#ms paint recursion

[ebonylark]

MS Paint metaphor

[thehappyastronaut]

Here, have a garbage quality MS Paint comic

If any of y'all have done RW modding where you have to put your own hooks into the code, you'll know what I'm talking about lol. Like, who tf names their variables "num1, num2, etc." and "flag"???? And why is the whole EstablishRelationships() thing just a wall of code instead of a for loop?

[3liza]

I've only seen one single YouTube let's player understand that Garten of BanBan is a actual joke/parody/satire/troll (to wit: it is "bad" on purpose as a commentary on the genre and medium of mascot horror) which is ironic because those are the four words (besides "gaslighting") that i see misused the most in YouTube and TikTok comment sections. sometime around 2018 everyone under about 30 years old received a really incorrect vocabulary sheet and it has made discussing or even consuming media incredibly difficult. "gaslighting" now means "any form of falsehood including fiction", and "satire/parody" are used interchangeably to mean either "any form of humor" and/or "trolling".

there's something to be said for being critical of the intense, even recursive irony of the internet in the 00s, but it was (unironically!) a better media landscape than the current hypernaïvete which makes full grown adults play a shovelware Steam game that has "THE SPIDER IS COMING :)" in MS paint graffiti on a wall and ask in all sincerity, "is this supposed to be a horror game??" and then credulously scoff at how "bad" the game is.

the ONE YouTuber i saw who immediately just said ''oh this is a joke lol" was Pakpak, who also did a good video on the nearly-forgotten game Tattletail. and even his comment section is full of 20 year olds insisting that the devs selling ten dollar stickers in their merch store is a genuine effort to "exploit vulnerable child fans" and not. you know, a joke about the entire genre of cheap mascot horror exploiting vulnerable child fans.

we can post the "clarity of purpose" guy meme all we want but sometimes your purpose can be breathtakingly clear and your audience is just too fuckin stupid to pick up on it even if you spoon feed them the punchline

[takero2]

@phantommarigold indie-pop ending

album cover (they made it in ms paint)

bonus

recursion of this joke

[dailyproblemsleuth]

Problem Sleuth, page 937

Next.

They busily set to work building an IMPETUS COMB to transmute the bitter nectar into sweet JOCOSE HONEY. Recently collected nectar is stored between the walls of the newly erected SIERPINSKI CELLS. They labor under the instruction of their CHIEF ARCHITECT.

Author commentary: I don't know what kind of combat IDIOT shows up to a battle without packing his impetus comb. But Team Sleuth is of course the model of sound martial judgement. You would think that by definition a comb made of Sierpinski triangles would never be able to be finished, due to its infinitely small recursive nature? But somehow the bees manage anyway. The impetus comb is actually an allegory for MS Paint Adventures. I am the bees, and it, my intractable comb.

[sweatertheman]

the fact that MS Paint Adentures exists in Homestuck drives me mad. recursive reality. nothing matters

[sfpcschool]

Interview with Computing and Stories Summit presenters

SFPC is hosting the first Computing and Stories Summit on June 1st, 2017. Here's an interview with the organizers and presenters: Amy Wibowo, Jie Qi, Jenna Register, Natalie Freed, Linda Liukas and Taeyoon Choi.

Tell us a little about yourself, how did your interest in computing begin?

Jenna: Little was it known to me that I have been a computer programmer since a very young age. I fell in love with problems like the Towers of Hanoi, Mastermind, and logic puzzles. I found my way into “hacking” my computer games to cheat in some outrageous ways. I even read an entire book on recursion and math… without ever knowing what Computer Science was. When I was required to take my first CS course in college as part of my Brain and Cognitive Sciences degree, I fell in love. I switched everything that I was doing just so I could code. Just so I could finally feel understood by myself. For me, programming is the source of my spirituality. I understand myself through my code!

