David Lynch says his days of directing are over — loves smoking, "but in the end, it bit me"
Carla Sinclair / 11:56 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
David Lynch in a 2011 handout photo
Filmmaker David Lynch says his days of directing are essentially over because he cannot leave home, thanks to an emphysema diagnosis caused by a lifetime of smoking.
"I've gotten emphysema from smoking for so long, and so I'm homebound whether I like it or not. … And now, because of covid, it would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold," the legendary cult-movie director, whose masterpieces include Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, and the Twin Peaks series, told Sight and Sound, via Variety. (See montage of Lynch's stunning cinematography in video below, posted by The Beauty Of.)
"I would try to do it remotely, if it comes to it," added 78-year-old Lynch, but "I wouldn't like that so much."
In addition to the risk of catching a cold or other virus, Lynch said he "can only walk a short distance" before running "out of oxygen."
Lynch admitted in the interview that he"absolutely loved" smoking, "but in the end, it bit me," according to Daily Beast.
"The tobacco and the smell of it, and lighting things and smoking and going back and sitting back and having a smoke and looking at your work, or thinking about things; nothing like it in this world is so beautiful," Lynch reminisced. "Meanwhile, it's killing me. So, I had to quit."
From Variety:
Elsewhere in the Sight and Sound interview, Lynch, whose last feature film was 2006's "Inland Empire," said he is still "hopeful" that his 2010 screenplay "Antelope Don't Run No More" will make it to the big screen. "We don't know what the future will bring," he said.
He also discussed "Snootworld," the animated film he began working on two decades ago with Caroline Thompson ("The Nightmare Before Christmas," "Edward Scissorhands").
"Just recently, I thought someone might be interested in getting behind this, so I presented it to Netflix in the last few months, but they rejected it," Lynch said. "Old-fashioned fairy tales are considered groaners: apparently, people don't want to see them. It's a different world now, and it's easier to say no than to say yes."
Order a copy of the September 2024 issue of Sight and Sound here.
Previously: This book of David Lynch's paintings and drawings is full of endless inspiration
Stepping on graves isn't rude here: London's musical tombstone experience
Popkin / 11:00 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
In the heart of the Joseph Grimaldi Park in London, visitors can find an art installation that marries history, music, and playful interaction.
Titled "An Invitation to Dance on the Grave," this unique piece by Henry Krokatsis invites participants to step or dance on the metal plates of two "musical graves." Although nobody is actually buried in these graves, they celebrate the legacies of the famous English clown Joseph Grimaldi (1778 – 1837) and composer Charles Dibdin Charles Dibdin (1745 – 1814).
When stepped upon, the graves chime musical notes. The tiles are even tuned to allow visitors to play "Hot Codlins," a song that was famously popularized by Grimaldi. (I recommend making hot codlins at home before watching the video. Here's a recipe.)
If a walk through this graveyard has left you feeling gloomy, this seems like a nice way to lift one's spirits (and possibly stir up the surrounding spirits, too).
See also: London's annual clown memorial service for Joey Grimaldi, father of modern clowndom
QAnon declares Rittenhouse to be part of a "secretive transgender psy-op aimed at harming the MAGA movement"
Ellsworth Toohey / 10:31 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Kyle Rittenhouse, QAnon's latest suppressive person
QAnon, the mainstream wing of the Republican Party, has opened an investigation into whether Kyle Rittenhouse is a transgender secret agent after he wavered for a few hours in his undying support for Donald Trump.
But for QAnoners, Rittenhouse's sin is unforgivable. There is no explanation for his post other than he is "part of a secretive transgender psy-op aimed at harming the MAGA movement," reports Daily Dot.
What's more, Rittenhouse is accused of being a Sandy Hook crisis actor.
From Daily Dot:
On Telegram channels from prominent Q pushers, the claim Rittenhouse was at Sandy Hook continued, alongside conspiracy theories about his trial.
"Did you know that the courtroom he was in had green screen fails all over it? He was also one of the kids that was shot in Sandy Hook. Same exact kid," wrote one comment.
"Paid operative of the deep state," replied another other.
See, not weird at all.
