I’ve been peripherally aware of the existence of the Edge browser, but I’ve not really used it till now. (Or, if I tried it originally, I just used it once and then uninstalled — that’s always possible since I try out a lot of stuff …)

I just installed the Edge browser (yes, it’s available on macOS) and was rather pleasantly surprised. It integrates a lot of tools I use all the time, has a better search interface, and has a bunch of game/activities which gives you that little endorphin rush while also helping you learn a lot more …

Showed it to my wife today and she seems to be really taken with it too. I think we’ll be playing around with this for a few more days at least!

And this kind of brings me to what I originally wanted to say. It’s rather interesting that Microsoft these days is going the “embrace all” route. Their stuff is not available just on Windows but is available on macOS too, while Apple generally sticks to their “we support (mostly) macOS” stance.

Reminds me a bit about the good (bad?) old days of Apple vs. Microsoft. Who will win this time around? (Not that I care about the winning or the losing of one over the other, but I do find these different strategies interesting …)

#Edge #Browser #Microsoft #Apple

"Defending against Adversarial Audio via Diffusion Model" — Using diffusion models to purify/remove adversarial audio which can cause abnormal behaviour in acoustic systems.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.01507
Code: https://github.com/cychomatica/AudioPure

#AI #NewPaper #DeepLearning #MachineLearning #Sound #Security #Audio #Cryptograpy

<<Find this useful? Please boost so that others can benefit too 🙂>>
The architecture of the whole a…

"Word-As-Image for Semantic Typography. (arXiv:2303.01818v1 [cs.CV])" — Automatically visualizing words by modifying the typography to depict the meaning/representation of the word.

Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/2303.01818
Note: No code or demo available (yet) at the linked locations.

#AI #CV #NewPaper #DeepLearning #MachineLearning

<<Find this useful? Please boost so that others can benefit too 🙂>>
A few examples of our word-as-i…

"Unleashing Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Visual Perception. (arXiv:2303.02153v1 [cs.CV])" — Using the pre-trained autoencoder in a diffusion model for visual perception tasks such as segmentation or depth estimation.

Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/2303.02153
Code: https://github.com/wl-zhao/VPD

#AI #CV #NewPaper #DeepLearning #MachineLearning

<<Find this useful? Please boost so that others can benefit too 🙂>>
The main idea of the proposed V…

I did some more work on my JavaScript Fedi client over the weekend:

https://github.com/FahimF/FediJS

I’m not progressing as fast as I had done with other Masto/Fedi clients in the past in terms of adding features, and yet, it’s so much easier (at least so far) to add new features for the JavaScript client 🙂

Now, I’m by no means a JavaScript guru. Sure, I’ve been using JavaScript since the early days of the web, but only as needed. It has never been one of my main programming languages. So I find it interesting that I can do a lot more with a lot less code in this particular instance.

I added the ability to boost, favourite, and bookmark posts in the timeline with relatively little effort.

I’m thinking of adding hashtag and lists support next weekend possibly. I guess we’ll see how it goes …

#FediClient #MastodonClient #JavaScript #Programming

@joekjr Absolutely 🙂 What worries/annoys me is the fact that the more we use the term AI for these systems (however loosely it’s meant) people are going to believe that that is what it is and come to rely on totally unreliably misinformation generators.

We’re seeing this already where people think LLMs are going to replace search engines because they are attributing intelligence to these systems …

I often come back to the movie “Idiocracy” these days because it often feels as if we are there already 😛

#GalaxyQuest forever.

God dang it's so good.

Non fascists outnumber the fascists 5-1 so let’s act like it. Stop being cowed into believing the fascist Propaganda that is trying to project inevitability and despair. We can and must push these genocidal lies back.

I’ve been guilty of throwing the words “AI” around myself, but the more I hear the term nowadays, the more annoyed I get because there is no “AI” in these systems. Sure, they might be “Artificial”, but they certainly aren’t “Intelligent”! Not by any stretch of the word ….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/05/ai-voice-scam/

The actual story is worth reading to understand what kind of new scams and threats you can expect with these developing technologies, but I really do wish people would stop calling everything AI ….

