Deep Dream

If you haven't heard of it yet, Google developed this computer vision AI program, Deep Dream (aka: DeepDream, Inception) which tries to interpret the images it's seeing based on images it's already seen. But it gets things wrong. A lot. It's still learning, you know.

Anyways sometime around July 2015, the team figured this could be used to make surreal art by filtering the images as it tried to interpret them:

 

 

(Images from Google, @brdskggs/Twitter, & Kyle McDonald/Flickr, via The Telegraph)

It really seems to like dogs, bugs, eyes, arches, cars, and pagodas. And the more times you run a picture, the creepier it gets.

 

(I'm not sure where this image came from, but it's just as creepy after I had Deep Dream filter it, especially if you click to view the larger version.)

You can try it for yourself, either downloading and setting up the open source software, or just using one of the easy access sites where you upload an image, like this one:
http://psychic-vr-lab.com/deepdream/

Here's what happened when I ran one of my cosplay picture through once (yeah, I probably haven't mentioned here that I cosplay before, I'm the one on the right):

Time to play spot the difference; the other girl's hand got turned into a dog, there's a ghost above her spear, I seem to have some extra eyes in odd places, the overhang behind me seems to have become a fish, and the girl  in the black dress behind me appears to have grown a demon monkey head, among other things.

You're welcome for the nightmares!
_

Weekly Update 2016/05/16 - 2016/05/22

I posted on the value of skeptisim. With that in mind I replace one of my normal research periods with some perusing of skeptical articles. You know, like a purge day for my mind, except I like reading both types of opinions and theories. Anyways, according to an article in the May/June Skeptical Inquirer, there's some study that suggests people with sub-clinical (I think that's fancy talk for not bad enough to medicate) disassociation are more likely to interpret images as having paranormal sources (which they then interpreted as belief/interest in the paranormal). Additionally, people with mild ADHD are more likely to believe in Bigfoot, aliens, and cryptids, 'because they're cool'.

Which naturally brings me to all the reasons I don't believe in Bigfoot, cool as they may be. Of all the tracks I've seen in woods of Bigfoot country; deer, elk, bears, dogs, birds, rabbits, feral goats, horses, humans, I've yet to see a Bigfoot track. Granted, there are supposed casts, but we all know this kind of thing can be faked. And the list of animals I've seen on the side of the road and trails is even longer; deer, elk, rabbits, horses, dogs, coyote, fox, beaver, otter, nutria, opossum, mice, rats, shrew, weasels, cats, raccoons, goats. . . and that's just the mammals, but it does not include Bigfoot. But just because I haven't see it, doesn't mean it isn't real right? Of course. But almost all the evidence presented turns out to be known animals or too contaminated to be useful. There's been a real boom in sightings lately, but historically, there's not enough to suggest a breed-able population of Bigfoot.  

It's not evidence I don't have ADHD, but that's not the point of my rant anyways. I just feel like I would have seen it by now, even if it is rare. Hey, but maybe I'm wrong. How long has it been since Gravity Falls ended? Because I feel like someone's more likely to stumble upon that supposed statue than Bigfoot.

_

Double Weekly Update 2016/05/02 -2016/05/15

There was no time to post last week. It is what it is. Read into that whatever you like.

I've continued my studies into Past Lives, found new leads I need to look into. One point of view is never enough to trust. Trust no one. Also, there may be a statue of Bill Cipher out in the woods somewhere, Oregon, California, or Toronto. I figure it wasn't still out in the woods when the Gravity Falls finale aired, but there's some convince arguments I spent a couple hours sifting through today.

There's some fun stuff one the internet. There's also nightmares, wonderful nightmares. Apparently to some the lowest level of conspiracy theory's hell is The Despair Code. I'm looking that up as I type this. - It appears to be some coding via telephone/etc that causes prolonged depression. Details are vague. There's probably a reason for that. Slenderman.

Fave quote about it so far:

“You don't have to believe things that are true.”
(-dapperjabber)

I'm not really sure whose side thon is on (note: thon is a genderless pronoun, a contraction of 'that one'). But it linked here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_engraving
So read into that whatever you like.

