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July 15, 2024 by Tien Chiu 3 Comments

Weaving and weightlifting

Major progress on the AI weaving project! And also one or two right-angle changes.

I finished weaving the tiger. It came out beautifully:

Woven tiger

This design uses four wefts, all brushed mohair/silk yarn (it feels SOOOO yummy!). One weft is orange, one black, and the two remaining wefts are both white (I wanted to get better coverage).

I also wove up a sample with a fifth weft – .75 mm strands of optical fiber! Optical fiber conducts light from end to end with very little light leakage in between – unless, of course, you scratch it up with a knife or sandpaper, in which case the scratched part glows.

(The idea is not original to me. I’d done a piece (of sorts) waaaaaay back when, about ten years ago, in collaboration with Laurie Carlson Steger, who showed me how. She did all the hard parts – I wove an image of a rocket launch and wove in the optical fiber (with her help), but she did all the knife-work to make the piece glow in all the right areas.)

I tested both knife and sandpaper. In the video below, the bright area in the center is scratched with a razor blade, while the bright area on the right is gently sanded with 80 grit sandpaper. That allows the light to leak out wherever I want a glow.

The video shows some of the tricks that you can play with the light. In the video, out of sight, I’m waving a small pocket flashlight over the ends of the strands, which creates a play of light in the glowing spots as the light waxes and wanes over the end of each fiber.

Since each fiber has the potential to be lit up separately from all the others, I’m thinking it would be fun to mount some LEDs at the ends of some optical fibers, to make the design glow or flash or ?? in the specific areas I want. I’m not clear yet on exactly what kind of pattern I want – that depends in part on what can practically be done. So one thing on the list is simply getting a bunch of LEDs and experimenting.

I’m collaborating with a Stanford EE graduate student on this. The plan is for me to do the weaving and Clarissa to do the electronics design and prototyping – it’s going to be really exciting to work with (and hopefully learn from) her.

Now to the right-angle turn in the project. I was noodling on the design of the piece, and what I wanted to say with it. I realized that the tiger, while cool, really didn’t capture the ambiguity I was looking for. Because the ambiguity isn’t between AI and animals, it’s between AI and humans.

Back to DALL-E to get a human face!

After fiddling with (and getting frustrated by) DALL-E for a while, I had an image that seemed like a good start:

DALL-E cyborg face

I couldn’t seem to convince DALL-E to modify the image to include the entire head – no matter what prompt I used, it wanted to cut off the top of the hair. I did manage to get one image that showed an entire head, though, and the hair was a similar style.

So off to Photoshop and its AI-based Generative Fill. I grafted the top of the other head onto the first image. It didn’t match, of course, so I selected the area and typed into the Generative Fill, “Blend the two photos together seamlessly”. I also flipped the image horizontally.

And here’s what came out:

DALL-E image with top of head added in Photoshop

I’m not going to weave this as a straight-up image. Instead, I’m going to duplicate the left side of the face and put it over the cyborg-y bits, and weave the whole thing as a human face. Then, once the weaving is done, add the circuitry over the top of the face (basically, embroidering it on). I haven’t figured out how I’m going to do the metal bits, as the image is flat. Maybe 3D-print something of the right shape and paint it over? So many possibilities!

The idea behind the piece is the blurred line between AI generated art and human-generated art, and also the blurred line between AI (which often seems human) and humans. I haven’t yet got an official title, but am thinking “Am I AI?” might not be bad.

Still debating materials. I am leaning towards silk weft, both because it will add luster and because 20/2 silk is close to the size I want for the weft. 10/2 cotton (same as the warp) will likely be thicker than I want because I will be working with 4-5 wefts and 2 warps per “pixel” of the design.

Another possibility is a silk/cashmere blend which is either 6000 or 7000 yards per pound, a little thinner than I want, but if I can figure out how to juggle 5-6 shuttles, would also allow me to have more weft colors and hence more nuance in the design. The additional cashmere content might add a little peach-fuzziness to the face, which would be nice.

Still thinking over all the variables!

