Had a nice event yesterday ❤ happy to have celebrated National Poetry Month.
E. Writer
One of the more creative k-dramas I've watched.
https://www.viki.com/tv/35432c-are-you-human-too#episodes
There is a civil war in Uganda between over 200 CHIMPS. I dislike links to media but felt this is a very neutral story.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr71lkzv49po
What is the simulacra? It is a copy of a copy that replaces the original reference. A photo that comes to represent you, is the simulacra. A video of the image, of you, becomes the copy of the copy. It is simulacra...a simulation and replacement. We are consistently engaged in a pseudo-reality. These are images of me. This is a video of "me." Is it real? Or is it simulacra? Are the pixels on your screen, real?
Or is this the use of simulacra, to explain simulacra.
#reality #philosophy #books
Andrew Morgan I'm certain I read a short story by Flannery O'Connor, I forget the title but the central character is a little girl named Mary Christmas. You won't find the name Mary Christmas anywhere. This story has vanished entirely. Little Mary is only a character, whose life exists only in a few written pages. She is unhappy, brutalized by some old bugger who accompanies her and who summarily strangles her. But in just those few pages, she is brought so vitally to life. I'm not sure anymore whose point of view is portrayed. I think it is the killer's. And the reader is left to mourn for her, to feel deep empathy for her, to feel her loss of being, this fictional character who never made it off a page. Or has she? Does she live in our memory?
E. Writer Thanks for sharing this story. I will definitely find where I can read it. Simulacra is something different. It's when something that is copied replaces the original. An example that Jean Baudrillard mentions in his book is this photo or I think painting of a famous ruin. The ruin is no longer there, but only the image of it remains, and is what people remember. The image has replaced the real, original structure. I constructed this video to demonstrate Simulacra. Its a copy of a copy that is representing me. It is my image, but is not my voice. If I leave this, over time it will replace how I sound amd appear to others by memory.
Darryl Shirley This is scary
E. Writer Hey Darryl! Yes, and it's so convincing. Someone on BP just said to me, "I didn't know you were British." I'm like I'm not. Bit it goes to show how reality can be warped. How anything can replace truth.
Okay, this is creepy. So I did another video using my image. Since I write about simulation, to demonstrate that most of what we see isn't reality but artificial constructs, I put in a prompt, and the prompt was about my book, which deals with these themes. I wrote in it these concerns written in the book. The image begins to generate, then suddenly, it begins typing out these codes in Chinese. As someone you know, I speak Chinese and I can read some Chinese. I am not advanced, but I can hold a conversation and read and understand. But these characters did not make sense to me. So I took it and pasted it in Google. The answer comes up, and asks, where did I find this text? I told it from Google VEO (video generation). It said it was just garbled nonsense. So then, I knew some of these characters meant something, My Chinese is not advanced enough to understand these characters as I've never read them before, so I wrote the following:
me: Oh, then what does this say: 圖像轉影片：模擬現實擔憂
Unlike the garbled glitch text from before, this is a clear Chinese phrase. It translates to:
"Image to Video: Simulating Real-world Concerns"
Here is the breakdown of the terms:
圖像轉影片 (Túxiàng zhuǎn yǐngpiàn): Image to video.
模擬 (Mónǐ): Simulating / Simulation.
現實 (Xiànshí): Reality / Real-world.
擔憂 (Dānyōu): Concerns / Worries.
Why did this appear in your video?
Since you're using Google Veo, this text is likely a leftover from its training data. AI video models are trained on millions of videos, many of which include:
Instructional Overlays: Videos explaining how "Image-to-Video" technology works.
Tech Demos: News segments or presentations discussing "real-world concerns" regarding AI (like deepfakes or safety).
The model essentially "hallucinated" this specific title card because it associated your prompt with technical or realistic AI generation content. You can try translating more snippets with Google Translate if you see other clear characters!
This is creepy. I put my photo into AI to see what a simulation of me would look like, and this is how it envisions my speech and mannerisms. What's odd is that it somehow knows what my teeth are like. Particularly the bottom row, even though I was not smiling in the original pic. It's creepy. See YT video here:
https://youtube.com/shorts/v3fpln3Owj4
#artificialintelligence
I was looking for information to see which of my books is available at our local public library, ahead of my event. I saw Space, Time, and Loneliness at three locations. I noticed one of them had "Display" under "Available" and I wondered what that meant. So I called (anonymously) to ask what that meant without telling her the name of the book I was referring to, only that I was looking up a book online and it had "display" written under "Available."
The librarian said, "Oh, this means the book is on display at the front of the library. You can still check it out, it just means we're displaying it."
I have an event at a different library in two weeks. But this is a completely different branch and must be an unrelated promotion. It's nice to see the local library branches supporting my books without being promoted by me in any way.
#poetry
#books
I stumbled across this fashion article about Rhianna wearing ballet flats and leggings and how this is a huge fashion statement. I find it humorous because that's what I've been wearing for over a decade or two. I wear ballet flats exactly like the ones she's wearing in the image. Multiple pairs almost identical to them. I have them in different colors and textures, even with the lace-up across the ankles, (I never wear heels), and I have always pair them with leggings ( I always humorously thought it's a little Peg Bundy-ish). I even have vintage leg warmers that I have had for two decades. One pair of leg warmers are a little ratty at the bottom because they drag under my ballet flats which are close to the ground when I walk. But because of the texture of the leg warmers it looks fashionable. Intentional. They leg warmers are all knit. I wear those leg warmers the most. People always compliment them and ask wear I found them because no one sells leg warmers. I just find it humorous that Rhianna is wearing a style I have worn forever and it's being heralded as a big fashion statement. I wear ballet flats and leggings because they are comfortable, feminine, and cute. That's my style. If I wear a dress, I wear romance dresses and ballet flats.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/rihanna-wears-her-leggings-the-ballet-dancer-way-with-the-high-vamp-flats-trend/ar-AA20ipEt?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=69d4f69743ed4eb289703d635830139f&ei=15
