MORE ON CHATGPT – and Introducing MidJourney!
ChatGPT has been QUITE THE RAGE Recently – And boy it has impressed a LOT of folks. From ‘meanh’ to ‘End of Mankind’!
It is VERY good. But some notes –
1) INTERESTING Political Bias. Try to get ChatGPT to tell you a poem about Biden’s achievements and you will get QUITE the nice praise. About Trump? “I cant discuss that’ response! Seems to have a serious leftward tilt in its opinions and what its willing to discuss. Supposedly the programmers are confused by this!
2) Its ALREADY BEING EXTENSIVELY USED. Its writing news stories. Obituaries. Ads. “super effective” ads. I can even get a wordpress plugin for any website (including YOURS) where I can have ChatGPT create content for you. No more paying for content – you make your own new content! The editor of a German magazine just got dismissed for submitting an interview with Formula 1 racer Michael Schumacher. Who suffered serious brain injury in 2013 while skiiing and has not been seen in public since. The editor admitted – he had ChatGPT create the interview!! Oops!
3) IT HALLUCINATES! Quite a few cases of a very disturbing aspect. Someone asked it for ‘famous lawyers involved in sex allegations’ and it listed 10 lawyers including Jonathan Turley. With a supporting Washington post story, with date and authors listed. Problem – it was news to Turley who has NEVER been so accused. The reporters were real. Paper was real (sort of). But the was never any such story! now who can Turley sue for defamation? and how many folks would be ‘taken in’ by this sort of hallucination – and never bother to check to see if there IS such a story by those reporters (or anyone else). The potential damage is pretty huge!
ChatGPT sounds JUST as convincing – even when its making up the sources or the material!
4) The Congress is going silly about ‘banning’ or ‘regulating’ AI. Musk among others is very concerned. I am too! But during all this discussion remember 3 things:
a) CHINA has the worlds fastest super computers
b) CHINA will absolutely exploit these AI system – for monitoring its own people – and finding weaknesses in OUR society!
c) CHINA will not feel obligated to follow any ‘recommendations’
AND NOW FOR IMAGES – check out Midjourney! (requires a Discord account. I know, I know, same as that Top Secret Leaker)
I asked for a happy picture of two kids with blonde hair and a red balloon.
And I asked for a picture of 2 pomchi dogs one black/white the other black/brown.
A nuclear plant operating at night under a starry sky.
these are what came back:
these are COMPLETELY COMPUTER GENERATED. No dogs or red balloons were involved.You see what you can do? this will SEVERELY hamper folks like shutterstock and gettyimages. You can make your OWN images to order!
why pay a photographer and then have to rummage around for images with this or that not quite right? Roll your own!
VERY IMPRESSIVE.
XP ON A NEWER COMPUTER! YEAH
I have a customer who just bought a new HP and HATED Windows 11. And wanted Windows XP to run like his old computer!
Well – what a challenge! I had to find a nice laptop (found a 17in Toshiba 4th Gen i7) – about as new as I think would do the trick!
Then I found a special XP Sp3 iso which many newer patches applied – and sata drivers so you could talk to many newer laptops!
After much entertainment – finding drivers for XP for devices that did not get created till 15 years AFTER XP – I managed to get ALL DEVICES WORKING!
TRIUMPH! Windows XP running just fine, and a laptop only about 4-5 years old!
BLAST FROM THE PAST! FROM THE FILES OF THE ELDEST GEEK: TRYGVE BAUGE!
I recently came across this story: https://www.denverpost.com/2023/03/16/frozen-dead-guy-days-nederland-estes-park/
Now oddly enough, I had a front row seat to the Story of Trygve Bauge! in face, I hid him out in my Boulder computer store for a year or so when
the INS was looking for him! Trygve was a customer – and the most Constitutional Right Absolutist I have ever met With fondness!
Trygve would rather be DEAD and have stood on his Rights – than compromise with ANY authority!
