Tales From The Town #123: The End Of Ignorance, or Technological Solutions To Previously Insoluble Problems

“AI is amazing,” Antione told the gathered audience of potential technological enthusiasts. “It can do anything! It knows everything! Never again shall we have to think and wonder when we can simply ask and know!”

There was a moment of awed silence that went on for quite a bit longer than Antione was expecting.

“So, c’mon kids, you must have something you want to ask it?”

“Dad, we’re playing with the campfire,” Claire said, as her and Daniel poked it with sticks and sent great clouds of smoke billowing through the cave. “We don’t have time to talk to a creepy dead doll with a phone in its skull.”

“It’s not creepy,” Antoine said. “I thought you liked dolls.”

“Wait, that doll’s yours?” Tina said. “I thought it was something Claire had stolen from the witch’s house.”

“I don’t steal things,” Claire said. “I take them.”

“That’s the same thing,” Ethel said.

“You’re the same thing,” Claire said.

“Maybe,” Antoine said, trying to return the topic of conversation back to its original path. “We could ask the AI whether stealing and taking are the same thing.”

“Couldn’t you just ask us, Dad?” Tina said. “Because we all know the answer to that. Even Claire knows. She just pretends she doesn’t.”

“I don’t pretend anything,” Claire said. “I just DO!”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ethel said.

“You don’t make any sense,” Claire said.

“Maybe we could just ask the…”

“Shut up, Dad!”

“Claire! Don’t you dare tell dad to shut up!”

“I can tell who I want to shut up!”

“No you can’t!”

“CAN!”

“CAN’T!”

“Daniel,” Antoine said quietly. “I bet you’ve got a question or two about things, right?”

“In the mouth of the cavern a dragon sleeps,” Daniel said, throwing a pinecone onto the fire to make it belch flames and smoke out again. “And in the dragon’s mouth there’s a cavern you can sleep in.” Daniel looked up from the flames and stared through the smoke at Antoine. “So how do we know if we’re the dragon in the cave or the cave in the dragon?”

Antoine looked back through the smoke at Daniel.

“That question was for the doll,” Daniel added.

“Oh right,” Antoine said, slightly relieved, “Er, did you hear that, little dollAI? Are we the dragon in the cave or the cave in the dragon?”

The doll did not respond.

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Notes:

1. Written on 26th May, 2023

Shakespearean Sonnet Machine

The Shakespearean Sonnet Machine (also here) spits out endless variations of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. Well, not quite endless, but there should be 562,448,656 different ones in there if you’re patient enough to keep reloading.

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Notes:

1. I made this on August 16th-August 18th, 2023
2. This works best with the Luminari font.
3. Which can probably be downloaded form plenty of places
4. But I have no idea whats genuine and whats a scam in the world of font websites
5. Sorry.
6. I cut and pasted the sonnets from this collection at Project Gutenberg. Hopefully I haven’t accidently added any errors.
7. Occasionally this throws up an irregular sonnet, which is due to Shakespeare himself deciding for some reason to depart from his meticulous form on a couple of occasions – Sonnet 99 has 5 (five!) lines in the first quatrain, and then Sonnet 126 doesn’t even have quatrains at all, and is just 6 rhyming couplets in a row. Stupid bloody Shakespeare.
8. There’s also probably hundreds of these sorts of things all across the internet but I haven’t actually checked.
9. I apologise for my likely unoriginality anyway.

Above, Below, and Inbetween

Above, Below, and Inbetween (alternate link) is a prototype for a children’s flip book thing, where you can choose the three different sections of a scene by flipping either the top, middle, or bottom section over (this version just randomly chooses them each time you reload it).

Contains 18 aboves, 18 belows, and 18 inbetweens for a grand total of 5832 combinations.

(Also it runs better if you download it – either here or here – because then the images appear straight away instead of having to slowly load in.)


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Notes:

1. Made on August 15th and 16th, 2023

Tales From The Town #122: Sales

The salesman wanders from door to door, an endless collection of wonders kept in the back of his car. A magician taking his art to the people, one household at a time. He knows what we want better than we know ourselves.

Doorbell pressed. Smile engaged. Anticipation building within him like electricity coursing through a Tesla coil.

There is no escaping your own desire.

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Notes:

1. Written on 25th May, 2023