Bible translation is tough – NET proves it

 kw: book reviews, partial reviews, Bible translation, Bible interpretation, annotations, grammar

Did you ever wonder why so many verses in the Bible begin with the word "And"? It seems our grade school teachers spent tons of effort to convince us not to use run-on sentences, and then in the Bible (for those who read it), run-on sentences seem to be the rule! In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, and to a lesser extent the Greek of the New Testament, it was accepted narrative style to begin many sentences with conjunctions as a way of maintaining narrative flow.

In Hebrew the mechanism is to prefix the first word of a sentence with the smallest Hebrew letter, vav, which looks like an apostrophe. Bible scholars over the years have overloaded this little letter with quite a bit of freight, but more careful scholars in recent decades have mostly "unloaded" it.

I read the Bible daily, usually a few Old Testament chapters and one New Testament chapter. I like to investigate various translations, which I tend to do every second year. The rest of the time I stick to the Recovery Version (RcV – see recoveryversion.bible to read the online text version or to order a print version that has study notes). RcV is the best Bible translation I know of.

In 2019 The Holy Bible, New English Translation (NET) was published as a single volume containing both Testaments plus about 60,000 notes of three kinds:

• TN, Translator's Note, which explains why certain words or phrases were selected.
• TC, Text-Critical note, which adds supplementary information regarding old versions and other translations, particularly when references to other works are more extensive than a line or two.
• SN, Study Note, which explains historical or cultural information that can help a contemporary person understand a passage better.

The Bible text plus the notes comprise 2,392 pages. The Old Testament was translated by fourteen scholars, and the New Testament was translated by five scholars. I note that nearly half of the translators were educated at Dallas Theological Seminary.

The typeface is small, so I realized that it would take 2-3 years, or more, to read the entire volume. I would need to plan ahead. I read a few verses and notes to "survey the landscape." I was immediately disappointed.

Some background: I learned the "gap theory" as a preteen, from my parents. Put simply, I learned that Genesis 1:2 is not a direct continuation of v1:1, but that an unstated amount of time passed. Later I obtained a Scofield Reference Bible (C.I. Scofield's student L.S. Chafer founded Dallas Theological Seminary in 1924), which has this note on the word "created" in the first verse:

But [meaning only] three creative acts of God are recorded in this chapter: (1) the heavens and the earth, v. 1; (2) animal life, v. 21; and (3) human life, vs. 26,27. The first creative act refers to the dateless past, and gives scope for all the geologic ages.

That is the entirety of Scofield's Note 2. The next note describes "without form and void" as the result of judgment, referring to certain passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah, and to the "lamentation" sections of Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, stating that their language "goes beyond the kings of Tyre and Babylon".

Still later I learned that Hebrew has more than one past tense, and that "created" in 1:1 is in a different past tense than the verbs in the rest of the chapter. Thus, to quote John Lennox of Oxford University, "What does the book of Genesis say about when the universe was created? Absolutely nothing!" These things were the common intellectual heritage of evangelical Christianity for at least two generations. In more recent years, "young-earth creationists" have taken over, in a politico-theological sense, a significant number of evangelical congregations and even schools of theology. It appears that their hyper-literalist ideology has infected this translation also.

The opening phrase of Genesis 1:2 in NET is, "Now the earth was without shape and empty,…". Note E, a Translator's Note (TN) on the word "Now" makes much of a peculiar interpretation of v1:1 as a title of what follows, rather than as a narrative element. Here the little letter vav is brought into service in an obsolete, overloaded way. Looking in my Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible I see that the word "now" in NET is a translation of vav, which is translated "and" in the King James Version and more than a dozen others, while about half so many use "now". Either is OK. More modern versions usually leave it out. That is also OK based on current English usage. But Note E goes into a long discourse based on this "vav consecutive", clearly seeking to deny any interpretation that allows a length of time to pass between these verses. Scofield's interpretation is thus disparaged.

Soon, reinforcements arrive: Note G, on "without shape and empty" specifically denies that this phrase could refer to a consequence of judgment. In particular, the translator states that it is "unsound" to refer the application of the phrase to judgment by Isaiah and Jeremiah, back to Genesis 1:2. I wrote a marginal note: "God is timeless".

What we have here is a young-earth creationist forcing his interpretation upon these passages. How very sad. It undermines the value of the entire volume. Furthermore, the middle couplets of Isaiah 45:18 state, "He is the God / Who formed the earth and made it; / He established it; / He did not create it waste, / But He formed it to be inhabited" (RcV). In NET Note V on this verse is more young-earth nonsense. This verse clearly states that the condition of the earth at the beginning of Genesis 1:2 is not the way God originally created it. It makes me shake my head in wonderment. What a misdirection of Christian effort!

After making notes on these matters I set aside NET for five years. In December 2024, planning my Bible reading schedule for 2025, I decided to begin to read through NET at a rate of about two pages daily, at the same time reading the New Testament, about a chapter at a time, in RcV. I set up a document to record notes.

Two days ago, having reached page 104, I finished reading Genesis and all its Notes. I decided to write this preliminary evaluation. In my own notes I find 35 comments, mostly about things I consider erroneous or misapplied. As I look them over, I think it is best to concentrate on only a few egregious matters. And first I wish to present three places where the NET translator(s) got something right that traditional Christianity has missed or gotten wrong. When I refer to other translations in bulk, it is based on a perusal of sections of Bible Gateway.

• Gen 2:4, Note M: a TN and SN explain the NET usage "This is the account…" in place of a literal translation "These are the generations…", pointing out that the Hebrew term has a more general application beyond recounting human genealogies. Most translations use "account", "records", "story", or "history", and these notes explain why.
• Gen 9:22, Note E: The TN and SN provide a good explanation, from grammar and context, to show that when Ham "saw the nakedness" of his father Noah, it is not a euphemism for committing incest. Ham was just a tattletale, and, as I have heard more than one teacher ask, "Why did Ham go into the tent anyway?" The strength of Noah's reaction indicates that this latter question has an answer that God has hidden from us.
• Gen 38:9, Note b: NET translation of the key phrases is "whenever he [Onan] slept with his brother's wife, he wasted his emission on the ground". The TN and SN note that this was a repeated practice, and that Onan didn't masturbate but indeed had sex with Tamar, but performed coitus interruptus, or withdrawal, to keep her from becoming pregnant. The crusty old term "Onanism" is a misnomer.

Now to a few less helpful items:

• Firstly, something that isn't theologically negative, but I find annoying: Several notes on each page say that something was done—leaving a word out, adding a word, substituting a name for a pronoun or vice versa, or rearranging phrases—for "stylistic reasons" or, more rarely "for clarity." It would have been far better to state in the introductory text that "many" instances of stylistic or clarifying rearrangements and substitutions took place, and that a convention (I'd have recommended a special character such as §) is used to mark such cases. This would have shortened the volume by several percent!
• Gen 4:1, Note T: Where a literal translation would have, "I have acquired a man by Jehovah", NET has "I have created a man just as the Lord did". Regardless what weasel words fill the TN and SN in Note T, this is the worst possible rendering of the phrase. It doesn't even qualify as an interpretation. It is too awful to simply call "wrong".
• Gen 6:5, Note G: TN equates "heart" with "mind". The rest of scripture makes clear that "heart" is all of the soul (mind+will+emotion) plus the conscience. The mind is included, but is not the whole of it. This misconstruction confuses numerous spiritual gems.
• Gen 6:9, Note C: Noah was one of a very few who "walked with God". Thankfully, the NET text is correct, but the Note dilutes it to mean "had cordial relations with". Does the NT equivalent, "walk in spirit" (or "walk by the Spirit") fall to the same low place in NET parlance (I don't know, I haven't looked for it yet)?
• Gen 12:8 and many other places; also Note P: Literally, Abraham "called upon the name of Jehovah." NET text is "worshipped the Lord". The Bible does not waste words. There is a perfectly good Hebrew term, "worship the Lord", but to discard "call on the name" by narrowing its meaning to "worship" is a travesty of a powerful spiritual matter.

