Technology – David Bradley

Sciencebase social links

Social Media

Photography

Instagram | GuruShots | 500px | ImagingStorm

Music

Incidentally, you can easily get to my other social media pages. All you have to do is use a link like this – https://sciencebase.com/social – but swap the word social in the link for whichever service you are hoping to find me on.

For example swap the term social for mastodon: https://sciencebase.com/mastodon and that will take you straight to my Mastodon page.

It works for all the above and these:

~~Substack~~, ~~Spoutible~~, SoundCloud, Vimeo | Twitter/X

LinkedIn, Spotify, Discord, ~~Substack Notes~~, Quora, Bandlab

Medium, Youtube, Google Scholar | Refrakt

Tumblr, Paragraph, TikTok, Reddit, PixelFed, Beacons

I’ve even set one for Notepin, although all I’ve published there is a link pointing back to this page! Click through to see what I mean…it’s possible I might add other material. It’s US$11 per annum if you upgrade to be able to post photos etc

If you have control of redirects on your own website, you can use your domain as your own link shortener.

Meanwhile, just for fun, I asked ChatGPT to come up with some inspirational words to encourage you, dear reader, to follow me on social media…so here those words, take your pick with regard to which one persuades you to follow me, hahaha!

Join me on my social media journey and stay updated on all of my latest adventures!

Let’s connect and share our passions together on Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram, and more!

Life’s too short to not follow your favorite artists and creators. Join me on my social media platforms and let’s make the most of every moment.

Social media is all about building meaningful connections. Follow me on my various accounts and let’s create something special together.

From music to art to everyday musings, you never know what you’ll find on my social media pages. Join me and see for yourself!

Join my social media community and never miss a beat. We’ll stay connected and inspired together.

Social media isn’t just about likes and follows – it’s about creating real connections with real people. Join me and let’s make something beautiful.

ChatGPT then adds “Remember to keep your message authentic and true to your personality, and don’t be afraid to inject a little humour or personality into your writing. Good luck!” If I were to be authentic and true to my personality I definitely wouldn’t use words like “journey” or say anything quite so pretentious as to talk of “meaningful connections”. If you want to follow me, please do, that’s the message, plain and simple.

What did you do during the Facebook downtime, Daddy?

In a recent incident that caught the attention of billions of users, a major social media platform (Facebook) experienced a widespread outage, leaving users unable to access their accounts for several hours. Many of them quickly migrated to their other social media accounts to gripe. Of course, as such disruption unfolds, initially users will perceive it as an individual issue, a problem with their phone or PC. We all occasionally get “session expired” notifications but are able to log back in to our apps, many people faced with this tried and were then told their password was incorrect and 2FA systems failed. It soon became apparent that this was a system-wide problem affecting all Facebook users.

The incident highlights an important lesson in recognizing systemic failures. Often, when faced with technical difficulties, individuals may assume that the issue lies with their own devices or accounts. However, as demonstrated in this case, persistent problems affecting numerous users indicate a broader issue with the platform itself.

The implications of such a widespread outage extend beyond inconvenience for users. First off, imagine not being able to use your social media and having to interact with the real world, chatting face-to-face with other humans, listening to bird song, smelling the roses, going for a walk in the fresh air!?!?!?! Whatever next?

Social media platforms do play a significant role in our lives and in modern communication, commerce, and information dissemination in general. When these platforms experience downtime on such a large scale, it disrupts not only individual users but also businesses, organizations, and even governments that rely on them for all kinds of activities including meeting social and healthcare needs in many instances.

Such incidents underscore the importance of strong infrastructure and contingency planning for technology companies. In an increasingly digital world, ensuring the reliability and resilience of their online services is important. Companies must invest in putting backup measures in place, in proactive monitoring systems, and rapid response protocols to minimize the impact of potential outages and so be in a position to resume normal service quickly. I mean, imagine having to spend more than an hour talking to other people face-to-face or taking a long walk, like maybe a mile or more!

What’s a skeuomorph, anyway?

