Technology – Page 8 – David Bradley

Artificial Art – Portraiture

Continuing with some more Wombo creations today, I selected a few friends and twitter contacts and used elements of their bio and usernames to create a portrait or pertinent pseudopainting for them

Musician and (ex)minister Clive-upon-Sea

Dog lover and Times columnist David Aaronovitch

Journalist and Martian author Nicholas Booth

Now taking requests on Twitter…first one Wombat for @HomoCarnula

For Michele who tweeted “Nooooooo” to the wombat

For computational chemist and baseball fan Joaquin Barroso

The trendy AI app – Wombo – which seems to be going viral takes your words, lets you choose an art style and then generates a dream-like image from the combination. You may have seen the Rush-inpsired art I had it create in a previous post, but here are a few more created with eclectic word choices and picking from the various styles – Mystical, Dark Fantasy, Psychic, Steampunk, Synthwave etc

Doctor Who cocktails – Daleks on the Beach

AI redesigns Rush the band

TL:DR – Wombo was the big AI image generator in late 2021.

You can’t have missed the latest AI app – Wombo. It has various incarnations, one of which Wombo Dream (for Android and iOS) lets you type in a few words, choose a style (Mystical, Dark Fantasy, Psychic, Steampunk, Synthwave etc) and create a fantastical landscape or scene. It’s quite bizarre to watch it drawing together an algorithmic “artwork” from whatever scraps of graphical information are contained within the AI.

I tried a few odd, dream-like phrases, some rude words, and my own name to get a feel for what it could do, and then I thought I’d see what it would make of references to the Canadian rock band, Rush.

…thought I would be singing, but I’m tired, out of breath

Here’s how to write a clickable headline without using clickbait

UPDATE: I tested this approach on Sciencebase and another site and have come to the conclusion that such headline writing only matters in terms of click-through rate, that is improved, but initial hits don’t seem to be improved at least in the short term, so whether or not it has a beneficial SEO effect remains to be seen.

Headline writing for newspapers and magazines was always the preserve of the subbies, the sub-editors. A reporter, journalist, columnist or another writer would file their copy, it would be bashed into basic shape and length by an editor. Then, a subbie would tear into it, weeding out logical inconsistencies in the flow of text, trapping factual errors, adding puns, dismantling potentially libellous statements, checking the grammar and spelling, cutting it to length, adding extra puns, removing the byline, adding the byline back in, and then removing it again. Finally, adding a headline and perhaps a few extra puns, and strapline with plenty of puns.

Things have changed now that almost everything we read is online. Space constraints are no longer the issue. The issue is search engine optimisation, SEO, and converting eyeballs seeing a headline into clicks on that headline to open the page and get those eyeballs and click action on to the advertising within.

First, we had keyword stuffing, which was usually out of site and the headlines followed the traditional form for years. Next came clickbait, of which there are two flavours. One that baits the reader to click with a catchy enticement and keywords in which they’re interested. Another, a kind of bait and switch on a par with Rickrolling in which an attractive headline makes the eyeball to click conversion, but the content within isn’t what the headline suggested, bait and switch clickbait, you might call it.

Now, we are in a new golden age of headline writing, but sadly, the subbies aren’t happy as puns are out. There is no point in making parochial puns, idiotic idioms, or archaic cultural allusions when one’s vast new audience is international. Your native tongue and clever wordplay won’t work for every putative reader from those just starting to learning your language as a second, third, or fourth language and even for those in the upper echelons of multilinguistics.

So headlines these days have to be self-explanatory rather than self-indulgent. They have to make sense on a first read without anyone having to reach for a dictionary to interpret them. They have to be conversational, a dialogue between reader and writer are, in the age of social media, all-important, essential in fact. The writer must now recognise not that they are talking to a vast, abeyant audience of word worshippers, but rather talking one-to-one, direct in dialogue, with their reader. A singular reader is the audience even if there are millions of them (I wish).

A couple of excellent infographics published with an NPR article entitled “Write digital headlines both readers and Google will love” summarises brilliantly everything I am talking about here and more. It explains the modern penchant for long, conversational headlines of which we are all seeing more and more these days as well as the SEO-led nature of the URL for those headlines that take your eyeball, via your web browser or app, to the page in question.

As you can see, the title of this article is

Here's how to write a clickable headline without using clickbait

The web address, the URL, for it is not what you’d perhaps expect though. It’s not

https://sciencebase.com/heres-how-to-write-a-clickable-headline-without-using-clickbait

No. The URL is as follows, which is much more SEO ready for Google and other search engines

https://www.sciencebase.com/howto-write-clickbait-seo-headlines.html

Now, I’ve been a science writer, journalist, copywriter, editor for more than three decades. I hope I’ve learned a few things about the trade, in that time. But, I’m no high-faluting expert and maybe my interpretation of the NPR isn’t entirely accurate. You can read it for yourself and learn your own lessons.

