AI image generation from text prompts. Midjourney, DallE, etc. These platforms are quickly disrupting the visual art and commercial art world. This isn't just "Putin as a Vampire Riding a Nuclear Bomb" wacky art. If you spend time looking at how these platforms are being used - they are quickly becoming production tools that are helping accelerate ideation and creation. Here are some examples:
* Developing logo concepts - the rendered text is usually wrong but the layout and design can be used to "hand build" a final concept
* Developing UI and web page designs
* Architectural designs and renderings
* Packaging design
Personally I'm using it to develop very niche imagery for a roleplaying game (Welcome to Grimsbury). Everything from postcards, postage stamps, posters, signage and illustrative imagery is coming out of Midjourney. The amount of control I have over the final product, the detail and unexpected "awesomeness" is mind blowing. I just generated a set of vintage postage stamps in the gravure style of scientists opening otherworldly portals. I could print them out and use them to mail a letter.
Artists and illustrators are very concerned about this technology - and rightly so. I was budgeting almost $2,000 to pay for art for my game - now - I spend $10-$20 a month to get hundreds of images that I 100% own the commercial rights to use. This will get me to the Kickstarter phase where I will then use kickstart $$$ to pay an illustrator to help with the final product - but Midjourney gets me launched.
This happened to someone I knew back in 2014 or so. We were hired together at C** Consulting and I was immediately shipped off to Dallas to help with an eCommerce program at a famous Watch & Accessory brand. My buddy from orientation in NJ kept in touch and was jealous I was on a project so quickly. He went back to his home and went into the C** office dutifully for the first month and just did training, enablement and finally surfed the web and got bored.
It seems his manager LEFT C** right as he joined. The ORG had not changed to reflect this status and my friend now reported to a ghost. He joked with me about it but was also baffled that such a large company could let this happen. His humor turned dark and he started to stay at home - do nothing - and collect his check.
Last I heard he applied to Ac** Consulting - got a role and started up with them... collecting two checks for a while until C** figured out what was up and reassigned him - he put in his 2 weeks notice at that time. :shrug emoji: True story.
I hope they bring back Battlezone - Activision rebooted it in 1998 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1998_video_game))
A great single player and co-op "real time strategy" game that ran on a simple protocol called ANET (http://www.kegel.com/anet/) (http://www.strickleton.com/anet/)
Most servers are dark now but there's still a great community keeping this game alive. It had very robust tools for building and sharing your own maps for deathmatch and strategy campaigns. One of the first games I ever fell in love with.
Thanks for posting this. I thought it was just me or my laptop or my hardward config. Or the thousands of photos. YES the lag after hitting the windows icon... or searching or trying to open a folder with more than 100 items... it is very real and annoying.
Ahhhh Google Wave. I was an early adopter and shed a tear when it went away. The closest I've felt to that product is Slack but find Slack too noisy. With Wave I felt like I was IN my work not in a "sidebar" application that was pulling my attention from my work. I suppose there were so many ways to use Wave and so many ways to use Slack that your experience could be completely different than mine. But RIP Google Wave.
As an aside - the author of the post is Princeton professor Arvind Narayanan. I took his free Cryptocurrency course on Coursera and it was superb. He really broke down all of the concepts in an easy to understand way that has stuck with me for years.
"For a while it was looking like I could actually afford the basic ASCAP/BMI/etc. license with hobby money but that changed when laws were changed to require you to pay royalties per-song-per-listener (unlike terrestrial radio)."
^^^ This is what really killed hobby streaming. The fear of getting popular and reported had a serious chilling effect on this scene. Coupled with the rise of streaming services that changed the music paradigm from ownership to on-demand access.
Yes the platforms had a bit of a learning curve... hand editing icecast config.xml beyond basic settings could be daunting.
But I still run icecast and shoutcast servers on digitalocean for $10/month with an autodj randomly cycling through my mp3 collection... comes in handy when entertaining and need my own music etc.
As a side-note - Nullsoft (shoutcast developer) was purchased by AOL and languished. Recently a French company radionomy purchased shoutcast from AOL and has relaunched it. They have a pretty mature radio broadcasting platform built on it. (I don't work there just admire their product)
Volunteer for a cause you care about. Serve a meal in a soup kitchen. Prepare dinner for a homeless shelter. Do overnights in a shelter. Work with animals at an animal shelter. Pick up beach trash. You will feel better.