Casual Bytes Blog

Amazing Psychological Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 06:21:00 +0000

I really can't say much about this video before you watch it. Just make sure you watch it until the end. The video shows six kids playing basketball, three of them are wearing white t-shirts and the other three are wearing black ones. You're supposed to count exactly how many times the players wearing white shirts pass the ball to one another. This is much trickier than it sounds, and I guarantee it's definitely worth your time!

The phenomenon illustrated in this video is referred to as inattentional blindness, which is related to the subject of change blindness. For more info, see this article in the Scientific American magazine.
If you liked the video, you may also like to take a look at the amazing color changing card trick video, made by Richard Wiseman, and perhaps visit his quirkology website.
Last but not least, check out this previous post ("Seeing is believing; or is it?") for some really cool optical illusions.

Going Green with Evan Almighty

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:57:00 +0000

A quick behind-the-scenes look at all the effort made by Director/Producer Tom Shadyac to minimize the environmental impact associated with the making his new movie, Evan Almighty, with Steve Carell. Among other things, the production aimed to zero out it's carbon footprint by planting trees, bought bikes for the entire crew (some 400 people), donated most of the materials used to Habitat for Humanity and maximized recycling.

The clip was produced by Sundance Channel's series The Green, presented by Robert Redford. For more information on the greening of this film, see www.getonboardnow.org.

The Manpollo Project (With Explosions)

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:16:00 +0000

A great follow-up video by wonderingmind42:

If you don't know what this is about, see my previous post about it, or watch the original video at YouTube.

"The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See"

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 23:58:00 +0000

A very interesting and clever argument about the climate change debate, for both sides of the isle. The video is a bit long [09:33], but it's definitely worth watching!

Of course this is a simplified look at a complex problem, and the discussion could certainly be expanded to include other important issues such as our current oil-addiction and its consequences across the world, air and water pollution, and economic opportunities presented by an emerging "green" industry, just to name a few.
But there's no question the reasoning presented in the video makes a lot of sense. If you agree, please do spread the word. I don't mean to sound dramatic, but honestly, our fate may just depend on it. Public demand is our best - if not only - hope for change.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
--Margaret Mead, anthropologist (1901-1978)

Firefox en route to beat Internet Explorer as #1 browser among web-savvy users

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 08:05:00 +0000

As the graph below clearly illustrates, Firefox has been steadily (and aggressively) gaining market share among internet-savvy users. Between Jan'03 and May'07, Firefox's usage jumped from a mere 4% to almost 34% (an increase of about 740%!) while IE's share declined from about 85% to slightly less than 59% during the same period. The data was collected from W3Schools.com's log-files, and represents mostly internet users with an interest for web technologies.

It is interesting to note that this data can be represented by a linear fit with a high degree of accuracy. The r² of the models are, respectively, 0.97 and 0.98 (r²=1 means a perfect fit).
As shown in the figure below, if this trend continues (as in the past 4.5 years), it can be expected that Firefox will surpass Internet Explorer and become the #1 web browser among web-savvy users in as early as December 2008!

If the trend were to continue for the next 7.5 years or so, the use of IE would be completely dependent on those users who simply don't know enough to install a different web browser, other than the one that came pre-installed in their machines.
Globally, IE currently holds about 66% of the market share, while Firefox has around 25%.
UPDATE (06/11/07): A new key player has just entered the game. Today Apple announced Safari for Windows. A beta version is already available for downloading from the company's website, however it may be wise to wait a bit until a few security bugs are sorted out. The final version of Safari 3 is expected to come out in October.
How's that going to affect IE's dominance and Firefox's spectacular growth rate? Only time will tell, but it seems clear to me that IE's days are numbered.

