I am stealing a meme from pharyngula [phar] high tech industrial spy IX-103 responded to a question with:
A superb owl! What a great idea! What else to do on Superb Owl sunday?
Naturally, I had to sort of mix things up.
A splendid manifestation of “steampunk” which I interpret as “pointlessly putting gears on things”.
Is Thatcher wearing a harry potter scarf? I’m not up on my potterology. I was ahead of the game and cancelled Rowling for being a mediocre writer long before it turned out that she was a mediocre human being, too.
I am fascinated by the way the AI mirrored the owls and people’s poses. That’s effective composition. I guess that it’s “average” composition.
Naturally, Marilyn has to feature:
OK, that’s enough. Please offer your own superb owls. Photographs of actual real owls welcome, too! Have a great superb owl sunday, people.
Richelieu and his superb owl skateboarding wearing his red cardinal’s warhammer armor… Now, that might be a thing.
StevoR says
Just. Beautiful. Thanks.
chigau (違う) says
Marcus, you’re a bit late
https://freethoughtblogs.com/iris/2017/02/05/superb-owl-sunday/
.
kestrel says
Gorgeous owls, I love the way it captured their eyes and plumage. It looks like the AI has just as hard of a time with owl digits as it does with human digits. I wonder why? In any event, that first one is more or less correct, then it just gets interesting. Living owls have four toes; two point forwards, one points back, and the outer toe can go either way, depending on how the owl wants to use its toes. Imagine being able to decide to have two thumbs on one hand.
lumipuna says
IIRC I started seeing mentions of Super Bowl around 2010, shortly after getting onto English language social media. For several years, I thought it was something about bowling.
Now, even Finnish mainstream media is starting to make Super Bowl related headlines, because international social media has rotten not only my brain, but also those of Finnish news editors and most news readers.
Charly says
I haven’t any luck photographing owls, unfortunately. I did not even see or heard an owl around here for over a decade now, which is bad.
Those superb owls drawn by AI are really pretty. Although, just like with humans, fingers are difficult for the AI to do properly.
consciousness razor says
A short clip (0:43) regarding the superb owl from What We Do in the Shadows
Alan G. Humphrey says
I think the AI is getting better. It has generated an owl with more humanity in its eyes than in Thatcher’s.
Reginald Selkirk says
Psychedelic owl
ahcuah says
OK, let’s see you put a “Fillie Eagle” (or maybe “filleted eagle”?) with your superb owl.
Marcus Ranum says
Is that a finely sliced eagle?
Tethys says
Darth’s owl looks like it has an attitude problem.
Superb owls are far more entertaining than sportsball Sunday, which is more about marketing and spectacle.
Harpy Eagles would pair well with superb owls.
They are quite impressive birds.
Alan G. Humphrey says
I like how Vader doesn’t give a fuck about the owl shitting on his armored bib, just lets it dry in place.
(This is also for Mano Singham, as an example of my normal speech pattern among friends, in reference to his post about contemporary acceptable speech.)
Marcus Ranum says
Midjourney AI and mjr: a superb rainbow lgbt owl sitting next to a filleted eagle
Marcus Ranum says
Rhianna posing with her superb LGBTQ supporting rainbow owl.
Jazzlet says
The superb owls are fun. I wonder if the superb rainbow lgbt owl sitting next to the filleted eagle needs to take it’s cloak off before it flies.
The “Thatcher” looks more like Barbara Knox (a British actor) playing Rita Sullivan (or Tanner or Littlewood or Bates or Fairclough) than Thatcher, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Sullivan#/media/File:Ritasullivan.jpg The Churchill reminds me of another actor, but I can’t remeember what he’s been in so I’ve no idea of his name.
It is interesting how almost all of the superb owls are looking in the same direction as the people, the clear exception being the one with Rhianna, who is giving us such a look.
xohjoh2n says
@15:
The look that says “If I find out which fucker spraypainted me I’m having their fucking nose.”
raz says
As superb owls go (and yeah, this one’s been around a while- there’s been an r/superbowl subreddit for excellent owl pictures for a while) we always had a soft spot demon prince Stolas.
brightmoon says
Love those