good boy: a thirty year old dog in Portugal beats a century-old record for oldest in the world
bb-8: a small security robot that rolls about the premises
eternity’s pillar: late night variety show produced by Turiyasan-gitananda—see previously
studio fong leng: a look at the Dutch fashion designer who dressed Kate Bush and socialite Mathilde Willink
can’t do hands: an atrocious sign language guide imaged by an AI—see previously
catgpt: a feline version of the scarily smart chat bot—via Waxy
nothing, forever: an endless AI generated episode of Seinfeld, livestreamed—via Waxy
construction spree: an annual survey of China’s Ugliest Buildings
word of the day: eleemosynary—that which is supported by charity—and gives us the derived term alms
he gets us: the billion dollar rebranding of Jesus—mostly financed through dark money, via Super Punch
35f no pmh, p/w cp: OpenAI gives a correct diagnosis but can’t show its work, fabricating a fake citation for its conclusion—via the new shelton wet/dry
yeldard: a forgotten British television oddity rediscovered in Paul Bradley
musiclm: a Google sandbox experiment for audio generation from rich captions—via Waxy and Web Curios—see previously
krewe of karens: i would like to see the Mardi Gras manager
semi-stagionato: an ancient method for surviving the COVID cheese glut made have improved the region’s pecorino cheeses
taming of the shrew: voles manage to bond and form long-term relationships without the “love hormone” oxycotin
party (of one): Broadway Barbara’s “Dance for Your Life!”—see also
an absurd italian gastronomic religion: the ironical, fascist sauce that outlived the war on pasta—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links—lots more to explore there
you know i always wanted to pretend that i was an architect: attribute these quotes to either Seinfeld’s George Costanza or GOP darling George Santos
magic voice: more prompts and audio continuation courtesy of Google’s suite of AI tools
In an attempt to pre-empt some of the legal and ethical concerns in a field fraught with promise, disappointment and unchecked acceleration that our present concessions to copyright and IP are not fit for, stock picture clearing house Shutterstock has 
partnered with a suit of text-to-art artificial intelligences to offer clients with existing licensing packages access to a limited dataset used to train the generative AI, promising to compensate artists, photographers, models (contributors) whose work was skimmed, studied. Shutterstock also includes the unenforceable catch-all caveat that generated images must not be used to infringe or misappropriate intellectual property or otherwise generate false, deceptive or misleading imagery—which we can’t whether or not divides the onus and responsibility between publisher and patron.
Composite artist and computer collaborator—I think these partnerships are called centaurs or reverse centaurs depending on one’s perspective on who is doing the driving—Wen Wormhole sits down for an 
interview with Messy Nessy Chic to talk about the alternate reality of a “Glam Rock Sci-Fi Universe,” with a touch of wrestle-mania energy added to the prompt, that he’s has helped craft with the power of artificial intelligence—see previously. Learn more about the creative process, techniques and compounding inspiration at the links above, which Wormhole compares to being an art director of a project. What fusions of reality and alternate universe would you create with the help of AI?
between two ferns: chats with “historical figures” have been regrettable—see previously
this concludes our broadcasting day: an alternate HBO signoff announcement (see previously) emerges
nuscale for scale: US authorities approve design for the first generation of small, modular reactors
all things bright and beautiful: a compelling argument to enjoy the All Creatures Great and Small reboot
circular sun house: Frank Lloyd Wright’s final completed project (see also) on the edge of the Phoenix Mountains Nature Preserve goes on the market
closed captioning: as a bilingual family, we always relied on subtitles and appreciated this primer on why we’re not alone
content mill: CNET magazine suspends automated articles after an embarrassing disclosure
Via Web Curios, we are directed towards a rather nightmarish gallery of the myriad ways that early and contemporary, cutting-edge image generators alike make malformed human hands. It took me a long time to see this mural in Wiesbaden as the interlocking fingers for rebuilding but it did eventually register. There’s uncanny valley to describe the off-puttingness of a simulation that’s just too close to reality but there’s no agreed-upon term for its corollary. What would you call it? Such mangled hammer-toes only are relatable in a society in an era beyond such imitations and manual simulacra. How would you like to be vetted?
