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Frasier Meets Columbo, with voice acting
Note: The comic in the first post was on Twitter. It's also on creator Joe Chouinard's website, so I linked to it there. I try not to link to Twitter or Reddit now unless absolutely necessary. Also from Joe Chouinard, you might enjoy: - Niles and Crane in Bloodborne - the residents of Springfield participating in a fighting tournament - and the ongoing series Clown Corps, about crime-fighting clowns
Friday Squid Blogging: New Squid Species
A new squid speciesβof the Gonatidae familyβwas discovered. The video shows her holding a brood of very large eggs.
Research paper.
lol, internet
Ready to give them life, Henry? (click)
. . I was sure I first saw this video linked from Metafilter, but a search didn't reveal its post. I had figured that it probably got hit by an account wipe. Which would have meant that it's no longer a double, thus there was no reason not to post it again! But... on preview, the old post did turn up, from EXISTENZ IS PAUSED here. Thanks, wild E.I.P.! So, this is a double, but it's a double after eleven years, so I'm posting it under the recently relaxed attitudes towards ancient doubles. It's another classic by Peter Serafinowicz, and it's been lodged in my brain since I first saw it. I still often can't resist playing it at MST Club.
10... 9... 8...
Will The Rockβs Red One be the worst Christmas movie ever?
The trailer for Amazonβs reportedly troubled $250m action-comedy shows that it might just be weightless action mush
Red One, the upcoming Christmas movie from Amazon, is arguably among the most talked-about of the year. However, until now, the conversation has had little to do with the film itself. Instead, Red One looks set to go down in history as the film that tanked Dwayne βThe Rockβ Johnsonβs reputation.
For the newcomers: in April, The Wrap ran a feature about exactly how troubled Red Oneβs production allegedly was, with several insiders pointing to The Rockβs chronic unwillingness to work as a key factor. Among claims of his wrongdoing, The Rock was accused of repeatedly showing up eight hours late to set, and also making his assistant dispose of bottles of his own urine that heβd fill when he couldnβt be bothered to walk to a bathroom.
Continue reading...Β© Photograph: Frank Masi/Amazon Prime
Β© Photograph: Frank Masi/Amazon Prime
"Wow, pinecone!" It's an apple.
I won't mince words: it's baaaaad, y'all. But it can be enjoyable to watch bad things, if you're of a certain diseased frame of mind. I have had that illness for a long time; maybe some of you are sufferers too. Each of the two long videos has five episodes. Things to look/listen for in the first episode alone: Disturbing character design throughout "What a bad lucky day! You will be accused by me." Unexpected cameos by Zelda music Unnecessary transitions in a shot, to the same shot Four Chinese sentences that get translated into "Ugh..." The ice cream cone that becomes a banana in an edit The door step that's clearly too tall for any character to climb "Bad brother, compensate us..." "Mum, he must compensate us." Endless rabbit whining Rabbits here have tapering tails instead of cottontails Baby rabbits suddenly spinning around the Fox elder's head Sheriff Volcano-head "Village head, my grandpa has said the misunderstanding is the devil! Or you'll be the devil!" "I have heard that impulse is the devil." Naonao sleeps at night resting stiffly on his bed in his clothes with his baseball cap over his face "Get up everybody...! Do cleaning...!"
Monsters of Flip
Runwayβs latest AI video generator brings giant cotton candy monsters to life
![Screen capture of a Runway Gen-3 Alpha video generated with the prompt](../themes/icons/grey.gif)
Enlarge / Screen capture of a Runway Gen-3 Alpha video generated with the prompt "A giant humanoid, made of fluffy blue cotton candy, stomping on the ground, and roaring to the sky, clear blue sky behind them." (credit: Runway)
On Sunday, Runway announced a new AI video synthesis model called Gen-3 Alpha that's still under development, but it appears to create video of similar quality to OpenAI's Sora, which debuted earlier this year (and has also not yet been released). It can generate novel, high-definition video from text prompts that range from realistic humans to surrealistic monsters stomping the countryside.
Unlike Runway's previous best model from June 2023, which could only create two-second-long clips, Gen-3 Alpha can reportedly create 10-second-long video segments of people, places, and things that have a consistency and coherency that easily surpasses Gen-2. If 10 seconds sounds short compared to Sora's full minute of video, consider that the company is working with a shoestring budget of compute compared to more lavishly funded OpenAIβand actually has a history of shipping video generation capability to commercial users.
Gen-3 Alpha does not generate audio to accompany the video clips, and it's highly likely that temporally coherent generations (those that keep a character consistent over time) are dependent on similar high-quality training material. But Runway's improvement in visual fidelity over the past year is difficult to ignore.
Best video for cats I've ever seen
Friday Squid Blogging: Baby Colossal Squid
Friday Squid Blogging: Dana Squid Attacking Camera
Fantastic footage of a Dana squid attacking a camera at a depth of about a kilometer.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I havenβt covered.
Read my blog posting guidelines here.