The Pineneedle Collective: Hungry Designs

Well, I think this has been one of the longest blog hiatuses I've ever had! I hope you haven't all forgotten about me. Life update: I've had a spectacularly crappy couple of weeks, but everything is *fingers crossed* going to get better from here on in. I already feel like myself again - I've even been dressing up all cute again and slowly getting back into making clothes (even if it's only printed t-shirts for now, because they don't require a lot of energy to make!)

So I HAVE to talk about a couple of things in this outfit: the first is this brooch that was sent to me by the amazing Amanda from Hungry Designs! I've been wearing it out pretty much every time I leave the house, because it always gets commented on by other cute, well-dressed people, who want to know where I got it from!

And this bag. This bag is ~everything~! The roof is on a hinge so it lifts up to let you put all your stuff - keys, mobile, etc - inside it, and it's even got cute little farm animals painted all around the sides. To this day, it remains one of my best market finds ever. It also makes up part of my blog header!

Outfit details

Shirt is thrifted (Hong Kong Salvos)

Pinafore is vintage Country Road

Brooch c/o Hungry Designs

Bag is Vintage

Tights are from Clear It

Shoes are from Asos

Lipstick is Vixen by Gorgeous Cosmetics

So I really wanted to write a little science bit on that "My Idol" app that was taking off last week - and if you don't know what I'm talking about then you were possibly living under a rock/don't have social media.

Bascially, the My Idol app takes an image of your face and really cleverly fits it to a 3D animated model. And then makes it dance around. To Justin Timberlake. Creepiness ensues.

Posting these pictures on facebook elicited strong reactions of "OMG SCARY" and "I don't like it. Please stop".

Everyone's reaction was pretty much the same, which was: I am at the same time amused and terrified.

But why? Why do we find this so creepy, and have such a strong emotive reaction to something that's not-quite-human?

Well, this sense of "creepiness" has actually been well-studied and is known as the "uncanny valley".

Basically, the more human something appears, the more positively we react to it - until a point. This point, where the figure is almost-but-not-quite-human, is the point at which most people will experience a really strong negative reaction.

It's also the reason why human-like robots are also completely terrifying.

Hanako the dental robot

Saya the reception robot

And that's also what's happening with the My Idol characters - they look just like us and they move in a human way, but something is just a little bit... off. They're uncanny. And so they fall right into that uncanny valley.