I had stuff I was going to tell you guys, stuff I could still remember hours ago. . . but okay. Along the lines of conspiracy theories, I've also recently encountered one called the Phantom Time Hypothesis, which basically suggests three centuries didn't happen. Fun.

See you next time!
_

Post Your Proof

If you've got video or photos of something paranormal, or simply a really good story, you may want to consider uploading them to Destination America's current promotion.

The website their commercials give is:
http://www.destinationamerica.com/PostYourProof

Which redirects to:

http://www.destinationamerica.com/share-your-supernatural-sightings/

That probably means somebody along the line decided the second one was to complicated for consumers to remember and set up a redirect.

Of course this is the kind of PR stunt that's going to attract hoaxes and wild stories, but hopefully we'll get some intriguing evidence out of it as well. Sorting through evidence for hoaxes and truly unexplainable cases has long been a part of Paranormal Investigation, so it's pretty much just standard operating procedure.

And don't forget you can always submit stuff to me for analysis and identification as well.
_

Weekly Update 2016/04/25 - 2016/05/01

So, Sunday again. Studied some more on reincarnation, as I seem to be focused on that for the time being. It's a strange concept in Western culture, where most religions don't include a second chance at life (unless you know where to look and who's logic to follow, but that's a topic for another time I think).

I like it when the sources I'm reviewing have references to further sources, places I can learn more, check facts, validate information. . . all that stuff that's fun if you're studying something you're interested in.

I guess that's all I got. Later.

_

Quotes about Psychic Powers (Clairvoyance, Telepathy, etc.) and Witchcraft

I promised some posting this week, didn't I? Well, here's some quotes on psychics and witchcraft at least (I know they're not the same thing from a practitioner's point of view, there was no malicious intent to lumping them together):

“We are always mentioning people, and in that very instant they appear before us. We laugh and say, 'speak of the devil' and so forth and there we drop it. It is a cheap and convenient way of disposing of a grave and puzzling mystery. The fact is it does seem to happen too often to be an accident.”
(Mark Twain)

“I was brought to a realization of the seriousness of trifling with the hallowed reverence which the average human being bestows on the departed, I was chagrined that I should ever have been guilty of such frivolity and for the first time I realized it bordered on crime.”
(Houdini, on preforming medium acts)

“. . . things that did not really happen . . . which only took place on some boundary between real experience and fantasy. . .”

(Blake, “The Poison Tree”)

“Innocent lives are taken, and by a new alchemy gold and silver coined from human blood.”

(Cornelious Loos, on witchcraft trials)

“I'll readily speak your wine [aka desire].”

(Jacotte Colin, offering to confess to witchcraft)

“God's death witch, if you budge I will smash both your eyes with my stool.”

(Demenge Grand Cole, to a supposed witch)

“. . .relatively few correct predictions are heralded and therefore widely remembered, while the much more numerous incorrect predictions are conveniently forgotten or de-emphasized. . ."

(Prof. John Allen Paulos, on the 'Jeane Dixon Effect')

“Even the dark side of the human imagination demonstrates our unity.”
(Dominic Alexander, Spellbound, on accusations of black magic)

“So far as we can see, all that is proved is that some record of life on Earth is laid up in some unearthly archives, and that under the right circumstances, this record is accessible to the minds of the living.”

('Review' on spirits and psychics)

“Magic was a kind of technology to control the supernatural.”

(Dominic Alexander, Spellbound)
_

Weekly Update 2016/04/18 - 2016/04/24 (w/ 2016/04/11 - 2016/04/17)

Okay, so I missed last weeks update, but that's okay, because there's not much to tell. I was crazy busy and had to deal with an emergency.

Continued researching NDE and Reincarnation this week; found a promising book on kids remembering past lives. There's a bit of evidence-less speculation at times, but in general the events and information are presented in a clear, matter of fact, narrative manner.

This of course means not so much progress on researching medieval ghosts and other medieval beliefs, but that's the way deciding what to research in the allotted time works.

Fiddling with writing something up a couple things on spirits; might combine them, that makes sense [to me]. Should probably finish my water monster guides as well. Maybe when I've finish and posted all three, I'll do a revised version with some extras as a eBook. Or maybe it is better if I write something new and keep it completely secret until release?

Have a great week everyone, I'll try to make sure I post some stuff this coming week.

_