Seven Wonders of the World: Ancient, Modern and New

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 10:45:00 +0000

The New7Wonders Foundation (www.new7wonders.org) is organizing a worldwide movement to elect -- by online, phone and SMS voting -- the New Seven Wonders of the World. The new wonders that are selected will be the people’s choices, and they will be drawn "from the earliest time that humankind walked upon the earth up through the year 2000". The competition is down to 21 finalists, and voting ends on July 6th. The New 7 Wonders of the World will be announced during the Official Declaration ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007 (07-07-07).
In the spirit of celebrating the "Wonders of the World", here are two recent videos I created using Google Earth. The first one presents a virtual satellite tour and images of the original and well-known Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the second video illustrates the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, as established by the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) in 1994.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World:

Colossus of Rhodes, Greece, c.280 BC
Pharos of Alexandria, Egypt, c.285 BC
Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus, Turkey, 351 BC
Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Greece, 435 BC
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Turkey, 550 BC
Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Babylon (Iraq), 600 BC
Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, c.2650 BC

The Seven Wonders of the Modern World:

Empire State Building
Channel Tunnel
CN Tower
Golden Gate Bridge
Itaipu Dam
Delta Works
Panama Canal

This list, established by ASCE, pays tribute to some of the greatest civil engineering achievements of the 20th century. See more details at the ASCE website about the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The music in the video is "Modern Times" (Charlie Chaplin: The Essential Film Music Collection, by Carl Davis & City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra).

Celebration of the Living and the Lost

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 07:02:00 +0000

It is often said that "a picture is worth a thousand words". Probably there is no better proof of this proverb than the striking photograph below, by National Geographic photographer Dave Black. [click the figure for a wallpaper-size version]

Description: Fourth of July fireworks cascade over the nation’s capital, reverberating across the river to Arlington. Soldiers from every American war, including the Revolutionary War, have been buried here, some reinterred at Arlington after the cemetery first began operations. --From "Arlington Cemetery," NGM, June 2007

This image is part of the article "Arlington Cemetery", appearing in this month's issue of the National Geographic Magazine.

Life at the Edge

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 07:01:00 +0000

This month's edition of the National Geographic Magazine paints a chilling picture about the effects of global warming on our planet. According to the cover story, entitled "The Big Thaw", the world's ice is melting faster than anyone though possible.

"The temperature threshold for drastic sea-level rise is near, but many scientists think we still have time to stop short of it, by sharply cutting back consumption of climate-warming coal, oil, and gas. Few doubt, however, that another 50 years of business as usual will take us beyond a point of no return."
--"The Big Thaw", by Tim Appenzeller, National Geographic Magazine, June 2007

In addition to the global threats of sea-level rises and severe climate change, the shrinking of the Arctic ice cap has a devastating effect on the local ecosystem, as illustrated very clearly by "Life at the Edge", another feature article in June's issue. Over the past 30 years, Arctic sea ice has thinned as much as 40 percent. Click on the image below for an interactive map, and make sure to visit the photo gallery by National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen.

As Nicklen puts it: "If global temperatures continue rising, the ice will likely disappear. An Arctic without ice would be like a garden without soil."

How much do you really know about global warming?

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Wed, 30 May 2007 10:11:00 +0000

Most likely you've already read (at least) a couple of news articles and seen a few TV shows tackling the subject of climate change. Probably you've even watched Al Gore's movie. But how much do you really know about global warming?
Information tends to be buried deep in scientific papers that usually address only narrow topics, and news articles are often unreliable or imprecise. Fortunately, a valuable resource has just been made available by the IPCC (Intergovernamental Panel on Climate Change). After 6 years of work, and involving more than 2500 expert scientific reviewers, 800 contributing authors and 450 lead authors from 130+ countries, the panel is publishing its "Climate Change 2007" assessment report, which focuses on three main areas: 1) the basics, 2) the impacts and 3) the mitigation possibilities.
Here are the links for the documents available for download at this moment:

Part I: "The Physical Science Basis" [summary] [full report]
Part II: "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" [summary]
Part III: "Mitigation of Climate Change" [summary]

No registration is necessary and all the documents can be downloaded completely free of charge. The final version of the IPCC Climate Change 2007 report is currently being distributed to all the member countries, who have already reviewed, agreed to and approved its content. This report is simply a must-have for anyone who would like to get all the facts about global warming!