#NotAI #Scams #TechHorrors

“Diablo IV” is coming … soon 😛

We (my wife and I) are avid “Diablo III” players and we were sure we’d get the game, but what we weren’t sure about was whether we could play couch co-op on “Diablo IV” or not. The game listing on the PlayStation store does not mention couch co-op and that was what was keeping us from pre-ordering since if there was no couch co-op, we won’t enjoy the game as much since we want to play together 🙂

Since the first beta release will happen in a few weeks time, I decided to do some checking online yesterday. Found this Reddit post which seems to indicate that couch co-op is indeed there:

https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo4/comments/zh2yho/will_diablo_iv_on_console_have_couch_coop/

Of course, a post online by an unknown source is no guarantee that couch co-op will indeed be there, but we were hopeful enough to go ahead and pre-order. Now we wait and see if it is indeed as promised or we’re going to end up being disappointed 😛

#DiabloIV #CoopGaming #Gaming #PlayStation

@davemark Ah, now you’ve made me hungry and it’s 5:00am 😛

In the 18th and 19th centuries, some British smugglers left tubs of brandy on the beach for others to collect. One method of hiding the tubs was to cover them with plaster of Paris so that they looked like pieces of fallen cliff.

The beautiful orange and black #MonarchButterfly is nectaring with wings spread on a brilliant orange #MexicanSunflower highlighted and enhanced by the sunshine on this summer's day in #Guelph #Ontario Canada.
https://debbie-oppermann.pixels.com/featured/monarch-butterfly-on-mexican-sunflower-debbie-oppermann.html
#Butterfly #butterflies #insect #tithonia #wings #SpringIntoArt #BuyIntoArt #nature #NatureLover #photography #flowers #PhotographersOnMastodon #ButterfliesOnFlowers #artwork #art #MastoArt #ArtMatters #Monarch #FediGiftShop #AYearForArt

The sun just manages to break through the clouds as steam rises from the river on a very cold morning in Yellowstone National Park. See more here: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/early-morning-river-scene-yellowstone-national-park-ii-joan-carroll.html
#yellowstone #nationalpark #winter #river #snowy #landscape #AYearForArt #BuyIntoArt #giftideas #SpringIntoArt @joancarroll

New #introduction for new instance!

I'm Tonya Marie, a mid-50s trans woman originally from Texas but now safely ensconced in Seattle. I'm a semi-retired #math teacher and occasional coder, but my passion is being a housewife for my loving wife.

When I'm not #cooking, #baking, or keeping house, I love #boardgames and both computer and tabletop #RPGs (particularly #pathfinder).

I post livetoots of various cooking and baking endeavors under the hashtag #WhatIsTonyaMarieCooking.

Colourful Sunset in Azores countryside green valley.

More on site: https://marco-sales.pixels.com/featured/colourful-sunset-in-azores-countryside-green-valley-marco-sales.html 🕊️ @marco5ales

#photography #sunset #nature #sunsetphotography #landscape #azores #artprints #prints #photoart #art #artMatters #mastoart #mastodonart #wallart #GiftIdeas #GiftThemArt #marco5ales #aYearForArt

Red Flowers In Emroidery

2023-02-09/10 day 237/238 of doing art every day for a year (mostly – I took sick days off). 

This was a Tatyworks tutorial using brushes that mimic embroidery stitches. The brushes and background image are provided by her at no cost at the link for her tutorial.

This was fun and definitely something a bit different than the usual.

Years ago, and by years, I mean decades, when I was a wee child, my grandmother taught me embroidery. I learned the basics and enjoyed it, but didn’t really take it any further. My other grandmother taught me crocheting, and I knitted, too, and have many friends who are prolific knitters and crocheters. About twenty years later, I took up cross stitch for a brief time period. I have friends who are avid cross stitchers and can do brilliant stuff. Embroidery and other fibre arts are no longer possible for me with my vision problems along with arthritis and unstable dislocating fingers. But this, using an iPad and Procreate, I can do. And this project took me back to some fond memories of my grandmothers.

For more info, follow this link:
https://lmashton.com/red-flowers-in-emroidery/

#ArtMatters #AYearForArt #Procreate #DigitalArt #WomensArt #ArtistsOnMastodon
Red flowers with trees in the b…

Flowerfall

2023-02-07/08 day 235/236 of doing art every day for a year (mostly – I took sick days off). 

Yes, I'm catching up on my backlog of posting.

No tutorial for this one. This is more playing with oil brushes.  

For more info, follow this link:
https://lmashton.com/flowerfall/

#ArtMatters #AYearForArt #Procreate #DigitalArt #WomensArt #ArtistsOnMastodon
Yellow, orange, and red flowers…