Testing Banksy-style prompts in DALL·E 2, Ed explored "New graffiti by Banksy", anti-environmentalism, pro-consumerism, and a Biden campaign poster, plus a Banksy-inspired McDonald’s logo; GPT-3 refined prompts, yielding images like capitalism critique with bright colors and Ronald McDonald skeletons, though some prompts triggered policy warnings.
Just got access to DALL·E 2 and here are my first generations. Prompts range from Two Egyptian mummies enjoying espresso and pizza in Italy to a Bernedoodle walking by Banksy, stenciled on a building, plus Mount Rainier eruption—excited to compare with Stable Diffusion.
GPT-3, released June 2020, is a 175‑billion‑parameter deep‑learning model trained on ~570 GB of data; it runs on a 10,000‑GPU supercomputer and is API-accessible via plain prompts. Costs: Davinci $0.06/1K tokens; 1K tokens ≈ 750 words. Core use: text generation, translation, Q&A.
Explore select side projects powering practical AI work: AI Tinkerers in Seattle with a growing city network; DREAM.page, an AI-first publishing/events platform; ReVision for round-trip image-to-text-to-image generation; Train, a web interface to fine-tune SDXL; and Commander, a browser-based automation tool for web tasks.
A VC provides money plus credibility and pattern-matching, buys you runway to prove what works, helps recruit key people and open customer doors—and will back you when plans derail. Aim for Type A (growth with 100% confidence in their approach), and vet VCs by asking about ups/downs, hires, outcomes.
Be on a purposeful mission, work with the best people, build a beautiful, attentive customer experience, break new ground, and have a great business model. Startups demand grunt work, but a clear higher purpose, team camaraderie, and artful execution keep us motivated.
Running through foggy downtown Seattle and the I-90 tunnel felt like a zombie half marathon crawl with aid stations. Madison and Interlaken hills challenged but were outweighed by runner energy, bluegrass bands, and goofy signs. Finish included Krispy Kreme treats and a text: Will and Sarah had their baby.
Want durable, personalized kids’ books? Try board-book services like My Custom Story (4×5" $27.95; 6×6" $39.95) with laminated pages and Flickr/Picasa uploads, Pintsize Productions (thick, color photos, optional finger tabs), and Treasured Ink (8×8 $39.95, 6×6 $29.95; add two pages for $3).
Set up Google Forms with a script that emails survey results in real time. It’s ~5 minutes per survey, free, and logs responses in a spreadsheet for trend analysis. Use examples like First-Time Customer Experience, New Writer Engagement, and New Feature Feedback; configure triggers and to_email.
If you didn’t get into TechStars, don’t stop. Plan: land a job at Google, work 9–5 with focused lunches, then put nights/weekends into your startup, using that cash to hire contract dev/design to build a prototype and prove traction until seed money arrives, while protecting IP and non-competes.