Taeyoon: As a kid, I was fascinated by computers. I think the first computer I encountered was Macintosh Plus. It had a chatbot that I could interact with. The conversation itself was limited but I liked the idea that I could engage with a computer intimately. I was really into the Internet community as a youth, connecting people over distance. I learned to use digital production tools (mostly photo and video editing) in an art school. I often felt limited by the commercial production tools, I felt like my expression was constrained in the filters and features of the tools. In the mid 2000s, I learned about hackers and new media artists working with software and hardware in playful ways. During my residency at Eyebeam in 2008, I met many friends (Zach Lieberman who I continue to work with on SFPC, the openFrameworks community, Hannah Perner-Wilson, Dan Torop, Geraldine Juárez and more) and their practice demonstrated that I can take liberty to use computers and electronics for creative expression.

Shift Register by Taeyoon Choi, photo courtesy of the artist

Linda: My dad brought home a computer in early 90s and told us there’s nothing we can do with the computer that can’t be reversed. As a result, me and my siblings had a very curious and fearless attitude towards computers and computing - and probably also managed to remove the operating system and dad’s important work files a few times.. I never thought my career would be in technology, but now in hindsight working with education & computing connect all the dots for me.

Natalie: When I was a kid my dad brought home a couple of old Macintoshes for us to play with. My siblings and I spent hours upon hours drawing in Kid Pix. I still love that program, and its great origin story! I also used my computer to make maps and write short stories. I had no clue what computer programming was until my dad, a programmer himself, encouraged me to take a C++ class in high school. I was very unhappy in that class - it was mostly boys and as a shy kid who liked to blend in, I felt out of place. I also wasn’t super interested in the class project of making a computer game. Fortunately I gave programming another shot in college and fell in love, ending up majoring in computer science. It’s magical that you can create things with words and with the logic of language! And the kinds of abstraction you can play with make my brain really happy. Now I teach programming, and also use it as a creative tool to explore concepts and to build tools for making other things.

Stab Bound Books, by Natalie Freed. Photo courtesy of the artist

Amy: As a kid, I loved drawing in MS paint, creating 3D worlds in Corel 3D, making games in Visual Basic, and making Sailor Moon fan websites in HTML in Notepad. I loved making stuff outside of the computer as well (painting, cross stitch, embroidery), so computers and programming to me seemed like just another way to express my creativity.

Jie: I took my first programming course in high school (AP computer science) and did so poorly I ended up dropping the course halfway and thought that programming is *definitely* not for me (other people in the course seemed to glide through and were winning state competitions!). However, in college, I did an internship with Ayah Bdeir and got into electronics and another internship with Leah Buechley and discovered that code could be combined with arts and crafts to bring artworks to life. That’s when I finally “got it” and fell in love with the magical things I could make with programming and electronics.

Picture from Jie Qi’s project “Electronic Popables”, photo courtesy of Jie Qi

What are the creative challenges you are currently encountering in your practice?

Taeyoon: I find it important to connect my work with the history of art, and technology often gets in the way. I find it a challenge to make art that’s timeless as well as current and relevant. There’s often lots of excitement about what is ‘new’ in technology. For example, recently there’s a lot of excitement about A.I. and VR. A few years ago, there was a lot of excitement about 3D printing. And some time ago, there was a lot of excitement about interactivity. But there’s a sense of futility in these short-lived excitement. When I see people wearing VR headsets, I often think of Kasier Panorama. Kaiser panorama is a mechanical contraption where you look into the viewfinder to see a moving diorama, a miniature of Paris or Berlin. It was popular around the turn of the 19th century, lost popularity over the years and then came back to popularity for a brief period right before silent film became mainstream. In a sense, the ‘new’ technologies tend to repeat the excitement and exhaustion, like Kasier Panorama. For me, technology is both the medium and subject of my art.

Jenna: In order to be creative in my research field, I need to have the hard skills. I can dream up Turing Complete systems for monkeys to use, or functional programming languages that model the human mind… but I need to be able to successfully (and mathematically) write my models. Additionally, I am finding it harder and harder to communicate the work that I do to outside ears. I love sharing the basics of my work, but when it comes to explaining my current interests in a concise way, it requires A LOT of creativity to explain the abstraction.

