Wednesday, 31 December 2008

Tuesday, 30 December 2008

Happy New Year






Please don't Drink and Drive this new year. Shocking Image Warning

New Year - Wikipedia

New Year's Eve set to be colder than in Iceland


Happy New Year


BlackDog's Happy New Year Party. One for the kids.

New Year Traditions Around the World

Hogmanay - Wikipedia

Auld Lang Syne - Wikipedia

Late extras:
One from the archives just in time for tonight. How to Photograph Fireworks Displays

Drinks Around the World Ring in the New Year 24 times over (via)

I wish you all the best and a happy, healthy and prosperous new year. Take care, have fun and I'll see you on the other side.

Children of the Great War






Children of the Great War (via)

14 strange and scary military technologies

YouTube - WW2 In Color's videos

Petty disputes led to Nazi denunciation in WWII France

Why Does War Breed More Boys?

3 Really Long Wars and 3 Really Short Wars

Odd But True Facts About World War Two

A Vietnam Photo Essay

JM's World War One Sketchbook. The images presented on this website are from a set of two World War One sketchbooks archived in the University of Victoria's Special Collections Library. They contain approximately 130 water-colour and pen and ink images which were produced by a British soldier based in France and Belgium between 1917 and 1918.

A Collection of WWII Letters To and From The Home Front

George Duncan's Historical Facts of WWII

Optical Illusions









Spinning wheels...

If you focus on the picture, all the wheels start to spin (in both directions). However, if you then concentrate on a single wheel, that wheel will stop whilst the others keep turning.





Look closely, the orange circles are the same size...

An illusion that plays on our perception of relative size. The first central circle appears smaller than the circle on the right yet they are identical in size. This is the Ebbinghaus Illusion.





First described by the British psychologist, James Fraser, in 1908 this is known as the Fraser Spiral Illusion. The overlapping black arcs appear to form a spiral; but, the arcs are simply a series of concentric circles.





An example of the Zollner Illusion. The long black lines are in fact parallel to each other. The illusion is created by the shorter lines being at an angle to the longer lines, this creates the impression that one end of the longer lines is nearer to us.




In this image, the two shapes are in fact identical in size. The Jastrow Illusion was discovered by Joseph Jastrow, the American psychologist, in 1889.




First discovered in 1860 by Johann Poggendorf, the Poggendorff Illusion, illustrates how the brain can be tricked by the interaction of diagonal and horizontal lines. At first viewing, one assumes that the blue line is a continuation of the black line. However, on closer viewing it is actually the red line.





Known as White's Illusion, is a counterintuitive illusion. When a grey rectangle is mainly surrounded by black it should look lighter. In this case, the grey rectangles are exactly the same shade of grey.





A Motion Illusion. The brain's reaction to the colour contrasts and position of the shapes is such that this static image appears to be moving.



More HERE