24 June, 2023 -- Artificially Intelligent

Boy, I’m lousy at this whole blogging thing. It’s been about a year since the last post. Some things have changed; but, not so much.

Last year we moved to Chiba, Japan from Fukuoka. Seems like I’ve been in Japan for about seven years, now. It has gone by fast. I’d like to say that I have something to show for my time here; but, I don’t.

Like many folks the planet over, I have recently fallen down the rabbit hole that is Artificial Intelligence. I find myself regularly looking to ChatGPT for help with various projects. For the record, I do refuse to let it write for me. I’ve played with localized instances of various OpenAI builds in an attempt to see how hard it would be to train one on my own. I think it would be fun to have my own version of HAL 9000...at least until it decides to kill me. Also, I’ve been playing with Stable Diffusion. That has been, arguably, the most time-consuming adventure. It’s more of a curiosity than anything; but, I find myself very entertained by it.

I’ll give you an example of a project. As a wannabe writer for many years, now, I’ve grown accustomed to the ever popular “writer’s prompt.” I thought, since I’m so interested in AI recently, why not ask it for a prompt? Mind you, my thinking is ridiculously detailed and chaotic all at once.

A normal person might have just logged in to ChatGPT and said, “Hey, Buddy. Can you give me a writing prompt to grease the wheels a bit this morning?” But...no. I asked it to give me a prompt to feed into Stable Diffusion that would give me a surprising image that I could use as a writing prompt. The result, you ask? Without so much as a beep or a whir, HAL (I can’t be the only one that calls it that.) immediately responded with something like, “While I am familiar with several variations of software and applications utilizing artificial intelligence, I am unfamiliar with specific, recently developed instances as my training data is only current through November, 2021.” It then, tirelessly, offered to assist me using its best guess at how something like that might operate.

Of course, I couldn’t leave it at that. I explained, in great detail, how the prompt inputs worked on my version of Stable Diffusion and then asked for a base prompt and a negative prompt.

HAL then lied to me and said, “That sounds very interesting! I’d be happy to assist you with prompts.” It then gave me prompts that created an image better than I had managed to come up with thus far.

So...success! Right? Not really. The wheels kept turning. The output that was generated was awesome; but, small. I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if the image was big enough to make desktop wallpaper out of? Then, I could have it displayed on one monitor while I write my epic tale on another. (I have three monitors. Don’t judge.)

My next step was to take the image that Stable Diffusion created from prompts that ChatGPT had given me and import it into the Adobe Photoshop Beta. You see, the beta has a new AI feature called “Generative Fill.” I created a canvas the size of my desktop, stuck the Stable Diffusion generated image smack in the middle, and asked Photoshop to fill the remaining space by continuing the image outward using AI. The result was a success, and I started a new story I am tentatively calling “Castle 49.”

Arguably, I should have just spent the morning writing and not bothering with technologies that are clearly beyond me. The one part of all this that I have failed spectacularly at is attempting to train my localized chat bot. That’s a whole other story in itself; but, Artificial Intelligence seems to be doing a good job of training me. I might have a problem. Just tattoo a bar code on my forehead already. I’m hooked.

29 June, 2022 -- Spaceship in Tokyo

My wife and I had business in Tokyo last weekend; so, we poked around a bit. I hadn’t been outside of the airport in Tokyo for about 15 years. It was quite an adventure.

Looking off of the observation deck of the Tokyo Tower, I happened to notice the structure you see in the first photograph. For all the world, it looked to me like a spaceship had landed in the middle of Tokyo and no one noticed.

Now, safely back at home, I researched just what sort of structure it really is. It turns out that the “spaceship” is actually a sort of Buddhist temple known as Shakaden that was constructed in 1975. I thought it was an interesting find.

Our trip to Tokyo was just an overnight stay. We visited the Tokyo Tower and the Sky Tree. For me, the Tokyo Tower is more iconic than the Sky Tree. I was amazed to find out that the buildings being constructed around it are actually taller.

The Sky Tree, on the other hand, is ridiculously tall. We went to the top observation deck, and it was like being in a plane. Looking down, I couldn’t help but be in awe of just how many structures and people have been crammed into one area.