A skeuomorph, derived from the Greek skeuos, meaning container or tool, and morphe, meaning shape, refers to a design element retaining attributes of older structures that are redundant in the current form. These elements serve to imbue novelty with familiarity, aiding users in understanding new devices or systems.

They’re not solely functional; aesthetic considerations often prompt their use. There are lots of examples: pottery adorned with imitation rivets reminiscent of metal pots, lightbulbs mimicking candle flames complete with a flickering effect, and software calendars and address books resembling their paper counterpartsplanners.

There are also auditory skeuomorphs, such as clicking sounds when you tap a “button” on a touchscreen. Indeed, the notion of buttons on a touchscreen is also an example of a skeuomorph. Another familiar auditory skeuomorph is the faked sound of a camera shutter moving in a device, such as a phone or digital camera, both of which lack a conventional, physical shutter.

Skeuomorph design cues have a practical and aesthetic component often helping to bridge the gap between an old familiar device and the present system with the aim of improving the user experience.

There are countless other examples of skeuomorphs:

The tiny, non-functional handle on a glass maple syrup bottle.

Embellishments on stone buildings reminiscent of construction features on wooden buildings

The graphical user interface of modern computing, which commonly emulates switches, toggles, dials, and buttons of conventional electrical and electronic devices. The file and folder symbols resembling pieces of paper and filing cabinets. Even the floppy disk icon that is used to represent the Save function. Screen-based typewriter keys that also click like a typewriter when tapped. An envelope symbol to represent email

Vinyl and other plastics patterned to resemble their earlier wooden counterparts in various areas, vehicle trim, flooring, furniture, wall coverings

Pushbutton telephones designed with a fake dial to resemble an earlier type of telephone. Dialtone sounds on digital phones that no longer require a dialtone for technological reasons

Electric kettles with the design of stove-top kettles

Velcro fastenings with a fake buckle overlay

Mock Tudor architecture

Faux leather

Distressed furniture

Fake stone facades and brick veneers

Artificial flowers and fake plastic trees

Animal print fabrics

Artificial turf

Leatherette

Scented fabric softeners, scented candles, air fresheners, perfumes, scents, eau de cologne

What’s a link shortener, anyway?

I posted a survey about the likelihood of users clicking a charity or fundraising link that had been shortened with a tool like tinyURL, bit.ly or j.mp, or buff.ly. To my surprise, there was a comment from one follower telling me that he didn’t know what a link shortener was.

Well, link shorteners are online tools that convert long website addresses, (URLs) into shorter, more manageable links. These shortened URLs redirect users to the original, longer URL when clicked. Many sites, like Amazon, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Youtube, have link shorteners to allow you to copy and share a shortened version of an internal link from their services.

I’ve discussed previously how you can use your own web domains to shorten URLs and I do this a lot so that my social media links follow this format: sciencebase.com/social

Link shorteners serve several purposes:

Space-saving: Shortened URLs are particularly useful in platforms with character limits, such as Twitter, where every character counts towards the overall limit. They allow users to share links without worrying about exceeding character constraints.

Improved readability: Long URLs can be cumbersome and difficult to share, especially in printed materials or verbally. Shortened URLs are more concise and easier to transmit.

Tracking and analytics: Many URL shorteners offer tracking features, allowing users to monitor the number of clicks, geographic location of users, and referral sources. This data can be valuable for analysing the effectiveness of your link sharing.

Customization: Some URL shorteners offer the option to customize the shortened link with a branded or memorable alias.

So, those are the benefits, but there are some drawbacks too:

Loss of control: When you shorten a URL using a third-party service, you are essentially relying on that service to redirect users to the correct destination. If the service experiences downtime or discontinues its operations, your shortened links will no longer work.

Security risks: Shortened URLs can obscure the destination, making it easier for malicious actors to disguise harmful or phishing links. Users may be hesitant to click on shortened links from unknown sources due to security concerns. This was the origin of my question regarding charity links.

