• About
  • Directory
  • Free stuff
  • Lovecraft for beginners
  • My Books
  • Open Lovecraft
  • Reviews
  • Travel Posters
  • SALTES

Tentaclii

~ News and scholarship on H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937)

Tentaclii

Monthly Archives: April 2023

Open Assistant.io

19 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in AI

≈ Leave a comment

Another day, another open source chat AI. We’re up to three now. The new Open Assistant.io is a fully and properly open-source ‘chat’ AI, and only requires a Google login to use for free. At present there’s a Llama 30B model for the public, based on Facebook’s escaped Llama. So perhaps not so good for writing Python code. My initial try timed out… I had no response after ten minutes. But that may be due to heavy initial use. I reloaded and found a message about being in a long queue. Still, it’s a serious and worthy/big attempt to begin a fully open chat AI. As the group’s leader says “we’ll soon have them running on toasters”, rather than closed subscription-only corporate servers in Whereizitagin.

The two other open AIs OpenChatKit (not great) and the FastChat portal to open models (can be very good) had no such problems with the question, which was…

Q:

Explain the possible future uses of AI for the analysis of the letters of H.P. Lovecraft. Do not refer to fiction or stories by Lovecraft.

FastChat using Vicuna 13b had the best response, which I edit and bullet-point here…

A:

* to extract relevant information such as themes, topics, and sentiments;

* to categorize the letters based on their content;

* to identify any recurring motifs;

* to analyze the writing style and evolution over time;

* to analyze the historical context, e.g. references or allusions to historical events, people, or places;

* to develop a model of the cultural and historical context in which Lovecraft was writing;

* to analyze the letters in terms of their literary merit;

* to identify any stylistic or technical elements that are particularly effective or innovative;

So it’s unaware of the concept of a writer’s ‘circle’ and the importance of mapping that. It’s more like a reply by an English Literature student rather than a historian. It’s also unaware of the outlines of Lovecraft’s life, and but it’s aware he was an author who wrote letters and can thus given very generic advice common to any prolific letter writer.

Eventually I reloaded the recalcitrant Open Assistant.io and had an answer to the above question in a reasonable time. It was not as good as FastChat but did offer three items, among a whole lot of blather and boilerplate text about AIs in general…

* to offer deeper insights into Lovecraft’s personality traits, beliefs, moods, interests, etc;

* to establish named entity recognition, for specific details about individuals, locations, events, dates, organizations, products, etc;

* to create entirely new pieces of correspondence.

So here there may be a hint of some awareness of the interaction between the man and his circle, and even that there will be interest in the products he used (the new-fangled invention called ‘ice-cream’ and so on). There’s also what might seem a rather naughty awareness of AI’s future ability to confect new Lovecraft-alike letters. Which implies extraction from the letters of a workable and convincing ‘style model’ and ‘topic web’. And Lovecraft is the ideal candidate, now that the letters are nearly all published. Yes, there are others who are comparable. But what modern kid wants to chat with Voltaire or Cicero?

A few other items which might have been mentioned are (off the top of my head)…

* analysis of letter length and seasonality of contact, re: determining his ‘favourite’ correspondents;

* the identification of common abbreviations or nicknames, and the amalgamation of these with reference to the same person when properly named. Thus “Sonny” would = Long;

* extraction of weather and season data, matched to location;

* extraction of suitable passages or names which could then be woven into new stories;

* identification of his childhood memories across the entirety of the letters;

* identification of ‘shop talk’ regarding rates of pay, markets, editors etc;

* to add guidance annotations for audio reading;

* generating AI images from his descriptions;

* to establish and offer translations of slang and archaic words.

* to power a videogame in which Lovecraft is a character and you can talk at length with him.

AI tag added

19 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in AI

≈ Leave a comment

A new AI category / tag for Tentaclii, to group such posts. I’ve gone back and retrospectively tagged some of the more recent posts, even back to 2011’s “H.P. Lovecraft gets turned on”. Wobbly though current AIs are (they’re definitely not shoggoths, quite yet), they’re going to be coming for everything including Lovecraft. Also relevant as assistants for the many writers, editors and small publishers who read Tentaclii.

Providence Lost, Providence Regained

19 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Historical context

≈ Leave a comment

“Providence lost, regained IV”, being the final part of a recent set of blog posts which give…

the epilogue of my book, Lost Providence, entitled Providence Lost, Providence Regained. Published in 2017, the book is a history of the design of the modern-day capital of Rhode Island, specifically of its downtown.

