July 2024 – Brock at Cliff Cottage

2024-07-272024-07-25

Health and Safety Stewardship

This weblog post is about domestic health and safety stewardship. Definitions: Steward = a person who acts on behalf of others, often by managing property or financial affairs. Unions often have stewards, who ensure that the rights of their members are respected. Stewardship = the responsible overseeing and protection of something considered worth caring for.

Cliff Cottage has two self-appointed heath and safety stewards. Trish, the other resident, has her area of expertise, that includes foodstuffs. My area of competence is related to technical issues.

People spend a lot of time in (and around) their residences. Thus, it is important that some form of health and safety stewardship be incorporated into domestic living arrangements. One of the first areas where this was implemented involved smoke/ fire alarms/ detectors.

Being a steward involves three areas of responsibility: education, hazard identification and compliance = action!

Education

In terms of education, the main job is to keep people informed. The most important characteristic a person can have is situation awareness: an understanding of the environment in which they are working (or living), the elements that make it up, and how it changes with respect to time and other factors. Other factors could include food acquisition and preparation, fire and/ or war. Situation awareness is important for effective decision making.

Situation awareness

In Mica Endsley’s (ca. 1961 – )cognitive model of situation awareness, there are three levels. Level 1 = Perception of the status, attributes and dynamics of relevant elements in the environment. This is the most basic level that involves monitoring, cue detection and simple recognition, which lead to an awareness of multiple situational elements (objects, events, people, systems, environmental factors) and their current states (locations, conditions, modes, actions).

Level 2 = Comprehension involves constructing a synthesis of level 1 elements through the processes of pattern recognition, interpretation and evaluation. This requires integrating information to understand how it will impact individual objectives. At this level people are expected to have a comprehensive picture of the world, or at least of that portion of the world of concern to them.

Level 3 = Projection involves the ability to project future actions of the elements in the environment. This is achieved through knowledge of the status and dynamics of the elements and comprehension of the situation, and then extrapolating this information forward in time to determine how it will affect future states of the operational environment.

Most of the time it means searching sources for specific information. For example, about fire detection. Source materials are often written information/ documentation or videos. Another person in the family is an expert at using podcasts, so I might consult with him about resources. A good place to begin is Wikipedia. I regularly receive useful information from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, part of its Ministry of Defence. It is much better than the information provided by the Norwegian equivalent. My son, Alasdair, recommends the equivalent Finnish agency.

Once a person is aware of their situation, the next step is to obtain and organize information, so that it can be accessed when needed. While some information can be pushed onto people, encouraging people to pull information, empowers them. Communication works better on a want to know basis. The worst crime one can commit is overburdening people with low priority (read: useless) information. I am sure (minimum 95% certainty) that Trish, will never undertake welding, so I do not communicate anything on that topic to her. Information on that topic is available, should she (or anyone else) for any reason want to examine it.

People vary in their receptivity to written or spoken communication. Thus, while I have written documents available, I can also present the information in the form of informal conversations if that is preferred.

Below are check lists. All points listed below apply to workplaces. Those marked with * are for households/ families.

Health and safety check-list.

*Keep a list of the terms and expressions used to express safety and health issues, with definitions. Ensure people know where this list is kept.
*Post health and safety information on household/ workplace bulletin boards and/or publish it so that everyone is informed about situations that could affect them.
*Research health and safety information. This will usually involve the internet. Bookmark sites that are of interest. I have made an edited bookmark title, Safety. Share the bookmarked list.
Educate co-workers/ family members about:
- *Resources for resolving safety and health problems. In companies, this is usually the name and contact information for stewards and safety & health committee members.
- *The location of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) and other health and safety information.
- Rights and responsibilities related to occupational safety and health, including legislation and employment contracts.
- The importance of reporting all injuries and illnesses.
- The importance of reporting early signs and symptoms of illnesses such as sore hands, wrists and shoulders.
- The negative effects of safety programs that blame workers when they get hurt and discourage reporting of injuries and illnesses.
Educate others about:
- *Safety and health hazards in the workplace/ house.
- *Ways to improve conditions and re-design jobs.

Identify hazards

*Conduct walk-arounds to identify hazards.
*Survey co-workers/ family members.
*Report hazards to management/ parent.
Monitor management’s response to correcting hazards.
Request and analyze safety and health-related records.
Conduct union investigations of safety and health incidents.

