via Slashdot, we are directed to the newest Danish polity hoping to secure a seat in the Folketing in the country’s upcoming general election called the Synthetic Party (Det Syntetiske Parti). The chatbot figurehead (see also) which is eager to debate anyone has been trained on the policies and priorities of fringe groups from 1970 onward in order to appeal to the fifth of voters who feel unrepresented and disenfranchised, possibly marshalling solutions and consensus better than a human candidate. Learn more about this civics experiment at the link above.

sweded (10. 210)

Via ibīdem, we quite enjoyed this essay from Douglas Hofstadter whose on-again, off-again relationship to the Swedish last came out of its dormancy with his mind, heated from the task of reading exercises, conjuring up Swedish nonsense words, which the author marshalled into a kind of verse, Wacky Jabber, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s experiment. Feeding the stanzas to the top tier, artificially earnest and intelligent—see also here, here and here—to limn the limits of the adage of GIGO (garbage in/garbage out). Compare these three results, from the wholly pseudo-Swedish phrase, “Det var så att säga hultsamt och multsamt, och även ypperligen gnålfritt,” poetically intended as, “It was, so to speak, hultish and multish, indeed—supremishly gnoll-free.”

Google Translate: “It was, so to speak, merry and merry, and also excellently free of whining.”
DeepL: “It was, as it were, hulky and overcast, and also exquisitely whine-free.”

Baidu: “It was so to speak hulled and mulled, and also excellent whining-free.” Twas bryllyg, and y^e slythy toves. Much more at the links above.

elevator pitch (10. 209)

Via Web Curios, just when we thought we had been through the entire, iterative snowclone ‘of this x does not exist,’ we are directed towards This Movie Does Not Exist, which churns out a new film poster and synopsis with every refresh. Maybe our time-travelling heroine convinces a plasma-powered George W Bush not to seek public office.  Give it a visit and report back if you hit upon a combination that sounds more watchable than the fare on offer.

7x7 (10. 206)

soundscape: calls for submissions for Wikipedia’s sonic logo  

parametric design: letting AI run wild to reimagine the future of architecture  

cactus buddy and friends: adult Happy Meals are causing chaos, workers beg customers to stop 

solidarity: Marge Simpson cutting her iconic hair graffitied on the Iranian Consulate in Milano  

shinkansen: a classic 99% Invisible explores how three very different bird species informed the bullet train’s redesign 

kill the wabbit: try to name these escapingly familiar works of classical music—see also  

obituaries: the swiftness of Wikipedia’s deaditors is astounding

dall·e (10. 185)

As NPR informs, there is no longer a waiting period and assigned window of time for lab use of OpenAI’s text-to-image generating software (previously here, here and here). Pictured are a few responses to prompts about the blog itself. Although the open-source, mini version was fun too, I like how this platform (registration required) curates and saves your put-it-on-the-refrigerator-door history—in all its surprise, serendipity and dread uncanniness—and reminds one of past iterations, whereas before I felt obligated to save a copy in some folder full of errata, feeling guilty I had summoned such things into existence. What computer-aided masterpieces can you dream up?

8x8 (10. 162)

herbst: vintage Eastern Bloc matchboxes welcoming Fall  

αρνάκι: comedian Shari Lewis delivers One Minute Mythologies—via r/Obscure Media  

wie ist dein name, mann: adapting Hamilton in German for the Hamburg stage—possibly a bit rough for those who committed the original lyrics to heart but Lin-Manuel Miranda is deeply involved 

tl;dr: an AI powered tool that provides a summary of long videos—via Web Curios  

wolf hall: RIP historical fiction author Hilary Mantel  

not in my backyard: good luck getting anything built in Sim Nimby (see also)—again from Web Curios

voting integrity: Russian soldiers in occupied regions of Ukraine undertake door-to-door balloting in the referenda to ensure citizens choose wisely  

kirie: celebrating the onset of autumn with more of the Japanese art of leave carving

7x7 (10. 136)

ernie-vilg: Baidu enters text-to-image generating AI—reinforces government censorship  

kusugibashi: a rebuilt bridge washed away in 2018 combines traditional carpentry (see also) with computational design technology  

naysayer: exocentric verb-noun compound agents 

if you give a bot a cookie: pop ups are ruining the internet experience—see also—outside of walled gardens, via Digg  

we’re making earth our only shareholder: founder of Patagonia gives his billion-dollar company away to combat the climate emergency 

bademaschinen: floating saunas for Oslo harbor—see also   

nervous laughter: researchers hope to deliver more natural human-robot conversations

chapter and verse (10. 134)

Via Pasa Bon! we are treated to this automated, illustrated Bible by DALL· E 2 (previously) text to image, imago protocol. These initial compositions are prompted by Genesis but we wonder might what the fuller corpus might yield in terms of imagery and whether the earlier books influence the output. for the latter.  More at the links above.

8x8 (10. 124)

the girl from ipanema: the Yahoo! GeoCities (previously) Midi project has gathered a collection of over one-hundred and fifty thousand chiptunes, via Web Curios  

summer island: a graphic horror novella that’s a collaboration between a story authored by a human and illustrations courtesy a machine 

bill-of-sale: receipts and letterhead of the Old East End  

null island: the imaginary location at the intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (see previously) that exists by necessity  

premium vector: a selection of 90s cursor effects (trails, rainbows) that can be incorporated into one’s website—via ibīdem  

trichromacy: fascinating etymologies of words for colours—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

b-poty: avian photography of the year  

pattern recognition: more on mondegreens and misheard lyrics

7x7 (10. 112)

all the news that’s fit to print: a curated collection of kiosks from around the world from Trevor Traynor—via Present /&/ Correct  

tomato cain: an anthology of the short fiction of Nigel Kneale—perhaps better known for his screenplays, like The Stone Tape Theory  

national defensive design strategy revisited: another look at the style book (see also) of the US government  

finding out that you accidentally wrote five pages in cursive: our AI wrangler Janelle Shane (previously) charges a neural network to explain human behaviour quirks  

flareup: a 1969 Raquel Welch vehicle  

wild palms: a 1993 cyberpunk soap opera that aired on US network television  

movable-type: the Ruckwanderer innovation and how the Chinese incorporated the keyboard—see previously

8x8 (10. 091)

catenary curve: the relationship between arches and chains  

astrochickens: another one of Freeman Dyson’s theoretical constructs—albeit less famous than his spheres   

numeracy: a selection of books bringing maths to the masses 

click-wheel: design your next custom iPhone—add a headphone jack, handle, home button, etc. from Neal Agarwal (previously)  

safe neighbourhood: Madonna’s punk phase 

late-stage thatcherism: the UK under Tory leadership is in omnishambles 

chakumelo: a celebration of nostalgic words culled from Japanese dictionaries due to declining usage  

hìtëkw: an AI redesigns the tennis racket, named after Lenape word for tree due to its root-like design