Dang. Is it the color-reversal thing that we were always supposed to get with the flag picture and then a white wall -- except that the existence of an actual black-and-white picture means that the image looks like an actual colored castle, instead of ass?
I don't think it works for me.
Fuck. This stuff never works for me. I see a constant image.
You have to mouse over. Did you mouse over?
I think somebodies aren't reading the directions.
Yes, moused over, no, did not perceive the b/w image as being in color.
Did you move your eyes, TMK? As soon as you shift your eyes at all the image is black and white.
Move the cursor off the picture so that you see a detail-free blue and greenish mess. Stare at that for thirty seconds. Then mouseover to make the B/W castle come back and it will look as if it were in color.
Very impressive -- wasn't this how Polaroid developed color film or something?
But I've got some damaged nerves in between my eyes and my brain that occasionally interfere with my perceiving optical illusions. Alack, a day.
5: Yeah. I could never see the picture in the stereograms, either.
I've never seen the stereogram pictures either, but if you keep your eyes fixed, this one works. The very second you move them, it reverts to b/w.
SCMT, you mean the Magic Eye books? Fuck the Magic Eye books. Couldn't see a thing.
I could see the Magic Eye stuff although I tried to do one recently and I'd forgotten how. It gives you a headache, though, so maybe it's better not to try.
From the main page, which sadly does not contain any more illusions:
Kit Fisto? Lucas is picking up gay He-man rejects?
Wow! Okay, got it to work. SCMT, you might try what I did, which was to stare very fixedly and without blinking at the black dot in the center of the picture while counting to 30 or some other modestly large number, before you move the mouse.
I could see the Magic Eye stuff
I could almost, but they'd come out inside out -- concave surfaces were convex, and vice versa. Once I got it actually right, but I forgot how.
Whoooo
ooooooah.
Who are you calling a whore in a Boston accent?
18: Your mom invited me to park my car in Harvard Yard.
I hate Magic Eye and have never seen anything in any of them. This castle illusion is really cool though. It's a complementary afterimage, as Weiner suggests. I've never seen one superimposed on a greyscale photo, though--it makes a much stronger impression.
I think somebodies aren't reading the directions.
Shouldn't that be "somebodies isn't?"
Magic Eye is a big, big lie.
This worked for me, though.
20: Howso? "somebodies" is clearly plural.
mcmc: You're trained in colors and perception, right? How much does "art-school" go into this, I mean as a requirement?
To see the Magic Eyes you had to focus on a point far beyond the book, as if the book weren't there.
Your mom invited me to park my car in Harvard Yard.
Mom!
(At least she didn't call it the Big Dig.)
I want to live in Boston at some point in my life just so I can have license to say "wicked retarded".
I just reacquainted myself with a Magic Eye on the internet, and I found that I could still do it, but I felt gypped by the image I eventually got--it's like a W with a circle around it or something. That's boring.
W with a circle around it should always have a diagonal slash as well.
So, what's up with the dot? What does that do? Just provide a fixed point to focus on?
'Cause I tried staring at the flag instead of the dot, and it sort of worked, but the effect was not as vivid.
Our friend Apostropher is into the Magic Eye stuff -- got one up in his sidebar he does.
29: Yes, a fixed point to focus on.
Further: I sent this link to my dad and he claims, "When you glance away, it's gray-scale, when you turn your focus back to the dot, it's color again -- works 2 or 3 times before it fades." Have any of you gotten this to work?
Let me know what the image is, TMK.
Here's something -- I always have trouble distinguishing, when I look at a high-resolution gray-scale image, whether it is actually gray-scale or very muted color. I assume this has to do with my lousy eyesight + nerve damage combo.
31: yup, the color gets grayer and grayer as you look though (which may just be the afterimage fading).
I saw a blue-orange print for a second, and then a black and white castle. I'm pretty much incapable of seeing the Magic Eye, as well as that test the eye doctor administers wherein you are made to see double and told to line up the double images (usually white light squares.) My brain basically tells one of the double images to fuck off almost instantly. My eye doctor despaired and then noted the test probably wasn't that important anyway.
Does your brain kiss its mama with that mouth?
22: This was kind of a lame reference to the "What say we all?" thread. See, because people are trying to use a singular verb when they should, in my opinion, be using a plural one, so I thought it would be funny to propose a singular verb for a clearly plural noun, especially because somebodies is sort of a peculiar noun. Get it? Get it? Haw!
