[ WWW.TECHLIFE.NET ] [ 037 ]
Stalkscan and Data Selfie
STALK YOURSELF.
stalkscan.com and http://www.dataselfie.it
Stalkscan is a useful tool in today’s digital climate. This site essentially
allows you to see anything that a Facebook user (ideally yourself ) has
made public, inadvertently or not. The layout is simple, with a main
profile URL search bar, and a system of filters that allows you to refine
the results. You can narrow down the output to a particular age, year or
relationship status, or only see interactions with certain people such as
family, friends or co-workers — or, of course, leave the filters wide open
to see it all. Everything from photos and videos, to interests and family
are then displayed in a variety of categories, put under the broader
umbrellas of profile, tags, comments, likes, places, people and interests.
If you want to get a closer look at this kind of analytic, it could be worth
installing the Chrome browser extension Data Selfie, which tracks your
Facebook activity (only after having been enabled) and shows you
“how machine learning algorithms use your data to gain insights
about your personality”. Both operate within the privacy laws and claim
not to collect any data themselves.
Image-to-Image Demo
CREATING ABOMINATIONS WITH A LIT TLE HELP FROM AI.
https://affinelayer.com/pixsrv/index.html
This website is simultaneously very clever and very scary. Making
good use of Google’s TensorFlow technology (an open-source
machine-learning software library), software developer Christopher
Hesse has created a webpage with the purpose of concept
demonstration, and with the added bonus of being an amazingly
creative visual playground. For a detailed explanation of process
and principle, the website does a much better job than we’re able to,
but the essence is that Hesse’s website hosts some interactive
demonstrations of some of the “pre-trained models” that TensorFlow
has been training on. There are four different models where you can
draw rudimentary shapes and outlines for the algorithm to then
‘process’ into an image. Three of the demonstrations involve
drawing a black outline and then having the process churn out a
handbag, a shoe or (everyone’s favourite) a cat, based on the drawing
you’ve fed it. The fourth model gives you a palette of coloured
squares — each representing a wall, window, column, balcony and
so on — and spits out a pretty convincing building facade. Naturally,
most of the results will be warped in some way and, when applying
this distortion to cats... well, you end up with cat-toast over here.Gynopedia
HELPING YOUR PRIVATES TRAVEL THE WORLD.
gynopedia.orgFor women travelling abroad, Gynopedia addresses a big problem
with a relatively simple solution. The concept is to create a wiki full
of information on “sexual, reproductive and women’s health care”,
searchable by cities around the world. If you’re heading to Hong
Kong and want to know if you’ll need a prescription for the morning
after pill (you do) or if abortion is legal in Tokyo (kind of ), or how
easy it is to get an STI test in Madrid (very), then this website is an
excellent place to start. Beyond the factual info on what’s legal and
available in certain cities, the website also covers general attitudes
and stigmas to certain issues, helping you avoid uncomfortable or
even hostile situations. Operating like any wiki, the site relies on
approved contributors and moderators from the general public and,
as a result of being relatively new, has plenty of locations to complete
information on — all the more reason to use it now and spread the
word. The site offers useful information in a familiar and simple
format and is free from advertising and sponsored content.[ COOL STUFF FROM AROUND THE WEB ]
Site insight
OUR MONTHLY SELECTION OF THE WEB’S
MOST REVEALING, USEFUL OR
ILLUMINATING NEW SITES.
[ HARRY DOMANSKI ]
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SITE INSIGHT