Baidu has been offering “AI” enhancement of its images for a while, and yesterday I bit the bullet, created an account, and trialled it. It was a press image that I had in high-res, but Baidu’s image search, strangely, only had a low-res version of it. Could its “AI” turn it into a high-res image? […]
Read More… from Baidu’s “AI” image enhancement tested: clever, but like a hallucination
There may be a group of people today who are far more tolerant and accepting, their numbers increased by young people who have grown up in a far more connected world, and have been exposed to more creeds and races than their forebears. That’s a good thing. And we should, rightly, be intolerant toward the […]
Of the public-domain paperbacks we’ve published, I like to think we’ve done a very decent job. In the case of A Farewell to Arms, we’ve had some custom because no one has published the book in its uncensored form till now. We’ve given something to the literary world and we finally fulfilled Ernest Hemingway’s wishes. […]
Read More… from These covers could be hazardous to your eyes
Again, not alone here, just ahead of the game (at least ahead in terms of public pronouncements; I’m sure Jon has had this in mind for some time). Post by @jon View on Mastodon With an excellent reply by Dan Seitz further down the thread (a direct quote since Vivaldi Social isn’t displaying […]
Two things: I did say “AI” programs would ultimately make up false stories about us all. And what happened to me in 2024 was not as bad as what happened to Arve Hjalmar Holmen in Norway. There are still a few disinformation stories left about me—about four more where companies who would normally enforce their […]
Read More… from No matter how bad you had it, someone had it worse
Above: The latest entry on Autocade, the DS Nº 8. March 8 isn’t etched into my memory as much as October 20—the birthdays of Autocade and Lucire respectively. Autocade, therefore, has just turned 17, and back in 2008, I certainly never expected it to exist as print yearbooks come the mid-2020s. As mentioned, I […]
A very interesting analysis on Crikey by Bernard Keane on the turmoil the occident finds itself in. In the opening paragraphs we find this zinger about what the right wing believes it was to protect the west from. Protecting from whom? Name your favourite other—the Soviet Union. Islam. China. Declining birth rates. Secularism. Immigrants. Globalism. […]
Read More… from If you want a slice of the pie, then compete
With the dismantling of the US by Lone Skum and others, Mike Masnick wrote in Techdirt: ‘And now we’re watching Musk, Trump, and their allies destroy these foundations. They operate under the dangerous delusion of the “great man” theory of innovation—the false belief that revolutionary changes come solely from lone geniuses, rather than from the […]
Read More… from No one is an island, not even when on an island
I’ve been saying this for many years, certainly for at least five, but the most ready example I can find on my blog was from August 2024: we have seen repeatedly how dishonest Big Tech conduct, which is often left unchecked, festers into something appalling, whether it’s anticompetitive conduct or the genocide of Rohingya Muslims […]
Read More… from I’m no longer alone in calling for Big Tech to face bans
With regret, we’ve had to remove free postage for US customers at Libriz. The price had shot up considerably for us, and those of you who have been checking out the site will know that this was carried out last week, and has nothing to do with a certain meeting at the White House. Compounding […]
Read More… from The end of US free shipping at Libriz (hopefully just for now)