No, but that's calling to mind some interesting (non-double) images.
23: No, training has nothing to do with it. This is a purely physiological phenomenon. But the ability to maintain focus on a fixed point is necessary, the smaller the better as it will keep your eye more still, which is why the effect is probably stronger with the dot than with the flag.
Oooooh! I got it to work for a half-second! Huzzah!
Here's an article on what I'm guessing is the same phenomenon -- Land's discovery that that a combination of two monochrome pictures, one taken through a red and one through a green filter, looks as if it were in full color.
TMK, I have that too. It might not be completely illusory. are you talking about photos seen on the web, prints from film, or reproductions in magazines?
Ohhhh. And now I have a peeping eyestrain headache....
Can you do one of these with the unfogged logo at the top of the page? I don't think it's too hard to make your own, actually- get a normal color picture, make a copy in greyscale, and make another copy a negative (or is the initial thing not a true negative?) Oh, and add a dot.
Yeah, it's hard to keep your eye steady enough to develop a good, sharp afterimage. I got it the first time. I can also see magic eye things in less than a second, consistently, every time. I can also cross my eyes and uncross them very quickly, and voluntarily reverse cross them (so they point away from each other) at any time. I can also make one eye spin around and around the whole socket while the other eye goes up and down along one side. I can do this trick where I look at you steadily with one eye, and the other eye starts drifting off some other direction. For some reason, it really creeps people out.
42: If you go to the link in LB's 42 and click on "mind blower" in the left menu, you get an example of this same phenomenon, using a flag, and without the cool mouseover, but an interesting explanation of why it works
43 -- on the web. It doesn't happen with b/w photos on paper or on the movie screen I'm pretty sure.
My wife would be one of those people. Crossed, wandering, or even unfocussed eyes really irritate her. The kids and I have sometimes teased her with this.
Woah, that was pretty freaky.
I think what's happening is that the original colors of the sky and the ground (orange-brown and blue respectively) get flipped in your mind when it shifts to b&w--so you perceive a more typical blue sky and brownish ground. And since stone castles aren't exactly known for being colorful, this makes you assume the whole picture's in color.
47: That's the one I was alluding to in 1 when I said "looks like... ass." I think I never stay focused on the star for long enough. Though I do have an interesting very faint right-colored flag image on the comment box as I type.
There are numerous optical illusions where you stare at something and the afterimage is the negative (stare at a green dot, see a red dot when you close your eyes, etc.) It also works with the tiles on my bathroom floor, which are a black and white pattern- close your eyes and you see the pattern reversed.
here's the explanatin from the link in 42:
The effect is caused by desensitization, or fatigue, of the cone cells in your retina, and it demonstrates complementary colors. As you stare at the flag image, the cone cells in part of your retina are being stimulated by yellow light, which is composed of red and green light. In time, those cells become less sensitive to the red and green. When you shift your gaze to the white field, your eyes are stimulated by roughly equal amounts of red, green, and blue light. The cone cells that have been desensitized to red and green are relatively more sensitive to the remaining blue light, and they respond as if they were seeing more blue light than other colors.
I found when I tried the flag example that when I first switched to the white box I saw nothing, but the complementary flag gradually grew stronger, and then faded.
I think the most interesting thing about this illusion is that while you still see color when you look anywhere within about a half-inch of the dot, when you get further than that the color completely disappears. One would imagine the afterimage would cause some strange coloration shifts to the B&W image, but not that the afterimage coloration would completely disappear. I wonder what sort of processing is going on so that that happens.
48: BW photos seen on a computer screen are created by balanced RGB pixels, so if a given computer isn't perfectly calibrated, a BW picture will appear to be tinged with color.
I can do this trick where I look at you steadily with one eye, and the other eye starts drifting off some other direction.
You can do that consciously? One of my eyes wanders inward if it's not being used; it's the weaker of the two and again, it's like the brain sniffs contemptuously, points out that you're not doing any good here, Mr. Left Eye, and no neurons for you, fuck off. When I was younger it would happen every time I switched from closework (like reading) to looking further out (like answering my dad, who would then yell at me about my left eye wandering, which would make me control it conscious, which would stop it from wandering but makes me wonder if there might have been a more effective method.)
Now it only happens when I put in my right contact lens first and pause before putting in the second one. If I look in the mirror, my left eye will have snapped inwards.