Previously:
• In prison interview, QAnon Shaman shares paranoid fantasies about the Deep State's 'two-tiered slavery system'
• Terrifying documentary looks at QAnon origins
• Mother's QAnon beliefs lead to family's tragic death in Colorado wilderness
Man slices bell pepper in 9 seconds, sets bizarre world record
Popkin / 10:00 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
A sliced bell pepper (Nataly Studio/shutterstock.com)
Slicing a bell pepper might seem like a mundane kitchen task, but for Wallace Wong, it is an art form perfected to a degree that has earned him a world record.
In only 9.43 seconds, Wong can slice the core of the bell pepper out, de-seed it, and chop it into meticulous slices.
Wong's remarkable skill in slicing a bell pepper looks pretty hard to beat — I'd be at risk of losing a finger if I attempted to slice a pepper this fast.
Fun Fact: Despite being commonly referred to as vegetables, bell peppers are botanically classified as fruits because they contain seeds and develop from the flower of the plant.
Previously:
• How to cut a bell pepper without getting seeds everywhere
• Cappuccino in a bell pepper
• This is the fastest and easiest way to cut a bell pepper
Mystery solved of who destroyed this beloved Michigan landmark sculpture… and why
Allan Rose Hill / 9:31 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
image: Click on Detroit/screenshot/YouTube
In 2011, artist John Sauve was commissioned to create a public sculpture on a park hilltop in Lyon Charter Township, Michigan. The "Man In The City" is a 20-foot tall metal sculpture of a gentleman in silhouette. Visible from the I-96 freeway, the sculpture became a beloved landmark in the area. But in early July, somebody toppled the statue and left it where it fell. Sauve assumed it was vandals. But after a Local 4 TV news story, the real culprits came forward.
A letter from Lyon Township attorneys took credit for knocking it down.
"The township received numerous complaints from residents who found the sculpture inappropriate and frightening to their children," the letter stated. The note also referenced that a few years ago, "lights were added to the statue, which is located in close proximity to the airport."
According to ClickOnDetroit, "the township made contact with individuals to remove the sculpture" but Sauve said he never heard a word of concern and the letter didn't say who they reached out to.
The Township has given Sauve just a few days to move the sculpture from the site or they'll destroy it entirely.
Previously:
• Watch someone embroider a stunning design into the holes of a public bench
• Why are there tiny doors all over Atlanta?
B'Bye Trump! Many in GOP — including former Trump staffers — join "Republicans for Harris"
Carla Sinclair / 9:30 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Image: a katz / shutterstock.com
Move over Lincoln Project and Republicans Against Trump! Republicans are joining the Kamala Harris campaign in droves, forming a new anti-Trump group called "Republicans for Harris."
Some of the GOP's pro-Harris members include former U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, former Republican Congress members Adam Kinzinger, Joe Walsh, and Susan Molinari, former governors Governors Jim Edgar, Bill Weld, and Christine Todd Whitman, and former Trump staffers Stephanie Grisham and Olivia Troye. (See full list along with Republicans for Harris statement below, posted by Kinzinger.)
"As a national security official and lifelong Republican, I witnessed firsthand the threat Donald Trump poses to our country while working in the Trump White House," said Troye, a former Homeland Security and Counterterrorism advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence, via The Independent. "The stakes are too high to let partisanship jeopardize our freedoms and the Constitution."
Former lieutenant Governor of Georgia Geoff Duncan is another disenchanted Republican who now supports Harris, who said on Saturday, "Millions of Americans are fed up with his grievance-filled campaign focused only on himself. Tonight we heard a particularly unhinged, angry version of the same Donald Trump that Georgia rejected in 2020. … As a lifelong conservative Republican, it was not an easy decision for me to endorse Vice President Harris, but I know that she fights for all Americans, right, left, or center, and will stand up for the Constitution."
Duncan went on to call Trump a "felonious thug" on CNN, via Meidas Touch, "who walks down the street and throws sucker punches at people like Brian Kemp, like African American journalists, like John McCain and the list goes on and on again." (See clip of Duncan in video below, posted by Republicans against Trump.)
And as for Kinzinger, who served on the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, "As a proud conservative, I never thought I'd be endorsing a Democrat for President," he said. "But, I know Vice President Harris will defend our democracy and ensure Donald Trump never returns to the White House."
