MICHELLE OBAMA for PREZ 2024??

 

Michelle at Oval Office, by Midjourney & Eki

Will she or won't she?  The New York Post says it's a done deal that MICHELLE will  take the plunge. Throw her hat in the ring in May. God save the Dems. If Old Joe runs and loses to Trump it will be an epic disaster.  Michelle, whip smart, quick on her feet, experienced, is almost too good to be true.  The Guardian says it ain't gonna happen.

Joe Biden's cognitive skills have been  rusty for a while. It all became public when the special counsel, appointed  to investigate Biden's  stashing and using state documents.  The SC spilled the beans and caused an 8.9 earthquake in the White House. But the disclosure wasn't news to anyone interested in the 2024  election. High ranking Dems have suggested Biden step down. A scientist wrote an article for the Economist with the message that Trump and Biden are both too old to run for president.

So we liberal voters are left to hope and wonder if Michelle will step in and save the day. And maybe save US democracy. What a cliff-hanger. Bets anyone??

Sources; Ne York Post, Economist,  Guardian

Next  Week:  AI takes a GIANT LEAP

Note: Well, Biden is old, sure, but not much older and Trump. And I'd say the image of his mental decline is more a product of political opposition propaganda than reality (and his mental health is also arguably leaps and bounds above his rival). In the latter, A.K.A. The Real World (TM), Biden is doing quite fine, actually. In a recent 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey, he was ranked the 14th best president of all times by political science academics and historians. Not too shabby for someone whom you call "rusty".

As far as Michelle Obama goes, she would probably make a great president. But, unfortunately, I must side with the Guardian, it probably will not happen.

PS: Trump ranked last, no surprise there.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/18/us/politics/biden-trump-presidential-rankings.html

CU
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Eki

EKI’s AI take on PINK FLOYD

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of The Moon | A 50th Anniversary Animated Tribute by Eki & AI |

Eki asked me if I knew PINK FLOYD. I got all puffed up and said, ‘DUH’. And  added, ‘but I don’t know HIS music’. Eki jumped in with a withering, ’it’s a group, not a person’.  And said, for the 50th anniversary of ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ they invited AI prompt engineers to illustrate the album.

A huge task but right up Eki’s  alley. He sent me the link to ’The Wall’.  And told me Pink Floyd had a huge influence on him as a kid. When he saw i 'The Wall' as a young teen he decided ‘movies and music’ were what he wanted to do when he grew up. He stuck with it and made it happen.                                                                                                                                                         

To illustrate the old album using AI was a brilliant way for the iconic group to celebrate the Golden anniversary.  And give fans a way to to take part in the project. Eki sent me a link  to his  AI illustrated album. When I asked  people  about Pink Floyd, who were around Eki ’s age, they zeroed in on ‘The Wall’. But when I talked to a GenZ  guy, he knew Pink Floyd  was famous, but he liked ‘Arctic Monkey’. Time marches on. But Pink Floyd found a way to make their 50 year old ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ new again.  Hats off!

Sources: Eki, internet, interviews

Next week:  Please say YES!  Will  MICHELLE  OBAMA  run or PRESIDENT 2024?

Note:

To be more specific, it's an animation competition: the rules do allow the use of AI, but do not require it. Also, the task was to create an animated video for any song from the album - or more. It was my own decision to go full monty and try to come up with videos for every song, the whole album.

And that decision was made because of the emergence of AI - doing the work manually would have been practically impossible, due to the sheer amount of animation needed. So, i not only created the majority of images with AI, i also created the majority of the hundreds of needed text prompts with AI. As well as some custom code needed to make it all work. 

This said, there was a lot of manual work involved too - 3D and 2D animation, editing, compositing etc. I chose to attempt a hand-drawn style, something that would have been theoretically possible in the 1970s if they had unlimited budget. So even the 3D animation elements were pushed through AI processing for the hand-drawn look.

To me, this was largely a testing ground for the AI tools - a reason to spend time learning them and pushing them to the limit. The judges are still out making decisions about the winners, but to me, the trip itself was the goal. Getting awarded would of course be a nice bonus, but considering the high number of participants and the high quality of many entries, a quite unlikely one.

PS: Maggy's little blunder about the identity of Pink Floyd is not an uncommon one. In fact, Pink Floyd themselves have made fun of the misconception, e.g. in the lyrics of "Have a Cigar", where the record label executive asks them "Oh, by the way, which one is Pink?".

PS2: I was 5 years old when The Dark Side Of The Moon came out - a little too little to pay attention. But when The Wall was released about a decade later... I've been a fan of the band ever since, and the ground-breaking animations in The Wall feature film were one of the reasons why I pursued a career in the film/animation/VFX industry, along with the more usual suspects like ILM:s work on Star Wars, Raiders etc. They were indeed creating magic, and I wanted to do that too.

CU

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Eki