A deep neural network making predictions on live camera input, trying to make sense of what it sees, in context of what it’s seen before. It can see only what it already knows, just like us.
Humanizing the idea that comprehension is reliant upon tangible concepts really reminds me of the climax in the film CONTACT (1997), so if you have yet to see it — spoiler alert —
Schoolgirls work hard to make their mangaka dreams real:
Studio: Nexus / Genre: Comedy, School, Slice of Life / Premiere Date: April 5.
This site automatically colours your sketches. I played with it for a bit, adding colour for aesthetics sake, and I found its preset styles to be neat. Rather than a serious tool, PaintsChainer is more for fun, in my opinion anyway. Feel free to prove me wrong:
I uploaded some old (really old) pictures and yeah, it works. Please don’t ask me why I drew a character with exposed legs over armour. …I was working on a comic and she was meant to be a weapons courier for this sword, so she had to be a fighter and able to move fast, OKAY! … *cringe.
Why not? But don’t expect these scientists to mention religion even though that’s basically what the simulation hypothesis proposes; a mathematical architect:
Edited by: Emanuel Danneman nobaddays.nu / Full list of credits at Vimeo.
No Bad Days stitched together discussions from scientists, enthusiasts and art forms about the possibility and consequences of our reality being a simulation. “So you’re saying as you dig deeper, you find computer code writ in the fabric of the cosmos.”
If simulation is a word that describes something intelligently created, and reality is a word that describes what is not (for some) and is something that just is (or random cosmic explosion), then why are we as a species intrinsically not content with that “just is” explanation for existence? Could it be that it lends no clue as to the reason why? If we’re all in the same boat, behind the veil of knowing for certain, then why can’t we stop debating and all just be in awe? Maybe it is our predisposition for disparity that makes us human. The ultimate itch for certain truth that advances us forward. Birthing ambition. Ignorance, like curiosity and imagination then, might just be another one of our greatest mechanisms for achieving greatness. But who of us truly likes admitting ignorance. (🙋🏾♂️)
Following after the last post (Video Game Soda Machine Project), I remembered this cool photo series by Hokkaido photographer Eiji Ohashi. Vending machines in Japan are more ubiquitous (found everywhere) than they are in most other parts of the world (like here in NZ), which is no doubt why when I first saw these pictures, I really liked them:
Japan has the highest concentration of vending machines per person (there’s roughly 1 vending machine for every 23 people in Japan) and the fact that the majority of them are outdoors is a testament to the country’s safety and respect for property. Very rarely are these machines ever vandalized.
Juxtaposed with the landscape of Japan, these images are visually striking.
One snowy night, Ohashi was walking outside when he found himself transfixed by the form of snow that had piled up on top of a vending machine.
“Life in Japan has become extremely convenient, but still there seems no end to the pursuit of greater comfort,” he tells The Japan Times. “That quest continues relentlessly, but we don’t need this degree of convenience in order to live. Rather, having achieved this level of comfort, we should now be asking what is the true essence of happiness.” ~ JapanTimes
The collection of Ohashi’s photographs are also available as a photobook. …Since it is sort of related; I tried Calpis for the first time this year (thanks Shizuka) and I love the stuff!
That is all.
In 2016, Marshall University professor Jason Morrissette was playing Batman: Arkham Knight. While sneaking around the shadows, Morrissette stumbled upon a soda machine. Like many games, Akrham Knight doesn’t feature any real-life soda products; that’d cost money. Instead, the developers simply made up their own: Sparkle Fizz. “It was so colorful in an otherwise gloomy corner of Gotham City that it caught my eye,” said Morrissette in a recent email exchange.
After joking on Twitter that someone catalog the various ways video games choose to represent soda machines, Morrissette decided to take it on. Thus, the Video Game Soda Machine Project was born, and as of March, it reached an important milestone: the blog cataloged its 2,000th soda machine.
