Freedom is...
/Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. -Jean-Paul Sartre
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
The curious paradox
/The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. -Carl Rogers
23 AI-based text/image/video creation tools
/ArtBreeder
Create portraits and landscape images with this AI-based creation tool. Free. An introduction and review here.
ChatGPT
This OpenAI chatbot remembers what you've written or said, so the interaction has a dynamic conversational feel. Give the software a prompt and it creates articles, even poetry. It writes code, too. And explains the code. Doesn’t do legit sources and limited to info from before 2022. Free.
Co-Pilot
Released by Microsoft-owned GitHub built on OpenAI technology that can translate basic human instructions into functional computer code. Intended for developers.
Copy.ai
AI text-generation tool.
Craft.do
Document-creation tool with AI features.
DALL-E
OpenAI’s tool that turns written text into realistic images using AI. Named after painter Salvador Dali and Disney Pixar’s WALL-E. A limited number of images are free.
Google Pinpoint
This tool uses AI to analyze PDFs, strip text from images and transcribe audio.
GPT-2 Detector
OpenAI’s GPT-2 Detector (Hugging Face) is a tool that helps to identify AI generated text.
GPTZero
Detects whether an essay was written by ChatGPT to help educators to combat AI-based plagiarism Built by a computer science student at Princeton who was a former data journalist with the BBC.
Jasper AI
AI story writing tool for fiction and nonfiction. Pick a tone of voice for style. Pre-built templates available. However, no sources are provided. $29 month.
Lensa
Create digital self-portraits, made with AI technology through the open source Stable Diffusion model that renders selfies into artwork. Developed by Prisma Labs, locataed in California by Russian developers. One week free trial then $30 a month. The avatar tool costs a separate $3.99 for 50 images.
Lex
AI text-generation tool.
Make-A-Video
Meta’s AI system that turns text into video. Not yet available to the public.
Maker
Generates written and visual content. Free trial then $25 a month.
MidJourney
This AI image generator uses machine learning to create pictures based on text. Created a picture that sparked a controversy by winning an art competition.
Munch
Uses AI to repurpose video content for social channels and more.
NightCafe
Create art with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
NovelAI
AI story creator. Easy-to-use but fantasy fiction only. Starts at $10 a month.
Postwise.ai
AI-driven Twitter writing tool
QuillBot
An AI-driven writing tool that paraphrases what you say.
Stable Diffusion
Generates visual creations through AI. Since it is open-sourced, anyone can view the code. Fewer restrictions on how it can be used than DALL-E.
VanceAI Art Generator
Read more about it here.
VALL-E
Microsoft's AI-powered can replicate someone’s voice with just 3-second sample. The voice synthesis machine learning model is not yet available to the public.
Discovering the truth
/Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime's work but it's worth the effort. -Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers)
The 3 Things Far-Right & Far-Left Political News Sources have in Common
/When researchers analyzed almost 6,000 political news stories produced by partisan and nonpartisan media outlets in 2021, three things became clear:
Media outlets with extreme biases — regardless of whether it was a conservative or liberal bias — tended to use shorter sentences and less formal language than nonpartisan outlets.
Mainstream news organizations, as a whole, wrote at a higher reading level.
Far-right and far-left outlets took a more negative tone than nonpartisan outlets. They generally had a lower ratio of positive to negative words.
The researchers describe their findings in a paper forthcoming in Journalism Studies, “At the Extremes: Assessing Readability, Grade Level, Sentiment, and Tone in US Media Outlets.”
Read the full article from Journalist’s Resources here.
Worry that Past Failures will Repeat
/Worry about the repetition of past problems is not a sign of healthy thinking. True, it indicates a desire to be rid of the possible plenty of repeated pain, but inevitably it represents its own brand of pain. The individual has clearly specified what must - and what must not - be part of his life, but the mind is so obsessed with preventing old problems that satisfaction is not recognized in present situations. The imperative person is a prisoner of the past.
Les Carter, Imperative People: Those Who Must Be in Control
Autistic boy gifted $15,000 piano from stranger
/Jude Kofie had never had a piano lesson, but had a gift for playing. A stranger heard him play and surprised him with a grand piano.
