Star Trek: The Outer Limits

 

Hands Across the Universe

Today, Jeff successfully coaxed Stable Diffusion into producing a lovely image of Gilligan getting hit in the head with a coconut, an act of slapstick violence of the sort I've been trying to create with this tool for weeks. The only way I can beat Jeff's feat is to get Stable Diffusion to create a realistic hand, and so, using multiple prompts and models, I've tried to create an image of a hand performing the famous Vulcan salute. 

The shot above is quite evocative, but not what I'm looking for. Some of the following are strangely compelling, but as of yet, I have not accomplished my goal. Here's a selection of some of the weirdest and closest outcomes. 

Why is there a waifu in this...? I didn't prompt for any waifus. 

So close, and yet so far. Dynamic background, though! 

One of my favourites.

So close! Except facing the wrong way and covered in blood for some reason. I like the texture the AI invented for the backdrop. I'd want to caress that leather, too. 

Ouch owie owie owie

SO CLOSE

"The Sixth Finger" is an episode of The Outer Limits. 

Two opposable thumbs! Handy. Forgive the pun, it was unintentional. 

Mystery of the Missing Miscellany

When you have a lot of books and movies, it's easy for one or two titles to slip through the cracks and disappear. I know for sure that I'm missing my copy of John M. Ford's hilarious Star Trek novel, How Much for Just the Planet?, and both volumes of The Outer Limits on DVD.

I only noticed the absence of the Ford title because recently Sean asked me if I could loan him some classic Trek books, and How Much is certainly one of the best. I discovered The Outer Limits set was missing when I had a hankering to watch "The Forms of Things Unknown"a couple of months ago.

These items, of course, are easy to replace, so their loss is no great tragedy. But I've misplaced at least three things in my life that I really do miss:

1) The Realm, a movie I made in high school with Keith Gylander and Mark Lede. I had the only VHS copy, and in a moment of foolish desperation I used it as part of a video resume while job-seeking in those desperate summer months of 1991, just after I graduated from the University of Alberta. Unfortunately the place where I dropped off my resume and video package was in an area of the city I wasn't familiar with, and to top it off I lost the newspaper ad I'd used to find it (and the prospective job) in the first place. The employer never called me back, so I had no way to get my stuff back. Pure idiocy on my part.

2) "Ozone" soda pop commercial, another short film I made for a communications class during high school. Besides the commercial itself, the tape had a whole bunch of footage of my friends at the school, footage I'd dearly love to have today. If my memory serves, I accidentally taped over this with an SCTV special, then threw the tape away in disgust when I realized what I'd done.

3) One of two notepads full of story ideas from the early 90s. The notepad I lost included a very detailed and funny as-it-happened record of "Scuba Trek," describing the time when the University of Alberta Star Trek and Scuba clubs travelled to Los Angeles in February 1992. I have no idea where this might have gone, and what a shame; I could have turned it into a couple of memorable blog posts.

I suppose it's possible that VHS tape with The Realm is still sitting somewhere in that office, and the notebook might still be kicking around somewhere. So if by some miracle someone spots this stuff, please let me know...

An Occurence at Earl Creek Bridge

Picture if you will a portrait of a woman in shock...faced with a vision too terrible for the human mind to comprehend.



A few feet of rope, a struggling victim, a crime captured only by moonlight, perpetrated by a cross-eyed madman.



Now that victim's caretaker must confront that madman's insanity, at a place called Earl Creek Bridge - a destination nestled somewhere between the Outer Limits - and the Twilight Zone.

BEHOLD, EARL

"Behold, Eck" was the name of an Outer Limits episode. Man, that show had some great titles. "The Forms of Things Unknown," "Keeper of the Purple Twilight," "The Architects of Fear," "Demon With a Glass Hand."

I love, love, love a good title. A good title immediately sets the imagination in motion. Who are the architects of fear? Why would a demon have a glass hand? What are the forms of things unknown? Who is the keeper of the purple twilight. What is a purple twilight? Who the heck is Eck?

Best title I ever came up with was "Cranium Collision." Ah well.