Shot Spotter

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Wed, 30 May 2007 06:55:00 +0000

The city of Oakland, in California, has recently installed a system called "ShotSpotter" that uses acoustic sensors scattered (and hidden) throughout the city to pinpoint the exact location from which gun shots are fired. Within seconds, the system automatically issues an alert over the police network, including information such as an aerial photo of the area, the time and place the incident occurred, and the number of shots fired.
This may sound like a complicated system, but in fact it is based on an extremely simple (yet brilliant) idea that cleverly applies a couple of concepts that have been known for hundreds of years: triangulation and acoustic location. Basically, whena gunshot is fired, the three closest sensors detect the sound, the direction it's coming from and the precise time, and the information is used to triangulate the shot location. The figure above illustrates how ShotSpotter works (click image for more details).

The key components of the sensors comprising the system include a microphone, a GPS receiver and a network connection that constantly sends information over to a central server. More information about the sensors is available here, as well as in this article. The system was developed by this company, and is currently being implemented in several cities across the US. For a flash animation (with sound) illustrating how ShotSpotter works, click here.

Just for the sake of curiosity, you may like to know that Leonardo da Vinci is believed to be the first person ever to propose the use of sound for object detection and location purposes. In 1490, he observed: "If you cause your ship to stop and place the head of a long tube in the water and place the outer extremity to your ear, you will hear ships at a great distance from you." Incidentally, that was about 200 years before the first mathematical theory of sound propagation was published (by Newton in 1687) and more than three centuries before the speed of sound in water was accurately measured (in 1826)! [more info here]
Later acoustic location became a very important tool and found application in several different areas. One of the most famous examples of acoustic location is the sonar. This site presents an interesting overview of the history and application of acoustic sensors, including several "curious" devices like the ones illustrated below... :)

Famous Geoglyphs Around the World: a Google Earth Tour

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Mon, 28 May 2007 09:11:00 +0000

This video shows a "virtual satellite tour" of some of the most amazing geoglyphs on Earth. Some of these ground drawings or sculptures were made as early as 3000 years ago and measure up to 4200m [13,800ft] long! More details are presented in the video.

Here's a list of all the geoglyphs featured in the video:

Sultan the Pit Pony (Wales)
Atacama Giant (Chile)
Uffington White Horse (England)
Area 51 Bomb Target (NV, USA)
Nazca Lines (Peru)
Firefox Logo (OR, USA)
Coca-Cola logo (Chile)
Alton Barnes White Horse (England)
Folkestone Horse (England)
Pintados Geoglyphs (Chile)
Chiza Geoglyphs (Chile)
Long Man of Wilmington (England)
Cerne Abbas giant (England)
Barnsley Crop Circles (England)
Darfield Crop Circles (England)
Marree Man (Australia)
Ciudad Juarez White Horse (Mexico)
Blythe Geoglyphs (CA, USA)
Traditional Tibetan Mantra (China)

I made the video using Google Earth (probably you've figured that out already) and Fraps. The music is "Mars from The Planets", performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1999).
For more info on geoglyphs, see this Wikipedia entry.

Cheers,
M.

Seeing is believing; or is it?

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Sun, 27 May 2007 07:39:00 +0000

Can you believe what you see? Is whatever you see "real" or "true"? Do you see exactly the same as I do, or as anybody else does? Even if so, does your brain correctly interpret what your eyes (claim to) see?
These may sound like simple or even silly questions at first, but as the examples below illustrate that's not quite the case.
Look at the two images below, for instance (click figures to enlarge). You may be inclined to believe that the height of the gentleman's hat (distance C-D) is larger than its width (distance A-B). In fact, however, distance A-B is slightly larger than C-D! Similarly, on the second figure it may appear that line A-B (ceiling height) is longer than C-D (closet height). That's not the case either! Both lines have exactly the same length. Feel free to measure them if you like...

Now look carefully at the figure below. It certainly looks like the edges are curvy, right? Sorry, as you probably have guessed that's another optical illusion. All the edges in this image are completely straight! You don't need to believe me. If you still trust your eyes better, go grab a ruler or print it out to verify.

