Coconut Monkey Cornerclub

[BeardyHat]

Glad there is no programming in the remainder of the course. I had already created folders for all the units when I enrolled last year. So I can see what topics are.
I am not concerned about the rest, just need to do it. No tests, but the final question each week is larger than the other ones, and can contain such fun things as interviews recorded by me and a family member on video or audio. Hope there aren't too many of those to come.

Course paid already, so the rate I am doing it is just how it was set up. They don't get any more no matter how long I take.


Exciting stuff: Principles underpinning IP Ethics and Privacy
I had to look at title as it was so exciting I had forgotten it already.


I will remember it more when I answer the questions later

Funny, my wife and I were saying literally today that we were both glad we're not in school anymore so we don't have to study.

And yeah that sounds... Very exciting.

I ought to pick up some Certs, but boy I can't motivate to do those things. I'm banking on fooling some company into hiring me because I'm good at pretending I'm not totally incompetent.

 

[BeardyHat]

Back again, searching for that motivation.

I've got all my parts (though I know I'm going to have to go back for a couple and suspect I'll have to go back today for some other ones) and my van is in the garage, ready to be worked on. My wife just went to work and I'm killing my last 10 minutes by screwing around--told myself I'd start between 930-10--and posting here.

The secret to life is that motivation doesn't exist. You just force yourself to do a thing and then by sheer inertia you continue doing it until it's completed.

 

[Colif]

I spent two or so hours reading the materials yesterday and then copied all the questions to answer them in the next two days, in the middle of the night, and then about 12 hours later got an SMS from the course saying I hadn't logged on yet... um, yes I had. Its just nothing I did changed the completed percentage on the course. I will try to motivate myself to answer them later on. I have 4 days left of the week and as its Easter, Monday is a public holiday anyway.

Also trying to fix my sleep pattern, I seem to be stuck in a pattern where I fall asleep about 5pm or earlier and wake before midnight. Waking up just after everyone else has just gone to bed really is annoying.
I managed to stay awake until 7.30 last night still to wake up at 1.30am. Its slightly better but I would prefer later. One idea was to have a snooze during day but my body misreads that and doesn't want to wake up once I been asleep over 4 hours and day is about only time I do get more than 6 hours sleep.
I guess it could be worse, at least I am sleeping at night. I have been known to get stuck not being able to sleep until 5am which doesn't help when you got to get up in the morning.

Given my sleep pattern, I probably do the homework when I wake up tonight. Best time for it as no one will ring me... no one ever does. Might get bored and answer some of the questions later.

 

[ZedClampet]

CivitAI had, as of some time in 2023, over 3 million "creators". Currently I'm ranked #47. Eat that, universe.

 

[Pifanjr]

The secret to life is that motivation doesn't exist. You just force yourself to do a thing and then by sheer inertia you continue doing it until it's completed.

I can assure you that motivation does exist. However, it's entirely possible for a brain to be(come) incapable of generating motivation, which makes life very difficult and trying to brute force it can lead to burn-out related issues, so beware.

 

[ZedClampet]

I can assure you that motivation does exist. However, it's entirely possible for a brain to be(come) incapable of generating motivation, which makes life very difficult and trying to brute force it can lead to burn-out related issues, so beware.

Depression can cause your brain to be incapable of generating motivation for anything/everything.

Just chiming in from my chair...

 

[Colif]

I can assure you that motivation does exist. However, it's entirely possible for a brain to be(come) incapable of generating motivation, which makes life very difficult and trying to brute force it can lead to burn-out related issues, so beware.

do it tomorrow is something I have to fight, deadlines you cannot ignore are more a motivation for me. If there are no deadlines and its not something I really want to do, it might become hard to convince myself to do anything.

If its something you have to do, and you really don't want to, then I can see burn out occuring. There weren't many of those things in my last job.

Only have 5 questions to answer and each one includes a PDF link to the document that has the answers. I know some of it already, as it asks about Copyright and I know a little about it from doing a Library course 10 years ago. It won't take long to do, hence I wasn't concerned about doing them yesterday. Likely take at most an hour to do 4 questions, last one might take a little longer. Maybe.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I think of motivation as incentive. If you have the incentive to do something, thy will be done!