Data Structures: STACKS, video by Jenna Register

Linda: I think kids are the most efficient learners of all times and it requires a lot of honesty to write and illustrate for them. I don’t want to make things cartoonish or use narratives that they will feel dishonest later in life. At the same time I think it’s important to shield a bit of the complexities to make subjects approachable.

Natalie: I’ve always admired and enjoyed spending time around artists, but didn’t think of myself as one. I’ve recently been realizing that for some of my projects, it would be incredibly useful to learn more about how artists evaluate their own work and think about their process. It feels like there are lenses through which to look at making that are not in my current toolkit. This is actually an exciting realization because I like that feeling of disorientation when you’re learning about something really new to you. One example is that I’m used to a prototyping process that is *relatively* linear and predictable, not one that involves throwing out 90% of what I try! And as a teacher and maker I value process a lot, but I’m not used to thinking that it’s allowed to be integral to the final piece.

Video of “Telescrapbook”, by Jie Qi and Natalie Freed

Jie: The most challenging for me is simply finding the time to explore far far outside of my domain. Lately I’ve been working a lot on toolkits and teaching and explaining-- which is fun and satisfying. But I’m also excited to explore and push my own technical and creative boundaries as well, and miss this different kind of joy. So perhaps giving myself permission and time to really play is my biggest creative challenge right now.

Amy: It's a fun and exciting creative challenge to explain concepts like machine learning, compilers, and operating systems in a way that middle schoolers will find interesting and accessible, in a way that's not condescending or dumbed down. Also, how to build a company that does social good and is ethical, in a monetarily sustainable way.

Why is it important to make computer science and engineering a more welcoming and diverse field?

Taeyoon: The mainstream culture of computer science and engineering is exclusionary. There’s a stereotypes of (typically white men) leaders in the field. In fact, it’s not true. Traditionally, women and queer engineers have pioneered many important aspects of computing and technology. Also, the real workforce and academics who are developing computing, are not homogenous. I think a lot about ways of revealing the complexities of the cultural bias around technology. If we can create counter-narrative to the mainstream image (of white or male – artists / engineers / entrepreneurs) , we can help shape a culture around technology that’s less biased and unfair, ultimately more inclusive for people who are not represented as leaders in the field.

Jenna: I recently returned from a conference where there were 300 women out of 8000 attendees. That is 3.75% female (unsure about Trans individuals). The conference was for GPUs, so very close to hardware (less women the closer to the hardware you get!). But it was a shocking experience. But besides an obvious inequality like this, here is my answer: Problem Solving is Empowering. I find that learning to think logically, and gaining the independent thinking that comes along with programming is empowering. And I want to help those who feel disempowered to find their strengths through STEM.

Excerpt from “How Do Calculators Even” by Amy Wibowo

Linda: I’m writing the book series thinking of what would have made me excited about computing as a kid. A lot of the materials out there today lack this empathy - and that’s why it’s important to have more diversity in the educational field, also going forward.

Natalie: Based on my own experience, my students’ experiences, and my research, I am convinced that many people who would really enjoy computer science miss out on the chance to learn about it. They might get initially turned off by an unwelcoming experience, only get exposure to a narrow application of it that doesn’t match their interests, or leave because of a toxic learning or work environment. I’ve found so much joy and empowerment in this field, and I deeply believe others should have that opportunity as well. Also, technological change has an enormous impact on society. We need all kinds of people deciding what direction that takes.

Art and Algorithms exercise from Linda Liukas’ “Hello Ruby”, photo courtesy of the artist

Jie: Computer science and engineering are such powerful levers to impact and (hopefully!) improve the world. However, change is rarely about just the technology but rather needs a whole community around it to make sure that the technology itself makes sense and is accessible. Unless we bring more diverse perspectives into the field, people who feel welcome and empathize with problems and see solutions that actually work for *their* community -- ones that the current tech community does not sense-- we cannot see the full extent of how much positive change we can create.

