Art
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Feed Time
Two things worth blogging about that happened this morning. One was getting down and dirty trying to make DALL-E 3 work. That turned into giving up trying to find DALL-E (in any version) on the open Web and biting the $20/month bullet for a Pro account with ChatGPT, which for some reason maintains its DALL-E… Continue reading
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Looking for DALL-E 3 Help
I just returned to DALL-E 3 after using its Microsoft version (currently called Copilot | Designer) for a while. But I can’t get in. See how it says “Try in ChatGPT↗︎?” When I do that, it goes to https://chat.openai.com/. After I log in there, it offers no clue about where DALL-E 3 is. So I… Continue reading
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The end of what’s on, when, and where
But not of who, how, and why. Start by looking here: That’s a page of TV Guide, a required resource in every home with a TV, through most of the last half of the 20th century. Every program was on only at its scheduled times. Sources were called stations, which broadcast over the air on… Continue reading
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The News Business
Seventh in the News Commons series. How does the news business see itself? Easy: ask an AI. Or a lot of them.* That’s what I’ve been doing. Unless otherwise noted, all the following respond to the same three-word prompt: the news business. Here goes… Microsoft Bing (Full name: Microsoft Bing Image Creator from Designer), which… Continue reading
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Feeling is Human
“Honesty is the best policy,” George Burns said. “If you can fake that you’ve got it made.” The same applies to feeling in composition and musical expression. Long ago I went with a friend who was a pianist and composer, to a concert by a somewhat famous pianist. While I was enjoying the concert, she… Continue reading
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An exercise in perspective
I wrote this today for a list that’s mostly populated by folks in overlapping music, broadcasting, legal, tech, and other businesses who share a common interest in what’s happening to the arts and artists they care about in a world now turning almost completely digital.—Doc Here is a question I hope can get us out… Continue reading
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A workflow challenge
I shoot a lot of pictures. Most are from altitude (such as the above). But lots are of people and places; for example, here are a few I shot at DWebCamp last summer with my new Sony A7 IV camera (to which I migrated last year after many years shooting Canon): Importing and curating photos… Continue reading
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Places
Let’s say you want to improve the Wikipedia page for Clayton Indiana with an aerial photograph. Feel free to use the one above. That’s why I shot it, posted it, and licensed it permissively. It’s also why I put a helpful caption under it, and some call-outs in mouse-overs. It’s also why I did the… Continue reading
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From Hollywood Park Racetrack to SoFi Stadium
Hollywood Park Racetrack is gone. In its place is SoFi Stadium, the 77,000-seat home of Los Angeles’ two pro football teams and much else, including the 6,000-seat YouTube Theater. There’s also more to come in the surrounding vastness of Hollywood Park, named after the racetrack. Wikipedia says the park— consists of over 8.5 million square feet (790,000 m2)… Continue reading
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Wayne Thiebaud, influencer
Just learned Wayne Thiebaud died, at 101. I didn’t know he was still alive. But I did know he had a lot of influence, most famously on pop art. Least famously, on me. Many of Thiebaud’s landscapes were from aerial perspectives. For example, this— —and this: In me, those influenced this— —and this— —and this—… Continue reading
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Speaking of character
It seems fitting that among old medical records I found this portrait of Doctor Dave, my comic persona on radio and in print back in North Carolina, forty-five years ago. The artist is Alex Funk, whose nickname at the time was Czuko (pronounced “Chuck-o”). Alex is an artist, techie and (now literally) old friend of… Continue reading
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The universe is a start-up
“Pillars of Creation” is a live view of stars forming in a neighboring region of the Milky Way. (Inside the Eagle Nebula, 5,400 to 6,100 light years away.) The Solar System, formed 4.6 billion years ago. Earth became a planet .46 billion years later. That was 9.247 billion years after the Big Bang, which happened 13.787 billion years ago, meaning… Continue reading
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Where the nickname came from
My given name is David. Family members still call me that. Everybody else calls me Doc. Since people often ask me where that nickname came from, and since apparently I haven’t answered it anywhere I can now find online, here’s the story. Thousands of years ago, in the mid-1970s, I worked at a little radio station owned… Continue reading
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Loving Leonard
I was as deeply affected by learning Leonard Cohen died as I was by the election results. Maybe more. I can’t name an artist whose songs mean more to me than his. Not Dylan, not (I’m thinking…) anybody. (Here’s how he lifted me one time when I was sick a few years ago.) Through the… Continue reading
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Dear Adobe, Please buy Flickr
Flickr is far from perfect, but it is also by far the best online service for serious photographers. At a time when the center of photographic gravity is drifting form arts & archives to selfies & social, Flickr remains both retro and contemporary in the best possible ways: a museum-grade treasure it would hurt terribly… Continue reading
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Watch Jesus this weekend
Every year about this time I lament the absence of a good copy of Franco Zefferelli‘s Jesus of Nazareth, which aired as a mini-series on low-def TV in 1977, though it was surely filmed in at least 35mm stock. But this year, to my amazement, there is an HD version on YouTube. It seems to… Continue reading
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What everything isn’t
We know shit. I mean, in respect to the Everything that surrounds us, and the culture in which we are pickled from start to finish, what we know rounds to nothing and is, with the provisional exception of the subjects and people we study and love, incomplete and therefore somewhere between questionable and wrong. But… Continue reading
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What are the the balls on Prague’s spires called??
One of the things that fascinates me about Prague are the skewers atop the spires of its many iconic buildings, each of which pierces a shiny ball. It’s a great look. I am sure there’s a reason for those things, other than the look itself. I am also sure there is a word for the… Continue reading