wu :: forums - Print Page


    
      
        wu :: forums
        (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi)
      

        riddles >> what happened >> Optical Illusion
        
(Message started by: Ken_Wiley on Dec 28^th, 2006, 5:37pm)

Title: Optical Illusion
Post by Ken_Wiley on Dec 28^th, 2006, 5:37pm

If you stare at the black "+" in the center, the moving dot turns to green.

Now, concentrate on the black "+" in the center of the picture. After a short period, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see only a single green dot rotating.

It's amazing how our brain works. There really is no green dot, and the pink ones really don't disappear. This should be proof enough, we don't always see what we think we see.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by raven on Dec 28^th, 2006, 6:38pm

Focus on any one flower and the rest will spin, change your focus to a spinning one, and it will stop...

http://www.satarah.com/clients/optical.gif

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by hiyathere on Dec 28^th, 2006, 8:01pm

Where do you find all these optical illusions?

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by raven on Dec 28^th, 2006, 8:36pm

I don't remember now. ???

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Dec 29^th, 2006, 12:38am

You should be able to find quite a few just googling. I remember there's a site that collects quite a few, it'll probably come up somewhere on top..

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by SMQ on Dec 29^th, 2006, 5:55am

This one, to me, is still one of the simplest and most unbelievable: squares A and B are the same shade of gray (http://web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html)!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Optical.greysquares.arp.jpg

--SMQ

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by revenge on Dec 29^th, 2006, 7:13am

Do you mean the two squares or just the letters A and B? If it is the squares, then it is truly unbelievable!

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Icarus on Dec 29^th, 2006, 7:25am

He means the entire square. When I first encountered this one, I photoshopped a piece of one square by the other just so I could confirm it, because it seemed such a ridiculous claim.

But it is true.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by raven on Dec 29^th, 2006, 7:48am

I stumbled upon the squares one some time ago on Wikipedia, I also sampled the colors of both squares, squinted my eyes real tight, and waved a feather in the air...needless to say, the two squares are the exact same color and saturation.

Good one SMQ ;)

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Dec 29^th, 2006, 12:23pm

If you blur your vision, you can see it.
From an AI perspective it is even more interesting; because figuring out these illusions helps you find the tricks that, apparantly, are usefull for (realtime) vision systems.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Ken_Wiley on Dec 29^th, 2006, 12:58pm

Stare at the centre of the figure for a while. Some ‘scintillating’ activity will build up in the violet and blue annuli. Some observers also report a circular rotation within these regions; things will begin to “run around in circles”.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by hiyathere on Dec 29^th, 2006, 1:50pm

OK why is this in the "what happened" section?

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Ken_Wiley on Dec 29^th, 2006, 1:56pm

to get you to figure out what happened.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by SMQ on Dec 29^th, 2006, 1:59pm

on 12/29/06 at 13:56:13, Ken_Wiley wrote:

to get you to figure out what happened.

Wha happen?! My head asplode!
;)

--SMQ

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by thecow135 on Dec 29^th, 2006, 8:27pm

lol ur ass 'ploded?!?! haha nice... this 1 girl in my class keeps saying i dont have an ass... does it matter?!?!?!?!! but everyday she bugs me about it it gets annoying XP

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on Dec 29^th, 2006, 9:43pm

...

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Iceman on Dec 30^th, 2006, 12:34pm

Comparison: not to have a pair of perfect eyes can be fun. Is god bored because his eyes are perfect, so he misses nice optical illusions? Regarding the above illusions, god sees everything, meaning he sees nothing. We do not see pink dots, so we see everything.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Ken_Wiley on Dec 31^st, 2006, 10:59am

another...

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by thecow135 on Dec 31^st, 2006, 12:18pm

dammit iceman y must u alwayz go into one of your profound and infinitely impossible to understand speeches of yours lol it kills me to read it =P

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Roy on Dec 31^st, 2006, 5:50pm

I would guess that it is because it's what he does, apart from threaten to zap me and land his spaceship on me.

P.S Happy New year!

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Roy on Dec 31^st, 2006, 5:54pm

on 12/28/06 at 17:37:28, Ken_Wiley wrote:

And after the pink dots "dissapear" look away from the cross and you see a ring of green dots

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Iceman on Dec 31^st, 2006, 6:13pm

on 12/31/06 at 17:50:29, Roy wrote:

Happy New year!

