Mid Journey Tests III

Midjourney is a lot of fun.  The trick is to be your own client, then you can judge what is a success and what is not.  I am not so sure how well this would work when you have to deliver something for a client who may or may not be at one with your point of view.

 

The following are more tests, generally in the area of mosaics that could be used as elements of a 3D scene.  Notice the whimsy of the bee person.  I didnt do that, I said swarm of bees and a hive and this is what it gave me.

 

Generally "vintage photograph of" produces entertaining images.

 

Mosaics of Bees 

Mosaics of Sea Creatures

 

Sumerian statuary of Alien Gods

Siggraph 2023

draft

This is a brief report on SIGGRAPH 2023 national conference held in Los Angeles, CA.

 

As always, one must choose between seeing and interacting with people vs. attending the technical program.  As the technical program is very expensive and since most of the value of the program comes from the published papers, this makes the decision a no brainer.  You either pay for an exhibition badge or a "everything but the technical program" badge.  There are those who think the technical program is the heart of SIGGRAPH but I think such people are living in the past.

 

In the same way, the electronic theatre, aka film show, is also a relic of the past and has no particular value in today's world.

 

Even Emerging Tech, usually the height of SIGGRAPH, was boring.  The one exception was the fabulous Sensorama curated by Scott Fisher of USC.  This was a recreation of a pioneering location based 3D entertainment.

 

 

People included but not limited to (and in no particular order) Terrence Massan, Maa and wife from Paris, Craig Reynolds, Scott Fisher, Bart Gawboy, Paul Debevic, Scott Fisher, Sylvester Sylvan, Jim Blinn, Ed Catmull, Mike Zyda, Andy van Dam, Jim Foley, Joan Collins, Diane Piepol, Rebecca Allen, Nick England, Mary Whitton, Jackie Morie, Tom Sito, Joseph Goldstone, Laura Scholl, Gene Miller, Debbie Deas, Julian Gomez, Copper Giloth, Jane Veeder, and many others.

 

 

Midjourney Concept Art II

More concept art generated with Midjourney.  Yes its a little tepid and too similar but I think that is mostly my fault.  Still we did get a certain distance.

Samurai fights prehistoric monsters

 

Samurai fights space men

 

Creatures from the tar pits

Midjourney Concept Art

Various concept art themes generated with Midjourney.

 

 

Revolutionaries At The Beach

Karl Marx playing beach volleyball

Karl Marx leading aerobics class

 

Karl Marx at the beach

Playing with Midjourney

 

After playing with Midjourney for a few days, I got what I consider plausible results on some of the topics I was interested in.  I dont really know how to use this program but I could see it immediately being useful for concept and look development as well as possibly image asset generation as part of a scene.

 

In the case of "concept art", such as the dinosaur in wrecked museum image, below, it is not intended to be a final in a scene or shot.  It is intended to communicate an idea to other artists where it will be reworked before something is created for the actual sequence.  The mosaics on the other hand, or the Sumerian relief, might be elements in an actual sequence or shot.  Imagine a scene with the interior of an ancient palace and some of these mosaics are elements on the floor or walls.

 

 

I Have no Faith in the People

At the end of the day there are some things that have happened and its hard to see that the relationship between the people and this country and its government can ever be the same.

No matter what I think or how things turn out with Trump I have to accept that a large number of Americans approve of that pig and dont think that any of the fundamental principles that I keep hearing about matter. The evidence that Trump is a criminal who tried to steal the election and who is undermining faith in this country for his own selfish purposes is as clear as it could be. Yet Americans, many Americans, love it. And they are racist. And they dont mind destroying national security as long as they get their pig and force policies down the throat of the majority of Americans. They dont give a fuck.

The electoral college still exists. It is completely plausible that the pig might win or steal the next election. Biden has done a good job but his numbers dont show it. If Trump becomes president again you can kiss your quasi democracy goodbye.

I have no faith in these people and it can never be forgiven. I am very disappointed.

Preparing for Siggraph 2023

The archaic remnant of a (formerly) important conference about the technology, aesthetics and practice of what was once an experimental form of art and media, so-called computer graphics, starts today.  I have a feeling that this will be a pleasant year.  I am disenfranchised from any contribution to production, to education, and to research in this field that used to be my home.  One could reasonably ask why do I bother to even attend?  