It gets trickier. Take a moment to inspect the checkerboard shown in the next figure. Which square is darker, A or B? Square A is obviously darker, correct? Not so, squares A and B are exactly equal, they have exactly the same color! This one is particularly hard to believe, but in this case our own eyes are playing us. I actually measured the RGB values using Photoshop, and for both squares they are 120-120-120. Still not completely convinced? Click here to see the proof.

As if it weren't enough that our spatial perception could be so easily messed up, we can now see that our perception of colors doesn't seem that good either. Another great example of this is illustrated below. This figure shows a negative picture of a Monarch butterfly, and on mouse-over is displays a grayed version of the same picture. Stare at the center of the negative image for about 30 seconds, then roll the mouse over the figure. What do you see?

Amazing, isn't it? Instead of the gray figure, we see a full color version of the Monarch butterfly, even though we are, in fact, looking at a grayscale picture. Try again if you're not fully convinced. The longer you wait before rolling the mouse over, the more vivid the effect is.

Finally, here's one more cool figure. Take a look at the three faces below.

Images A and B look OK, while image C looks horrible, right? What's the big deal? Look more closely (click to enlarge), and you'll see that figures B and C are in fact the same, not A and B. Our brain does not "complain" when we're looking at figure B because, even though the head is turned upside down, the mouth and eyes are still facing "up" as we'd normally expect. As you see, we were fooled once again! This example is presented in the book "Quirkology" by Richard Wiseman. Click here for more info on the "curious science" of quirkology!

The first three optical illusions shown above are from the website Archimede's Lab, which presents tons of other cool illusions as well as mind and visual puzzles. Similarly, the blog Optical Illusions Etc, from where the checkerboard and butterfly examples were borrowed, has lots of amazing figures and definite proof that we really cannot trust anybody, not even our own eyes!!!

Around The World in Eight Minutes: a Virtual Satellite Tour

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Sat, 26 May 2007 12:53:00 +0000

Now for the first real post. This is a video I created not long ago using Google Earth and Fraps. It is a "World Tour" across 28 different locations spanning 6 continents. The list of places featured in the video follows below.

List of places:
1) San Francisco, CA
2) RMS Queen Mary, Long Beach, CA
3) Grand Canyon, AZ
4) Empire State Building, New York
5) CN Tower, Canada
6) Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
7) Hamburg, Germany
8) London Eye, England
9) Lisbon, Portugal
10) Saint Peter's Square, Vatican
11) Palacio Real, Madrid, Spain
12) Red Square, Moscow, Russia
13) Roman Colosseum, Italy
14) Forbidden City, China
15) Great Wall of China
16) Imperial Palace, Japan
17) Sydney, Australia
18) Taj Mahal, India
19) Baghdad, Iraq
20) The Pyramids, Egypt
21) Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania
22) Buenos Aires, Argentina
23) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
24) Christ The Redeemer, RJ
25) Brasilia, Brazil
26) Mexico City, Mexico
27) Google Campus, CA
28) SF Bay Area, CA

The intro song is "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" from the original trailer of the film "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956). The background music is "Around the World In 80 Days", played by the BBC Concert Orchestra (Choice Film Soundtracks Cuts, Vol.1).

The tour is also available at the Google Earth Community webpage. Feel free to download it and explore the sites at your own pace on Google Earth!

Enjoy! ;-)
M.

First Post

noreply@blogger.com (MM) — Sat, 26 May 2007 11:59:00 +0000

OK, so let's try this blogging thing. This is my first post, ever. This space, as the name implies, is meant to be a repository of a few selected, random things found on the web or elsewhere.
I have several ideas but no specific plans for the blog at this time. Basically I intend to make it fun, with lots of interesting "casual bytes" about a wide variety of topics, ranging from silly jokes to news highlights, cool videos, funny images, generalities and whatever issues may come up at the time.
Initially I plan to post something every week or so, but as I mentioned this is a first experiment, so we'll see how things actually turn out.
Please feel free to send me your comments and suggestions!
Cheers,
M.