I'm So Painting My Walls In Burble Simp

I'm so painting my walls in burble simp

New paint colors invented by neural network

So if you’ve ever picked out paint, you know that every infinitesimally different shade of blue, beige, and gray has its own descriptive, attractive name. Tuscan sunrise, blushing pear, Tradewind, etc… There are in fact people who invent these names for a living. But given that the human eye can see millions of distinct colors, sooner or later we’re going to run out of good names. Can AI help?

For this experiment, I gave the neural network a list of about 7,700 Sherwin-Williams paint colors along with their RGB values. (RGB = red, green, and blue color values) Could the neural network learn to invent new paint colors and give them attractive names?

One way I have of checking on the neural network’s progress during training is to ask it to produce some output using the lowest-creativity setting. Then the neural network plays it safe, and we can get an idea of what it has learned for sure.

By the first checkpoint, the neural network has learned to produce valid RGB values - these are colors, all right, and you could technically paint your walls with them. It’s a little farther behind the curve on the names, although it does seem to be attempting a combination of the colors brown, blue, and gray.

By the second checkpoint, the neural network can properly spell green and gray. It doesn’t seem to actually know what color they are, however.

Let’s check in with what the more-creative setting is producing.

…oh, okay.

Later in the training process, the neural network is about as well-trained as it’s going to be (perhaps with different parameters, it could have done a bit better - a lot of neural network training involves choosing the right training parameters). By this point, it’s able to figure out some of the basic colors, like white, red, and grey:

Although not reliably.

In fact, looking at the neural network’s output as a whole, it is evident that:

The neural network really likes brown, beige, and grey.

The neural network has really really bad ideas for paint names.

I was delighted to have my second comic published on The Nib yesterday! The script for this one is by Josh Trujillo, and the art is me. You can read my other Nib comic here. You can find more of my work on instagram, patreon and my website.

middle earth gothic

there are rolling hills of grass in the shire and doors where lives once stood. you hear murmuring on the wind. they say it is the water of the brandywine but you know better. a girl sings a song and the bones of flowers rattle beneath her feet as she hangs wash to a clothesline.

when you find rivendell, it is quiet. the bruinen has cracked its way through the rocks, and moss covers the stacks of books. a bookcase rattles and screams when you come close to it. you put the parchment back. you put the syllabus back. a daughter makes her choice, and chooses rushing tides over the stillness of time. you hunt for a mother’s bone. there are none, there are none, there are none.

moria is a hollow cave and a hollow darkness and a hollow tunnel. there are dead ones wherever you look. a tomb screams of old friends and lost relatives. we cannot get out scrawled in spit tears and blood. when the ancient flame comes, you know your hands will let go and you will not be able to stop the screaming of wind through your bones.

when you enter lothlorien, the trees crackle and whisper and sigh. a witch lives here you hear them say. you do not find a way out, and the trees blindfold you to find the way: you are lost, but you catch glimpses of dead dreams in a pool of hissing water.

fangorn is a forest made of sinew and muscle and bone. the trees throb with poetry that lasts centuries. there is the body of an orc trapped in vines, and it smiles at you with sharp teeth rotting. you understand, for a moment, that death is nothing but the beginning, and then the darkness falls again. you smell water and wood and life. when the trees stare back at you, you do not think you feel safe. 

rohan gallops through time like bristling horses. a white lady looms, pale, behind shut windows as snakes creep over her uncle’s body like worms feasting upon dead flesh. her hands are marked with red, her eyes are empty pools. in all her dreams she drowns.

the white city looms like a stack of old bones. there are charred robes at the bottom of the valley where a grieving father once jumped to his death. at night the dead come walking, their eyes hollow, their hands clutching the heads of those they lost. there is the carcass of a fell beast on the planes before the city of kings and the children play with her bones.

the grey havens smell of saltwater and burning ships. the goodbyes here are final, and bitter, and made by the dead. the ghosts are quiet, for once. to the west, the sun sinks and kisses the sea. you think you hear laughter: you know it is only the wind.

Alan Rickman: a life in pictures

The beloved actor, best known for roles on stage and in films such as Die Hard and the Harry Potter franchise, has died at age 69. We look back over his career in photographs.

Read more about his life in The Guardian.

Where are those places?! I need to go

Photos by Dominic Kamp

Second that.

There is no greater character that I feel for than Jessica Jones. She’s so strong in ways that I can only aspire to become one day.