While looking for other information here, I came across what I wrote back in February 2018 in this topic. It was how the “your grandchild needs to be bailed out of jail” scam was getting a boost by software that can take a recording of a person’s voice and turn it into text-to-speech processing. Run the scam late at night when a grandparent may still be trying to wake up after the answering the phone and it has a better chance of succeeding.
While theorizing about all the problems this could occur, I said “Now comes the fact that we shortly may not be able to trust that an audio recording is actually from a person. We’ve already got that with video and pictures.”
At the time, I meant that graphics and video programs allow you to edit and manipulate existing media. In the five years since then, we’ve added deepfakes and more widespread AI-generated material. Give it a few reference points and AI will create new content from existing content.
It’s had benefits, such as allowing actors to play younger versions of themselves (with varying degrees of success). The new content also includes scams that do a good job of targeting specific audiences.
Due to being away for a couple weeks we had a nest of finches on our front porch. They’ve been shoved out by doves now.
The doves are much bigger and the chance of a larger egg surviving in the nest they’ve taken over is unlikely… but doves and pigeons are known for terrible nests.
I cut the carcass out of a couple of cheap chickens on Friday, brined them, stuffed them, trussed them, then slowly roasted them on the bbq yesterday. I don’t know why I didn’t take any pictures. They were beautiful.
Today, all I can smell is delicious roast chicken smoke. It’s in my beard and hair and clothes AND IT’S MAKING ME CRAZY!
I have one of the legs with some leftover rice for lunch, but that’s hours away.
Why are eBook cover images so bad? I’m rereading some Pratchett and my paperbacks and hardcovers are a mix of the old art (very detailed but cartoony art) and the newer, more symbolic-based versions, but sometimes you get other options, and then the eBook for Wintersmith is this:
And the scary thing: that’s both good by eBook standards and was used as a cover of some print editions I think. I dislike it: it looks way too much lupine it was composited from two existing images.
The Josh Kirby covers are good as are the later Paul Kidby works which are equally iconic.I think I slightly prefer Kidby as his style is a bit less grotesque in a way I prefer.
The US covers often went a different direction and it shows. The one I dislike (above) is credited to Bill Mayer whom I’m sure is a perfectly nice person… but this is not a great cover compared to the Kidby version or the simpler ‘icon’ covers used for library copies and similar.
There was a publisher doing a set of hardcover editions with beautiful covers with only 2-3 colors but these are far outside my budget.
Maybe some of it is during the first publications, the author may give their approval for the cover but for reprints and/or after they’re dead, it’s solely up to someone else to decide.
I would liken this to home video covers. The first ones look really good and detailed, like a miniature poster. Later on, you get one character in the movie pasted onto a plain background.
Also, the main character of this series, presumably the woman supporting the Feegle, generally wears blue or green. Maybe black if a senior witch requests. Maybe white clothes are part of this book: it’s been years since I read it. Seems like another mistake though.
The American covers were always suspect. I was always jealous of the British editions, and if I had money to burn I would have his entire library in leather bound acid free paper to hand down for generations.
If a smartphone comes with a .5x or .6x, lens, a 1x lens and a 3x lens, and can upscale to 2x, 10x, 20x and 30x, why doesn’t it offer 4x through 9x magnification?
Why Juneteenth, the day the last slaves were freed in Texas, rather than December 6th, the day the 13th amendment was signed and freed the last slaves in the entire country (Kentucky and Delaware)?
6 months. Slavery was legal in 2 northern states for six months longer than in Texas. The slaves in Texas were free the moment the declaration was made on the 19th. But the slaves in Kentucky and Deleware weren’t until the amendment was signed that December.
Juneteenth is sold as the last day slavery was legal in the US or the day the last slaves were freed. But that’s simply not the case. TX was not the last slave holding state. KY and DE hold that place having their slaves freed by the Feds on December the 6th.
My mistake, December 18th 1865. Or maybe the 6th. I have found both dates.
When emancipation finally came to, on June 19, 1865, as the southern rebellion collapsed, celebration was widespread. While that date did not actually mark the unequivocal end of slavery, even in Texas, and emancipation has been celebrated on other dates, June 19 came to be a day of shared commemoration across the United States – created, preserved, and spread by ordinary African Americans – of slavery’s wartime demise.[Juneteenth - Wikipedia]
Well, you gotta pick a day; any one you choose is going to be arbitrary. People celebrated on that one and it stuck.
Re: “years”, I was referring to the 2.5-year delta between the proclamation and it going into effect in TX, where Juneteenth celebrations started.
