AI Weirdness: the strange side of machine learning

Tag: dust

Total 19 Posts
(Untitled)

(Untitled)

A speck of dust, viewed under the electron microscope.  Looks a bit to me like a pirouetting bison.  The dust is definitely microscopic - about 40 of these would fit inside your average skin cell.  It’s sitting on the metal holder we use for mounting our samples - all
(Untitled)

(Untitled)

Could this be the creature who’s been clambering all over my sample, raking scratches into my designs, cackling all the while?  I sometimes wonder. … Or maybe it’s actually a speck of dust, as usual.  This one’s large for a dust particle, but still invisible to the human
(Untitled)

(Untitled)

Extreme close-up of a single speck of dust.  It turns out that dust comes in all shapes and sizes, and this cloud-shaped piece is a rarity - I’ve also found mountains and sails and lumpy monsters.  None of which are supposed to be there… but when I take my
(Untitled)

(Untitled)

Bashful dust particle, viewed under an electron microscope Since our electron microscope isn’t inside the cleanroom, it’s hard to avoid the occasional visiting particle of dust.  They appear randomly, like small beings exploring immense and weird landscapes.  This one’s microscopic, and stands on a well-scratched metal surface.
(Untitled)

(Untitled)

A particle of dust, viewed at around 19,000x in an electron microscope. It’s sitting on a little pedestal that it made itself out of my semiconductor laser material - no, I didn’t give it permission.  The dust particle selflessly protected that patch of semiconductor from the harsh
(Untitled)

(Untitled)

An upside-down mountain, formed from dust.  The whole thing is about the size of a single bacterium. The mountain is, as usual, not supposed to be there - it’s a piece of dust that landed on my sample.  Despite doing all my processing work in the cleanroom, it’s
(Untitled)

(Untitled)

The lace ship. This is some sort of dust that landed on my sample before etching - I do try to clean dust off, but I don’t get everything removed.  This particular sample had a few of these airy, lacy dust particles - I’m not sure what they
(Untitled)

(Untitled)

Nom nom. Apparently, my nanostructures are tasty. This little guy is only about 1 micrometer high, less than 1/100 the thickness of a typical piece of paper.  And the guy appears to have latched on to one of my little structures - ruining it, I might add.  I guess
(Untitled)

(Untitled)

Sometimes our samples get visitors. In most cases, they’re simply little flecks of dust that have settled to the surface of our chips.  Since most of the structures we’re making are so small, your average chunk of dust can be comparatively building-sized. They usually scare the willies out
You've successfully subscribed to AI Weirdness
Great! Next, complete checkout for full access to AI Weirdness
Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.
Unable to sign you in. Please try again.
Success! Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content.
Error! Stripe checkout failed.
Success! Your billing info is updated.
Error! Billing info update failed.