Data Science

As 2022 winds down, I thought it would be fun to review the 10 most popular stories by page views on shellypalmer.com. Obviously, 2022 was a transitional year for crypto, the world of decentralized finance, Web3 and the metaverse. It was also "the" year of AI. These stories reflect those trends, although some of the topics may surprise you. Continue Reading →

If you haven't already uploaded your 10-to-20 selfies to Lensa and let it turn you into a superhero, or a rock star, or an astronaut, you should give it a try. It's fun, but it's also instructive. You'll learn about the type and quality of inputs generative AI needs in order to obtain satisfactory results, and you'll experience the workflow and process of consumer-grade generative AI. But most importantly, when the model transforms you into a mystical creature in a cosmic setting, or an anime character, or a cyborg, you will find yourself asking one question: How far can this technology go? Continue Reading →

ChatGPT has been all over the news. Last week, I asked it to help me write a blog post about Facebook – it did a very good job. Yesterday, just for fun, my son Brent and I asked it for 250 word answers to questions about history and philosophy. ChatGPT returned college-level answers. What exactly is ChatGPT? I asked it. Here's its answer to the input "a five paragraph essay describing ChatGPT in your own words." Continue Reading →

Let's imagine the fan experience of the future. If there were no technological or financial restrictions, how would you want to attend a sporting event or a concert? What will "attending" evolve to mean? Continue Reading →

I've been joking that my blog has become the "Elon Channel," where it's "All Elon, All the Time." In case you missed it, the organization we knew as Twitter is gone. It took Elon less than a week to fire half the staff and demolish years of goodwill. All that remains is a tech stack and a skeleton crew. Oh, and the threat of thermonuclear name & shame. Continue Reading →

Elon Musk recently wrote, "Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences," he followed with, "Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world." Twitter cannot serve two masters. So, which will it be, "a free-for-all hellscape," or "the most respected advertising platform in the world." Continue Reading →

Web2 (aka the centralized web) is the web as we know it today. It is dominated and controlled by our tech overlords. Web3 (aka the decentralized web) is supposed to replace it, releasing us from our data servitude. It won’t. For reasons I will share with you, it will be obvious that it can’t. We are already living in a hybrid world where Web2 and Web3 technologies are each leveraged to their best purposes. You can call it Web2.5 – it’s a more accurate description of where we are now and where we are likely to go next. Let’s review. Continue Reading →

Jason M. Allen's piece "Théâtre D'opéra Spatial" recently won first prize at the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Competition in the category of "digital arts/digitally-manipulated photography." It was created using an AI image generator known as Midjourney and the human competitors are furious. Should they be? Continue Reading →

There's a relatively new acronym in the media business: FAST. It stands for Free Advertiser-supported Streaming Television. For all practical purposes, FAST is good, old-fashioned broadcast television delivered over the public internet (as opposed to via an antenna or cable or satellite). In the not-so-distant past, this kind of delivery was called "over the top" or OTT, but the defining differences are that FAST is free (except for the cost of your internet access), and the programs are scheduled at specific times, exactly the same way linear, broadcast TV channels are scheduled. Does it matter how the signal is delivered to consumers? Think about this... Continue Reading →

Elon Musk and Twitter are probably going to court over whether he should be forced to buy the social media company for $44 billion. He's trying to back out of the deal because he thinks Twitter is lying about the number of bots and fake accounts on the platform. But it's not just about the bots. Twitter has not had a substantial increase in users since 2016 – which makes you wonder why Elon ever considered buying the platform. But the story gets worse, because Twitter's woes are not even a little bit new. Continue Reading →