 

There are several plausible answers to this question.  Sentimentality.  A desire to follow through.  The hope that I will meet a new or old collaborator and move forward. But I am probably wasting my time and my energy might be better spent in a totally new direction.

 

Another Old Friend Needs to Be Abandoned

Perhaps I would prefer not to know too much about old friends.  About 1988, NAME REDACTED lent Brad and I a Mitchell Camera for our test for the Abyss.  This was the famous YFS camera.  He went off to work with Rene Daalder, blessed be his name, who was an incredibly talented and self-destructive director who somehow acquired the rights to a variety of Beatles songs and attempted to make a film called "Strawberry Fields".  Lots of time was wasted and no movie got made, and I lost track of my friend. He reappeared just recently because I wanted material to do a memorial web page about Rene.  

 

And that is the problem because now I learn that REDACTED is a supporter of RFK, JR and a believer in a variety of vaccine conspiracy theories.  On top of that he is in business with Steve Churchill of "The Minds Eye" fame.  Well, the Minds Eye stole the Symbolics work and rescored it and did all this without a shred of permission from the creators of that work. 

 

And so, I have blocked my former friend and it makes me sad to know that he has lost his mind and keeps bad company.   The irony is that my former friend made a living for 18 years doing science visualization and yet he is one of the anti-science nuts.

 

I am not sure what the point of this is, beyond the idea that we have all changed by the last 20 years of politics in this country and not all friends from the past make the cut.

Trump, Rape, Republicans, Ethics

 

Which is worse: having a candidate who is a known rapist or failing to act on that knowledge and disqualify the miscreant?  

I was not really aware that Trump is a serial rapist and abuser of women until recently.  I thought he was just an entitled jerk who said stupid things when the microphone was on ("grab them by the pussy").  But no, there are no less than 26 women who have brought complaints against him and the things they complain about is not an off-color comment in the work place. I suppose we should give him credit for being honest about his abuse, i.e. he literally meant "grab them by the pussy" but it makes me very unhappy.

We have a lot of abused women, we have a Republican party that could not be honest or ethical to save their life, we have a jerk who became president of this country because the electorate supported a known rapist, a justice system that couldn't commit justice in even an extreme case, and a news media that could not be bothered to remind people that Trump is a rapist.  

Its extremely clear that our system of government is failing the people and that we have a lot of citizens who are either severely deluded or so blinded by their lust for power that they are willing to ignore the clearest evidence.

Its so boring.

Here is a good article from The New Yorker that goes over the abuse of women in more detail.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/24/documenting-trumps-abuse-of-women

Trump/Republican Non Stop BS Emitter

I wonder if it would be possible for something to happen around or involving Donald Trump that did not result in some astonishing series of bluster and lies.  I would think he would be tired of this by now, but obviously not.  He received a letter from Jack Smith, the special counsel, saying he was under investigation for activities involving the insurrection of Jan 6.  His response is typically self serving and out of touch with reality.  I wonder when this will ever end? 

“On Sunday night, while I was with my family...HORRIFYING NEWS for our country was given to me by my attorneys,” said Mr Trump. “Deranged Jack Smith...sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.”

Rent and Salary in California 2023

This post works backwards from the cost of a small 1 bedroom in Santa Barbara to what you would have to make per hour if you were a part time worker.  

It is said that a person should spend approximately 1/3 of their income on housing, be that rent or mortgage.  It isn't all that clear to me whether this recommendation is before or after taxes, so we will examine both.  It is believed that Santa Barbara is expensive and that may be so, but it is only slightly pricey relative to many other parts of coastal California.  And of course California is expensive in various ways but also has a lot of advantages.  So we will work with Santa Barbara and then suggest an adjustment factor if you happen to be living in another state outside of a major metropolitan area.

Rent for a 1 bedroom in Santa Barbara in 2023 starts about $2,500 / month which means you would have to make a salary of $7,500 / month to live here or $90,000 / year.  Now federal and state taxes on $90,000 in California is about $25,861 / year which reduces your net salary to $64,139 or $5,345 / month.  If we take rent out of that it will leave $2,845 / month for all other expenses be they food, medical, savings, education, debt, and so forth.  

But I think when they say 1/3 of your salary on rent, they mean 1/3 of your net salary, which translates to approximately $135,000 / year gross salary.  This will leave the individual $5,000 / month for all other expenses and savings which seems reasonable.  

