Self-Affirmations from the Neural Network

I can't help but be inspired by Janelle Shane's work with neural networks. Last time, she trained her AI to create recipes that looked absolutely mouthwatering, in that way that your mouth waters when you're about to hurk, actually, but today, she has trained her AI to generate titles for positive self-talk courses.

From her site, AIWeirdness.com:

There’s a self-affirmation talk on Spotify where a voice says things like “I am confident” over a synthesized choir. It has been rather vigorously marketed, not just for general self-confidence skills, but also under titles like:

I Will Win the Lottery
I Will Improve My Meteorology Skills
Attract Your Dream Car
Lord Help Me to Improve My Trainspotting Skills
Improve Your Ear Health
Lord Help Me to Improve My Bongo Skills
Improve Your Beekeeping Skills
Learn Welsh

Apparently, there are 4,510 different titles for this sort of self-affirmation program. She fed all of these titles to her network and asked for its own suggestions.

It came up with some great and also horrifying results like:

I Will Improve Otter Skills
Improve Your Handsoming Skills
Become More Dirty
I Will Find Headaches
Improve Your Scab

Being ever so helpful, I have made posters for a few of them that really spoke to me.

Be More Of Mice

Improve Your Kite Faith.

I Will Attract Human

And I really think that this is good advice for anyone, especially Roy Moore.

Go check out the rest of Janelle's results with her AI (including some upcoming knitting patterns that are immensely cool) and sign up for her newsletter to get cool inside stuff. She's not paying me to say that, it's just really nerdy cool fun I think most people would enjoy.

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Terrible Product Ideas - New Soda Flavor

When I come home from grocery shopping, I tell my husband all of the new and wonderful products I've found/bought during that day's shopping trip. I was having a brain fog day where words are hard to find, so I paused in the middle of describing a new treat, looking for the word I wanted and this was my husband's guess given the first word I had said. It spawned the idea for this comic/new terrible product.

with plans for extra exclusive content!

Only You Can Start Forest Fires!

I saw a commercial the other night that was THE worst ad concept I have ever seen in my entire life.

Apparently there is a new Planes movie coming out. You know, the spin-off of Cars, the movie that every child 10 and under was batshit crazy about? It is about fire rescue vehicles. Awesome.

Then there is a commercial from Smokey Bear showing all the ways that a forest fire can start, but OMG the Fire and Rescue guys fly in and put out the fire! Whee!

AND THEN....

It says, "You don't want to see these guys coming in to put out fires, so help prevent them!"

I'm afraid that the people at Smokey Bear's place don't realize that children are basically little sociopaths who will do about anything to see their favorite characters. What was that Smokey, don't trail chains along behind cars 'cause it causes sparks? CHECK! Be sure to fully smother fires? Don't worry mom, I put it out just like Smokey said! *stage wink*

I am just awaiting the reports of fires set by children with the hopes that animated planes will puke red fire retardant on them.

Cheeseblarg's Anti-Upskirt Undies!

I came up with the perfect solution to Massachusetts' "Upskirt" problem.

Cheeseblarg's Anti-upskirt Undies feature a copyrighted image on the crotch of your panties and comes in
many different designs. Anytime these images are uploaded to the internet, Cheeseblarg will sue the upskirt uploader on your behalf to keep your undies off the internet!

* Two Can Play At This Game can be fitted in a tiny spy cam to see who is spying on your stuff.

If your government won't protect your undies from perverts, Cheeseblarg will protect them from copyright violations!

The Art of Teaching Art

In my previous life, I was a teacher, probably not surprisingly, an art teacher. Let me tell you, you don't want to be unprepared in a middle school art room. The kids are all hopped up on hormones and there are sharp implements all over the place that can easily be weaponized. My kids were pretty good though, so when my friend Crystal, who worked in the office, offered to come to my classroom to teach my students how to make flowers out of tissue paper, I happily agreed. It was one of my favorite art projects when I was a kid, and it was marginally easy, so I was pretty sure my students would enjoy the project.

I got ready for Crystal’s lesson by preparing cut squares of tissue. I set my student aides to organizing the cut squares in 30 sets of complimenting colors (oh, how I miss having student aides- the closest I come now is having a husband who will go get me a soda or fetch the mail out of the mail box). I set up each “kit” of papers with pipe cleaners so that they could secure the center of their flowers and had them set out on the desks before the period started. My main mistake was that I failed to properly prepare Crystal.

The students were excited coming into the class. I told them we would have a guest so they were on their best behavior while still being 6th graders. I introduced Crystal and asked them all to pay attention while she showed them what to do.

I’d like you to imagine stepping in front of a group of 11 year old kids and then magically pulling a giant paper flower out of midair and telling them “Ok, so… do that!”