He was a fixture in Boulder Colorado. He founded the Polar Bear club. was constantly talking about Life Extension and Surviving a Nuclear War. Now, when his
grandfather died, and left Trygve a small pile of $$$ – instead of thanking him over a beer in a bar – and spending the $$$ – Trygve had his grandfather
frozen cryogenically. And he could not afford to freeze the whole corpse – he just had enough to freeze the head! And that is where the Frozen Head in Nederland came from!
However one day, he fell afoul of the local Powers that Be. He was at Denver Stapleton Airport, seeing his mother off she was going back to Norway. They were hugging and crying at the ticket counter and the agent kept trying to intervene – ‘How many are flying’ Trygve had a sense of humor (this was WAYYY pre 9-11) he said ‘my mother is flying to Norway, I’m just here to hijack the plane’.
Well a dozen of Denver’s finest immediately squashed him, and he was pretty roughly manhandled in front of witnesses who said the cops WAY overreacted. They also informed the bystanders that he was a Wanted Terrorist!
After sitting in jail for a few weeks, they dropped all charges – but Trygve counter-sued for false arrest, police brutality etc. The State offered to pay him I believe about $150,000 for his time and trouble. But he insisted on a trial. And he got one! The judge dismissed many of his claims (he represented himself). ‘Discrimination on the basis of being Norwegian’? the judge asked. ‘All I think when I think of Norway are fjords and Peer gynt’ count dismissed. Trygve’s defense of his joke was not very persuasive. ‘It could happen to anyone. If you have a friend Jack you are meeting at the air port, you too could say ‘Hi – Jack’.
jury took 30 minutes to dismiss his case. And although free, he had Angered the Higher Powers who noticed that he had overstayed his visa by about 15 years. Trygve was very proud of his Norwegian citizenship, and though he could easily have been naturalized (Many notable Boulder persons would have happily sponsored him) he never did apply for citizenship. So now the INS was after him to deport him! And for a year plus he lived at my computer store. The Boulder police really didn’t want any part of this and would wave at him as he went by their cars on his bike. But one day his luck ran out and the INS deported him – and he has not been back since.
Trygve was a REAL character. It was an honor and a pleasure to know him!
TOPTECH REMOTE SUPPORT PLANS! AVAILABLE NOW! (sign up at www.theeldestgeek.com and give us your feedback!!)
You can register at www.theeldestgeek.com and the support plans are available for you to sign up for! 19.95 a month or $199.50 for a year.
Sign up and let me know everything works! Any problems? Call me at 7034013806 🙂
SUPPORT TOPTECH AND THE ELDEST GEEK! WE NEED IT! LOTS OF NEW ITEMS IN ADOPTION CORNER! GIFT CARDS! (?)
(hey I’m not too proud to beg). And any donations would be most welcome – ‘prepay’ your next need?
If you want a gift card of our services for a friend just ask! Happy to make up one!) YOUR SUPPORT IS MOST APPRECIATED!
LIQUID SPILL REPAIRS or WEBSITE development! We can help! NEED HELP WITH GOLD/SILVER? Or Antiques? We have a LOT of expertise 🙂
I’ve been a precious metals dealer for years – started in the Antique Center. And we buy gold/silver – we pay more than pawn shops or jewelers!
And if you have something you THINK is valuable I can find out what pretty much anything is worth!
ADOPTION CORNER:
SYSTEM OF THE MONTH:
*** SOLD *** A super nice Razer Blade 15 i9 laptop! 32gb, RGX3080, 2TB SSD! Come see it!
Click here for the current adoption list – all are basically ebay prices but come with 6 month warranty and we do trade-ins and move-data as well 🙂
And we are open to haggling!
VERY NICE 16in 2019 Macbook Pro – ready now!
also a 2019 i9 15.4 with 500gb SSD!
and a 2017 i7 15.4 with 500gb SSD!