Rocking in Minneapolis

18 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Odd scratchings

≈ 2 Comments

A “MinnConn” paper flyer, said to be from Minneapolis in 1975. The picture is from a new Abe sale listing (now sold). “MinnConn” was presumably fannish, but nothing can be discovered about it under that name. Possibly a mis-typing for Minicon (Minneapolis)?

Ah yes, here we go… it must have been for the Minicon 10 (Minneapolis) fan convention held in April 1975. There was no autumn fall-con in Minneapolis in 1975, so that must be it. Sadly Archive.org only has the convention booklet and not the initial PR flyers.

The photo is of Lovecraft somewhere out in the wilds, standing on a spur of rock. Possibly a coastal rock-cleft. He looks to be a chunky young fellow (no ‘reducing’ diet, yet), and may be wearing glasses. Honeymoon?

Do any Tentaclii readers know, offhand, where a larger version of this picture might be found?

Update: It’s August 1922 at Magnolia, Mass., though the online version that gives the date/location is still small and also cropped. Is there a bigger print version somewhere?

PDF chatters

18 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in AI, Scholarly works

≈ Leave a comment

I’ve learned of an interesting new type of text extraction and query AI. They seem to have become public during March / Easter and I’d not previously been aware of them. You upload a single PDF, have an AI auto-tag, segment, summarise the segments, and cross-page links built for its various topics and facts, etc. Probably more, ‘under the hood’.

All this is done in order to make the PDF more searchable in the form of “chat”. After upload and analysis you can “chat” with the uploaded PDF, by asking it natural-language questions. Results have natural language answers, and links to the relevant page-numbers. Which means you can check that the AI isn’t getting it wrong (as they often do) due to dodgy ‘facts’ in the model inputs and/or confabulation when forming the reply.

Such things are exemplified by the likes of ChatPDF, Humata, Unriddle, Docu-Talk and Docalysis. Doubtless Microsoft Office is also ‘on the case’ with this sort of thing, if they don’t already have it in Office 365. I no longer have access to 365, and it’s difficult to discover a good overview explaining their vast range of new AI assistants.

Anyway, the new assistants are perhaps useful for those who want to plump up a traditional back-of-the-book index, and be sure they’ve not missed anything. Doubtless you’ll think of other uses.

As usual with such services, you don’t know where the PDFs or the questions are going after they hit the remote servers in Whereizitagin. So sending PDFs or asking questions that could reveal business or research secrets is not advisable. But I imagine that this sort of ‘one-book analysis’ is not too processor-intensive, so doubtless there will be local non-cloud versions soon enough. If there aren’t already.

But I also wonder what would happen if one uploaded a single-file PDF of the collected fiction (or even letters or essays) of H.P. Lovecraft. To what extent would it be like ‘talking’ with Lovecraft, and how original would it seem? In other words, would it be doing a minimum of comparing statements across disparate pages, then bringing them together in a way that offers a more powerful insight into the topic in question? And could a further ‘style model’ be built from the PDF, which would mean that the replies are given in a Lovecraftian manner?


Meanwhile, a second fully and properly ‘open source’ chat AI is released, OpenAssistant. The first was OpenChatKit a month ago.

“Of his madness many things are told…”

17 Monday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraft as character, Scholarly works

≈ Leave a comment

A new consideration of Lovecraft’s own “psychopathologie” and also a survey of “the various diagnoses that have been issued” for him posthumously. Regrettably the new article in the journal L’Evolution Psychiatrique is both in French and behind a paywall. But there’s a generous sampling for free and in HTML, which means Google Translate can be used. The author concludes that not only did Lovecraft keep madness at bay by writing it out in various ways…

Writing is for him an addictive, continuous, protective and necessary exercise: he never stops writing.

But that he also embarked on…

an extraordinary journey of self-therapy

A Suitable Flesh / Dredge

16 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian arts

≈ Leave a comment

Nightmare on Film Street reveals a new big-screen Lovecraft adaptation by director Joe Lynch…

“The thing that I loved about this particular script, which was originally based on the Lovecraft short story ‘The Thing on The Doorstep’, was the lineage involved … Brian Yuzna is one of our producers, who produced Re-Animator, and From Beyond, and directed Society. Dennis Paoli who wrote those movies, wrote this script.”

Sounds promising, and I see he has a half dozen big-screen movies to his credit. The title of the new movie is A Suitable Flesh, and it seems it hasn’t yet screened at a film festival. With Barbara Crampton.

Update: It will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2023.