Harris has surged ahead of Trump in at least seven national polls since she became his Democratic rival two weeks ago, with her fired-up crowds are only growing. And now we know where at least some of her new fans are coming from.
I'm excited to play "Epic Mickey: Rebrushed"
Jason Weisberger / 8:57 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Some fantastic Mickey Mouse storytelling lives in "Epic Mickey," this new version looks fantastic!
Epic Mickey, released in 2010, was only available on the Wii. While the story and characters were fantastic, the gameplay was what I'd describe as "puke-tastic," with the camera swinging all over space. Most importantly, however, Epic Mickey represented the first time Mickey and Oswald would meet after the Walt Disney Company finally acquired the rights to Disney and UB Iwerk's long-forgotten Lucky Rabbit from Universal.
Mickey's mischievous goofing around spilled thinner all over Sorcerer Yen Sid's land for forgotten toons, The Wasteland. Mickey teams up with Gus the Gremlin and sets off to re-ink the damage he has done. The Wasteland is a dystopian version of Disneyland and rules. Exploring Mean Street USA and the rest of the park is awesome.
I hope the move to the Unreal engine changes the camera stuff. I had to stop playing the Wii version frequently.
Previously:
• 'Long-lost' 1928 Disney animation with 'Oswald the Lucky Rabbit' found in BFI archives
• Happy Birthday, Walt! Oswald the Lucky Rabbit will finally get a voice (in Epic Mickey 2)!
• Disney+ to debut 28 newly restored classic animated shorts
• Disney's first character traded for a sports announcer
Doomsday vault on the Moon would hold back-up of Earth's plants and animals
Allan Rose Hill / 8:49 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
image: NASA
A group of scientists from the Smithsonian Institutes and research universities believe it's high time that we create a doomsday vault for Earth's biodiversity. Sure, we have the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in a Norwegian mountain but it's susceptible to terrestrial destruction, by humans or natural disaster. That's why Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute's Mary Hagedorn and her colleagues argue in a new scientific paper that we should be looking for a more remote location. They suggest the Moon. And this vault wouldn't just hold seeds but animal cells that could someday be used to restore lost species.
The journal Science interviewed Hagedorn about the plan:
Q: How would a lunar biorepository be used?
A: First and foremost, it could be used by astronauts going into space. Lots of plants will need to be grown when they start terraforming Mars. So having plant material there on the Moon would be a bonus. It's a bit like a grocery store for space travel.Q: Do you envision a lunar biorepository as a life insurance policy for some kind of planetary catastrophe?
A: If we have a massive apocalypse on Earth, it's going to be impossible to access the repository. In my mind, it's meant for catastrophes like severe hurricanes or some disease that impacts the base of our food chain. The thing that worries me a great deal is the southern oceans. Our oceans are under siege from being warmed and acidified. And if we start to lose the base of our food chain, we are in a lot of trouble. I could imagine some of those organisms needing to be supplemented within 50 to 75 years.Q: Doesn't it make more sense to spend money to fix the planet?
A: I have this question all the time with cryopreservation. Why should we cryopreserve something when we can just save coral reefs? I don't think it's either-or. We should think "in addition to," especially with something so important as biodiversity.
Previously:
• First ever plants grown in soil from the Moon
More Republicans endorse Kamala Harris
Rob Beschizza / 8:37 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Kamala Harris
As Kamala Harris contemplates her choice of Vice President today, some Republicans are choosing her, including former White House aides to then-president Donald Trump and former GOP congresspersons.
In its Sunday announcement, the Harris campaign also included dozens of prominent current or former Republican figures, some of which now identify with a different party, who have already endorsed the vice president.
Former Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois was among the list, which he shared on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday morning.
"There is nothing 'conservative' about Donald Trump. Conservatives believe in the Constitution, not a 'man's' ego. Endorsing American democracy and the future today, and leaving the past in the dust. I'm endorsing @KamalaHarris," he wrote.
She's now ahead of Trump (albeit within the margin of error) in a number of nationwide polls. Some media punditry is getting nervous about the potential for her to surge and trying to figure out what will limit her appeal. The headline below, all but triangulated with Trump's stream of racist gibberish about her, is a good example of two things: editors sending out reporters to vox pop their own opinions, and media using overton windows to manufacture parity in a horse race. You might say it was … weird.
