Sea Lion

 

Some of the Best

Downstairs

 

AI Generated Art

As interest grows for AI-assisted artwork programs like DALL-E, so do the controversies surrounding their legal and ethical implications. The newest example of this nebulous realm might be its thorniest yet. As Ars Technica and elsewhere reported yesterday, New York-based artist Kris Kashtanova claims to be the first known artist to receive a US copyright registration for Zayra of the Dawn, a graphic novel featuring latent diffusion AI-assisted artwork.

“I was open how it was made and put Midjourney on the cover page. It wasn’t altered in any other way. Just the way you saw it here,” Kashtanova wrote in an announcement posted to Instagram last week. “I tried to make a case that we do own copyright when we make something using AI. I registered it as visual arts work. My certificate is in the mail and I got the number and a confirmation today that it was approved.” Kashtanova also noted that they first got the idea to show that artists “do own copyright when we make something using AI” from a “friend lawyer.”

Earlier this year, the US Copyright Office ruled against awarding copyrights to AI systems themselves. “The courts have been consistent in finding that non-human expression is ineligible for copyright protection,” the Office reasoned in February, citing previous cases involving attempts to copyright based on “divine inspiration,” as well as that time someone tried to secure copyright protection for a monkey selfie.

Right now, there is a big distinction between granting copyright solely to an AI learning system and granting the same licensing rights to a human who collaborated with an AI learning system on their project, as is the case right now with Kashtanova’s Zayra of the Dawn. That said, critics have already noted that the graphic novel’s title character bears more than a passing resemblance to the actress, Zendaya. Generative image AI programs often rely on celebrities for human references since there are so many widely available photos of them. This usually happens without said celebrities’ knowledge or consent.  READ MORE...

Dirt Bike

Super Earths Are Common

Astronomers now routinely discover planets orbiting stars outside of the solar system – they’re called exoplanets. But in summer 2022, teams working on NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite found a few particularly interesting planets orbiting in the habitable zones of their parent stars.

One planet is 30% larger than Earth and orbits its star in less than three days. The other is 70% larger than the Earth and might host a deep ocean. These two exoplanets are super-Earths – more massive than the Earth but smaller than ice giants like Uranus and Neptune.

I’m a professor of astronomy who studies galactic cores, distant galaxies, astrobiology and exoplanets. I closely follow the search for planets that might host life.

Earth is still the only place in the universe scientists know to be home to life. It would seem logical to focus the search for life on Earth clones – planets with properties close to Earth’s. But research has shown that the best chance astronomers have of finding life on another planet is likely to be on a super-Earth similar to the ones found recently.  READ MORE...

Slow Moving

Letting Hair Go Gray

Caring for your hair properly requires life-long learning. Seemingly every decade, your strands undergo a major change, whether that's puberty, pregnancy, or the natural aging process. But one of the most jarring transitions is when the grays start growing in faster than you can color them, and it feels like you're at the salon for a touch-up every two weeks. At that point, you may wonder: should I stop dying my hair? If you need an added push, read on to hear from hair stylists about the key benefits of letting your hair go gray. Their arguments just might persuade you to cancel your next trip to the salon.

It's a simple fact: if you stop dying your hair, it will become healthier. Just think about what happens when you color your strands. According to Healthline, applying dye lifts the hair's protective proteins so the chemicals can penetrate the strand and change its color. While this might result in a dazzling hue, it weakens the hair, which can cause brittleness, dryness, and overall thinning.

According to Ghanima Abdullah, cosmetologist and hair expert for The Right Hairstyles, this is especially true of dying gray hair, which is already more fragile than fully pigmented hair. Grow your hair out in its natural hue, and you'll likely notice a dramatic improvement in its look, feel, and the level of maintenance it requires.  READ MORE...

Black & White Fish

 

What Have We Here?

As we transition from one month into another month, it is only fitting that I mention other transitions that are taking place in this country...  and, I could have said this great country of ours but I no longer see it as great.  Yes, it is the best place to live and offers the freedoms that other countries do not, but that does not make it great.  LEADERSHIP makes it great...  and right now we have piss poor leadership because we are more interested in playing party politics than doing what is right for the American people.

In other words, what is right for the American people is the following:

• A strong and growing economy
• A strong and powerful military
• Leagal Immigration Only
• Plenty of available jobs
• Low sustainable inflation
• An elite system of education
• Protecting our resources
• Protecting our intellectual property
• Protecting our technology
• Adhering to the rule of law

While this list may seem to be unattainable...  it once was the soul and heartbeat of this country.  It was the bedrock of this country...  our foundation on which we built GREATNESS and became the LEADER or ROLE MODEL for the rest of the world.  That is no longer the case.

We are just seen as a wealthy arrogant nation who wants to tell everybody else what to do and how to do it and when to do it...  

We no longer respect ourselves, so why should we respect others?

1. Our country is in crisis
2. Our country is in turmoil
3. Our country is seriously divided
4. Our leaders perpetuate this division

My question is WHY?