distressed property: no interested buyers for North Hollywood Crypto House—via Miss Cellania
rabbit on the moon: some communities following the luni-solar calendar readying for the Year of the Cat
high stakes brinksmanship: the US Treasury turns to extraordinary measures to avoid default on debt repayments
peer-reviewed: many scientists disapprove of ChatGPT cited as a contributing author on research papers
unbuilt: rendered images of Frank Lloyd Wright’s unrealised architecture
childhood lottery dream home achieved: a selection of properties on the market, courtesy of Zillow Gone Wild
under the gavel: a distressed Twitter is auctioning off office furnishings from its San Francisco headquarters
best mates: a meta-study of attracting and retaining intimate partners
demidecimate: Microsoft announces layoff five percent of its workforce
from permacrisis to polycrisis: selection of global buzzwords for 2023
style guide: an eccentric alternate spelling circulated in a newspaper for three decades—without explanation or apology
wellipets: frog-faced galoshes make a haute couture return
©: Getty Images is filing suite against an AI art tool for scraping its content—via the new shelton wet/dry
fechtbรผcher: early Renaissance depicts of duels between men and women
silicon valley: a tech bust might be a net positive for the city
inflection point: one young person’s crusade to salvage writing, journalism before ChatGPT changes it forever
beasts of burden: the giant donkeys of Ancient Rome—see also
birth-rate: China registers its first population decline in six decades
ren faire: author Eleanor Janega’s Once and Future Sex
level 100 schlamm zauberer: police attempt to clear remaining protester demonstrating against the demolition of the hamlet Lรผtzerath for surface mining of coal—see previously
☠️: a safety warning from the Electric Company (1973)
midway in the midjourney of our lives: what AI does well and why AI is not intelligent
No one can resist a fun novelty sock but it seems that neural networks are not yet exactly pushing the frontier on novel patterns as our AI Wrangler (previously) demonstrates, since as a rule it’s taught to rehash established answers, naming predictable and extant subjects but was impressively keen on alliterative gatherings of animals, like: Antelope Anarchy, Gazelle Groove or Elk Extravaganza with the various ungulates in party hats. Much more at the links above.
rummaged in the roots: with only the dead in their graves as witnesses, we learned that the Hardy Tree of St Pancras succumbed to blight, via Strange Company
terracotta army: archeologists are hesitant to unseal the tomb of China’s first emperor—and for good reason, via ibฤซdem, more here
genuary 2023: a month of generative coding to make beautiful AI artefacts—via Web Curios alphaputt: this typographical, twenty-six hole course
know your meme: incredibly, there has never been an indexed search engine of the internet image macros—via Waxy
fossil fuel: industry scientists had a preternaturally accurate grasp on the consequences of burning oil five decades ago—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links
ucluelet: the largest Rogue Wave on record—see previously
vauxhall: a tour of south London in the 1980s—via Things Magazine
Via Waxy, we are introduced frighteningly adept AI protocol from Microsoft called VALL·E that can extrapolate and convincingly simulate, imitate any voice with a sample of just a few seconds of audio. The underpinning code is not being published as an acknowledgement of its potential for misuse but there is a demonstration reel of its abilities that’s pretty amazing and are tuned for diversity, emotional maintenance and environment. Eleven benevolent elephants for your elocution.
notional counting: amateur archaeologist proffers the theory that markings on ancient cave paintings may communicate information about quarry animals’ life cycles—pushing back the origins of writing ten-thousand years
social recession: declining trust, friendship and adult activities by the numbers—via tmn
brick and mortem: the surprising, seemingly non-sequir resurgence of a chain of bookshops
arrakhis: the European Space Agency launches a tiny satellite to search for dark matter
metroid as directed by paul verhoeven: imaging 90s video games as feature films—see previously
little d: a Defender-style camper conversion kit unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Salon
upward falling payloads: proposals for an orbiting warehouse and fulfilment centre
mirabile scriptu: phony but possibly plausibly kanji generated by AI for abstract concepts—particularly appealing is one for the Chief Twit, ็ (pronounced wang, meaning king)
Via Waxy and Things Magazine, we are introduced to an ingenious bit of coding, a sleek JavaScript application programming interface, a complier under twenty kilobytes for making generative remixes—like this stand-out reimagining of Jean-Michel Jarre’s 1976 Oxygรจne, Part IV, inspired by the track “Popcorn” by electronic composer Gershon Kingsley. Give it a spin yourself or browse the extensive catalogue of contributors.