See the freaky and cool way that a black-eyed tree frog's eyes wake up from a nap
Popkin / 8:34 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
The Red Eyed Tree Frog is not the same as the Black Eyed Tree Frog. Do you know why? Hint: one has red eyes and one has black eyes. (Dave Denby Photography)
See the freaky and cool way that a black-eyed tree frog's eyes open after it wakes up from a nap.
Instead of opening its eyes in one swift motion, the black-eyed tree frog has eyes that slowly open and bulge out, making it look as if it has been possessed by a demon upon waking. These frogs are quite the opposite of being little demons, though. They're known to be shy, calm, and non-aggressive towards humans.
As the name suggests, black-eyed tree frogs have distinctive black eyes with a striking, contrasting white or yellowish rim around the pupils.
The delightful amphibians are native to Central America, specifically Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and southern Mexico.
See also: Frog video has the best captions in the history of captions – Boing Boing
Trump campaign fails to spin JD Vance yelling at his son into a heartwarming story
Jason Weisberger / 7:38 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Vance pretending to be normal in a fast food restaurant 2022 campaign photo.
Flailing, the Trump Campaign attempted to spin the disastrous story of Vance yelling at his son to shut up so he could accept the job of VP to "America's Hitler."
By now, we all know that JD Vance chose to be Trump's Vice President over helping his son catch all the Pokemon. No one was surprised to hear the sycophant chose to yell at his child as the symbolic prep work to taking a job with the Orange Menace. Rather than wish the story, and JD, would go away, the Trump campaign decided to retell it weirdly.
So, after his Dad yelled at him about Pikachu, the young son Vance got to listen to Trump read a statement about how Daddy had just become Lieutenant to "America's Hitler."
via MTN
Previously:
• In 2016 JD Vance said 'I can't stomach Trump' and he's a 'total fraud' (audio)
• JD Vance goes viral as new TikTok music meme: 'I'm a Never Trump Guy' (video)
• Weird MAGA is the meme of the hour
Google withdraws its heartcooling "Dear Sydney" AI ad
Rob Beschizza / 7:38 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Screenshot: Google
Google explains that Dear Sydney, an AI-promoting ad it has just pulled from wide circulation, did well with test audiences before release. The ad features the father of a fan of world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone describing using Google's "Gemini" AI to generate praise for her. If you don't get why this is disturbing, perhaps you're the audience Google had in mind.
Dear Sydney was nicely summed up by TechCrunch's Anthony Ha —"hard to think of anything that communicates heartfelt inspiration less than instructing an AI to tell someone how inspiring they are"—and Alexandra Petri for Washington Post.
This ad makes me want to throw a sledgehammer into the television every time I see it. Given the choice between watching this ad and watching the ad about how I need to be giving money NOW to make certain that dogs do not perish in the snow, I would have to think long and hard. It's one of those ads that makes you think, perhaps evolution was a mistake and our ancestor should never have left the sea. This could be slight hyperbole but only slight!
If you haven't seen this ad, you are leading a blessed existence and I wish to trade places with you.
We Can Feel It for You Wholesale.
When I heard about this spot, my first thought was "tests can't account for how media steers broader audiences." Even a subtle shift in interpretation can make a light-hearted message seem menacing. I can imagine A.I. helping people express themselves and get results in a world full of exclusionary expectations around communications, correspondence and celebrity. But this ain't it. I've watched it now and am left wondering what hardware the test audience ran on.
Mad Magazine at the Norman Rockwell Museum
Ruben Bolling / 7:25 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
I visited the fantastic exhibit about Mad Magazine at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Its collection of Mad original art and artifacts is absolutely amazing.
First, I love the Norman Rockwell Museum — I've been visiting for decades, and recommend it for everyone. Rockwell is such an important American artist, his art is so instantly accessible and appealing, and their collection of his iconic paintings is unbelievable. On its beautiful grounds is Rockwell's studio, moved from the town center of Stockbridge where he worked, and it's fascinating to see.
The museum's special exhibit "What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine" runs through October 27, and as a lifelong Madman (and onetime member of the usual gang of idiots), I can say that this is an extremely impressive collection. It was co-curated by master illustrator Steve Brodner and museum Chief Curator Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, with former Mad art director and cartoonist Sam Viviano as Lead Advisor.