In time, we discover ourselves

I was discussing, with my photographer friend, Andy, the endless and inevitably futile task of chasing likes and shares for one’s creative output online. He’s a relative newbie to social media and this quest for some kind of validation having only taken up photography and joined social media several years ago.

Me? I’ve probably wasted decades chasing something that doesn’t exist, posting endless photos to some, but ultimately insufficient acclaim, sharing songs and instrumentals on all kinds of platforms and reaping scant reward in terms of listens and that zero-probability chance of being discovered.

I suppose I am reasonably Zen about it all, especially after so long. There was a time, at least, when my science writing had some traction. This website was getting 20000 unique viewers every day at one point. I had 54000+ Twitter followers back in the day, and it helped my book Deceived Wisdom reach the giddy heights of an Amazon bestseller for a couple of weeks, ranking higher than contemporaneous publications from Prof Brian Cox and Sir David Attenborough, which was certainly gratifying. You will notice, it’s something I am still talking about more than a decade later.

I’ve ranked fairly well for some of my photos, songs, websites, and writing, have even won a few awards for all of those things, with the exception of the music, admittedly. I’ve had reach and traction, and I’ve had those much-vaunted likes and shares. If this were a working-life sentence, you could say I’ve done my time. Well, not quite, I’m still working and still hankering for more of that elusive acclaim, hankering to somehow be discovered. But, by whom and to what end?

My photographer friend had something quite profound to say, it was rather philosophical, although in his response during our discussion, he shrugged it off with a flippant lol. But, it wasn’t a thought to be shrugged, hence this blog post. His comment in the context of this vain hope of being discovered got me thinking…this is what he said:

I think over time we discover ourselves

After I’d drafted this post, Andy and I talked a little more. “We all like validation,” he said. “Social media exists because of it. But is it a hunger that can ever be satisfied? The question I ask myself is what’s the real joy in photography?”

For me, the joy is in being there, trying to get the shot. The selection and editing is a secondary thing. The sharing a nice shot and getting a few likes is tertiary. While we were chatting, Andy chipped in with an update on his garden birds. “Just saw a Goldcrest in the magnolia tree,” he told me. “I resisted the urge to grab the camera and rush outside in the vain hope of a picture, but instead enjoyed a few moments watching it through the binoculars.”

Andy added that a moment like that in photography helps bring some Zen into one’s life. “When you look through the viewfinder and all that exists in the world is what you can see. That’s totally in the moment,” he told me. He added that then there are all the awful failed photos and missed opportunities with Goldcrests, for instance. “That helps you deal with disappointment and also helps instil a sense of patience.”

Speaking of patience, patience is an inbuilt app that can help with your photography, as I wrote here some time ago.

I must claw back some of my integrity here. I have not spent the last twenty years solely craving likes and shares for my creative output on social media. I have been enjoying the creativity, the learning, and, of course, the earning a living through some of it. And, more to the point, regarding the more arty stuff, the photography and the music have been unpaid hobbies, as opposed to the writing being a paid one. And, in addition to that there has always been the fun of chatting with so many different people online over the years, when you’re a freelance working from a home office, that feels kind of important when there’s not so many opportunities to chat offline during the working day.

They’re hobbies with an output, you might say, an image, a tune, but critically they are hobbies that have led to great friendships. Friendships with fellow photographers, such as Andy, with my singing mates in choir, with the people in my band, and with several others that I’ve shared a stage with over the years or performed alongside from the theatrical pit. It’s still all happening, it’s always a blast. People sometimes even tell me they like it, amazingly…in the offline world. The fun and friendships are far more important than the ephemeral accolades of online.

Is it time? Have I discovered myself, Andy?

My Light, My Sky – AI artwork for a song

I realise there’s a lot of ongoing debate regarding generative AI tools, especially those that have putatively been trained on copyright material without permission from the creators. It’s generally impossible to know what work has been used as source data for the likes of Dall-E, ChatGPT, and MidJourney etc, unless you work in their back office, presumably. However, I do know that some of my copyright material, books, potentially website content, photos, and perhaps even some of my music, will have been used to train various AIs over the last few years.