Selfishness and Self-love
/If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue and not a vice-to love myself since I am a human being too. There is no concept of man in which I myself am not included. A doctrine which proclaims such an exclusion proves itself to be intrinsically contradictory. The idea expressed in the Biblical “Love thy neighbor as thyself!” implies that respect for one’s own integrity and uniqueness, love for and understanding of one’s own self, can not be separated from respect for and love and understanding of another individual. The love for my own self is inseparably connected with the love for any other self.
The affirmation of one’s own life, happiness, growth, freedom, is rooted in one’s capacity to love, i.e., in care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge. If an individual is able to love productively, he loves himself too; if he can love only others, he can not love at all.
The selfish person.. can see nothing but himself; he judges everyone and everything from its usefulness to him; he is basically unable to love. Does not this prove that concern for others and concern for oneself are unavoidable alternatives? This would be so if selfishness and self-love were identical. But.. selfishness and self-love, far from being identical, are actually opposites.
Eric Fromm, Man for Himself
The Process of Transitions
/Change is a situational shift.
Getting a new boss is a change, and so is receiving a promotion or losing your job.
Moving to a different house is a change, and so it remodeling your house or losing it in a fire.
Having a new change is a change for everyone in the family—including the new baby, who was pretty well situated before all the change too place.
And, of course, losing a loved one is a change—a huge one.
Transition, on the other hand, is the process of letting go of the way things used to be and then taking hold of the way they subsequently become. In between the letting go and the taking hold again, there is a chaotic but potentially creative “neutral zone” when things aren’t the old way, but aren’t really a new way yet either. This three-phase process—ending, neutral zone, beginning again—is transition.
William Bridges, The Way of Transition
Loose, Messy and Chaotic
/Tight ways of thinking and working, while being superficially attractive and comforting, don't work. They have been built on the illusion of control. This illusion – propagated by legions of consultants, economists, market researchers and other purveyors of empirical snake oil – has actually made businesses less capable of embracing the complex realities of the modern world.
Agility, flexibility, a willingness to exercise judgement and an ability to improvise will become the defining characteristics of successful institutions in the next decades. This means fighting the instinct to solve every problem through rules and regulations and recognising the limitations of long-term planning and the painfully slow nature of most internal decision-making processes.
It means accepting the need to operate in real time and making the organisational and cultural changes necessary to achieve it. And most importantly, it means building a strong, self-sustaining, trusting organisational culture rather than in investing in yet more process and bureaucracy.
The future is loose, messy and chaotic: now is the time to embrace it.
Martin Thomas, Loose: The Future of Business is Letting Go
7 Media Webinars this week about journalism, social media, accessibility, sports & more
/Tues, Jan 10 – Solutions Journalism 101
What: This webinar will explore the ins and outs of solutions journalism, talk about why it’s important, explain key steps in reporting a solutions story, and share tips and resources for journalists interested in investigating how people are responding to social problems.
When: 7 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: The Solutions Journalism Network
Tues, Jan 10 – Social Media 101 for Nonprofits
What: This session includes practical tips and tools for extending your cause and mission via social media. We cover the basics of using social media for your nonprofit organization and give you handy tips for the “big 3:” Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Who: Kiersten Hill Director of Nonprofit Solutions for FireSpring
When: 2 pm, Central
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: FireSpring
Wed, Jan 11 - The role of journalism in disrupting corruption
What: This special collaboration from the institute's Global Journalism Seminars series and the Blavatnik School of Government's Chandler Sessions on Integrity and Corruption will include contributions to the discussion by editors and journalists from countries including Kenya and Peru, and RISJ Journalist Fellows and Chandler Session members.
Who: Jane Bradley, New York Times, Mitali Mukherjee, Director of Journalist Programmes at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Reuters Institute
Wed, Jan 11 - Making Your Nonprofit's Website More Accessible and Inclusive
What: Is your website meeting your organization's legal requirement for accessibility? During this webinar, attendees will learn how to identify accessibility problems on your website, even if you're not a developer, and tools you can use to resolve those problems. Additionally, attendees will learn more about the existing laws related to website accessibility and if they pertain to your organization.
