Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev.

Instead of generating images on DALL-E/Midjourney/Stable Diffusion, you can search for existing ones. Look at this beauty: https://lexica.art/

Today we discussed James Whistler — an American impressionist artist of the late 19th century. In his youth, he studied at the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts. At that time, Nicholas II invited his father, an engineer, to build the St. Petersburg-Moscow railway, and the whole family lived in Russia for several years.

Much later, he had a lawsuit against the art critic Ruskin, who called Whistler “a jester who asks two hundred guineas for splashing a bucket of paint in the public’s face”.

Judge Holker then asked Whistler why he charges two hundred guineas for a painting that took only two days to create (a engineer earned a third of a guinea a month, and shoes cost half a guinea). To which Whistler replied that he charges not for two days, but for the knowledge he had acquired throughout a lifetime to paint in two days.

Sir John Holker: The labour of two days, then, is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?

Whistler: No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.

This story interestingly echoes what is attributed to Picasso (though Whistler’s is at least not fabricated). According to legend, a woman approached Picasso and asked him to draw something on a crumpled napkin, adding that she was willing to pay whatever the artist demanded. Picasso handed back the napkin saying “10,000 dollars, madame”. “But you did it in just 30 seconds!”, the woman exclaimed. “No,” Picasso replied, “It took me forty years.” (As with any legend, the sum, seconds, and years change with each retelling)

Whistler won the lawsuit, but the legal process completely bankrupted the artist, and all of his possessions were sold off to pay the debts incurred in paying for the trial.

https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/james-abbott-mcneill-whistler/m0jt1_

Yesterday, I visited one of the four district libraries in our village, Brambleton Library. Besides books, all libraries are equipped with a lot of technology, and each has a Maker Space—a department where you can engineer something.

All four libraries have:

* various 3D printers (Formlabs Form2, LulzBot TAZ, Fusion3, Makerbot Replicator)

* sewing equipment,

* embroidery machines,

* wide-format printers,

* 3D wood milling (Carbide 3D Nomad 3)

* laser engraver (Glowforge),

* fabric printing press,

* plotters (like Roland CAMM-1 GS-24 Vinil Cutter), including for fabric,

* video work (including VHS transfer),

* robotics kits (Lego, Makey Makey, Little Bits, etc.).

Specifically, Brambleton Library also includes a recording studio. Everything is free, except for consumables, which are priced slightly higher than retail (for example, PLA costs $10 per 100 grams, Resin – $20 per 100ml, which is about six times more than on Amazon). But, the use of equipment is free. And for the recording studio and video work, no consumables are required (except for patience).

With 3D, you can even upload files over the internet and then come pick up the finished form. There are people who will review the design and only proceed if it’s printable.

The library also offers subscriptions to digital content—from books and magazines to music and audiobooks, plus a plethora of educational content. However, not all of it can be taken home—access is library-only. But music, PDFs, and audio can be borrowed for free on your phone, and streaming is entirely free as well.

https://library.loudoun.gov/online

Language courses, and a whole bunch of various classes (with physical attendance) are free. A library card works across a multitude of libraries (not just in our county) and is, of course, free.

And here are how our crocodiles cross the road

In almost all video conferencing apps, you can set a background that replaces your real background. It would be interesting to make this background dynamic and adaptable to lighting, time of day, weather, and even the color of your clothing, so that the background and the speaking head would look as natural as possible. For example, if I am sitting by a window and the sun is hitting from the right, then all shadows on the artificial background should be the same, not opposite. If it is currently night, then it is better to light the room with the moon or artificial light rather than bright sunlight from a window. I wonder, is it a complex task? Seems quite feasible. Well, replacing the background picture automatically from static to regularly updated by a generator remains a question.

A Wavy Lined Emerald moth flew into the kitchen and immediately found a trendy spot. Such a beautiful moth, the photo doesn’t do it justice

The cat arrived

And Lisa

Our Masha is now competing for France. Mathieu and Masha have just returned from Lyon from the French team’s control skating sessions and are due to participate in Villard de Lans at the Masters next month (akin to the French championship). The video shows a clip from a training skate at the competition in Lake Placid. Filmed by – On Ice Perspectives

The best visual art channels (drawing, painting) in my opinion, which I have been subscribed to for a long time and truly love:

Igor Volodkin –

Alexander Ryzhkin –

Oleg Toropygin –

Vitaly Leshchenko –

Mikhail Denisov –

The Simple School –

Academica –

Anastasia Shimshilashvili

I’ve already spent many dozens of hours watching their videos, and I haven’t seen anything close to the quality of these lectures on YouTube (if you know any worthy ones, please recommend). There are also channels by Igor Sakharov and Igor Manukhov, but that would be overkill.

Here’s a bit of our Yuki. We came up with this game just a minute before recording