CasaSugar

10 Cool Optical Illusions in 2 Minutes

Beachwalker — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:36:19 -0700

10 Cool Optical Illusions in 2 Minutes

Samsung has released a viral ad on the web to promote its
new Samsung Soul mobile phones. The ad has a guy running
around demonstrating some cool optical illusions. Most of
these effects have been used in movies previously.

Click here: http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=12056

10 Optical Illusions in 2 Minutes

optical illusion anyone?

Cherlene — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:01:20 -0800

HOW LONG

CAN YOU

STARE AT THIS?

View Slideshow ›

Magic Piggy Bank with Optical illusions

Foxman — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:27:21 -0800

Optical illusions can be fun. This coin eating piggy bank with a frog sitting in it is a pleasure to watch. Kids will love it so much, you will be out of change. Place a coin in it and see how the frog swallows the coin.

Like magic, coins dropped in appear to vanish without a trace. Nevertheless, attempts to punish the greedy animal will prove futile. Perfect for forming a saving habit in your children, driven by an unstoppable urge to feed the frog.

Source

Top 20 Optical Illusions

melizzle — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:54:34 -0800

This made my head hurt...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3520448/Optical-...

For fun! Double Vision:Parsing Images That Trick Our Brain

amybdk — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:12:32 -0700

http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1705/st_alphageek_f.jpg

Look at the picture above and you see Albert Einstein. Now walk across the room. Suddenly, he morphs into Marilyn Monroe. Trippy, right? Aude Oliva, an associate professor of cognitive science at MIT, uses images like this one to study how our brains make sense of sight.

Our eyes pick up resolutions with both high spatial frequencies (sharp lines) and low ones (blurred shapes). By blending the high frequencies from one picture with the lows from another, Oliva creates images that change as a function of distance and time-allowing her to parse how humans absorb visual information. Turns out that we perceive coarse features quickly, within the first 30 milliseconds, and then home in on details at around 100 milliseconds. We also focus on the higher frequencies close up and register softer shapes from afar.

"It's something we never think about," Oliva says. "But we still don't know how our brains digest new images so seamlessly and so rapidly." The answer could help treat cognitive disorders or assist in the development of more-perceptive bots. Because, let's be honest: What good is a

Optical Illusion?

denisekuan — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:32:18 -0700

at the Prada store on Rodeo Drive. vintage hat, Balenciaga bag, T by Alexander Wang tee, H&M black/white striped skinny pant, Diesel belt, Chloe boots, Guess watch

makes a lot of sense..unfotunately : Obamaporta-prompta; Symptom of Distress?

Grandpa — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:26:00 -0800

Obamaporta-prompta; Symptom of Distress?
Wednesday, January 27, 2010, 12:19 PM
The_Anchoress

A Shrinking Presidential Perspective
Necessity being the mother of invention, it appears that Barack Obama has needed, and thus invented, the Portable President Kit, consisting of two teleprompters with accompanying equipment and a traveling Don’t-You-Know-Who-I-Am-I-Am-The-President-That’s-Who Podium With Presidential Seal, which Barack Obama takes with him, everywhere he goes.
That means he brings it to an elementary school, for use in addressing the press (something past-and-moronic presidents did not have to do), who are then weirdly dismissed and unable to witness his talk to the children.

It means that he brings his Obamaprompta w/ Podium to a what is essentially a staff meeting.

I’ll be honest, my first reaction to both of those pictures was that they were photoshops. Whoever is choosing what photos get released by the White House needs to be fired. Do they think these pictures reassure us, or that it makes Obama look commanding? They’re quite wrong. These pictures make the President look like an insecure fool.
For all we know -since we don’t know very much at all about Barack Obama, after all- perhaps the president is an insecure fool. Perhaps that was why he needed a pre-presidential seal,

and a ubiquitous, dreamy logo

and a rather special seat, just for him, on his campaign plane:

and a truly unprecedented sign identifying him as President-Elect

The blogs (and Jon Stewart) are having a lot of fun at the president’s expense, every time another one of these weird teleprompter-and-podium sightings turns up, and well they should. We can be very certain that if President Bush had needed a teleprompter in an elementary school (whether it was meant for-the-press-only, or not) or if he’d needed one to address a “task force” of ten people, the press and most Americans would be ridiculing him without mercy (and with some justification), while his supporters winced.
Mockery and cynicism is all part of modern day politics, but I am beginning to worry that Obama is showing evidence of a real problem, and it is a problem of insecurity, identity, aloofness, self-protection and, I am sorry to say it, but delusion.
Is Barack Obama headed for some sort of meltdown? Is he clinging to his podium and teleprompters because he has lost his protective shields and does not trust himself without them? The starry-eyed adulation of the press has simmered down to a mere gaze of hopefulness and longing, accompanied by the barest of criticisms, and Obama translates that as the press being “against” him.
Barack Obama is making flimsy excuses or outright lying; he is saying downright weird things like “I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates…” He has become more self-referential than Bill Clinton. He is throwing transparent boondoggles and doublespeaks at an American public he clearly thinks is too stupid to understand much of anything. Some are talking about Linus and his security blanket. To me Obama more accurately resembles the responsibility-shirking Captain Queeg, with this marbles. What is going on with him? The teleprompter protects him from a slip of the tongue. The Podium creates a barrier between him and his “audience” such as it is, and all of it keeps everything at a distance. Even in this picture, the desk is a barrier, the legs outstretched to the max create distance, the soles of the feet denote a measure of disregard. This president is voluntarily isolating himself, even from his advisers. And again, the White House must think this makes Obama appear in control, but one could just as easily argue that he is surrounded by men who are standing above and looking down upon him.

The optics are terrible, indeed, but the message being communicated in these photos is downright worrisome. Our nation is in serious trouble, and the man in charge of it all seems content misread every signal and only reluctantly engage. His own party has been in control of Congress (and therefore in control of spending) for two solid years, and yet all he can do is blame the predecessor (with whom he should -at this point- really have a little sympathy) and throw that same congress under the bus because all of his illusions have crumbled, and someone must be blamed.
Well, yes, there must be blame and there is plenty to go around. For my money, the press needs to be made to explain how it can justify having never asked this man a difficult question during his two-year campaign; they need to explain why they were so happy to promote Barack Obama into the presidency when they really did not know him, and did not want to know him. They wanted an idea of a president, and I suspect the press did not look too deeply at Barack Obama, because they did not want their idea shattered; they did not want to find out he was not what they imagined. Even Howard Fineman now admits we do not know this man. So, we do not know much about Barack Obama. We do not even know the minimal stuff -school records, health records, known associates- because the press never troubled themselves with those same urgent demands they made of his predecessor. All we have is the media-built narrative, and the example of Obama in his first year as president, during which he resembled nothing of the man we saw in 2007 and 2008.
The president does not seem to know himself, either, which is perhaps why he needs to surround himself with cultural elitists, the trappings of his office, and the constant reminder of his title. Whether the highly-insulated Obama knows who his allies are, or even who the majority of his countrymen are is also a question worth asking.

Another WH issued picture that I thought was a photoshop
Referencing that photo, Bookworm, has called Barack Obama as a “malignant narcissist”, incapable of considering anything, except in reference to himself. She may well be right, but I’ll leave that to the experts. I do worry about his isolation, though, and his delusion that the press is “against” him. There is no president in my memory who has been more carefully protected and kid-gloved by the press.
But I think Bookworm is right to wonder what is wrong with Barack Obama. I think many Americans are wondering what is the story with this stranger-president, with the affable (if eerily unchanging) smile, and the instinct to blame others and then slip away. Is he a victim of his own success? Has he made the ultimate mistake of a politician, and believed his own hype, only to find that reality trumps hype, every time, and leaves the adored object unmercifully exposed as being merely mere?
All I know is, I keep seeing these awful White House approved photos, and they daily jar me because they seem to reveal the president in very unflattering, troubling ways, like the work of an obsessed and Obama-hating photoshop expert.
I look at the photos and see a man who seems not to know himself, or -perhaps- to love himself too much. And I can’t help thinking, “this man has about 40 ‘czars’ busily working under the radar; most of them are unaccountable to congress, or to the people, or to the press. They answer only to Barack Obama, whose presidency may be a voyage of self-discovery joined with immense but unfocused power.
Who knows where it will land us?
Ann Althouse links and notes:

[the pictures] are mostly unflattering when seen by people who don’t like Obama - admittedly, that’s an increasing group. People who like him look at those pics and think they are wonderful.
And this reminds me of something I was saying the other day about liberals. Liberals - I’m generalizing - are so engulfed in their belief that they are the good people, the smart people, that they forget to step back and look at things from the perspective of people who don’t agree with them.

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/theanchoress/2010/01/27/obamaporta-prom...

Optical Illusion

partysugar — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:53:57 -0700

crochet top: BCBG jeans: J brand flats: Zara nail polish: Go Go Green by Mabeline

Optical Illusion

YumSugar — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 15:40:30 -0800

Dress - a steal for $20 at Ross. Scarf - I made it myself as a headband scarf, but it's gotten too stretched out. Now that I'm seeing it like this, not totally sure why I'm wearing it with this outfit. Note to self: Maybe you should try working on those New Year's Resolutions.

