Two things worth blogging about that happened this morning.

One was getting down and dirty trying to make DALL-E 3 work. That turned into giving up trying to find DALL-E (in any version) on the open Web and biting the $20/month bullet for a Pro account with ChatGPT, which for some reason maintains its DALL-E 3 Web page while having “Try in ChatGPT︎” on that page link to the ChatGPT home page rather than a DALL-E one. I gather that the free version of DALL-E is now the one you get at Microsoft’s Copilot | Designer, while the direct form of DALL-E is what you get when you prompt ChatGPT (now 4.0 for Pro customers… or so I gather) to give you an image that credits nothing to DALL-E.

The other thing was getting some great help from Dave Winer in putting the new Feedroll category of my Feedland feeds placed on this blog, in a way similar stylistically to old-fashioned blogrolls (such as the one here). You’ll find it in the right column of this blog now. One cool difference from blogrolls is that the feedroll is live. Very cool. I’m gradually expanding it.

Meanwhile, after failing to get ChatGPT or Copilot | Designer to give me the image I needed on another topic (which I’ll visit here later) I prompted them to give me an image that might speak to a feedroll of blogs. ChatGPT gave me the one above, not in response to “people eating blogs” (my first attempt), but instead to “People eating phone, mobile and computer screens of type.” Microsoft | Designer gave me these:

Redraw your own inconclusions.

As Dave says here, we’re remodeling this blog a bit, starting with the title image, which for the last few years has been a portrait of me at work, drawn by the fashion illustrator Gregory Wier-Quitton.

My likeness online is not in short supply. Here’s a sampling from a DuckDuckGo image search for my name:

Dave likes this one, from Flickr:

He also doesn’t think the current title art (which it is, literally) looks like me. I don’t either, for an odd reason you might not guess: I don’t wear glasses except when I’m staring at a screen. Or out in bright sunlight. And even then, I just wear off-the-shelf shades: typically the polarized ones that cost $21.99 at CVS.

In fact, I did wear glasses most of the time between my senior year in college and the end of the millennium. You can see me with them in the title image of my original (1999-2007) blog:

That’s from this photo of the four Cluetrain authors in the summer of 1999:

That design was by Bryan Bell, who designed many of the early blogs.

I wore glasses because studying a lot (which I didn’t bother doing until college) made me nearsighted, and reading and writing for a living kept me that way until I tested the theory that myopia is to some degree adaptive (and why studious kids seem to need glasses more than kids that aren’t). Starting in the ’90s, I tried to wear glasses as little as possible. That theory was proved, at least empirically, by vision improved to the degree that I no longer needed them to drive. That happened in the early ’00s. (My driver’s license doesn’t say I require them, and my vision is now 20/15 in my right eye* and 20/30 in my left.)

I also don’t think it’s right to use a shot in which my head still had enough hair on top to comb. Until my late ’60s, I thought I was free of the family curse (on my mother’s side), but then most of my hair fell out as if I was on chemo. While it’s true, as Dave says, that I’ve had hair for most of the time I’ve been blogging—and for the much longer stretch of the time I’ve been writing—the simple fact is that I no longer look like I did when I needed a barber. Also, in 2017 my eyelids were surgically liberated by removing the forehead that was falling down into my vision, disabling my eyelids and squeezing my eyeballs out of spherity. (This was a medical move, not a cosmetic one.) This also altered my look.

Somewhere in the oeuvre of Fran Liebowitz she advises readers worried about their aging faces to confront a mirror and realize this: “It only gets worse.”

With that and the spirit of renovation in mind, does this blog need an image of me on top? I could fill my screen and yours running down a list of fine blogs and newsletters that don’t feature their authors’ image in a header—or anywhere except maybe an About page.

For example, I love how Dave’s blog is titled with self-replacing images from his own library. If we were to do that here, I have 6 TB of photos we can choose from, with more than 66,000 of them on Flickr alone.

But hell, maybe we could just use the most recent photo of me. This one was shot yesterday over breakfast downtown (at the Bucks Woodside of Bloomington, called Uptown) by my pal Dave Askins, after we discovered that the silverware was not only ferrous but well-magnetized:

My wife hates that shirt, and that napkin is kinda weird, but here’s my thinking on the whole thing: at 76,  I’m still alive† and having fun. Such as right now.

*My right eye improved to 20/20 until it got a cataract. When that became annoying, I had the cataract removed and replaced by a fixed lens that improved my vision to 20/15. The left eye also has a cataract; but can still focus, which is why I haven’t had that one fixed. Once it’s fixed I’ll need to wear glasses again: ones with progressive lenses, so I can read and look at close stuff. Meanwhile, I’m holding off.

†If I read this right, most male babies born in the U.S. in 1947 are now dead. For more data of the actuarial sort, find sources here, here, here, and here.

So I thought I’d give Bing a try at using ChatGPT to answer a question for which I knew the answer.

The question was, “What group sings the theme song to the podcast ‘A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs’?”