The key points are that your new-form headlines should do the following:

Say why the article matters
Be conversational
Address people, not policy
Use articles (the, a, an)
Avoid journalese and jargon
Avoid questions, the headline should be the answer
Focus on specifics
Avoid puns*

From the SEO perspective the article’s URL should:

Use one or two keywords, but not be stuffed
Be written for humans not machines
Be clear and direct

I am planning to use the techniques a little more with my own writing on sciencebase.com to see if I can draw the crowds a little more. There was a time when daily unique visitors to sciencebase numbered in their thousands, these days, that’s more like the monthly numbers. Of course, back then (1999 onwards) Sciencebase was one of very few science news sites and social media was not yet a reality. Indeed, when I first established Elemental Discoveries, which was the proto-sciencebase, it was *the* only popular science news website as far as I know. So, I have hopes, but they’re not high. We’ll see.

Also, for anyone who hit this page searching for SEO and was expecting a short-eared owl, you shouldn’t be disappointed. Here’s one I snapped earlier.

Short-eared owl (SEO), not to be confused with search-engine optimisation (SEO)

*Subbies are almost redundant now.

Thinking outside the password box

There is a lot of conflicting advice about passwords all over the internet, often complicated by so-called cybersecurity agencies charged by governments to keep their citizens safe who put out mixed messages. Much of the advice is contradictory and even troubling in the sense that it will suggest three or four measures everyday users should take that are mutually exclusive or worse still not secure at all.

So, I asked a proper computer security expert, Adam Stewart, to give me the best advice to protect your data and logins.

“You will, no doubt, have seen advice on passwords, such as: set something complex, use three random words, use a password manager, don’t write them down, do write them down, use a different one for each site, use a special one for email, ‘…and mathematically I think you will find that…’, the list goes on,” he told Sciencebase, and I’ve had to agree, yes, the advice provides complicated mixed messages that many people will find very confusing.

“The problem is,” he adds, “no advice fits all situations. You may come up with a perfectly acceptable password approach for you, but it will not work with all websites and apps in all situations.”

So, I asked, how do we everyday users get around that problem?

“I would say a better approach is to “think outside the password box”. By that, he means we should all think about how we can protect our computers, tablets, and smartphones and the files and logins we keep on them.

Here are the three basic things you should do, according to Stewart:

For protection – if available enable two-factor authentication (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA). Once enabled, this requires you to use a a second device such as your phone or tablet to confirm it’s you logging in.

For detection – many websites and apps these days have the ability to warn you when they are accessed and show from which device, enable this function if it is available, if you get an alert that somebody has logged in and it wasn’t you, change your password immediately.

For response – make sure you keep a backup of your files on an external hard drive or on another device, and/or in the cloud. But make sure that cloud site is secure with 2FA and a different password to any of your normal passwords.

We still have to fill in that password box though and Stewart suggests that we should all use a password manager if we can. A password manager can make strong passwords for you and you only need to remember the one strong password for the manager itself. A password of at least 16 characters is strongest just don’t make it “passwordpassword”.

Oh and one more related word of advice from Stewart, no tech giant will ever call you on the phone about your computer or phone or anything else. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon etc,Â will never call you, for any reason, those companies with their billions of users and customers, simply do not work like that. If you get a call claiming to be from any one of those corporations, just politely (or impolitely) decline their invitation to connect to their system and hang up.

The app only you use

UPDATE: ObsIdentify is very good for a range of plants and animals

I asked my twitter and facebook friends what phone app they used that they thought none of their friends would be using. There were some interesting answers. My app, Merlin (a tool for identifying bird species from a photo)

These are the twitter folks in the order they tweeted:

James on G – Speed Cam Alert
Debayan S – Notion (notes)
Gary MacF and VFD – Twitter (!)
Martin F – iGeology (rock ID)
Russ Swan – iGeology
Steve T – LunaSolCal (Moon and Sun)
Laura F – Horse Vet Guide
Antony W – C;Geo (geocaching)
Russell K – Startracker (astro)
Nevena H – Skymap (astro)
Walter van den B – Michelin app (mapping)
Joseph V – A periodic table (chemistry)
David B – View Source (web source viewer)

And the Facebook crowd:

Kerry O’C – The Anfield Wrap! (footie podcast)
Nick H – MySpace (yeah, right!)
Helen G – What3Words
Lee Smith – What3Words
Jimmy Hickford – What3Words
Keyth Rooney – What3Words
Mike L – Honeywell Home (domestic controller)
Annette S – FODMAP (specialist diet)
Adam S – NFCTOOLS
Julia I – Lectio 365 (Bible resource)
Mark H – APRS Droid (ham radio)
Nathalie M – Auchan Drive (French map)
M A S – Weather Kitty (cats)
Mike B – World Radios
Jill B – Lime (London bike hire)
Lee S – StarChart (astro)
Hugh T – iRealPro (music book and backing tracks)
Stephen R – Solaredge (solar panel control/data)
Bill F – My Little Pony (Yeah, right!)
Andrea T – Stitcher (podcasts)
Mona A – Capitals of the World
Joanna M – CloudSpotter
Trevor H – Next Metro (Tyne & Wear transport system)
Calvin M – Spectroid audio spectrum analyser
Zoe S – Osper (mobile banking)
Pat PÃ©rez – HiFutureSelf (personal reminders)
Janny Van A – Sounds (English language tutor)