Who are your role model? Tell us about people you look up and feel constantly inspired by?

Linda: I love Sophia Coppola, Tove Jansson and Björk, artists with a strong inner world that they’ve projected consistently, but creatively throughout the years.

Taeyoon: I look up to people who take their work seriously and take on a very long term projects. Recently, I invited Barbara London, who was a curator at MoMA for decades, bringing new media art, video art and sound art, into the museum. Her persistence was admirable. I also think about artists and activists who embed themselves in communities and institutions. There are many, I can’t think of one person right now.

Barbara London, photo courtesy of the Grolsch ArtBoom Festival

Jie: There are so many. But for the most part, I really admire who are both amazing through what they do and maintain a kindness, humility and generosity that invites everyone in. To name a few, Ayah Bdeir (founder and CEO of littleBits) is my entrepreneur role model-- for growing something from bits in a shoebox to an entire movement, fueled by her unique faith and energy. Leah Buechley and Edith Ackermann are my research role models and taught me how to contribute academic research without getting caught up in the machinery. Andrew “bunnie” Huang who has taught me so much about navigating freedom. Finally Sally Rosenthal who has a magical knack for making things happen with firmness, warmth and empathy.

Natalie: So many it’s hard to begin, but Edith Ackermann comes strongly to mind. She was incredibly rigorous about studying play without ever losing her own sense of humor, play, and mischief. She could see the “soul” of your project and would tell you about it, bluntly but somehow in the most warm and inspiring way imaginable. Also, my mom read us Claude Ponti books growing up and his surreal, detailed worlds full of imagined creatures have stuck with me.

“Imagination” from Linda Liukas’ “Hello Ruby”

Jenna: Quite frankly (nobody make fun of me!): All of you! I am so thrilled to get to meet you all. I have not yet come across others who want to inspire through art, technology, fun, and childlike wonder. I couldn’t be happier.

Amy: Simone Giertz is my hero for bringing a sense of fun and play to technology, and for emphasizing that it's ok to build things that are useless. Also, just like Jenna said, all of you! I’m honored to be with so many people whose work I admire!

Data Structures: Hash Tables, video by Jenna Register

What was the last project (art, comic, technology or whatever) you saw that blew your mind?

Taeyoon: I went to the Frieze Art Fair in NYC and saw some great things. I really liked slow moving sculptures by Robert Breer and Andreas Angelidakis’s video art ‘Domesticated Mountain’. I also read a story by a South Korean novelist Han Kang, which I thought was very moving. I’ve been reading Beasts of Burden by Sunaura Taylor, which is an incredible book about disability and animal rights.

Jie: There’s a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne called “The Artist of the Beautiful” about a young watchmaker that makes magical machines in his workshop. The (very emotional) creative process really resonated with me.

Natalie: At the last Autodesk Pier 9 showcase, I ran across Neil Mendoza’s “Fish Hammer Actuation Device.” A camera over a fish tank tracked a goldfish’s movements, which were then transmitted to a hammer moving on a circular track. When the goldfish stayed in the same place for long enough, the hammer would come down and, depending on its position, might smash a tiny piece of furniture placed in its path. I was so delighted by this piece. Something about how completely oblivious the fish was to the destruction it was causing!

Linda: I’m reading Robert Irwin’s Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees and it's helped me understand and navigate a good part of this year.

“Hello Ruby” Skidit Festarit, photo by Otso Kaijaluoto

Jenna: My very best friend is working on a comic to help herself and others overcome their PTSD. The comic is a superhero world, where your “inner demons” manifest in the outside world. We illustrate people as superheroes fighting off demons like Insecurity, Depression, etc. We hope to make illustrations for people who are working through healing, to remind Survivors that they are, in fact, Warriors.

