Police say two rare Tamarin monkeys from the DallasZoo were stolen after finding their enclosure had been cut open. This comes weeks after a clouded leopard escaped from an enclosure that had also been tampered with..
This is an unpredecented string of events at the zoo.. missing animals. Deaths. Closures torn..
On January 13 there was a day of social media game for a leopard after the animal escaped from the enclosure.. but it turns out the leopard’s enclosure had been cut!
Flashback Jan 24: A rare vulture was killed at the Dallas zoo. Someone cut cages open to two other animals. Now there is a $10,000 reward for any information who is doing this. Police force is now protecting the zoo.
And now..
Two monkeys were taken from the DallasZoo on Monday, police said. It was the latest in a string of odd zoo incidents being investigated over the past few weeks— including fences cut and the suspicious death of an endangered vulture..
The habitat has been ‘intentionally compromised’..
If you have been paying attention to pop culture and the Internet(s) lately, you’ll understand that there has been a flourishing new series of weird content .. There are various sources out there providing us some amazing artificial intelligence artwork. The type of art that enters your brain and is so vivid you wince, you look perplexed.. you get creeped out.
So let’s explain..
It is everywhere!! AI art! It is abundant.. it is booming fast. And so often it is dark, creepy.. obscure and weird..
People have embraced the weirdness..
John Oliver got fun and self-deprecating about AI art on his show..
We also got into the act several weeks ago and made our own AI art by asking a computer to create “Coal Speaker.” It was pretty odd, as evidenced by our favorite picture:
YOU HAVE OPTIONS..
Starryai.. Wombo.. Dall-E.. DreamStudio.. Midjourney.. You have options. AI is creating art for people on multiple platforms. As we have seen, the art normally gets dark and macabre quickly.. It is changing the world of art as well. Big time..
Think of it.. your imagination is contained to what it can conjure, what your brain can create.. but AI art can take it all in.. create something from nothing, or collect images and thoughts from various ‘Internets’ to bring a strange and bizarre sentence to life.
Search for “lima beans hunting aliens on the planet Poptart” .. and AI art will create it for you. Just for fun, we did that exact thing, and we came up with this (DreamStudio didn’t know quite what to do with it)
It all started with DALL·E … it made major waves since it was first revealed back in April 2022 because it was the most advanced AI art generator that we has been introduced..
Some artists are concerned. Other artists are just going hog wild creating images that are made in rapid fire by computers, based on random sentences.. random thoughts..
There is a huge new trend on TikTok of people search for each line of song lyrics to create an array of beautiful videos to famous songs..
All created in seconds.. All created with AI–no humans painting or drawing.. just artificial intelligence quickly changing our world…
BUT AI GETS CREEPY
So often, it appears that AI art goes down a rabbit hole of high strangeness.. For example, we asked for a series of images of “Pope Francis” and eventually AI art created what appears to be the Pope fighting off a double-demon version of himself..
Thought AI art was weird? Here is where things get … really strange.
Meet Loab. The woman, or creation from AI art, of your nightmare..
Let’s try to unpack ..
It all started back in September as we entered into the autumnal season.
An artist on Twitter under the handle @supercomposite used a technique called “negative prompt weights.” That means the user attempts to force an artificial intelligence system to generate the opposite of what they enter in the prompt.
Different terms can be “weighted” in a data set to determine how likely they are to appear in the results. You are simply telling AI to “Generate what you think is the opposite of this prompt.”
There is actually some coding that goes into this procedure..
So using this negative-weight prompt on the word Brando–with supercomposite referring to Marlon Brando–it created a logo image with a city panorama and the words “DIGITA PNTICS”.
At this point, supercomposite figured using using negative weights for the words DIGITA PNTICS it may see Marlon Brando..
No. Wrong. Instead, Loab was born.
MEET LOAB
The AI generator has not been named, but some have speculated that due to its quality it MidJourney or Stable Diffusion.
From the Tweet back in September:
I'll explain negative prompt weights, in case you don't know. With these, instead of creating an image of the text prompt, the AI tries to make the image look as different from the prompt as possible. This logo was the result of the negatively weighted prompt "Brando::-1". pic.twitter.com/c1XfkN23hu
This is what supercomposite went on to say about Loab, in a series of Tweets:
Since Loab was discovered using negative prompt weights, her gestalt is made from a collection of traits that are equally far away from something. But her combined traits are still a cohesive concept for the AI, and almost all descendent images contain a recognizable Loab.
