4-10-24 Bible Verse of the Day!
Old-Site of the Day: Fracterra.com Not as old as I'd like; it only appears in the Wayback Machine in 2011, but definantly old-style. This is the home page of someone who makes fractal landscape generators. Actually, after exploring a bit, I found exidence this site really is old, from at least 1997.
4-9-24 Bible Verse of the Day
Old-Site of the Day: RacProps Issue 1: Lost in Space
Online since al least 2002, this is a website about TV props from a former prop builder. I linked to a page about Lost in Space, because that's the first page I found!
4-8-24 Bible Verse of the Day!
3-28-24 And… I’ve got to admit I went back to Google Gemini after writing yesterday's post. :/ Having something write a story almost exactly to your tastes within seconds is addicting. Sorry for my failure & potential hypocracy.
It is cool technology, tho I fear it. It’s too fast. It can write better prose than I can. It can take a rough rambling paragraph outlining what happens next & spit out a complete chapter.
One consolation: it forgets. And it relies on cliches. I have to keep reminding it the direction a story should go, character motivations, the world’s rules, etc. If I don’t, it slips back to its default, trite ideas. But sometimes the ideas it comes up with are interesting too; things I wouldn’t think of myself, which are interesting to build upon. I'll probably go back there again today, just to see what it'll come up with.
I need to start writing again, in earnest. By myself.
Before I go, I'd like to bring up one or two more old AI-writing related papers: Atari's Interactive Fantasy Project and Toward the Design of a Computer-Based Interactive Fantasy System Atari was working on a system in the early 80's which was supposed to create interactive stories on the fly. They thought they'd have something ready by the 90's, but then they lost $500 million in one year, & Warner Communications really wanted to get that off their books, so they sold them, &, as far as I know, none of their new owners wanted to continue the research. That doesn't mean the research stopped, however. The second paper is about further research, by one of Atari's employees after leaving the company.
Bible Verse of the Day!
3-27-24 Story Generators For the past few months, maybe a year or so, there's been a lot of hand-wringing online about AI generated stories & the like. But such programs aren't exactly new. Here's a brief history of them, from a a bit over 10 years ago. You can look up each program & its creator to get more info; just copy & past their names into a search engine.
The main problem with the new systems is how they were made. The old systems relied on formulas developed by programmers; the new on formulas created by copying millions upon millions of different works, some of which are still-under copyright.
The US never anticipated this, so it's the Wild West right now. Great Britain did, & made laws back in the 80's that cover AI. Putting 1000's of works in a database isn't illegal for research purposes, but the database can't be used for profit, under British law.
I tried Google Gemini, just to see what it could do. It can recall the exact text of a book, if you ask it, so it would count as a database under the same law. (My understanding; I'm neither British nor a lawyer.)
I don't reccoment using such a system; it's adictive, & it tends to sap one's own creativity.
Unless you want to develop your own AI, based on a ruleset developed by you, not on millions of copied still-copyrighted works. After all, techlnology's fun. :)Bible Verse of the Day: Proverbs 5:20
Tomorrow's the last day for the Pokemon TV app; if you want to watchanything of the series free & legally, do so quick. I finished Pokemon Orgins yesterday. It's ok; a bit rushed, a bit overreliant on narration, but with some good animation. Worth seeing once.
3-26-24 Bible Verse of the Day!
3-25-24 Bible Verse of the Day!
Important Video for Small Business Owners in the United States, or trading in the United States. ...Ok then. I don't like making political statements here, but this feels wrong; it will hurt the little guy, without really helping cut down on crime. Criminals will find ways to skirt the law; they always do; that's why they're criminals! :/
3-21-24 Bible Verse of the Day!
3-13-24 Bible Verse of the Day!
Old-Site of the Day: Story Bites An online magazine for short stories, dating to the '90's. I linked to a slightly grim story from 1998, about a woman who thinks she found her lost dog...
3-12-24 Bible Verse of the Day!
Old-Site of the Day: ToyArchive.com, in 1998 This site may still be online, but I can't access it right now. (Security Error.) Here's what it looked like in 1998, but then it had been up for about a year. "Rare and Unique toys of the 70's, 80's, and 90's. Transformers, Star Wars, He-Man & She-Ra, Prototypes."
2-9-24 Bible Verse of the Day: John 21:20-25
1-31-24 Microsoft Discontinuing Wordpad Video suggesting folks get LibreOffice instead of MS Word.
1-25-24 Bible Verse of the Day: Philippians 4:8
1-22-24 Bible Verse of the Day: Matthew 7:7-8
Old-Site of the Day: Gene Splicing I was searching for a cool domain name, & stumbled on this at AstroDragon.com. It's a DOS game, a sci-fi RPG, about an investigator for the Space Security Agency. You must answer a distress call on a moon base, & hoefully solving the signal brings the SSA back into the public's graces. I've not played the game, so this isn't an endorsement, but it sounds cool.
1-19-24 Bible Verse of the Day! Matthew 7:12
Old-Site of the Day: Legacy Preservation Society I was wondering where the phrase "In Days of Old/When knights were bold" came from. Apparently, it's from a 1912 song titled A Warrior Bold. The site I feature today has a copy of the lyrics, & it's been online since at least 2001.
1-12-24 Well, I found out what happened to Gigablast. Matt Wells made most of his money selling results to meta-search engines; Google has gradually cut that off, requiring folk who buy their results to not buy any one else's. No customers = No money = No search engine. This comes from a comment Matt Wells left on Hacker News.
Bible Verse of the Day! Psalm 118:5-6
Old-Site of the Day: Letter-By-Letter Word Games A 20-year old page about word games, like Scrabble, Lexico, etc. Last updated in 2022, pretty long life for a webpage! Here's what it looked like in 2000.