Who: Amber Hinds, Equalize Digital
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Nonprofit Learning Lab
Wed, Jan 11 - Is a Career in Sports Journalism Your Goal?
What: Inside information on sports writing, breaking into the field, and how the panelists have navigated being the only Latino in the newsroom
Who: Iliana Limón Romero, Sports Editor, Los Angeles Times; Joe Rodriguez, Director of Digital Content, MLS NEXT Pro; Siera Santos, Host, MLB Networks
When: 5 pm, Central
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: National Association of Hispanic Journalists
Thu, Jan 12 - 2023 Advertising and Media Data Trends and Forecast
What: Notable trends in retail media and data management The increasing importance of multi-currency measurement How to implement better customer journey analytics
Who: Snoeflake’s Adrian Bolosan and Erin Foxworthy
When: 12 noon, Central
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Ad Week
Thu, Jan 12 - How to Be an Advocate for Student Press Freedom
What: This workshop will allow student journalists to share their stories with their peers and learn other advocacy techniques to help fight for student press freedom.
Who: SPLC advocacy and organizing director Hillary Davis
When: 7:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Student Press Law Center
What Love Does
/Love doesn’t erase the past, but it makes the future different. -Gary Chapman
5 Articles about Google Security
/There's a way to delete the frightening amount of data Google has on you – CNET
Gmail’s New Encryption Can Make Email Safer—Here’s Why You Should Use It – Lifewire
Google Takedown form – Google Support
Should you log in with Facebook or Google on other sites or apps? Short answer: No. – Washington Post
How to delete Google search history – Laptop Mag
You are not what happened to you in the past
/No matter how chaotic the past has been, the future is a clean, fresh, wide open slate. You are not your past habits. You are not your past failures. You are not how others have at one time treated you. You are only who you think you are right now in this moment. You are only what you do right now in this moment.
Read more here.
10 Articles about Privacy Tools
/How to scrub yourself from the internet, the best that you can
The Washington Post’s Privacy Reset Guide
Use a second number to keep your real phone number hidden
PEN America offers some advice on keeping your accounts safe (video)
What is Signal? The basics of the most secure messaging app
Test Your Online Security Setup
When to Use a VPN—and When It Won’t Protect Your Data
The Default Tech Settings You Should Turn Off Right Away
Jumbo attempts to maximize your privacy settings across apps, and has free and paid versions.
Best Data Visualizations of 2022
/Best Data Visualization Projects of 2022 - FlowingData
New York Times “visual stories” 2022 - New York Times
Axios Visuals: 2022 in review - Axios
Fuel
/feed opportunities - starve problems
A ChatGPT-assisted academic paper
/
A ChatGPT-assisted paper is posted to the arXiv. The topic is AI use in drug discovery and the authors conclude, “AI has the potential to revolutionize the drug discovery process.”
The paper is an example of how the ChatGPT bot might be used in academic papers and offers a potential model for AI-assistance transparency. Their conclusion:
As a result of this experiment, we can state that ChatGPT is not a useful tool for writing reliable scientific texts without strong human intervention. One of the main reasons why this AI is not yet ready to be used in the production of scientific articles is its lack of ability to evaluate the veracity and reliability of the information it processes. A real risk is that predatory journals may exploit the quick production of scientific articles to generate large amounts of low-quality content. Overall, addressing the risks associated with the use of AI in the production of scientific articles will require a combination of technical solutions, regulatory frameworks, and public education.
Tuesday Tech Tools: Three “unsubscribe” tools
/Leave Me Alone - Unsubscribe from several email accounts at the same time. Will bundle newsletters as well. Free trial then $9 a month.
Clean Email- Remove yourself from email accounts and bundle newsletters. Free trial then $30 a year.
Mailstrom - Unsubscribe from lots of lists, or quickly delete many email. Works with Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo. Free trial then yearly accounts starting at $60.