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Feynman, banned. Yes, you read that right…

Here’s a milestone I never thought I’d reach: According to PEN America (via Harpers), a book I wrote, Feynman, with art by Leland Myrick, is banned in Missouri. Baffling!

I’m proud of the book, and Leland is a terrific artist and a Missouri native, so…while I can’t think of this as an honor, looking at everything else on the list I’m glad I’m in such good company.

As for book bans in general, I have nothing original to say, but I’ll say the unoriginal part here anyway. They’re foolish and counterproductive.

Keep Copyright Human

Today I submitted a comment to the U.S. Copyright Office’s public comment system on AI and copyright. There are a lot of problems with copyright law. It lasts too long (my work shouldn’t be protected for 70 years after my death!) and is tilted towards corporate consolidation of power (hello, Disney).

But it currently doesn’t recognize machines as creators. That’s good. It should stay that way.

So, head on over to

https://www.copyright.gov/policy/artificial-intelligence/comment-submission/

and add your voice to what I hope is a strong chorus of support for keeping copyright human.

FYI, here’s what I said:

Please continue to uphold and strengthen the current policy on artificial intelligence (AI) technology as described in “Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated
by Artificial Intelligence”; https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf).

One possible route to do so is by adding language to the law and “Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices” (https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/) to explicitly state that material generated by AI technology is not copyrightable.

In the Compendium, Section 313.2 could include something along the lines of

“A work generated by a machine or software, based on a prompt or request made by a human, regardless of whether the prompt or request itself might be deemed copyrightable, unique, or creative.”

as an example of something that lacks human authorship, and therefore is not protected by copyright.

Making sure that “Authors and Inventors”, as they’re described in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, are human will not only protect those in the creative arts, but those in technical fields as well. People who create new and useful AI technology should receive copyright protection, but the product of those AI technologies should not.

Thank you.

Don’t believe AI, or, No, my next book is definitely not coming out this year

Inspired by John Scalzi, here’s what Google’s Bard just told me about my next book. I’m going to tweak the response a little by adding some underlined words and striking through some others, to make sure I don’t feed the lying machine Google has built:

“Jim Ottaviani’s next book is not ‘The Code Breakers: The Real Life Story of American Codebreakers in World War II’ [1]. It is not scheduled to be released on October 3, 2023 [2] by First Second Books [3]. The book will not be a graphic novel that tells the story of the American codebreakers who worked to break the Japanese and German codes during World War II [4]. It will not feature illustrations by Marilena Delli Riccardi [5].

“Here is a brief synopsis of the book:

“In the early days of World War II, the United States was at a disadvantage. The Japanese and German militaries had developed sophisticated codes that were nearly impossible to break. But a team of American codebreakers, led by William Friedman [6], was working tirelessly to crack the codes. Using a combination of brilliant mathematics and painstaking detective work, Friedman and his team were able to break the Japanese Purple code but not the German Enigma code [7]. These breakthroughs gave the Allies a critical advantage in the war, and helped to shorten the war and save countless lives.

“‘The Code Breakers’ is Jim Ottaviani’s latest in a long line of popular graphic novels about science and history. His previous books include Stephen Hawking [8], Feynman, The Imitation Game, and Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier [9]. He is not a two-time Eisner Award winner [10], and his books have been praised by critics and readers alike.”

This is spectacularly bad. It all sounds plausible but is all wrong:

1. That’s not the title.
2. That’s not the release date.
3. First Second is the publisher of my next book, but see above; they’re not putting out this book.
4. That’s not the subject.
5. I’ve never heard of Marilena Delli Riccardi. For all I know they’re a fabulous artist who I’d be lucky to work with, but they have no easy-to-access public presence. Does this person even exist?
6. Also not the subject of the book.
7. Friedman was real, and a cryptographer, and apparently worked on Purple, but didn’t crack Enigma. That was Alan Turing and his team at Bletchley Park.
8. The title was “Hawking,” sans “Stephen.”
9. Missed a word in the subtitle, Bard.
10. Pretty to think so, and I’ve been nominated a few times, but nope.

Bard also unhelpfully provides additional draft responses to the same question. Leaving aside that these didn’t get the title, subject, or release date of my next book correct either, I’m also a “well-known author” (polling data is inconclusive but leans against) and better yet “the co-founder of the comics and graphic novels publishing company First Second Books,” which will come as a surprise to Mark Siegel.

And it closes both those alternate drafts with “I am looking forward to reading [Title Bard Just Made Up]. It sounds like a fascinating and timely book.”

Who is this “I”? Some Google programmer’s conceit, I guess.

I’m sure that if Bard’s not prevented from doing even more unauthorized data-mining, it’ll do better than (by my count), having something untrue in almost every sentence. But given its history, I wouldn’t bet that Google will wait until its rock-solid before releasing it into the wild.

With no incentive beyond engagement and ad sales, and no incentive to say “Bard can’t answer this,” what does the world gain by releasing these programs? Google and others gain publicity, free beta testing, and more data to mine, of course. I’m talking about the rest of us.