In other news, I have a new keyboard! I have been having finger issues on my right hand, so my friend Morgan gifted me with a Svalboard Lightly, the successor to the Datahand. It’s one of the most unique keyboards out there, and is completely customizable:

Pink Svalboard Lightly

Basically, you put your fingers in the finger wells and type by pressing the center button and/or flicking your fingers up, down, left, right. Thumb has four options: knuckle, nail, finger pad, and up. Those by default are either very commonly used keys (space, enter), keys used in combination with other keys (Control, Alt, etc.) or mode-shift keys (shifting the keyboard from alphabet to numbers/symbols).

You can completely customize the fit by sliding and tilting the finger-wells (and moving the palm rests around), and you can also reprogram the keys to whatever you want. I’ve decided to move away from the traditional QWERTY layout and go with a “modern” configuration called DH Neu, which is designed for ease of typing. I’ve also programmed in some single keys to do common commands, e.g. CTRL-C, CTRL-V, CTRL-X, so I don’t have to do combinations.

I’ve only been using it for a little while, and am still learning to type with it, but it’s WAY more comfortable than any other keyboard I’ve used. It’s not cheap, but you have carpal tunnel or other RSI issues from typing, it’s likely a great tool for you. It has helped people avoid surgery.

I’m in the process of installing two trackballs, one on each side, so I never have to remove my hands from the keyboard to mouse about. Most people use the left trackball to scroll and the right trackball to mouse the cursor around – I’m looking forward to exploring them more. I currently switch between an ergonomic mouse (right hand) and a trackball (left hand) because otherwise I develop RSI problems, so this could be a very efficient and comfortable approach for me.

In powerlifting and health news, I’ve dropped eight pounds since setting a new protein target of 150 grams/day. This is recommended if you want to build muscle (0.8-1 gram of protein for every pound body weight), but it also seems to be making me less hungry, so I’m losing about a pound a month without any effort. This is great! But it’s also put me into a different weight class for competition, which means I will need to re-qualify for Worlds in November. So I’ve signed up for a meet in San Diego in late August – there aren’t any locally that would suit.

And I will be FABULOUS for that meet, of course. I’ve ordered a custom Pioneer belt, with an embroidered design on the back. It’s almost done, and I can’t wait! They sent me a picture of the embroidery a few days ago:

Red suede with embroidered phoenix

The embroidery will be on the back, and the color will go nicely with my red, yellow, and orange wrestling singlet. Hey, if I’m going to look like a squashed sausage in a skin-tight body suit, at least I’ll look like a FABULOUS sausage. Because it’s not a powerlifting meet, daaahhhhling, it’s a fashion show. LOL!

To close, I’ve been experimenting with ice-dyed tie dyes. You tie the shirt, put it on a grid, put powdered dye and soda ash over it, and then pile ice on top. As the ice melts, the dye seeps into the shirt. The colors can “break” into their component parts, giving really interesting results.

Here’s my favorite so far. It may actually be my favorite of all the tie-dyes I’ve ever made. It looks like batik combined with silk painting, but it’s actually an ice-dyed tie dye. The white lines are created by clamping the folded shirt with curved hemostats (a technique I found on YouTube). I’ll definitely be doing more of these!

Tie-dyed shirt that looks like a batik flower

And, because no blog post would be complete without a cat, here’s the first “take” of the photo. Thanks Fritz!

Cat on tie-dyed shirt

Filed Under: All blog posts, computer stuff, powerlifting, textiles, weaving Tagged With: cyborg tiger

September 26, 2009 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

Adding the travel section

This is proving easier than I expected!  I have now, as you may or may not have noticed, imported my entire travel blog (links on the right-hand side) and am starting to bring over my travel photo pages.  There are a lot of them, so I expect it will take awhile to get all the content up there, but the framework is done.  I am very happy, especially since I discovered that no custom code is required.  The photo gallery plugin that I’m using does it all, and very neatly!

So check out the travel blog, if you haven’t already.  And the photos from Thailand, though I still need to finish off the galleries.  Unfortunately I have to leave for an all-day puzzle game soon, so I probably won’t get to finish off all the galleries for Thailand, but I’ve made a good start.

Oh, and I wove a yard of fabric yesterday.  I had worried that it might become tedious, and was starting to get bored, but then I decided to start working on my technique, using the things that Laura Fry taught me.  Whew!  It’s really hard to un-learn muscle memory, but my rhythm of throwing and catching the shuttle, then beating, has really improved.  I’ve been striving for smoothness of movement, not focusing on speed yet – but I can sense that speed will come in time.  This is keeping me so focused and intent that I barely notice time passing.