Morrissette, who admits to preferring the term “soft drink,” isn’t just collecting these random images as a pet project anymore—it’s incorporated into his research. He even presented a paper at an academic convention called “I’d Like to Buy the World a Nuka-Cola: The Purposes and Meanings of Video Game Soda Machines:”
Full PowerPoint presentation in Dropbox PDF: https://t.co/SN5MrFgWTK
If you’d like to point Morrissette towards some undocumented soda machines, you can get in touch with him over Twitter.
Actress-slash-burnout Lindsay Lohan’s drawn-out suit against Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive fizzled out today after a New York court rejected her appeal.
Lohan brought the lawsuit four years ago, taking issue with GTA V featuring a young woman named Lacey Jonas. Jonas is a white woman with strawberry blonde hair who, in one image, wears a red bikini and flashes a peace sign — reminiscent of a photo of Lohan doing the same thing:
Big whoop right? Well get this, it was actually part of the original complaint; “The Plaintiff has been using the peace sign hand gesture for years before and after its use in the video game.” Fame, must be nice, wasting precious time insisting that her “unequivocal” similarity to Lacey Jonas, a minor character in GTA 5, entitles her to compensation.
In 2016, a five-judge panel ruled that the suit had no merit. Today, New York Court of Appeals rejected Lohan’s appeal, too, referring to Grand Theft Auto‘s as Jonas character a “generic. . . twenty something woman without any particular identifying physical characteristics.” Ouch.
That said, the court did find that computer-generated images, like avatars or NPCs, can be legally called “portraits.” It’s just that Jonas wasn’t a portrait of Lohan, the court decided.
Went to see this Kiwi band perform live last night, who reformed after an 8 year hiatus. The audience was the most diverse I’ve ever been among, both young and old. My lasting impression of the night was just how amazing a voice Boh Runga has. Such an amazing range. Stellar* had a great track list, and my favourite of the night had to be signing along to Part of Me. A good night. I do recommend experiencing the atmosphere next they play.
Com Truise’s FAIRLIGHT video reminded me of something I made, which I will paste here because #selfpromotion. I make music in my spare time. Only like, three people will ever hear my stuff nowadays and that’s how I likes it, except for this is one track that I thought deserved some visual aid to accompany it. So I edited together some random found footage to form some semblance of a narrative. I used FL Studio to make this track — GLITCH:
Thanks for listening!! 😀 Although I pay it little maintenance, I have a Soundcloud account if anyone is interested. I love the digital footprints we leave behind. Interactive time capsules encapsulated by source code that traces back to our unwritten personality traits.
This sweet retro-futuristic tale directed by Will Joines, compliments BROKENDATE perfectly with its Blade Runner-esq eighties cop-nior ambience. It takes me back to a time that only exists in memory now, and I’m not concerned at all that that sentence shouldn’t have made any grammatical sense… BROKENDATE is rad.
Director: Will Joines / Producer: Sarah Romney / Cinematographer: Zoë White
How great a name is Com Truise — one of the many pseudonyms of New Jersey designer/musician Seth Haley. Love his melodious synth and the depth of atmosphere he’s able to create with minimal sounds. Here is another favourite — FAIRLIGHT:
My local comic shop held a screening of BLACK PANTHER tonight and it was good. Now, I don’t read reviews, I find them redundant when you know what you yourself like, but since I have seen the movie I am now reading into the hype, and I think it is deserved. For a superhero movie it definitely treated its fictional source material and correlative ties with Africa with dignity. There is a dynamic character arc, a thoroughly developed antagonist, kick-ass supporting roles and a decent soundtrack. All of which I can’t be assed to write on further, so I’ll let you vibe to Kendrick Lamar & SZA instead:
Kia ora! Hola! Bonjour! سلام! こんにちは! नमस्ते Namastē! مرحبا! 您好！Hallå! Hallo! Selamat Datang! Welcome! ⭐(★´♡‿♡`+)⭐ You have found ditb
🎭 