I know this is a small thing, but I finally got the last of my vaccinations today, round 2 of my shingles shots. So now I'm officially shot to hell as I'm told befits my screen name.

 

[BeardyHat]

Motivation is just something different to me. I'm motivated to do a lot of things and I'm typically in motion a lot, from making snacks and doing small things around the house, to cleaning up the kitchen and making dinner every day and other random little things, throwing in laundry, feeding the animals--guess there's a lot of feeding things in my life--picking-up dog poop in the yard, messing with my RC course, etc, etc. Lots of little things.

But I lack motivation when it comes to a lot of projects. Often times, I don't feel like painting a mini. I don't feel like doing the car work I need to do. I don't feel like x or y. So, I set myself time limits, which tricks me into doing what I need to do. Which is why I told myself today that between 9:30-10am, I would work on the car; I ended-up getting out there about 9:45 and starting. This isn't motivation to me, but giving myself the push to get started, because once I'm started, then I find it difficult to stop what I'm doing and go do something else.

Anyway, go figure, the part I bought for my car (caliper) in December and am finally getting around to installing, was incorrect. So I had to drive to the nearest store that had the part I needed, which was 20-minutes away, so I ended-up burning at least an hour just driving back and forth, talking to the people at the counter and getting a refund for the incorrect part. At least I was able to pick-up some stuff I forgot while I was there...

But then it was lunch time when I got home, so I made lunch, ate and then finally got back out there. Got my new caliper installed without an issue and finished draining the oil at the same time, but didn't feel I had enough time to figure out my new compressor and bleeder kit, so I set it all aside and will get back to it tomorrow.

I'm hoping to knock out the bleeding tomorrow morning nice and quick, finish the oil change and then maybe have time to run to the hardware store to get some extraction bits, because my antenna broke off some time ago and I need to extract what's left inside the post so I can install a new one. Then I'll take a break for the rest of the week and get started on my other car next week.

 

[ZedClampet]

The secret to life is that motivation doesn't exist. You just force yourself to do a thing and then by sheer inertia you continue doing it until it's completed.

You may have just changed my life. The secret to motivating yourself while depressed isn't to motivate yourself but to force yourself into creating momentum. This could theoretically snowball as you become pleased that you have accomplished something. Do you accept Blue Cross health insurance?

****

So many things about AI art could be easier if only the people making the models would think about how they are used. For instance, if you want a person's entire body in the picture, you can't just use photography terms like "far shot". No, you have to say things like, "He is wearing sneakers, and his hair is brown." Now that you've described his top and his bottom, you've got a decent chance that the AI will put his entire body in the picture. The problem is that not only do you have to think about his shoes and hair, but if you expand this sort of necessary nitpicking to other things you want in the picture, then you are risking having the AI lose focus. If you say, "a guy reading PC Gamer magazine on his couch," the AI will give it to you without problem, but if you have to ramble on describing things in an effort to frame your shot, the AI is likely to forget about the magazine. Framing is an essential part of both painting and photography, but there's no reasonable method of doing it in AI.

 

[Pifanjr]

So many things about AI art could be easier if only the people making the models would think about how they are used. For instance, if you want a person's entire body in the picture, you can't just use photography terms like "far shot". No, you have to say things like, "He is wearing sneakers, and his hair is brown." Now that you've described his top and his bottom, you've got a decent chance that the AI will put his entire body in the picture. The problem is that not only do you have to think about his shoes and hair, but if you expand this sort of necessary nitpicking to other things you want in the picture, then you are risking having the AI lose focus. If you say, "a guy reading PC Gamer magazine on his couch," the AI will give it to you without problem, but if you have to ramble on describing things in an effort to frame your shot, the AI is likely to forget about the magazine. Framing is an essential part of both painting and photography, but there's no reasonable method of doing it in AI.

Could you generate the person first, then tell the AI to only change the background? I know there are programs where you can specify certain parts of the picture to exclude from being changed, but I'm not sure how well that works.

 

[BeardyHat]

You may have just changed my life. The secret to motivating yourself while depressed isn't to motivate yourself but to force yourself into creating momentum. This could theoretically snowball as you become pleased that you have accomplished something. Do you accept Blue Cross health insurance?

