[sumbluespruce-deactivated202508]

The spirit of youth

11-23-2020 young bighorn ram

[escapekit]

Eyes as Big as Plates Eyes as Big as Plates is the ongoing collaborative project between the Finnish-Norwegian artist duo Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth. Starting out as a play on characters from Nordic folklore, Eyes as Big as Plates has evolved into a continual search for modern human’s belonging to nature.

[liberalsarecool]

Amy Coney Barrett is beyond tainted.

[salomi]

Modern Statues of Olympians

- Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna.

[archaeologicalnews]

Scientists find huge ring of ancient shafts near Stonehenge

Archaeologists said Monday that they have discovered a major prehistoric monument under the earth near Stonehenge that could shed new light on the origins of the mystical stone circle in southwestern England.

Experts from a group of British universities led by the University of Bradford say the site consists of at least 20 huge shafts, more than 10 meters (32 feet) in diameter and 5 meters (16 feet) deep, forming a circle more than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) in diameter.

The new find is at Durrington Walls, the site of a Neolithic village about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from Stonehenge.

Researchers say the shafts appear to have been dug around 4,500 years ago, and could mark the boundary of a sacred area or precinct around a circular monument known as the Durrington Walls henge. Read more.

[littlepawz]

Water nymphs. These delightful statues were brought to England from Italy by Whitaker White in 1904 and are currently located at York House Gardens (Twickenham) alongside river Thames (South-West of London).

[thebookquotes]

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.

— Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

[theconcealedweapon]

[staywellakell]

and you DIDN’T hear a peep out of us bc this community knows what it’s like to let a virus go unchecked and for the government to not give a single shit

[that-twink-over-there]

Toyota Lasagna is just bitter she can't go to her gun's gender reveal or whatever

[moosearesocool]

[babyanimalgifs]

Maxine, the subway doggo 

(via)

[aiweirdness]

Once again, a neural net tries to name cats

Last year I trained a neural net to generate new names for kittens, by giving it a list of over 8,000 existing cat names to imitate. Starting from scratch, with zero knowledge of English or any context for the words and letter combinations it was trying out, it tried to predict what letters might be found in cat names, and in which order. Its names ranged from the strange to the completely nonsensical to the highly unfortunate (Retchion, Hurler, and Trickles were some of its suggestions). Without knowledge of English beyond its list of cat names, it didn’t know what letter combinations to avoid.

So I decided to revisit the cat-naming problem, this time using a neural net that had a lot more context. GPT-2, trained by OpenAI on a huge chunk of the internet, knows which words and letter combinations tend to be used together on the English-language internet. It also has (mostly) figured out which words and letter combinations to avoid, at least in some contexts (though it does tend to suddenly switch contexts, and then, yikes).

When I trained GPT-2 on the list of cat names using Max Woolf’s colab notebook, it still retained a lot of what it had learned from the rest of the internet. Gone were the strange names like “Tilly-Mapper” and “Balllucidoux” - it had a bunch of real words it could use instead. Here are some of the names it came up with - and the Morris Animal Refuge (who you may remember from that time they used neural net names for their guinea pigs) has given some of these names to some highly adoptable kittens.

First, neural net can do fancy:

Taffeta Pompompur Monocle Tom Glitter Notion Tinnitus Cheesemonger M. Tinklesby Linklater Soap

It can also do the opposite of fancy:

Scat Cat Butthole Gangrene Moisture Grotesque Petard Oilbag Buttwig The Cream Meatbag Dr Fart Fudge Putty Scumbag Constipation BUTT

And it can also do names ranging from tough to downright sinister:

Miss Vulgar Lillith The Vamp Elle Fury Deadbolt Romeo of Darkness Starmaker Fist Warning Signs Bibles Smoked The Firestarter Higher Rune Scarlet Be Thy Coat Kill All Humans Bones Of The Master Mr. Sinister Evil Whispers Spawn Serendipitous Kill Stranglehold

(Starmaker and Sparky Buttons are from a litter that had upper respiratory infections that damaged their eyes, but even though their world is kinda cloudy, they love to play and cuddle.)

I’m a particular fan of the Very Weird cat names:

Honeystring Dr Leg Tom Noodle Pinball Scene Peanutbutterjiggles You’re Telling A Lie Beep Boop Thoughts Bobble Bun Atmosphere You Name It Whiskeridoo Sparky Buttons

Seemingly This Guy Various Authors Chicken Whiskey Fish Especially Thelonious Monsieur Ringo Shuffles Sweet Cakes EXTAs (Eye Stalks) Checker Spin Donut Quin Two Patz Grandpa He Glad Funky Moe Fluttering Feelers Accepted A Tribute Chewie Bean PLEASE Gregory Chimney Notable PRODUCT LEGEND Weird Science Platinum Not Suitable For Character the Enforcer

Did I mention these cats are adoptable? If you live near Philadelphia, you live near these kitties!

Bonus content: yet more cat names!

[pastrygeckos]

Ok I can’t stop laughing at Scat Cat Butthole

[leafcrunch]

most of these are functionally indistinguishable from what people actually call their cats

[out-there-on-the-maroon]

I’m obsessed. “Scarlet Be Thy Coat” and “Bones Of The Master” are especially fascinating. 

[validwarriorcatsnames]

This blog and all forms of naming warrior cats is hereby replaced with this AI. Clan leaders are obscolete

[kulluto-remade-deactivated20201]

american individualism is a disease bitch get well soon <3

[dererumgestarum]

HELIOPOLIS

Historical photographs of the ruins of Heliopolis (Baalbek) in the 19th century. The santuary comprised temples to Jupiter, Bacchus, and Venus, built in the 1st and 2nd centuries. Incessant earthquakes had already caused extensive damage to the complex by the 4th century. Theodosius ordered the demolition of the enormous temple of Jupiter in AD 379. Justinian reused six of the monolithic granite columns for the rebuilding of Hagia Sofia.

[sumbluespruce-deactivated202508]

Clinging to their small world

7-1-2020

[karadenizliadam]

A HOME THAT'S TRULY ONE WITH NATURE🍃HOW AMAZING IS THIS?

[mornington-the-crescent]

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

[babyanimalgifs]

Baby sea pupper tries to roll over, says a thing 

(via)

[yorksnapshots]

White Roses and St. Mary’s Abbey, York, England.