leviathant

Nano Banana was the first generative image tool that seemed to understand architecture. I have some 18th century engravings that I've been trying to get AI tools to visualize as though they were photographs of real structures, and the results were comically bad until Nano Banana came along. I remember seeing the announcement, dropping a sketch into Gemini with the prompt "Make this a photo" and it preserved all the features and dimensions, but added photorealistic textures.

I still do a lot of modeling of historical buildings in Sketchup and Twinmotion, but Nano Banana has really helped me with more easily visualizing a world before photography.

The trick I keep in mind in situations like this is to look at brake lights ahead of me. If cars are braking and I'm accelerating, I'm probably going to end up driving very inefficiently. By letting off the accelerator, I don't close the gap as quickly, and eventually, the turbulence in the traffic flow steadies out. Instead of stopping and starting, I roll at an averaged out speed, which doesn't feel as frustrating (it's kind of relaxing) and is better for fuel economy. There are, of course, the weavers who jump from gap to gap, tailgating and pushing. Sometimes it works, sometimes they just get jammed up.

I don't drive as often as I used to, but on I-76 coming into or out of Philadelphia, traffic gets snarled and becomes stop-and-go. Every now and then, someone next to me appears to have the same understanding of fluid dynamics as I do, and we build up enough of a buffer that we are able to eliminate the stop-and-go, even if it means rolling at 5mph with a big gap between us and the cars in front of us.

There's no good way to communicate what we're doing, even to each other. But I like to think that when this happens, it has a positive effect that ripples out for miles.

>How do you handle kids w/ a learning disability who can't effectively write well?

It's embarrassing to see this question downvoted on here. It's a valid question, there's a valid answer, and accessibility helps everyone.

An assault weapons ban went into effect in 1994, the number of deaths from mass shootings fell, and the increase in the annual number of incidents slowed down. Any guesses as to what trends in firearm related deaths looked like when the ban was allowed to expire in 2004?

Legally speaking, the Republicans have been losing in court over and over. That doesn't mitigate the damage they're doing during the lag, and the consequences for breaking the law have never been as strong as they should be when officers of the law and elected officials are the ones breaking the law.

But it is important to acknowledge the wins. They do have an effect, and that's the only path we seem to have toward slowing down the march to autocracy.

It's easy to look at the politics of individual states as a means of breaking things up if you ignore the economics. Things get very complicated, very quickly when you set a political threshold for breaking up the country.

While you're remembering things you shouldn't forget, pay attention to how the Black Panthers are out in Philadelphia, and ICE isn't messing around over here. We chased those Patriot Front clowns out immediately, too.

But yeah, focus on the peaceful citizens making their voices heard, if that makes you feel more secure about how things are going.

...among the people who voted. There are a lot of folks who opted out that bear responsibility for the way this country and its power is being dismantled.

He wouldn't win the popular vote today! Why is it that when you call yourself a Republican, you take a very narrow margin of victory and consider it a mandate to only listen to your fanbase? I bet it feels fun at first, and there are a few people who get very wealthy and powerful as a result, but reality always comes crashing back down.

I suppose that if the talk of suspending mid-term elections bears fruit, that changes the equation.

If Trump were a Russian asset, would it look in any way different from how he's behaving today?

The thing I find morbidly fascinating is that all the Republicans I used to know, who were vehemently anti-Russia for decades, who worshiped at the altar of Ronald Reagan - have all become bootlicking Trump fanatics. It turns out, it was never about principles with so many of these people I knew - it was daddy issues, writ large.

>Whatever Levi’s did, their jeans went from lasting years to literal months before they would rip.

Before they went public, the trick with Levi's was to basically shop with two things in mind: price point, and finish. I personally stick to non-stretch 501s. If you were sorting price low to high, you were buying low quality 501s. If you sorted price high to low, there were a bunch of "fashion" 501s at the top of the list, but when you got a pair of expensive 501s in "rigid" or some other simple wash, that was where the quality was. They used to publish the weight of the denim on the product detail page. Bonus points if they're Shrink to Fit.

