this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
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Curated Tumblr

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For preserving the least toxic and most culturally relevant Tumblr heritage posts.

Here are some OCR tools to assist you in transcribing posts:

Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.

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Duchamp's Fountain (more images in post) (files.catbox.moe)
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[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The text can have meaning, but the image generated when you feed that text into a machine does not. You have no control over what the machine does with your inputs—there is no direct correlation between the words you type and the resulting image. If you're commissioning an artist to make a work for you, then no matter how much care you put into describing the picture you want to see, you aren't the one drawing it.

But consider: I don't play any instruments. I have written music. If you're hearing it, did I make that?

If there's a direct correlation between the music you write and the output of a machine interpreting it, then yes.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How can an image not mean anything?

Your control over what the machine does is that input. It put your ideas into a JPEG, and that JPEG put those ideas into my brain. What do you mean, that cannot have meaning?

If there’s a direct correlation between the music you write and the output of a machine interpreting it, then yes.

But it's not music. Right? The part you're listening to, the playback or the recording, is just a machine doing things. What you're hearing is not music. It's something else, somehow. What is it? Fuck if I know, but y'all are convinced there's some other thing that a song can be.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Re: images. You have no control over what the machine does. You give it a prompt, it generates an image, you decide it's good enough and save the picture, or it's not good enough and tweak the prompt. You don't control the machine. It doesn't put your ideas into a jpeg, it generates a jpeg that's consistent with the description you gave. If that picture is also consistent with your ideas, cool. You can't give the machine an idea to put into the JPEG in the first place, because the machine cannot have ideas.

Re: music. The part I'm listening to, the playback or the recording, is a machine doing things that have a direct correlation with your input. You do control the machine, because it only does precisely what you tell it to do. You decide where every individual note goes, how every individual note sounds. There is, again, direct correlation between your input and the output.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Tweaking the prompt is control. The tool is weird and limited, but that is how you use it.

If you can describe your ideas, then an image consistent with that description... contains your ideas.

You can’t give the machine an idea to put into the JPEG in the first place, because the machine cannot have ideas.

Damn, you're right, so anything conveyed by the image must come from a human being. Wild.

Re: music, all the music I've written is procedural.