Macbook Pro Unibody 17 2G Review

spacekatgal — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 09:20:58 -0800

The Macbook. A decade ago laptops were something you associated with the lovable, pimple-faced Dungeons and Dragons players that nervously asked you out. Now, they are as essential to a modern gal’s life as oxygen. A modern Carrie Bradshaw relies on her Macbook as the nexus of her life - her music, her Facebook, her photos. The right Macbook is not an optional accessory - and finding the right one is highly personal.
This is the second generation in the Macbook Pro unibody line, a critically praised evolution to the Macbook. The laptop is milled from a single piece of aluminum, resulting in a machine with a rocksteady feel. The design is stunning Apple minimalism. Whereas many Windows machines have buttons and ports jammed into every possible corner, the MBP has just a keyboard, a trackpad, and a few inconspicuous ports on one side. It is a truly beautiful machine, one as stylish as it is functional.

If the $999 white Macbook is an everyday sedan, the $2599 Macbook Pro 17 inch is a powerful Humvee - expensive, capable, and able to handle anything. The truth is, it’s too much laptop for many Mac users. It’s about two pounds heavier than the white Macbook, and significantly larger. As a result, Apple sells fewer of the 17 inchers than the rest of the line.

The trackpad is one of the biggest advancements of the unibody line. It is buttonless - to click you simply push down on the luxuriously large trackpad surface. A guy friend of mine said the trackpad was like “sex on glass.” It’s a crude analogy, but an apt one.

It features multitouch technology. One of the head Apple engineers of multitouch got the idea while playing the piano. He wanted to incorporate fluid, artistic gestures into the trackpad. The results are an amazing leap forward in user interface. Touch the trackpad with two fingers, and you can scroll up and down a webpage. Swipe sideways with three fingers, and you can go forwards and backwards while surfing. Swipe down with four fingers and you’re shown all of your open applications. It sounds complicated, but quickly becomes second nature. Prepared to be spoiled, because you won’t want to use a normal trackpad again.

This laptop actually has two graphics cards built in. One is for battery conservation, the other is for power. I use the less powerful one most of the time, and it works just fine for iTunes, email, surfing and light gaming like Peggle. I only use the more powerful mode for Photoshop and video editing. Unfortunately, you have to close all your applications and log out to switch between modes - highly inconvenient.

The Good -

The main reason this machine kicks so much badonkadonk is the display. The screen is the biggest that Apple makes in a laptop, and it is utterly gorgeous. It has a 1920 by 1200 resolution.

To be honest, I sold my Macbook Air after using this screen for a while. It was hard to go back to such cramped real estate after having the freedom of such a large canvas. Yes, the OSX Spaces feature is nice for creating the illusion of more screen space, but GeekGal prefers the real thing. I like to surf in several Windows, use iTunes and see my email as it comes in. It’s heavier to carry than my Macbook Air, but it’s much nicer to use.

The other great feature of the MBP 17 2G is the very fast processor, a 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo is the standard. It’s the fastest Macbook that Apple makes, and benchmarks have shown it running 8 to 9 percent faster than its 15-inch cousin. It has 4 gigs of very fast DDR3 ram in it standard, and can be upgraded to 8 gigs - a sweet spot for graphic artists like GeekGal.

I have used this laptop for many hours of Photoshop work, Illustrator work, and video editing work with the entire Final Cut 4.0 suite. It’s been a real champ. GeekGal would have no qualms recommending this to a creative professional as their main machine.

The other feature of note is the integrated battery. The MBP 17 2G has an integrated battery - meaning it’s built in and can’t be swapped out by the user. Apple claims that you’ll get 1000s of recharge cycles and up to 8 hours of use with this battery. Though GeekGal hasn’t gotten that much, she has survived a 6-hour flight with this laptop.

Apple says the reason for the integrated battery is it lets them pack more power cells into the area, because they don’t have to build structure for the user to easily remove the battery. GeekGal had strong reservations about this, but has come to be a true believer. It’s true that when simultaneous using my Wacom tablet, the machine in full-performance mode, and the display at full brightness, I only get two and a half hours of use from the machine. It’s good, but it’s not infinite.

When this battery does go bad, it will cost you $179 and an afternoon trip to Apple to replace it. Like a designer bag - a battery is not a part meant to last forever, it’s meant to be enjoyed. Going through 1000s of recharge cycles will take you years, even with everyday use. Chances are, f you’ve used up one of these batteries, you’ve gotten your money’s worth.

The Bad -

The most troubling problem I had with the MBP was a periodic tendency of it to beachball while using Safari. Occasionally, I would get the Spinning Beachball of Death every three minutes or so while surfing. It was quite puzzling behavior. I reinstalled my entire system, and it went away for a while - only to come back several weeks later.

