I’ve made a couple of small changes to my site’s branding. These aren’t big things: I have larger changes planned in the next few months. But they address a couple of things that were bothering me, and hopefully won’t make much of a difference to the folks who visit.
I have updated the title of my site and the ‘favicon’ it uses.
Site title is now “Ubergeek Kelly’s World”
For years now my site has had a <title> (HTML tag) of “Kelly’s World”. Back in the early 2000’s people could use Google and actually find that title. And it was a good enough ‘brand’ for what I meant this site to be about.
Lately, however, Google has been down-ranking my site into oblivion for the search term “Kelly’s World”. Apparently there are a lot of people using some variation of this name. And there is a British TV star named “Kelly Adams”. These other “Kelly’s” pushed my site down to about the twentieth page of results: to be honest, the last few times I’ve tried to find my site using the “Kelly’s World” term I couldn’t find it at all.
I did some experimenting and found that using the search term “Ubergeek Kelly’s World” consistently returns my site in the first page of results. This has been true for several months now, so I feel slightly comfortable with the idea that Google won’t suddenly down-rank me for this search term.
It will take a while for the search engines to catch up with the title change, but searching for “Ubergeek Kelly’s World” already works exactly as I hoped.
A new favicon
I have had one of our cats as the favicon for this site for a long time. The specific cat, Elcee, is one who passed away many years ago. The icon was a placeholder when I created it in 2003, so it was time for a change.
I decided to go with a ‘cartoony’ representation of an idealized version of me that lives in my head. When I create a new gaming character in games that allow customization it often ends up looking something like this image.
I used ChatGPT to generate the above image starting with the photo below and the following text prompt. Note that it took several tries for ChatGPT to create something that looked enough like what I was imagining to satisfy me, but each attempt only took 30 seconds or so.
Please create a comic-book form image of an older red-haired blogger using the attached photograph as your base image
I know, I know: using AI (ChatGPT) is terrible, and I’m arguably a hypocrite for using it. I’ve written about the issues and risks with AI as it currently exists. But as I said in that very article, it can be a useful tool so long as it is used wisely.
I’ll write more about how I use AI in this blog at some point. But at a high level- I use AI to generate ‘flavour’ images and to help me with post title ideas. I don’t use it to generate any of the text content in my posts.
Wrapping up
I’ve changed the title of this site to wave my geek flag high and created a comic-book style favicon for it. The title change is the ‘bigger’ of the two updates, and my hope is that it makes my site a bit easier to find when using Google search.
And hopefully the changes don’t upset my core audience of about six people too much 😉
All the anti-AI reaction reminds me so much of how mobile phones were treated when they first appeared. Even mentioning you thought it might be interesting to try one would get pillows thrown at your head. Then a few years later not having one made you seem deeply suspect. It’s probably too early to say which way it will go but I suspect some of the services we’re so inaccurately calling AI now will end up being so commonplace no-one will even notice them any more and I think image generation is going to be one of those. Always assuming the cost can somehow be passed on to the consumer, of course. It’s not going to stay free forever so enjoy it while it lasts.
I think you are on the right track, Bhagpuss. AI itself as it exists today isn’t a net ‘evil’, but it can definitely be used for bad purposes. Distinguishing between the two is ‘hard’, so some people just flat out reject any use of AI in all its forms. But as you suggest, I think in time we will become more accepting of its use within certain boundaries.
I’m still experimenting, figuring out my own personal “AI tolerance”. I feel like it comes down to intent and possibly a matter of degree with lots of room for grey areas. I’m using ChatGPT enough that I decided to at least temporarily sign up for the ‘paid’ subscription so I can play a bit more without running into the limitations of the ‘free’ offering.
If I purport to write a blog, then I feel I should not use AI to generate the body of my posts. And since I don’t purport my blog represents my skill as a visual artist and I’m not creating anything for sale, I feel it is okay to use AI to generate ‘filler’ or ‘illustrative’ images.
But is it okay to use AI to vet what I write and suggest improvements? How about helping me with ideas for my titles, which is something I often struggle with? Those seem okay, but how do I define that ‘line’ distinctly?
I was reading an article earlier today about the NaNoWriMo writing event and the uproar over the rules being clarified to allow for use of AI. I perceived the intent of the change was to allow for AI act as an ‘editor’ for grammatical and sentence improvements, but that vary intent was considered almost ‘obscene’ by some of the participant writers. I sort of get their point, but it seems a bit wrong-headed as well. It makes me think even more about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ with AI use.
Glad to see the changes you talked about on Discord going through, hope it helps you! And love the image. You look like such a kind person! <3
Thanks, Jaedia! It is the start of my planned changes from the #Blaugust2024 discussions. I still want to change my permalink structure, and split out my gaming content onto a blog at https://aginggamer.net, and…
Thank you for commenting on the comic-book style image: AI built it, but I ‘inspired’ it 😉 In reality, I am sometimes kind, often grumpy/surly when poked at too much: My poor wife sees me at my worst, I think!
Nice to see you happy with the changes you made. And if you’re happy with the image then it shouldn’t matter if it’s AI.