No good picture for this one yet, but today I found out that the lightning strike that took out our internet may also have taken out the air conditioning for the upstairs (where, ya know, our bed and sleeping is). I seem to recall it having trouble before the lightning strike, but that may have been a completely different problem with the filters, which also need replacing.
Apparently this repair is going to be pricey, and it may be cheaper to replace the entire unit. This will take another week or so. In the meantime, we've run the fan so much the wallpaper has started to peel in the bedroom due to the humidity, and it's still to hot to sleep most nights. As Dr. McCoy would say, "Oh, joy."
My wife has wondered whether we should get lightning rods installed on the house. After several years here, this is our first strike, and I wonder whether it will happen again. There's the old saw that you prepare for the last disaster, and that seems to be true: we first had sewage problems, then a burst supply line on a toilet, then a separate problem with the AC, then tree removals due to ivy, then a freeze, now this. Not much of a pattern there except for the trees and ivy, which we're working on as a long-term project.
Hopefully next up we will not have tornadoes or flooding, because we really can't do that much about tornadoes, and since our house is high on a ridge, if we get flooded out, you can kiss Greenville goodbye.
More news as it develops.
-the Centaur
Pictured: the back porch at night, since I do not seem to have any good pictures of the recent torrential rains and the associated lightning strike, even though I distinctly recalled having taken some. :-/
I wished I had a drone or something to fly up, or more hours in the day to drive around and find some place to take pictures not blocked by buildings and power lines. Even so, look at those beauties:
No filters, no AI, no nothing, just a Samsung phone (and Android's computational photography libraries).
Sorry for the no posts for several days. I'd say it's because I've been busy prepping for the Embodied AI Workshop - and I was - but when I brought up the Library of Dresan interface, I saw a half-finished post on my cut hand, and realized, oh yeah, lightning struck the computer while I was working on this. And it did, or more properly, struck the broadband gateway and fried all the Ethernet-connected devices attached to it. Fortunately, the laptop was not one of those things, but it did put a crimp into things for a while. Back to it.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Well, I didn't capture a picture of the lightning, or the aftermath, as I was too busy dealing with the loud SNAP simultaneous with the lightning flash at 2am last week, but I did capture this picture of the torrential rains overwhelming our house's drainage system later that week.
After almost a year's worth of work, at last, the Fourth Annual Embodied Artificial Intelligence Workshop is OVER! I will go collapse now. Actually, it was over last night, and I actually did collapse, briefly, on the stairs leading up to my bedroom after the workshop was finally done. But don't worry, I was all right. I was just so relieved that it was good to finally, briefly, collapse. A full report on this tomorrow. Off to bed.
-the Centaur
Pictured: A rainbow that appeared in the sky just as the workshop was ending. Thanks, God!
tl;dr: get to the point in the first line in your emails, and also in the subject.
"TL;DR" is an acronym meaning "Too Long; Didn't Read" which is used to introduce a quick summary of a longer document - as I did in the first line of this email.
Often when writing an email we are working out our own thoughts of what should be communicated or should happen - which means that the important point usually comes at the end.
But people don't often read to the end. So it's important, when you get to the end of your email, to port the most important point up to the top (which I typically do with the TL;DR tag).
And, even better, if you can put it in the subject line, do that too.
Your email is more likely to work that way.
-the Centaur
Pictured: our wedding dragon lamp, sitting on a side table with our wedding DVD, which is sort of a coincidence; and a very cool light bulb.
Discussed: a topic I swear I've written about in this blog, but I cannot find via searching past posts.
Just Loki, on the back patio, looking at a leaf ... with a little added magic (full size).
Producing this relatively simple image actually involved a fair number of Photoshop tools, several of which are new "generative AI" tools, but many others of which are just plain old machine vision magic:
Layers (stacked images) used extensively to save original or alternate versions of things.
Perspective Warp (a pretty impressive tool in its own right) to distort the image into a rectilinear shape.
Content Aware Fill (a new Photoshop generative AI tool) to extend the warped stone tile to fill the frame.
The Clone Stamp tool to complete the grout lines which were only partially filled in by Content Aware Fill.
