Your Weekly Web Weave
Explore the science of solar eclipses, AI art creation, software estimation techniques, bootstrapping strategies, and cutting-edge audio AI in this week's web weave.
Great response from the last week. I think we are in a groove now. So many exciting topics. Lets dive in!
Multimillennial Tale of Solar Eclipsis
Today (April 8) a total solar eclipse will sweep across North America from Mexico, through 15 U.S. States and up through Canada. For viewers inside the path of totality, the moon will completely cover the sun, darkening the sky and revealing our star's hidden outer atmosphere. But how have we calculated all this? This passage discusses the history of predicting solar eclipses. It traces the evolution of eclipse prediction, from Babylonian ephemerides to Newton's lunar theory. The challenge of the three-body problem in precisely calculating the Moon's motion, was eventually solved through numerical methods. Lets celebrate this triumph of scientific computation, which has its roots in centuries of astronomical progress 🥂
AI Painted Portrait of My Dog
Ever wanted to create a painting for your pet? Well, this author used Stable Diffusion and Dreambooth to create a high-quality painted portrait of their dog, Queso. They started by generating numerous AI-created images of their dog using various prompts. After selecting a favorite image, they used outpainting and inpainting techniques to expand and refine the image. They then upscaled the image and prepared it for printing on high-quality fine art paper. The final printed portrait captured the details and colors beautifully, exceeding the author's expectations for what was possible with AI-generated art. Give it a try!
Rules of Thumb for Software Estimation
If you have ever tried to estimate how long a software would take to build, this is for you. The passage provides effective estimation practices, including breaking down tasks, using techniques like Planning Poker, ranged estimates, and seeking guidance from experienced developers. Tracking progress, revisiting estimates periodically, and frequent communication with stakeholder are also emphasized as keys. Lastly, it highlights how a supportive work culture that encourages collaboration and experimentation can enable better estimations.
https://vadimkravcenko.com/shorts/project-estimates/
How to evaluate a business idea
Ever thought of a business idea, but didn’t know how to evaluate it? Building a successful bootstrapped business requires careful consideration of several key factors. This article discusses various recommended strategies for bootstrapped startups. Maybe this will help in polishing that idea of yours!
https://blog.amirathi.com/2021/10/24/how-to-evaluate-bootstrapped-business-idea
🎶Generating music in waveform 🎶
Waveform generation is at the heart of audio based AI these days. The passage discusses the state of the art in music generation in the waveform domain. It covers both likelihood-based models like autoregressive, flow-based, and variational autoencoders, as well as adversarial models. The author suggests that a hybrid model combining the strengths of different techniques may be a promising direction for future research. It is a bit dense, but if you want to learn from first principles, this is it!
https://sander.ai/2020/03/24/audio-generation.html
Software repo of the week..
Goes to Umami. It is a simple, fast, privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics. Check it out - https://github.com/umami-software/umami
Thanks it for this week. See you next week!