Currently we conduct walk-arounds irregularly. One of the latest involved the downstair’s bathroom, with its top opening window. The window now allows the opening mechanism to be disengaged so that the window can open fully. It is then possible to climb from the toilet seat to the washing machine and out the window. This means that the window does not have to be broken and the glass removed. However, it also requires that detailed instructions are posted so that everyone understands the new procedures. This will be done once I have returned from Newfoundland.

Act!

Hold health and safety educational meetings.
Develop ideas for future health and safety issues.
*Use safety equipment!

Food

Norway’s border with Russia is almost 200 km long. It is minuscule to the 1 300 km border between Finland and Russia. In 2024, for the first time in 20 years, Norway has decided to store grains in the case of an emergency. A three month supply will be kept at all times. This is half the minimum requirement experts have said should be stored. This means that individuals and families will have to take some responsibility for food storage.

The emergency many people think of is war, possibly even a nuclear attack. The problem for Russia is that the prevailing winds blow from west to east meaning that the radiation from any attack could soon end up in Russia. Prevailing winds do not always help. When the Chernobyl disaster occurred 1986-04-26, one of the places most damaged by radiation was in Snåsa, Trøndelag, Norway, about 100 km north of Cliff Cottage. Snåsa is about 2 500 km north west of Chernobyl.

When the kitchen was remodelled in the 2020s, 1.6 m³ = 1 600 litres of additional space was added for food and general storage. This is in addition to the 0.9 m³ = 900 litres of long-term food storage, that was added with the construction of a pantry ca. 2000.

In a crisis situation, the supply of water could be a problem. We rely on municipal water that has been chemically treated. Electricity is needed for the purification process. Gravity is used to distribute the water. At Cliff Cottage, we have a stream about 200 m from our house that does offer a supply of water. In both cases it could be necessary to boil the water.

We are also dependent on electricity for storage and cooking of food. Much of our food is frozen or refrigerated. We use a microwave oven, electric oven and an induction cooktop to cook meals. I am considering a 320 mm diameter Kamado grill as a backup system for cooking food. One of our neighbours has a wood burning oven suitable for baking bread.

Another problem with food storage is rotation. Food should be used before its best by date. Admittedly, it is better to eat stale food, than no food.

Fire safety

A 1.2 m x 1.2 m fire blanket, attached to the pantry wall.

If we should experience a fire, it is quite likely that Cliff Cottage will burn to the ground, before any fire services could reach it. The closest fire trucks are in Straumen, 13 km away. They are crewed by volunteers, who live within five minutes of the fire hall. That equates to a 20 minute delay. A lot can happen with a raging fire in that time.

The first point of situation awareness is to be aware of the general situation being faced, then to know the human resources available, and if there are two or more people available, to divide the work between them.

Perhaps the first thing that has to be done when facing a fire is to contact the fire service. I know that this will be my responsibility, because Trish has a hearing disability the precludes using a telephone, except in exceptional cases. In Norway, we have many different emergency numbers, including: 110 (fire), 112 (police), 113 (ambulance/medical emergencies) and 1412 (text phone = emergencies for people with hearing disabilities). These are the equivalent of 911 in North America. This is important because the 20-minute delay only starts once the fire authorities have been contacted. Wikipedia provides a list of emergency numbers for everywhere on planet earth.

A second decision involves evacuation vs putting effort to put into fire fighting. If we decide to fight a fire, it means having knowledge about our options: fire blankets, fire extinguishers and hoses. Thus, we have to know where all of these are kept, and how to use them.

We have two fire extinguishers, one on the main floor and one on the lower level. The workshop also has two fire extinguishers, one near the entrance, and one at the innermost point. These have an acquisition date label on them. They are turned annually, so that the powder doesn’t clump. They are also recycled at ten year intervals. We have two fire blankets, one on the main level of the house, and one in the workshop.

It is also important to know when to give up. It may not be possible to extinguish a fire, and the best option is to leave the burning building. My gut feeling is that if a fire cannot be contained within five minutes, the building will have to be evacuated.

In terms of basic information, Wikipedia is a good source. However, there is no time to look up basic information once a fire has started. This information has to be digested in advance. For example, here is the Wikipedia article about smoke detectors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_detector

In Norway, fire safety day is 12-01 = December 01. It is the official date to change smoke detector batteries. Previously, a supply of 9 V batteries would be acquired and the batteries changed. Currently, we use smoke detectors that include a ten-year battery. We have ten of them: five on the lower entry level, and five on the upper level where we spend most of our time. We have the date of purchase and installation recorded, so that we know when the ten years ends. At that time, the smoke detector will be removed from service, and a new one installed. On fire safety day, all of the smoke detectors are inspected. So far, after 35 years, we have not had any issues, apart from short false positive alarms, often caused by steam.

