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Twice Borne

At some point every July we say goodbye to raspberries until next year. It’s a little sad because they hit first and they’re the best, but we’ve got other berries to keep us happy.

This year some of the plants decided to bear twice! We seem to recall some had this in their description, and I guess the season’s been long enough this year that they went for it. It’s a bit surreal to be brought back to the joys of early Summer at the very end of the season when everything is done and being put the bed for Winter. They taste just as good too.

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Stable Diffusion

I’ve played with Stable Diffusion a few months back, but the learning curve is steep, and easy access to DallE & MidJourney made it not worth it to press on. Until… I got excited about a super cool extension:

https://huggingface.co/monster-labs/control_v1p_sd15_qrcode_monster

I just love the idea of having the same image have one analog meaning to a human and discrete meaning to a machine. And the same extension can be used for general masking other than just QR codes.

Without further ado, here’s the eye candy:

A benign QR code

General masking for an almost subliminal effect

There’s much to be refined in my incantation, but I really like how the mask isn’t just overlayed on top of a drawing in a subtle way, rather it’s the basis for growth of AI hallucinations.

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Of the Past?

Robin found it in a local river bed. It’s still fairly sharp and surprisingly light and well balanced. I have no idea if it is a real Native American artifact or not. For the stories of the past we like to entertain considering its origin, I hope the person who crafted it paused a minute to think of the stories of the future and who would find it. I hope some of the stuff I leave behind make a little boy’s day some time.