So… Artificial? Yeah, 100%. Intelligent? Nowhere as smart or useful as a dog or cat.

Bella, our dog.
More reliable than AI

Apparently AI can already write decent code. So well done programmers. You’re well on your way to making both yourselves and the web as a source for useful information obsolete.

The (Second) Year of the Dog

Bella, snow, disc
It snowed today (see: “Michigan, April”) but not this much. This video is from a few weeks ago (see: “Michigan, March).”

We’ve now had Bella for two years, and our regrets for inviting her into our lives remain, to the nearest approximation, zero. She and Pepper still get along well, though Bella still gets worried when Pepper comes out into the yard while we’re playing ball (Pepper chased her the first few times) and Pepper still doesn’t love Bella’s lurchiness when B has decided a particular room is Mine for the next couple hours.

Nobody’s perfect, and Bella has banged herself up a few times — once it was another dog at fault, the other couple of times it was her own actions that resulted in scars — causing us worry and her confusion. (“Why why why have you covered my paws and wrapped this stiff plastic thing around my head? I’m FINE.”) And though she now knows what heel means, when it suits her, she’s not convinced it’s a good idea until she’s had her fill of sniffing for rabbits, tree rabbits (aka squirrels), and megarabbits (aka deer). And that takes a while, every single day.

But she’s still a very good dog, and we still feel lucky.

So happy Gotcha Day to her and to you. (Click on the link in the caption for some action, and our scarf-muffled voices.)

Solar System Ambassador, 2023 (!)

Solar System Ambassador badge, etc.I’ve wanted to earn a NASA mission patch since the Apollo years. (Yeah, I’m of that vintage.) While it’s not a single mission, and I’m not contributing directly to NASA science or engineering, I’ve been selected as one of their 2023 Solar System Ambassadors.

And look, you get a patch!

If you’re an educator who would like to tap into NASA resources to support your teaching, please contact me however you like, but here’s a convenient way: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ambassadors/2513/ . I’m happy to work with you to create a presentation that meets your curriculum needs.

The same goes for people who handle programming for groups, large or small, who want to me to talk about missions to asteroids, telescopes looking out at the cosmos, or NASA’s planetary exploration…including how we explore our own, beautiful and (so far) unique Earth!

For fun, here’s part of what I said in my application:

I’ll start with two quotes from favorite books, one about Apollo and one about Mars, which capture some of why I think space exploration is important.

“Apollo may have been driven by the Cold War, but…in the end, it was theater—the most mind-blowing theater ever created. In fact, at around $120 per American over the nine years of the Sixties in which it ran, or $13 a year, it was astonishingly cheap theater.” from Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth by Andrew Smith

“Yes, the money could be better spent on Earth. But would it? Since when has money saved by government redlining been spent on education or cancer research? It is always squandered. Let’s squander some on Mars. Let’s go out and play.” from Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach

Space exploration is play. It’s also theater. Those are enough to get people interested, but there’s more to why space space exploration is important to me, and to everyone on this planet.

We live on a spaceship. It’s a big one, at least in individual human terms, so big we don’t understand how all its systems interact, or even what all the systems are! The good news about its complexity and size is that it’s a self-sufficient ship, if we take care of it. But the Pale Blue Dot and Earthrise photographs also show us another truth: our planet is big and robust, bat at the same time it’s also small and fragile. And it looks like we may be alone as we hurtle through space.

So in addition to the drama and fun of it, through space exploration we learn better ways to handle our spacecraft, we learn how other such spacecraft work, and we’ll find out if we’re truly unique.

Sequential art, part 2: finishing the chair

We’re back with the second (and last) installment of “Jim, out of his depth.” In case you missed it, and care, here’s part 1: Sequential art (or, how I spent the week after Thanksgiving).

So, on with the picture show!

