Tag: nice

bogleech:

escapekit:

The Monster Project

I’ve posted in the past about this awesome project that helps show kids the power of imagination. Without any guidelines elementary school students are asked to draw a monster. The finished drawings are sent to artists around the world who recreate them using  3D illustrations, animations, and paintings. The finished works and then sent back to the children. 

Okay I really like this because a lot of other projects to recreate children’s drawings will follow them EXACTLY, and while the results can be pretty, they’re kinda more for the amusement of adults most of the time than what the kids themselves would probably have wanted.

I feel like this one is less patronizing. I mean, when you’re a kid and you can only draw crudely, you usually still have a much more life-like image in your head. This project is actually validating that, showing these kids that their ideas are what matter, and even demonstrating to them how conceptual design works as a career.

Even many famous series creators aren’t all that skilled at drawing, but I sure didn’t know that when I was a child. I thought I had to have supreme technical skill to be a creator; I thought every person with their name on a cartoon show or video game had to be able to pull off the final designs we were seeing.

I’d have felt really proud of myself if one of my scribbly doodles came back to me as something this complex, like the adults actually understood what I was going for instead of thinking “awww he drew the arms so wrong that’s so cuuute haha”

Source: mymodernmet.com

roachpatrol:

curlicuecal:

procedural-generation:

A Time for Destiny: The Illustrious Career of Serenity Starlight Warhammer O’James during her First Three Years in the Space Fighters

The term “Mary Sue” has been thrown around a lot recently, mostly for characters it doesn’t really apply to. The term originates in a very specific fan fiction context, and in my opinion there are usually much better approaches to use for media criticism for works outside that context. Dismissing a character as a “Mary Sue” is a muddled way to approach a film character.

Unless you’re intentionally trying to evoke self-indulgent fan fiction. 

In which case, welcome to the rabbit hole, Alice.

For NaNoGenMo 2015, Cat’s Eye Technologies decided to create a computer generated novel that doesn’t succumb to Michael Cook’s more unpredictable stuff. The goal was to create a novel where the reader doesn’t lose interest because of the generative nature of the text. On the other hand, the MARYSUE generator was never intended to write good novels, just legible ones. Which is still a pretty lofty goal.

The generator is intentionally cast in the mode of an overwrought but inexperienced author. Which actually matches the abilities of the generator rather well: the author really is an immature adolescent struggling to get an exciting story down on paper while jumping between cool imagery and overly specific details about the things the author is obsessed with. Just, in this case, the author happens to be an adolescent robot.

By framing the generator in a way that matches its weaknesses, it lets us look beyond them and focus on its strengths. We treat the generator as a budding young author, obsessed with certain ideas and mystified by others. 

In doing so, we can start to point out the parts of the stories that work and can start to see what the author was trying to go for and maybe even be able to figure out how to help the author say them better–just as we might be able to respond to a young fan fiction author who is working out their feelings about the source material by writing a story in response.

Beyond choosing a frame that matches the abilities of the generator, the output itself is fairly sophisticated for a machine-written text. It’s based on the idea of a story compiler that looks for plot events and expands them into more detailed events. 

You can read the complete novel here or peruse the source code.

omg baby robot’s first fic

also.  there’s a scene right off the bat where an important thing gets stolen and the fic’s going through listing off everybody’s reactions, and then we hit:

Joe Mulbury picked up the cup of coffee that was nearby. He held the cup
of coffee in his hand. “This cup of coffee represents how I feel
inside,” he said heavily.

and then that’s just a random recurring thing.

this is my new response to everything.   I’m making this a meme.

BABY ROBOTS BABY ROBOTS

Source: procedural-generation

bow-weaver:

apollymi:

shrewreadings:

edens-blog:

lapestelareste:

bakafox:

hamstergal:

theaustinstollhaus:

atoyont:

theaustinstollhaus:

So if “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” is be believed, you can fiddle duel the devil for your soul. My question is, does it only work with fiddles, or any contest? Saxophone duel? Guitar shred-off? Can you challenge the devil to a rap battle when he comes for you?

Even though I play piano I want to see someone fight for their soul with the tuba.

The Devil went back to Georgia and his thoughts were dark and cold
That Johnny kid had screwed him and he still needed a soul.
When he came across this young man blowin’ on a tuba and playin’ hits
And the devil took one look and said “You know what? Fuck this shit.”

