Author: John

Build knowledge//Improve the state of the universe for everyone//Repeat -- Versatile, solutions-oriented, Systems Engineering leader with comprehensive systems integration, engineering, architecture, and automation experience across industries. Pathfinder pioneer for developers, creators, and makers guiding the cultural transformation from legacy, hardware-based infrastructure, to virtual and containerized concepts. Encouraging learning, exploration, and creation of technologies to achieve collective success.

Sense of Touch and Timing Technique

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There’s a reason these are only $11 and semi-disposable.

T118 Timing Pin… compact version for timing around corners.

Why?

Because if they were any more “sturdy”, then you’d be replacing a $2,000 magneto… or, minimally, that magneto’s $400 distributor assembly.

Sure, you’re going to tear it down and inspect it… **sigh** again… but it’s better to replace that $11 tool than the more expensive parts.

AI Creates Imaginary Art…

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At some point, I should see about exploring some AI development concepts on the compute power that I already have readily available at home. But, until then, and until I actually have the inertia to explore the concept much deeper, there’s some freely-available NightCafe AI studio.

We begin by asking it to come up with an idea based upon a word or a concept: a river.

How’d it do?

Ask it for a river, and it renders something that looks rather like a river:

a river

Perhaps a setting for a pivotal scene involving Aragorn and Boromir.

Right, so what if we ask the AI to render something a bit more complex? Perhaps a river full of fish?

river full of fish

Now it starts getting a bit interesting. Using a cyberpunk style, it creates a river, with fish — leaping? floating? flying?

Eh, could evolve that a bit more.

I rather like the cyberpunk interpretation offered by the AI, so let’s ask it again…

We’ll just ask it for the same thing again…

a river full of fish, 2

What if we drop the determiner, ‘a’?

river full of fish

Okay, now let’s ask it for something somewhat implausible — not really a thing: a river full of sleep

a river of sleep

Certainly as vivid as one may expect a river to be during sleep. But let’s do it again…

river of sleep

Yep, that’s enough AI exploration for one day.

High-Speed of the Past?

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Ah, yes, we embrace high-speed online learning…

…as long as you’re okay with connection speeds only marginally better than a high-tech and cutting-edge DSL connection from 1994.

I need to fetch a 600MB Powerpoint presentation to review some notes on a (24MB) video that was embedded in it. But I’m at the mercy of the hosting provider’s CDN, which seems little more than an overloaded Raspberry Pi sponging off of its neighbor’s unsecured WiFi.

Yes, yes, clearly the creator misspelled “Propellers”, try not to judge. But the question is: how large is it? Not sure — I’ve been waiting for about 30 min or so. I’ll just sit and ponder the mysteries of the universe while I wait so I can extract one embedded element.

A carrier pigeon would be faster.