Quick Selection tool to isolate Loki and the leaf into their own layers for later.
Selection > Modify > Expand and Selection > Modify > Feather to get the fine hairs on Loki's boundary.
Generative Fill (another generative AI tool) to eliminate many of the leaves.
More Clone Stamp to eliminate more leaves and minor imperfections.
Layer duplication to create an original and to-be-colored tile backdrop.
Swatches, the Rectangular Marquee tool, the Polygonal Lasso, and the Fill tool to create the colored tile.
Color Burn layer blend mode (with 57% opacity) to create the primary Mondrian effect.
Another layer duplication to create a new version of the colored tile to enhance the grout.
Filter Gallery > Colored Pencil which fortuitously greyed out the colored tile and colorized the grout.
Magic Wand tool set to Contiguous and 0% Tolerance to cut out the greyed tiles from the grout layer.
Darker Color layer blend mode to enhance the grout.
Drop Shadow on the leaf to make it stand out.
Duplicating Loki into a layer with Darken to make him stand out against the colored grout.
Adding Inner Glow modified to Darken as well (with a Choke of 14 and Size of 87) to eliminate some of the white halo around Loki.
Adding a second Loki layer, Normal blend with 50% opacity, to get his sheen.
I like how it came out, especially given how it started:
I looked at that and thought, "You know, that's almost a Mondrian backdrop" and I was right!
Sunlight, shining through the trees behind me, striking just some of the forest ahead. I took a few pictures (and even played with the contrast and vibrance of this one in Photoshop) but none of them quite captured the glow that the unseen sunset was leaving on these leaves.
Have been prioritizing the Social Navigation Principles & Guidelines paper (and helping my wife get ready for her business trip) so no detailed posts for you. Enjoy a sunset and a margarita.
I saw some people blogging about their 20th blogging anniversaries, so I decided to check how long my blog has been up. And .. So! I apparently missed the blog's 20th birthday, as it started in November 2001 ...
... unless I blogged it and forgot about it. And I also missed my first (recorded) web page's 25th birthday ...
... as I started my website sometime in 1996.
So no birthday post for you. I guess I'll have to wait to the blog's 25th (or web page's 30th) birthday in 2026.
After truly terrific hailstorms, we were treated to a truly awesome sunset.
And, got some work done on editing SPECTRAL IRON: Dakota Frost #4. FINALLY, getting the rewrite of the slow section rolling with some good Dakota Frost action segueing right into an ambulance ride.
I still have misgivings about using AI-generated art to create final designs without human intervention, and I think AI art needs to address the copyright issue in a meaningful way, but speaking as an artist into cosmic horror, it sure can create some creepy images that are great food for thought. Here's a couple of cool ones from a recent project that I've been working on - great design concepts, whether or not they get used.
Bonus points if you can guess which work this art is designed to illustrate.
Pushing the Social Navigation paper forward. Made progress. Very tired. Lots to do tomorrow. Crashing out. Please enjoy this lovely park.
-the Centaur
P.S. Yes, it really is true that if you "work a little bit harder" you can get way more done than you thought you could ... I was just about ready to give up, pushed a bit harder, and nailed the whole todo list. Now zzzz.
Woohoo! After being just about as behind on a Nano challenge as I have ever been and still won, I managed not only to complete 50,000 words in the month of April, but to blow past it to 53,266 words! Hooray!
progress chart for PLAGUE OF GEARS this April
To be frank, that steep slope over the top there feels really good, and I'm quite proud of the effort that I put in to make sure I made it this Nano. But, to be equally frank, the steep slope there PRIOR to going over the top really su-u-u-cked, and I pulled two almost-all-nighters (and one actual all-nighter) to finish.
what, me eating breakfast before noon? it's less likely than you think, though I do like it
Early in the month, I prioritized Clockwork Alchemy, and the Social Navigation paper, and getting work done in our old house in California that we're trying to renovate. But once I was back in the East Coast, I really had to knuckle down, writing up to 6,000 words a day near the end.
