Why should more FOSS enthusiasts check out Stable Diffusion
I’m enjoying my exploration into AI image-generation quest. It’s been a rewarding experience, but I can’t shake the feeling I need to start each post like this with an apology because, you know, AI image generation.
Unlike other OpenAI’s DALLE or Midjourney, Stable Diffusion is open source and does not require using the cloud. You can run it at home, on your own hardware, provided you have enough juice for it (an average gaming rig should be good enough to start).
Stable Diffusion gets a bad wrap because… well, Let me ask you this: What happens when you give a boy a tool that can create any picture he wants? What do you think is the first thing that boy will create the second the door closes and the lights are off?
But that doesn’t mean you can’t use it for other things. Having AI image generation as open source makes a big difference. It’s up to you to use it as you see fit. It’s up to you to train it and provide it with images (you can create a model based completely on images of yourself or your artwork; stealing copyrighted work is not necessary). It’s up to you to learn how to use it, and man, there’s a lot to learn.
If you’re a fan of FOSS and Linux, you’d probably like to know that Stable Diffusion can run on Linux. In fact, that’s its native environment. It’s not as nearly as simple as typing a prompt into Imagen, Google’s AI image creation tool, but if you’re a Linux veteran, I doubt that’s a problem for you.
And I hope you’ll try it. We need more people who can develop and understand AI technology that is independent of big tech AI poison that is everywhere. We actually have a chance to develop a moral, responsible, and private AI tool - all the good stuff we FOSS techies appreciate. And now is the time. Before the entire field is swallowed completely by capitalistic greed.
There are some interesting links on Mastodon this morning, but following them is impossible. Paywall here, turn off your ad blocker there.
Can I at least see if I’m interested first? Let me come in, sit down, take my coat off, something… yeesh.
We woke up at 4:30 this morning to go to the hospital for my partner’s dad. Nothing too bad, but unpleasant. So instead, a picture from yesterday’s sunset. We really get some beautiful ones sometimes. 📷
Reddit: 2FA log-in is blocked when using VPNs. I had to disable my 2FA on Reddit.
Giving my IP to Reddit is worse than having enhanced security for one of my accounts there.
A pleasant surprise: a community garden at a local school on my evening walk. 📷
Micro.blog did it again: sneaking another good thing unnoticed. Everyone’s recommendations are in their profile.
So people I already follow and find interesting automatically recommend other interesting people I should follow. In a way, this comes to remedy my grump from yesterday, which amounts to not finding enough people to follow.
Another excellent update from the online community I enjoy being a part of.
It seems like I slept more than 7 hours today, but I don’t believe it. I don’t remember any of it.
…Which is a very good sign. Days like these are like small miracles 🛏️
Heart of Stone, 2023 - ★
I couldn't finish watching this one. This movie has a plot aimed at my horny teenage self at 12.
I loved Rotten Tomatoes' one-liner summary: "Gal Gadot remains an entertaining action star, but she's no match for Heart of Stone's thinly written characters, generic plot, and rote set pieces."
An attempt at a female James Bond was made - and blown. The plot is obvious, but the spoon-feeding is strong with this one anyway, just in case someone misses it.
There's an AI / Minority Report copycat style thrown into the mix to keep things up to date (I didn't finish watching, but I'm sure the AI turns out to be evil, or at least terribly incompetent, because duh) and non-stop action, which works for Gadot as Wonder Woman but fails badly for Rachel.
This would be another case of a good actor suffering from terrible writing... except that Greg Rucka is actually good at what he does (Old Guard, quite a few good comics in DC and Marvel), so I'm not sure what happened here, blaming Netflix is too easy.
Just spit it out already
In my search for independent blogs, I’ve encountered 1.5 depressing patterns. I’ll start with the 0.5 because that’s probably what you’re wondering about.
Most blogs I encounter belong to techies (programmers, web developers, etc.) and discuss tech stuff. We live in an age where everyone talks tech and everything is tech, so that doesn’t say much; hence the 0.5.
The other more problematic thing is the once-a-month blogs. It goes like this: I find someone interesting. They have something to say. I want to read more, but there’s only a handful of posts starting somewhere toward the end of last year.
At some point in time, I made up a rule: don’t follow blogs that don’t publish a blog post at least once a week. This might sound harsh, but this is my rule, so bite me. But there’s more to it. When I find someone interesting online, I get curious not just about what they write but also who they are. The ordinary things that are scattered around the more readworthy stuff. It feels more human to me, like meeting a friend. I enjoy thinking, “Hey, I wonder what platform Jack is experimenting with today,” or “Let’s see what’s on Brandon’s mind this morning.”
If I don’t write for more than two days, I find it difficult to write again. Suddenly, it’s not just a matter of writing whatever’s on my mind; I have to have something important to say, I can’t just write. And that’s where things get stuck: it’s not that I don’t have what to write about; it’s that there are too many things competing, so I rather just get up and check if I need to do dishes instead. With too many options, writing becomes a chore.
Take this post, for example. I was browsing through the referrals of this blog, found two personal blogs that I liked (from software developers, of course), and a mere collection of 5 - 6 posts leading back to the beginning of the year. I signed, felt sad about it, and before I knew it, I was writing about it. That’s it. No choosing, no thinking, and here we are.
So hey, if you’re one of those once-a-month folks who struggle to express yourself, do me a favor: don’t wait for that something. It ain’t coming because it’s already there. Just spit it out already.
Trust the readers to navigate around your morning coffee or your dog pictures to find your important stuff, because they will, and they’ll get to know you better along the way.
Gave up on Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow 📚 at about 80%.
Started OK and never got better. This book could benefit from focusing on the story or the technical knowledge, but Doctorow tries to do both, ending up with a lukewarm plot and online privacy techniques that should be explained further.