not to be dramatic or anything but i would fucking die for you violet
My favorite meme is “anime girls photoshopped into desolate Eastern-European photos”
This last one is my favorite:
There’s just something so… desperate about it.
Fucking Fabulous
Hey, this post may contain adult content, so we’ve hidden it from public view.
SkyKnit: When knitters teamed up with a neural network
[Make Caows and Shapcho - MeganAnn]
[Pitsilised Koekirjad Cushion Sampler Poncho - Maeve]
I use algorithms called neural networks to write humor. What’s fun about neural networks is they learn by example - give them a bunch of some sort of data, and they’ll try to figure out rules that let them imitate it. They power corporate finances, recognize faces, translate text, and more. I, however, like to give them silly datasets. I’ve trained neural networks to generate new paint colors, new Halloween costumes, and new candy heart messages. When the problem is tough, the results are mixed (there was that one candy heart that just said HOLE).
One of the toughest problems I’ve ever tried? Knitting patterns.
I knew almost nothing about knitting when @JohannaB@wandering.shop sent me the suggestion one day. She sent me to the Ravelry knitting site, and to its adults-only, often-indecorous LSG forum, who as you will see are amazing people. (When asked how I should describe them, one wrote “don’t forget the glitter and swearing!”)
And so, we embarked upon Operation Hilarious Knitting Disaster.
The knitters helped me crowdsource a dataset of 500 knitting patterns, ranging from hats to squids to unmentionables. JC Briar exported another 4728 patterns from the site stitch-maps.com.
I gave the knitting patterns to a couple of neural networks that I collectively named “SkyKnit”. Then, not knowing if they had produced anything remotely knittable, I started posting the patterns. Here’s an early example.
MrsNoddyNoddy wrote, “it’s difficult to explain why 6395, 71, 70, 77 is so asthma-inducingly funny.” (It seems that a 6000-plus stitch count is, as GloriaHanlon put it, “optimism”).
As training progressed, and as I tried some higher-performance models, SkyKnit improved. Here’s a later example.
Even at its best, SkyKnit had problems. It would sometimes repeat rows, or leave them out entirely. It could count rows fairly reliably up to about 22, but after that would start haphazardly guessing random largish numbers. SkyKnit also had trouble counting stitches, and would confidently declare at the end of certain lines that it contained 12 stitches when it was nothing of the sort.
But the knitters began knitting them. This possibly marks one of the few times in history when a computer generated code to be executed by humans.
[Mystery lace - datasock]
[Reverss Shawl - citikas]
The knitters didn’t follow SkyKnit’s directions exactly, as it turns out. For most of its patterns, doing them exactly as written would result in the pattern immediately unraveling (due to many dropped stitches), or turning into long whiplike tentacles (due to lots of leftover stitches). Or, to make the row counts match up with one another, they would have had to keep repeating the pattern until they’d reached a multiple of each row count - sometimes this was possible after a few repeats, while other times they would have had to make the pattern tens of thousands of stitches long. And other times, missing rows made the directions just plain impossible.
So, the knitters just started fixing SkyKnit’s patterns.
Knitters are very good at debugging patterns, as it turns out. Not only are there a lot of knitters who are coders, but debugging is such a regular part of knitting that the complicated math becomes second nature. Notation is not always consistent, some patterns need to be adjusted for size, and some simply have mistakes. The knitters were used to taking these problems in stride. When working with one of SkyKnit’s patterns, GloriaHanlon wrote, “I’m trying not to fudge too much, basically working on the principle that the pattern was written by an elderly relative who doesn’t speak much English.”
Each pattern required a different debugging approach, and sometimes knitters would each produce their own very different-looking versions. Here are three versions of “Paw Not Pointed 2 Stitch 2″.
[Top - ActualJellyfish; Middle - LadyAurian; Bottom (sock version) - ShoelessJane]
Once, knitter MeganAnn came across a stitch that didn’t even exist (something SkyKnit called ’pbk’). So she had to improvise. “I googled it and went with the first definition I got, which was ‘place bead and knit’.” The resulting pattern is “Ribbed Rib Rib” below (note bead).
Even debugged, the patterns were weird. Like, really, really nonhumanly weird.
“I love how organic it comes out,“ wrote Vastra. SylviaTX agreed, loving “the organic seeming randomness. Like bubbles on water or something,”
SkyKnit’s patterns were also a pain. Michaela112358 called Row 15 of Mystery Lace (above) “a bit of a head melter”, commenting that it “lacked the rhythm that you tend to get with a normal pattern”. Maeve_ish wrote that Shetland Bird Pat “made my brain hurt so I went to bed.” ShoelessJane asked, “Okay, now who here has read Snow Crash?”