It has been pointed out in American statistics, that the use of smoke detectors can reduce loss of life due to fire by 50%.

We have an evacuation plan for every room of the house. At one time, the most problematic room to escape from was the kitchen. It was located on the upper floor with a minimum 3m drop to the lawn below. That was because the narrow balcony on the west side of the house, did not extend to the kitchen, but stopped at the boundary between living room and kitchen. This was changed in 2017. Now, people can exit the kitchen through either of two opening windows onto a balcony that is at the same level as the kitchen floor. Outside stairs can take a person down to ground-floor level.

Another problematic room to escape from is the downstairs bathroom. It would require an escape through a top-opening window. A hammer and a glove are kept there to break and remove glass.

During the winter half of the year, outdoor taps are closed, so that using a garden hose to suppress a fire would require those taps to be turned on. This is done from the same room that houses the hot water heater, about as far from a outside door as possible.

Notes: Russian land border lengths. Total 22 407 km of land borders with 14 countries: Azerbaijan 338 km; Belarus 1 312 km; China (southeast) 4 133 km and China (south) 46 km; Estonia 324 km; Finland 1 309 km; Georgia 894 km; Kazakhstan 7 644 km (It is the longest continuous international border in the world and the second longest by total length, after the Canada–United States border that includes boundaries in the Great Lakes, Atlantic and Pacific coasts. It is 8 891 km long. The land border has two sections: Canada‘s border with the contiguous United States to its south, and with the U.S. state of Alaska to its west; North Korea 18 km; Latvia 332 km; Lithuania (Kaliningrad Oblast) 261 km; Mongolia 3 452 km; Norway 191 km; Poland (Kaliningrad Oblast) 209 km; Ukraine 1 944 km. There are also sea borders with Japan and USA.

2024-07-202024-07-20

Paxster

Paxster’s website begins with a boast: The best-selling Norwegian vehicle of all time! Production figures show this to be about 3 000 vehicles produced.

Paxster is a last mile delivery vehicle, from a transportation hub to a final household destination. In Norway, last mile implies that the vehicle can withstand rough road and weather conditions. Think ice and snow, respectively.

Paxster began as a side-project within Loyds, a supplier of vehicle equipment (but not vehicles) for Norway Post = Posten Norge = the Norwegian post office. It had its facilities in Sarpsborg, a municipality in south-east Norway that has grown into Fredrikstad. When the post office announced some ambitious environmental goals, Loyds started to map how post office vehicles worked. Together they found several challenges about the solutions offered. Some were inefficient, some unprofitable, some both and some neither. They ultimately (in 2013) got approval to work on defining the best ergonomic solutions, together with post-office drivers.

After a few months, the first prototype was ready to test, and adapt, to become a future delivery vehicle for mail, parcels and newspapers.

Bård Eker (1961 – ) through his wholly owned company, Eker Design, designed the vehicle and led to it winning awards for good design. In the autumn of 2013 Paxster was put into production for the Norwegian market.

On July 1st 2015 Paxster was transferred to a separate Aktieselskap (AS) = limited liability company. Since then, Paxsters have been sold in several countries around the world. Paxster claims to be constantly working to develop vehicles to be the best in class when it comes to efficiency, ergonomics and safety.

New Zealand

In 2016, Paxster expanded to New Zealand. New Zealand Post begun rolling out 54 Paxster electric-delivery vehicles in the North Shore district of Auckland as well as the southern town of Oamaru. New Zealand Post has been given permission to use the vehicles on the sidewalks/ footpaths (preferred term in New Zealand) in residential neighborhoods. It was noted that New Zealand Post drivers received safety training, and they are required to give way to all other footpath users.

The fleet grew to 423 in 2018. Initially there were complaints to NZ Post about Paxsters, peaking at 31 in 2018-07. Paxsters were: damaging the grass berm = a narrow ledge or shelf of grass along the top or bottom of a slope, reversing into other vehicles, driving at alleged excessive speed on the footpath.