Amy: When the SFMOMA reopened recently, I was blown away by a wall mural designed by Sol Lewitt. As a conceptual artist, he didn’t paint the mural but instead, contributed instructions for how to paint it, which were written in a way that reminded me of Logo Turtle programming. Algorithms as art!

Electrocutie Hardware Kit by Amy Wibowo

* We are thankful to our sponsors including SFPC, Hello Ruby, The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Paul Ford and Processing Foundation. We are actively looking for sponsors. Please contact taeyoon@sfpc.io if you are interested in supporting this event. 

[someone-else-entirely]

Hello and welcome to episode 2 of “Talia Solves Computer Science Problems With Godawful MS Paint Drawings,” titled “Recursion Is Hard”.

[monikam-3d-visblog-blog]

7 Common Modeling Techniques

https://www.lifewire.com/common-modeling-techniques-for-film-1953

1) Box/Subdivision Modeling

Box modeling is a polygonal modeling technique in which the artist starts with a geometric primitive (cube, sphere, cylinder, etc.) and then refines its shape until the desired appearance is achieved. Box modelers often work in stages, starting with a low-resolution mesh, refining the shape, and then sub-dividing the mesh to smooth out hard edges and add detail.

The process of subdividing and refining is repeated until the mesh contains enough polygonal detail to properly convey the intended concept. Box modeling is probably the most common form of polygonal modeling and is often used in conjunction with edge modeling techniques (which we'll discuss in just a moment).

We explore the box/edge modeling process in greater detail here.

2) Edge/Contour Modeling

Edge modeling is another polygonal technique, though fundamentally different from its box modeling counterpart. In edge modeling, rather than starting with a primitive shape and refining, the model is essentially built piece by piece by placing loops of polygonal faces along prominent contours, and then filling any gaps between them. This may sound needlessly complicated, but certain meshes are difficult to complete through box modeling alone, the human face being a good example. To properly model a face requires very strict management of edge flow and topology, and the precision afforded by contour modeling can be invaluable. Rather than trying shape a well-defined eye socket from a solid polygonal cube (which is confusing and counter-intuitive), it's much easier to build an outline of the eye and then model the rest from there. Once the major landmarks (eyes, lips, browline, nose, jawline) are modeled, the rest tends to fall into place almost automatically.

3) NURBS/Spline Modeling

NURBS is a modeling technique used most heavily for automotive and industrial modeling. In contrast to polygonal geometry, a NURBS mesh has no faces, edges, or vertices.

Instead, NURBS models are comprised of smoothly interpreted surfaces, created by "lofting" a mesh between two or more Bezier curves (also known as splines). NURBS curves are created with a tool that works very similarly to the pen tool in MS paint or Adobe Illustrator. The curve is drawn in 3D space and edited by moving a series of handles called CVs (control vertices). To model a NURBS surface, the artist places curves along prominent contours, and the software automatically interpolates the space between. Alternately, a NURBS surface can be created by revolving a profile curve around a central axis.

This is a common (and very fast) modeling technique for objects that are radial in nature—wine glasses, vases, plates, etc.

4) Digital Sculpting

The tech industry likes to talk about certain breakthroughs they've termed disruptive technologies. Technological innovations that change the way we think about achieving a certain task. The automobile changed the way we get around. The internet changed the way we access information and communicate. Digital sculpting is a disruptive technology in the sense that it's helped free modelers from the painstaking constraints of topology and edge flow, and allows them to intuitively create 3D models in a fashion very similar to sculpting digital clay. In digital sculpting, meshes are created organically, using a (Wacom) tablet device to mold and shape the model almost exactly like a sculptor would use rake brushes on a real chunk of clay. Digital sculpting has taken character and creature modeling to a new level, making the process faster, more efficient, and allowing artists to work with high-resolution meshes containing millions of polygons. Sculpted meshes are known for previously unthinkable levels of surface detail, and a natural (even spontaneous) aesthetic.