That is enough to make the point. The background and agenda of at least some translators is all too visible, which sometimes leads me to doubt that some of them are genuine believers. As Jesus said to certain ones, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify of Me, but you do not come to Me that you may have life."

To go on to another matter than stifles the usefulness of many notes. I collected certain grammatical terms as I read. There is no hint of explanation of any of them. First, here is a list of Hebrew terms and a brief meaning for each:

• hiphil - a verbal stem in Biblical Hebrew that expresses causative action.
• hitpael [properly hithpael] - a verb pattern in Biblical Hebrew that expresses reflexive actions, such as "to do something to oneself". It's one of the seven major verb patterns in Hebrew.
• hophal - the passive form of the Hiphil stem formation.
• niphal - a verb stem in Biblical Hebrew that can express a variety of actions, including passive, reflexive, or middle voice. Another of "the 7".
• piel - a verbal stem formations, signifying an intensified or causative action of a verb.
• pual - a verbal stem, the passive voice of the Piel stem.
• qal - the simplest and most basic verb stem, representing a straightforward action or state without additional nuances like causation or intensity.
• qere - the "read" version of a word, indicating the pronunciation that should be used instead of the written form ("ketiv") which may appear different in the text due to scribal tradition.
• wayyiqtal [properly wayyiqtol] - a verb form that indicates a simple action that was completed in the past.

Secondly, while I have a Classical education, the following English terms were new to me; these are in the order I found them:

• jussive - a verbal form expressing a command (whatever happened to "imperative"?).
• preterite - a verbal form that denotes events that were completed in the past.
• disjunctive - expressing a choice between two mutually exclusive possibilities.
• deictic - a word or expression whose meaning is dependent on the context in which it is used.
• concessive - a conjunction, preposition, phrase, or clause describing a state of affairs that might have been expected to rule out what is described in the main clause but in fact does not.
• hendiadys - the expression of a single idea by two words connected with “and,” such as nice and warm.
• proleptic - to anticipate or assume that something in the future is already happening.
• pleonastic - using more words than are needed to express an idea, such as "free gift". A fancy word for "redundant" or "verbose".
• gentilic - a word that describes a group of people based on their national, tribal, or racial affiliation.
• antimeria - using a word in a different part of speech than it's typically used in.
• enclitic - a word pronounced with so little emphasis that it is shortened and forms part of the preceding word, such as n't in can't. A fancy word for a contraction.
• protasis - the clause expressing the condition in a conditional sentence.
• elative - a grammatical case which indicates that something comes from somewhere, someone, or something else, as in "out of Africa".
• locative - a grammatical case which indicates that something is somewhere, such as -side in oceanside.
• substantival - having the function of a noun or noun equivalent.
• desiderative - feeling or expressing desire.

I note that I got a red "misspelt" flag on only two of these terms, so they are nearly all in Blogger's spelling dictionary.

In my future reading—I plan to finish it all—I will restrict my notes to the most egregious examples, and of course to notes that teach me something or provide a great explanation of some Biblical puzzle. I may post an update to this review in 2-3 years, but I think this is enough to make clear why I do not recommend this to someone uneducated in Biblical principles of interpretation. There is too much here that will either weaken one's faith or that waters down valuable spiritual lessons that the Bible seeks to teach.

First find out what is there

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, oceanography, cartography, mini-biographies

Exploration is mainly finding out what is "out there" and the most useful product of exploration is a map or chart.

Here we see mapper Cassie Bongiovanni with a color-coded contour map of the Molloy Hole in the Arctic Ocean, pointing out the deepest location within it. That spot, at a depth of 18,212 feet or 5,551 meters, is the deepest point in the Arctic Ocean, which is the only ocean without a trench that reaches into the Hadal Zone, which is defined to be deeper than 6,000 m (19,685 ft).

Ms Bongiovanni and a rotating crew of helpers accompanied Victor Vescovo on his ship DSSV Pressure Drop during the Five Deeps expedition (I reviewed another book about it in 2021). In the next image she is shown at the ship's mapping station with Aileen Bohan. Over the year-and-a-half of the Five Deeps expedition sponsored and led by Mr. Vescovo she mapped the deepest points in the five oceans and large surrounding areas, a total area exceeding that of Texas. The ship had a million-dollar multibeam sonar attached, which was needed to pinpoint the deepest spots, and to provide high-resolution mapping. The resulting maps were submitted to the Seabed 2030 Project.

When I began reading The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World's Oceans by Laura Trethewey, I naturally assumed that the focus would be the Seabed 2030 Project. It soon became clear that a major aim of the book is sharing the story of Cassie Bongiovanni, who was just 25, a freshly-minted mapper, when she got the opportunity to be the on-board mapper for the Five Deeps expedition and, as a critical side benefit, prepare detailed maps of several percent of the ocean floor.

It has been said, very frequently!, that we know the surface of the Moon in greater detail than we know the sea floor. Let's think about that a moment. With a 16-inch (40 cm) diameter telescope, visual acuity during moments of the best seeing can be 1/3 of a second of arc, or about 1/620,000 of one's distance to an object. The Moon's distance at closest approach (which occurs monthly) is about 360,000 km. Over time, a dedicated visual observer can get acquainted with the features of the visible side of the moon with a resolution of about 580 meters, or 1,900 feet. Of course, space telescopes and spacecraft have mapped the Moon with much more detail than this. But consider: Right now, we are about halfway through the Seabed 2030 Project, and about 1/4 of the total area of the ocean bottom has been mapped with resolution of 1,000 meters or better. A visual astronomer with a biggish backyard telescope does indeed see the Moon better than we see the ocean floor! The initial goal of Seabed 2030 is 100 m resolution over most of the ocean, and 800 m resolution in the deepest depths. At that point, there will still be parts of the ocean that are less known than the Moon can be known by a visual astronomer.

Once you have a map, what do you do with it? For seafaring purposes, a specialized map called a chart facilitates navigation. On shipboard, "chart" has a special meaning; nautical charts show tons of information, including all the named places known at that time, information about currents and depths that are known, ferry routes, plus navigation aids such as LORAN and, of course, latitude and longitude lines. Near coastlines, the depth indications are crucial; you don't want to run aground.

In the deeper ocean, other business interests predominate. An enormous debate going on right now is what to do about metallic deposits on the seabed, such as "manganese nodules" or "polymetallic seabed nodules". What are these nodules?

Large areas of the sea floor, typically at depths between 2 and 5 km, known as the Abyssal Plain, are littered with, and sometimes almost solidly covered with lumps about the size of a potato, consisting of sulfides and oxides of several metallic elements, such as manganese, nickel, cobalt, and some "rare earths" (which aren't rare, just hard to separate from one another; there are 17 such elements that are chemically very, very similar). Mining companies are just champing at the bit to go out and dredge the sea floor, to hoover up millions of tons of the nodules and refine them for the valuable metals they contain.

