Dec 27, 2022
How to install (and run) Stable Diffusion
Stable Diffusion (SD) is the most flexible, and open way to generate AI artwork, simply because it can be installed locally - compared to other solutions like artbreeder, or midJourney which are proprietary version - stable diffusion is open for the public.
The hardware requirements though is quite demanding, as you will need a recent computer with a modern AMD or Intel processor, 16 GB of RAM, a good video card like NVIDIA RTX GPU (8 GB of memory), and a minimum of 15 GB of free storage space available.
You could theoretically install SD into a virtual machine, but then it will run in a lower speed (not being able to access the video card), generating a simple image of 512x512 will take up to 30mn.
The installer (tested and working as of Dec, 26 2022) is located here (for Linux and Windows) the installation process is pretty long, Python 3 will be installed, then many other python packages...
Once the download is finished, access the extracted zip file and run ./start.sh (which is the way you will later run the SD as well).
In case you get errors, most of the scenarios are covered on this page
https://github.com/cmdr2/stable-diffusion-ui/wiki/Troubleshooting
As for example, I had this scenario:
- the installation went fine, and once it was ended, the internet browser popped up with the address localhost:9000 and then this error would occur:
Killed uvicorn server:app --app-dir ... --port 9000 --host 0.0.0.0
The reason I had this error was that my setup for the virtual machine had too little memory (4GB), and unless I setup up to 12GB that error would appear.
Dec 23, 2022
First steps with Midjourney
Dec 22, 2022
First steps with AI learning
Since AI (Artificial Intelligence) is all over the place right now, I started to look into that topic and found a few interesting websites.
First, AI is really a revolutionary step forward, why am I saying this?
Well, just look at the music, images that are now generated by a simple text prompt, this is insane, this technology is close to magic, really - it is advanced mathematics, but it feels like magic.
You say the word, and the picture appears in seconds, with visual that can be compared to the most talented artist creation. That is magic.
How does it work, in the background, I have tried to get into the basic of 'Stable Diffusion' (SD for short) and basically it comes to Machine learning, there is a very extensive data set of images, or collection of similar photos, that will be the starting point, then a model is made that is the part which is traditionally called the software, the algorithm, thanks to that part SD will be able to produce an artwork that looks like a painting, or in the style of a particular artist, or a visual style.
To summarize:
- Dataset, that will train the machine learning
- model, that will be interfaced with the program to produce a particular 'style'
and then running the whole thing into a browser
The picture above is 'Black widow' using a style byMarvel Studio, quite decent result
Dec 6, 2022
Next level instagram effect with lensa.ai
Remember my post about 'reface, prequel' filters application back in September 2022?
Well, this is old news, the new filters are now artificial intelligence boosted with lensa.ai (developer, Prisma labs, inc.)
The Lensa AI app is currnetly (Dec, 2022) the No. 1 spot on the iOS App Store's "Photo & Video" charts. "
Lensa AI works by inviting users to upload 10-20 photos of themselves.
Using the open source Stable Diffusion model, the app processes your photos to generate avatars of you that look like they were created by a digital artist.
Dec 5, 2022
Z-library down past Nov. 4 2022
Z-library was a database of e-books and scholarly articles operational from 2009 to November 2022.
The site was an important resource for many people, most of them college students.
The website was shut down on Nov. 4 2022 after the U.S. federal government seized its domains.
The domain has been seized, but Z-Library website is still available via Tor and I2P network.
Nov 20, 2022
Twitter Saga continue
Elon twitter saga as of November, 18 2022
In a nutshell: One of the world's richest men asking his staff to work unpaid overtime (and at high stress level) so he can recoup some of the billions he lost, when he overpaid for the company. Elon Musk is not an idiot, he is just a complete narcissist.
Can you imagine how many staff were just slacking off at work over the last couple weeks?
Elon has slashed the workforce by 50% and the rest would do overwork to compensate?
For Elon this is a cultural backslash, because Engineers who went to work at Tesla and SpaceX (even though they are paid below market rate) were true believers.
Their idea was to work for a pioneer company with futuristic products, top notch technologies ... and these engineers worshiped Elon.
For Twitter this is another story entirely, the company has a different culture to begin with, and they were acquired ...
and when you take over a different company full of people who are not already part of the personality cult of Mister Musk, then the clash was inevitable.