[Winder Socks (2 versions) - TotesMyName]
“I was laughing a few days ago because I was trying to math a Skyknit pattern and my brain…froze. Like, no longer could number at all. I stared blankly at my scribbles and at the screen wondering what had happened til somehow I rebooted. Yup, Skyknit crashed my brain.” - Rayn63
On the pattern SkyKnit called “Cherry and Acorns Twisted To”:
“Couple notes on the knitting experience, which while funny wasn’t terribly pleasurable: Because there’s no rhythm or symmetry to the pattern, I felt I was white-knuckling it through each line, really having to concentrate. There are also some stitch combinations that aren’t very comfortable to execute physically, YO, SSK in particular.
That said, I’m nearly tempted to add a bit of random AI lace to a project, perhaps as cuffs on a sweater or a short-row lace panel in part of a scarf, like Sylvia McFadden does in many of her shawl designs. As another person in the thread said, it would add a touch of spider-on-LSD.” -SarahScully
[cherry and acorns twisted to - Sarah Scully]
BridgetJ’s comments on “Butnet Scarf”:
“Four repeats in to this oddball, daintily alien-looking 8-row lace pattern, and I have, improbably, begun to internalize it and get in to a rhythm like every other lace pattern.
I still have a lingering suspicion that I’m knitting a pattern that could someday communicate to an AI that I want to play a game of Global Thermonuclear War, but I suppose at least I’ll have a scarf at the end of it?” -BridgetJ
[butnet scarf - BridgetJ]
There was also this beauty of a pattern, that SkyKnit called “Tiny Baby Whale Soto”. GloriaHanlon managed somehow to knit it and described it as “a bona fide eldritch horror. Think Slenderman meets Cthulu and you wouldn’t be far wrong.”
[Tiny Baby Whale Soto - GloriaHanlon]
Other than being a bit afraid of Tiny Baby Whale Soto, the knitters seem happy to do the bidding of SkyKnit, brain melts and all.
“I cast on for a lovely MKAL with a designer I totally trust and became immediately suspicious because the pattern made sense. All rows increase in an orderly manner. There are no “huh?” moments. There are no maths at all…it has all been done for me. I thought I would be happy, yo. Instead, I am kind of missing the brain scrambling and I keep looking for pigs and tentacles. Go figure.” - Rayn63
Check out the rest of the SkyKnit-generated patterns, and the glorious rainbow of weird test-knits at SkyKnit: The Collection and InfiKnit.
There’s also a great article in the Atlantic that talks a bit more about the debugging.
If you feel so inspired (and don’t mind the kind-hearted yet vigorous swearing), join the conversation on the LSG Ravelry SkyKnit thread - many of SkyKnit’s creations have not yet been test-knit at all, and others transform with every new knitter’s interpretation. Compare notes, commiserate, and do SkyKnit’s inscrutable bidding!
Heck yeah there is bonus material this week. Have some neural net-generated knitting & crochet titles. Some of them are mixed with metal band names for added creepiness. Enter your email here to get more like these:
Chicken Shrug
Snuggle Features
Cartube Party Filled Booties
Corm Fullenflops
Womp Mittens
Socks of Death
Tomb of Sweater
Shawl Ruins
Rations for various RPG Races
[[ Source. Original creator: wats6831. Additional information and images linked under each one. ]]
Universal:
Homemade artisan herb bread, home grown and dried apples and prunes, uncured beef sausage, munster cheese. Made a small bag from cheesecloth and tied it closed.
Discussion thread here.
Dwarf:
Garlic chicken livers, smoked and peppered cheese, spiced pork sausages, hard tack, dried vegetables, dried wild mushrooms.
Discussion thread here.
Elf:
Top left to right: Evereskan Honey Comb, Elven Travel Bread (Amaretto Liquer Cake with custom swirls), Lurien Spring Cheese (goat cheese with garlic, salt, spices and shallots), Delimbyr Vale Smoked Silverfin (Salmon), Honey Spiced Lichen (Kale Chips), and Silverwood Pine Nuts.
Discussion thread here.
Halfling:
From upper left: “Honeytack” Hard tack honey cakes, beef sausage, pork sausage mini links, mini whole wheat toast, cranberry cheddar cheese mini wedge, mini pickles, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, lower right is my homemade “travel cake” muesli with raisins, golden prunes, honey, eggs and cream.
Discussion thread here.
Half-Orc:
Wrapped in cheesecloth and tied in burlap package. Forest strider drumsticks, molasses sweet wheat bread “black strap”, aged Munster, hard boiled eggs, mixed wild nuts.
Discussion thread here.
Orc:
Orcs aren’t known for their great cuisine. Orcs prefer foods that are readily available (whatever can be had by raiding), and portable with little preparation, though they have a few racial delicacies. Toughs strips of lean meat, bones scavenged from recent kills, and dark coarse bread make up the bulk of common orc rations.Fire roasted rothe femur (marrow is a rare treat) [beef femur], Strips of dried meat (of unknown origin) [homemade goose jerky], foraged nuts, only edible by orcs….nut cracker tusks [brazil nuts], coarse black bread, made with whatever grains can be pillaged [black sesame bread], Pungent peppers [Habanero peppers stuffed with smoked fish and olives].
More images here. Discussion thread here.
