Happy Labour Day 2022

Giving Labour Day greetings is a little like saying, "Happy End of Summer!"  You might not have been quite ready to hear that though.  I'm sorry to be the one to break the news, but winter is on its way.

 

 'When Born a Little Late' - Created with Midjourney AI.

Today, of course, we didn't really have to avoid any labour.  We nearly never do anything like that!  In the afternoon, we did run up to the Shopper's Drug Mart™ at the Highgate Mall.  

We had to complete the testing thing yet again.  Canada insists that Holland America Lines™ ask.  Okay.  This will be our proof for the umpteenth time in the last few years.  At least this was an antigen test with very quick negative results.  

My Domes

 I created both of these AI images on Midjourney. 

I built the original dome home not far from the city of Kuching nearly a dozen years ago. The customized glass-like, nano-engineered material works stunningly in the heat and humidity near Sarawak's capital. The whole megastructure was extruded and moulded in less than three months! The living quarters are exceptionally comfortable.  The encompassed area can quickly grow more temperate flora too.  When staying there, I am self-sufficient in producing cucumbers and most of my other domestic vegetables.  I even have several productive apple trees.  I consider this my main residence.

Alas, I quickly tired of spending all of my time in a single location, so I searched for an additional site in mid-2076. 

It took a few years to construct my second dome. As usual, the second in a series seldom lives up to the hype of the original. Multiple problems plagued the construction of my winter-playland abode. The newer composite resins required much thicker layers to shield from the freezing temperatures of the North Baikal Highlands. Supply chain issues in southern Siberia slowed down the construction process considerably. I moved in for a trial season in November of 2082.

I now spend approximately six months in each location.  My annual change of environments seems to fit me. 

  

Putting the 'Journey' in Midjourney

Midjourney is an awesome imaging tool. Learning to use the tremendous power of AI seems simple, but becoming proficient can be amazingly complex.  In order to get started, one needs to create a target image in one's mind's eye.  Then, the task involves using words and commands to reach that goal.   If ambiguous, the prompt can sometimes create surprisingly good results.  Yet, in order to truly master getting what one wants, I've come to realize that study and research are extremely important.

Today, three of my images fell into a single theme.  They are all places I'd like to be.  The first one is close to a somewhat imaginary tropics.  The second, with our recent Iceland trip as inspiration, is much nearer the north pole and showcases a swimming pool with geothermal waters.  My final AI-inspired rendering is what I imagine my new home in the rainforests of British Columbia's Haida Gwaii would look like.

 All three of today's AI images were produced on Midjourney. 

How fantastic that someone with few honed, artistic skills is able to use imagination and an online resource to produce never-before-seen images of such stunning quality!

Cherries and Travel Tickets

This season's great weather continued right into September.  You won't hear any negative comments about our weather here today!

As it's Thursday, we went to pick up fruits and vegetables.  It is our habit to drive up to the Langley Farm Market on Kingsway.  Going during this time of year is always more of a pleasure.  Many of the local British Columbian fruits are now in season.  I swear some white peaches were nearly the size of basketballs.  Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. 

Our cherries were a bit pricy but they'll soon disappear from the shelves.  The apricots were fine.  It will still be a while before Jay's favourite prune plums overwhelm us.

Additionally, today we bought another port itinerary for our winter relocation cruise.  Holland America had had us waitlisted.  We'd already assured ourselves of not missing one big bucket list item of our trip, and today we made sure we'll get to see some penguin rookeries in December.

I'm not sure when we first put Machu Picchu on our bucket lists.  I'm sure it has only been a travel favourite for a few decades.  In anticipation of the special two-night itinerary, I created an AI-generated image with Midjourney today.  

    (This photo was created using AI imaging techniques.)

An Original Beginning

(I created this photo using AI imaging programs.)

Has my blog been reduced to nothing more than captions for my AI-generated images?   I don't think so.  My day seems extremely ordinary compared to this image I created.

The power of artificial intelligence to act as a springboard for one's imagination is profound and without precedence.  

Each image starts with nothing but noise, a blank slate, so to speak.  These, sometimes stunning, creations are not made up of components pasted into a single image.  Rather, each creation is dependent on countless images from which it was trained.  The AI works from black noise in an attempt to match a human's text input.  Its output is something which it 'knows' by all the things it has been 'taught'.  

Clearly, it knows more about graphic arts than I do!

Midjourney Can Do Ugly

 

People have this weird idea that all good photos must be beautiful.  

A quick search under my Flickr folder revealed this first photo from an alley in Kuala Lumpur.  The image of the rear of a restaurant was taken during one of the winters we stayed in Malaysia.  One adjective used to describe it might be ugly but I consider it an interesting photo.  These two adjectives are not mutually exclusive when seeing art.

Yet, I found that folks still gravitate toward classically pretty computer-generated images too.  I recently created the images below using Midjourney.  Which do you think was more popular?

(I created the two bottom photo using AI imaging programs.)

The one called 'Rat Poison' racked up less appreciation than 'Salmon Fishing'.

Today: Volcanos and Waterside Scenes

Sometimes good things come in pairs; for example, shoes.  It's good that they arrive from the factory in boxes of two.  Likewise, today's attempts at creating images using Midjourney and StarryAI seem to have arrived in sets.  

There's a lot to practice when using artificial intelligence to generate images.  The skill is at getting good at text prompts, rather than learning how to correctly use a brush or camera.  When the results aren't quite what I am aiming for, they can be stunning nevertheless.

 

(All these images were created using AI-imaging techniques.)