5) Procedural Modeling

The word procedural in computer graphics refers to anything generated algorithmically, rather than being created manually by the hand of an artist. In procedural modeling, scenes or objects are created based on user-definable rules or parameters. In the popular environment modeling packages Vue, Bryce, and Terragen, entire landscapes can be generated by setting and modifying environmental parameters like foliage density and elevation range, or by choosing from landscape presents like the desert, alpine, coastal, etc.

Procedural modeling is often used for organic constructs like trees and foliage, where there is almost infinite variation and complexity that would be very time consuming (or impossible altogether) for an artist to capture by hand. The application SpeedTree uses a recursive/fractal-based algorithm to generate unique trees and shrubbery that can be tweaked through editable settings for trunk height, branch density, angle, curl, and dozens if not hundreds of other options. CityEngineuses similar techniques to generate procedural cityscapes.

6) Image-Based Modeling

Image based modeling is a process by which transformable 3D objects are algorithmically derived from a set of static two-dimensional images. Image-based modeling is often used in situations where time or budgetary restrictions do not allow for a fully realized 3D asset to be created manually. Perhaps the most famous example of image-based modeling was in The Matrix, where the team had neither the time nor the resources to model complete 3D sets. They filmed action sequences with 360-degree camera arrays and then used an interpretive algorithm to allow for “virtual” 3D camera movement through traditional real-world sets.?

7) 3D Scanning

3D Scanning is a method of digitizing real-world objects when an incredibly high level of photo-realism is required. A real-world object (or even actor) is scanned, analyzed, and the raw data (typically an x,y,z point cloud) is used to generate an accurate polygonal or NURBS mesh. Scanning is often used when a digital representation of a real-world actor is required, as in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button where the lead character (Brad Pitt) aged in reverse throughout the film.

[botvisions-blog]

Images from the ‘The New Inquirer’s Conspiracy Bot’  https://conspiracy.thenewinquiry.com/

“Machine learning algorithms, which are used by computers to identify relationships in large sets of data, echo our pattern-seeking tendencies, since pattern recognition is what they’re designed for. When seeking to program learning algorithms with human intelligence, we inevitably include our peculiarities and paranoias. Like the human brain, machine learning algorithms arrive at shallow, inappropriate conclusions from ingesting sprawls of data. 

But when it comes to machines, paranoid assumptions about the world are mutually reinforcing: When they see the false patterns we see, they validate the faults of our own pattern-seeking tendency through the illusion of computational rigor. Seeing our own judgments reflected in the algorithm, we feel more confident in its decisions. 

The New Inquiry’s Conspiracy Bot condenses this recursive symbiosis. Just like us, our bot produces conspiracies by drawing connections between news and archival images—sourced from Wikimedia Commons and publications such as the New York Times—where it is likely none exist. The bot’s computer vision software is sensitive to even the slightest variations in light, color, and positioning, and frequently misidentifies disparate faces and objects as one and of the same. If two faces or objects appear sufficiently similar, the bot links them. These perceptual missteps are presented not as errors, but as significant discoveries, encouraging humans to read layers of meaning from randomness.”

This project is a perfect embodiment of the kind of paranoia engendered by the ‘total noise’ of the internet. I particularly love the visual style used which has been coined as “chart brut”.  The style constitutes a kind of visual language for paranoid apophenia: http://gawker.com/chart-brut-how-the-ms-paint-graphics-of-conspiracy-too-1651851261

“It's a digital middle-ground between the string-and-thumbtack cork-board flowcharts favored by premium-cable obsessives like Rust Cohle and Carrie Mathison, and the meaningless tangles of agency responsibilities beloved by security-apparatus bureaucrats... the crude style of Chart Brut at large is a perfectly realized embodiment of the confused and confusing conspiracy-curious internet. The academic Kathleen Stewart once wrote about the web's love of conspiracy: "The internet was made for conspiracy theory: it is a conspiracy theory: one thing leads to another, always another link leading you deeper into no thing and no place." Conspiracy charts—literal webs of interconnected institutions, people, and ideas—are the visual manifestation of the de-centered, endlessly deferred internet.”