Elsewhere, RPGFan reviews the much-touted Lovecraftian videogame Dredge…

While not a hardcore gaming experience, Dredge certainly sates the thirst for Lovecraftian vibes. … Authentically Lovecraftian.

Just one of an ongoing tidal wave of Lovecraftian games, including the newly remade mystery Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened.

The Story of Saxon and Norman Britain Told in Pictures

15 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Historical context, Scholarly works

≈ Leave a comment

New on Archive.org, a key ‘picture-book history’ from a series that Lovecraft collected and enjoyed after he saw some of them offered at budget prices in the local Woolworth store. The upload of The Story of Saxon and Norman Britain Told in Pictures (1935) is of a good clear scan, and the 122Mb PDF file is freely available for download.

Also uploaded a few months ago “to borrow”, another in the series, The Story of Tudor and Stuart Britain Told in Pictures.

“The requisite impression of lurking terror…”

14 Friday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Picture postals

≈ Leave a comment

I’m still not feeling 100%, what with a lurking and persistent cough. So this week’s ‘picture postals from Lovecraft’ is a quickie and actually a rubbing. A ‘brass rubbing’ as they’ve often known, or a ‘grave rubbing’ when done from stone.

Last I heard such things were frowned on by Lovecraft’s cemetery, even when using specialist soft-wax and paper materials that don’t damage or mark his plain grave-marker. But a while back such rubbings could be found listed on eBay. Above is a pleasing and clear one I snagged then, now able to be enlarged a bit by AI.

I’m uncertain if Lovecraft ever habitually ventured into Swan Point Cemetery for walks while alive, though he certainly anticipated the outcome of his…

ancient plan of shuffling off to a Swan Point subterranean repose. […] among the sepulchres of Clark ancestors extending back to 1711. Green wooded slopes rise beside the mournful spot, and close by is a great hollow tree inhabited by a woodpecker

I seem to recall he didn’t favour it as a destination for walks, other than that fateful walk on a “June day in 1917” which began his weird fiction writing career. But if he ever did explore properly then this spot then would have surely attracted his attention. The cemetery’s “rock garden” overlooking his beloved Seekonk…

“the toad-shaped… Tsathoggua… the seal”

14 Friday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Lovecraftian arts

≈ Leave a comment

A silver toad made by the Gorham Manufacturing Company, Providence, Rhode Island. In 1890, the year of Lovecraft’s birth. You’ll recall that Lovecraft’s father was, quite possibly, connected with the silverware firm in its heyday as a buyer or salesman.

Via the Smithsonian Open Access portal.

Lovecraft Arts & Sciences

14 Friday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Odd scratchings

≈ Leave a comment

I see that the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences 2023 Winter Fundraiser is nearly at their $20k crowdfunder goal…

The Weird Tales Story reviewed

13 Thursday Apr 2023

Posted by asdjfdlkf in Scholarly works

≈ Leave a comment

Gary Romeo usefully takes a comparative look at The Weird Tales Story in its three editions, including the “expanded and enhanced” third edition of 2021. This is then reviewed, and the new additions and omissions noted.

It seems the third edition is still only available in paperback, at present. No ebook, at least not on Amazon UK.

The Dark Man journal also has an online review of the latest edition.

← Older posts
Newer posts →

 

Please become my patron at www.patreon.com/davehaden to help this blog survive and thrive.

Or donate via PayPal — any amount is welcome! Donations total at Christmas 2023, since 2015: $390.

Archives

  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010

Categories

  • 3D (15)
  • AI (60)
  • Astronomy (70)
  • Censorship (14)
  • de Camp (7)
  • Doyle (7)
  • Films & trailers (100)
  • Fonts (9)
  • Guest posts (2)
  • Historical context (1,094)
  • Housekeeping (89)
  • HPLinks (37)
  • Kipling (11)
  • Kittee Tuesday (92)
  • Lovecraft as character (54)
  • Lovecraftian arts (1,591)
  • Lovecraftian places (19)
  • Maps (69)
  • NecronomiCon 2013 (40)
  • NecronomiCon 2015 (22)
  • New books (958)
  • New discoveries (165)
  • Night in Providence (17)
  • Odd scratchings (984)
  • Picture postals (276)
  • Podcasts etc. (424)
  • REH (177)
  • Scholarly works (1,440)
  • Summer School (31)
  • Unnamable (85)

Get this blog in your newsreader:
 
RSS Feed — Posts
RSS Feed — Comments

H.P. Lovecraft's Poster Collection - 17 retro travel posters for $18. Print ready, and available to buy — the proceeds help to support the work of Tentaclii.

Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Chateau by Ignacio Ricci.