Bing search took me to a page of search results about the podcast itself, which didn’t help; but I saw a chat menu under its search bar. Clicking on that brought up a huge popover headlined, “Chat mode is only available when you have access to the new Bing.” For that I need to “unlock conversational search on Microsoft Edge.”

Which I already had, but had hardly used.  So I went to Bing on Edge and clicked on the Chat link. Next, it wanted me to log into Microsoft itself. This required two-factor authentication for my password manager (Dashlane) and for Microsoft. Annoying, but we live in an annoying time.

Still, I got to engage Bing Chat, asking it the same question. It replied, The theme music for the podcast “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs” is called “I Can’t Stop Loving You” by Ray Charles1. I hope that helps!

It didn’t help. In fact, it could hardly be farther off.

So I said, “No, it’s a female group, and the song was recorded in the 1930s.” It replied, I’m sorry but I couldn’t find any information on the female group that sings the theme music for “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs” that was recorded in the 1930s. Would you like me to help you with anything else?

Nope. So then I tried ChatGPT, and got this answer:

The theme song for the podcast “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs” is performed by a group called “The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing.” The band is known for their unique blend of punk rock and Victorian music hall influences, and they have a dedicated following within the alternative music scene. Their song “Margate Fhtagn,” which is used as the theme song for the podcast, captures the spirit of the show’s exploration of rock music history.

Wholly shit. Talk about hallucinating.

Then I went to perplexity.ai, which gave a correct answer, complete with sources: The theme song for the podcast “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs” is called “Rock and Roll” [1]. It is a song from 1934 and is believed to be the very first song to use the phrase “rock and roll” in those words.

The “1” is a footnote going to the source of the answer. which is a post for the “500 Songs” podcast itself. Again, the song is called “Rock and Roll,” and it’s by the Boswell Sisters.

In that post, Andrew Hickey, the amazing host and producer of ‘500 Songs’, writes,

The song is called “Rock and Roll”, and it’s from 1934. It is, I believe, the very first song to use the phrase “rock and roll” in those words — there was an earlier song called “rocking and rolling”, but I think it’s the first one to use the phrase “rock and roll”.

It’s performed by the Boswell Sisters, a jazz vocal trio from the thirties whose lead singer, Connee Boswell, influenced Ella Fitzgerald among others, and it was written by Richard Whiting and Sidney Clare.

They actually wrote it for Shirley Temple — they’re the people who wrote “On the Good Ship Lollipop” — but it was turned down for use in one of her films so the Boswells did it instead.

The version I’m using is actually the version the Boswells sang in a film, Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round, rather than the proper studio recording. That’s just because the film version was easier for me to obtain.

So there you have it.

I don’t know who does perplexity.ai, but it is by far the most useful AI chatbot I’ve found so far. (Though I’ve been briefed on another one in the works. Stay tuned for that.)

[Later…] I just asked Bard the same question, and got this answer:

The theme song to the podcast “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs” is “Rock and Roll” by the Boswell Sisters. The song was released in 1934 and is considered to be the first song to use the phrase “rock and roll” in its lyrics. The Boswell Sisters were a jazz vocal trio from the 1930s who were known for their harmonies and their innovative arrangements. Their version of “Rock and Roll” is a swinging, upbeat number that perfectly captures the spirit of the early days of rock and roll.

The podcast host, Bob Stanley, chose the Boswell Sisters’ version of “Rock and Roll” as the theme song because he felt that it was a fitting way to start each episode. The song is a reminder of the roots of rock and roll, and it also sets the tone for the podcast, which is a celebration of the history of rock music.

Right about the Boswell sisters, wrong about the host of the podcast. Again, it’s Andrew Hickey, not Bob Stanley.

So Perplexity.ai still wins.

[Later (27 July)…] Retesting before pointing to this post again.

Bing: The theme song for the podcast ‘A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs’ is called “500 Songs” and it is performed by the band The Heat Death[1]. (The [1] footnote just goes to https://500songs.com/. Not very specific, that.)

ChatGPT: As of my last update in September 2021, the theme song for the podcast “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs” is performed by the host of the podcast, Andrew Hickey. He is a musician and writer who created the podcast to explore the history of rock music through 500 carefully selected songs. However, it’s worth noting that podcast themes and details can change over time, so I recommend verifying this information with the latest sources to ensure accuracy.

Bard: I’m a language model and don’t have the capacity to help with that.

Perplexity.ai: After conducting a search, I could not find any information about a female group that recorded the theme song for the podcast “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs”. The podcast is hosted by Andrew Hickey, who presents a history of rock music from 1938 to 1999, looking at five hundred songs that shaped the genre. (Six footnotes are appended.)

So this time all of them failed.

I only followed up with Perplexity.ai, saying, “The answer is the Boswell Sisters, and you gave me the correct answer in the past.” It replied, I apologize for the confusion. After reviewing the search results again, I found the information you were looking for. The Boswell Sisters, a female vocal group, recorded the theme song used by Andrew Hickey for his podcast “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs”1. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, and I apologize for any inconvenience caused. The footnote, irrelevantly, goes here.

[Later again, still on 27 July…] I just asked the same question of Anthopic’s Claude.io. Here is the dialog: