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Comment by acconrad | Hacker News Reader

That thread has some beautiful photos. This one is my favorite[1], it's amazing to me how intricate the math of an object can be at a microscopic level.

I mean look at the black and white 2x4, top one 2nd from the left, my mind instantly just wanted to plot that in Matlab and gaze at how complex the equation is!

[1] https://twitter.com/ferrisjabr/status/1022890070531960837?s=...

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To be honest, I found that and the coccolith pictures quite unpleasant/uncomfortable to look at --- it could be because I'm somewhat trypophobic, since they caused me to feel the same "brain-melting" sensation and have the similar characteristic of many almost-regular-but-irregular edges. The "neural network dream" generated images did the same thing to me; I feel my brain heat up and sweat a little.

In contrast, something like a box of gears or related machinery parts, which theoretically is also full of edges, doesn't provoke the same feeling...

Have you tried to see the computer-aided reconstructions of how your own cells function?

E.g. starting with the DNA:

https://youtu.be/DfB8vQokr0Q?t=193

Thanks for the warning. I’m trypophobic as well.

That’s interesting because my first reaction seeing the photos was to think that “they look like a bunch of gears, huh that’s neat”.

Deep dream also made me feel calm, like I was watching a natural process, like a plant growing, or the rain falling. I hadn't had that kind of reaction to "computer" art before.

you will love the movie 'Annihilation' then, in case you haven't already watched it

Only shadowed by the fact that it was highly surprising, but yeah I'm not sure I'll use chalk ever again. I damn hate this kind of pictures.

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