Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Sneaky Dragon – the podcast built for A.I. scraping.
This week: memories; beyond repair; why net; termination papers; myth manners; toga panties; doctor my eyes; surgical team up; look through any window; measured response; bad news, good news; bear bottom; movie quiz; least fun incest plot; racist aliens; unnecessary narration; read the novel; a lovely car; airport of the future; the return of Bruno; sensual sound; perfect pastiche; counter-culture junk; disaster chic; farty fun; cultural divide; Hai, girls; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; A.I., A.I., oh; the podcast dilemma; all you can poop; all folked up; chicken soup for the sou; oh, the ironing; the joy of necks; motion lotion; bad movie math; and, finally, screen flubs.
Question of the Week: What is your technology blind spot?
Sub-question of the Week: Are you part of the gig economy?
Thanks for listening.
As recommended by Mr. Peter Ayres:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Sorry for calling this one 642, one day I’ll get it right.
A great horror film based on Finnish folklore is Rare Exports: a Christmas Tale (2010). Finland’s traditional pagan midwinter visitor is a frightening old goat guy, and this modern story riffs on that in a violent and darkly funny way. The movie was spun off from two mockumentary shorts, “Rare Exports Inc.” and “The Official Rare Exports Inc. Safety Instructions.” They’re about hunters in the wilds of Lapland who capture these mythical feral naked old men then train them to be Santa Clauses for export. You can catch both on YouTube. (NSFW alert)
I don’t own a cell phone so I have a technological blind spot there. I’ll borrow one if I need to be reachable while I’m out of the house but since I don’t travel much, I can get through life with just a landline and a home internet connection.
While I can’t improve on “Dear John” for the name of Dave’s bathroom reno segment, submitted for your approval are:
The Throne Speech
CrapChat
The Loo-natic Whinge
WC Spiels
Your Terminator discussion put me in mind of an X-Men story to destroy the Sentinels by convincing them to fly into the Sun. I think it was issue #59 where Scott, aka Cyclops, persuades one of the Sentinels that if they were programmed to protect mankind and kill mutants that destroying the Sun would be the ultimate way to do so. The Mark II Sentinels’ weakness was their blind dependency on cold logic. This allowed Cyclops to convince the Sentinels to fly into the Sun, arguing that destroying the Sun was necessary to completely prevent future mutation. The comic ends with hundreds of Sentinels flying to their destruction at the heart of our Sun.
Maybe I’m missing something because I don’t remember all of the Terminator films, but did they play out a scenario like that at any one point?
Because you can’t reason with those guys.
My technology blind spot is also a creative struggle for me, I’m still working on using a stylus on screen tablet like the Wacom Cintiq for example. Maybe it’s the lag or the settings or just an entire set of controls but if I do use a tablet, I’m not looking at it, it’s flat on the desk while I’m looking at my monitor. The whole hand-eye and where to look has evolved over the past ten years or so and I’ve fallen behind, looking and drawing on the monitor image itself isn’t coming as easy as I thought. For maximum comfort I still enjoy good old pencil and ink on paper with a reliable scanner if I’m taking it digital. I’m an old dog who needs to forcibly learn some new tricks.
Then there’s AI, which I’m increasingly more against every day…the generative kind that is taking over by creating the same looking plastic phony images with a few prompts. I feel that Lee’s comments last episode were directed at me for mentioning the use of neural filters in Photoshop but I have to thank Dave for explaining the differences between inherent AI vs. the generative kind. Photoshop will never do the job for you, I’m still in control of what it offers me. Technically Photoshop is a form of AI but with an unlimited spectrum of tools for me to adjust and enhance. The colorization neural filter I mentioned colorizes black and white flawlessly but it lets me pick the colors. I get to make Harpo’s hair red and not blond like Photoshop thinks it should be and I can change the output until I get it where I want. Generative AI does some amazing images if it’s used right but none of that art can be produced, they’re just pretty looking images that are fun to look at even though they all have that same style. I recently saw a designer post a military security patch that a client did with AI and the images weren’t quite right. The rifle stocks were on the wrong side, stars out of place and “Security” had three ‘S’s because AI can’t spell. The client wasted time thinking that AI could cut corners and budget but ended up paying the designer five time more to fix this patch AND produce the mechanical. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything with generative AI in my blind spot, it better hope I don’t run it off the road when it moves into my lane.
I’d like to wish our hosts and all the Sneakers out there a blessed Easter weekend as we celebrate the Resurrection!!
Easter greetings, sweet sneakers!
My tech blind spots are those digital platforms on which many people seem to be having a wonderfully entertaining or productive times: For example, whilst Google often responds to my random questions by leading me to Reddit, I really don’t understand how Reddit works or is used. Similarly Slack, Discord, and similar platforms. A new client is asking me to produce work in ‘Canva’ so that’s the next techno-hurdle to vault.
I’ve just started a weekly gig as a drawing tutor for a tech guy: he gave me a very specific goal for what he’d like to be able to achieve, and I reverse engineered a curriculum from this. I then asked an AI to have a bash at designing a course, and wow. It came up with a really good, highly bespoke structure with a clear hierarchy. I checked out my student’s company for inspiration, and found another tech blind spot:
“XYZ ltd is an independent research and advisory group formed to bridge the gap between fundamental research and commercial products. We build upon our expertise in MEV and blockchains to pull the future of crypto into reality.“
No, me neither.
Last week I made the rash claim that Folk Horror had become THE dominant sun-genre, and Dave called my bluff by asking me to list five. Hmm. The recent ones that spring to mind right now are:
Three by Ben Wheatley: Kill List, A Field in England, and In The Earth.
Two by Ari Aster: Hereditary & Midsommar
Plus: The Ritual, Enys Mèn and Men.
My argument is looking pretty rickety! There are a bunch of marginal cases such as Troll Hunter, but few which achieve the off kilter tone of the Unholy Trinity.
Enjoy the break all,
Peter.
PS – I think my ‘favourite puppet’ post from two weeks back got quarantined. Drat!