54: I think that as your eye moves around, you're using a different set of rods or cones or whatever to process the image, and since they're not all tired out they process the greyscale image correctly. So it's an optical rather than a brain phenomenon, except insofar as the eye is part of the brain.
Yeah, only consciously. It takes a good deal of conscious effort to do it. If my eyes ever drift, they both drift, and they drift apart.
Sometimes if my head is tired, and I'm looking at something at close range, my eyes will be aligned properly, but out of focus, and I'll have to make a huge effort to focus them, and keep them focused. Some good sleep usually takes care of that, though.
Say you're viewing a box of color with a left-to-right gradient from black-to-white. You stare at it for a while, then the image switches to a constant gray. You see (because of the afterimage) a right-to-left gradient in the box. If you move your eye to the right, you'll probably still see some of the gradient on the right part of the gray box, and the left part will just look gray.
But with this castle image, moving your eye to the right too far completely eliminates the conscious-level effects of the afterimage. Which is pretty interesting.
My totally uninformed guess is that when you're actually looking at the image, the eye sends a really strong b&w image and a weak color afterimage. If the afterimage is very close to the b&w image then they combine to form a color image, possibly with some assistance from the brain. But if the afterimage is not superimposed it just looks like noise and the brain crosses it out. The b&w image is like a guide for the color afterimage. That's my totally uninformed guess.
Re: Land's experiments on colour vision. You can do the 'create the experience of colour perception using monochrome originals' thing with very narrowly separated coloured filters -- it doesn't have to be done with those as widely separated as red and green.
His experiments are really interesting and can be used to kick ass in seminars where someone is giving yet another lazy/shitty presentation on the metaphysics of colour and/or colour perception despite being igorant of almost every experimental result relating to colour perception. I've sat through more of those than I'd really like to count...
My favorite optical illusion is when you're on a boardwalk and you look to one side and the boards look dark, light, dark, light and then you look to the other side and the same boards look reversed: light, dark, light, dark. Take me to Coney Island or Atlantic City and I'll amuse myself with this for much longer than is socially acceptable.
63 -- the boundaries of "socially acceptable" are a good deal looser in Coney Island than elsewhere. BTW -- Oh my Ghod! I just realized! We've absolutely got to get a NYC-area Unfogged float together for the Mermaid Day parade! Shit, we've only got two weeks!
Come on people -- it's really easy, all we need is like mermaid costumes for the laydeez, and something interesting to carry. We've got to do it, it would be so great!
Wow, this is fabulous! And thanks for the explanation, mcmc.
Has anyone noticed that if, say, you look down at where the grass is, instead of the dot, then when you pull the color up, the grass is greener (and the sky slightly less blue)?
I've always wanted to go to the Mermaid Parade but never made it down there. Sadly, I will be out of town. You're going to have to wear the clamshell pasties yourself, TMK.
I dressed up for the Mermaid Parade once. I looked pretty cute. I wore a green wig, a blue bikini top, and a long, tight blue skirt, and I made myself a tale out of cardboard, paint, and ribbon, and carried it around with me. But the lobster costume I made for my date was truly inspired.
When I take my eyes off the dot, I see a vagina. Maybe a butterfly.
I bet that tale had a pretty nice ending, IYKWIM, Tia. Tell me, does it have a thrilling climax?
Yes, in fact, the lobster was veritably hypnotized by my storytelling.
Last year I made myself a ocean-themed tutu. It needed more accessories, but I ran out of time. (It still has sand in it.)
JM, Tia -- youse guys going back this year?
I hadn't thought about it yet, frankly ("wow, is it so soon?"). If I do go, it would make a real difference to my day to be able to store stuff (wallet, food, drink) during the actual parade. Are there lockers somewhere I've been too stupid to find?
There's a Mermaid parade? Whatever for?
Can't you make a costume--say, a turtle, or a crab--that allows you to carry a backpack?
whatever for?
For fun, natch.
75 -- I will very likely come (I'll know for sure next week) and will be carrying a backpack, if you want to leave your stuff with me.
I'm going to recycle my tutu if I go, and tutus--and parades--are made for dancing, not for shuffling about with a full backpack.
TMK, are there lockers anywhere? Seriously, if I go, I'd like to smuggle in my own food and drink, maybe a towel, the wherewithal to change clothes, and so forth. Last time, after the parade was done and the ocean "opened," we looked at each other and said, "well, I guess that's that" and went home. A bit of a let-down.