As my students sat staring at her like she was out of her mind, she turned to me with a slightly wild-eyed look and whispered behind her hand, “Is there …something wrong with them?”

Trying very hard not to laugh like a maniac, I let her know that there was not a single thing wrong with them, they just seemed to have missed a few of the steps that she performed. Perhaps all of them. Some of them were slightly aware that her flower was made of the same things they had in front of them.

After that, we walked slowly through the directions again, with no magical flower appearances, asking for volunteers for each step, modeling each fold, asking them to recall what came next. And finally, going slowly and stopping for questions, everyone ended up with a tissue flower of their own. Or six, because once they got it, it was almost impossible to get them to stop. It was like the Rose Bowl Parade up in there.

I loved teaching, but throwing Crystal into the lion’s den,  I remembered that it really is something you have to learn to do. It is not magic. No matter how good you are at your subject, it usually isn't a born talent. Teaching is a process that takes patience and education, and quite often, a good sense of humor.

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MAYDAY!

I was glad to find, after seeing commercials for the Mayday button for the new Kindle HDX, which brings up a live technician to help walk users through using their Kindle, that the tech is NOT able to see the person who has pressed the button.

I can't even imagine the kind of hazard pay they would need to pay their technicians otherwise.

New Things I Learned This Week- Episode 3

I haven't learned all that much this week because I am doing the vacationing thing, but I have made quite a few observations, like this ad I found in the back of a health food store's wellness magazine:

The disturbing part here is the wine offering. As I tweeted:

I did learn, however a terrible terrible lesson last night, while getting up in the middle of the night at my friend's house to pee:

Honestly, electrical plugs are like the bachelor's Lego. I feel it is my duty to warn everyone now. DON'T STEP ON THEM.  It is highly unpleasant. 

And finally, a culinary observation: 

Truth in Advertising- Glucosulin

This commercial from Glucosulin, a super duper magic pill to make diabetics lose weight, is providing my husband and me with unending amusement every time it comes on. Beyond the fact that it is almost guaranteed that it doesn't work (which is beyond the point), I have no idea who approved their animation for "weight loss." Seriously... it could not have been anyone with any sense.  At all.

Below, I have edited the commercial to share what it sounds like in my house every time it airs.

(RSS readers, there is a video here, come watch it!)

(original source)

Brilliant Product Idea #3 - Headacheless Headache Medicine

I am changing meds and I have a mega super strength headache as a result, and it occurred to me... someone needs to design a bottle for headache medicine that is padded on the inside so that when you roll over and fumble for it on your side table, because you are blind with pain and cannot bring yourself  to open your eyes and ascertain where the bottle actually is, the terrible din of rattling pills doesn't make you want to kill yourself.

Actual Conversations- Fire and Goats

These are hilarious and inappropriate, in that order. Because me and my friends are punny. You have been warned.

Oh, I broke a nail!

When I was a kid, my sister and I used to crack up at the Lee Press-on Commercial that went like this:

Lady getting ready for a date.

Lady randomly jambs finger into wall then exclaims, "Oh, I broke a nail!"

Yadda yadda, buy plastic nails to cover up that you can't keep yourself from ramming your finger into walls for no reason. Now in GRAPE!

Only, after 32 years (I discount the years that I had no teeth in this figuring) I have stopped biting my fingernails*, and now, I have a little more sympathy for Ms. Lee Press-on, as I constantly ram my fingernails into things and myself because I am totally not used to them being there. Maybe I should invest in some Press-On Nails, just in case...


*I just forgot to do it in March of this year, and haven't really gotten around to it since... eventually, I'm sure I'll get back to it.

Misguided Ads: City MRI Centre

I was driving on the interstate the other evening and saw a billboard advertising MRIs.  Is this really something that needs to be advertised?  Their ad said something like "Patients love our Commitment- Doctors love our Quality!"

This leads me to wonder if there are other MRI centers where technicians just walk away part way through the procedure, leaving patients stranded in the machine.

Or if they just have a guy with a refrigerator magnet and a sketch pad doing the scans.

I mean, if you need to get an MRI, you need to do it, and if you are the type of person who is inclined towards doing what the doctor requests of you because you are in some sort of excruciating pain and/or have a tumor, etc. you DON'T REALLY need to be sold on getting the thing done. If you ARE dragging your feet on the MRI issue, is commitment and quality REALLY what was stopping you in the first place?

Pretty much, if I were in charge of advertising MRI procedures, this would be my tagline:

It's a Gas, Gas, Gas!

Gas-X is one of the best over-the-counter medicines in the history of medicines. I say this mainly because gas pain is one of the most excruciating, yet harmless conditions ever.  If you're gonna have that much pain, your entire intestinal tract should be rupturing spectacularly, you shouldn't just need to fart.

Perhaps that should be an ad for their product: Gas-X, it takes away that "gored by a velociraptor" feeling!