The Best Photos

The Best Photos

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Why do we think someone’s photo looks masculine or feminine?

The linked photo created by Richard Russell of Harvard University, and gained 3rd price in the 2009 Best Visual Illusion of the Year competition has the following description:

In the Illusion of Sex, two faces are perceived as male and female. However, both faces are actually versions of the same androgynous face. One face was created by increasing the contrast of the androgynous face, while the other face was created by decreasing the contrast. The face with more contrast is perceived as female, while the face with less contrast is perceived as male. The Illusion of Sex demonstrates that contrast is an important cue for perceiving the sex of a face, with greater contrast appearing feminine, and lesser contrast appearing masculine.

Girl with 56 stars tattooed on face admits she asked for them

A teenage girl who claimed 56 stars were tattooed on her on her face as she slept when she asked for three has admitted she was awake the whole time – and lied because her father was “furious”.

How stupid!

Both the girl & the Tattooist ~ OK, he was probably used to dealing with adults who thought about what they wanted long & hard, were comitted to their vision of themselves with Tattooes and had got beyond the ‘what will X say’. So he did the work on an 18 year old with only verbal OK. Now he will get written consent in future ~ good for him! Harsh lesson though.

As for her?

Well, she has what she wanted. Now she has to live with it. I feel sorry for her, youglings do stupid stuff often and rarely is it quite as obvious to all and sundry exactly what you did. Most things can be hidden.

Not your face.

Testing

*taps sceen* hello, does this work?
Have a random pic of some flowering basil

Transported by flying iMonkies through the aether

DON’T PANIC

Daily Kos / H1N1: Why Do Schools Close, And When Do They Open?

US biased but very interesting explanation of the various sets of information on Influenza A/H1N1 aka Swine Flu AKA Swine-Avian-Human Flu.

Here is a snippet (from the beginning):

In this case, there are a lot of things that really need explaining:

• what a pandemic is (based on spread, not severity)
• why there are school closures with only a handful of cases
• why this appears to be no worse than seasonal flu – yet isn’t seasonal flu and has to be treated differently
• why testing isn’t instantly available (needs sophisticated PH lab testing)
• why not everyone needs tamiflu even though tamiflu “works” (mild flu does not need treatment, regardless of seasonal or swine designation)

It has lots of graphs and comparisons and explanations that I am not going to try to explain ~ go read! However:

The whole point of what CDC / WHO / DH are trying to do is reduce the total number likely to fall ill and mitigate the severity of the flu in the population as a whole. The sooner schools are closed, workers persuaded to telecommute the fewer people get it and the less dangerous it is for the population as a whole.

The real ideal is for the interventions to be so successful that everyone thinks it was a storm in a tea-cup as it isn’t widespread or severe.

Get it wrong however and we have the Spanish Flu of 1918. Don’t Want.

NHS: Swine flu Q&A ~ this also has side bar links to WHO / CDC / DH / etc.

So: Be sensible. Take reasonable precautions. And above all ~

Artist sued for using his own work

Updated 01 June 2009

Right. The stuff below may or may not now be accurate.

Specifically  this reddit post has someone [Phelyx] commenting that he knows one of the other artists (accused of using Jon’s work) and his work has been stolen. It also links to the Logo factory which presents the other side:
~ Nobody is being sued (according to the lawyers)
~ They had been trying to contact Jon to discuss the situation
~ Some of the disputed images have been on Stock Art for >10 years while Logopond (where Jon put them) has only been in business since Jun-06.
~ Jon has previously ponied up for a similar ‘request’ made previously.

And finally, at the end of the article, is a twitter from Jon pretty much apologising for everything.

So ~ Don’t believe everything on Twitter.

Sympathy Pins

http://ping.fm/Dkuol

http://ping.fm/hAM4n

“The very act of putting the Sympathy Pin on, is a self acknowledgment that you are not feeling “normal” or “okay” and that this is quite reasonable.

You need to allow yourself time to grieve.

In Western societies we do not enjoy strong and structured community support, as we go about our often isolate lives. The Sympathy Pin allows others to recognize where you are in your life at this time and that you need them to bear with you.”

This is quite interesting idea. Not sure how well this would work if others don’t recognise what the pin means. I came across it in the context of the Australian Bushfires, and the need to recognise those who are grieving.

Australian BushFires

I have been following this fairly obsessively on Twitter and various websites as I have family currently on alert as they are close to. I am posting some links here mostly for my own use, but others may find them helpful.

Links:
CFA Statewide Current Incident Summary (Volunteer fire-fighters)
Search Twitter for #bushfire
Twitter feed of #bushfire tweets
Google Mapping BushFires
Tweeter BenBalbo who created the next site:
BushFire Housing: Needed or Offered
Pictures of Bush Fires
Fire Updates
Engineering academic says bushfire bunkers could save lives

(Crossposted to Livejournal)

Twitter

I just came across a cool blog post on Twitter, How To: The beginners Guide to Twitter Part 1 so thought I would [a] share and [b] save the link

Where to find me on the web

Microblogging @ Twitter  http://twitter.com/blue_cat_online

Microblogging @ Plurk http://www.plurk.com/blue_cat

Blogging on Vox: http://blue-cat.vox.com/

Blogging on Livejournal: http://blue-cat.livejournal.com/profile

Photo-sharing @ SnapFoo  http://snapfoo.com/blue_cat

Photo-sharing @ TwitPic http://twitpic.com/photos/blue_cat_online