In the base of the Sky Tree is a great restaurant and bar called the World Beer Museum. Since I didn’t need to worry about driving, I spent some time traveling the globe vicariously through an impressive variety of beers with new friends. I don’t socialize often, these days, and it was a lot of fun.

Getting around Tokyo was not as difficult as I had imagined. We took trains most of the time, including to and from the Narita airport. We passed through some beautiful agricultural areas on the way in from the airport, as well. Despite the heat, everything was very green.

Selfishly, I wanted to get a chance to look for cheap tech in Akihabara; but, we just didn’t have the time. They closed my favorite computer store in Fukuoka a while back, called Tsukumo. They have three, huge, buildings in Akihabara full of stuff. I will definitely get there some day.

Overall, the only challenging part of the trip was navigating the Jetstar check-in and terminal at Narita Airport. The Fukuoka end was fine; but it was hell on the Narita end. That was a lot of walking, and they only have self check-in. I’m not sure I would fly with them again on purpose. Their “terminal” is a glorified metal shack in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t realize quite how far we had walked until we climbed up the steps into the plane and it started taxiing out to the runway. We rolled for so long, my wife and I began to wonder if the pilot was just going to drive to Fukuoka. In fairness, I don’t travel well.

Aside from that little excursion, I don’t really have anything new to report. In an effort to retain some shred of sanity, I’ve quit watching and reading as much news as I have in the past. It seems to be helping. I’ve been able to focus a little more on my projects. We’ll see how it goes. See you next post!

26 May, 2022 -- Going Places

I took this photo last year while out walking around with my daughter. There’s a small wooded area not far from our apartment that contains a number of trails, several of them marked with various stones and other interesting markers. I’d like to get out and start exploring again. It has been too long.

Living in Japan has been nothing short of awesome, so far. I’ve nothing against my home country, the United States. My family and I simply have better opportunities here.

That said, I really haven’t gotten out much. This has been the case, especially, since the pandemic took over the world. Walking on the treadmill at the gym seems silly given how many places there are that I haven’t walked through in “real” life. Specifically, I like trails. I need to find some.

24 May, 2022 -- Guitar Man

As I sit down to write this, I find myself thinking about guitars. For about thirty years, I had made a point of keeping at least one guitar around at all times. That ended when my family and I moved to Japan. I simply couldn’t justify the expense of shipping even one.

Now, to anyone that actually plays guitar, that probably sounds ridiculous. “How could you leave them?” you might ask. “That’s like leaving your soul!”

Well, the answer is simple and pathetic. I can’t play. Not even one song. I’m the eternal wannabe, after all.

The first time I sat down with a guitar, I wanted to play David Bowie’s Space Oddity. I know, it’s not exactly a song likely to get panties tossed at you; but, that’s where my head was at the time. The second song I attempted was Luckenbach, Texas by Waylon Jennings. There’s really no rules in my skull.

Despite my failure to learn anything on it, I took that first guitar everywhere with me. Even when I was driving semi-truck back and forth across the United States, it was always strapped to the bunk in the sleeper. I kept thinking that if I tried long enough, I might find the magic.

So, I’m wondering (again) why I can’t seem to stick to anything. With the guitar, it’s absolutely not that it doesn’t hold my interest. I love music. What’s more, I simply can’t function without it. I wear my headphones at the gym. Music is always playing whenever I am doing anything around the house. I’m listening to music as I type this. It’s incredibly difficult to put one foot in front of the other if there isn’t a song pushing me along. I’m not even sure if my car will go into gear without the stereo on. The struggle is real. Life requires a soundtrack.

That said, what the hell is my problem? I have all of my fingers. I can keep a rhythm. At this point, I can only assume that it’s the same reason why I rarely complete my writing projects. I’m too distracted. I also think I expect success within minutes, moving on to other things I can fail at when I don’t get the outcome I want. What a weird little bastard I am.

Six years have passed since I left my guitars behind and moved to the land of the rising sun. I’m struggling with my writing, and I know I really need to focus. So, of course, a guitar followed me home from a second-hand shop the other day. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to play this one.