Russell C

I'd say fake artificial un-intelligence, where it looks like a computer program trying to cobble together what it guesses a '40 Ford looks like. The headlights / bezels don't look right in shape or in perspective, and the fingers the guy has on the axe handle don't look right at all. The two guys also look like twins of President Lyndon Johnson.

Was looking for a different old Luv thread, no idea how I missed this one 4 years back. A great mashup!

Any time I can survive my 4 mile round trip to & from the grocery store on Sundays is something to be pleased about. This morning, a person in a new big Chevy pickup barreled across the 4 lane street and really wanted to be in the curb lane where I already was traveling - could've taken off my plastic front fender flare or worse, so I'm pleased the gap between us got no narrower than around 4 inches.

Way better!

I htae it that wehn hpepans.

If I was to shell out the cash to get one of the buy-it-nows off eBay to put on my 39 year-old daily driver VW, I could potentially double my car's value ......🤣

Yep, but patience can pay off. I had an idea around 6+ years back for a non-DTM car done up as a DTM car (ironically in the similar vein as my Mercedes NASCAR build), but in searching on eBay for these, I was immediately disappointed to see them routinely going for close to 3 figures if not more. I'm too poor for that. Kept an eye out nevertheless and one day spotted one partly built with trashed decals (was planning different livery anyway), where the seller mislabeled it and I ended up as the single bid winner at 15 bucks. Now, if I only had time to get working on the whole project ……

More or less that same one, actually. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/tamiya-24143-amg-mercedes--122891

Pretty much explains why the images of classic A.I.-generated '50s cars have three headlights and bizarrely connected chrome trim, and why A.I.-generated steam locomotives have melded-together mechanisms that defy physics. The other way to tell how A.I. is actually as dumb as a box of rocks is to ask one of those essay generator bots a question where you absolutely know the answer, and then watch just how wrong their answer ends up being. The A.I. bots do nothing more than regurgitate urban legends as though the info is cast in concrete fact. Garbage in, garbage out. When the young 'uns out there don't recognize that for what it is, that's when the ease of generating garbage faster starts to scare me.

I do, actually. Got used to it after moving here from 4 seasons NM. These days, anything above 108°F is what I'd call annoying. Anything below 55°F to me has become intolerably irritating. In NM in the 1980s, I thought 91°F was too irritating, but any longterm resident of the Valley of the Fierce Sun would tell you that a 91°F in the middle of summer is a pleasant cooldown. But that's always with something in the range of high teens or less in humidity Speaking of which, minutes before midnight here after a more or less constant heavy drizzle since 8:30pm-ish, 74°F with 86% humidity. Wow!

Yesterday I thought if I doused this pot with water, the last sprig of the flowering plant might stay alive. No dice, too hot. Today, the cactus wren thanked me for a nice damp bowl of dirt to cool off in. Was around 113°F when I took this pic. Handy birds, native to southern Arizona here, they keep the excess spiders down to a dull roar. Scorpions keep the cricket population in check.

At least you got something in the sky up there. Down here in this side of the city, 116°F, but with the humidity up a tic to maybe 12%-ish. Sorta was a thundercloud way off to the east, entertaining idea if it headed this direction and remained intact, but now we're just getting wind gusts .....

Seen images of those for eons .. or, well, maybe since the 1970s. Didn't think to look up how they worked until tonight.

Got assorted folders on my computer of spiffy pics I've saved for potential model projects. Example is my "Finvettes" folder - in one eBay auction I saw where a modeler was headed with what looked like a Plymouth Fury fins appearance. Meanwhile, stealing one of the above pics (A.I.-generated, most likely) to put in my folder, but trained graphic artist that I am, I did some subtle alterations to it. '59 De Soto fins 'hoods' in the A.I. image with perhaps '58 Impala front turn signals with swapped in red flatter lenses? Might be doable. The '50s Mercedes wheel opening eyebrow is an interesting idea, I added one over the front.

<rant: on>Sheer stupidity. If I was benevolent dictator / king / ruler / supreme authority of the country, I would outlaw every xenon headlight out there and probably all of the latest LED ones, for being pointlessly blindingly bright. Back when I used to have to drive home at night, it was increasingly necessary for me to flip my inside rear view mirror up to the position that cuts the brights of the people behind me, and I had to increasingly hold my hand up to my driver's side window to shield my eyes from my outside mirror for whoever was passing me with their "rolling aircraft landing lights array," .... all in the Phoenix metro area on freeways / streets already lit up well enough with overhead lights that people could almost do without running any headlights at all.<rant: off>