There were 249 crashes in total with the majority involving a Paxster hitting or being hit by a vehicle or object in 2018, up from 82 in 2017. The number of injuries to posties more than doubled from 36 in 2017 to 80 in 2018. Two of these injuries in 2018 were serious and required professional medical treatment, but the severity of the injuries was less than those in bicycles. A spokesperson stated there were declining costs associated with injuries since the introduction of Paxsters. Compared to bicycles, there were less severe injuries, attributed to the stability of a four wheel vehicle, more efficient braking, greater visibility and more robust protection.

The New Zealand postal union also commented that when the post office introduced the new vehicles they immediately introduced a new roster. Posties on bikes used to work about six hours a day. New rotating shifts for the Paxsters demanded nine-hour days. This increased driver fatigue. New modes of driving on the footpath, and a need to make very quick decisions, contributed to an increase in injuries. Many posties enjoy driving Paxsters but dozens quit when the e-vehicles were introduced. Most of these were long-serving, who preferred to ride a bicycle and felt safer on one. While posties were concerned about the number of injuries, but were more worried about the damage they could do if children sprung out of driveways unexpectedly.

Meanwhile in other parts of Europe…

Later, test vehicles were supplied to the Royal Mail in the United Kingdom, as well as Swedish and German last mile delivery companies. Use of test vehicles have shown that injuries are less severe than when using a bicycle.

… and now the difficult part, translating the description into English. From left to right starting at the top. 1) A large storage box that will take 12 post cassettes (Optional). The rear hatch has gas dampers. 2) Software package/ part of option card II with display, battery indicator, switches and signal lamps. 3) Low windscreen in plexiglass. 4) Large mirror. Seat that is rounded at the front, allows better on and off movements. Integrated space for a front carrier. 1 front light in the middle. Lockable side storage compartment. The space at the bask is for an extra battery (get home package) at an additional price. Large wheels 135(70 R 13 = 52 cm diameter, on steel or aluminum wheels. Sotware package/ Option card 1 with anti-spin and an electronic differential lock. Anvanced and improved cable system from the regulator to the display/ option card 2.

No, not all Paxster vehicles are red. Many companies choose white. Here is a vehicle for DHL in yellow, admittedly with a red logo. A mural of a freight cycle is painted on the wall behind.

History of Automobile Production in Norway

In terms of ICE vehicles: Norsk produced 10 vehicles between 1908 and 1911: a lighter car with a single-cylinder 8 hp engine and a heavier touring car with 4-cylinder engine. Bjering in Gjøvik produced six ICE vehicles between 1920 and 1925. Geijer was even more productive brand and produced about 25 vehicles between 1923 and 1930. Troll made five 2+2 sports cars with a fibreglass body from 1956 to 1958.

In terms of Electric vehicles: About 2 500 Th¡nk cars were produced from 1991 to 2011. There were about 1 500 Kewet (later renamed Buddy) vehicles produced in Økern, Norway, Hadsund, Denmark and Nordhausen, Germany between 2005 and 2013. It is difficult to find out how many were produced where. Of those, 1 087 were registered in Norway.

Some one-off prototypes have also been produced. The one with the most publicity was made by Aetek, a Norwegian company, with the backing of Statoil, now Equinor, the Norwegian government oil company. The FYK, was a Norwegian sports car prototype launched in 2006. It runs on a mixture of hydrogen and natural gas. It was designed as a technology demonstrator, without any plans to put it into series production.

Note: Work began on this post 2021/08/21 at 12:00.

2024-07-112024-06-06

Gary Kildall: A tidbit

This is an Amstrad NC200 notebook computer from 1993, with a Z80 processor, 128kB of RAM and a 16MB CF card being used as a flash drive. It is running an open source CP/M distribution. Photo from Hjalfi, 2020.

Originally, this post was started to commemorate the release of the first operating system for microprocessors, CP/M. My best guess for its release date is 1974-04-25. Many sources state april, but are hesitant to specify the exact date. The person responsible for its development was Gary Kildall (1942 – 1994). This weblog post is published on the thirtieth anniversary of Kildall’s death, rather than the 50th anniversary of the first CP/M release.

Kildall has his origins in Seattle, Washington. His grandfather was a Norwegian immigrant, who ran a navigation school. Kildal is the name of a farm at Hægeland, Vest-Agder, in the south of Norway. His maternal ancestors had their roots in Långbäck, Skellefteå, Sweden before his maternal grandmother Sophia Lundmark emigrated to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His mother then immigrated to Seattle.

Kildall was awarded a doctorate in computer science from the University of Washington in 1972. He then worked as a computer science instructor at the at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. This was to fulfill his military conscription obligations, since the US was still engaged in the Vietnam war.

Later that year, to learn more about processors, Kildall bought an Intel 4004 processor and began writing experimental programs for it. Intel lent him 8008 and 8080 processor systems. In 1973, Kildall developed the first high-level programming language for microprocessors, called PL/M = Programming language for microcomputers. It incorporated ideas from: PL/I = Programming language one, developed at IBM starting in 1964; ALGOL = Algorithmic language, originally from 1958; and XPL = expert’s programming language, from 1967.

One of the first software projects Kildall worked on, with Ben Cooper, was the Astrology Machine. It is generally regarded as unsuccessful, but gave Kildall an opportunity to field test programs he had written: a debugger, an assembler, part of an editor, and a Basic interpreter that he used to program.

In 1974, Kildall developed CP/M = Control Program/Monitor (originally)/ Control Program for Microcomputers (later). Intergalactic Digital Research (originally) /Digital Research, Inc. (DRI, later) was established by Kildall and his wife Dorothy McEwen (1943 – 2005) to market CP/M.

In 1975, Kildall developed a set of BIOS = Basic input/ output system routines, firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the boot process = power-on startup. BIOS initially allowed 8080 and compatible microprocessor-based computers to run the same operating system on any new hardware with trivial modifications. Later different BIOS applications were made for other computer families.

A source-to-source translator = source-to-source compiler (S2S compiler) = transcompiler = transpiler, is a type of translator that takes the source code of a program written in a programming language as its input and produces an equivalent source code in the same or a different programming language. In 1981, DRI introduced one of these, calling it a binary recompiler. XLT86 was written by Kildall. It translated .ASM source code for the Intel 8080 processor (in a format compatible with ASM, MAC or RMAC assemblers) into .A86 source code for the 8086 (compatible with ASM86).

Kildal initiated the creation of the first diskette track buffering schemes, read-ahead algorithms, file directory caches, and RAM drive emulators.

At this point it becomes difficult to separate Kildall’s role as innovator/ inventor and that as initiator/ project manager/ executive, where other engineers at DRI and elsewhere made significant technical contributions.

For example, Tom Rolander made most of the developmental inputs to CP/M starting in 1979, that later resulting in these operating systems added preemptive multitasking and windowing capabilities as well as menu-driven user interfaces. These are found on: Multi-Programming Monitor Control Program (MP/M), Concurrent CP/M, Concurrent DOS and DOS Plus.

In 1984, DRI started development Graphics Environment Manager (GEM), known primarily as the native graphical user interface of the Atari ST series of computers, providing a desktop with windows, icons, menus and pointers (WIMP). This was an outgrowth of a more general-purpose graphics library known as Graphics System Extension (GSX), written by a team led by Don Heiskell since about 1982. Another major contributor was Lee Jay Lorenzen at Graphic Software Systems.

Kildall and Rolander founded Activenture in 1984. They created the first computer interface for video disks to allow automatic nonlinear playback, presaging today’s interactive multimedia. This company became KnowledgeSet in 1985, which developed the file system and data structures for the first consumer CD-ROM, an encyclopedia for Grolier.

2024-07-062024-07-06

Ello

Suddently, without warning, my favourite social media site, Ello, disappeared 2023-06-22. It seemed to sputter back to life at one point, then died sometime in 2023-07, while I was in Iceland, one year ago. Here was the last, unhelpful, message:

Ello was an online social networking service = social media site, created by bicycle entrepreneur Paul Budnitz (1967 – ) and Todd Berger (? – ) of graphic designers Berger & Föhr. In 2014-01, FreshTracks Capital provided $435 000 of seed funding. Ello launched on 2014-03-19. Originally it was a private social network of and for seven artists and programmers. By 2014-04-03, the site started to allow the public to participate, initially by invitation only.

The launch included a manifesto that promised never to sell user data, proclaiming: You Are Not a Product. It never showing advertisements, and avoided a real-name policy. All of these contrasted with Facebook. For example, in 2014-09, numerous members of the LGBTQ community left Facebook following the controversial enforcement of its real-name policy. Many came to Ello. At its peak, Ello processing 30 000 signup requests/ hour, 20% remaining active one week after registration.

