Colouring pictures

I thought I would make my blind colouring pictures available as a download for sighted people too.

 

I enjoyed colouring them myself, so I guess other people might too. 

 

I coloured these with a set of 12 markers which had a rather limited - and odd - selection (the pale green was almost invisible, no actual blue!) 

 

 

But I think the challenge made it more fun - although I now have a bigger set, which is fun too. 

NOTE the actual pictures I'm selling for sighted people don't have titles (in print or Braille) on them.

Very limited greens in the set made this one tricky 
(though a beautiful peacock blue helped)

Layering colours to get more varieties of sea colours.

I fancy trying this one again, some time, in shades of purple and turquoise.

Not exactly a realistically coloured monarch butterfly 😁 🦋

 

When is it appropriate to use AI? 🤖 (A bare minimum litmus test) ✨

I have lots of thoughts about AI, some of which are fairly clear, some less so.

But here are two principles I was thinking of recently that I think are non-negotiable when it comes to using AI, whatever your philosophical views of AI are.

1) Would you think it was OK in principle to delegate the task to another human being?

 

Here's a few examples:

 

Write a political speech. Write a best man speech. Data entry. Write a love letter. Write a social media post. Design your logo. Write a YouTube comment. Ghostwrite a book. Illustrate a book you wrote. Design stickers for you to sell on Etsy. Summarise the minutes of a meeting you were chairing. Write the captions of a video. Summarise an email from a friend. Book-keeping. Research your project. Write alt-text for images on your website...

 

Also, with each of these tasks, would you distinguish between a) delegating a rough draft (which you then take as a starting point and make your own), or b) delegating the entire task?

 

Different people will have different answers to each of these. What I'm asking, is what do YOU think is appropriate to delegate?

• If you'd be willing to delgate to another human, it may be appropriate to delegate to AI (other factors may of course mean it is not).
• BUT if you'd not delegate to a human, what makes it OK to delegate to AI?

We need to think about these things.

 

Would you delegate an illustration to brighten up a text-heavy blog post to AI? I just did. Not sure how I feel about that :-)

2) In a specifically Christian context, assuming your answer to my first question was yes, would it be something you were OK in principle with delegating to a nonbeliever? 

(I'm of course assuming a sympathetic non-believer who will do the task to the best of thier ability, not an anti-Christian troll!)

A few examples: 

 

Write a sermon. Write a prayer. Give you spiritual guidance. Design sermon visuals. Design church publicity. Write a Bible story book. Illustrate a Bible story book you have written. Advise you on the best candidate for a church job. Write a hymn. Write a tune for a hymn you have written. Plan a Sunday School lesson. Draw visuals for a Sunday School lesson you have written. Plan a church rota. Summarise the theological scholarship on a topic. Plus many of the examples in the first section...

Again, different people will have different answers to these. My question is what do YOU think is appropriate to delegate to a non-believer?

• If you'd be willing to delgate to a non-believer, it may be appropriate to delegate to AI (other factors may of course mean it is not).
• BUT if you'd not delegate to a non-believer, what on earth makes it OK to delegate to AI?

We really need to think about these things. 

Oh, and finally, if you have a chatbot that pretends to be Jesus, that is idolatry and blasphemy.

Spellingng reforrm

In the 12th century, there was a guy called Ormin who wanted to improve English spelling.

The'magic e' had not yet been invented, so he decided that, to distinguish between long and short vowels you would add a double consonant after every short vowel. So, (iff you wer writingng inn modderrn Ennglishsh) itt would look somthingng lik thiss. (My autocorrect did not like that sentence!)

I wonder why he didn't go for the more obvious solution of doubling long vowels? In which caas it wuuld luuk moor liik this. (I put two u's in look because oo is really a long u sound, not a long o sound.) Seems more logical to me.

Actually, putting a line over long vowels would be even nicer - and save ink. Sō it wūd lūk līk this. I think that wūd hav bēn a gūd solūtion.

Apologies to anyone reading this with a screen reader - I don't think it'll work!

We are weak but he is strong

"As a father has compassion on his children,

so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him. 

For he knows what we are made of,

remembering that we are dust."

Psalm 103v13-14

What is it with packaging designers and percentages?

All this tell me is that it doesn't remove more grease than is there to start with.

Even I know that's not how percentages work

I got this hairbrush.

If there's 45% less breakage and 55% less effort, you don't add them together to get 100%.

The total percentage of overall benefit can't be more than the highest individual benefit. And if any of the individual benefits is not 100, the overall benefit can't be 100.

So (assuming breakage and effort are the only factors that contribute to 'happy hair'), I think (and my maths could be wrong) they add up to 50% happier hair - the average of the two. Which is still a good percentage.

Percentages aside, I think it does a good job - definitely much less breakage. Effort - easier than dragging a comb through it, but have to go over it more times. Happier hair? I haven't asked it how it feels 😊

 

[Edit: after a lengthy discussion with my brother (we do talk about interesting things 😁) I have concluded that a) my percentage was too simplistic, but that was partly because b) the whole thing is like comparing apples and oranges and makes no sense whatsoever.]

🗳️ Who to vote for - based entirely on their logos

This is a completely apolitical post - I'm looking at design only. Nothing said here reflects my political views AT ALL.

In order of the rainbow (because that's more design-y than the alphabet):

Labour 

I think this is a new logo for this election. I like it much better than the old rose, which was unclear and looked like a bad photocopy to me!

A thistle makes it look Scottish. It's a nice clear design. Interesting.

Changing to a pinkish red was an interesting design choice, and doesn't really say 'Labour' to me. It does look more modermn though. (Apparently it's supposed to be a red/purple gradient - but I think parties should stick to one colour.)

Could be a building society or sports logo.  

Liberal Democrat 

 

 It's just so happy! 

The flying bird suggests freedom, which goes with the name.

A nice golden colour too.

Nothing Scottish about it. 

Could be a building society logo. 

SNP

The symbol that is both a loopy cross and a thistle is clever.

Its simplicity means that anyone could draw it.

The black & yellow is a bit stark - though I think they've toned it down a bit. 

Of all the symbols, it would be the easiest for a totalitarian stare to use - it has that kind of non-fussy simplicity.

Green

So boring. The English one is more interesting.. Although it's different from the English one, there's nothing Scottish about it.

The only party whose colour is its name and message, which is handy. 

Putting your text inside a logo  can be tricky because you're forced to use a whole square every time, and the name can get rather small. A symbol that is separate from the name is easier to use in many contexts.

Could be an energy company or petrol station logo, which is slightly ironic. 

Reform 

 

Same issue with text inside, though I like the combination of black text and turquoise circle.

The arrow suggests moving forwards, which is a good thing for a political party to suggest though I'm not sure that it really reflects them, as their proposed reforms are of the conservative kind. It's definitely not touchy-feely, which does reflect them.

I can't see this used as a logo for anything but a political party. 

Conservative

 

Not bad. It's quite a dynamic saltire - Scottish but the touch of red brings in the Unionist aspect. The cyan is presumably just to add brightness. Unfortunately these colours are lost in black & white versions, where it becomes more underwhelming and loses something important. Don't rely on colour in your logos!

Could be a logo for a transport company or a bank.

Verdict 

So, in order of merit, based on logos alone, I'm going with:

1. Lib Dem 
2. Labour 
3. Reform 
4. SNP
5. Conservative
6. Green 

OK, now I'd better get on with figuring out who I'm actually voting for!