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Study Reveals How Magic Works | LiveScience
Scientists are figuring out how magicians fool our brains in research that also helps uncover how our mind actually works. A great deal of what scientists now understand about how the human visual system works stems from research into our susceptibility to optical illusions. "It made sense to look at magicians to advance knowledge of human cognition , since magicians have been working on figuring out how certain principles of psychology work for hundreds of years," said researcher Gustav Kuhn at the University of Durham in England, a cognitive psychologist who has also performed magic the past couple decades.Eye Tricks: Gallery of Optical Illusions | Visual Illusions | Rubin's Vase & Hering Illusion | LiveScience
Distorted squares Credit: Mark Changizi, RPI. The squares in this illusion are actually square, though they appear distorted. The distortions are consistent with how squares in the real world would change their appearance if one were moving forward toward the center point.
Every time I see a time-lapse film, I think one thing: "They're about to sell me a car ." Yet this particular piece of footage, taken from the International Space Station between August and October this year, is curiously mesmerizing. Posted to Vimeo by the film's editor, Michael Koenig, it melds the passing of time over various continents and timezones into a quite stunning impression of a planet that still enjoys life and beauty, even if it's not always immediately visible. Even the Northern Lights seem even more magical than usually promised. It's a five-minute whole that somehow manages to remove the mind from the deep, dark hole of financial crises, political debates, bankrupt nations and crushing inequality that is occurring beneath the lights and the clouds.
NASA time-lapse of Earth is actually mesmerizing | Technically Incorrect - CNET News
What could be better than Google Maps? C3 Technologies' stunning 3D city displays, which let you rotate, zoom and pan through the city as if you'd modeled it all on your computer. The technology, which uses footage captured from airplanes and processed through a formerly proprietary military missile-guidance system, absolutely must be seen to be believed.
C3 Technologies' 3D Mapping Looks Freaking Amazing - Core77
Totally brilliant: That there is the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera , developed by Jonas Pfeil, Kristian Hildebrand, Carsten Gremzow, Bernd Bickel, and Marc Alexa of the Computer Graphics Group at TU Berlin as a thesis project. The working device incorporates 36 2-megapixel cameras harvested from cell phones and contains an accelerometer in its center. Throw the ball up in the air, and when it reaches its highest point (and is thus moving the least), the shutters are triggered, capturing a completely panoramic and navigable shot.
Jonas Pfeil & Team's Amazing Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera - Core77
Trippy Multidirectional Face Illusions
Venezuelan artist Jesús González Rodríguez has a project called 1/2 that features strange Photoshopped portrait illusions. They each show half a face, but is that face looking to the left or towards the camera?
I love a good hack, especially one that requires me to throw back a cold one before hand (or during). This simple wifi boost has actually been shown to increase signal strength by at least 2 to 4 bars. And, well, I will drink to that. These instructions came to us via WikiHow and we think they are most definitely worth checking out. But here is the most important question: what kind of beer will you use?
Boost Your WiFi Signal Using Only a Beer Can : Discovery Channel
The Internet is more than just a series of tubes, but how many people can actually describe the physical structure of the networks we use every day? Andrew Blum argues in "Tunisia, Egypt, and Miami: The Importance of Internet Choke Points" that the hubs that connect this "network of networks" are incredibly vital, and vulnerable, whether located in Egypt or the U.S. Ben Mendelsohn explores this subject in Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors, a short documentary created for his masters thesis at the New School . He takes us inside 60 Hudson Street in New York City, a nondescript building that houses one of the major nodes of the Internet on the east coast. In an interview below, he talks about the making of the film and why these structures matter. The Atlantic: What motivated you to research Internet infrastructure?
The Hidden Infrastructure of the Internet - Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg - Video - The Atlantic
Surf Video Suspends Time Like 'The Matrix' - Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg - Video - The Atlantic
A gorgeous surf video from Rip Curl captures surfing with a multi-camera setup to create the "bullet time" effect popularized by The Matrix , freezing and orbiting the surfers in mid air. Shot in Fiji, the video stars world class surfers Mick Fanning, Owen Wright, Matt Wilkinson, Dillon Perillo and Dean Brady. The setup used 30 HD GoPro video cameras to record continuously, allowing the video to freeze time at just the right moment. Don't miss the behind-the-scenes video below.10 Cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion
Some people say that spontaneous human combustion is just a regular fire that people can't be bothered to find the cause for, that could have been avoided through basic fire safety. Others say that it's just a peculiar shift of our internal chemistry, that can happen to anyone at any time. The latest case made headlines in September of this year as the first Irish case of spontaneous human combustion. People found the burned body of an elderly man lying with his head near the furnace of his apartment. Coroners determined, though, that the furnace was not the source of the conflagration, nor was there any accelerant on the body, nor was there any evidence of foul play.
China, the most populous country (1.3 billion people) and the second-largest economy in the world, is a vast, dynamic nation that continues to grow and evolve in the 21st century. Recent events in China include a successful satellite launch that lays the groundwork for a space station, the completion of a massive skyscraper in a rather small village, the 26th Universiade games for student athletes, the celebration of National Day, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and much more. This collection is only a small view of the people and places in China over the past several weeks. [ 49 photos ] Chinese artist Liu Bolin waits for his colleagues to put a finishing touch on him to blend into rows of soft drinks in his artwork entitled "Plasticizer" to express his speechlessness at use of plasticizer in food additives, in his studio at the 798 Art District in Beijing, China, on August 10, 2011.
21st-Century China - Alan Taylor - In Focus - The Atlantic
No posts with their sole purpose being to communicate with another redditor. Example. Sorry, you're going to have to use a different form of communication.
"It walks like it shit itself" -Karl Pilkington : funny
Since 1998, Esquire magazine has conducted more than 300 interviews with artists, athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, musicians, politicians, scientists and writers. The series — called “What I’ve Learned” — provides a fascinating cross-section of the lives of prominent people. From Buzz Aldrin to Batman , the interview list reads like a Who’s Who of our era. We’ve chosen 10 timeless quotes on how to live, from 10 of our favorite interviews in the series, a fine extension of these 5 guides to life from cultural luminaries , featured here last spring. Smoke like a chimney, work like a horse, eat without thinking, go for a walk only in really pleasant company.” ~ Albert Einstein Get yourself in trouble.
10 Life Lessons from Esquire's "What I've Learned" Interviews | Brain Pickings
Dear Members of the Cult of Done, I present to you a manifesto of done. This was written in collaboration with Kio Stark in 20 minutes because we only had 20 minutes to get it done. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
Your mid-morning break every day at 10.45am Pacific Time. Pick this Pearltree and it will get new updates automatically. Send me suggestions here or @tomforemski on Twitter. by foremski Jul 20