Happy New Year! Can you say that to a 99 years old earthling who still has personality?

on 12/31/06 at 12:18:29, thecow135 wrote:

dammit iceman y must u alwayz go into one of your profound and infinitely impossible to understand speeches of yours lol it kills me to read it =P

God is the biggest riddle out there, so I thought it might be appropriate. Are you trying to say that nobody likes a riddle only god can solve?

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Michael_Dagg on Dec 31^st, 2006, 7:31pm

I saw the first one here with pink dots a long time ago
made up with nixie tubes. Nixie tubes are vacuum tubes
made for the purpose of doing what LEDs and LCDs do
these days (but definitely predate them).

I remember the background was made up of simply a
piece of white poster board in front of which were the
nixies and with a black dot on the poster to make the plus.

It does the same thing and I think it is call the Troxler effect.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by flamingdragon on Dec 31^st, 2006, 8:05pm

Here's a 3-D one, these two fellas are the same size!

BTW Ignore my cursor in the middle of the pic.

http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/5204/3dillusiionha3.png (http://imageshack.us)

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Grimbal on Jan 1^st, 2007, 9:20pm

Can you tell blue from yellow?

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetailNoFrame;jsessionid=aaagdGP-A_gm-O?assetId=18915

from
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/14755?fulltext=true&print=yes

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JP05 on Jan 2^nd, 2007, 3:52pm

Some of the ones here are shown over here http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

These are nice since they are Flash and you can control them with the buttons and stuff.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JP05 on Jan 20^th, 2007, 2:06pm

http://www.funny-games.biz/animations/70-trippymirror.html

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Locke64 on Jan 23^rd, 2007, 7:41am

___
/__/\
\__\/
/\__\
\/__/

As the red edge travels left to right, does it go towards you or away from you?

That's one I made up the other day. I have a picture at home, but I'm at a school computer ATM. Last day of C++ :(

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Grimbal on Jan 23^rd, 2007, 8:16am

My screen is quite flat. so it doesn't change a lot.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Locke64 on Jan 23^rd, 2007, 3:56pm

on 01/23/07 at 07:41:54, Locke64 wrote:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b87/dmw42/boxpatternsingle.png

Or the pattern version:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b87/dmw42/boxpatternsig.png

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by hiyathere on Jan 23^rd, 2007, 4:29pm

on 01/23/07 at 07:41:54, Locke64 wrote:

Last day of C++ :(

Not for me. I'm taking C++ 2. ;D

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Locke64 on Jan 23^rd, 2007, 6:22pm

on 01/23/07 at 16:29:37, hiyathere wrote:

Not for me. I'm taking C++ 2. ;D

How do you have room for that? Don't you take Leadership? Or did you only take one semester of Language?

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by TheNumberScott on Jan 25^th, 2007, 6:44pm

can someone explain how the one works where there's like 10 guys, and then the top two sections switch, and there's suddenly 11 guys? Do you know the one I'm talking about? I'll try to find a link.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JiNbOtAk on Jan 25^th, 2007, 7:43pm

You mean this one ?

http://funnyjoke.wordpress.com/files/2006/10/image006.gif

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by jollytall on Jan 25^th, 2007, 11:40pm

This is how some guys tried to make money. They cut a narrow stripe from a banknote, too small to notice if you hand it over quick. Then cut a slightly wider stripe down from another one and scotchtaped to the note the narrow one. So they had two almost perfect banknotes and a narrow2 stripe.
Then cut a third not making again a slightly wider stripe and attached to it the stripe2. What was left is a stripe3. etc. At the end they had one more banknote.

Just look at the hair of the leftmost guy. That is the first stripe.

Btw. an anecdote, albeit said to be true. There was once a pig growing farm. One of the employees had at home a newborn piglet. He took it in the farm in the morning and put in the sty of the young piglets (few day old ones). from there he chose the largest one (slightly older than his) and moved it to sty 2, where obviously this one became the smallest, but not noticable. So he moved the largest of sty 2 to sty 3. Etc. At the end of the day he walked home with a fully grown one and nothing was missing from the farm.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by CowsRUs on Feb 7^th, 2007, 7:55pm

Well, I think sum of these optical illusions are fake, such as the first one... since the green circle appears every time, but we only notice it, unless you look closely, when we dont really mind it. I think it shows up because it is brighter than the rest, and when we focus hard on the +, we see only the brightest thing around it.
As for the chess square, i believe they're the same, it's just our eyes are used to seeing things shaded as really less dark as they come in. In a computer picture, there is no such thing as shadow. ;D

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Feb 8^th, 2007, 4:13am

on 02/07/07 at 19:55:26, CowsRUs wrote:

Well, I think sum of these optical illusions are fake, such as the first one...