Their opponents are environmental and scientific interests, saying, "Let's find out what is there first, before destroying it." The nodules grow slowly, gaining at most an inch in size per million years. The oldest parts of the sea floor are about 200 million years, because the marine plates are pulled down into the trenches and recycled. Depending on where one finds it, a nodule the size of your fist could have taken between five and fifty million years to grow to that size.

Living things dwell on and near them. The shrimp in this picture isn't here on a sightseeing expedition. It expects to find something to eat.

Deep water corals, sponges and other animals live on the nodules, where they can have a firm attachment. The surrounding seabed is soft mud, to which such creatures cannot attach. But burrowing animals live in the mud, where they might be preyed upon, and the nodules provide a modicum of safety compared to an open, flat muddy field.

Ms Trethewey attended meetings of the International Seabed Authority, where such issues are debated. Later she asked Victor Vescovo of his opinion. He has several reasons to say that seabed mining will not prove economical. The most important is the law of supply and demand. A sudden increase in supply will drive prices down. Secondly, it is easy to lose stuff at sea. If a cable breaks and your 50-ton mining machine falls to the seafloor untethered, it will cost more to retrieve it than it did to build it, but building its replacement will take months (years?).

Thanks to Mr. Vescovo and Ms Bongiovanni, we have great maps of the greatest depths. May the mapmaking continue and prosper!

The book covers a lot more ground than the tidbits that interested me, that I've riffed on here. A great read!

This year's spidering has begun

 kw: blogs, blogging, spider scanning

I checked in to Blogger this morning to see activity on my latest post. I saw that there has been an upsurge of activity. For this image and the next I set the lookback to 30 days:

As the lower chart shows, the usual daily views rate is about 100. Beginning on February 12, it rose over three days into the thousands. Here is the worldwide distribution:

When I see Singapore in the top spot, I think of a spider elsewhere using a VPN. For Austria and Germany to also exceed the US in activity is interesting. I was curious about what "Other" may be. I set the lookback to 7 days and expanded "Other":

Here we see that 14 countries have two or more views each. There are fewer than 200 countries in the world, so how could "Other" be 339? The map of DNS servers must have domains registered in numerous entities that are not countries. I don't know. It is an interesting mystery. If someone knows, feel free to comment.

DreamStudio Style Gallery

 kw: ai experiments, ai art, art generation, styles

I find that strong contrast of elements provides a real test of prompt adherence by an art generating program. This came to light while I was enjoying the Man Cave (Troglodyte) concept, depicting offices, living rooms, kitchens, and so forth inside caves, using the various programs. Generally speaking, Dall-E3, ImageFX, and certain Presets for Leonardo AI produced more pleasing and realistic caves while depicting the "rooms" I prompted for, compared to Gemini and DreamStudio.

I began to investigate the SDXL 1.0 engine in DreamStudio a bit more to see what it takes to induce it to make better caves, choosing it over Gemini because it has more "knobs" I can turn. I decided to first gather a "style book" of the seventeen styles, using a fixed seed (142857, which is 999999/7) and a square aspect ratio. You might find these image montages a useful reference. I grouped them six at a time. The prompt is included in all the file names, right after the Style name and the seed value.

These first six show some commonality: The main desk a little to one side, an opening in the ceiling, and an archway at the back that usually leads deeper into the cave. The number of chairs, the presence of secondary workstations and bookshelves, and the style of flooring are all quite variable. Only the Digital Art style actually has any cave decoration (stalactites). The next six:

The common features seen in the first six are generally present. Fantasy Art style also has stalactites. The Origami style is quite spare, and while a ceiling opening is not seen, the lighting indicates that one is probably present. The last five:

Numbers 16 and 17 are out of order because I neglected to download #16 until after I had downloaded #17, and I have a sequence order of "file date" set in File Explorer. Note that the 3D Model style is the most similar to the Enhance style (#2). The trends seen before continue. Pixel Art style takes a whack at making stalactites.

If I want to make a Troglodyte series using DreamStudio, the best style to use is either Digital Art or Fantasy Art. The other styles mostly produce a cave that looks like the undecorated portions of Mammoth Cave, which resembles a series of long concrete tunnels.

Book as Blog

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, essays, science, blogs

I think mushrooms are lovely. I tried collecting them when I was about ten, and soon found that they quickly rotted. Not having access to formaldehyde or pickling alcohol, nor a supply of large jars (Mom was definitely not keen on letting me use her canning jars!), I gave up the pursuit, and collected less perishable items, such as stamps and rocks. Mushrooms are sometimes dangerous also. Although only about one percent of fungi species are toxic, a handful of those, mostly of the genus Amanita, are deadly in even small amounts. 

This picture, generated by Imagen 3 (Gemini), is based on the appearance of Amanita phalloides, the "death cap" mushroom, but in fanciful colors. Gemini wrote the haiku and I chose the typeface.

Toxic mushrooms are included in a sort of rogues' gallery of harmful things in nature, in the essay "But It's Natural!" in the book Superfoods, Silkworms, and Spandex: Science and Pseudoscience in Everyday Life by Dr. Joe Schwarcz. The appellation "natural" is applied to a great many things, particularly foods. As the author points out, the term is meaningless and usually misleading. To quote a few sentences from this essay,

Take pollen from one flower, sprinkle it on a different type of flower, and a new variety of flower emerges. Is that flower natural? It would not have been produced if a human hand had not intervened. But isn't the hand also natural?

"Natural" has become a marketing term, as has the term "Superfoods", the subject of the essay "Superfoods and Superhype", a valuable survey of the ways folks with something to sell attempt to mislead the public. His earlier book, Quack Quack: The Threat of Pseudoscience, digs much deeper into the phenomenon, particularly in medicine and chemistry. Willow bark contains a natural analgesic, but it harms the stomach; Aspirin is a chemical derivative that works better and is less harmful. The "natural" is worse than the "artificial." (Image via Dall-E3)

This book has no chapters. The text consists of 75 essays strung together like posts in a blog, with only a headline/title separating them. In the introductory pages we find a list of 18 other books by Dr. Schwarcz, and I found it interesting that nine of the titles contain the phrase "Science of Everyday Life" (this book makes the tenth), four contain "Chemistry of Everyday Life", six contain the word "Commentaries", and three contain the word "Inquiries". Ten titles also include a number, as in "…62 All-New Commentaries…". I suspect that he has a blog to which he has contributed for one or more decades, in addition to weekly columns in at least two newspapers. Preparing a book, then, is not so much writing anything new, but compiling from such sources. Just for context: This (my) blog has nearly 3,000 posts written over the past 20 years, and I have other writings, so perhaps I could get a few publications together; it's a thought…

Dr. Schwarcz has a mission, to combat errors of scientific reporting. These days the term "misinformation" is bandied about, but it has unfortunate political overtones. In fact, he has apparently fallen afoul of establishment misinformation regarding treatments for COVID-19. Such treatments became extremely political footballs. The author writes, "Dr. Vladimir Zelenko's claim of having successfully treated thousands of COVID-19 patients using hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), azithromycin, and zinc sulfate has been widely disputed." Yes, it has, primarily by "official" voices that have since been discredited. I must comment further.