…
The angel hallway + Loab also produced art with such copious gore that probably very few people want to see them, but here are two. I don’t feel comfortable posting the most disturbing ones, borderline snuff images of dismembered, screaming children.
..
There is something moving to me about these grotesque scenes and the desperation, panic, and sadness that they convey. Again, these are produced with other images as inputs, and no text. They are the result of “cross-breeding” images of Loab with images of other things.
…
The images that result from crossing Loab with other images can in turn be crossbred with other images. The AI can latch onto the idea of Loab so well that she can persist through generations of this type of crossbreeding, without using the original image.
..
Even when her red cheeks or other important features disappear, the “Loabness” of the images she has a hand in making is undeniable. She haunts the images, persists through generations, and overpowers other bits of the prompt because the AI so easily optimizes toward her face.
AND MUCH MORE..
So it can go from Loab:
To these other versions:
And this..
At this point, as she gets more famous, Loab could be potentially new “creepypasta” of the internet, but in the other side it could be a grotesque source of inspiration for making horror movies..
One of our favorite YouTube accounts, NEXPO, featured Loab in a recent video, and it is worth the viewing:
Matthew Skala, a computer scientist, tried to explain how Loab was created..
Okay: yes the pictures are freaky but the phenomenon is not really as surprising as it may first seem. When you think of it in high-dimensional geometric terms it's understandable why there would be *some* image that tends to soak up negative-prompt queries. https://t.co/dr2VA8uoNT
But why so dark.. Why does AI keep taking us to the abyss?
The AI generated images, derived from the original Loab image, go straight away into the realm of horror, graphic violence, and gore. But no matter how many variations have been made, the images all seem to depict the same horrifying woman.
They don’t change.. Loab stays.. She continues persisting through that weird and dark tunnel of AI art..
In the end, AI programs generate images using models that are trained on billions of images and are too complex to understand why a certain result is achieved.. So you will not really know why or how Loab, or any other oddity, was created. It just was..
Loab is haunting.
Will she replace Momo and Huggy Wuggy? She sure could..
….yes….AI art continues to be just be glum and dire.. distraught and dark.
Until you ask AI itself to create “Happy AI creating AI Art” … and we get this:
But before you get overjoyed by the colorful and happy image of AI showcasing itself, don’t forget what else it creates. Images of the vast unknown.. the sad. The tired. The horror.
And Loab…
Yes indeed… remember that before you embrace AI art..
By now you have seen the Tiktok and other social media videos: People joyously beginning their slide down a massive creation until they get into it, and bounce around like sacks of potatoes.. neck and back alignments at local doctors could very well be taking place today.
A local news report about the popular Giant Slide in Belle Isle from this weekend:
But was it just all user error!? There seemed to be a certain way to conduct your body on the slide to prevent it from the shocking convulsions so many seemed to face?
Just lean forward. Don’t stop leaning forward. And of course, hold on tight.
One user on Tiktok filmed the slide gone awry.. from the perspective of the slider.
Did he hold on tight or just let go with all his might?
This slide looks like the real life version of what Phinneas and Ferb would make during summer vacation.
And despite the videos showing bouncing bodies, don’t tell me you wouldn’t try it!
Kind of like those who attended Woodstock 99 and were interviewed by Netflix for TRAINWRECK: It was body and chaotic.. but they all say they’d do it again.
Calling our lawyers. Personal injury attorneys’ phones may be busy tomorrow.
York Pennsylvania has made some news recently.. an after school “Satanic Club” was set to be introduced …
Until the Northern Elementary school board placed it into fiery damnation..
The Satanic club was shot down with an 8-1 vote. There are currently four similar clubs operating in U.S. schools across the country, with regular attempts to expand.
Samantha Groome, a parent in the district, was the advocate for introducing the club to the district.
“I never thought anything like this would come to the district… I don’t want my son to be exposed to anything of the sort,” parent Amy Wintermyer told local Fox 43.
MORE..
The Satanic Temple which runs the program and said students would be offered activities such as science and crafts projects, puzzles and games — and that they would learn about benevolence, empathy, critical thinking, problem-solving and creative expression…
Some odd developments at the White House today as it appeared the Easter Bunny had to herd President Joe Biden away from a path he was on near spectators at the Easter Egg Roll..A Biden press aide posted a picture of the Easter Bunny sitting at her desk on Monday morning, fueling speculation that she was wearing the suit
Biden was filmed speaking with reporters and guests at the cheerful holiday event when he began discussing Afghanistan, eight months after he presided over the US military’s chaotic withdrawal from Kabul that ended 20 years of American boots on the ground there.