Gnome:
Pan fried Delimbyr smelt, spiced goat cheese (paprika crusted hand pressed Fontina), Gnome shortbread (savory pistachio), glass travel jar filled with Secomber Red (wine), hard boiled quail eggs packed in rolled oats (to keep safe), dried figs from Calimshan, and Southwood smoked goat sausage (blood sausage).
More images here. Discussion thread here.
Lizardfolk:
Lizardfolk are known to be omnivores, forage for a surprising variety of foods found within the confines of their marshy environs, in this case the Lizard Marsh near Daggerford. Fresh caught boiled Delimbyr Crayfish on wild chives, coastal carrageen moss entrapping estuary brine shrimp (irish moss, dried brine shrimp), Brackish-Berries (blackberries), Blackened Dart-Frog legs (frog legs) on spring sprouts (clover sprouts), roasted bog bugs on a stick!
More images here. Discussion thread here.
Drow:
From top left: Menzoberranzan black truffle rothe cheese (Black Knight Tilsit), Donigarten Moss Snails (Escargot in shallot butter sauce), Blind cave fish caviar in mushroom caps (Lumpfish caviar), faerzress infused duck egg imported from the surface Realms (Century egg), Black velvet ear fungus (Auricularia Black Fungus Mushroom).
Drow will also eat A Fucking Rock if it’s goth enough
you know what im gonna reblog this to my main as well as my aesthetic blog because this post kicked my ass
There’s never enough culinary posts regarding fantasy worlds. Here you go. You are welcome :3~
LANTERNS in medieval art - for reference
- BERNAT MARTORELL S. Michele, martirio di S. Eulalia e S. Caterina (dett.) 1442-1445 c. MNAC di Barcellona
- Mainzer Landesmuseum sp.15. Jh. Tafeln des Partenheimer Altars
- Meister der hl.Sippe um 1503,Köln W.R.Museum
- Detail of Joseph holding a lantern that is open to show a twisted candle with multiple wicks in a Nativity, c. 1485-1495
- DIEGO DE LA CRUZ Messa di San Gregorio, 1480
- Passion Altar (Lyversberg Passion), c. 1464–1466, Wallraf Richartz Museum
i wrote a coockboock
editor’s note:
i started writing this like 5 years ago as an edgelord, and while i have left sooome of the edginess intact (i feel like it would be dishonest/lacking accountability to remove it, tbh) there shouldn’t be anything particularly egregious/potentially triggering –
if you catch anything, pls send me a message @ fb.me/vayra and i’ll cut it out
cTALe of contents::L:
pARTS ONE THE WHITE RUSSIN ABY HONORED GUEST AUTHOR hero ERICH (may he R I P in peach)
this is a drnk
parts TOW THE STAR OF THE SHOW HOW TO MAKEL A PASTA SO GOOD IT WILL YOU WANT TO KILL YOURSEL
eat this fofrever
PATR THREE SALAD
you can eat it ooO!!!!
PART FORU INTERLIUDE FOR SHOPPING LIST
this is what i think about when i think about food
APRTS FIVE WHORES DOUVRES TO EAT ALONE IN THE DARK
i worry about me sometime
PART SIX A SANDWICH
mmm
PART 7EVEN A CHICKENBREST BURGERSANDWAIH
i think about edeath a lot when i cook chickced
PART EIGHT SOUP??????? about the author
*not soup
PRAT NINE THE REGRETE THIS I S AN APERTIF
actually is a disggestif
PARR TEN SUICK PERSON TEA FOR A PERSON WHO IS ASCICK
now go sit in the dark and watch a movie
PART EMVEMTH WHOOPS I GOFROGT TO ASS IN HOW TO CHUNTYY WHEN I WROTE IT
howw to tchunty
OPATR LEVETNHTWELTCHT.. I MAMAEMD A ADRINK THE ATT AIS PANCAKACKENSEEOOKEN.pancakes. panekekeeooken. you saty pabncakes i sy panekekeeooken.
POARTE THEIRETEED>n SANDWISCHWES> PLEASE SIR NAYM I HAVE$ ANTOHER
sandswiches for the poor and lonely
<hiatus>
PARTE FOURTEEN?? THATS FOPUR TEENS> THATS FOUR OF THEM. ANS THE AT SS TERRIBLE>
im bnot sure if thsi coutns as a salad bptu its prettyf ucking ogood .: a tregagttdy in fuck fascebook notes for komitbng foramtiicide which is defcintieyl a warr crime.
A INTERDLDUDE;;;;
fguck
PART TFIFFTEEN (SICTEEEN IF YOU COUNT INFRELYUDE)
swete and sour pork or tofu (vegan)
PARTDS SIZEITN>
the jean mal cocue. a cocktail in three arts.
PATRT ONE PART TWO (PARTY SEVNETYYEN)
a pasta so goof…part 2:: vstep o1p pour a bunch of that shit in tyhere
PARTY ETIGHTEEN
cheest
this i what my book woudl loolkike if i pucliubsh it and it publish how i want it to be publicshed
necromomican
