Back on the horse 🐎

This edition: Making and breaking vis a vis technology

Whoooooops. It’s been, like, 1.5 years since I last sent out a newsletter.

Should you be surprised? Maybe (no). See, I’ve got this really bad habit of starting projects, being really excited at the beginning, then letting things die before they can really get a proper foothold.

So here’s my attempt to resuscitate this thing. Hang on tight.

—Connie

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They took our jobs: Cosmopolitan shows off its first AI-generated cover

AI art in action. Source: Cosmopolitan article.

Cosmopolitan magazine may not be the first company I think of when someone says “AI”, but they did it. And by gosh, the results are actually pretty cool.

I wonder how much computing power something like this actually takes, and what the user experience is like. Would I get frustrated like I do with setting up printers on my home network? Or would it be as easy as a USB 2.0+ plug-n-play?

And even if content gets “overrun” by automatically created pieces in the future, as someone who leverages “free to use” / public domain content websites like Unsplash and Wikimedia Commons, I am of the abundance mindset and believe there’s room for all.

If you’re curious about generating some images for yourself but don’t have the creds to get on the waitlist for the full DALL-E tool, DALL-E mini is currently available for public use.

Let me know what it ends up creating for you!

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Party like it’s 1999: NFT markets are crashing…kind of?

It’s sad party time. Source: Giphy.

If you want to hurt anyone you know who’s in NFTs, ask them what their unrealized gains were during the bull run. 🐂

Nothing like easing the pain of loss (of money) with booze and bumping music.

I know some of y’all have opinions on NFTs, but what I’ve found interesting is that the meta during this bear market is…make riskier plays. Gone (for now) are the days of heavy research into ensuring legitimacy of projects before investing; cue in the degenerate, meme plays to ride the wave to a local top before the price crashes and burns.

But despite the somewhat bleak markets right now, there seems to be an interesting resilience in the market, I think due to the separation of ETH (the big NFT currency) and USD. For a growing number of investors, ETH is ETH. Nothing more, nothing less.

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Big brother is listening: VALORANT to monitor voice chats

All ears on you. Source: Giphy.

Probably not what your parents meant when they said “go play with your (big) brother”.

Digging into their privacy policy changes (because I wanted to go beyond the headlines to see for myself), “the relevant audio data will be stored in your account’s registered region and evaluated to see if our behavior agreement was violated”.

That means while the VALORANT team says they’ll “‘potentially listen to and review voice logs’ only if you’re reported for disruptive behavior”, it still means that they will be saving your voice logs…somewhere. And for some indeterminate amount of time.

I get that reducing harassment is important, but remember that this is another one of those instances when it’s good to know what privacies you may be losing or risks you may be opening yourself up to in the process. Where will these logs be saved? For how long?

Even if you’re confident that you’re not going to get reported for disruptive behavior, it’s still important that we think of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th-order consequences of yet another company having more access to our data and information—you know?

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A nicuatole by any other name would smell as sweet

An Oaxacan dessert with ancient roots. Source: Culinary Backstreets.

One food that caught my attention recently is the nicuatole, an Oaxacan dessert made with maize and sugar, cooked with water or milk, flavored with cinnamon and vanilla, and colored pink with a dye extract from the cochineal bug (also known as carmine powder).

Nicuatole is apparently gelatinous but without the use of gelatin or agar agar. Its taste is described in the article: “On first bite a subtle corn flavor registers, while the presence of vanilla and cinnamon helps balance the alkaline and starchy nature of the corn, giving the dessert a slightly spicy twist.”

I’ve learned that the taste of nicuatole has changed over time, with the introduction and extinction of different maize species (this shop in Brooklyn has an excellent explainer of some of the different types of corn and how they differ in flavor and texture in masa, or dough).

I dream of trying nicuatole made with different types of corn!

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Fun stuff

Redactle. It’s like Wordle but better. And more mind-bending & expanding. I’ve been obsessed with playing this as of late. Once a day, you have to guess, word by word, the Wikipedia article. I give it a 10/10.

Projections in the Forest: An absolute cinematic treat to watch and listen for the next 3m 48s. Worth it.