So lets take these two numbers ($90,000 and $135,000) as the limits of our calculations.  How much must you make per hour to live in Santa Barbara.  Well, if you are full time that would mean 52 weeks of 5 days per week or 40 hours a week.  That would mean 52*40 which is 2080 hours per year.  At 90,000 $US you would need to make approximately $43/hour.  To make $135,000 you would need to make about $65/hour.  

But the reality is that most people who are freelance do not work 40 hours a week all year long so they would need to make more than this per hour when they are working to support themselves.

Therefore we now know what one needs to make to live in a minimum place in Santa Barbara and that is between $43 and $65 per hour.   Maybe you live in Providence, Rhode Island or Eugene, Oregon in which case you might adjust these numbers down by as much as 1/3. 

Last time I checked minimum wage or Walmarts salaries were no where near that amount.  Do the math, government, and tell me what you think people should do.

Arise Ye Believers in Bipartisan Compromise! Your Moment has Arrived!

Perhaps the Republicans have created an opportunity for the great American tradition of bipartisan compromise to create a new synthesis and a happy solution may arise which is not perfect but is not too bad either.

The House of Representatives, controlled by a tiny majority of self-righteous Republicans, has violated yet another tradition of American Governance which has traditionally put national defense before partisan politics.  The House has, it would seem, violated this principle and attached their right wing nuttiness as a rider to the omnibus defense bill. One such rider says that the military can not give leave or support to any woman who wishes an abortion in a state which prohibits it. This is of course a big problem for the US Military who has many women in uniform who are of child bearing age.  You can't be in the Marines and be pregnant even if it is peacetime.  That is ridiculous and would make it impossible for many women to serve their country in this way.  What can be done? 

The answer is obvious to those with eyes to see. The rider should be allowed to stand, but perhaps with a delay of lets say 24 months. This will allow the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard time to move their bases from Red states to Blue states where abortion is permitted.  Of course this will be expensive and sadly the Red states may see *some* financial penalties from all that federal money that formerly was pumped into their economies now transferred to another location.  But you cant make an omelet without breaking eggs and it seems to me that honor on all sides is thus preserved.

Death by Opera at the Hollywood Bowl

We went to the Hollywood Bowl to see Verdi's Requiem as conducted by Gustav Dudamel.  For those of you not up on your classical music snobbery, Dudamel, the acclaimed conductor of the LA Philharmonic has spit on Los Angeles and is moving to NY and the NY Philharmonic.  The political and cultural issues here are mind boggling and you may as well have a subway series between the Mets and the Dodgers for all the hatred and polarization this invokes in certain circles.

As for the Opera, I was determined for once to follow along and one more time, even with English subtitles, I was thwarted.  It seems to be a tradition to give the fake text to the audience and the real text to the singers in order to hide the banality and all the repetitions. Listen, people, I get it. You are trying to spare us but don't spare us.  I could track the Latin for several seconds ("Kyrie Eleison") but that is no great feat.  Also the meaning is usually pretty clear.  

We had a lot of "Lord Have Mercy", in Latin of course, and "Raise them up from the dead, Oh Lord, raise them up from dirt, then judge them and send them to Hell for all Eternity".  Lovely sentiment, and I appreciated hearing that over and over again.  This will probably be the last time I try to endure a classical opera without a fast forward button.  Yes I know, Pearls before Swine, but who is the pearl and who is the swine?  

But it was a lovely night, the bowl is always a great place to hear music, we had box seats (courtesy of composer Jill Fraser), and great company.  The bowl has had a huge upgrade of ancillary amenities.  The gift shop sells recordings in vinyl!  Yes, that fabulous analog LP (long playing) contact technology.   Everything old is new again. 

There has been major audio engineering at the Bowl. I don't know any details but there is massive, exotic hardware above and in front of that stage.  Some of it is for lighting, no doubt, but much of it is for audio.  There are two towers and three audio arrays that can be adjusted in height.  I am sure there are some interesting stories there.

Do we really not have a "no fly" rule over the Greek Theatre and the Hollywood Bowl? I mean, pardon me, but what the fuck?

Maureen Nappi

Unfortunately, I just heard that Maureen Nappi has passed away.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-maureen-nappi-ph-d-2a1b0511/

Nutty Russian Conspiracy Theory

Russia used to be the home of nutty conspiracy theories. This one comes from a Russian observer who writes for DailyKOS. I think this one is pretty good. 

