Uncategorized – Page 4 – The Implausi.blog

An archive of positivity

Been thinking about this one for a few days*, so I created a page to collect links to stories about positive use cases for AI. I feel like this will be an evergreen document, and something I can refer back to in the future, as well as send a link to someone who denies the existence of potential positive impacts of AI.

Yes, there are some risks, and there is the potential that some of the stories are simply marketing. Part of the challenge will be sifting the hype-rbole from the actual positive uses. And of course, there are more stories out there than I can ever find, so if you come across this blog post in the future, feel free to send me any examples you find.

*: Maybe more than a few; it has kinda been lingering since I did the AI Reflections episode almost a year ago, last August.

Pew-pew-pew!

Tera 5100E Handheld Scanner

Something amazing arrived through the middle of the snowstorm this week!

I was told something was going to show up Wednesday, and it did. I had a sneaking suspiscion of what it might be, but this wasn’t confirmed until I actually opened the package…

…which contained the pew-pew laser gun, pictured above.

And I was thrilled!

It was something I thought about grabbing maybe 15 years ago, maybe more, back when the free CueCat was a thing. (I’ll let anyone reading search that story on the web). Of course, the tech has improved since then, and the current one integrates pretty seamlessly with some of the web apps, so it might finally be possible to get a full catalog for #drimplausiblesbookshelf

I’m excited!

(And a massive thank you to the sender, if they’re reading this blog. Sending something like this, personal and perfect, shows so much. Thank you. 🙂

(not quite) photo-shop

Currently evaluating ACDSee for editing and managing photos. It’s not bad, but it feels almost like it’s “too much”, if you catch my drift?

(more detailed notes are available in the Workflow MOC)

My biggest challenge is color grading. Here’s a sample:

McFarlane Toys Warhammer 40000 Sister of Battle in black armor, taken indoors in natural sunlight

I can barely tell the difference, tbh. I think the one on the right is the one that I ‘enhanced’, but if you mix them all up, I’m really not sure.

This is going to be trickier than I thought…

Coldest football games

Watching the NFL playoff games during Wild Card weekend taking place during a polar vortex that has covered most of the North American continent has reminded me of two of the coldest football games I’ve ever seen live. Both were -20 or lower at kickoff, and got cooler from there, and both took place during November in Canada (not January, like right now)

The first was a game for the CFL Western Semi-Final at McMahon stadium in Calgary in 2012. -24 Celsius at Kickoff. Brrr. We had season tickets, and dressed warm, and cheered our hardest, but the home team still lost.

Stamps, Riders prepping for cold conditions at McMahon

The second was at the same stadium, for the local University team, a few years later. This was a much smaller crowd, with only about 1000 people in attendance. (The university games usually got 2-3000 during warmer days).

And I think this was the end of my cold-weather sports watching. It can be a lot of fun, but it takes me a long time to thaw out after.

Brrrr!

Much prefer to watch at home with a warm beverage and some nachos where the cheese isn’t frozen. My cheers are just as loud too.

Compassion

“There’s always reasons why someone comes into your life”, I was told recently, and in this case the reason I arrived into theirs was compassion.

(In that, I had some, and was able to share it freely.)

Funny thing, though is that it’s the same reason they came into my life too.

The message being that compassion seems to be in short supply in the world, but it’s one of those things that grows the more it is shared freely. It’s not a zero-sum game. Everyone needs a little love and understanding.

So share your compassion, as you never know who might need a boost.