So what’s it like in the Texas valley?

Local board member calls out the city of Mission for “holding” $3 million in tax revenue for 7 months instead of giving it to the org it was budgeted for.

The city finally releases the money, but then fires the board member.

Welcome to the Texas Valley!

Adobe CC starting “generative credits” for AI use in apps

Adobe CC users: “Starting January 17, we will begin enforcing generative credit limits on select plans.. since generating content with AI models requires significant computational resources, we have updated our plans to include a monthly allocation of generative credits.”

Generative credits will renew each month based on the CC plan’s original billing date. Using any generative function will generally cost 1 credit: Generative Fill, Generative Expand, Text to image, etc.

Credits will not roll over monthly.

If you have a CC “all apps” plan, you get 1,000 credits per month. For individual CC app plans, the credit allowance varies.

Adobe is not strictly enforcing limits on PAID CC plans until March 1.

Article with details and the exchange rate is at:

https://helpx.adobe.com/firefly/using/generative-credits-faq.html#commercial-use

Wrong key, Windows

Microsoft announced they’re adding a new key to all keyboards for AI integrations. I think they missed a huge opportunity to leverage decades of existing branding. Instead of a new key, why not make the *existing* Windows key *also* mean AI access? Add it all in there!

Easy pitch – show a wide range of consumers pressing the windows key and creating AI music, art, etc. The voiceover “it’s not just the windows key now. It’s the key to new windows. New worlds. New creations. It’s advanced AI. Windows.” End the ad with the windows logo.

Why make consumers learn something new when they have something very familiar right in front of them? The windows logo is well known, and is already on most of the keyboards already in the customer’s home!

The “new” key is nothing but a launcher. Drop all the AI additions into the existing Windows start menu and watch everyone associate AI with Windows.

Question: who owns AI generated art?

Question: who owns AI generated art?

Let’s say Charlie writes a prompt in DALL*E that creates an amazing image and posts it online. Lucy sees that image, downloads it, and sells greeting cards with that image.

Who has a claim?

Charlie says he made the image with his own specific words and content. That specific image would not exist without him since it was uniquely created with a combination of his input and the particular state the AI was in at the time. Charlie is also paying a small monthly stipend to access the AI, and therefore, he owns the image.

Lucy says Charlie freely posted it online, and Charlie didn’t actually create the artwork, but suggested it. The AI actually created the image and did all of the work manifesting the image. Also, since the company hosting/providing the AI has no copyright claim or specific licensing on any of its’ creations, no one owns it.

988 will be the nationwide suicide prevention number in the US on July 16th

On July 16th, there will finally be a nationwide suicide prevention number in the US:

988

988 will operate through the existing National Suicide Prevention network of crisis centers.

IF YOU NEED CRISIS SUPPORT BEFORE THE 16TH, please call or text: 1-800-273-8255

Visitors with followers and reach: PLEASE visit…

samhsa.gov/find-help/988

…to download social toolkits, media, and press releases to help get the word out about 988.

My Sesame Street background

I came across the official 40 year Sesame Street anniversary photo a few days ago…

The official Sesame Street 40 year anniversary photo.

I added in a few characters that were missing from my childhood and some of my recent favorites (click to enlarge).

Sesame Street infinite version – a modification of the official Sesame Street 40 year anniversary image with characters that were missing from my childhood and some of my recent favorites.

It is great to see the older Sesame Street episodes with my family. Murray and his “Word on the Street” episodes are our absolute favorites.

UPDATE 7/20/21 : Doubled the resolution, changed the base blue background, and added a rainbow to Elmo. Thumbnail should open a full size version.

USPS recycles their tracking numbers

Definitely one of those “that’s interesting” discoveries.

I was curious about an old Ebay purchase I made back in late 2019, and went to look up the tracking number in my Ebay history to see if I could find out what state it originally came from.

Pulling up the history, I saw the tracking number was still in the order history, and that it had originally shipped back on December 27th 2019, and was delivered on January 3rd 2020.

The tracking number was still listed as 9 400 116 901 508 666 357 577, so I copied that number to the USPS website, hoping it would pull up its’ state of origin.

I was VERY surprised to see the tracking number showed the package had been delivered to an address in Washington DC on April 16th 2021. That destination was NOT my shipping address, and both the date and time were completely wrong.

I thought it might be a system error, so I tried looking up my next Ebay purchase.

A simple Keffiyeh I bought back in April 2020. Looking at the order history, I saw another tracking number from USPS and the original shipping date was April 9th 2020 and the delivery date was April 20th 2020.

Heading back to the USPS tracking page, I keyed in 9 400 136 897 846 497 465 686 and found “label created, not yet in system”.

I checked the next Ebay purchase I made. The first season of Chef! from the BBC on September 27th, 2020.

Again, the original order showed it was placed on September 27th 2020, and that it was shipped and delivered on October 1st 2020.

Heading to the USPS tracking page, I keyed in 9 400 108 205 497 360 464 217 and saw the package had just been delivered a few days ago, and was waiting for me at Wyandotte, MI.

The USPS tracking numbers repeated a similar pattern for all the other orders I had placed after the October 2020 date as well. The searches either found a package that was delivered to another address in very recent months, or the label was “created, not yet in system.”

The tracking picked up correctly on an order I placed in March of 2021, but every single tracking number before March 2021 had been recycled or re-queued.

I can only confirm the USPS tracking resets sometime between December 2020 and March 2021, so just as an example, let’s assume there’s an annual tracking number reset.

Quick math…

One of the tracking numbers I was issued is 9,400,108,205,497,360,464,217.

21 zeroes after the one is a sextillion, making 9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 possible tracking numbers per year (assuming 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 is a valid tracking number incrementing all the way up to 9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999.)

9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 divided by 12 (months) is 8.3333333e+20 or 83,333,333,333,333,333,333.

83 quintillion unique tracking numbers a month!?! And then they have to roll over and re-use 9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 tracking numbers every year?

That’s almost unbelievable.

Either the post office has an insane amount of traffic flowing through it, there’s a glitch in their system, or there is a “reserved” set of USPS tracking numbers for EBay (in my direct observation case, around 9,400,108,205,497,360,464,217 to around 9,400,116,901,508,666,357,577)