I made this image of an anthropomorphic cat hacker with Stable Diffusion while thinking about the illicit computer hardware in Vernor Vinge’s “True Names” (1981) and award-winning .kkrieger first person shooter that occupies only 96K disk space and procedurally creates its textures, music, and sound effects at runtime–simply put a phenomenal bit of programming. I got wine setup to run .kkrieger on my computer, so I’m thinking a post about it is in the works.
Berkeley System’s After Dark – Star Trek: The Next Generation is one of my favorite pieces of software. It consumes electricity and CPU cycles to create audio and visual experiences that are ostensibly meant to prevent CRT screen burn-in. Put another way, it’s a program meant to solve a bygone era’s technological problem while providing passersby a little bit of entertainment. Above, it is running on the Apple Macintosh Performa 550 that I donated to Georgia Tech and is now housed in the RetroTech Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology (center-right on landing page). Data’s dancing is protecting the Performa’s built-in 14″ Sony Trinitron monitor. Below are screenshots of the screensaver in action.
Integrated into the After Dark screensaver system, it has 13 modules: Counselor Troi, Data Dances, Encounters, Nanites, Officer’s Review, Personnel Files, Science Stations, Starbase, Starfleet Messages, Tachyon Particle Field, The Borg, Warp Effect, and Worf’s Weapons.
Counselor Troi appears and gives advice and affirmations.
Data appears in the spotlight while the step pattern for different dance styles, such as tap or cha cha, appear to the side. Appropriate music plays and Data dances the steps.
Encounters switches between views of the Enterprise crew on the bridge and what they see on the main viewscreen.
Nanites, an intelligent nanotechnology, devour the screen and self-replicate.
Officer’s Review is a timed Star Trek TNG quiz that uses keyboard inputs that don’t deactivate the screensaver (as mouse movements would).
Personnel Files rotates through information screens of different characters on the show.
Science Stations displays changing information panels that update and change just like the LCARS science station panels on the bridge.
Starbase shows different ships flying through space with an occasional starbase coming into view.
Starfleet Messages show different informational and warning messages that appear in different places on the screen.
The Tachyon Particle Field looks like a four-dimensional tesseract interacting with three-dimensional space.
The Borg materialize in different places on the screen to assimilate it using their technology.
Warp Effect shows the passage of stars while traveling at warp speed.
Finally, Worf’s Weapons feature Worf’s son Alexander handing his father different weapons, such as a phaser or bat’leth, to destroy the screen with. Where Worf walks, the underlying screen is revealed. Where he damages the screen, it turns black.
This Han Solo and Chewbacca decorated birthday cake was one of many Star Wars themed cakes I’ve enjoyed over the years.
I discovered that the RealVisXL V4.0 Stable Diffusion SDXL checkpoint is really good at creating anthropomorphic chibi-style cats. Here’s an example of a tuxedo cat astronaut reading science fiction aboard a space station created with Automatic1111’s stable-diffusion-webui using that model.
I’ve been working on the site’s header image using different Stable Diffusion SDXL models, which give it a higher fidelity without needing as much post-processing outpainting and inpainting as the current header needed, which was made with an SD 1.5 model.
The idea behind the header image is a cyberpunk scene within cyberspace. The scene takes place within a virtual room representing computers and terminals with an orb-like artificial intelligence in the center levitating above the floor. Within the orb, a shadowy figure can be seen. To the side of the AI is a woman standing before it and peering into the depths of its otherness.
