Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Senses

When Jack Hitt talks of seeing, he refers to an astronomer who can go into a room after staring at the sky and then return to the sky to tell if there has been any change in the sky. I wondered how good are we at each of our senses. For the smell, I know I am clueless.
When it comes to seeing, looking at this picture, I first saw a ceramic bowl tipped to its side. In 24 picture, I tend to look at the dark part and treat the left eye of the person as the right eye of another, all around looks like the hair lending an ape look.
Recently I surprised myself with my hearing. Before sleeping, I asked my husband 'What is that sound?' we both told each other that it is the AC. In the morning, I found it was the exhaust in the other bathroom. When I am in a room where both the exhaust and light are controlled by the same switch, I hate the noise. But without it, we could forget to switch off the exhaust. In the dark, light travels farther than sound.

Foreign ghost



When I picked the book, I wondered if foreign ghosts will scare us as much. The stories from my childhood Vikram Aur Betaalrepu raa ghost and many stories with evil cats that could not be crushed. Not all ghosts are scary. The Canterville Ghost.
The soul of a bellAnalysis of the storyAnother story
In today's news is the soul of another time marker being replaced.
If The soul of a bell is the story of a child's love for parent, then yesterdays news is of a mothers for her child.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Stroop effect

Have you heard of tests where a word - a colour is written in a different colour?
Last weekend we were watching the movie Swades. During the credits, there was a shot where the title of the movie was written in many Indian languages. స్వదేస్ caught my eye as it is in my native language Telugu. But I was confused for a while as it is a Hindi word.
So stroop effect is not just limited to words of colours but words from different languages.

Better picture

A colleague took a wonderful picture in the tricky Antelope Canyon. He explained that he took different photos with different contrasts and merged them for High dynamic range imaging.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Too many before-afters




Author: Rich Roll
When too many things are stuffed into a story, the charm is lost, too many twines to follow.
The book began with the author asking his wife about 'the cleanse'. Before getting athletic the author was an excellent swimmer. In between came alcoholism. Because of these two journeys, it was hard to remain interested in the story, especially when the author can recall the day his tryst with alcohol began. Its the digging stage, so the author goes back to his past, but making them seperate stories but putting them in one book hurt the story.
I went by the book cover. I should have read the blurb.