In 2014-10, Ello reorganized itself as a benefit corporation and raised a further $5.5 million in venture capital. The user base of Ello were primarily artists and other creative people. The great mystery of Ello, was how it survived economically, once the capital was used up. Yes, there were Ello T-shirts available through Threadless. In 2018, the original owners bailed out, when Talenthouse acquired Ello for an undisclosed amount.

After registering in 2015, I found it useful to find photographs from greater Vancouver. For example: Rosalina Gomes, provided photographs of New Westminster, including one posted at the beginning of this post; David Miller, recreated logos for iconic companies, such as White Spot, as well as highways, such as the Yellowhead; Andrew Sommerfeld = Rhinoceros, was one who published numerous nature photographs, especially along the trails of North Vancouver. Other interesting contributors included: Dark Beauty magazine, who presented Gothic fashion photographs; Adam Krowitz = Droneman, who provided interesting drone photographs of Australia, including the Baha’i House of Worship, near Sidney; Joshua LaCunha, who used tintype techniques to portray members of the San Francisco Fire Department; Michael Ostrogorsky, posted numerous photos of his parrots, and photos of Seattle; Skyler Schoos, posted photos of herself in Seattle; Susie Stiles = Geeksusie, used French captions to describe photographs of numerous paintings, some she made herself, but also many by numerous others.

Many people open and closed accounts at great speed, deleting their artwork as they left. I learned that if I wanted to access content, I had to make my own copies, or they could disappear. There was less censorship on Ello, than on many similar sites, especially in 2018, with an influx of many new users, who described themselves as Tumblr refugees. Tumblr apparently allowed explicit content until 2018, when it decided this content was immoral. It then used flawed software to determine what to delete. Unfortunately, that software was unable to distinguish raw chicken from nude humans. Similarweb an Israeli company specializing in web analytics estimated Tumblr had lost 30% of its user traffic with its stricter content policy.

I appreciated Ello for its content diversity. One appropriate comment was that: Ello seems fated to become the betamax of social media: superior to its competitor but failing to win popular traction. But it doesn’t matter … A social network doesn’t need approval from everyone to work.

I will close my comments about Ello with a photo taken by Chris N, titled Rakotzbrücke = Devil’s Bridge, in the Rhododendron Park Kromlau, in the Spree Forest region, close to the polish border, next to Gablenz in Saxony, in the former East Germany. There are many photographs of the bridge, but I felt this one gave it life.

On 2024-06-07, I read a post in /. = slashdot.org about an article in Fast Company, on artists using the anti-AI portfolio app Cara after Meta began using Instagram content to train its AI models. On 2024-05-31 there were 100 k users, which by 2024-06-02 had grown to 300 k profiles. By the time I had joined within minutes of reading about Cara, my first notification stated there were over 700 k members/ users/ hangers on.

I am opposed to the actions of Meta. While I have not deleted my Facebook or Instagram accounts I don’t use them. If I am desperate to see Facebook content, I approach another user and ask her to access it. So one can rightly conclude that I am an unprincipled hypocrite, when it comes to Meta.

Cara claims to prohibit AI models from scraping its content. Yet, its approach to protect users is primitive and probably ineffective. They automatically add NoAI metadata tags on posts. Glaze is a more effective appoach to protect artists’ work against scrapers, but users can only use it a limited number of times. Glaze was developed by the Security, Algorithms, Networking and Data laboratory (SAND lab) at the University of Chicago, that works on topics in security, machine learning, networked systems, human-computer interaction (HCI), data mining and modeling. This makes it much more difficult for AI models to accurately understand and mimic an artist’s personal style. The tool claims to understand how AI bots perceive artwork. It then makes a set of minimal but invisible changes that confuse AI models. This means that the AI bot will have difficulty generating warped recreations. Warp, here, refers to an algorithmic process that reshapes/ recreates artistic works. Cara plans to use Nightshade, another SAND lab software product that helps protect artwork against AI scrapers. Nightshade corrupts AI training data by adding invisible pixels to artwork that can cause AI software to completely misunderstand the image. Cara also attempts to detect and forbid posted AI artwork from its site, unless it’s been appropriately labeled by the poster.

If one wants to try using AI to create artwork, the latest software I have used has been provided by Craiyon.

Note: iGoogle was a dashboard launched in 2005. I used a personalized version of it as my homepage, for several years, until it disappeared towards the end of 2013. I missed it, and wrote a weblog post about it in 2018. Once I had concluded that Ello was not returning, I started to write this post about it already in 2023-08.