There are a couple of instances in the exhibit of the intersection of Mad and Norman Rockwell. How cool is this pairing of original paintings?
And there's a display of a fascinating 1964 correspondence between Mad art director John Putnam (who was also a resident of Stockbridge, MA) and Rockwell, negotiating the commission of the "definitive painting of the sly little elf Alfred E. Neuman, who represents our mascot and ubiquitous presence."
On July 1, Putnam writes to send Rockwell reference material. "As per your request, we are enclosing some material on our little idiot boy." And he requests that he and others from Mad be permitted to come to Stockbridge when the painting is in progress to take pictures, "so that we can use this for a covering story about what is undoubtedly the peak of MAD's history."
On July 10, editor Al Feldstein writes a confirmation letter of the deal for a "charcoal portrait of your interpretation of MAD's trademark boy, Alfred E. Neuman for $1,000," and on approval, an additional $2,000 for a full-color oil painting.
Alas, Rockwell had apparently already written a letter on July 2 to Putnam, pulling the plug on the project:
Dear Mr. Putnam:
I'm scared. I think I better back out of this one.
After talking with you, and my wife who has a lot more sense than I have, I feel that making a more realistic definitive portrait just wouldn't do.
I hate to be a quitter, but I'm afraid we would all get in a mess.
And the world is poorer for it.
I'm tempted to post pictures of original art from all of Mad's luminaries, but I'd better keep it to just a few. The rooms are just bursting with amazing art by some of the most important cartoonists of all time.
Sergio Aragones. Look at his stylish note for how to reduce his "Marginal Thinking" drawings for issue #159.
Al Jaffee's Fold-In feature. Al told me that he would devise and paint these illustrations with only the theoretical understanding that they would work when folded. He wouldn't see what they look like "folded in" until he received the printed magazine.
There is also an interactive video exhibit for viewing the Fold-Ins.
Mort Drucker's Lassie satire.
Norman Mingo's cover for #108
"Spy vs. Spy" by its creator Antonio Prohias. This artwork is actually owned by…
… Peter Kuper, who took the strip over after Prohias stopped.
There's even a Frank Frazetta, the famed fantasy illustrator, doing a humorous piece on Tarzan.
And here's the cover of ~16-year-old Robert Crumb's collaboration with his brother Charles on a 1959 self-published Mad knockoff, Foo. The brothers somehow decided to sign Mad creator Harvey Kurtzman's name on it.
All photos by Ruben Bolling
Previously:
The art of Jack Davis, MAD cartoonist and one of the all-time greats
"Our greatest living cartoonist": An appreciation of Sergio Aragonés
Listen to Boing Boing's podcast interview with MAD's Al Jaffee (RIP)
Is a jailbroken Kindle a good monitor?
Rob Beschizza / 7:01 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Screenshot: Adhityaa Chandrasekar
Adhityaa Chandrasekar broke his laptop's monitor, somehow, but came up with a cunning plan: jailbreak his Kindle Paperwhite 3 and use it as a USB monitor. The monochromatic e-ink device offers about 3-4 frames per second, all of them delightfully easy on the eyes. Watching Rickroll on it (embedded below) is a psychedelic experience.
I wrote a script to use
screencaptureon macOS to repeatedly capture the screen into a png file, which is then converted into a shape, size and color the Kindle likes using imagemagick, and then transferred over usbnet using netcat/usr/sbin/screencapture -C -x /tmp/orig.png convert /tmp/orig.png -rotate 270 -resize '810x1448!' -type GrayScale -depth 8 -colors 256 /tmp/gray.jpg cat /tmp/gray.jpg | nc -w 0 192.168.15.244 8000
change the resolution to match your device and port to match the listener server
Chandrasekar thinks the frame rate can be optimized further—"I think 10-ish is pretty easy'—and considers options for further brutalizing the Marvell SoC within. The poor availability (and stiff prices) of e-ink displays and gadgets remains a tragedy of the commode.
Chicken parade protests proposed chicken limit
Rob Beschizza / 6:41 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Image: Sunshower Shots / shutterstock.com
After noise complaints, Des Moines, Iowa, decided to decrease the number of chickens that one is allowed to have within city limits from 30 to 12. Chicken owners protested by holding a chicken parade last week, and now the city is revising its plan to allow for a full complement of chickens, so long as the chickens are licensed.