HCQ and Ivermectin were both widely disparaged, but only after President Trump mentioned them. Suddenly, two extremely safe medications were declared "risky", "dangerous", even "deadly", and doctors who had the temerity to prescribe either medication were threatened with losing their license. I know a few archaeologists, including a relative of mine. Whenever they go into the jungles of Central America, they take HCQ to prevent malaria. Another close relative of mine contracted a case of worms from eating sushi, and was treated with Ivermectin, quite successfully and safely I might add. It isn't just a "horse dewormer" as some declared, it is a "human dewormer" also. We must understand: neither of these medications has any action against the SARS-COV2 virus. Rather, they modulate the immune system so as to prevent pneumonia from developing. HCQ works best very early, from the time symptoms appear for 2-3 days, and Ivermectin works best for a longer term. This is not medical advice; I am repeating observations by honest doctors. If you need to know more, or get treatment, find an honest doctor, if there are any in your area. Secondarily, because the mucus in the lungs that develops during pneumonia is made from glucose, low blood sugar is preventive. Therefore, at the first sign of illness, fast for a couple of days. The old adage, "Feed a cold, starve a fever" is about preventing pneumonia caused by respiratory diseases accompanied by fever; it was good advice in Colonial times, and is still good advice.

Bottom line: Doctor Zelenko was right. Call him Jeremiah: never wrong, never believed.

The author is a chemist, so naturally, a good number of the essays relate to chemistry, usually as brief historical surveys that emphasize the accidental or surprise nature of discoveries. "Graphene!" is one such. Something was observed a few times over many years as various researchers "messed with" graphite, but graphene was not identified until 1962. This single-layer substance made only of carbon atoms has great potential. It is tricky to produce in quantity, very hard to produce in sheets big enough to do anything with, and potentially toxic when nano-sized, as it so often is. The illustration (I used ImageFX) evokes the way graphene sheets jumble atop one another when graphite is disturbed.

The essays range far and wide, however from the origins of "duck tape" or "duct tape" (whether the "duck" fabric came first, or the use of such tape on ductwork, isn't clear) to the "tin" in "Tin Pan Alley" to a more-balanced-than-usual survey of "forever chemicals", the perfluorocarbon chemicals used to make Teflon® and related products, and substances that arise as side products of such manufacture. And a whole lot more. Seventy-five great essays!

For AI art, word order matters, but less than I expected

 kw: art generation, ai art, experiments, word order, semantics

Continuing my Troglodyte series of generated images, I began rewriting the long prompts I'd been using, putting the main description of the room first, followed by a phrase about the cave, followed by other items and details. I noticed after a while that it has been harder to elicit images with lots of cave decoration (stalactites, etc.). I began to wonder if the elements of a prompt were somehow treated like the ingredients list on a cereal box, in order by quantity (or by importance in this application). For example, here is a prompt I used a year ago for "Cave Dining Room":

A room in a spectacular cave that has many stalactites and stalagmites, with flowstone on the room's walls, fitted out as a grand dining room with a long table and at least twelve chairs, a chandelier over the table, and a buffet stand nearby

This is the prompt I used in the past few days:

A dining room in a spectacular natural cave with stalactites and stalagmites and flowstone, with seating for twenty or more, with buffet to the side and chandeliers from the ceiling, plus a grandfather clock and a large pantry, and the floor is natural stone with a patterned rug under the table

Here are the resulting images, both from Leonardo AI. Note that the settings were not exactly the same, but here my focus is on the difference in the amount of cave decoration.

The upper image is a little more "cavey"; the lower image is the best of a dozen or more attempts to get the feel I wanted. Some of the images had ceilings that looked more like tangled tree roots, others were almost smooth, though rounded and arched.

In some settings Leonardo AI has an option for "AI Enhancement" of the prompt. It also implements the Style and other settings by modifying the prompt internally. I could only get an inkling of the latter phenomenon by saving an image, because about 50 characters of the prompt used are included in the file name. I say "an inkling" because an AI-enhanced prompt balloons to a few hundred characters. In either case, by studying prompt enhancement, I find that enhancement is primarily done by adding adjectives and sometimes adjective-noun groups (such as the phrase "vibrant cinematic photo").

I designed an experiment to see how much word order matters when a prompt consists entirely of nouns:

meadow, mountains, flowers, butterflies, birds

In Leonardo AI's Classic Mode (its other mode is Flow, which I'll say more about in another post), I first used the Flux Schnell model and the Creative style, 16x9 aspect ratio, small image size (1184x672), with a fixed seed of 142857. When I downloaded the image, the file name was

Flux_Schnell_a_surreal_and_vibrant_cinematic_photo_of_meadow_m_0.jpg

Thus, the prompt had been enhanced because of the Creative style. The program also appends a number so it can distinguish repeated uses of a prompt.

To keep to the bare 5-word prompt only I switched the style to None. Here are the two resulting images, full size (1184x672), enhanced prompt above, 5-word prompt below:

The images are very similar, with some interesting differences. The upper (enhanced) one has no birds; of the five birds in the lower (ordinary) one, the two birds at upper left replaced ambiguous-looking butterflies and a butterfly at far left appears to be a bird-butterfly hybrid. The trees are similar, but the mountains have certain differences, and the enhanced image appears more stormy or foggy. Take note of the yellow flower at bottom center. It is one of several persistent elements from image to image, with only one significant variation I'll point out later on.

The next two images have "rotated" prompts, first "mountains, flowers, butterflies, birds, meadow" and then "flowers, butterflies, birds, meadow, mountains".

In each image there are three birds flying in the distance, and in the upper image in particular, a couple of rather ambiguous flying things. You may have noticed that all the butterflies are Monarchs. A significant change from the upper to the lower image is the bokeh (out-of-focus look) in the distance below, whereas the mountains are sharp above. The next two images are from the next two rotated prompts, "butterflies, birds, meadow, mountains, flowers" and "birds, meadow, mountains, flowers, butterflies".

The upper image has no clearly-defined birds. The five butterflies at the top in a cluster are all distorted, having either birdlike aspects or extra wings. The upper image also has out-of-focus mountains and trees, but in the lower image everything is in focus, plus there are added trees to the left. That is all the prompt rotations.

As a further experiment I added a few words to the prompt, and then as a last experiment, added more words to make it a descriptive phrase. The two prompts are:

birds in the foreground, meadow, mountains, flowers, butterflies

birds in the foreground of a mountain meadow with flowers and butterflies

In each image, a single bird is in the foreground, as requested, but not "birds". Nothing is in the sky; all the butterflies are also in the foreground. The big yellow flower has been replaced in the upper image by three smaller flowers. Both images have significant bokeh, in both background and the immediate foreground. The trees and mountains are also a bit more different from the prior six images, moreso than those six differ among themselves.

Note that all of these use the same seed: 142857. It's a favorite number of mine, being the repeating unit of the decimal expansion of 1/7. A couple of times I tested seed consistency by repeating the generation without changing anything. So far as I could tell, the images were pixel-by-pixel identical. So the only thing available to cause differences between the images would be differences in the prompt.

I don't know how a prompt is turned into "tokens", which are numbers that represent conceptual entries in a database of "meanings", as "meanings" might be understood in the context of generative AI. The order that they occur clearly matters, but not by a great deal. Adding directive words, such as "in the foreground" and "glue words", the little articles, conjunctions, and prepositions between the nouns, also made a difference, otherwise the last two images would be identical.

