-
Bruny 149 built by @maguiredevine
The design of the Bruny Island cabin responds to our client’s desire for a retreat, a place of renewal where she can escape the high stress of her busy work life and engage in simple pleasures of reading, playing violin, star gazing. The cabin creates a well-equipped shelter, allowing her to spend time on her beloved 99 acres of land.Born in Taiwan, she spent her childhood in traditional Japanese houses (built during occupation). Out of this grew a love for highly crafted minimalist design. Our brief was to capture that and design a building as a piece of furniture with everything she needs built in. The only furniture allowed was a low table and mattress on the sleeping loft.
The site is completely off-grid, and as such the cabin collects its own rainwater, is powered by photovoltaics and heated by a woodfire oven, while gas provides hot water and cooktop cooking.The external materials comply with the Bushfire Attack Level of 19. A
bath is positioned in the afternoon deck below removable decking panels. The bathroom has a secret door onto the North deck for the experience of showering (almost) outside.(via cabinporn)
-
A neural network invents some pies
(Pie -> cat courtesy of https://affinelayer.com/pixsrv/ )
I work with neural networks, which are a type of machine learning computer program that learn by looking at examples. They’re used for all sorts of serious applications, like facial recognition and ad targeting and language translation. I, however, give them silly datasets and ask them to do their best.
So, for my latest experiment, I collected the titles of 2237 sweet and savory pie recipes from a variety of sources including Wikipedia and David Shields. I simply gave them to a neural network with no explanation (I never give it an explanation) and asked it to try to generate more.
Its very first attempt left something to be desired, but it had figured out that "P”, “i”, and “e” were important somehow.
e Piee i m t iee ic
ic Pa ePeeetae a e
eee ema iPPeaia eieer
i i
i ie
e eciie
Pe eaei aSecond checkpoint. Progress: Pie.
Pie Pee Pie
Pimi Pie Pim Cue Pie Pie (er Wie
Pae Pim Piu Pie Pim Piea Cre
Pia Pie Pim Pim
Pie Pie Piee Pie PieeThis is expected, since the word “pie” is both simple and by far the most common word in the dataset. It stays in the stage above for rather a while, able to spell only “Pie” and nothing else. It’s like evolution trying to get past the single-celled organism stage. After 4x more time has elapsed, it finally adds a few more words: “apple”, “cream”, and “tart”. Then, at the sixth checkpoint, “pecan”.
Seventh checkpoint: These are definitely pies. We are still working on spelling “strawberry”, however.
Boatin Batan Pie
Shrawberry Pie With An Cream Pie Cream Pie
Sweesh Pie Ipple Pie
Wrasle Cream Pie
Swrawberry Pie Cream Pie
Sae Fart Tart
Cheem Pie Sprawberry Cream Pie Cream Pie10th checkpoint. Still working.
Coscard Pie
Tluste Trenss Pie Wot
Flustickann
Fart
Oag’s Apple Pie
Daush Flumberry O
Cheesaliane
Rutter Chocklnd Apple Rhupperry pie
Flonberry Peran Pie
Blumbberry Cream Pie
Futters Whabarb Wottiry Rasty Pasty Kamphible Idponsible Swarlot Cream Cream Cront16th checkpoint. Showing some signs of improvement? Maybe. It thinks Qtrupberscotch is a thing.
Buttermitk Tlreed whonkie Pie
Spiatake Bog Pastry
Taco Custard Pie
Apple Pie With Pharf Calamed apple Freech Fodge
Cranberry Rars
Farb Fart
Feep-Lisf Pie With Qpecisn-3rnemerry Fluit Turd
Turbyy Raisin Pie
Forp Damelnut Pie
Flazed Berry Pie
Figi’s Chicken Sugar Pie
Sauce and Butterm’s Spustacian Pie Fill Pie With Boubber Pie Bok Pie
Booble Rurble Shepherd’s Parfate
Ner with Cocoatu Vnd Pie Iiakiay Coconate Meringue Pie With Spiced Qtrupberscotch Apple Pie
Bustard Chiffon PieFinally we arrive at what, according to the neural network, is Peak Pie. It tracks its own progress by testing itself against the original dataset and scoring itself, and here is where it thinks it did the best.
It did in fact come up with some that might actually work, in a ridiculously-decadent sort of way.
Baked Cream Puff Cake
Four Cream Pie
Reese’s Pecan Pie
Fried Cream Pies
Eggnog Peach Pie #2
Fried Pumpkin Pie
Whopper pie
Rice Krispie-Chiffon Pie
Apple Pie With Fudge Treats
Marshmallow Squash Pie
Pumpkin Pie with Caramelized Pie
Butter PieBut these don’t sound very good actually.
Strawberry Ham Pie
Vegetable Pecan Pie
Turd Apple Pie Fillings
Pin Truffle Pie
Fail Crunch Pie Crust
Turf Crust
Pot Beep Pies Crust
Florid Pumpkin Pie
Meat-de-Topping
Parades Or Meat Pies Or Cake #1
Milk Harvest Apple Pie
Ice Finger Sugar Pie
Amazon Apple Pie
Prize Wool Pie
Snood Pie
Turkey Cinnamon
Almond-Pumpkin Pie With Fingermilk
Pumpkin Pie With Cheddar Cookie
Fish Strawberry Pie
Butterscotch Bean Pie
Impossible Maple Spinach Apple Pie
Strawberry-Onions Marshmallow Cracker Pie Filling
Caribou Meringue PieAnd I have no what these are:
Stramberiy Cheese Pie
The pon Pie
Dississippi Mish
Boopie Crust
Liger Strudel
Free pie
Sneak Pie
Tear pie
Basic France Pie
Baked Trance pie
Shepherd’s Finger Tart
Buster’s Fib Lemon Pie
Worf Butterscotch Pie
Scent Whoopie
Grand Prize Winning I*iple
Cromberry Yas
Law-Ox Strudel
Surf Pie, Blue Ulter Pie - Pitzon’s
Flangerson’s Blusty Tart
Fresh Pour Pie
Mur’s Tartless TartMore of the neural network’s attempts to understand what humans like to eat:
Perhaps my favorite: Small Sandwiches
All my other neural network recipe experiments here.
Want more than that? I’ve got a bunch more recipes that I couldn’t fit in this post. Enter your email here and I’ll send you 38 more selected recipes.
Want to help with neural network experiments? For NaNoWriMo I’m crowdsourcing a dataset of novel first lines, after the neural network had trouble with a too-small dataset. Go to this form (no email necessary) and enter the first line of your novel, or your favorite novel, or of every novel on your bookshelf. You can enter as many as you like. At the end of the month, I’ll hopefully have enough sentences to give this another try.
-
-
Top Left: Flavin in Peach
Top Right: Twombly in Grey
Bottom Left: Fontana in Green
Bottom Right: Duchamp in Pink
(via hydeordie)
-
My friend told me a story he hadn’t told anyone for years. When he used to tell it years ago people would laugh and say, ‘Who’d believe that? How can that be true? That’s daft.’ So he didn’t tell it again for ages. But for some reason, last night, he knew it would be just the kind of story I would love.
When he was a kid, he said, they didn’t use the word autism, they just said ‘shy’, or ‘isn’t very good at being around strangers or lots of people.’ But that’s what he was, and is, and he doesn’t mind telling anyone. It’s just a matter of fact with him, and sometimes it makes him sound a little and act different, but that’s okay.
Anyway, when he was a kid it was the middle of the 1980s and they were still saying ‘shy’ or ‘withdrawn’ rather than ‘autistic’. He went to London with his mother to see a special screening of a new film he really loved. He must have won a competition or something, I think. Some of the details he can’t quite remember, but he thinks it must have been London they went to, and the film…! Well, the film is one of my all-time favourites, too. It’s a dark, mysterious fantasy movie. Every single frame is crammed with puppets and goblins. There are silly songs and a goblin king who wears clingy silver tights and who kidnaps a baby and this is what kickstarts the whole adventure.
It was ‘Labyrinth’, of course, and the star was David Bowie, and he was there to meet the children who had come to see this special screening.
‘I met David Bowie once,’ was the thing that my friend said, that caught my attention.
‘You did? When was this?’ I was amazed, and surprised, too, at the casual way he brought this revelation out. Almost anyone else I know would have told the tale a million times already.
He seemed surprised I would want to know, and he told me the whole thing, all out of order, and I eked the details out of him.
He told the story as if it was he’d been on an adventure back then, and he wasn’t quite allowed to tell the story. Like there was a pact, or a magic spell surrounding it. As if something profound and peculiar would occur if he broke the confidence.
It was thirty years ago and all us kids who’d loved Labyrinth then, and who still love it now, are all middle-aged. Saddest of all, the Goblin King is dead. Does the magic still exist?
I asked him what happened on his adventure.
‘I was withdrawn, more withdrawn than the other kids. We all got a signed poster. Because I was so shy, they put me in a separate room, to one side, and so I got to meet him alone. He’d heard I was shy and it was his idea. He spent thirty minutes with me.
‘He gave me this mask. This one. Look.
‘He said: ‘This is an invisible mask, you see?
‘He took it off his own face and looked around like he was scared and uncomfortable all of a sudden. He passed me his invisible mask. ‘Put it on,’ he told me. ‘It’s magic.’
‘And so I did.
‘Then he told me, ‘I always feel afraid, just the same as you. But I wear this mask every single day. And it doesn’t take the fear away, but it makes it feel a bit better. I feel brave enough then to face the whole world and all the people. And now you will, too.
‘I sat there in his magic mask, looking through the eyes at David Bowie and it was true, I did feel better.
‘Then I watched as he made another magic mask. He spun it out of thin air, out of nothing at all. He finished it and smiled and then he put it on. And he looked so relieved and pleased. He smiled at me.
‘'Now we’ve both got invisible masks. We can both see through them perfectly well and no one would know we’re even wearing them,’ he said.
‘So, I felt incredibly comfortable. It was the first time I felt safe in my whole life.
‘It was magic. He was a wizard. He was a goblin king, grinning at me.
‘I still keep the mask, of course. This is it, now. Look.’
I kept asking my friend questions, amazed by his story. I loved it and wanted all the details. How many other kids? Did they have puppets from the film there, as well? What was David Bowie wearing? I imagined him in his lilac suit from Live Aid. Or maybe he was dressed as the Goblin King in lacy ruffles and cobwebs and glitter.
What was the last thing he said to you, when you had to say goodbye?
‘David Bowie said, ‘I’m always afraid as well. But this is how you can feel brave in the world.’ And then it was over. I’ve never forgotten it. And years later I cried when I heard he had passed.’
My friend was surprised I was delighted by this tale.
‘The normal reaction is: that’s just a stupid story. Fancy believing in an invisible mask.’
But I do. I really believe in it.
And it’s the best story I’ve heard all year.Paul Magrs (via yourfluffiestnightmare)(via neil-gaiman)
-
-
The neural network will name your next band
An important part of starting a new band is choosing an appropriate name. It is crucial that the name be unique, or you could risk at best confusion, and at worst an expensive lawsuit.
The neural network is here to help.
Prof. Mark Riedl of Georgia Tech, who recently provided the world a dataset of all the stories with plot summaries on Wikipedia, (enabling this post on neural net story names) now used his Wikipedia-extraction skills to produce a list of all the bands with listed discographies - about 84,000 in all.
I gave the list to the Char-rnn neural network framework, and it was soon producing unique band names for a variety of genres. Below are examples of its output at various temperature (i.e. creativity) settings.
Temperature 1.1
This is about as high as the creativity setting can go before most of the band names are unpronounceable jumbles. These are some fine band names, highly suitable for whatever the heck their genres are supposed to be.
Spice Green Robinson
Gloome Schronnana
Boofpas
The Freights
Nighty Daggers
The Loveburners of Internal Watch
Foxettes Ratimot Secret singer band
The Dougloco
The Theps
Choconard Leach
Rhoudemsquat
Terrerssky?
Flemz
Mighty Chipping Baker
Bop Gray (band)Temperature 1.0
With the creativity turned down a bit, the band names are still weird, but a bit more plausible. Their genres can sometimes be identified.
For example, I think these are probably traditional Irish bands?
The Durks of Audun Green
Sherry of Shinking Feavan
The Shurping LaudstAnd these might work as metal bands:
Rabidass (band)
Killerlet (musician)
Brokin’s Killer
Flish Lipe
Supervillin
Girl DeadThese are perhaps a bit less scrutable.
Dr Overhard
The Arce (band)
The Tree Misters
Reilling Ef (rapper)
Flim Brothers
Ching Mage
Nan Edwards (folk singer)
Nittle Bizzy
The Dinlakoposseps
Skins of Space
Michael Porker
The Lost singers
The Nutlet Band
The Rogue Orchestra
The Fuman.A.I.((band)
Vervoly Brown (urtist)
Boohalloid (group)
The Ballening Birds
Lice StepleyTemperature 0.9
With the creativity turned down a notch further, the band names become even more plausible. You could probably convince me that these exist.
No Andrew Newson
Fuzion (band)
The Wurfywinders
Clay Fights
Berry Stitcher
Something Rothers
The Awl
The Thingsons
Switch’s Rich
Lug
Pond Billy
The Hums (band)
Northern Prince (Indian band)
Staff KillerTemperature 0.6
Turn the creativity down another notch, and we start to edge toward the neural network’s idea of the most quintessential band names. Note that they’re still pretty weird.
Dub Arts
Sheet Rose
Heart Coil
Elliot Horse
Big Love
The Mothers (band)
The Time Stars
Hulls of Girls
Sucken (band)
Electric Sing Show
The Pans
Symphony No. 3 (Dinish band)
Hell Staple (band)
Peter Parker
Bad Head
The Out Cookers
Flower Shankar
The Hat ColesTemperature 0.3
Now at a creativity setting of only 0.3, almost all the band names are variations on “The [Noun]”.
The Shines
The Deaths
The Dance (band)
The Livers (band)
The Stone Choir
The Shake Man (band)Another strange thing happens, which is that the proportion of sharks goes way, way up. Apparently the neural network thinks that if you’re going to name a band, you can’t go wrong with sharks.
Johnny Shark
The Shark Charles
Shark Rander
The Shark (band)
Nicole Shark
Shark Gordon
Shark Taylor (musician)
The Shark Singers
Tony SharkTemperature 0.01
And now we come to the lowest temperature setting, where the neural network’s output consists of the most-quintessential band name, repeated over and over. Throughout most of the training process, this name was “The Stars” and occasionally “The Brothers”, but there was one generation where the neural network repeatedly insisted that there was nothing… nothing more fundamental to music than the banjo-playing skills of:
Steve Martin (musician)
Steve Martin (musician)
Steve Martin (musician)
Steve Martin (musician)
Steve Martin (musician)
Steve Martin (musician)
Steve Martin (musician)
Steve Martin (musician) -
-
Appropriate : NowPlaying Nasty by Brooke Candy
-