Pre-IPO they'd also do much more experimentation. I have a pair of 501s made of Dyneema that I have been abusing for about a decade, and only just this month has one pocket needed to be repaired. I wish I'd bought multiple of these, but I got it on a blowout sale.

Post-IPO, there was more branding hierarchy: Levi's Vintage Clothing, Made & Crafted, Premium, and then everything else.

It looks like it's a little different now, but I haven't had to buy a new pair of 501s in several years. There are still quality jeans to be had from Levi's, but you have to spend more and avoid gimmicks.

I was taking to a woman at a party a couple of years ago (an event related to a choir composition that my wife had done), and at some point she mentioned her son was a developer, specifically that he made video games. When I asked if she knew which games he worked on, she said Crash Bandicoot and suddenly I felt like I was talking to Ned royalty. I gushed a bit about what I had read on this blog post, but kept the conversation going so as not to dwell on it.

Fair enough! I suppose I've avoided that kind of "style transfer" for a variety of reasons, it hadn't even occurred to me that people were still interested in that. And I don't say that to open up debate on the topic, just explaining away my own ignorance/misinterpretation. Thanks

I was kind of surprised by this line:

>Nano Banana is terrible at style transfer even with prompt engineering shenanigans

My context: I'm kind of fixated on visualizing my neighborhood as it would have appeared in the 18th century. I've been doing it in Sketchup, and then in Twinmotion, but neither of those produce "photorealistic" images... Twinmotion can get pretty close with a lot of work, but that's easier with modern architecture than it is with the more hand-made, brick-by-brick structures I'm modeling out.

As different AI image generators have emerged, I've tried them all in an effort to add the proverbial rough edges to snapshots of the models I've created, and it was not until Nano Banana that I ever saw anything even remotely workable.

Nano Banana manages to maintain the geometry of the scene, while applying new styles to it. Sometimes I do this with my Twinmotion renders, but what's really been cool to see is how well it takes a drawing, or engraving, or watercolor - and with as simple a prompt as "make this into a photo" it generates phenomenal results.

Similarly to the Paladin/Starbucks/Pirate example in the link though, I find that sometimes I need to misdirect a little bit, because if I'm peppering the prompt with details about the 18th century, I sometimes get a painterly image back. Instead, I'll tell it I want it to look like a photograph of a well preserved historic neighborhood, or a scene from a period film set in the 18th century.

As fantastic as the results can be, I'm not abandoning my manual modeling of these buildings and scenes. However, Nano Banana's interpretation of contemporary illustrations has helped me reshape how I think about some of the assumptions I made in my own models.

It boggles my mind when, despite my general avoidance of advertising online, I see the language being used. Call me old fashioned, but "viral" is a bad thing to me. "Addictive" is a bad thing. "Tricks" are bad! But this is the language being used to attract customers, and I suppose it works well enough.

I don't know what series of events transpired that resulted in common, slightly irregular use of the word "kindly" by scammers, but I'm glad it happened. Immediate red flag, every time.

Philadelphia has an underground pedestrian concourse in center city. It is, however, not clean, well lit, nor as actively policed. In some alternate timeline, the stalls would be filled with shops, and it would be a great alternative to walking the streets when it's too hot, too precipitous, too cold. But we struggle to even keep our public transit system funded, let alone something like this, which is a shame.

I hope I live to see Philadelphia's infrastructure get rehydrated with some of that GDP it generates for the rest of the state, and region.

I eventually gave up on this, but I always favored it because a period with two spaces after it very clearly designated the end of a sentence, as opposed to something like an abbreviation. It made parsing English just a little bit easier.

Folks, in case it wasn't clear, I was complaining about people downvoting a critical opinion, I was not myself downvoting a critical opinion. I'm glad to see the trend on the original comment has reversed.

Knowing my audience, I've blocked entire countries to stop the pain. Even that was a bit of whack-a-mole. Blocking China cooled off the traffic for a few days, then it came roaring back via Singapore. Blocked Singapore, had a reprieve for a while, and then it was India, with a vengeance.