I don't know why some images are in focus throughout, while others have various levels of bokeh in the background and/or immediate foreground.

I have learned a couple of things, and uncovered further mysteries about art generation. The adventure continues!

Music for another planet

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, music, pop music, musical revolutions, biography

You just gotta know your own limitations. I just read Rob Sheffield's new book Heartbreak is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music. Ms Swift is a genius, a phenomenon, an incredible performer…with an oeuvre that leaves me unmoved.

Mr. Sheffield's semi-biography, full of inside allusions and abbreviations (most of which went right past me) is written for her fans. About halfway through I realized that he has mastered the art of writing in a female voice. That makes him quite a phenomenon also. It ensures a connection with Taylor Swift's primary fan base.

To be banal about it: The book outlines the career of Taylor Swift, which now spans 19 years, and in particular, all the swerves and redirections she has made to keep it going and rising. It isn't mentioned clearly, that she knows keenly just how short the attention span of the music-consuming public is. Apparently, she is delighted to oblige, and she manages to pivot before anyone else notices the need to pivot.

The last time I went to a Pop music concert, it was to see Peter, Paul and Mary in 1971. If I listen to music without just letting it be a background for something else I am doing, it is to learn to sing it (This doesn't take long: When I was in high school I first heard Bob Dylan sing "The Times, They are a-Changin'", on the radio during a family road trip with my Dad driving. I grabbed some paper and wrote out the lyrics on the spot). Thus, reading and hearing about people who spend hours and hours just listening, sometimes over and over, to a favorite album, I feel they and I inhabit different planets.

That's OK. I liked the book. It let me peek in a window to learn about a remarkable person. I think her career will continue to rise (ignore the hype about that little hiccup at S.B. LIV). 

Why we can't see an atomic nucleus

 kw: speculative musings, calculations, photon energies, resolution

Looking at a small, old photograph made with a Brownie box camera in about 1950, I asked my father, "Can we take a picture of this picture and blow it up real big, so it is clearer?" He said, "The grain of the film would be magnified, not the details in the original scene." A few years later, using a slightly-better-than-a-toy microscope, I designed an "expander", a device with a couple of lenses that attached above the eyepiece to enlarge the image even more. I wanted to see things at 2,000X, and the microscope was limited to 400X (which is pretty good, actually). To my surprise, while the image was indeed five times as large, no more detail was visible. It was just fuzzier.

With more time and study I learned that the maximum practical magnification of an optical microscope is 800X, for someone with normal vision. Using higher magnification (up to 1,600X is available with many higher quality microscopes) makes it a little easier to see the details that are barely visible at 800X, but doesn't bring more details into view. Why is this? It comes down to the nature of light. The basic concept is that you need a "probe" smaller than the finest detail you want to see. To see bacteria, light is good enough, but to see smaller details, something smaller is needed. An atom is 10,000 times smaller than a small bacterial cell, and atomic nuclei are 100 million times smaller. We'll go step by step.

The visible spectrum is a narrow range of wavelengths of light, and you may have read that the range is from 400 nanometers (nm) at the blue end to 700 nm at the red end. These numbers are rounded off; for most people, the deepest violet (or "bluest blue") that is visible has a wavelength near 380 nm, and the "reddest red" visible is at about 750 nm. Our color vision is most sensitive to green light with a wavelength near 555 nm. This is used to calculate the highest practical magnification of microscopes. Using a bluish (sky blue, not deep blue) filter with an optical microscope reduces the fuzziness induced by longer wavelength light: red and orange are not eliminated, but reduced, making the image a bit clearer.

Articles abound regarding the ultimate resolution of microscope (and telescope) optics. Without getting into lots of equations, we can jump to the conclusion that a practical limit for most optical systems is about equal to half the wavelength of the illumination. Thus, in visible light, objects smaller than about 277 nm, or 1/3600th of a millimeter, cannot be discerned.

A second critical factor is the resolution of the unaided eye ("naked eye"). The definition of 20/20 vision is based on optical resolution of one arcminute, or 1/60th of a degree. This is sometimes stated as the ability to see lines spaced 1/10th mm apart at "reading distance"; if you do some figuring, that means "reading distance" is about 13.5 inches or 340 mm. I just held a book where I normally do for reading and measured 14 inches, so that's about right.

The ratio of 1/3600 to 1/10 is 360. How, then, can a microscope have useful magnification as high as 800X? Most microscope objective lenses are "stand-off" lenses, which sit a little farther from the subject than the diameter of their front lens. Special lens arrangements with a front lens at least twice as large as the lens-to-subject distance, used with oil between the lens and the object, can more than double the resolution, so the effective ratio gets into the range of 720 to 800. This is adequate to see bacteria such as E. coli, which are about 1/1000 mm in diameter and 2-3 thousandths of a mm long. At 800X, they would appear 0.8 mm in diameter and around 2 mm long "at reading distance". This is as far as an optical microscope can take us.

My original question was about seeing an atomic nucleus. First let's take a step in that direction and consider seeing atoms. A typical atom has a size of one or two tenths of a nanometer. That's about 1/10,000th the size of an E. coli bacterial cell. What kind of light can see that? To see atoms we need a wavelength of a tenth of a nanometer. Or less. Less is better. What kind of light does that?

To go further, we need an equation that relates photon energy to its wavelength. The standard form of this equation is

E = hc/λ

The symbols are

• E is photon (or other particle) energy
• h is Planck's constant (an extremely small number)
• c is the speed of light (an extremely large number)
• λ is the wavelength

Combining h and c in units consistent with energy in electron-Volts and wavelength in nm, this equation simplifies to

E = 1239.8/λ, and its converse, λ=1239.8/E

For our use, we can round 1239.8 to 1240. The electron-Volt, or eV, is a useful energy unit for dealing with light and with accelerated particles, such as the electrons we will consider momentarily. We find that blue light photons at 400 nm have an energy of 3.1 eV and red light photons at 700 nm have an energy of 1.77 eV. That is enough energy to stimulate the molecules in the retina of the eye without doing damage. Shorter wavelengths, with higher energy, such as ultraviolet, are damaging, which is a good reason to wear sunglasses outside.

What is the energy of a photon with a wavelength of 0.1 nm? It is 12,400 eV, often written 12.4 KeV. These are X-rays. The trouble with X-rays is that they are very hard to focus. Fortunately, because wave-particle duality applies to matter particles as well as to photons, the electron microscope was invented. Electrons can be easily turned into a beam and focused. Over time, electron microscopes were improved to the point that atoms can now be imaged directly.

This image was made with an electron microscope using an electron energy of 300,000 eV, or a wavelength of about 0.004 nm, or 4 picometers (pm). It shows a grain boundary between two silicon crystals. A technical detail: this is not a scanning electron microscope, which relies on electrons bouncing off the subject. This is transmission electron microscopy, or TEM, with the subject cut and polished to extreme thinness. The electrons that do bounce off scatter in all directions, and also knock electrons loose from the silicon, which makes for a messy image, but electrons that pass through ("transmit") form a good image, so TEM is best for this application.

On your screen the shortest distance between atoms should appear to be a few mm. Now consider: the nuclei of these atoms are 10,000 times smaller. What kind of probe can reach inside an atom to see the nucleus?