AI generated artwork with sullen sky, mountains, a central tree and a weird river — AI-generated artwork with sullen sky, mountains, a central tree and a weird river

I think there needs to be some kind of permission system in place and a royalty/payback system to compensate artists and creators for the use of the output as training data. I suspect that horse has bolted, as it were, and neither of those things will come to pass. Meanwhile, I feel that given that a lot of my content is likely to have been used to train AIs, I’m almost justified in clawing something back from those AIs.

In this case, I have used a couple of tools to generate an image as artwork for my latest song, My Light, My Sky, the origins of which and the development thereof I mentioned here recently.

First, I asked ChatGPT to come up with a prompt for an image AI to help me generate some Hipgnosis-type artwork for my song. My initial prompt to ChatGPT told it to “act as an expert in album artwork” and to “give me a prompt to use with a generative AI for creating images”. I added the lyrics from my song as part of the initial prompt and this is what ChatGPT came back with:

Generate an album cover in the style of Hipgnosis that captures the essence of a journey, the intertwining elements of water, dreams, and loss. Incorporate surreal and symbolic imagery such as raindrops turning into streams, rivers flowing to the sea, and scenes of introspection. Use a color palette that conveys both the beauty and melancholy of the lyrics. Ensure that the cover evokes a sense of mystery, emotion, and the passage of time. Consider including elements like shattered dreams, reflections, and a connection to the sea as central motifs.

I then used that prompt in Img2Go’s AI Creator Studio to get it to produce an appropriate image to which I could add the song title and my name. It looks rather evocative and Hipgnosis-like although that tree that looks like a Cedar of Lebanon or a chink of broccoli is reminiscent of Yes album artist Roger Dean.

I ran the AI a second time and got a similarly evocative image, but without the tree. I imagined this one as the back of the record sleeve for my putative 7-inch. I added the lyrics to the graphic:

A couple more iterations with some minor tweaks to the prompt that ChatGPT had given me generated some amusing images with silhouetted figures. In one, a woman is seen standing up to her waist in water and carrying an umbrella. This is quite a nice idea for an album cover…very Hipgnosis, very Magritte. The ludicrous notion of being soaked up to the waist but protecting one’s upper half from the rain with an umbrella! The album might have been entitled “Staying Dry” or “Underwater” or something…

Another version of the same prompt, simply adding the word umbrella to the end generated this:

Settling into social media

I’m usually as early an adopter as I can be with the various tools and apps that come online in the world of social media and social networking. For instance, I was one of the very early users of Plurk and subsequently twttr, although I think when I signed up in June 2007 it had already become twitter.

Anyway, there’s lots of activity at the moment with people shuffling allegiances. As you’d expect, I’m on Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, even Spoutible. If you want to find me on your favourite site, and I will almost certainly be there, just use a URL like this:

https://sciencebase.com/social

Swap the word social for your chosen site: pixelfed, Instagram, mastodon, the aforementioned spoutible etc. The link above will open my page with active links to all my social media outlets.

Anyway, the main point of this blog was to discuss whether or not it’s worth homing in on a particular site at the moment. Most of the discussion seems to be around Threads versus BlueSky. Very few people are talking about any of the others, at least it seems that way in my timelines. Personally, I’m seeing some interesting discussions and a little engagement on Bluesky. My recent mineral moon photo did better there in terms of likes and reposts. But, some of the bird photos do much better on my Mastodon page. I’m having more conversations on Threads, but I am not seeing likes or reposts of photos, or indeed, anything that even gets into double figures.

At the time of writing, I have almost 40000 X followers still, although I used to have 55000. On threads not even 300, BlueSky less than 100, but on Mastodon, I have 1339, although I suspect a large proportion of those were active in November 2022, but have not even logged in since, if my followees are anything to go by. I realise it’s not all about the numbers, but if you don’t have some numbers then it’s hard to gain any traction or get any reach for engagement or conversation, and certainly not for sharing widely.

