I did my first Spenga class about 6 months ago and completed my second class today. The first class I did through Classpass and the second one I got a free class because the manager wanted to see if I was interested in coming back. Both times I’ve thought that the workout was pretty good. It consists of 20 minutes of cycling, 20 minutes of strength training, and 20 minutes of yoga. The cycling really gets tough when moving back and forth with the resistance and the speed of moving your wheels. The strength training is also pretty tough since there’s barely any rest for the 20 minutes. The yoga is the only restful part and at that point, I’m just glad not to be exercising anymore. Certainly not the most intense workout class I’ve taken, but if you follow all the instructions from the instructor, it can really kick your butt. I’ll probably go again if I get another chance to go.
Creating manga using AI
One thing I wanted to try to do was creating manga. I’m not much of a drawer so I never got around to do it. Since I read a lot of manga, I thought it would be cool to see how well AI would be able to do. I gave Gemini and ChatGPT the same prompt and they came up with completely different outputs. I thought that ChatGPT created a more in-depth story and chapter, but I constantly hit image generation limits since I’m on the free version and the images generated had inconsistent styling for the background and characters. See what the two generated below:
Gemini
ChatGPT
Do I ever see wild animals?
Do you ever see wild animals?
Yes. Not sure why this is a daily prompt, but I guess there are people who may never have seen wild animals. But on a daily basis, I don’t see many wild animals. I think birds and squirrels are the wild animals I see most frequently. But now that I think about it, I don’t see them that often either. Oh, I see bugs pretty often and those are wild. Would I prefer to see wild animals more often? Sure? At least the ones that aren’t dangerous.
The Long Walk Movie Review
I watched The Long Walk after hearing my coworkers talk about it. I knew the premise of the movie coming in so I wasn’t surprised to see what happens after someone stops walking. Basically, the movie is based in the US and the general population is not doing well financially. For some reason, the society came up with a challenge where 50 men, one from each state, walk until they cannot walk any longer. The winner gets one wish from the organizer and a lot of money.
I thought the two main characters were cast well. They had a great camaraderie, got along with the other people in the challenge, and were trying to help people. They were also realistic in the sense that they dealt with hardships and wanted to use the challenge to fix things in their lives or fix things in other peoples lives. There were some odd characters in the rest of the group, but I think that there are a lot of odd people in the world and this is an odd situation. Even though this challenge is voluntary, they mentioned in the movie that everyone they know volunteers. I guess it is because the prize is so attractive, but I think the cost of losing is also pretty devastating. Maybe it is worth it in this society. It was a bit gross to see people have to pee and poop while walking because people are not allowed to stop walking in this challenge.
In general, I thought the movie was good. I didn’t like the ending since I thought the winner was going to wish for something else. After reading some reviews and commentary online, I think it made sense. It seems like the movie ending is different than the book ending. It is possible that the book ending would have been even less satisfying for me.
Finding unclaimed property
On social media, I saw a post mentioning that one way to get money is to look through your state’s database of unclaimed property and checking to see if anything shows up for your name. If there is unclaimed property for you, then you can claim it for free and they’ll send it to you. So, I checked the website for Virginia https://trs.virginia.gov/Unclaimed-Property and saw that I had unclaimed property. I put in a claim and it was approved. I’m currently waiting for the money to be sent over, but it seemed pretty straightforward and legitimate. I also read that there are other websites that can be checked that aren’t state specific like https://missingmoney.com and https://unclaimed.org that can help find money as well. I checked the websites for a few people I know and saw some matches.
If this post helps you find some money, please comment and let me know! I also wouldn’t mind a donation 🙂
Creating a video with Sora and Suno
I recently posted about creating music with Suno and I learned about Sora, the video generation app from OpenAI, a few months back. So, I wanted to create something that combines their power together. One of the first things I thought of was a lowfi music video, similar to the popular lowfi girl videos on YouTube. So, I created songs on Suno with a similar vibe and then created a clip of a lowfi boy and stitched them together in iMovie to create a video. I uploaded it on YouTube and I think it turned out not bad.
Suno – AI Music Generating Platform Review
I recently heard about Suno when listening to a business podcast and I was curious about how easy it was to create AI generated music. So, I installed the app and created an account using the free version. Within a minute, I was able to generate a relatively good sounding song with minimal effort. Here’s one of the songs I created https://suno.com/s/CAY55ggjXErbxD0r
I don’t think that platform is going to destroy the music industry, but similar to the other AI tools that have come out, it lowers the barrier of entry tremendously. Searching through some of the generated songs on the platform, it is clear that it is quite powerful. Like some of the songs sound very good. I’m assuming that the really good songs are using a good AI model plus good prompting and a bit of luck, but not sure. One thing to note is that in the free version, they say you can’t use the songs for commercial use, but in the paid versions, you can.
What book am I reading right now?
What book are you reading right now?
I am currently reading a digital book that I created called What do I want to be when I grow up?. This is a coloring book for kids and it has black and white illustrations of various different professions. The reason why I made this is because I saw so many online gurus saying that I should sell digital products to get consistent income, so I thought I might as well try. I used AI to create the illustrations and then used Canva to piece everything together. Please check it out and download it for your kids! It is also available to purchase on Amazon! #ad
Below is a sneak peek of a few of the pages in the book
Do I trust my instincts?
Do you trust your instincts?
My instincts are rather hit or miss, but one that was a hit was my decision to buy new shoes. My previous walking shoes were on their last legs and were causing my feet to hurt when walking to work. Then, I bought the Nike Revolution 8 Running Shoe off of Amazon and my commute is now a lot more enjoyable. The shoe is light and heavily cushioned. When I first put them on, my feet felt instant relief. However, the shoe is a bit tight for me since I usually buy wide shoes.
If you are looking for new walking shoes, seriously consider the Nike Revolution 8 . #ad
Pleasant surprise in urinal
I was at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport the other day and I happened to go to the bathroom. To my surprise, in the urinal, there was a soccer/football goal. I used the urinal like normal, but I also had an objective – to score as many goals as possible. I thought it was a funny, yet practical way to encourage me to aim into the urinal.
Here’s a link to the product sold on Amazon if you are interested in buying it for your business
Jeffrey's Thoughts 