Chicken parade organizer Ed Fallon said the city seemed to be overreacting to a total of three complaints about chickens that were registered between the start of 2020 and June 2024. A small group of people holding chickens came out Monday to march from the Statehouse to City Hall.
Sanders said he asked Assistant City Manager Malcolm Hankins to draft an amendment that will be broadly accepted.
"After listening to Council Member concerns at the July 22 Council meeting, we believe there is a better path forward for an amendment to this ordinance at a later date," Hankins said in the release.
Des Moines is Iowa's capital city and boasts that it has "217,000 residents, 49 neighborhoods, over 4,000 acres of parkland and 81 miles of trails," but makes no public claim as to the total population of chickens.
I don't live in Des Moines but want an official chicken license now. Once it has established its chicken licensing regime I'm going to send in a picture of my dog with the fee and see what happens. Below you can watch embedded video of the parade.
BONUS VIDEO: the announcer saying "CHICKEN" in various editions of the exciting fighting game Tekken.
A chicken featured in one of the greatest news bloopers of all time, regularly featured here at Boing Boing.
Previously:
• FDA: stop eating Nyquil-fried Chicken
• Ohio Supreme Court rules that 'boneless' chicken can contain bones
• Breaking Bad: Los Pollos Hermanos reviewed on Yelp
RFKjr recalls that time he dumped a dead bear in Central Park
Jason Weisberger / 6:38 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
rfk jr photo shoot
Candidate for President Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared a video recounting the previously little-known tale of "When RFK Jr. dumped a dead bear in Central Park."
Still perhaps a better candidate than Donald Trump, but not by far, RFK Jr. posted a video of himself telling a weird story on social media. Junior evidently saw a woman hit a bear while driving into Manhattan for dinner, so he decided to pick it up and keep it for the meat. He envisioned a fridge full of yummy bear roadkill, but sadly, Robert had no time to stop and butcher it. Instead, using a bicycle he also happened to have with him, RFKjr set up a fake "cyclist runs over a bear" display in Central Park. It is all crackpottery.
"I wasn't drinking, of course, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea. And I said I had an old bike in my car that somebody asked me to get rid of. I said, 'Let's go put the bear in Central Park, and we'll make it look like he got hit by a bike,'" Kennedy said as Barr and a person offscreen laughed.
"We thought it would be amusing for whoever found it or something," Kennedy said, adding that the move instead garnered massive media attention.
The New Yorker story about Kennedy's role in the incident has not yet been published. Neither the magazine nor Kennedy's campaign immediately responded to requests for comment.
"It's going to be a bad story," Kennedy predicted in the video as people laughed.
Previously:
• Photographer spills tea on nightmare photo shoot with RFK Jr: 'My experience was at the top of the worst I've had professionally'
• It can't just be the brain worm: what the hell is wrong with RFK, Jr?
• Jake Tapper calls out RFK Jr. for lying about a news piece Tapper did about him
• RFK Jr. says doctors found dead worm in his partially eaten brain
• New Marist poll shows that RFK Jr. candidacy is actually hurting Donald Trump — and helping Biden
OpenAI could watermark the text ChatGPT generates, but hasn't
Rob Beschizza / 6:19 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Phot: ltummy / Shutterstock
OpenAI has developed a system for "watermarking" the output that ChatGPT generates, reports The Wall Street Journal, but has chosen not to deploy it. Google has deployed such a system with Gemini.
OpenAI has a method to reliably detect when someone uses ChatGPT to write an essay or research paper. The company hasn't released it despite widespread concerns about students using artificial intelligence to cheat.
The project has been mired in internal debate at OpenAI for roughly two years and has been ready to be released for about a year, according to people familiar with the matter and internal documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. "It's just a matter of pressing a button," one of the people said.
OpenAI explains itself in a blog post, claiming that, contrary to the WSJ's report, though the system is 99.9% reliable with unedited text it's "trivial to circumvent."
Our teams have developed a text watermarking method that we continue to consider as we research alternatives.
While it has been highly accurate and even effective against localized tampering, such as paraphrasing, it is less robust against globalized tampering; like using translation systems, rewording with another generative model, or asking the model to insert a special character in between every word and then deleting that character – making it trivial to circumvention by bad actors.