There is definite overlap of some and definitely some there that I imagine lots of people have, but there are one or two that are probably quite rarely used outside specific scientific, tech, and other niches…

I have used versions of several that people cite (astro, trees, maps, what3words, web and security tools) but perhaps the one that I think the least number of people will have is Martin F’s “iGeology”. Anyone?

The latecomers:

Tim H-W – Munsell Colour Chart
Denise S-M – Zedge (ringtones and wallpaper)
James B – Foobar (audio player)
Philip W – Celonis (AI for business)
John D – Authy (two-factor authentication)
Cath D – Soundcorset (tuner, metronome, sheet music)
Clive F – Nautide (tide tables etc)
Jenny S – FaceApp (portrait photo editor)
Richard G – maps.me (offline maps)

There’s a very simple solution to combating video call burnout

Zoom burnout, they’re calling it.

We’ve probably all experienced it by now, that feeling of exhaustion and of having Zoomed too far, joined one two many “webinars”, Whatsapped a bit too much with the family, argued over the quiz results, and drank far too much “at” far too many friends on House Party.

You’ve logged in and fiddled with mic and cam settings until everyone in the video-chat can see and hear you. You’ve waited, sometimes minutes, for the host to show up and let you all in. You’ve put up with the audio feedback issues when two of you are in the same room and in the same chat.

You’ve changed your background to the blue planet and to the Golden Gate Bridge, and the palm trees on the beach. You’ve had the Aurora whisping away behind you as your face mysteriously modulates from visible to invisible and back again like Alice’s Cheshire Cat. You’ve even downloaded all those empty TV studio set photos from the BBC. You’ve virtually sat in Noel’s chair from Multicoloured Swap Shop, you’ve pondered which era Doctor Who that particular TARDIS background is [Peter Davidson] and one of your best friends hopped aboard The Liberator and shouted Avon calling in the most camp voice possible. You’ve searched to see if there is a Tomorrow People background, so you might chat with Tim in the frame and jaunt about a bit.

Then there’s the issue of which app to actually use for the best experience. Zoom is okay, but it sometimes gets overloaded and it’s definitely overloaded with tabloid scaremongering so some friends won’t use it. You’ve tried to persuade others to opt for yet another app or website. “This one’s better, it’s faster, there’s no privacy or issues [there are always privacy and security issues].

There’s even the vague possibility that we might all be able to sync up and sing or play instruments together across the ether because this new app has much lower sound delay, latency, [it doesn’t, none of them have a sufficiently low delay to let musicians perform together online].

Your eyes are feeling blurry, you’re thinking…it’s the staring at the screen for so long, that’s why you feel so tired. But, we’ve all been staring at screens interminably for years, it’s not that. It’s something else. Maybe it’s the needing to be constantly “on”. Constantly concentrating on all those faces staring slightly askew in their blue reflected haze.

It’s neither of those things.

Maybe it’s the lack of body language cues. It’s hard to converse and fully engage without seeing someone’s expressive hands and shoulder shrugs. But, as we’re all sitting on our hands to stop us touching our faces anyway, those cues are always off-limits.Â But, it’s not that either. We’ve managed on the good-old telephone with no video for decades with no real problems.

So, what is it, why are we all feeling burned out and a little melancholic, miserable even, after all this facetime zooming by? We should be happy that despite the global pandemic those of us with the tech can still cling to each other, sticking together while we’re apart, as it were. Very unfortunate for those in places with no tech…for so many reasons.

Could it be that every time we fire up those webcams and tweak that background, for another online chat that we are simply mourning the loss of what we had? The meeting up in the real world, the pubs, the clubs, the musical rehearsals, the live theatre and music festivals, the art galleries and museums, the beauty spots, the far-flung holidays, the freedom? The freedom from worry about catching or spreading a lethal pathogen? I think so.

Zoom burnout isn’t tiredness. It isn’t the strain of feeling one’s eyes going square like we were warned about back in the days of proper television with just three channels. It isn’t irritation at the silly backgrounds and the clamouring, clanging sounds of everyone trying to talk at once.

It’s grief.

It’s bereavement.

It’s mourning.

For the life we’ve lost…

…for now.

Category: Technology

Artificial Art – Portraiture

Artificial art with Wombo

AI redesigns Rush the band

Thinking outside the password box

The app only you use