To open part two, here’s another image, where you can see some pegs and joints that need trimming so they won’t poke people when it comes time to sit.
And also, some close-ups of unsanded surfaces, construction lines…
…and mistakes. Look at that sloppy joint!
Here you can see the spindles 02-07, with fibers still poking out. I never did get these 100% smoothed, guaranteeing that nobody will ever mistake this for being machine- or professionally-made. Also, though you can’t tell from the picture, spindle 06 is off. It’s canted a little from the others — don’t know how I managed to not glue it in right, since I checked it many times. (I probably did glue it in right and then bumped it before it set. Argh.) It also didn’t take the steam as well as the others so it’s too straight. Visually not ideal, but it doesn’t seem to affect sitting comfort.
On the seat bottom (helpfully marked “BOTTOM”) you can see all the sight lines for drilling those thrilling compound angles, and also, in the lower right corner, the note to “DOCTOR THIS” where I made a mistake and we had to add a small wedge.
So, that was the raw wood. Skipping ahead, I got those joints and pegs flush, sanded everything down to 220 and then did a super-thin coat of shellac to seal the surfaces just enough to…cover everything with paint. Here’s the unlikely first coat: Barn Red from the Real Milk Paint company. I’d never heard of milk paint before this project, and it’s stuff you mix yourself from powder. Shelf life of, well, milk since it really is made with milk protein, so you mix small batches and use it fast. Anyway, looks awful, doesn’t it? I was warned that the first coat would, and to trust the process.
Second coat, and it looks nice and uniform. Per Peter Galbert‘s recommendation, I then applied another heavily thinned coat of shellac to prevent the next, and even-waterier, coat of paint from turning the previous two into a slurry, and hit it with a coat of “Arabian Night” black.
Ugh. Muddy. Dull. Trust the process.
Two more coats of black and it’s both not as ugly, and uniform enough to now burnish. The idea behind burnishing is to both help the black stick better and to expose some red as well — on purpose, in places you want it. I don’t think I did a good job at this, and the shellac might not have worked right for me because there were some places that burnished nicely and some where too much black came off and even when I tried to repaint it just wouldn’t stick. But overall, the effect is nice. The chair looks completely black in low light but add a few lumens and you see pleasing red highlights.
And now I’m going to skip way ahead, though this time it’s not because things happened too fast, but rather too slow. With the paint in place as best as I could manage, it was time to seal and protect the wood, and add some shine. I wanted to avoid petrochemicals and polyurethane to keep the final finish’s look and feel more natural. Also, I don’t have a heated external shop, so I needed to work in the basement and use materials that weren’t going to kill any of the large mammals in the house. (Sorry bugs, you weren’t a consideration, but it’s winter in Michigan so you should be elsewhere anyway!)
This led me to start with a couple coats of tung oil, thinned down with citrus-based solvent. That produced a very dull gloss, just barely more reflective than what you saw in the previous pictures. Also, I’d clearly not burnished enough since I was still picking up paint dust during the second go-round. Too late to fix that, but no worries! Following the advice of our instructor Luke, I planned to bring up the shine a bit in the final coat. My plan was to mix the tung+citrus with satin Osmo Polyx — a “blend of vegetable oils (sunflower, soybean and thistle) and waxes (carnauba and candelilla) combined with a small amount of low-odor solvent.” It’s sustainable and has minimal environmental impact.
Good plan, but while his recipe for a finishing coat had all the same basic ingredients and proportions (1/3 oil, 1/3 thinner, 1/3 poly), Luke at Sam Beauford suggested different types of each from what I used.
Now, I’m not a complete dope: I’d done some samples with various mixtures on some scrap oak, and it seemed to work, but between those sticks and the chair something went awry.
Either the samples were too small and dry to be representative (I was using very hard, kiln-dried red oak scraps from another project), the tung oil wasn’t dry enough to take another coat, the Osmo doesn’t mix well, or it was bad execution by me. It was probably all four, with emphasis on bad execution. It looked good going on, since most finishes do, but the next morning it was an ugly, hazy, splotchy mess and my heart sank.
Fortunately, we planned to go to the Detroit Institute of the Arts to see the Van Gogh exhibit that day — and better still do so with some friends — so I had to leave the thing alone for a while. Couldn’t even look at it! I won’t pretend that at times that day I didn’t brood about ruining the damn chair, though, so I was no doubt occasionally bad, or at least distracted, company.
(The exhibit was great. Lunch was delicious. The friends are lovely.)

 

 

 

Anyway, the next day, with the disaster coat dry enough to attack, I attacked. Sanding pads and spite and self-recrimination brought everything back down to an even, dull look. Returning to one more coat of tung oil, which at least didn’t lift up any more paint dust this time, I followed up with the hardest thing ever — let that cure and truly harden for a month. No photos of this, so again we’ve skipped ahead to see the final result…
(By the way, since I finished the red coats on New Year’s Day and it was MLK Day when I put everything on hold for a month, the pace of things was driving K a bit crazy, though she generously stopped bugging me after I flat out said “You know I don’t really know what I’m doing, right?”)
So, after letting the tung oil cure and checking with Osmo customer service, who said it would work (and noted that you shouldn’t mix their product with other finishes…yup, can confirm!) I used the Osmo on its own. The results were mixed. Some parts looked good and others were far too shiny. This time I’m pretty sure the mediocre result was because I used too much finish and didn’t wipe the excess off soon enough after applying it. So I buffed it all back with 0000 steel wool and an ultra-fine synthetic pad and then it looked…not bad. It was still a little matte for my taste, but this showed that if worse came to worst I could get an acceptable sheen that way.
So I risked one more time with the Osmo, this iteration so thin you almost couldn’t tell by looking at the container that I’d used any at all. And I used the stopwatch/split feature on my old school running watch to make sure to wipe off any excess on a section (and there wasn’t much) after about 5 minutes. This last coat, including the wiping, only took 48 minutes total. (Thanks running watch!)
And here we are. It may still be too shiny, but I actually like it far more than anything I’ve managed so far. And I now know I can change that if we decide it’s too much gloss.
The red highlights show up pretty well here…
…and here.
Anyway, I say “if we decide” because K (and Bella) have been very patient as I stumbled through this, and K likes it as is. Bella’s fine with it too.
So it’s time for me to let this thing go as my art project and let it get to work at being our chair.