Slashdot Mirror
The Goggles, They Do Nothing
Suchetha writes "In anticipation of a slow news day i would like to direct the Slashdot hordes to Akiyoshi Kitaoka's Optical Illusions page. The page also has explanations on why/how they occur (in icky PDF format). The page is on a .jp uni server so they SHOULD be able to handle the herd of rhinos that is ./."
Some of these are on display on out-of-the-way doors in the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco. It looked like some of the staff members had printed them out and posted them there for their own personal satisfaction, but a lot of the visitors were finding themselves distracted from the bigger attractions to stare at these.
It was trippy to have the spinning snakes one as my wallpaper for some time, but at six by four feet, it really does begin to make you a little dizzy.
Because I could...nay..have found myself staring at these for periods, and assummed I will get a bit of headache, of that they are bad for my vision (thus forcing myself to stop).
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
Check out the awesome images of Japan/Kyoto. IMNSHO, they're far more interesting than the optical illusion stuff.
Thanks for making them available, Mr Kitaoka.
I would like to Slashdot a server that hosts a large number of images. That should spice things up.
The laboratory of Dale Purves at the Duke University Medical Center is also researching visual illusions. Check out www.purveslab.net for interactive animations (yes, it's a Flash site).
He's also written a book entitled Why We See What We Do: An Empirical Theory of Vision.
We prefer the term "crash" to refer to a gathering of us... herds are so... blaise.
Congregations of other animals have different terms...
A murder of crows
A gaggle of geese
A pounce of cats
An ambush of tigers
More can be found here.
These optical devices could potentially be quite useful... going to have a play :-).
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The latter happens when the brain can't handle the conflicting information from your two eyes
I didn't realize this was the cause of seizure fears. I happen to be completely blind in one eye, does this mean I don't need to worry about getting seizures from this sort of thing? If so, that's an interesting bit of news I never heard of... perhaps even the first (only?) perk of being half blind.
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Ramachandran's optical illusions
Johansson's point-light walker (Flash animation)A very cool illusion is available here. Try looking inside of the triangle defined by the yellow dots, as the blue dots wander around. After a few moments, the yellow dots begin to blink in and out of your visual consciousness. It's quite a powerful effect.
they sure do! i didn't know if they would (i can't see those cool 3d effects with the glasses, since those require your brain to coprocess the difference between two images). apparently these illusions are based upon something different. probably just perspective.
Check out this image. The squares marked "A" and "B" are the same shade of grey. If you don't believe me, open the page in a paint program and check out the colors.
I've always wondered about this. We know about those grid illusions where the intersections appear to be darker than they are, or the "rotation" illusion in the article. But can you undo the illusion? Can you offset the color and remove the "dark intersection" problem? Can you curve shapes the opposite way and undo illusions of curve?
PDF is an open standard.
My other car is first.
One of my customers had the computer sitting in the corner, so as you face the computer, you're also facing the corner.
The trouble was, the wallpaper was vertical blue and white stripes, each about 1 inch (2,5 cm) wide, covering both walls.
Sitting at the computer, seeing the striped wallpaper in your peripheral vision, you would get the unnerving feeling the monitor was attacking you, slowly approaching you, menacingly. (It didn't help that the monitor was on an elevated platform, so you actually had to look up at it.)
After a few years, they covered the wallpaper with wood paneling.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
There is a black and white round one called "Uzumaki Anpan". Uzumaki means whirlpool, coil, eddy or vortex. Something spinning around (uzu means swirl, maki means wrap as in wrapped sushi). As for the second term, An is sweet black miso paste, and pan is a loan word from the Portuguese for bread. Anpan is a hugely popular round puffy donut with the sweet paste inside. So the title roughly means, Vortex Jelly Donut. Rudy Rucker probably has some good words for it, I'll borrow one: Yarrr!
Don't /. the mirror that helps against /.ing!
The real funny part would be when they actually get on slashdot and start mirroring themselves.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
If you like this stuff, and especially if you like it explained, be sure to pick up a copy of Visual Intelligence by Donald Hoffman. By far the most interesting scientific prose I've read in years.
That said, any brain stimulus that involves coordinating the hemispheres could trigger a seizure if it's in the damaged area. And at that, last I looked at current research, they're saying that the right hemisphere controls the left field of vision on both sides and vice versa for the right, entirely contrary to the earlier theory that the each hemisphere of the brain controlled one eye. *wry grin* Where it gets really weird was that it was proven in experiments that each hemisphere handled the input from one eye and now they've proven it the other way. It really makes you wonder how much of our brain's deelopment may rely on how we believe it should work.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.