Digging deeper, I found out this was a problem with this model MBP and several others. To make a long story short, it’s an issue with the hard drive interface, which Apple tweaked since the last model. Apple put out a patch, and I have had no problems since installing it. You can find that patch here.

The second problem was less serious, but the graphics would sometimes distort while using Mail - the colors would shift over several bands. Apple put out a patch for this as well. Although it now happens much less frequently, it does still happen.

The weight of the machine is also a giant negative. It’s 6.6 pounds, a full pound heavier than its 15-inch cousin. To be honest, it’s heavy enough that GeekGal gives it to her dude to carry whenever possible. Don’t get her wrong - she’s spent many an hour walking around Boston carrying it with her. It’s not difficult to carry, but it’s not lightweight either.

GeekGal compromised by minimizing the weight in her bag. Rather than going with the usual Speck clear case to protect it from scratches, she skipped it. It may be clear, but it almost weighs a pound! I went with a nearly-weightless Zagg Invisible Shield instead. It was difficult to install - but it works well.

I prefer a leather laptop bag, even though it’s heavy - so I went with the minimalist MacCase Flight Jacket. It looks good, and it’s not a lot of weight for what you get. I have no worries about a little Boston drizzle hurting my precious Macbook when it’s inside.

Speaking of bags, be prepared to have a sparse selection of them for the 17 inch. The GeekGal doesn’t do cheap nylon bags, so most of the ones at the Apple store were unacceptable. Even online, there are few bags specifically made for this machine. I found that many of the high-quality Kenneth Cole laptop bags fit the machine well.

The Technobabble -

Despite the problems with the hard drive EFI, Apple did finally make the interface fast enough to support a high quality SSD. GeekGal has two in a RAID array on her MacPro, and it is insanely fast - the best improvement she’s ever had from upgrading a single component. It’s impossible to consider going back to a normal SATA drive after getting used to the speed.

An SSD is really appealing in a laptop because they are much more resistant to shock damage than an traditional hard drive, which is a very important feature in a laptop you carry day-to-day. There are also minor gains in battery-life that are possible. The main limitation is the space. The stock drive is 500 gigs, and a the $300 Intel SDD is only 80 gigs. That’s a huge limitation for a graphic artist.

Several companies put out mods that allow you to sacrifice the optical drive bay for a second hard drive. GeekGal is very tempted to do this - but also watches quite a few movies on her Macbook while running on her home treadmill. It’s not an experiment she’s willing to try yet. Stay tuned though.

This computer has some real room for expansion. Snow Leopard technology can take advantage of Open CL, meaning that future programs can use the second graphics chip for extra horsepower. It doesn’t mean much for the current generation of programs, but this computer has the capability to get faster in time - always a plus.

I’m really eager to expand this computer to 8 gigs of RAM. Photoshop CS4 can use up all 4 gigs of it, so with the expansion I’ll be able to leave iTunes and Safari open without guilt. The main problem is compatible memory is so expensive right now, because it uses relatively new DDR3 ram. The cool thing is, it’s the same RAM that the iMac line uses, so there’s a lot of demand for it. Prices should drop soon.

I installed a Windows partition on this box with Boot Camp and it ran fine. I was very impressed with the gaming capability. The included boot camp drivers are excellent, and with a 500 gig hard drive there was plenty of room.

Summary -

If you’re the kind of gal that mainly Facebooks, uses iTunes, and does light email - this is probably way too much laptop for you. But, if you’re looking for a laptop that is sexy and powerful as hell, this is the droid you’re looking for. This could easily be your only machine, especially if you pair it with the excellent 24-inch Apple display.

The Dude’s Take -

NGD here, staring over GeekGal’s shoulder at her shiny Macbook Pro. I’m kind of jealous, because it’s a lot more powerful that the last gen Macbook she gave me when she bought this one. The huge screen is really cool - but it’s good and bad. All the acreage is great, but it makes the computer a lot heavier - so I end up carrying it around for her. I suppose that’s okay because it makes me feel useful. It also means that I have to spend a lot of time waiting, because she’s always looking at bags for her laptop, and none of them fit

Geekgal’s Humvee metaphor is really accurate. I see her doing a lot of work in Photoshop at a really high 800 DPI resolution and there’s no lag time. I’m also jealous of the really long battery life. I have to charge my computer all the time, which sucks because I keep forgetting to bring the charger.

I hate the trackpad, though to be fair I hate all trackpads. The multitouch thing that GeekGal goes on and on about frightens and confuses me. I wish there were a way to turn it off permanently, but I don’t know how. I wish it came with a mouse the size of a small brick like the 1984 Macintosh did. That, I could get on board with.

I’m really eager for the next generation of Macbook to come out, so I can inherit this awesome one, that is - if she’s ever done playing with it.