The idea is that Putin and Mr. Wagner are in cahoots and this is all about establishing Wagner (whose name I can neither pronounce nor spell) as a wildly impulsive nutty guy, who goes to Belarus, seizes the nuclear weapons, and threatens to nuke something unless the US/Nato stops supporting Ukraine. The idea suggests that Mr. Wagners rants were all backstory to this and that they needed to put someone who appears to be nutty into the loop because Putin is considered too rational to do this. 

Unlike many nutty theories, this one can easily be tested because of its predictive nature. Lets see what happens in the next week or two with the nukes in Belarus. 

I hope I have not wasted your time with this but have contributed to your day. 

Dystopian View of War with Russia and other Matters

 

I think that there are some scenarios we can generate about foreign affairs, current wars, future wars.  This is not about predicting what will happen, but I am pretty comfortable that things that are mentioned below are at least one plausible interpretation of the facts at hand.  Assigning a probability to any of these is hard, your judgment is advised.  

 

I think we can agree, btw, that I should be working on things more relevant to my life than this.  But whatever, its what I think about and its fun to put this on the blog to be reviewed in a decade or two. The topics include whether or not we are in or about to be in a war with Russia, whether we are or are about to be in a war with Iran, and a few predictions or suggestions about resolving the conflict in Taiwan without fighting a war.  

First, what is Europe (NATO) going to do about the rogue bully on their borders?   The sanctions against Russia and the support we are giving to Ukraine have not restrained Russia.  They could not care less about the rules of war, about the starvation of large parts of the world by interfering with shipping in the Black Sea.  Whenever a Russian senior official opens their mouth they say the most insane things.  People need to start taking notice.  The destruction of the Kakhovka dam proves they are indifferent to environmental disaster and human tragedy.  They threaten the use of nuclear weapons and no one doubts that they are ready to turn the Zaporizhia nuclear plant into another Chernobyl.  No one likes to be threatened and Russia has turned into a worst case threat out of a cold war fantasy. 

Second, we are on the cusp of a war with Iran.  They are within weeks of having nuclear weapons, our ability to restrain them has failed although it did probably slow them down a bit.  They routinely threaten to destroy their enemies with nuclear weapons and they are the primary sponsor of violence in the middle east.  Once they get nuclear weapons, can other nations in the region live with this?  Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey have the resources to have nuclear weapons but we have restrained them.  Unlike Israel, who has nuclear weapons but is not irrational, Iran could and threatens to use them.   Not acting is a tacit approval in whatever Iran does.  This was coming anyway but Trump made it much worse, of course.

Third, China will not stop until it incorporates Taiwan into their autocratic dictatorship.  They have the money, the manpower, the technology, the armed forces and the will to do this.  They have a home court advantage.  We cant stop them, the most we could do is make it expensive.  This is a war that we can not win, even if we have a credible presence in the area.  So this suggests two things if we want to help Taiwan.  Recent events have proven that only those nations with nuclear weapons can defend themselves.  Therefore we could give them weapons and the systems to deliver them.  The second approach is to evacuate anyone who wants to leave and take their technology with them.  Put them somewhere like an enclave on the coast in Oregon, for example.  Then destroy their technology and leave a scorched earth.  The Taiwan semiconductor industry is strategic for us and for them.

It doesnt matter what I think will happen with Russia, Iran or China/Taiwan.  These situations are real and I hope that people are taking these situations seriously.

 

Why People are so Angry

 

A certain number of people in this country have given up on the system ever being minimally functional at protecting our rights against gross abuse by the right.  I am not talking about transexual bathroom rights, we are talking about an attempt to overthrow the govt of the united states.  And of course it turns out what we have long believed, that the DOJ did not want to find the truth in the matter and see which laws were broken and by whom. 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/report-says-doj-resisted-investigating-trumps-role-in-jan-6-for-over-a-year

People need to understand that at this point all loving understanding is gone.  We have been abused by the right for not less than 23 years with extralegal attacks on our constitution and our government.

We want law enforcement to abide by and enforce the law.

 

The Computer Upgrade Dilemma in June 2023

 

 This is a draft.

Update Alert:  Apparently the next generation threadripper pro is months away from announcement and/or release.  It would make sense to wait a few months and see what happens.

This is a discussion of the issues one might consider when building/upgrading a home studio that is used for 3D rendering and some machine learning.  It has been over 4 years since I upgraded my computing here in Santa Barbara and the world has changed several times in that time period.  What I thought would be a straightforward review of existing technologies scaled to my budget has turned into a several month slog through all kinds of things I wish I did not have to think about.  I review some of the issues involved below.

There are two different goals.  

    1. Upgrade my main Linux workstation to improve rendering performance.  

    2. Buy a completely new, modern technology workstation which would be used for both rendering,     localized machine learning, and development.

The 1st goal was motivated by simplicity and cost.  I am using a 1st generation scalable Xeon, and bought an entry level CPU for it.  There are many more CPUs available, some of them of very modest cost (so it seemed). The second goal could take longer, and fixes a problem I had with limited PCIe bandwidth in the 1st generation of scalable Xeon, especially with the UP configuration or when you did not populate both sockets of a dual socket server.  The budget of the latter system would be more expensive, but would solve both problem sets at one time.  The budgets might be $1,000 and $5,000 respectively.

But there are many issues, some expected and some unexpected.  Issues include:

-- Is there a good difference between what is a server and what is a workstation?  The provisional answer is that a workstation has a higher base frequency, has features such as audio on the MB, and has a chipset to handle a bunch of small-change IO such as legacy USB. 

-- What are the limitations of the current configuration beyond raw processor power?  Am I memory bandwidth limited?  Cache limited?

-- What are the real costs of a better 1st or 2nd generation Xeon?  Why are there seemingly great deals from unknown vendors but the top vendors keep list prices which are seemingly high for 5 year old technology.

-- Why does Intel make so many different versions of each generation of Xeon.  Specialization varies as to the extent of the market?  Which ones would I want, or can afford?  Not all these processors seem to be equally available from the reputable vendors.  

-- What warranty do the "really good price" vendors of refurbished processors offer?  My experience with 1st generation Xeon says that you may go through several CPUs before you find one that works, but that once it works it just keeps on working.

-- The AMD threadripper pro is about to be updated.  Should I wait a few months for the update?  But the updated system will certainly take advantage of newer technology which means among other things a higher memory cost.   Do I really care between DDR4 and 5?  PCIe 4 vs 5?

-- All of these processors seem to have a "base speed" and a variable "turbo speed" which it automagically uses when it has to.  Well it will only do that if several important conditions are met, one of which is that the processor must be cool enough to allow this without exploding or melting.  The only way that could possibly work is if we are using liquid cooling for the CPU.

-- My experience in this area a few years ago said that you had to be able to return several non working components before you got one that worked.  Choose carefully.

- One issue has been whether or not I save $700 or more and reuse components from the current workstation.  Power supply, chassis and disk.  Do I really want to destroy a working system, however slow?  Hasnt that often been a mistake? 

-- As alluded to above, there are real differences between current generation AMD, next generation AMD, 4th generation scalable Xeon and their 5th generation coming out end of year.  Whatever you do youre fucked.

What fun.  All you need is cash and these issues go away.  Thats what the real people do and if you cant just spend you dont deserve anything good.

 

 

Note to Congressman 06032023

Dear Congressman Carbajal,

 

At the risk of being pushy, here are some issues it would be nice for you to address if not actually work on.  I mean you are being paid to do something, right?  And if you are powerless, then what does that make us? The only vote I get is to decide whether to continue to support an ineffective and essentially useless congressman, or vote for a republican who are without doubt worthless swine.

 

1. You still need to apologize and retract your support for that incredibly stupid "horrors of socialism" bill. That vote alone is enough to work for your opponent.  Did I mention how stupid and offensive that bill was?  Oh I did already.  

 

2. The supreme court vote on destroying unions.  What are you doing about that?  What are you doing about fixing the supreme court?  Whether term limits or increasing the number of justices.

 

3. Trump has still not been indicted for his obvious crimes.... classified documents and attempting to overthrow the government of the united states.  Why not?

 

4.  Why is the US Govt failing to provide Ukraine with long distance munitions?  Afraid of escalating the war with Russia?  Too bad, it cant get more escalated unless NATO goes directly to war.  We are not going to support a party that fails to support Ukraine.

 

I would get to work if I were you.  You have an opportunity to make a difference and I would like to see you take some action.  Even if its just waving your arms and issuing press releases.

 

Thank you.