Cloudflare has been a godsend for protecting my crusty old forum from this malicious, wasteful behavior.

Sharing a critical opinion? That's a downvote for you! (Sheesh)

It doesn't have drums or their approximation, but Saunder Choi's "The New Colossus" is a very rhythmic and emotional work. The words are from Emma Lazarus' poem engraved on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RUtWfSNRRY

Another rhythmic piece that comes to mind is Wild Embers by Melissa Dunphy, setting the words of Nikita Gill, who started off as an Instagram poet. Lots of videos of this one, I'm picking one at random: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCSjvGPERKQ

Another piece by Melissa Dunphy, "Dancing in Buses" is from American DREAMers. It begins with a nod to reggaeton, and tells the story of a kid crossing the border, with the bus coming under gunfire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcfNiHDefBw

It's part of a 25 minute series of works, here's the premiere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m3RoCHebIQ&t=193s

And more info here: https://www.melissadunphy.com/composition/72/american-dreame...

My wife is a successful Australian-American choral composer, and riding shotgun as her career has taken off, if I were to make a few observations right before I turn in for the night:

"Choral music is harder to appreciate than say either symphonies or chamber music" - unlike orchestras and smaller string ensembles, choirs are champions of new music. The end of the article cites opera's growing popularity (an idea I'm not sure I buy into) but opera companies are famously stuck in rep from 100-300 year old, because that's what the donor class wants to hear.

The perspective painted by this article isn't all that different from the boomer who thinks there hasn't been good rock n' roll since the Beatles and the Stones. It's out there, all around you - you're just not looking in the right places. Choir music has a built-in network effect; when one choir sings a piece that goes over well, often times there are members who are in one or two other choirs, or are even choir directors themselves. There's a very dynamic scene, not even touching on religious choirs. And to people who think it's not that exciting, again I think you might just not be going to the right concerts. I've seen a choir reduce an entire audience to tears, and I've heard choral pieces that send the hair up on the back of my neck. I say this as someone who normally listens to Nine Inch Nails, Fever Ray, Queens of the Stone Age, Autechre, Aphex Twin... Some of my favorite choral works have very catchy rhythms, others border on math rock.

Choral organizations could do with better marketing; it's hard to compete in today's media landscape. One of my favorite groups, the St Louis Chamber Chorus, performs new and old works, and makes it a point to perform in unique spaces all around the St Louis area - part of the attraction to a concert is getting to go into that church you've always wondered about, or an old theater that's been brought back to life by the community. The Mid-Columbia Master Singers have performed in the Hanford B reactor site in the Tri-Cities area of Washington state. Or even seeing The King's Singers perform with Voces8 in an old mainstay like Royal Albert Hall, it's a sensory experience that can't be replicated.

And again, it's a community thing. You meet other people who appreciate this stuff when you go to the concerts and stay for the receptions. If you feel like you could make things better, become a subscriber, a major donor, join the board of one of these things. It's incredibly rewarding.

Back to marketing: outside of a few long-running groups like Chanticleer, Cantus, Voces8, the King's Singers, and so on, it's really challenging to build a brand around choral music. The industry's just not there for it. But seek out local choral concerts, talk to some strangers there, and you'll find a whole ecosystem that operates is more typically consumed live and in person, than it is via recording.

Going back to the title of the article, I suppose that does make it harder to appreciate than something you've heard in movie trailers and can stream from Spotify.

>Sigh, still not going to pay more for a phone than I paid for my computer.

As much as I loathe the consumerism of buying the latest phone every year, I realized that if the trade-in value is good enough, it's a pretty good strategy in terms of overall technology spend.

With iPhones, I upgraded every third generation. With Pixels, I went from 3 to 6 to 9, but given that I'm on Google Fi, I get a $450 discount on the phone, and I can get a base Pixel 10 Pro for $217, after trade-in. I got a surprisingly generous trade-in on my Pixel 6 when I bought the 9, and buying the Pixel 3 with Google Fi was pretty cheap too.