deficits and progress on April's nano
But, by the end, I was so far ahead that the "velocity required" to stay on track actually went negative (as you can see at the very end of the graph). I broke 50,000 words yesterday, but I still had a scene in mind involving the Big Bad of the Jeremiah Willstone stories, the dreaded Black Queen, Victoria. I didn't want to lose that inspiration, so I wrote it today, and the next scene, which is starting to roll back together with other parts I've written already. So now will be a good time to take a break and take stock of my life, to resume editing Dakota Frost #4 SPECTRAL IRON, and to get my new consulting business, Logical Robotics, rolling.
twenty-one years of nano challenges
According to my records, I've attempted Nanowrimo challenges (Nanowrimo, Camp Nano, and Script Frenzy) 37 times, with 35 successes, producing over 1.85 million words in successful months. If I'm lucky, and I can keep up the pace, I may crack two million words next year - wish me luck. But I think it's more pressing to get the editing of the existing books done - so wish me even more luck with that.
Oh, one more thing, the excerpt:
“Alive, but deposed,” Jeremiah said, as the proboscis of the thing behind her touched the back of her head—then bit in with a sickening CRACK. “Aaah! Deposed in 1865—or enslaved by the Plague today,” she moaned, as it dug in. “It’s y-your … choice … your … Majesty—”
The Queen raised the pistol. “I am no-one’s slave,” she said, and pulled the—
Falconer Cadet Specialist Jeremiah Willstone awoke with a start. Staring at the ceiling, she tried to hold on to the dream … no. She knew better than that. It felt like a fading dream … but they were echoes of memories, the last remnants of some disruption in time.
The jumbled recollections were slipping away, the tangled thoughts dissipating: canaries and scarabs and plagues and queens. But she remembered at least three key things: there was a war on, in time; her memories would be out of date; and she had to rise to the occasion.
Jeremiah glanced at the clock: 4:45AM on a radium dial that did not look familiar—no, did not look like her style at all, a frilly elegant thing more French than Austrian. She looked over, found what she expected from seeing the clock, and considered. It was late enough.
“Oi, roommate,” Jeremiah sat up, feet off her cot. “Name, rank, year. No joke.”
The human computer on the cot opposite her groaned. “Wha—” the woman muttered, a dark-skinned woman with impressive curls and chest, who managed to make waking up seem elegant. Then one of the vacuum tubes in her head sparked, and she sat bolt upright, blinking.
“The Lady Westenhoq,” the woman whispered icily, then swiveled to look at Jeremiah. “Liberation Academy Cadet. And, like you, Cadet Willstone, I’m a first year.”
“Thank you, Lady Westenhoq,” Jeremiah said quietly, “but I meant the date.”
Westenhoq looked at her, then swiveled her own feet of the cot to face her.
“No, and I … think I’m going to start going by Jeremiah.” She rubbed her face. “Sounds more professional, and pet names remind me of my uncle anyway. But, since you knew my nickname and used it freely, I … take it we’ve worked together before.”
Oh, have they. Prevail, Victoriana!
-the Centaur
Pictured: Breakfast at Stax Omega, lots of graphs, and the Camp Nano winner's badge.
SO! I was super behind on Camp Nanowrimo, so I dropped almost everything and prioritized it, and now I'm not. So I can do other things, like write this blog post.
But, it is 4:12am, so: I'm going to bed.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Me, Loki, some vegan dinner, and some delicious word count.
Yeah, *that* house. The one that doesn't take down its "Christmas" lights. Ever.
Really, they're lights for the paths around our house, lights which would be WAY more expensive if we put them in as permanent fixtures. After all the (unexpected) expenses it took to renovate the place and all the manual work left to do, I think we're going to just have to wait a while before we get around to that bit.
And, unfortunately, the lights we had up got discontinued, so when we had to replace some strings after wear and damage (and re-replace them after we had to take out a tree on the neighbor's property line and a branch cut the strand) we're currently mis-matched. :-(
But it sure does make the front paths and porch nice and cozy at night.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Our old house in California, which we're still slowly fixing up after the move East. It turns out we're not the only one in the neighborhood who's done this, but their setup looks way more organized than ours:
