Author Archives: HURKLE-DURKLING Thoughts for DS106

PSA – Everlast Robotic Pets

I knew I wanted to do something with AI pets, when possible, this semester. I thought with a PSA it was a great opportunity. I watched Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers as a child. There is an episode with a robotic cat that is good until Fat Cat finds a way to make it bad. This gave me inspiration for the project.

What pulls on heart strings better than children? Pets. What if you could have a pet that never died. A pet you wouldn’t have to get a pet sitter for. A dog that never needed to go out in the middle of the night. Who wouldn’t want a pet like that as long as it acted and looked real for the most important parts! I bring you the Everlast Robotic Pet line. But Something has happened! A computer virus has been created to harm these pets!

https://soundcloud.com/sarah-bradshaw-84494740/everlast-pet-psa?si=7964a8e2ce344222b5a7da792fab731c&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

For the sounds you hear I used clips I found on Free sound. You will find links for some of them below. For the voice I used https://www.narakeet.com

I watched another student’s work and really like the quality of the voice. They listed what website they used, and I book marked it for later use. I accidently closed the tab to their blog post so I regretfully cannot link it. I tried to find it but obviously have failed to do so. You know who you are so many people commented about how they were going to use your walk through of the process you did. Narakeet was a great find.

https://freesound.org/embed/sound/iframe/236236/simple/medium/

https://freesound.org/embed/sound/iframe/340062/simple/medium/

After I had my PSA all planned out, I saw this post A frank warning | raptnrent.me and wanted to add Frank with a doom and gloom message. So, I went through the steps (and didn’t need to read the instruction document this time!) and made my Frank without Franks voice. I used Wave2lip to make franks mouth match the recording I made with Narakeet. I then used Adobe Premier Rush to put the video together. I used pictures I had taken or made with Adobe generative AI to give you something to look at while the PSA played. I hope you enjoy!

To connect this to my character Lady Alice E. Smythe I will explain her feelings on the subject. She is quite annoyed that someone has figured out her plan to use Everlast Pets to spy on people. She had worked on this scheme for some time to help her collect information for her hostile takeover of Aggressive Technologies. She is now going to have to have the code reworked to get around the new antivirus software or figure out how to piggyback on what Aggressive Technologies is doing to spy on people. She will put some comments on chat boards to discredit the online chatter about using pets as spies. This company is poised to run the world in secret so she will do everything to be the one to run the company. AI can be a useful ally as long as it is under her control.

Stamp

The daily create 4428 Make a Stamp for DS 106

I used Postage Stamp – PhotoFunia: Free photo effects and online photo editor to make my stamp.

I used a picture my daughter drew for me copying my evil brick. I used her favorite color purple. Tabitha is my daughter not the name of the evil brick.

MsMapex: “#tdc4428 Evil Brick by Tabith…” – ds106 Social link to post

Castle on the Hill

The Daily Create 4427 asked a question. Ed Sheeran and Dr. Frankenstein have something in common… a Castle on the Hill. Which castle on the hill would you rather visit? For today’s Daily Create describe your visit to the castle. I chose neither and used Adobe Firefly to create a better castle!

A picture is worth a thousand words they say. So, I used AI!

I used generative fill to add the winged horses in the sky, the butterfly, the sunbathing crocodile on the castle shore and the 3 flowers in the right corner. The prompt I used was Castle on a hill surrounded by a mote with alligators, in the sky rainbow and purple unicorns. It didn’t give me horses just pretty alligators.

MsMapex: “#tdc4427 – ds106 Social link to poste

AI are people too.

After I read the assignments for the week, I was actually pretty excited. I wrote infomercials as a kid for fun. (By the way I am older than Google so there was no YouTube) I thought about the different advertisements used over the years and which ones keep showing up over and over again. What buzz words are popular today. What was successful?

I went with and advertisement that is selling something at the same time promoting social change. I think it hits emotions in a more subtle way. I used Adobe Firefly and gave it the prompt: robot family and children sitting down to eat a large meal together at a table in a house in the style of Norman Rockwell. I then used adobe express to add text. I really like how it turned out.

link to image

While I think Lady Alice would enjoy having an AI robot as a companion or friend, I do not think she would agree they were on the same level as people. Then again, she does find everyone to be stupid so she would probably value AI above most humans because she would see then as better. If she owned the AI, she would see it as important and value it. She already sees people as expendable. I guess to Alice we are all on the same level but at least you can back up a computer.

You will also notice I made it an ad for Aggressive Technologies.

Aggressive Technologies – we are here for you.

Statue? – The Daily Create

The daily Create 4426 gave us a picture to play with.

Use the staging area of the open mouth of this statue for art or words or animation or whatever strikes your fancy or inspiration. Or maybe you will remix the image?

I chose to remix!

I cut out the mouth from the picture and pasted it on my evil brick. Then The evil brick had a mouth! so much more expressive. The brick needed more soooooo I put it on a duck! I used Adobe photo shop AI and gave it some prompts of on a duck until it gave me one I liked. At first asking for it to be on a duck only gave me a brick in the water. lots of different water but all essentially the same. I pill post my favorite below.

Evil bricks are just popping up everywhere! Water is no longer safe!

