For Fellow Blogspot Users

 Have you checked your Spam comments folder lately? Mine is filling up with old comments that are not Spam. Some bloggers report that their own responses showed up there! 

Fortunately, I found that I was able to check these all off at one time through a “Manage” option.

By the way, leaving comments is often tricky. Sometimes I have to switch browsers to submit a comment. 

Inspiration?

For years, I took part in the Inspired Sunday blog hop, but it no longer exists. Sometimes I still like to post something inspiring for Sunday. Today I thought maybe artificial intelligence (AI) could produce something from the word inspiration. What images might I get? 

I tried the free image generators StarryAI, Dream by Wombo, and NightCafe. I tried various styles, and none of them really satisfied me. This first one was not bad.

Several looked like an apocalyptic fantasy, and some had a disturbing detail. There were some nice skies, but I have real photos that have more inspiring skies.

I combined the rest of the images using PhotoCollage to keep this from being an overly long post. If nothing else, you can see the AI can emulate a variety of art styles. I don’t find the images to be as inspiring as what real artists can produce.

View More Collages/Mosaics

Bird Post #1085

Almost every week, I post bird photos. Wild Bird Wednesday encourages me to do so. Here’s a collage of some photos I have posted of northern cardinals. The greenish ones are females. Some people describe them as brown or drab, but I think they are beautiful.

I decided to see what artificial intelligence (AI) would create for this well-known bird. I asked for northern cardinal in the snow. I got all male cardinals

I switched to a different AI image creator and asked for a female northern cardinal in winter. It produced another male!

Fortunately, I had a page open describing six free AI “text to art” generators. I picked another one and typed the same prompt.  It gave me the final image that you see here, which looks like another male cardinal with a little extra olive green.

AI is artificial but I am not convinced that it is intelligent!

A Small Fracture, Small Dog, Big Sky, Winding River

Last weekend, I stubbed a middle toe and it got bruised and sore. Well, actually, three toes were badly bruised. The swelling went down, but it was still painful so I saw a doctor on Tuesday and got it x-rayed. It turns out there was a fracture that extended into the joint, so now I have an appointment for early next week to have an orthopedist look at it. In the meantime, I am supposed to wear hard-soled shoes and stabilize the toe by strapping it to the one next to it. I’m trying to rest my feet a little more, but I find I am walking almost as much as before because there are things that must get done, including caring for the dog. He does go to doggy daycare twice a week so that I can go to physical therapy and other appointments.

Yesterday was not a daycare day, so while normally I would have taken Charlie to the dog park, I didn’t want to be on my feet too much. Instead, we went to the state park and took a short walk. I tried to take a selfie of us using the timer on my phone, but as you can see, Charlie was busy sniffing the ground. 

I have heard that beagles actually use up energy when they explore by sniffing. I sat down at a picnic table and let him sniff around some more. He also enjoyed jumping up on the bench and onto the table.

I stopped the car on Lupton Road to take a picture of forsythia blooming, but the sun was shining on my lens. It made interesting effects.

I am still playing with AI image generators. Some of the results are awful, but I’ve gotten some nice images representing our Shenandoah River. 

Everyday Creatures and Created Pictures

We had a very light snow this morning. You can see a few flakes on Charlie’s back. Warm weather is supposed to return tomorrow.

The willow trees are starting to green up. I couldn't tell what kind of birds were in this one.

Charlie is doing better in the car, not as nervous as before. I credit some of this to cheeseburger bribes and some of it to medication that he is taking for anxiety. Unfortunately, he hates taking medication and refuses to eat anything that might possibly contain a pill. I'm concerned that my concealing pills inside treats has given him a suspicion of all food, because he doesn't trust treats now, and sometimes skips eating a meal.

I continue to experiment with software-generated images. They call this artificial intelligence, but the intelligence part seems to be pretty inconsistent. The cat picture resulted from my asking for an owl and cat in a green boat. Remember the children’s rhyme?

I’ve also created a number of pictures using AI of beagles. I found that I get better images if I ask for beagle puppies, instead of just beagles.

See More Collages/Mosaics

Creating Beagle Pictures with AI

 Computer-Generated Images

Created with artificial intelligence apps, as well as PhotoCollage.

Sharing with Wordless Wednesday on Tuesday and Mosaics.

Seasonal Artificial Intelligence or Lack Thereof

"Garbage in, garbage out." (An early statement about computer data.)

Generating AI images is not easy. Well, it is easy to generate something, but it may not be at all what you want. I’ve been playing with freeimagegenerator with extremely mixed outcomes. The app’s results seem rather random, and both people and animals often have extra limbs or fuzzy features.

Today I was trying to conjure up Christmas-themed pictures. The only ones that show the subject I described are Father Christmas/Santa images and a Christmas tree in Klimt style. There were a number of pictures so distorted that I didn’t download them.

I enjoy experimenting with images and working around computer problems. Hmm, blogging is like that too!

Imaginary Churches

For years I participated in a Sunday linkup called InSpired Sunday. The challenge was to post a picture of a church on Sunday, along with some information about it. It was hosted by Beth and then eventually by Billy, who still publishes detailed photographic profiles of churches on a weekly basis. Participation dwindled over the years as blogging became less popular. I had almost run out of churches to share anyway.

Today I am showing some computer-created scenes in which I used the word church or cathedral, a season, and a famous artist’s name to see what freeimagegenerator would come up with. Some of the results were not worth saving but I like these three.

The first one is supposed to be in the style of Edward Hopper. I don’t think he ever painted anything like this, but it does have the simple straight facades that he favored.

The second one is the style of Klee and yes, I can see that influence.

My final masterpiece is on the style of Turner. I certainly see his style in the sky, although the church, if there is one, is hard to see.

 

Athletic Critters

This is the time of year that I start feeding birds. I avoid it during warm months because it can attract bears, even in town.

The sunflower seeds attracted squirrels. Charlie liked watching them. Unfortunately, one of them knocked down this feeder today and broke it.

The picture of a really big cat is computer-generated. I made it using FreeImageGenerator for the Caturday blog hop. 

 

Charlie is a really fast runner. He amuses people at the dog park.

Cardinals Real and Unreal

There is at least one cardinal who lives on my block. He is fairly bold so I've been able to take his picture with my phone while I was walking the dog. These two pictures were taken five days apart.

Wild Bird Wednesday 

I decided to show you some AI pictures of cardinals so I went to FreeImageGenerator and tried to create pictures of northern cardinals  in different artist’s styles. Some of them were ridiculous and some are passable. Artificial intelligence still has a long way to go.

Only the first one looks like the birds I had in mind. The algorithm seems to use some artistic license.