birthday glasses

whbeebe8 Comments

Today I turned 71. As part of that celebration I received a new pair of glasses I’d ordered last week from Visionworks. I had a full eye exam at Visionworks, which showed that my very bad nearsightedness (20/700) had improved dramatically over the last two years to 20/400 in the right eye and 20/350 in the left eye. I figure if I live long enough I’ll die with 20/20 vision, assuming some other eye-related disease doesn’t strike first. What I’m watching is farsightedness fighting nearsightedness.

I was treated to the latest eye examination device, where the doctor photographed the inside back of each eye. That eliminated the need to have both eyes dilated, and allowed me to walk out without any visual impediment. The doctor told me my eyes were in perfect health, with barely an indication of cataract development. Blood pressure and diabetes contribute to physical eye problems, and I keep mine under tight control with exercise, diet, and medications. Every six months I have my blood chemistry checked to make sure everything is where it should be, and it is. I hope I can keep it that way for as long as possible.

I can tell a difference between the new glasses and the pair from two years ago. At the rate my vision is changing I’ll need to check again in two years, and I’m certain the prescription will change again, necessitating a new pair. Right now things are wonderfully sharp again.

The frames are all metal with very little plastic, and with a light bronze coloration. It’s a low-key look I much prefer over every other glasses frames I’ve ever worn.

Corrected and clear eyesight; the best birthday present I could have asked for.

playing in apple’s playground

whbeebe2 Comments

You’re looking at the result of me goofing around with Apple’s new application, Playground. It is Apple Intelligence’s interpretation of a robot astronaut in a nighttime winter holiday with fireworks. The weird touch is the robot snowman on the right but far enough back to be bokeh blurred.

Here’s the view of the app on my iPhone 16 that generated the image. I didn’t have to type in anything. All I did was select five of the suggestion bubbles at the bottom, then touch the result bubble in the middle to have that bubble open up into the complete picture at the top of this post.

I’m not impressed with any of this. I recognize the techniques used by Playground in this image as being misappropriated from human artists whose work I’d seen in years past. This is not some creative masterpiece, nor is it creative in the human sense of the word. All I did was select five inputs embodying human artistic talents strip-mined from the wider internet by an LLM, probably the one hosted by OpenAI, and the software did the rest.

I will continue to explore what Apple Intelligence has to offer with the latest iOS and macOS updates. As for this moment, however, I’m done with Playground.