The wavelength of the electrons in this instrument, as noted, is 4 pm, while the size of an atomic nucleus is measured in femtometers (fm); 4 pm = 4,000 fm. That's much too big. A particle with a wavelength of 1 fm has to be very energetic indeed: 1,240,000,000 eV, or 1.24 GeV (1 GeV is one billion eV). The electron microscope that made the image above cost a couple of million dollars and is five feet high. Much of that size is needed to keep the very high voltage from sparking over and shorting out! Not to mention probably killing the operator. A billion eV is like lightning; it can jump for miles! A different kind of apparatus is needed.

Scientists probe the nucleus with large particle accelerators that cost many millions, or billions, of dollars, euros, whatever. They seldom use electrons. The electron is a light particle, and boosting it to energy greater than a billion eV is hard. The maximum seems to be 50 GeV. Using heavier particles, usually protons, works better. However, as the image at the top of this post implies, smacking a really high energy particle against a nucleus knocks off all kinds of stuff. That is really not conducive to making a "photograph" of a nucleus. Big accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider in France and Switzerland have huge detectors to gather the spray of "stuff" that results from smacking nuclei really hard, with particles accelerated to extreme energies: 6.5 TeV (Trillion eV) so far (A detail: both probes and targets are accelerated, in opposite directions, so the combined collision energy is 13 TeV).

This all illustrates a critical point: The smaller the things you want to see, the more energy is needed to do so, and the more it will cost. To see really small things, right down to the level of the Planck length, which is about 1/6th of trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a meter, would require enough energy to create another Universe. I don't think it is wise to play with such energies!

Binary clock concept

 kw: ai experiments, binary time, binary clocks, art generation, simulated intelligence

Near the end of 2024 I was thinking about what clock faces would look like if a culture had a binary concept of time. That is, an 8- or 16- or 32-"hour" day, based on, for example, 32 divisions per "hour" and 32 further subdivisions. Everything based on powers of two. I decided to have several art generating programs attempt to draw a clock dial ("face") with sixteen symbols on it…with no success! Every program stuck to 12- or 24-hour format, with one exception.

This image generated by ImageFX (IFX hereafter) shows a dial with 13 items that look like jewels. Their spacing is rather uneven. Other scales around the dial have as many as 21 symbols, also not evenly spaced. If nothing else, IFX is good at producing unique symbols.

I had in mind a culture, perhaps on another planet, that had no contact with our Babylonian 24-60-60 scheme. They developed a number system based on binary digits. Perhaps their "hands" have four or eight "fingers".

I learned to think in sixteens when I had to write a lot of computer code for two different operating systems. One was based on Octal digits (0-7), and another on the much more common Hexadecimal digits (0,1,2…8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F). My colleagues and I were adept at thinking in 8's and 16's. 

Let's consider a 16-hour daytime and 16-hour nighttime. And let's use words from another language to get away from the English terms:

• The planet rotates in one nichi composed of 32 jikan.
• One jikan contains 32 bu.
• One bu contains 32 byoh.

This language has no inflections for pluralization. 32x32x32 means that one nichi is divided into 32,768 byoh. If the inhabitants are of similar size to humans, perhaps their heart beats at about the same rate. This implies a nichi that is about 40% as long as an Earth day. If this is intended to pertain to a culture on Earth, the byoh would be about 2.64 seconds.

This is another of the images IFX offered up. The outer ring has 32 symbols, spaced evenly, so perhaps this symbol set could serve for a full-nichi dial. However, the next ring in has 19 symbols. Perhaps we can posit that the planet's orbit is divided into month-like periods, let's call them tsuki, of 19 nichi each. That's unlikely in a binary-based culture. Ditto for the outer ring of 28 "petals". And I am not sure what to do with the weird spiral. Clearly, I am not going to get far using SI, at least not yet.

By the way, look carefully at the two gears below the spiral. The teeth don't mesh. IFX "knows" what gears are, and that they have something to do with clocks, but it doesn't "know" how they work.

I created a set of symbols based on numbers used in Sumerian cuneiform:

The basic set is four. Two fours stacked is 8, 4+8 = 12, and two eights are 16. However, it might be better to devise a symbol for zero (a filled circle will do; it's what the Sumerians used), so the "16" would look a lot like our "10". On the other hand, perhaps such a culture would not be ready for a 2-symbol number until after 31 (the bottom two symbols set next to each other, effectively 24+7). Then the single tall wedge followed by the circle would represent 32.

I wanted a way these could be arranged around a circular dial. When we have numeric digits on a clock, they are usually upright, but we place Roman numerals all pointing outward from the center, like the pseudo-Roman symbols in the image above. The next image is a concept of these wedge-digits arranged that way.

Making this dial with PowerPoint was easier than I thought. Right away I noticed that when you turn a shape by its handle, the angle is shown in a status line on the Format menu. 360°/16 = 22.5°, so that was easy. The lines in the diagram help line up the symbols correctly.

I let all this percolate for a month or so. Then I went back to the art generator programs and tried a different tack. After much experimentation I settled on this prompt:

A colorful circular dial with sixteen ordered symbols evenly spaced around it

A few hours of playing around yielded lots of interesting images. I'll present 27 of them, from five programs, with a bit of discussion after each set of nine.

These are three each from three programs: Gemini, Dall-E3, and DreamStudio. The prompt for the first Gemini image left out the words "colorful" and "ordered", and "colorful" was added for the other two. Out of a large number of offerings, only the first two had sixteen items, although they are numbers and have repetition. The third is admirably wonky, but nothing like a clock dial, though the outer ring does have twelve items. All other images were produced using the full prompt.

Dall-E3 produced one dial with 20 symbols in the outer ring, and 12 in the inner rings; a dial with 24 symbols plus four knifelike items intervening and an inner ring of 24; and the third image goes off the rails in a big way. If DE3 were to produce a 16-member ring, it would be purely by chance!

DreamStudio went farther off the rails than that, and stayed there. Some of the rings in these images can be counted, and some, not so much. None is 16, and some have an odd number of symbols. Another set:

These were all produced by Leonardo AI, in various Styles. In the top row we have a dial with several sets of 12 items, primarily Roman numerals, secondly a dial with a main ring of 24 symbols, a mixture of Romanesque and "various", and lastly a dial that indeed has 16 symbols of alternating sizes (I like that!), while its inner ring has eight divisions.

In the middle row we first have a ring of 12 larger symbols, then a ring of 16 (Yay!); then a dial with two rings of 14; and the third dial also has 16, with the whole business offset by a half step, or 11.25°.

The bottom row starts with a dial that looks like needlework, and has 16 items. The second dial has an outer ring of 19 symbols, a narrow ring of 18 digits and digit-like symbols, then a compass-rose-like dial with 12 divisions. The last dial has 16 rather complicated symbols, and all the rings within it are also sets of 16. Now we're getting somewhere! Now the final set:

These were all produced by ImageFX. Most of these are easier to count, and several achieved at least one 16-symbol dial. At upper left, the counts are 16 and 10; next to it, they are 15, 9, and 6; and the "rainbow dial" has 16 and 16 only. Another great result.

In the second row we first have a dial with 14 symbols, a narrow ring of such variety I can't determine how to count it, and an inner ring of 8 symbols; secondly an oblique view of a dial with 15 symbols and an inner ring of 7 or 8, unevenly spaced; and thirdly a dial with 16 symbols, a narrow ring of 16 small symbols (maybe pronunciations?), and a narrower uncountable ring of many symbols.