Another important risk we are weighing is that our research suggests the text watermarking method has the potential to disproportionately impact some groups. For example, it could stigmatize use of AI as a useful writing tool for non-native English speakers.
The implications are that a) a selling point of AI is deception and we all know it, and b) anything more than local edits (paraphrasing or light editing) make it unreliable for even the experts to detect baked-in evidence of AI text or watermarks threaded into it. Current AI detectors are snake oil that seem good only for getting institutional users sued by those they falsely accuse or improperly penalize. The Journal's story centers on catching student plagiarists, bless their hearts!
Take your dog on a "sniff walk"
Jennifer Sandlin / 6:04 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
I recently learned how important sniffing is for dogs, and it's changed my entire approach to dog walking for the better! I used to see walks as a chance to get some good exercise and always attempted to walk briskly. My dogs never wanted to cooperate, though, and would constantly stop to sniff things. Then I'd get annoyed and try to hurry them along, and we'd all end up unsatisfied.
Since learning the crucial role sniffing plays in doggo mental stimulation, I've completely reframed my walks. I've let go of trying to exercise and now just enjoy listening to my podcasts and letting Henry Rollins and Jax sniff as much as their little hearts (and snouts) desire. It's a win-win-win!
The Telegraph explains that sniffing is especially vital for older dogs, citing veterinary surgeon Zoe Belshaw, who works on the BSAVA Old Age Pets Project:
"As most dogs age, they become increasingly motivated to sniff, irrespective of whether or not that's what they wanted to do before. I think it's a massively important part of their quality of life, being able to sniff . . . If you have ten minutes and they go ten metres but spend nine and a half minutes sniffing a lamp post; for that dog that is probably so much better than you trying to drag it around a circular walk around the block. Sniffing is really, really important . . . Vets should tell [owners] to get a podcast or do something that makes the time go by to make it not frustrating for them because you see so many dogs being yanked because the owner thinks either the walk is for the dog and it needs to move, or because they themselves are so fed up of the sniffing – but embracing the "sniffari" is really important."
Staci Lemke, CPDT-KA, RVT explains that sniffing can also benefit anxious dogs. The American Kennel Club reports:
Fast-paced walks through hectic surroundings can pile on added pressure for fearful dogs. In contrast, meandering sniff sessions on a long leash can lower a dog's pulse rate and release the mood-boosting chemical dopamine. "If we can find a safe place where these dogs can let their guard down and explore using their noses, it can greatly reduce the amount of stress in their lives," says Lemke.
Sniffing isn't just important for older, aging, or anxious dogs, though—it can benefit all doggos!
Dogs have hundreds of millions of scent receptors in their noses and a brain that is highly attuned to the sense of smell, which is at least 10,000 times greater than ours. Smell is the main way dogs gather information to make sense of their environment. American Kennel Club explains:
The way something smells gives dogs more information than the way something looks, feels, sounds, or tastes. Think about how dogs greet each other. Information is transmitted via noses rather than barks or paw shakes. In fact, dogs obtain more detailed information from scent than we can even imagine. Human noses and brains simply aren't wired that way.
"What the dog sees and knows comes through his nose," affirms Barnard College professor Alexandra Horowitz in her book "Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell." "The information that every dog — the tracking dog, of course, but also the dog lying next to you, snoring, on the couch — has about the world based on smell is unthinkably rich."
All of this makes sniffing crucial! American Kennel Club cites Penny Leigh, a certified dog trainer and director of the AKC GoodDog! Helpline, who describes how sniff walks can especially benefit dogs that don't have access to yards:
"Sniff walks are especially important for urban-dwelling dogs that do not have yards or opportunities to be loose in a safe, fenced environment where they can sniff and meander at their pleasure."
AKC also describes what a "sniff walk" entails:
When [Vet Tech Staci] Lemke takes her dogs on a sniff-centric walk, she lets them choose where they want to go and how long they'll linger at each smell, covering very little distance slowly. She reminds us that "humans are more about the destination, dogs more about the journey." Rather than planning to reach a particular place in a set time while on a sniff walk, pick a safe, peaceful spot and allow your dog to take the lead and explore at their own pace.