The last computer I bought was an M1 Max Macbook Pro w/ 36gb of RAM and a 1TB drive, for $2499, in 2023 (thank you B&H). Hopefully it'll be a long time before I'm paying that much for a phone.

> the AI integration on google phones is just amazing

Genuinely curious, what's your favorite aspect of AI on the Pixel? I'm on a 9 pro, coming from a Pixel 6 and a Pixel 3 before it. I don't think I'm ever using AI on this thing, so I'm interested in hearing where it turns up for you.

>I don't want to sound mean but these are reachable with just another day at it. They really are.

Semi-related, understanding Sketchup took a couple of false starts for me. The first time I tried it, I could not make heads or tails of what I was doing. I must have spent hours trying to figure out how to model a desk, and I gave up. Tried again a year or two later, and it just didn't click.

The third try, a couple years later, it suddenly made sense, and what started as modeling a new desk out turned into modeling my room, then modeling the whole house, and now I've got a rough model of my neighborhood. And it's so easy, once you know how - there's obviously a rabbit hole of detail work one can fall down into, but the basics aren't bad.

No. If that's what you took from my post, I've miscommunicated.

NPR has turned rightward. The entertainment shows are, without a doubt, liberal, on the American political spectrum. There are countless discussions and papers about the role empathy plays in successful entertainment.

The editorial content has turned rightward - and the leadership has turned rightward. This has been ongoing for at least two decades, probably longer, but I wasn't paying attention at that level when I was under 20.

> It's Fox, but for the Left

There was a distinct shift to the right at NPR when Obama took office, and by the time he took his second term, NPR News' social media was posting clickbait trash instead of real headlines. "The liberal media" is an irrational boogeyman used to whip ownership in line. Everyone who complains about "bias in the media" is arguing in bad faith while they continue to turn a blind eye to the overwhelmingly dominant conservative slant of the 21st century American media.

Yeah yeah. If you want to find the Republicans in public broadcasting, look at the board members. Same thing happened with newspapers and local TV news after Bush 2 loosened media ownership rules.

Next you're going to tell me the New York Times has a liberal bias, right? Save it.

YouTube's initial success came from being able to serve, on a global scale, user-uploaded, largely uncredited copyright violations of both video and audio.

Facebook's "pivot to video" similarly relied on user-uploaded unlicensed video content, now not just pulling from television and film, but from content creators on platforms like YouTube.

Today, every "social" platform is now littered with "no copyright infringement intended" and "all credit to the original" copy-and-paste junk. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of remix culture – but I believe appropriating and monetizing the work of others without sharing the reward is a destructive cycle. And while there are avenues for addressing this, they're designed for the likes of Universal, Sony, Disney, etc. (I've had original recordings of original music flagged by megacorps because the applause triggered ContentID.)

AI slop further poisons the well. It's rough going out there.

I live in Philadelphia. We had a lot of manufacturing here, but most of that vacated the city center in the 1970s and 1980s. I recently was doing some research into urban renewal around my neighborhood, and found a paper about the city's efforts to address a concentrated population of perpetually drunk homeless men, mostly centered in my neighborhood, mostly squatting in abandoned buildings or living in flophouses. The city's approach was effectively to remove them and spread them out - and bulldoze the neighborhood to make way for a federally funded highway, now I-95. A lot of manufacturing businesses just called it quits - the owners had made their money on the backs of cheap labor and hadn't really set up any kind of succession plan, but could retire comfortably. Others moved, mostly out of the city, and by the 90s, that labor was moving overseas.

And that's why I don't really foresee that kind of manufacturing coming back here. In order to survive the race-to-the-bottom pricing that the majority of Americans crave, you need a large labor force that will accept some form of sub-par living conditions. But if you can't earn a living wage, you can't afford to participate in the economy in a way that supports the manufacturing, and then you're back to those mid-century slums.

I'm dramatically oversimplifying things, my main point here is, I didn't really put together how much of early 20th century American manufacturing relied on chronically drunk homeless men.