Lets Go Psychedelic! II

Its weird, its unsettling, its silly fun - and I couldn't resist to make more! I think the visual impact of Google's "machine-dream-pictures" hits you the hardest on the most common motives. The contrast between normal and - well - not normal makes it simply jump into your face ;-)

While this is a pretty weird effect of the company tinkering with neuronal networks, its of course only a side-product of their AI-research. But it kind of shows you where the direction is going at and how powerful that stuff already is. Just as humans can recognize a few dots and lines organized in a certain way as a "face" (like at the end of the paragraph above), they are teaching their machines to do the same: recognize and interpret patterns.
If nothing else, it tells us at least a bit about how the human mind works. How it recognizes things like faces faces and what exactly happens when this pattern-interpreting runs a bit out of control (like when dreaming or hallucinating).

This time I added also some brief description under the original files. So you get some background information to the photo, but without distracting you from the impression the modified (or "weirdified") picture.

Ok, enough rambling and theorizing lets get you some creeps!

This landscape shot was taken at SL12B. Its actually a 32x32 parcel!

One of the buildings at the Elven Village at Dark Wishes.

A ruin at Dark Wishes.

Prof. Wickentower's clank-workers in his old airship workshop

A - already - pretty crazy art-installation at SL12B.

My Dream Generator, already the name is simply suiting.

The DJ Stage at SL12B

Tessie, the mascot of Tesla Island, home of Unzipped.

No, I was not hunting that dinosaur. Its just sleeping!

New Babbage at sunset.

Lets Go Psychedelic!

Since Google was giving its neural networks LSD a few weeks ago, I was desperately waiting for a way to make my own pictures of that kind (without having to deal with some hardcore coding that is). Today I stumbled over this lovely little link and well - best see for yourself.
My selection contains pictures taken roughly in the last 8 months or so. Beneath every weirdo-version is the regular one for comparison (and to settle your shaken minds again!). I hope you enjoy them.

Last Day of SL12B Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the last day of SL12B! If you haven’t visited it yet: hurry! ;-)

The Dream Generator. Not a world-domination machine - really!

It's starting up...

This little picture gallery shows my Dream Generator in action.

Hunting Streetsigns with Balloons!

At least kinda ;-) I wanted to give you a quick heads-up on the recent events and activities concerning Drow Science and New Shoregate. 

Lets start with the Battle Balloon tournament, which 4th competition will be held tomorrow 1 PM, New Shoregate (same time-space coordinates as always)

For the Rambo-moments in life: New Shoregate's Battle Balloon Tournament!

Tomorrow is also when our Name-the-Street-contest is ending. You still have the chance of getting some steampunktastic prizes, so hurry and send me your note! :-)

Oh no! A blank Sign! Help it getting a name - and its friends too!

And last but not least: The Steam X hunt is going throughout march, which this lovely gift waiting for the brave hunters:

Want know more - check out the Steam X blog. The battle balloons are waiting here at their take-off site, and this link leads you to the Name-the-Street-Contest!

I wish you lots of fun and good luck!

Balloon Battle Part 3 - Results

Too bad I missed the battle this time. Instead I was battling a RL cold. Seems I have won at least there!

Nevertheless the third part of our tournament was another great success, so I've been told. So was the after-battle-party!

This time the tournament saw also a little modification: We introduced an altitude-limiter. I know, sounds complicated, but its basically just a invisible megaprim-platform to prevent balloons from rising too high.
The aim was more intense fights and preventing balloons to escape the battle by climbing out of sight. Both seemed to have worked very well.

The Winners of both round 1 and 2 were: Baroness DeSade and Ala - congratulations!

I hope to be back in the battle next Thursday though! Hope to see you all there!

Coming Thursday: Balloon Battle - Part 3!

You always have that special friends you'd like to shoot with a big caliber gun? Invite them to our Battle Balloon Tournament! ;-) Thursday we will have the third round of our epic, sim-bursting (as in hitting the av-limit) fights!

The space-time coordinates are the same as always: New Shoregate, at 1 PM SLT. Meet you there!

New Shoregate Battle Balloon Tournament - Round 2 Results!

Was the first battle already a success, this time has been really a blast (no pun intended)! I didn't expect that we would actually hit the 20 Avatar-limit of the sim (hard to believe, but New Shoregate is a homestead after all!) - but we did!

So we had no less than ten (10!) battle balloons circling and firing at each other! How great is that? The amount of lag was surprisingly low. At least on my end: I barely noticed the notorious rubber-band effect or delays when steering. Not bad at all for a sim both at its prim- and avatar-limit!

Also a big thank you to Randy Quander again for the spectacular photos!

Ok, enough rambling, here the results:

Winner of the 1st Round: Some (thats me, if you haven't guessed already) and Emma.

Winner of the 2nd Round (and 1500 L prizemoney) : Silly and Lynnbexter.

Our (in more than one way^^) daring  photographer!

The winners landing after a hard battle!

After the fighting was over, it was time to celebrate in the nearby Morlock's Revenge Pub!

Congratulations! Both rounds were damn tough fights - but very enjoyable nevertheless! See you all next Thursday for part three of the tournament!

Get Ready For The Next Day Of Our Battle Balloon Tournament!

Meet people, have a good chat and then shoot at each other: Balloon Battle Thursday, 1 PM @New Shoregate :-)

Here some highlights from last time, thanks to the awesome Randy Quander from the Meyonian Army for the pictures!

Team Absinthe (Emma and Yourfavourtedrowscientist) ready for takeoff!

Battle Balloon on the chase!

Down in flames!

Want to increase your battle-skills? No problem: come by anytime for a training flight or bring some friends for sparring. The balloons are ready to be rezzed!

Don't miss it! Here is your taxi!