August-September 2026
I posted a Russian language birth document from Nowy Dwór, Poland, for translation on JewishGen Viewmate.
I believe this may be the husband, Hyman Saltzman, of my father's cousin, Rose Stasevich/Stock.
Then a friend [can you be named?] submitted it to Claude and then to Gemini for transcription and translation. Looked fabulous! When the ViewMate translation came in it differed in one important respect: Gemini had claimed the mother's name was Rivka and the human saw Gitla. After much further work I was convinced that the human was correct.
The lesson for me is that AI in this form cannot be trusted
or maybe that cheap AI cannot be trusted.
AI works by successive passes, successive iterations of its processes, much like editing or house cleaning or practicing a musical instrument.
Too few passes yield sloppy work.
It appears that the fix for bad AI is more AI.
It looks to me (as it did to the ViewMate translator and with the help of Steve Morse utility) like Gitla, Гитли, genitive of Гитла.
Гитли урожденной Лихтманъ
Gitla nee LICHTMAN
Other than the matter of the mother's name, Gemini provided some useful, hopefully accurate, output:
Состоялось въ городѣ Новомъ-Дворѣ двадцать пятаго Июля тысяча восемьсотъ девяностаго года въ десять часовъ утра, лично явился Мошекъ Зальцманъ шапочникъ тридцати трехъ лѣтъ отъ роду, проживающій въ городѣ Новомъ-Дворѣ въ присутствіи свидѣтелей Хаскеля Сигаловича двадцати девяти лѣтъ и Ляйбы Юлкера шестидесяти шести лѣтъ отъ роду, обоихъ божничныхъ шкульниковъ проживающихъ въ городѣ Новомъ-Дворѣ и предъявилъ намъ младенца мужескаго пола объявляя что онъ родился въ городѣ Новомъ-Дворѣ семнадцатаго Июля текущаго года въ десять часовъ вечера отъ него и жены его Ривки урожденной Лихтманъ тридцати двухъ лѣтъ отъ роду. Младенцу этому при обрѣзаніи дано имя Хаимъ. Актъ сей по прочтеніи Намъ и свидѣтелямъ подписанъ, отецъ неграмотенъ.
И.д. Чиновника гражданскаго состоянія [подписи]
English Translation:
Took place in the town of Nowy Dwór on the twenty-fifth of July, eighteen ninety [July 25, 1890], at ten o'clock in the morning.
There personally appeared Moshek Zaltsman, a cap maker, thirty-three years of age, residing in the town of Nowy Dwór, in the presence of witnesses Haskel Sigalovich, twenty-nine years of age, and Layba Yulker, sixty-six years of age, both synagogue attendants residing in the town of Nowy Dwór, and presented to us a male infant, declaring that he was born in the town of Nowy Dwór on the seventeenth of July of the current year [July 17, 1890] at ten o'clock in the evening, to him and his wife Rivka, née Likhtman, thirty-two years of age.
At circumcision, this infant was given the name Khaim.
This act, after being read to us and the witnesses, was signed [by us]; the father is illiterate.
[Signatures of the Acting Civil Registrar]
Summary of Key Information:
Document Type: Birth/Circumcision Record
Date of Registration: July 25, 1890
Date of Birth: July 17, 1890
Place of Birth: Nowy Dwór (Poland)
Child's Name: Khaim (Chaim) Zaltsman
Father: Moshek Zaltsman (33 years old, cap maker)
Mother: Rivka Zaltsman, née Likhtman (32 years old)
Witnesses: Haskel Sigalovich (29) and Layba Yulker (66), synagogue attendants |
ViewMate ID 115164 Russian Language Translation Birth Record
Birth 68 reg. in N.D. July 25, born July 17, 1890 of Chaim ZALCMAN son of Moszek, 33, hatter and Gitla nee LICHTMAN, 32 |
8/15/2026
Google AI
My query:
html table how to build upside down pyramid with each cell doubled going up
Response:
To build an upside-down pyramid where each row going up doubles the number of cells (e.g., top row has 8 cells, next row up or down follows a geometric progression like 8, 4, 2, 1), you can structure an HTML table with decreasing or increasing colspan or simple nested structures. If the widest part (the base/many cells) is at the top and narrows down, or vice versa, standard HTML table rows (<tr>) stack vertically.
