Chatbots are designed to give conversational answers and keep people engaged. Names and links to sources for answers range from nonexistent to hidden, though some companies are starting to make them more visible. Even when AI does include a source, it adds it after the fact, said Jevin West, a professor and co-founder of the…
Moments after Donald Trump was rushed to safety following a failed assassination attempt at a Saturday night rally, some of his supporters turned toward the press pen with obscenities as they fingered reporters for blame. “This is your fault!” one attendee emphatically yelled, pointing at individual journalists as he approached the fence line separating them from attendees.…
I used to spend time in class teaching students about how your act of choosing to link from your blog to someone else’s blog was part of the formula Google used to rank its search results. The words you picked when you crafted your hyperlink was a way of conveying or withholding value. Tagging is…
Not bad for a couple hours of work. #blender3d #blender3dart #steampunk #neovictorian I painstakingly created every knob and switch as a 3D object two summers ago. Now I can slap these textures anywhere.
Over the past couple of years, researchers at Jigsaw, a Google subsidiary that focuses on online politics and polarization, have been studying how Gen Zers digest and metabolize what they see online. The researchers were hoping that their work would provide one of the first in-depth, ethnographic studies of Gen Z’s “information literacy.” But the…
I was never really a fan of MTV, I assume because I grew up without cable TV as a teenager in the 80s, and because I was very busy with grad school and starting a family in the 90s. I didn’t really feel like I had much in common with my “Gen X” cohort (most…
How can a nostalgic, branching-path story-game encourage my 100-level journalism students take risks and learn from their mistakes? Using the ChoiceScript programming language, which features a robust stats system that can remember and respond to player choices, I coded up a “writing your first news story for the student paper” scenario, which unfolds as a…
Details for a modular mid-range scoutship, from the #steampunk #neovictorian bedtime stories I used to tell my now-adult children. #blender3d
Apple has apologized, but like writer Peter C. Baker, I’m not quite ready to let go of that really horrifying ad depicting a roomful of beautifully displayed musical instruments, sound gear, art supplies, and even toys being slowly squashed by a huge hydraulic press (ostensibly to highlight the creative potential of the latest iPad). Picture…
I’m very amused at this nerdy news story about some tension between a judge who asks for legible documents and a lawyer who files documents with flasher typography. While I recognize that language changes and the distinction between “font” and “typeface” is unimportant to the general public, I teach my journalism students that historically…
Your first #blender3d retractable #steampunk landing wheels will be your worst. But you have to start somewhere.
Already facing scandal, the Washington Post‘s new-ish CEO and publisher, Will Lewis, has announced that the newspaper will be pivoting to artificial intelligence to turn around its dismal financial situation. […] The paper’s chief technology officer, meanwhile, announced to staffers that going forward, WaPo is to have “AI everywhere in our newsroom,” according to Tani. It’s unclear,…
The new AI advanced version of Google Search, aka Google SGE or Search Generative Experience, provides wicked smart AI answers to your queries. And if you ask it how to pass kidney stones quickly, Google will tell you to drink at least two quarts of urine every 24 hours. Source: Google SGE Recommends You Drink…
Rewatching ST:DS9 A nervous Morn sniffs a flower and presents it to a woman who accepts it warmly. At the replimat, Odo and Sisko chat about the forthcoming O’Brien baby and the risks of interspecies love. Worf’s jealously and aloofness is played for laughs against Dax’s open friendliness as they discuss a trip to Risa…
Madi Hime is taking a deep drag on a blue vape in the video, her eyes shut, her face flushed with pleasure. The 16-year-old exhales with her head thrown back, collapsing into laughter that causes smoke to billow out of her mouth. The clip is grainy and shaky – as if shot in low light…
Have you seen Apple’s “Crush” ad? It features a huge huge hydraulic press crushing musical instruments, art supplies, google-eyed toys, and other beloved artifacts of imagination and creativity. I remember seeing a video years ago that showed how a smartphone replaced a desktop full of tools like a calculator, notepad, rolodex, and so forth. But…
A little over a century ago, the printer T.J. Cobden-Sanderson took it upon himself to surreptitiously dump every piece of this carefully honed metal letterpress type into the river. It was an act of retribution against his business partner, Emery Walker, whom he believed was attempting to swindle him. With its extra-wide capital letters, diamond shaped punctuation and…
So I’m starting a thing. Wish me luck. #blender3d #medieval #york #mysteryplay #corpuschristi
Creating textures for background buildings in a medieval theater simulation project. I can always improve this later. #blender3d
After learning of his AIDS diagnosis, artist Keith Haring created the work, “Unfinished Painting” (1989), which is mostly a blank canvas, with streaks that evoke his own interrupted, incomplete life. Someone who thought it was “so sad” that the painting was unfinished used AI to “complete what he couldn’t finish.” Needless to say, the bot…