If they were real, they wouldn't be illusions, would they..
A real illusion is always fake.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by CowsRUs on Feb 8^th, 2007, 3:47pm

no as in... if the thing wasnt rotating it wouldnt be an illusion... as the chess board and the size of the thing would be what i consider "real"

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Feb 8^th, 2007, 3:55pm

It's just a different sort of illusion, depending on a different aspect of the human visual system.
There quite a number of visual illusions that depend on movement and change.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by CowsRUs on Feb 8^th, 2007, 4:05pm

change! ooh... now they finally invented a word for disaster...

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by CowsRUs on Feb 8^th, 2007, 4:06pm

Unkown Dictionary of Mistakes
Change-disaster
syn.-Towr,Icarus,Wu Forums in general
Jk... ;D ;D ;D

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Feb 9^th, 2007, 1:16am

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by CowsRUs on Feb 12^th, 2007, 8:11am

???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ????

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JiNbOtAk on Feb 21^st, 2007, 5:23pm

Couldn't see how it happened for image below. I've even printed it out, cut it, tried to fit one atop the other, and I still don't get it !!

>:(

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/147/371723025_d5769c9b24_o.gif

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on Feb 21^st, 2007, 5:36pm

I was looking for this thread the other day. I saw this illusion and it blew my mind. Believe it or not, there are no spirals in this image, only concentric circles.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Icarus on Feb 21^st, 2007, 5:49pm

on 02/21/07 at 17:36:32, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot wrote:

Believe it or not, there are no spirals in this image, only concentric circles.

That is not quite true. The hatched "background shading" is definitely in a spiral pattern.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by denis on Feb 22^nd, 2007, 8:24am

What we can say about this is that the thinner black and white line segments don't constitute a spiral but concentric circles which in itself is a pretty good illusion.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by jollytall on Feb 22^nd, 2007, 11:41pm

on 02/21/07 at 17:23:41, JiNbOtAk wrote:

Check the AB, DE lines. They are not straight.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Icarus on Feb 23^rd, 2007, 5:46am

Yes (sorry I missed noticing that was a new unanswered post). You don't have 2 triangles in that figure. They are actually 2 quadrilaterals.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JiNbOtAk on Feb 23^rd, 2007, 5:40pm

Thanks, both jollytall & Icarus !!

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by tiber13 on Mar 12^th, 2007, 6:29am

for the first one, your retina looks at it and makes an imprant, and when it dissapears, the retina reverses colour, making green.
for 2, as you watch it spin you dont see the circles totally revolving, when you lok away it goes back to its original position, faster than the the brain can notice

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JP05 on Mar 17^th, 2007, 9:16pm

Anyone know why the second thread (#2) of this thread might result in a very wide display in my browser?

It display off screen to me on the right.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JP05 on Mar 17^th, 2007, 9:17pm

I see what it is now. All those QUESTION marks form CowsRUs
makes this thing not behave right.

Surely I am not seeing things.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Mar 18^th, 2007, 8:14am

Your screen resolution must be quite a bit less then mine then.
I suppose I can go cut his lines into smaller pieces..

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Aryabhatta on Mar 18^th, 2007, 9:58am

My screen resolution is 1920x1200 and I have the widescreen problem too. I am using IE7.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JP05 on Mar 18^th, 2007, 10:12am

I have 1600x1200 and it requires scrolling over to see the center. I know that people used to hack other message boards by doing this.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Mar 18^th, 2007, 11:00am

Hmm, well, that very odd then. Because I have no problem with it in firefox, and only 1280x1024.
And those questionmarks were already broken in lines less than half my screen length before I broke them up further.
If you still have a problem, I really have no idea what it could be.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Mar 18^th, 2007, 11:11am

This is possibly the most peculiar bug I've seen in a browser to date.

Try this example (http://tcw2.ai.rug.nl/~towr/PHP/html.php?html=%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F+%3F%3F%3F%3F%0D%0A), a page with nothing but those questionmarks. It shows the exact same width problem in IE. Now replace those ?'s with a's (http://tcw2.ai.rug.nl/~towr/PHP/html.php?html=aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaaaaaa+aaaa), and it doesn't have the problem.
Conclusion, IE is f*cked up.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JP05 on Mar 18^th, 2007, 2:41pm

Good point towr. This allows me to surmise that this happens because the question mark is a punctuation character and so a line-break at such a character would never happen. If this is true then replacing the question mark with a . would do that same thing. Make sense?

