Quirks of being human
We are all human, yet we are all different from each other, we are all unique; or as someone put it "You are unique, just like everyone else." However, for the majority of us, no matter how "unique" we are, we are still human...which means most of us are susceptible to quirks in how our brain works.
So what is all this random rambling about? Well for those that are unaware, I enjoy understanding and learning how the human mind works - especially when it doesn't quite work as expected, such as when we see optical illusions. So here are a few that I would like to share.
Impossible Motion: Magnet-Like Slopes
Our brain doesn't always decipher what we see with our eyes in the real world properly. It tries to be too smart and often fails. But that's ok, since it means we can see awesome optical illusions!
Change Blindness
You've probably heard of this before - as humans we can be very "blind" to how our environment changes around us. Some rather big changes can occur and we don't notice at all.
Another change blindness example - just for fun 
Leaning Tower Illusion
So what about a still image, no videos, just a plain old image. How will your eyes (or should I say brain) trick you now?
The two images are identical...really!
That's it for now - hope you enjoyed the random selection above What I find most interesting is that for many of these "brain quirks" even though you know what is happening, even though you know the trick you still can't un-trick your brain to see what is really there.
Oz slang and Street View in 3D!
So, it's April Fools today, and as usual, Google has come up with some random stuff...
Oz slang for directions in Google Map...Chuck a left! (Directions from Max Brenner to San Churro!)
Street View...now in 3D!
There seems to be a couple of other April Fool hoaxes Google has provided this year
Which search engine do you use?
My answer: Google. Why? Because it's simple, loads quickly and most of the time gives me results that are relevant to what I want. Chances are a good majority of people will also answer Google. As far as I know people use 'Google' as a verb, while other search engines, eg. Yahoo, Bing do not get the same treatment.
To be honest, I just took the use of Google for granted and never really thought much about it until I went to Ignite Sydney last week. One of the awesome talks "Everything I know about you" by Michael Kordahi tested to see if our perceptions to the search results (he comapred Bing, Google, Yahoo) would be the same if the branding was removed. The results of preference (and the search terms people looked for) are indeed very interesting - definitely worth watching!
Interesting thing was after the night I went home and gave it a go myself. For simple/basic searches (which were essentially keyword searches) all three search engines were roughly the same for me - but in picking the preferred one I actually rarely picked Google! Though for more complex searches (eg. ones which I just typed in a question) Google was the clear winner. The other two were nowhere close.
Random footnote - I hear some of you may be asking, what is Ignite Sydney? No, it is not an event where pyromaniacs go and set fire to Sydney landmarks. Ignite Sydney is a series of presentations with one very simple idea behind every presentation:
Make the presenters stick to a rigid format of 20 slides, each of which changes automatically after 15 seconds, giving a guaranteed 5 minute presentation.
This means no death by powerpoint - yay! and generally very interesting, entertaining and well thought out presentations - double yay! If you don't live in Sydney then don't worry - there are Ignite events all around the world. Have a look here for the full list
Google Maps – Street View…in Australia!
When Google Maps was released in early 2005 it was quite cool to be able to see a birds-eye view of various places (even if you could only zoom in so far). Since then, there has been many improvements - more view types, clearer pictures, closer zoom etc.
In mid 2007, a new view type: Street View was made available. I must say, it is quite cool - Street View allows you to actually see the street as if you were there at the place. This view was only available to a selection of cities in the USA and Australia (the 'birth' place of Google Maps) was left out...until today!
Yes, as of today (5th August 2008) there is Street View in Google Maps for pretty much all of Australia! At first I was quite excited, as I've had a look at Street View in USA before (1 Infinite Loop ) and thought "Wouldn't it be cool if this was in Australia?". Now that it is in Australia I must say it is cool, but definitely also scary! In my opinion, being able to see your own house on Google Maps and with the correct (or a very close) address feels scary!
creating a time capsule
Quite some time ago (about late 2007) I saw this documentary called "21 Up Japan" which is similar to the "Up Series". The idea of the documentary is the follow a group of children from when they were 7 years old, and then every 7 years they go back to them and see how they are going. The interviewers had a set of semi-structured questions which they asked, and it was very interesting to see how everyone's answers changed from when they were 7, 14, and 21.
After seeing this documentary I decided I wanted to do something similar - make my own time capsule However it wasn't until a few months later in early 2008 when I found an old exercise book which had some short stories that I had written in 1995 that really got me started. Reading those stories made me realise how much can change in a few years (and how much we can forget!). My time capsule is bit different to 21 Up Japan - it does have a set of questions which I plan on answering once every year or so, but the majority of entries are more diary-like entries of times when I feel like something important has happened.
blutack pig
On Sunday I decided to make a small pig out of blutack Probably sounds very random, but it was because earlier in the weekend I had saw similar small pigs at Paddy's Market and they just looked so cute! Here is the result of my procrastination:
The pig itself is actually quite small - about 1cm in diameter, though I think that is what makes it cute. At first I was worried that using blutack would be very hard since blutack sticks to itself (and your fingers!), but in the end it wasn't that bad. A toothpick is a must though - not just to poke the holes for the eyes/nose but also to push and shape the ears.
Since the pig was quite small it was rather hard to take a nice close-up photo, so as usual I took several shots. However, this time while flipping through all the blurred photos I remembered a Stop Motion Video tutorial I had read on Photojojo few months back - so alas, more procrastination...my first stop motion video attempt!
dragon illusion
Another great illusion - and this time you get to make it! Have a look at the Three Dragons from Grand Illusions - the movie clip is really quite cool! After seeing the clip I actually went and made it straight away (much easier to make than the penguin) but sadly it didn't turn out as nice as the illusion in the video clip. It seems like you need some light behind the dragon for it to work. Though I'll still put it on my desk at work and see if I get any weird looks
clear as black and white…right?
The image above probably looks very normal - a set of everyday chess pieces (without pawns). White pieces on top covered by black clouds, and black pieces at the bottom covered by white clouds. If they don't look like chess pieces, try clicking on the picture to enlarge it - my friend thought they were teeth when he saw it on my msn display pic!
So, if we are imaginative, and assume the chess pieces are real, it would make sense that we can use them and play a normal game of chess...right? Well, not quite - because the chess pieces are identical. They are the same - pixel for pixel. If you don't believe me 'cut and paste' the chess pieces and they will magically "change colour". Even if you believe me you can give it a go, quite mind blowing if you ask me!
my first plugin!
After a few nights of "Just 5 more minutes...", I finally finished writing my first plugin for WordPress The More Link Modifier. Not long after 'hacking' some files to change the 'more link' to behave as I wanted, I started thinking about the possibility of writing a plugin to prevent the need for the 'hacking'. After some research I decided it would be very possible; so despite my lack of time started coding the plugin. The final product is a bit different (it's better!) to what I had initially in mind, but I'm sure there is still more room for improvement - so any suggestions welcome!
Finishing the plugin gave me a very nice sense of accomplishment - though realising that I had used camelCase, but WordPress uses underscore_notation was a bit annoying. Got plans for a few other plugins (must remember to use underscore_notation in the future), though they'll probably have to wait until after assignments are done...unless I start procrastinating...
shoe print illusion
Was going to post this up last week, but then saw the free penguin/tux and I just had to post that first Anyway, this is the first of hopefully many cool optical illusions that I will post up. I love optical illusions, and I'm going to try and post up "rare" illusions on my blog - so stay tuned!
In my opinion, this illusion is extra cool because nothing was done deliberately to get the illusion effect. The photo was actually taken by Marty, and every now and then it appears on her laptop slideshow screensaver (everytime it appears I point at it and go psycho )