It’s hard to know what to do. Most of it is watercooler banter and little more. Back in the day, twitter helped me get into the bestsellers lists with my book Deceived Wisdom, it also helped me get enough votes for a major charity grant for our village community centre, but I doubt I could get any of that to happen today. I will perhaps just maintain my ad hoc approach. Posting as and when and hoping that at least a few of you still enjoys my songs, snaps, and science…

Blocking the babebots

UPDATE: April 2024 – The babebots had gone quiet for a while. Then, in the week beginning 15th, I noticed that they had changed strategy. Instead of offering a romantic triste, they seem to have morphed into tech gurus or other kinds of expert. Still with the same glum avi photo of some young woman and a dreary shot of a random beach, and presumably a dodgy phishing site to dupe anything daft enough to click through, but it’s different. That said, they’re back with a vengeance and “liking” everything I tweet once more. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Every single thing I tweet these days gets a like from a scam account on twitter. Commonly these accounts purport to be young women seeking a partner. There is usually an attractive photo of the protagonist and a header image showing a tropical beach scene.

If one is unwitting, scrolling through the timeline will often reveal various NSFW images or perhaps just one of a woman’s chest clad in a skimpy item of clothing. Either way, I block them immediately. It seems pointless expending the effort to report them as these accounts are presumably being created automatically en masse or by some poor sap in a sweatshop.

It’s all very annoying, to be honest, and something that got worse since Leon Umsk took over. Incidentally, I am far more active on other social media these days, but am keeping my Twitter account active despite the challenges while I encourage genuine followers to track me down on Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky etc.

I’ve been keeping a list of some of the bio lines from these scam accounts, which I refer to as babebots. Most of the bios are rather mundane, some of them are vaguely intriguing, others are nonsensical. I’m not entirely sure why someone would want a relationship where “sparks will fly”, the bot presumably means something else. Not entirely sure where a “coffee date” sits on the spectrum of “adventures” either. A lot of them are very much old-school “lonely hearts column” enticements too…which is odd…I wonder whether an AI was trained on a corpus of such columns to generate these scammer bios. One describes herself as a “sun-kissed girl”, it’s usually beaches that are sun-kissed isn’t it?

Worth mentioning that while many of these babebots are “called” Britney67584 and Stephanie99333, a large number of them use IDs that have traditionally male-sounding names. I’ve had a lot of likes recently from accounts called Greg, Mike, and Matthew, for instance.

It’s all very odd, especially to think that some people must be suckered into clicking the scam links!

Here are a few of the recent ones:

Looking for someone to share my laughter and my tears with!

Actress looking for her leading man.

Looking for a partner who’s ready to create a love story that’s just as beautiful as we are.

Fitness lover seeking a workout partner and adventure companion.

Surfing enthusiast seeking a fellow wave rider and ocean lover. Sparks will fly!

hej ! SuperRare whitney want a 40553 followers

Sci-fi nerd seeking someone to explore the universe with.

Hot girls from your city

Naughty babes want to play

Let’s watch sunsets together Blast off to romance in my bio link!

Homebody seeking a partner to snuggle and relax with.

Night owl looking for someone to stay up with Don’t miss your chance! Click bio!

Life is better when shared with someone special. Click my bio link for love!

Fun-loving girl searching for her perfect match. Are you the one Find love in my bio link!

Sweet and sassy, looking for a kind-hearted partner

Fun, fearless, and ready to find my match! Let’s dance into each other’s hearts.

Seeking a bookworm for cozy nights in

Yoga lover seeking a zen partner See what you’re missing!

Dancing queen ready to find her king

Music-loving girl seeking soulful connection. Let’s make beautiful melodies together.

Junk food lover seeking someone to indulge in guilty pleasures with.

Environmentalist seeking a partner who cares about the planet and sustainability!

Let’s bask in the warmth of each other’s company.

Artistic Beauty Seeking Someone to Create a Masterpiece With Ready for a new fling?

Adventurous girl seeking a partner who loves to paddle and surf!

Passionate and fiery looking for someone to ignite my soul! Blast off to romance in my bio link!

Adventurer seeking a partner for sunny days, beach trips, and coffee dates.

