i put up all my pictures from the halloween party at christine/sean/danny’s place.
good times, good times.
November 1, 2005 by
halloween 2005
Categories: General
November 1, 2005 by
Categories: General
i put up all my pictures from the halloween party at christine/sean/danny’s place.
good times, good times.
I’m glad you included a couple of clear shots of the Uncanny Valley in this entry.
I was dressed as the mayor of New Orleans, but conceptually, not accurately.
I remembered what the Uncanny Valley was, but I still thought Dianna was referring to cleavage.
though i’m still unsure what the Uncanny Valley is (though i have my suspicions), you’re welcome.
The actual uncanny valley, as Jacob explained it to me, is related to just how close artificial things (animation, drawings, models, etc) can get to being lifelike. There’s a general trend that the more lifelike and realistic something is, the more comfortable people are with it and the more they relate to it. But, there’s a point where something is almost almost ALMOST like the real living thing, where the little clues that tell you that it’s not quite right start to freak you out. For instance, looking at an almost-perfect computer rendering of a person makes people massively less comfortable than looking at a sketchy mediocre rendering that doesn’t look very real, or even a better rendering that’s still a ways from being photorealistic.
It’s the lips on that mask that are so discomfiting, I think. They’re painted in a very realistic expression of mild nothingness that would be incredibly unnerving to see on an actual person in almost any circumstances.
hee. kristen just reminded me of the uncanny valley too. it is interesting (to me) how many things i am forgetting today. i’ve read the article on the uncanny valley, so my forgetting the whole concept is a little weird. i’m totally blaming kristen for calling at 11:30AM and waking me up.
You woke up at 11:30 a.m.?! Witch, why must you torture me so?
I actually haven’t read the article on the uncanny valley; I’ve only had it explained to me secondhand. Did I fuck it up at all?
Guys, I was trying to be subtle in referring to Michele’s and Christine’s boobs here. This pointing-it-out thing is not helping.
GAH! What is going on with the timestamps on these comments? These things were not said in this order!
I thought the ¨clear shots of the uncanny valley¨ referred to the cleavage just above the comment.
Brilliant costumes, by the way. Every last one of them. But what were you supposed to be, Sean, a corporate shark or something? Oh, a swimsuit, I get it.
The idea of the Uncanny Valley was first theorized by Japanese robotisist Masahiro Mori.
You can read Mori’s seminal paper on the theory from 1970, here (though translated).
Also, I wish I had a title like “robotisist”
jason: dood, he was the mayor of new orleans!
dianna: i know right, i tried to comment all yesterday evening and it wouldn’t let me too. stupid website.
Ah, thank you for the link, AskGene. It’s an interesting article, although I think the graph kind of steals the show. In how many other contexts do people put serious thought into comparing robots and zombies?
eugene, i am willing to change your carthage tag from “the lad” to “the robotisist.” just say the word, my friend.
ha ha ha! i wrote a paper at UPS on robots and zombies once. i wonder if i still have that. i think it was junior year. it was something about brains for some science class and i did it on AI and zombies.
As a quantitative kind of guy, the graph in that wikipedia article makes me cringe. The Y axis might as well go from zero to “some”, down to “elephant”, then right back up to “6”. The X axis could very well pass through “banana”.
My own personal experience would make me tend to disagree with some of the objects tested around the uncanny valley. According to the second graph, a moving stuffed animal is far more familiar than a still stuffed animal. The people surveyed must have never seen Akira. (warning: frightening milky bunny and bear image)
where does the graph put exploding children? because i found that creepier than the bear or the bunny.
Jacob, I don’t understand why that graph bothers you so much. They obviously took exhaustive measurements and determined that the value on the Y axis at X=banana was equal to precisely some. That gracefully-dipping regression line was created with the use of hundreds of statistically significant data points, and not at all with a pair of those fancy curve-cutting scissors that scrapbook fanatics use to make page borders.
Jeez. Don’t you know anything about hard science?
The mayor of New Orleans! Give him a kiss for me.