Now I am sure Musk is very surprised that after he laid off half the workforce, fired people who criticized or corrected him, cut all remote work, told people they must work long and hard hours (and weekends), and gave out tons of mixed messaging as to who would actually have a job when all was said and done, some employees might not actually want to stay.
The real question is, when will Twitter implode completely, and which tech giant is going to swoop in, buy what's left, and combine Twitter with their own offerings? Google? Microsoft? Apple?
Some would like to see Elon acquire Facebook, or Instagram just to see these other 2 platforms implodes ...
but that is just mean.
Nov 4, 2022
The Twitter buzz
This month (Nov 2022) Elon Musk bought Twitter at $44 billion (an estimation of Twitter 'real value' would be around $10-20 billion)
When Musk realized that mistake (buying something that isn't profitable)
Then having started the buzz around this new acquisition, and in the name of "free speech" Elon's next logical step was getting ready to dump 50% of the office staff and also planning on making a blue check mark (you know the one for verified government, journalists, celebrities) - well that 'check mark' is now for sale by anyone for $18 per month.
After this Stephen King called it a joke and Elon replied asking if $8 would be better.
In the end Twitter is about to get rid of its moderation team,
and anyone (gullible enough to buy that 'blue check mark') can appear as a "reputable source"
Will this save this investment financially? not sure
But there was a massive exodus, and now people are kind of hating Twitter.
Oct 8, 2022
Could this be the end of copyright music, photo, movies?
Oct 7, 2022
ImageAssistant Batch Image Downloader
Pullywood ImageAssistant
It Is a chrome extension for sniffing, analyzing and downloading images from web page,
it's good compatibility allows users to easily extract images loaded by flash or ajax.
You can get it from Chrome App Store:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dbjbempljhcmhlfpfacalomonjpalpko
http://www.pullywood.com/ImageAssistant/shortcut.html
Enjoyed by 300K users to this day
currently in Version 1.66.6
Updated July 16, 2022
Size 3.27MiB
It works wonder for bulk downloading pinterest, instagram feeds
and in its basic feature you can restrict the download from a certain size (to avoid getting lower resolution pictures)
ImageAssistant is a browser extension running on chromium (developed in the chrome environment) and its derivative browsers
the extensions provides a variety of filtering methods to assist users in selecting and bulk downloading pictures from a selected page.
The extension includes 3 extraction modes:
- the basic mode "Extract the picture on this page" (default shortcut key: )
Only for picture labels, label background pictures and pictures loaded in other ways on this page
- the enhanced mode "Prefetch link"
Will prefetch the links in the page on this basis
- the "Analyze prefetch data",
To get more this mode will further analyze the prefetched data on the basis of "Prefetch Link" and try to obtain the image data in the DOM (if the link is a web page)
Sep 26, 2022
Sep 23, 2022
Amazing Instagram artists : David Amyot
Sep 22, 2022
Nathan W. Pyle on the start of "Strange Planet"
@nathanwpylestrangeplanet 6.5M followers on Instagram
The simple idea of questioning everything as we would be an alien looking at us (on Earth) and thinking 'why are they doing it this way? why are they living like this? why are these humans accepting this?'
Pretty fun, and brain tickling
Sep 21, 2022
Instagram top 5 comic artists
@nathanwpylestrangeplanet 1,368 posts 6.5M followers 1 following
@sarahandersencomics 601 posts 4.1M followers 523 following
@catanacomics 649 posts 3.4M followers 2 following
@cassandracalin 480 posts 2.6M followers 474 following
@explosmofficial 3,193 posts 1.9M followers 41 following
Sep 15, 2022
Looking for 'Out of space' issue #1 on the web
As an search practice, here is a little hands-on search training
the goal is to find the 'golden comics' issue of "Out of this world" number 1 published in 1950
What we know about this issue is that it features the first appearance of Crom.
Go ...
Step 1:
- google https://www.google.com/search?q=out%20of%20this%20world%20issue%201
will return a lot of information on the magazine itself
it was drawn partly by Joe Kubert
contains an adventure called 'Lunar Station' for 10 pages
but where is the comics itself?
Step 2:
- google https://www.google.com/search?q=out+of+this+world+issue+1+pdf+download
from there switch to https://digitalcomicmuseum.com
Step 3:
From there we discover that there was another book called 'Out of this World adventures' but this one is not featuring Crom
and lower we found the comic
https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=12606
Bingo!
Sep 13, 2022
Rick and Morty Season 6 Episode 2
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