But we had no idea that Disney was like the Vatican, unto itself..??
Stop the presses! Disney has its own government ?!
Forgive me, masters and oracles of knowledge across the Internet land, but as a lonely peasant from up in the Ukrainian/Irish coal region of Pennsylvania, I had no idea that Disney was a government unto itself..
I, along with many others perhaps, have just now become aware of it because Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is threatening to strip Disney up itself government authority. This all in the heels of the battle over the quote ‘don’t say gay’ in his state.
So basically Disney is the equivalent of the Vatican?
From CNN:
DeSantis’ remarks follow a revelation that some Republican state lawmakers are considering repealing a 1967 state law that established the Reedy Creek Improvement District, giving Disney the power to establish its own government in central Florida.
“Yesterday was the 2nd meeting in a week [with] fellow legislators to discuss a repeal of the 1967 Reedy Creek Improvement Act, which allows Disney to act as its own government,” state Rep. Spencer Roach, a Republican, wrote Wednesday on Twitter. “If Disney wants to embrace woke ideology, it seems fitting that they should be regulated by Orange County.”
Lawmakers recently concluded their legislative business for the year and would not be able to repeal the act until they meet again next year, unless DeSantis or legislative leaders convene a special session to address it.
Kenya Airways has transported hundreds of monkeys from a Mauritius breeding farm to the U.S. to be used in laboratory experiments.. after the recent Danville monkey brouhaha it publicly now has committed to ending this practice after its current contract expires next month.
The airline’s decision comes just 24 hours after PETA contacted CEO Allan Kilavuka and Chair Michael Joseph urging them to consider what monkeys subjected to the long flight and then torment and death in laboratories endure.
Can we all admit that something strange has been in the Pennsylvania water since January 1!? Danville had its bout with escaped CDC monkeys.. And just the other day, news was made after a woman found a mystery animal that could have been a dog.. could have been a coyote, but just about no one knew for sure.
And now.. That animal has decimated its cage at the rescue and has escaped!
Cue the drums..
Jumanji has arrived!
News sources reported days ago that Christina Eyth, of Fairfield Township, noticed paw prints in front of her door earlier this week. According to her account, she followed them around her house to their source — a small, dog-like animal curled up outside her basement door.
And now, Wildlife Works is center stage in a new story about the weird animal: The mystery dog has destroyed its cage and escaped captivity!
They are dumbstruck, according to their Facebook account of the event, quotes here for posterity:
WORST NEWS EVER!!!!!!!We don’t know how to tell you this, but the “coyote” escaped last night. We are devastated, and we know you all will be devastated too. No one feels worse than Morgan.When she got up this AM and went to her hospital building, she was met with the horrifying site of a destroyed empty cage and a trashed hospital area (see photos). There were scratches on the walls, especially below the window; the window seal was chewed until he was able to force the window open, then he tore through the screen. Not in our wildest dreams did we expect something like this! Since he arrived, he has done little more than crouch in the back of his cage and simply follow Morgan with his eyes. He never acted aggressive or distressed, and there had been no evidence of escape attempts. We had him for about a week, during which time he ate nutritious food and received treatment for his mange and secondary infections. We can only guess he was starting to feel somewhat better and decided it was time to go.As we write this, Morgan and her Dad are out trying to track the animal, and we plan to leave barn and enclosure doors open with plenty of straw and food to entice him. We also have two traps we can set to try to get him back.Everyone one here is stunned and mortified to learn this news. We were so overwhelmed with an outpouring of love, interest and financial support. For any of you who sent donations and would like a refund due to this event, please just contact us by phone or email and we will send the money back to you.Hopefully those of you who know Wildlife Works know this is NOT out standard of care, and will understand how devastated we are – not just for ourselves but for that poor creature out there in the cold again struggling to survive. Please keep us and him in your thoughts and prayers. We will do everything we can to find him. Folks in the Mt. Pleasant should keep and eye out. Check your trail cams. He may turn up around houses again. Call the office immediately if you think you have seen him. DO NOT try to capture him on your own.Again, we are dumbstruck! We’ll keep you posted with any new developments.
They warn: Do not try to capture it on your own.. call them for support..
