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AI Art Update

Things have been wild in the AI generative community over the last few months. All the models are developing at breakneck speeds and we are achieving some really amazing generated content in seconds. I am still in awe as I witness the changes happening in the image generation subsection of AI. It’s also just so much fun to just throw prompts in and parse through and refine results. You can see the clear difference between the generated work I am able to prompt today, versus just a few months ago.

Here’s some of the work I’ve been able to generate, with relatively simple prompts. If you’re curious about the prompts, just check out my midjourney profile. It’s public!

You can see that facial features and consistency between variations has greatly improved.

A really neat new feature is that you can zoom out a photo and the surroundings will be rendered! Rendering the 2nd image above with more environment, zoomed out at 2x, gives us a really neat depth of field effect that takes inspiration from the colors and shapes of the original!

Check out where the models took me

October 3, 2023 by Sunira

Photography, Travel

San Nicolas

San Nicolas is a vibrant and culturally rich town located on the southern coast of Aruba.Once a bustling hub of the island’s oil industry, the town has evolved into a diverse community reflected in the murals all over the town. Jeremy, Zac and I took a couple hours to walk around and catch some of the personality up and down the streets. I chose to restrict myself to square format — and I love looking through these and remembering the hot windy day we spent there.

A moment that stood out was when Jeremy went “LOOK A PLANE” while driving back towards Koyari — and lo and behold someone had an old Aruba Airlines plane in their backyard clearly occupied!

August 15, 2023 by Sunira

Life

Sushi

Introducing Sushi, a delightful ball of fur that has joined the household, captivating hearts with each playful pounce. With mesmerizing eyes and a mischievous spirit, this adorable little guy adds joy to every moment — like biting my ankles gently while I try and take calls. He’s made our work-from-home days so much more fun. Welcome home, Sushi!

June 26, 2023 by Sunira

Photography

Snacks?

Since the quail live in the covered patio during most of the year, the local hawks will come visit and see if they can suss out a way to get into the cage. The raptors are not scared of us so I get some really nice photos in the meantime. It makes the quails a little nervous, but they’re perfectly safe and honestly their cushy lives could use a little excitement now and then.

April 28, 2023 by Sunira

Photography

2023

It was kind of funny to hop on my computer today and see that the Verge is nudging people to reconsider personal publishing again. I’ve personally felt the benefit of having my own OSS self hosted blog for years — I never have to worry about my platform disappearing, a service pivoting to another purpose, or a company changing for the sake of stakeholders. That’s really nice. I can post my NY post and it’ll still be here in years.

2022 is over and I feel the urge to do a quick recap of my year.

I traveled to DC for work multiple times finally, a change from pandemic employment. I’ve enjoyed exploring the city in my off hours.
We visited Hawaii and Italy this year. Two destinations short of our goal of four, but the 18 days in Italy felt like it was two trips in one. We also celebrated 10 years of being married — its been a wonderful 10 years.
I started a health program mid-year and have seen some great results. I’ve been really happy with the outcome of my physical changes.
My parents faced some serious medical challenges at the start of this year and it’s made me ask myself some questions about what I want my support for them to look like — that I want them to be close — and the practical aspects of those things.
My brother moved into his own house as a homeowner at the beginning of the year and it was great to watch him take that step.
I felt like my friend groups solidified a little bit over this past year – with the opportunity to hang out together again so much more after the pandemic.
All my little cousins are grown. Im amazed that they’re all young people.
My friendships transformed some this year. I have enjoyed getting closer with my closest, kindest friends in 2022.
I am learning new things at work — but I am also weighing what I want my career to look like for the next years. 2 years at the Fed just flew by — and I am feeling the desire for change again and I have some options for what that can look like.
I am so grateful for my family, my friends, and my health. I know 2022 was really tough for a lot of people and I am so grateful for the good things this year.

I hope and wish for everyone to have good things to look forward to and enjoy in 2023.

January 2, 2023 by Sunira

Art

AI Art via GANs

Recently, I’ve been playing with rendering art via AI and am really enjoying the detail I’m getting while melding really disparate ideas.When I first encountered these machine-learning sourced image generators, I’d be able to render fun but very crude outputs. Now it’s an entirely different with the latest round of situation and this shit looks real good.

GANs achieve this realism by using a generator, which learns and produces the target output, alongside a discriminator, which learns to distinguish true data from the output of the generator. THEY ARE ADVERSARIES!

Anyway, enough talk, look at these badass image sets I was able to generate.

I started small — these are my very first midjourney renders. Aww so typically rainbow.

Check out the AI Art

September 10, 2022 by Sunira

Entertainment, Local

Southern Fried Gaming Expo 2022

We went to Southern Fried Gaming expo again after missing it for two years due to the pandemic. It’s a really great convention that showcases an amazing variety of tech and games spanning generations and decades. I usually snag a couple of board games while I’m here as well as enjoy all the old machines we never get to interact with. Booth after booth of game designers, relic resellers, and game-adjacent art are hours of browsing joy.

Check out all the SFGE Goodness

July 18, 2022 by Sunira