****

So many things about AI art could be easier if only the people making the models would think about how they are used. For instance, if you want a person's entire body in the picture, you can't just use photography terms like "far shot". No, you have to say things like, "He is wearing sneakers, and his hair is brown." Now that you've described his top and his bottom, you've got a decent chance that the AI will put his entire body in the picture. The problem is that not only do you have to think about his shoes and hair, but if you expand this sort of necessary nitpicking to other things you want in the picture, then you are risking having the AI lose focus. If you say, "a guy reading PC Gamer magazine on his couch," the AI will give it to you without problem, but if you have to ramble on describing things in an effort to frame your shot, the AI is likely to forget about the magazine. Framing is an essential part of both painting and photography, but there's no reasonable method of doing it in AI.

No insurance, only Steam gifts.

I'm probably perpetually depressed, because it's the vast majority of the way I get things done.

I still haven't spent any appreciable amount of time tinkering with AI. I keep meaning to give Flux a go, but I guess I have nothing I really want to create with it.

 

[ZedClampet]

No insurance, only Steam gifts.

I'm probably perpetually depressed, because it's the vast majority of the way I get things done.

I still haven't spent any appreciable amount of time tinkering with AI. I keep meaning to give Flux a go, but I guess I have nothing I really want to create with it.

I have a personal AI goal of getting a paycheck from CivitAI. I'm probably about 2 months away from that.

I found out a catch to my ranking I listed, which is that it only includes people who aren't doing NSFW training.

 

[ZedClampet]

Could you generate the person first, then tell the AI to only change the background? I know there are programs where you can specify certain parts of the picture to exclude from being changed, but I'm not sure how well that works.

Yeah, you can do that. It's called inpainting, and I do it frequently. What I was thinking about when I posted, though, was where the person was in the picture. Instead of being the focus of the picture, for instance, making him an incidental part of the picture. You can do that, however, by focusing your description on something else in the room. However, when you do it that way, your chances of actually getting the guy to read a magazine drop significantly. You can then try inpainting, but that often takes a decent number of attempts to get it right, and it would just be a lot easier if there were framing tools.

 

[BeardyHat]

Had been thinking yesterday that maybe the reason I thought my driver side caliper was dying was maybe because the passenger side actually was.

When I did the brakes during a road trip last year, the driver side pads were extremely worn, whereas the passengers still had a lot of meat left on them.

I was thinking the driver side was maybe applying too much pressure and was the issue (I could feel pulsing vibrations, so I knew something was up), but it occurred to me yesterday that maybe the passenger side isn't applying much or any pressure and the driver side is compensating in return.

All this to say, I'm going back to the parts store today and I'll replace the passenger side as well. Might as well while I'm in there, as it's relatively cheap and as far as I know, both had 240k miles on them. I thought I'd replaced the caliper on that side a few years ago, but as I was doing the work, I realize I can't recall doing that.

 

[ZedClampet]

A couple of weeks ago I posted two dragon pictures made from training I did for Flux. At the time, I said that the training wasn't actually made for making its own pictures, but that I made it to enhance any picture. Here are some sample results:

It's actually doing pretty well in number of downloads on CivitAI

 

[BeardyHat]

The ones without Zelux actually look more realistic. The ones with definitely look more AI, if you know what I mean. The first one I could have mistaken for something real.

 

[ZedClampet]

The ones without Zelux actually look more realistic. The ones with definitely look more AI, if you know what I mean. The first one I could have mistaken for something real.

Regardless of your attempt to poop on my triumph, people seem to like it quite a bit. But also I disagree. You are thinking of what these throne rooms look like today when they are basically uninhabited. People, particularly wealthy kings, would have made them as elaborate and important looking as possible.

On the other hand, if you mean "not photorealistic", that's probably because the zelux pictures were actually made 512 x 512, and I just blew them up without AI. Also, the more detail something has, the more AI it's probably going to look because things are always just a little off. For instance, the statues in that first picture are just nonsense.

 

[ZedClampet]

Marketing Fatigue​

I was looking at jellyfish lamps on Amazon, and one of the product descriptions said, "We spent a year examining the movements of Jellyfish".

I'm presented with a vision:

*Speaking in Chinese*

"Margarite, we're taking a survey. How long, out of your entire life, would you say you've spent looking at jellyfish?

*Calculates total from all employees to be 7 months, rounds up to one year*