My plan for this coming week is to work as hard as I can on weaving and the website.  My goal is to get 13 yards woven by end of day Wednesday, which means weaving up 2 yards/day for the next five days.  Ambitious, but I think I can probably do it. I would also like to port over my entire website in the same time period – basically working on the website or weaving, dawn to dusk.  That is also an ambitious goal, but I really want to get this stuff done before starting the new job, as I don’t know how much time/energy I’ll have afterwards.

Filed Under: All blog posts, computer stuff, textiles, weaving

September 23, 2009 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

Good news all ’round

The first piece of good news is fairly obvious: I have successfully migrated my blog to the new site!  It took quite a bit of fiddling and one conversation with tech support on my new hosting company, but I got things looking more or less as I’d wanted.  So from here on out, I will be posting my blog entries here.  (I guess that makes the new site the “real” one now!)

Second piece of good news: interview yesterday went well, and I had an excellent conversation with the company’s HR director today.  I think I could be employed again as early as next week (!).  Which means I better get cracking on the weaving!

Third piece of good news: I’m nearly done threading!  I expect to finish threading, tie on, and start weaving tonight, or tomorrow morning at latest.

So all in all, a good day.

Filed Under: All blog posts, computer stuff Tagged With: web design, website redesign

August 30, 2009 by Tien Chiu 5 Comments

Back to work!

The 30-dent reed arrived yesterday (yay!!), so it’s time to start work on the sample again.  I got it beamed on and nicely draped from the lease sticks yesterday, so today will be all about threading.  I haven’t yet solved the problem of what to use as a sleying hook, given that the reed is so fine, but I’m thinking some kind of (suitably bent-into-shape) piano wire might be in order.  So now the problem becomes finding piano wire, or some other sort of stiff, fine wire.  Fortunately it will take me a day or two to thread all 1000 threads, so I have some time to figure out where to find a musician’s store or obscure hobby shop.

The web redesign is proceeding nicely; I added more content and changed s0me of the colors yesterday.  The background is now a very pale purple, and the menu is purple with orange text.  The purple and orange were both taken out of the header image, so harmonize nicely with the header image.  I also added three or four projects, a time-consuming process since I have to upload a photo gallery for each project.  I have gallery software that allows me to upload the photos all at once, but I still have to enter captions, alt text, and descriptions for each photo.  But the end results look very nice, if I do say so myself.  🙂

Cynthia asked how much tomato soup the recipe makes.  It’s about 2 gallons, give or take; I’m a lazy cook and like getting a lot of soup for my efforts.  It freezes very nicely.

Filed Under: All blog posts, computer stuff, textiles, weaving Tagged With: web design, web redesign

August 28, 2009 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

Making progress on the redesign!

Hop on over to the new website and see what you think!

So far I have set up the homepage template (much head-scratching) and the category page template (more head-scratching and a few visits to the WordPress support forum for help).  It’s been quite a bit of PHP work, and a lot of sleuthing around in the documentation, but I finally got it working more or less the way I want it.  In fact, I have succeeded in the main objective of my first “sprint” – getting the weaving section up and presentable – and I am very happy.  Over the next day or two my goal is to enter as many of my weaving projects as I can (and while I’m at it, I’ll probably upload them to Weavolution as well).

It’s been a lot of work – probably a good solid 15-20 hours of puzzling away – but I’ve learned a lot about WordPress and about PHP along the way.  I don’t know that I could write PHP “from scratch”, but I can take a lot of code snippets and misc. functions, and cobble them together into what I want.  That’s good enough for me, at least for now.

Tell me what you think I should do with the color scheme; it’s looking pretty bare-bones at the moment.  I’d sort of like to jazz it up a little bit (though I would prefer spare and elegant to “busy”-looking), just have absolutely no idea how.

Have beamed on about half the warp today (it’s only a 12″ wide sample though, so don’t look too impressed) and am hoping to get the rest done before bedtime.  But I’m in no hurry; the reed won’t arrive for a few days yet!

Filed Under: All blog posts, computer stuff Tagged With: web design, website redesign

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