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on Mar 18^th, 2007, 2:44pm

on 03/18/07 at 11:11:46, towr wrote:

Conclusion, IE is f*cked up.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by BNC on Mar 18^th, 2007, 3:09pm

on 03/18/07 at 14:41:40, JP05 wrote:

yes, but does't "work" in practice,

......... .......... ............ ............. ............. ............. ........... ............... .............. .............. ............. .................... .......... ............ ............. ............. ............. ........... ............... .............. .............. ............. ...........

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Mar 18^th, 2007, 3:14pm

on 03/18/07 at 14:41:40, JP05 wrote:

Actually a line break after a punctuation mark sounds quite sensible to me; but I don't know how they think at microsoft. [edit]Oh wait, you meant a linebreak before the puntuation mark. Indeed that wouldn't in general make sense. (depending on the language)[/edit]

In any case, '.' doesn't seem to have the same problem, but '!' does.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JP05 on Mar 18^th, 2007, 3:19pm

I just thought of something, HA HA, Microsoft doesn't like questions!

More: BNC I didn't noticed what you said but isn't your case because there are spaces at which it would be permissible to break a line?

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Mar 18^th, 2007, 3:29pm

It seems to happen for all these characters:
? ! / ( ) { } [ ]

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Icarus on Mar 18^th, 2007, 6:25pm

on 03/18/07 at 11:11:46, towr wrote:

Conclusion, IE is f*cked up.

I've also noticed that water is wet, myself.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JP05 on Mar 18^th, 2007, 7:13pm

I do find that Firefox does show this forum pretty good at the college lab. I just haven't downloaded it personally as of yet which there is little excuse for me having not done it.

I don't know if it is something new, but I noticed that some of the member names in some of the threads are in white and it says "guest" under them when we know that they are members. I didn't think this forum allowed just guests to post stuff. Once I saw a bunch of N/A for members.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Icarus on Mar 18^th, 2007, 8:21pm

The restriction to only members posting is only a year old or so. Before then guests could post and their posts would show with the names in white. William had to change this because bots were posting spam as guests. (Bots aren't smart enough yet to figure out how to register. And even when they get smart enough, they can be banned easily.)

While guests were not allowed to use the name of members, once you registered, you could still use the name you were using as a guest. So many people started here as guests, but later registered. When you see their name in white, it means you are looking at pre-registration posts.

Of course, some of it could also be forum glitches, particularly from the crash we had last December. It did a number of nasty things. That is probably the source of any "N/A"s you've found.

on 03/18/07 at 19:13:03, JP05 wrote:

I do find that Firefox does show this forum pretty good at the college lab.

If you start using Firefox regularly, you'll find it has so many advantages over I.E. it's not even funny. Tabbed browsing alone was enough to convert me. I visit a long list of sites every day. By placing this list in a folder under my bookmarks, I can just right-click the folder, and Firefox opens all of the sites at once in separate tabs. While I am reading my home page, and maybe 1 or 2 of the fastest sites, all of the downloading is taken care of. I no longer have to wait for each page to load before I view it! I just close the tabs as I am finished with them.

Of course, the best reason to switch from I.E. is that few other browsers opened up the huge security holes that I.E. did. For a very minor loss in functionality that is used only at sites which are so annoying I don't care to visit them anyway, I no longer have to worry about most pop-ups and other nasty things that get embedded in websites.

There are other browsers than Firefox that have the same advantages. I believe Firefox is the most common now, and has the most support, though.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by JP05 on Mar 18^th, 2007, 8:36pm

What you said makes sense but I noticed both Barukh and Michael Dagg and N/A a couple of times and it confused me slightly. I thought there was a new feature here but it made me take second notice. I also noticed once in the thread Optical Illlusions that "towr" was white-guest too, but when I refreshed the page it was what I expected.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by Icarus on Mar 18^th, 2007, 8:46pm

Barukh posted for a while as a guest before registering, but I don't recall that Michael did much of this, so I suspect that this may have been a glitch.

As for towr - that certainly was a glitch, or else the page simply hadn't finished loading yet. I've noticed that when things are running slow, I will occasionally see some or all of the names in white first, but as the last elements of the page load, these are converted to the expected forms.

Title: Re: Optical Illusion
Post by towr on Mar 19^th, 2007, 1:14am

on 03/18/07 at 20:21:04, Icarus wrote:

Of course, some of it could also be forum glitches, particularly from the crash we had last December. It did a number of nasty things. That is probably the source of any "N/A"s you've found.

It seems to have happened to Michael Dagg somewhere last week (e.g here (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=riddles_medium;action=display;num=1173901526)); that or he deleted his account.
Not good..