Mastodon – ds106 Social post The daily create

Super Size Me – a daily create

The daily create asked to think of 3 things that had their size in their title or name.

  1. Mode of Transportation
  2. Creature/Animal
  3. Item of Food

Then we had the option of writing a poem or creating a picture. I chose picture and used AI or rather adobe Firefly to create some images. I did try a king crab in a hot air balloon eating a sub sandwich but that was just too creepy to share or save.

The clear winner was Koala, roller skates, and 7-layer cake.

here are a few favorites.

Week 6 Summery

I started the week off strong with a daily create!

Bones and Bread

Yeah, I had a fever Friday. Tuesday I finally got back to schoolwork.

Why That Face?

I had many ideas and did the easy one.

We had a choice between A or B I chose A. I chose A because I wanted to make a talking Dr Oblivion. It was something I felt would be a challenge and I wanted to do it.

Lady Alice the Investor

After I finished the blog and added it here, I went back and read the assignments for the week. I then realized I was missing an assignment. I will do it now.

Well, I that didn’t take long since I have been thinking about how Alice would interact with Aggressive Technologies all week. I am getting faster at typing.

Lady Alice and Aggressive Technologies – aggressive connection

I look forward to having my character Lady Alice E. Smythe start on her journey of world domination.

My cold is really kicking my ass this week. I think it really made me do things differently because of it. I learned how to do things I don’t think I would have done otherwise. I will need to get prepared to make an actual talking Alice for a future video.

Lady Alice the Investor

This week I chose the option of one big assignment. I needed to make a video of my character speaking with Dr Oblivion and connect it all to Aggressive Technologies. I instantly knew I wanted to make Alice into an investor. But she is not a person to be satisfied with just being a part of a company she wants to be the boss. While Lady Alice knows she is smarter than everyone she also knows she needs to research before doing something new. This is how I approached this topic.

I started by going to visit the good Doctor. I asked him questions multiple times to hear his different answers. I downloaded the answers. I asked him leading questions to get him to mention certain things in his answer. I then wrote a script for Lady Alice Smythe. I used Audible to edit and piece together the many answers I had from Dr. Oblivion. Here is one I ended up not using.

Same question with 2 different answers.

I then went through the process of taking my mp3 and pairing it with the face. It was easier than I thought it would be after I figured out what to do. There was just a little trouble on getting started on my part. I skipped a step and didn’t realize it at first and was so lost. After a few minutes of feeling confused I found my user error and was rewarded with success! I was so over the top pleased with myself on being able to do this.

I then turned my attention to Lady Alice E. Smythe. I have a cold, so my clogged nasal voice was not an option this week. So, I turned to text to speech programs on the internet. I listened to many. I found Textmagic and liked the easiness and rang of voices I had to pick from.

With the voice done now I just needed to give her a face. I didn’t like what I could find online. To be honest I didn’t look too long. I contacted a friend I hadn’t seen in a while and asked If I could use their face. I am happy to say she said yes. I took some photos of her off of Facebook and used Adobe Photoshop to get rid of people and change the setting. I then used these photos to tell a story.

I would like to do more with the photos and get a video of my friend to play with in the future. I will have to see what she thinks of this first.

You may notice a lack of subtitles or not depending on when you view this I may have already gone back and added them.

While I didn’t have Alice actually appear to be speaking her part I like that I had different pictures to use to tell a bit of what is going on. I think I made it more interesting than just the same stiff heads going back and forth to look at. I also Like how I have introduced Aggressive Technologies to Alice’s story and what her interaction with the company will look like. Lady Alice has money and believes she is always the best person for the job.

Lady Alice and Aggressive Technologies – aggressive connection

When I thought of Lady Alice E. Smythe I gave her a trust fund. This has turned into quite the opportunity. Lady Alice does not have to work and climb a corporate ladder she can buy the company! She knows she is the smartest person in the room so why not be the boss? Lady Smythe is going to be a potential investor in Aggressive Technologies. Will she be happy with just being on the board you ask? Not a chance. She will be looking at how to take over the place. Chairman of the board or majority stake holder is what she has her eyes set on. This company is positioning itself for being a shadow governing body, a puppet master of the world. Alice is not going to sit around and let someone other than her control her fate or lot in life. The weak are stupid and need to get out of her way.

Alice will be doing background research on anyone she thinks she can use to take control of this business. A gossiping secretary, mailroom worker, an over worked assistant, and anyone on the board. She will need leverage, and ways to exploit everyone and anyone to put herself at the top. Alliances will be made and broken when necessary.

When the time is right, she will make her moves. This is her newest interest a takeover of Aggressive Technologies.

Why That Face?

The daily Create 4421 asked why is the man making that face? Is it his drink? Is it what he is listening too? Did someone walk into the room.

I had many ideas. The Kool-Aid-man busting in? Jessica Rabbit asking if he knows the words to Patty Cake. The radio explained how to spell boobies on a calculator. Perhaps he is chuckling because we all assume he is drinking tea, but it is really whisky or moonshine? Or better yet he is drinking Absinthe, and he is seeing green fairies. I went with the following.

link to post on Mastodon

Enjoy the build up with the lack luster ending. You’re Welcome.