Friday Fun #3
Light study - Triptych. 2026. Watercolor on paper.
The phrase ‘seeing the light’ is a bit redundant. Light is required for human sight [1]. If there’s none, then we are ‘in the dark’[2].
In an age where we have perhaps too much perception of what’s goin’ on, shining or hiding light is a way to manipulate reality.
Sometimes we do this to ourselves: we can ‘cast light’ on problem, or our past can ‘cast shadows’ on our present.Sometimes, other people do this for us with illusions or tricks: they confidently act as if something exists (or has ceased to) and our brain follows along.
Acting-as-if and joint attention makes us wonder Is it real? When media sources we assumed reflected reality stop doing so, how can we tell? And what things are better left unseen?
Let’s ‘look at’ perception!
A mini camera with transparent viewfinder. (Scroll for pics) Now you can see what you’re seeing!
Quantum, aliens, and mysterious disappearances. Now you see scientists deep in reality perception fields, now you don’t.
Hide your kids. As foretold: more AI nudification [3].
Hide this from your kids. Image generators (still) generating terrible things from terrible training data [4].
When prediction betting apps predict. Insider trading is the new leak.
New-to-you eyeballs. Keepin’ ‘em fresh could make transplants possible.
UK facial recognition snitches. It remembers you from last time and it’s already calling the police.
Mostly misinformation and scams. A classification of generative AI harms over time.
Information is beautiful. Data visualizations of the generative AI industry.
Illuminating the unseen. A photography contest for things that are too small to see.
Those first and last links were nice, I think [5].
Wishing you all the very best for a lovely weekend ahead,
Roxanne
[1] As for lions, such as those in Disney’s The Lion King, wherein Mufasa instructs Simba that everything the light touches is their kingdom, and those shadowy places, well, we don’t go there (Elephant Graveyard); a coursory search says that lion vision requires a fraction of the amount of light that humans do, so the kingdom is thus, quite far beyond human visual perception.
[2] Josh Lovejoy, When the Dark was Free, Medium.
[3] Foretold in 2023 by the Internet Watch Foundation, and recently reported in Springer Nature.
[4] It’s all in there!
[5] OK, you’re right, this week was a rough one for links. Here are two more fun ones about the World Cup, to take the edge off:
Who wins if [ not football ] decides? A fun bracket simulation if your chosen data metric decided match outcomes.
Game data landscapes. A data visualization of the ‘energy’ of the game: ball control, goals, penalties, advances.