The bottom row starts with an oblique view of a dial with 19 symbols and an inner ring of 12 divisions with barely visible symbols; then a dial with 16 symbols, a narrow ring of 16 numbers (in no particular order but all have 2 digits), a ring with numerous "words", then a very small ring of alternating colors totaling 16 symbols; and finally a dial with 16 symbols, and several rings with eight members each. This one could also prove useful.

Experiments like this show how the training sets of the SI programs affect the images they produce. Getting away from the notion of "clock" made it possible for a couple of the programs to generate images that could be useful to illustrate a clock for binary timekeeping. We get the most interesting results when we explore the edges of such software's capabilities.

Techniques of wallpaper generation

 kw: instruction, ai art, upscaling, wallpaper, screen shows

Introduction

I am a collector. One type of collection is sets of images that make good screen wallpaper. My folders of screen wallpaper images includes masses of flowers, mineral crystals (particularly in masses), selections from Hubble and JWST astrophotographs, waterfall photos, and landscape paintings. Now that I've been experimenting with art generation using various SI (Simulated Intelligence) programs, I have a growing body of work in several genres.

My computer setup has two screens with resolutions of 1920x1080, or standard HD. Anticipating that sometime in the future I may transition to one or two 4K screens (3840x2160 or UHD), when I encounter an image that size or larger I don't reduce its size, but keep it for the future. However, I usually reshape an image by cropping it to a 16:9 aspect ratio. I use the "screen saver" program gPhotoshow to cycle through one or more folders of images I want to display during idle time.

This post is in two parts. Firstly I discuss the production of an image of appropriate size and aspect ratio, beginning with the seven image sizes produced by the five programs I have been using. Secondly I explain how I sign an image to give credit to myself and the program that I used, especially matching the signature size with the image size.

Image Sizes and How to Treat Them

This is a reduced version of an image I produced in my "Troglodyte" series. A troglodyte is a cave dweller. I call my basement library-and-computer-room my Man Cave, though most men who have such a space use it for watching sports. I decided to play with the idea of having an office in a real cave. Eventually I produced more than ten rooms, as though I owned a cave large enough to convert into a sort of mansion, which was dry enough that my furnishings would not mildew.

I was also experimenting with lengthy prompts for this project, but that is less critical just now. I used Leonardo AI, with the style Leonardo Lightning and substyle Creative, and Aspect Ratio set to 16:9, to produce images sized 1368x768 pixels. It didn't take long to find that the ratio was off a bit: 57:32. What's going on?

All art generating programs produce images that are made up of square blocks. In this case, the blocks are 24x24. There are a few ways to get 16:9, or 1.77777…, from 57:32, or 1.78125. However, I am a purist, so I want the vertical dimension to be a multiple of 9, and better yet, I decided to restrict images to multiples of 18 pixels high, and thus, also having horizontal dimension the same multiple of 32.

Considerations Regarding File Locations and Naming

Whatever program I use, when I download the image, it is put in the Downloads folder. Thereafter I do any work on the file, which may be several steps through intermediate files, in the Downloads area. Sometimes I use folders under Downloads to keep things organized.

Whichever program I use, right after I download it I rename the file. I have two ways depending on the length of the prompt.

Short Prompts (less than ~120 characters)

From a recent project: 

IFX 250203-08 Two naturalists and two medium-sized dinosaurs sitting together at a table having tea and croissants, digital art

This image was produced by ImageFX on the date shown (a few days ago), and is the 8th image I made that day using ImageFX. This prompt is 113 characters, a bit longer than usual, but it doesn't make the file name overflow the namespace in the disk's file system.

Long Prompts

I keep a file of long prompts, dated and labeled. The image above has the file name Leo 241108-03 LLightning Creative Prompt 241108-02, Cave Office

This was produced by Leonardo AI using Leonardo Lightning style and Creative substyle; the rest of the file name identifies the prompt.

If I have just one or two files I'm working on, I do so individually. Otherwise I use batch mode.

Convert Files as Needed

All but one of the programs I use produces files that are smaller than 1920x1080. Gemini produces only square images 2048x2048. I'll show how to deal with that later. For all the others I use Upscayl to make the image larger and sharpen it.

One caveat with Upscayl: although it will make a valiant effort with a PNG image, the resulting image is monochrome (gray), so I first convert PNG files to JPG, for which I use IrfanView, also in batch mode if I have more than two images. Furthermore, image files produced by ImageFX have a JPG extension, but they are PNG files. I open them one at a time using IrfanView (it can quickly skip from file to file, so this isn't too time consuming). Before opening a file it asks if I want the extension corrected. I click "Yes" and continue. Then you are ready to convert these to JPG.

DreamStudio also produces PNG files. They need to be converted. The following image shows the IrfanView batch edit screen:

Here are the steps:

• Select Batch Conversion at top left
• Select JPG as the output format
• Select the output folder at middle left (I already made a folder named OutPix under Downloads). Next column:
• Select the input folder at top right (I already put all the files to be converted into a folder named PNGPix under Downloads).
• Select PNG as the input format (file type).
• Highlight all the files and click "Add".
• Click Start Batch at lower left.

This will convert the files and put them in the folder OutPix, ready for upscaling.

Upscaling

For upscaling an image by 2x, 3x, or 4x I use Upscayl. It has several upscaling models. I usually use FAST REAL-ESRGAN, which takes about ten seconds to convert a ~1K image on my computer. When I want ultimate quality from a highly detailed image, I use REMACRI, which takes about two minutes per image. Upscayl has a batch mode, which works on a folder at a time. 

This is the screen that appears when you set Upscayl to batch mode:

Here are the steps:

• Step 1, I put the files to upscale into a folder called OutPix that is in the Downloads folder, as noted above. This would include files from programs that produced JPG natively.
• Step 2, select the model and ratio (2X in this case)
• Step 3, I choose the Downloads folder. I work in the Downloads folder because files there don't get backed up to OneDrive. That lets me work and then clean up, followed by putting the files I plan to keep in their final folder(s) later.
• Step 4, click Upscayl to start the process. 

For the 14 files shown, this model ran a little more than two minutes. Had I used REMACRI, I could go get a snack: it would take half an hour.

Image Sizes in Each Program

IrfanView has a wonderful item in its Edit menu: "Create maximized selection (ratio:)" with a caret off to the right. Click that to see available ratios. You can add any ratio you like by using the prior Edit menu item: "Create custom selection...". 

If you have an image, for example, 1920x1200, that you want to crop to 1920x1080 (and there is headroom or footroom to do so), you can click this option, then the caret, then the 16:9 item, and cut lines will appear. You can use the up or down arrows on the keyboard to slide the selection, then CTRL/Y to crop the image. Save with a new name.

Dall-E3

1024x1024 → 1792x1024 (1.75:1=7:4). You initially get four square images. Click an image to work with it. There is a button "Resize" with a "4:3" option. It actually produces an image close to 16:9 but not quite. The image is similar to the square one, but not the same, and it can be quite different.

Process: Upscale by 2X to 3584x2048, then crop to 3584x2016.

DreamStudio

There are two Stable Diffusion models. In either case, there is a setting to modify the pixel count. Only DreamStudio can do this at present.

• Stable Diffusion v1.6 with 16:9 selected sets the size to 910x512 (1.7773:1=455:256); reset to 896x504, which is (16x9) times 56. Then upscale 3x to 2688x1512.
• Stable Diffusion XL v1.0 with 16:9 selected sets the size to 1344x768 (1.75:1=7:4); reset to 1344x756, which is (16x9) times 84. Then upscale 2x to 2688x1512.