Love the beach, the mountains, and everything in between

Searching for a connection that is both deep and fun.

Seeking a fast-food lover for late-night cravings

Bookworm seeking someone to read between the lines with

Horse lover seeking someone to ride with!

Champagne lover seeking someone to celebrate life with

Fun-loving girl seeking a confident and spontaneous match. Meet your new crush!

Hoping to find a rainbow connection with my soulmate

Ready to paddle through life with someone special

Sun-kissed girl seeking someone to share lazy summer days with

Gamer girl seeking someone to level up with

What can I do for you?

There are so many more. Oh, by the way, they usually have names like Delilah and Piper and the account handle will be something like Madeleine46574844. Easy to spot. The first few dozen didn’t even have a bio, just a scam link, the beach shot, and an NSFW photo in the timeline.

I suspect that they’re all auto-generated somehow and follow one of three profile patterns, and that might suggest that either there are three recipes out there are actually just three sources. Or one source using three recipes to create the accounts. It should be relatively easy to block signups, but I don’t think Leon Umsk gives a flying fart. He’s ruined twitter. I’m never going to refer to it by the name he gave it.

Cleaning up a Least Weasel with Firefly

While we were standing on the ditch-bridge beyond the old, stilted Rothschild’s Bungalow at Woodwalton Fen National Nature Reserve trying to catch a glimpse of the Purple Emperors wheeling high above is in the oak trees, a mammal squeaked near our feet and poked its head out to see what all the fuss was about. It was a Least Weasel, it seems.

Its scientific name is Mustela nivalis, although it is often known as the Little Weasel, Common Weasel, or in some places simply a Weasel. In the US the term weasel is more generic and applies to a whole range of creatures. Not to be confused with Mustela erminea,that’s stoatally different although not weasily distinguished. Hahahah.

Anyway, as is the wont of these small carnivores, they might pop out into the open, as did this one, before quickly disappearing back into the tangled undergrowth. But, they almost always come back out within a second or two for another look as did this one, before it plopped into the ditch water swam the few feet across and could be heard scuffling on the other side before disappearing for good.

The upshot of all this peeking and scuffling is that I wasn’t quick enough to get the first shot of the creature standing on the bridge near our feet, but I got a sneaky shot of her after she made her second appearance. Unfortunately, there was a blade of blurry green grass right in front of her. I found a Photoshop tutorial on how to remove such distractions, but the techniques didn’t translate easily to PaintShopPro, although I had a go and managed to decolourise the blade so it was brown and slightly less distracting than the green.

I posted the image on Twitter to confirm the species but also to ask if anyone knew of a simple way to remove blurry blades of grass. Various people replied with PhotoShop suggesttions. But, like I say, I use PaintShopPro rather than that pricey Adobe subscription product. Twitter friend Chuck Baggett offered the best solution. A free, beta-testing AI tool from the very same Adobe, known as Firefly. It’s a generative art tool akin to Dall-E and MidJourney, AI apps I’ve discussed at length here previously.

Firefly has an object removal tool within its repertoire. You set an appropriate brush and simply paint over the object you want to remove. Chuck did the job for me on the version of the weasel, I’d tweeted. But, I obviously wanted to test the app myself, so I uploaded a JPG rendering of the DNG output I’d created with DxO PureRaw3 from the original camera RAW file. Set a brush up and painted out the green blade of grass and some of the other distracting fronds. There were some odd artefacts visible when viewing the eye close-up, but they were relatively easy to fix in PaintShopPro without having to start from scratch in the Firefly AI app.

Least Weasel photo before and after Firefly retouching

I can highly recommend Adobe Firefly for removing such problems from your photos. Much quicker and easier than the various approaches offered for PhotoShop. The app adds a watermark that declares the image was generated with an AI app, but I think in this case it’s quite fair of me to crop out that declaration given then I was simply manipulating my own photo with a digital brush! Obviously, the Firefly system can generate artwork from text descriptions just as Dall-E and MidJourney do and those generative images probably should be declared as such in some circumstances.