An upside-down pyramid (widest at the top, narrowing down to a point) with each row halving, or right-side up (doubling going up), means the top row has the maximum number of cells and lower rows decrease. Let's build a 4-row pyramid where the top row has 8 cells, the next has 4, then 2, and the bottom has 1 (an upside-down pyramid).HTML Structure Example
<table class="pyramid-table">
<!-- Top row: 8 cells (widest part of the upside-down pyramid) -->
<tr>
<td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td>
<td>5</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>8</td>
</tr>
<!-- Second row: 4 cells (doubled going up from 2, or halved going down) -->
<tr>
<td colspan="2">1</td>
<td colspan="2">2</td>
<td colspan="2">3</td>
<td colspan="2">4</td>
</tr>
<!-- Third row: 2 cells -->
<tr>
<td colspan="4">1</td>
<td colspan="4">2</td>
</tr>
<!-- Bottom row: 1 cell (the tip) -->
<tr>
<td colspan="8">Tip</td>
</tr>
</table>
When I paste the above code into the Code layer I get:
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
| 1 |
2 |
| Tip |
Now I center the table and make its border lines equal 1 pix:
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
| 1 |
2 |
| Tip |
and I used it to make this: |
urth
|
September, 2025
ZichronNote Cover corner rosettes
In Photoshop
sampled the green of the SFBAJGS logo tree
(please ignore color drift)
made a square 800 x 800 pixels
made a diagonal radiant gradation lightening color from top left to bottom right
In ChatGPT free tier wrote prompt:
“Coarsely granularize the gradient into circular grains on a white background”
this transformed lightness to circle size
| I also tried a couple of other ChatGPT prompts |
 |
 |
coarsely granularize the gradient into circular grains on a white background in a radially symmetrical pattern |
coarsely granularize the gradient into circular grains on a white background in a radially symmetrical pattern from top left to bottom right |
In Photoshop
cropped image slightly on left and on top to center lower right quadrant of largest circle
cropped image on right and bottom to reveal attractive pattern and erase cropped small circles at edges to make a rough circle
made a radiant gradation lightening the color from top left to bottom right
June 2025
Cousin
Val sent this scan and I asked her to mail me the 2.71 inches wide x 2.02 inches original to scan here.
1939 circa, London: Freda Bialick, Isaac Bialick, Rachael Greenbaum Bialick, Betsy Waldman (my father's sister); Front: Lillian Bialick, Jean (Johnny) Waldman. Valerie Kent collection, UK. 6491 x 4844 dpi
from print 2.71 inches wide x
2.02 inches tall, which I had scanned at 2400 dpi.
|
 |
 |
 |
280 x 209
Val's scan |
280 x 209
reduced
from my 6491 x 4844 |
140 x 105
reduced
from my 6491 x 4844 |
70 x 53
reduced
from my 6491 x 4844 |
| It appears that image quality is not merely a matter of resolution. The fidelity of the scan, itself, is a factor. The 280 x 209 of my scan has substantially more detail than Val's scan, and the 140 x 105 version does as well. |
 |
 |
too small to process |
 |
6/26/2025
1024 x 1536
ChatGPT
from Val's 280 x 209
Prompt: "Please restore this photo
"
yielded the wrong gender for two of the people. |
6/26/2025
1024 x 1536
ChatGPT
from my 280 x 209
Prompt: "Please restore this photo" yielded a new cast of imposters, though appropriately gendered. |
ChatGPT from my 140 x 105
Prompt: "Please restore this photo
|
6/27/2025
1536 x 1024
ChatGPT from my 6491 x 4844
Prompt: "Please restore this photo"
colorized. The program spontaneously switched to a
full-frame landscape mode. |
Who are these people? |
6/28/2025
1024 x 1024
ChatGPT from my 6491 x 4844
Prompt: "Please restore this photo as if it were taken today with high resolution digital cameras without changing anything about the image. Just repair it, clean it, and sharpen it. All the people are modern Ashkenazi Jews." These people are imposters!
6/28/2025
1536 x 1024
ChatGPT from my 6491 x 4844
I added prompt: “I'd like to see this at full width”
I knew and photographed two of these people and have seen multiple photos of the others.
These are fabrications!
|