“Kid, I know you won’t believe this, but I play the tuba too
“And if you wanna wager, well I’ve got a deal for you
“If I’m the better tubist, then I get to take your soul
“If you’re the best, you get this horn here, made from solid gold.”

The boy replied, “My name is Hans, and though it may be wrong,
“Your bet’s pretty intriguing, so I guess I’ll play along”

Hans, clean out your spit valves, and get ready for a show,
Two tubas feudin’ face to face; pick up your horn and blow.
‘Cause if you win, you get a brand new tuba made of gold,
And if you lose the Devil gets your soul!

(Oompah music intensifies)

The Devil opened up his case and said, “I’ll start, I guess.”
And fire puffed out from the bell as on the valves he pressed
He raised the mouthpiece to his lips, it made a wicked BLART
And a band of lederhosen demons joined in with him to start

(Roll Out the Barrel plays with extended tuba solo)

Hans looked the Devil in the eye, once he finished his piece,
Said “That’s okay, old man, but just you get a load of this!”

(http://youtu.be/zmFYgc-Emmc and skip to 2:20)

The Devil bowed his head, because he knew he can’t compete.
He dragged that heavy tuba down; it crashed by Hans’s feet.
He turned away from Hans and as he retreated he said,
“Forget this crap. I’m gonna try telemarketing instead.”

(Tuba outro)

@hamstergal you are amazing and owe me 1 clean monitor.

:(((

Fiddles are historically associated with the devil not through any Christian imagery, but because older European folk tradition held that several uber powerful water demons, known as nock, nikyr, necks, etc, were insanely good fiddle players.

In Norway, for example, the violin known as the Hardanger fiddle was played initially by the creepy otherwordly beings, like the hulderfolk, the trolls, as well as the nock. There are equivalents in other European cultures.

These beings were known as preternaturally skilled fiddle players, the nocks above all others. So some people would make a deal to learn the fiddle from the nock, or have their children trained. The only problem being nocks usually needed life or blood sacrifices to learn their skills.

So as Christianity was introduced, the water demon nock was conflated with the devil. Because other stories of nykyrs, nocks, etc were generally sacrificing a human to appease treacherous tides, which was the pinnacle of terror.

The devil knows the fiddle, because the ancient tradition is that if you can win your freedom from the nocks, they will honor this pact. 

this post is the perfect mix of creativity, historical facts, and folklore/mythology, and above all shitposting.

One word:

Accordion

I counter: kazoo.

Mouth harp.

thoodleoo:

thoodleoo:

somebody should make a version of the very hungry caterpillar about achilles and call it the very angry achilles and it can be about all the people/things he fought

“on monday achilles fought one river, but he was still angry”

“on tuesday achilles pierced through two trojans, but he was still angry”

on wednesday achilles dragged hector around the walls three times, but he was still angry”

therothwoman:

imaginarycircus:

thelonelybrilliance:

When you hear a new song on the radio and you’re desperately trying to pick a notable phrase so you can google it later

Gather round, kids. Let me tell you a story from ye olden days because I am tumblr elderly. I used to DJ for a radio station. I played records and CDs and we had station IDs from bands on 8 track cartes. People would call me asking what songs were–but they had to mumble, sing, or play the song on an instrument. I had someone call me to ask what Smells Like Teen Spirit was when it was a single. They played it on an accordion. I forgot about it until a moment ago when I saw this post.

They played it on an accordion

Do you ever sit down with other authors of wizard books and just talk about the wacky shenanigans your magical creations get into?

dduane:

Maybe not wizard books as such. But getting together with other writers at conventions and going off to some quiet part of the bar and discussing how we torment our characters for their own good? Yeah, that.

🙂 I also remember vividly a dinner-and-drinks meeting of most (if not all) of the writers who were then working on Thieves’ World. It was as much a plotting meeting as anything else, but there was also much discussion of who was going to kill off what other writer’s character off in their next story.

This went on for the guts of an hour before we realized that the people around us were listening to our conversation with increasing unease as we calmly proposed (or boasted about) knocking off this person or that. We belatedly realized that we must have sounded like a Mafia dons’ dinner. And by the time we realized that, it was too late for explanations: the people in question had already paid up and were getting the heck out of Dodge, well away from what sounded like a serial killers’ social.

We also had to stop C. J. Cherryh from silting up the harbor in the main city (again!!), but that was another story.