So next time you walk your dog, consider making it a "sniff walk" instead of an exercise walk! I've been doing it with Henry and Jax, and they seem delighted. And I find myself watching them and wondering what hot neighborhood gossip they're sniffing out along the way.
Previously:
• I use tiny ice cream cones to hide pills from my dog
• This sausage dog slapping its tail to the beat of 'Louisiana Saturday Night' is one of the best videos on the internet
• What ever happened to white dog poop so popular in the 1970s?
Tetris on the 1989 Sharp Wizard
Rob Beschizza / 5:36 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Screenshot: The Clueless Engineer
The Sharp Wizard was a series of handheld gadgets from the late-'80s era of "organizers"—more than calculators, but not quite what we'd recognize as tablets. American readers may remember it from an episode of Seinfeld. You may play Tetris on it, as demonstrated below by The Clueless Engineer.
Matt Sephton describes a little of the Sharp Wizard's history:
As well as being home to some of the earliest emoji these devices could run software from IC cards (solid state storage). There were about 30 games released in this format… There's not much about these devices online, particularly in English, but two notable places are: HP Museum forum (for devices and IC cards) and Insert Credit forum (for games). The devices are common on Japanese auction and selling websites, but the games are becoming more difficult to find.
Another fascinating post on Sephton's blog is Emigre typography and graphic design magazine: "if you're interested in 80s and 90s design there will surely be something in there for you."
Previously:
• Miraculous portable computers, ca 1982
• 256 bytes of code generate this spooky fractal city
How to build a $240 gaming PC
Rob Beschizza / 5:05 am PT Mon Aug 5, 2024
Screenshot: ETA Prime / YouTube
ETA Prime put together a Linux PC that can handle heavy gaming at 1080p, more or less: it pulls superior performance to a Steam Deck from a Ryzen 5 3500 CPU and Radeon RX590 graphics chip. The key parts were used and gotten from eBay—monitor not included. The distro was Bazzite OS, which comes ready-to-play.
In this video we put together a super cheap 4240 1080P Bazzite Linux gaming pc with used parts from eBay. you can also use this setup with windows installed but I really wanted a living room gaming pc with a nice console style interface like the steam deck but wanted a bit more power. This Budget gaming pc is powered by a Ryzen 5 3500 and backed by an AMD Radeon RX 590 and handles 1080P gaming very well like Cyberpunk 2077, Ghost of Tsushima, Skyrim, and many more.
Though the hardware gets the headlines, the fact that Linux gaming has matured so much in the last few years is the news. It's even starting to score better benchmarks. A recent guide to Cyberpunk 2077 on Linux is all about twiddling sliders; no kernels recompiled at all!
Previously:
• Bazzite is a Linux distro for gaming
• Stats show Linux now a 'viable' game platform
• A video game that simulates building custom PCs
Bob Dylan biopic: "A Complete Unknown" looks promising
Yoy Luadha / 3:28 pm PT Sun Aug 4, 2024
Timothy Chalamet's portrays Bob Dylan in
I'm a believer that you can tell if a movie is going to be good in the first five minutes. Sometimes less. You just get a sense that either the filmmakers have this thing under control and going somewhere or they don't. I'm eternally proud of the fact that I was at a screening of The Phantom Menace a week before it opened… and after the first scene I leaned over to my friend and said "this movie is going to be a train wreck." Truer words were never spoken.
With trailers it's a little harder to tell — obviously they're going to show us the best parts, not the worst. I've certainly been fooled over years — I'm sure all of us have.
But, fingers crossed, this trailer for A Complete Unknown, the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic, looks fantastic. Timothy Chalamet doesn't look exactly like Dylan and that's ok. What's more important is that he feels like him. Sounds like him. And he really does.
Even the on-line armchair warriors are impressed. Here's one of these "fans and experts weigh in" kind of articles and I'd say even the professional skeptics are looking forward to this film.
Director James Mangold has a knack for making sharp, stylish looking films — here's hoping he's pulled it off again with this one.
Previously:
• When William S. Burroughs met Bob Dylan
• Bob Dylan Hallowe'en costumes
• Nobel laureate Bob Dylan publishing a new book about songs by Elvis Costello, Hank Williams, Nina Simone, and others
• If 'This Year' was written by Bob Dylan