Oh, I just remembered that I was a pirate last year, and my costume was totally rad considering it was improvised entirely from items in Clementine's and my wardrobes. I was kind of a lemon sherbety pirate, but a pirate, nonetheless.
JM, their server is down right now so I'm having trouble verifying this, but "Coin lockers are available for use at both Santa's Village and Racing Rapids."
I was A Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou charcter for Haloween. I've never gone and I'm not sure that I'm really considering going, but would that be fine?
Oh wait never mind. Santa's Village is a Coney Island theme park in Chicago.
That costume would be groovy, w/d.
75- I know a place you could store stuff. Email me.
I'm scheduled to face my email tonight. I'll email you then, ac.
I know a place you could store stuff
IYKWIM.
I'll show you the inside of my turtle backpack anyday, sailor.
I'm attending a party this weekend where the theme is, for some reason, "Canada". My date is going as a Canadian pharmacy (she's even going to have little matchbox tour buses attached to her costume).
I was thinking of going as John Kenneth Galbraith, but I have a history of favoring simple costumes. So I'm probably just going to wear a big "O" (I'll be the Canadian National Anthem).
But, any suggestions or ideas from the sharp minds of the Mine Shaft would be very welcome
You could dress up as the proposed two-tier Alberta Health Plan.
If anybody asks, say the "O" stands for ootpik.
The Galbraith costume would be simple: stilts. Sort of like a stilted Uncle Sam, in mufti.
Wear something ugly with a maple leaf on it. Or else dress all in white and say that you're winter. Or give yourself welts and say that you've been eaten by mosquitoes, and are summer. Or wear a toque and a down vest and carry a beer and say "eh" a lot. Or spend the whole night insisting that you're not American. Or carry around a box of Timbits (use link to design the box). Or carry a hockey stick.
All of these are crappy stereotyped ideas, but they are easy.
Go as Bob or Doug McKenzie.
wear a toque and a down vest and carry a beer and say "eh" a lot.
Ben, I had already said that.
Go as an American tourist wearing a button with a Canadian flag button on the shoulder-strap of his backpack because he is traveling in a place in which anti-American sentiment has reached a feverish pitch.
BAH wearing a Canadian flag button on the shoulder
Wrap yourself in plastic tubing and call yourself a hoser.
(a belated congrats to 'Smasher!)
Oops, well (blush) no Mermaid Day parade for me. As it turns out I will be playing violin with 13 Scotland Rd at the Tenafly street fair that afternoon. (First time I've played my violin on stage since I was 13? or so, and first time ever for money. w00t!)
Thanks for all the costume suggestions.
You filthy racists.
And really, BPhD, tell us how you really feel about Canada.
And TMK, why not dress as a mermaid for your gig? Plus: congratulations!
Also, what does "jury a show" mean?
Go as Bob or Doug McKenzie
What a capital idea! I'll be sure to win the "Most Original Costume" contest with that one!!
Also, congrats to Smasher on his selection for jury duty.
101: I'm an ugly American, what can I say.
I'm an ugly American
Huh. I've always been under the impression that you were quite fetching.
Unfair. It's mid-morning for you; it's 3:30 am for me. I'm at an unfair advantage in the straight guy contest.
Woof.
This is all part and parcel of that penchant for "backing into things", right?
Unfair disadvantage. See what I mean?
Unfair. It's mid-morning for you; it's 3:30 am for me.
Um, I'm in Austin, Texas. It's 2:30 am here.
See? I'm so out of it that I was confusing you with Matt McGrattan. WTF are you doing up so late, anyway?
Only 12:30 am over here. And I'm going to sleep.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
WTF are you doing up so late, anyway?
Well Ms. Kettle, if you must know, I'm taking a well-deserved break from my standard cry cry masturbate cry routine. Branching out you know, trying to make something of myself.
That's what you're not doing. I myself am staying up too late after working 'til midnight, ish. Because I'm stupid like that.
Well, everyone's gots to have their downtime, and I'm sure you've earned yours much more than I have.
Not really. I spent all day writing something like 600 words.
Yes, but you're omitting the epic Battle of Butt-Wiping.
I'm sure that deserves lots of downtime.
Okay, now I'm going to follow eb's wise example.
congratulations on the gig, TMK. and to 'Smasher for the jury thing.
I've always been under the impression that you were quite fetching