Gemini

2048x2048. Negotiate by asking for "wide format" and possibly tinkering with the prompt until there is sufficient headroom and/or footroom to crop to 2048x1152, which is (16x9) times 128. No upscaling is needed.

ImageFX

1408x768 (1.833:1=33:18). Upscale 2x to 2816x1536, and then in IrvanView use the Resize function to get 2805x1530 and (using the Edit subfunction) crop to 2720x1530, which is (16x9) times 170.

Leonardo AI

At least one style mode produces a larger size.

• Most styles produce 1368x768 (1.78125:1=57:32). Upscale 2x to 2736x1536, resize to 2725x1530, crop to 2720x1530.
• Leonardo Phoenix produces 1472x832 (1.769:1=23:13). Upscale 2x to 2944x1664, and then crop to 2944x1656, which is (16x9) times 184.

There are some other methods one can use. For example, for a Dall-E3 image that is 1792x1024, you could use the Resize function in IrfanView to produce 1920x1097, and then crop it to 1920x1080. The Resize is only by 7%, so it produces an image with a good appearance. You can also crop out a 1920x1080 image from a Gemini image. A lot depends on the image you are working with.

Signing the Image

Style of Signature that I use

Having several different image sizes, it's a bit tricky to add a signature to an artwork that is of a consistent size. I like to use a signature in two or three parts. The more usual two part signature, using my first two initials plus last name, is like this:

OK Myname / Dall-E3 2025

For an image I produced this year using Dall-E3. I use abbreviations for the others:

• DreamS = DreamStudio
• Gem = Gemini
• IFX = ImageFX
• Leo = Leonardo AI

Sometimes an image is part of a series, such as the Cave (Troglodyte) series. Then I'll use a 3-part signature on two lines, such as:

OK Myname / Dall-E3 2025
Cave Master Bedroom

I set the second line to a smaller type size, typically about 0.7 of the first line.

Size and Placement

Most images have an area near lower left or lower right where a signature can be placed. I use the Paint dialog (F12 key) and select the "A" for text input. The cursor becomes a little plus that shows where the lower left corner of the first line is to go. Using a signature on the right is harder because it's often hard to tell how long the text is going to be. 

The greatly differing image sizes mean it is best to use corresponding type sizes. After some experimentation, I settled on using this basis: 14 points for an image 1988 pixels wide, which is suitable for images with horizontal dimensions from 1920 to 2194. This grows to 28 points for the range 3840 to 4114. This table shows the sizes I use:

This is a picture because tables are hard to produce in Blogger. The Paint/text tool's list of type sizes is all even numbers, but you can type in an odd number. All I can say is, experiment with it to find out a procedure that you like, or can live with.

Color

I looked at paintings by several artists. Some use a black signature, but many use a color from elsewhere in the painting that contrasts with the area of the signature. I like this method. The Paint tool has plenty of flexibility in this regard.

Font

Many years ago I designed a few fonts for a project. One of these is a strongly-weighted Sans Serif font that I like, so that's what I use. The Paint/text menu lets you select any installed font.

This isn't wholly comprehensive, but I hope it is enough to get you started turning generated art projects into wallpaper for your computer screen(s). Also, whatever art you produce, if it's for the public to see, signing it is a good idea.

Complexity of science or science of complexity

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, science, scientists, scientific method, complex systems

The opening salvo in Dr Giorgio Parisi's book In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonders of Complex Systems is the story of how he and his colleagues studied starling murmurations.

When I lived in Oklahoma I would see these amazing formations in the sky in late summer and fall. A flock like this can have tens of thousands of birds, that swoop about like parts of a sky-borne animal. The author's team used multiple synchronized cameras shooting frequent images, which allowed them to identify individual birds and their relationships in three dimensions. As time passed and cameras became better and faster, their work became more and more precise.

Starlings don't flock like other birds such as sparrows, as shown here, nor do they use "V" formations like geese. Analyzing the starlings' flights in detail showed that each bird keeps track of only a few nearest neighbors, with two surprising characteristics: Firstly, the distance between near neighbors fore-and-aft is quite a bit greater than side-to-side, and secondly, a section of the flock is denser near the boundary than in the middle. These attributes seem to be driven by the tension between maintaining sufficient confusion to avoid predators such as falcons, and the need to avoid bumping into one another. Changes of speed and direction seem to ripple through parts of a murmuration like a "wave" through a football stadium, although with less overall coordination.

The author's work is in the general realm of the mathematics of theoretical physics as applied to complex systems. In the book many mathematical concepts and operations are discussed, somehow without the need to print a single equation. His aim is to show aspects of how science is done via stories about his own work, including the work that earned him a Nobel Prize in 2021. Two chapters of the book focus on phase transitions and transitions between order and disorder. If you think about it, these are two ways to understand the same thing. The phase transitions familiar to us, such as water either freezing or boiling, are brought about as, in the case of freezing, disorder gives way to order, and in the case of boiling, one style of disorder gives way to another. A less-recognized but common transition is sublimation, in which ice evaporates directly without passing through a liquid phase. But there are also transitions between one kind of order and another, such as the conversion of graphite to diamond, or the arcane transitions found by laboratory studies of at least ten crystal structures of ice, each of which is stable in a particular range of pressures and temperatures.

While the scientific stories are fascinating, I confess that, though I am a scientist also, and familiar with mathematical physics, Dr. Parisi lives on a very different level, and I struggled to understand the mathematical concepts he discusses. The chapter on spin glasses (a concept relating to the orientation of electrons in a solid material) was a complete mystery to me. However, I could just relax and take in whatever was meaningful, and that was satisfactory. He follows that chapter with one on metaphor and its limits, which is quite comprehensible because we live lives of metaphor. Metaphors and other similitudes let us model a phenomenon, which allows us to gradually build an understanding of what is going on.

The author's aim is to foster a greater understanding of science and how it operates, and to increase public trust in science, which has been so badly eroded in recent years. I hope he understands that the problem is not with science itself, but with dishonest scientists such as the very public figure who proclaimed, "I am Science!", and thus deeply offended the great majority of Americans who could tell he had been lying to us for years. I must also point out that anyone who says something is "settled science" displays a fundamental and deep misunderstanding of science. Perhaps you've heard the saying: "Half of all medical 'knowledge' is shown to be false about every ten years. The trouble is, we never can tell which half beforehand."

This is true. I have a small journal of medical mistakes I have suffered, one of which had me at death's door until I wrested control of my medical care from a mistaken doctor and "jumped over some fences" to get appropriate treatment. Medical science is admittedly at a level of complexity far beyond the "complex systems" studied by a physicist, but the principle is similar. In the next-to-last chapter in particular we read how an incorrect metaphor often leads a scientist to revise and develop a better metaphor, over and over, until the model and the system correspond, and you can say, "Now I understand this system." The stuff that is interesting in science is where we don't yet have full understanding, and still find things that make us say, "That's funny…"

Science is a human enterprise. It is saved from disaster and banality by the self-correcting nature of the process. The backing-and-forthing that goes on can be frustrating, but we haven't produced anything better. It is extremely unlikely that a better process is possible, no matter now much smarter we get, or how smart our so-called-AI (I prefer to say SI for "simulated intelligence") systems become.