Via Kottke, we are given over to ruminate on all the ways we can rush through reading, research and watching and optimising our time—our output and personal curation left in the able and dull-dealing hands of automation and outsourcing—and compelled to beg the natural and consequent question to what end. 
I have no pretensions about what others might call a good work ethics is just my motivation to be done with the tedious bits and to get to sneak away a little time for something that’s more interesting—and often not related to work and would entertain a degree of algorithmic enhancement if that might help me get swifter and better. While career wise, I wouldn’t exactly mind being made—regardless the inevitability and having little choice in the matter, this drive to get on to the next, equally loathsome chore is resonant and suggests being in the wrong business, addled and attended fairytales of endless growth and unbound productivity. See more from Alan Jacobs at his blog The Homebound Symphony at the link above.
Via Waxy, we invited to contemplate the awful prospect of a Web, already increasingly made for the interactions of bots and automation, 
totally overrun with generative artificial intelligence creating catchpenny content that estranges the human user further by expanding the Dark Forest of the Internet—a hypothesis borrowed from cosmology as one way to account for Fermi’s Paradox by positing that alien civilisations are silent and paranoid, reasoning that any other equally or more advanced life out there would pose an existential threat, that relegates us to our private, insulated spaces that echo and reinforce our points of view and preclude new discoveries. Seemingly more life-like, spaces become life-less with algorithms serving us exactly what we want and optimising visibility and virality with actual humans wise to avoid public-facing ventures lest they be ambushed by predictably pedestrian engagement and relentless marketing that we’ve let encroach on us in a complacence—which in all fairness only took a few months from funny and precocious to mealy, dull and wholly convincing.
For Second Christmas, our AI wrangler Janelle Shane (see previously) hit upon another ingenious application for generative networks, remedying in one fell prompt the inscrutability of Victorian greeting cards and the relatively anodyne nature of contemporary cards, to enliven the iconography and sentiment for the industry. 
Yearly good tidings and descriptions were issued by machines fed on the corpus of inaccessibly weird cards, and where possible, illustrated by our programmer. The unrenderable caption that goes with the above 1889 motto calls for “a jester puppet with magic hat holding a leaping, toothed bird which brandishes a cane as it leaps.” Another favourite was for 1890—May You Feel Sturdy and Gay—picturing an elegant naiad lifting a pianoforte and wearing a striped bathing suit. Much more to explore at the links above.
Whilst OpenAI’s ChatGPT (previously) invent more plausible and predictably formulaic output 
instantaneously and in a way that addresses all the tropes—and stereotypes—in a more natural and less forced way, these rather vanilla spec-scripts for a generic Hallmark Holiday special, safe and concise as they may be, do fall short of the genius of an earlier artificial intelligence model’s product, set in a small town snow-globe refillery. Plus as a bonus treat, we are referred by Strange Company to the origin story of the Snow Globe—through the lens of its most famous cinematic appearance in the first few moments of Citizen Kane—from a Viennese family trying to provide surgeons with brighter operating theatre lighting, a convoluted story that sounds like it could have been written by the above neural network. Give it a try yourself at the link up top and be sure to share.
Via Web Curios, we are directed to curated selection of more AI film stills—projects where cinema buffs working with Midjourney and Stable Diffusion labs ask their collaborators to especially conjure up The Little Mermaid but directed by Michael Mann. This montage takes us behind the scenes as well as imagining Star Wars, the Star Killer Dynasty through the filters of Fritz Lang and Stanley Kubrick. Much more, including the expanded concept treatments, at the links above.