Dog and Steps

 

Values of Penny Coins

In 2009, the United States Mint marked the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth with a four-coin series of circulating commemorative cents. Known as the “Lincoln Bicentennial” series, the program consisted of four different reverse designs marking major milestones in Lincoln’s life.

The 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial Designs
The obverse for Lincoln pennies remained the same in 2009. The difference with the new commemorative coins was the 2009 Lincoln cent reverse.

The first commemorative reverse, named “Birth and Early Childhood in Kentucky”, showed a rough log cabin similar to the one where Lincoln was born.

The second design was named “Formative Years in Indiana”. This design portrayed a young adult Lincoln taking a break from rail splitting and studying with a book. Lincoln was largely self-taught as a young man.

The third design, “Professional Life in Illinois”, shows Lincoln in front of the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. Lincoln worked as a lawyer in Springfield and served in the State Legislature.

The fourth and final design in the series was named “Presidency in Washington, D.C.”. It shows the United States Capitol under construction as it appeared on the day of Lincoln’s first inauguration. This scene is meant to invoke Lincoln’s determination to rebuild the nation after the Civil War.

The Value of a 2009 Lincoln Cent
The combined mintage of all four designs from both the Philadelphia and Denver Mints was more than 2.3 billion coins. Combined with the fact that many millions of Lincoln Bicentennial cents were saved by the public, it is small wonder that they are so seldom seen in circulation.  READ MORE...

Wavy

Civilizations' Dark Side

When agriculture emerged about 10,000 years ago, people were able to settle in one place; this is when "civilization" emerged.

The term "civilized" has come to connote some group of people who are relatively "advanced" in some important ways relative to others.

The concept of "evolutionary mismatch" forces us to re-examine just how "advanced" our "civilized societies" truly are.

We often think of the modern, "civilized" world as being somehow luxurious and advanced relative to how most people lived thousands of years ago. And some people will often think of others who are "in the third world" or who currently live in nomadic bands, just as our ancestors all did prior to the agricultural revolution, as "less than civilized," which has all kinds of negative connotations.

The evolutionary perspective in the behavioral sciences forces us to truly question this conception of civilization. In the same breath, the evolutionary perspective forces us to question so many features of our own lives today.  READ MORE...

Sanford & Son

Professors Trained At Elite Universities

One in eight tenure-track professors at US institutions got their PhDs from just five elite 

US universities, according to a study.Credit: Paul Marotta/Getty

US universities hire most of their tenure-track faculty members from the same handful of elite institutions, according to a study1. The finding suggests that prestige is overvalued in hiring decisions and that academic researchers have little opportunity to obtain jobs at institutions considered more elite than the ones at which they were trained.

Specifically, the study, published in Nature on 21 September, shows that just 20% of PhD-granting institutions in the United States supplied 80% of tenure-track faculty members to institutions across the country between 2011 and 2020 (see ‘Hiring bias’). 

No historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) or Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) were among that 20%, says Hunter Wapman, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) and a co-author of the paper. One in eight US-trained tenure-track faculty members got their PhDs from just five elite universities: the University of California, Berkeley; Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; Stanford University in California; and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“It’s not surprising, but it is jarring” to see these data, says Leslie Gonzales, a social scientist who studies higher education at Michigan State University in East Lansing. 

“There’s so much brilliant work and training of brilliant scholars that’s happening outside of this tiny sliver” of institutions, including at HBCUs and HSIs — and it’s being overlooked, she says.  READ MORE...

Big Hair

 

Seahorse

 

End of Our Solar System

Evolution of the Sun during its main sequence lifetime. Each curve shows one of the Sun’s characteristics compared with the current Sun. The red curve shows its luminosity (brightness). Credit: Wikipedia.

This is the 11th and final chapter in the Solar System’s story. It is about the long-term future of the Solar System, which will come to an end in about 100 billion years.

Our Solar System is on its way out. Slowly.

Over the next several billion years, a series of unfortunate events will take place, spanning from the not-so-great to the truly tragic. Afterward, our Solar System will be gone: all of the planets will be lost and the Sun will be a solitary white dwarf. (Pause to wipe away tears).

I will guide us through our Solar System’s future, one step at a time. Since Earth is our home base, I’ll include a key event affecting life on Earth. 

Here are the five steps to come:

1. Earth’s oceans will boil off.
2. The rocky planets’ orbits may go unstable, leading to a potential giant collision between planets.
3. The Sun will become a red giant and swallow the rocky planets.
4. A passing star will trigger a dynamical instability among the remaining planets.
5. A passing star will strip away the final planet.

It is a near certainty that each of these events will happen, with the exception of number 2 (which has only a relatively small probability). But it will take about 100 billion years to reach the end.

Let’s get to it.

1. The end of liquid water (and life) on Earth
The Sun is ever-so-slowly heating up. Today, it’s about 30% brighter than right after it formed. As the Sun converts hydrogen to helium in its core, the mean molecular weight increases, thus increasing the core’s temperature and thus the rate of the fusion reaction (called the proton-proton chain). This slowly increases the Sun’s energy output.  READ MORE...

Moving Through