Between the Spaces

I try not to judge other people as a general rule, but there is one thing that just gets to me without any hope of me getting past it. If you use the rest room, you get germs on your hands, right? Especially in a public rest room!! So why do some people walk over to the sink, turn the water on, put their hands under the water for maybe 2 seconds, turn the water off and dry their hands?!

Were their pet germs thirsty?

If you do this, not using soap when you wash your hands, I’ll tell you right now: you might as well stop. You look at silly as a bald man trying to cover the baren spot on his head with the hair which chose to stick around! It does nothing for you to do what I described above, so why bother? To those of you who look just as silly by using a paper towel to open the door instead of touching it with their hands directly: have at it! It’s better to look silly and be healthy than to look silly and have your own germ colony.

A Psychological study was recently done by the University of Liverpool regarding the level of understanding which human beings have regarding how mirrors work. Apparently, the level is not very high. There are two points which I found to be of particular interest regarding this subject. The first was the Venus Effect which was mention in the article.

[[popup:venus.jpg:(thumbnail):Venus in the Mirror:1:center]]
This is supposedly an image of a woman, namely Venus, looking at her own face in a mirror. The problem? Well, this is actually a representation of what it would look like if she were gazing through the mirror at the viewer of the painting, not her own face. Since we can see her face in the mirror, she cannot since we’re not viewing from the same angle. If the mirror were at such an angle that she could see her own face, we would be looking at that back wall through the mirror.

Next, and in my mind, the most interesting, when looking into a mirror, one sees depth. Naturally, one then assumes that if the virtual world into which we gaze really existed, we would be able to reach into a three dimensional world. This, surprising to me, is actually how I thought until I read that article and contemplated it for a bit. If you’re familiar with stereoscope imagery, then you are aware of how two three dimensional images can appear as one three dimensional images when viewed appropriately. We don’t normally think of mirrors in this sense since we are using no special technique nor any special equipment to view it such as is used when viewing Anaglyphs. To this affect, we don’t think twice about seeing the image in a mrror as being a tangable vision; a truely three-dimensional thing.

The aformentioned study also brought up the fact that when people were asked how large the reflection of their heads were on the surface of the mirror, most answered that they thought it would be the same size. This is another reason why we see the “mirror reality” as a real environment. Things change size, just as they do for us in the real world.

In order to step out of the bad logic which most of us have, try this in order reset your paradigm regarding mirrors: Stand in front of a mirror. Close one eye. Consider the image in the mirror, understanding that it is litterally nothing more than a flat, two-dimensional picture that changes, like a computer or television screen. The image does reach behind the centimeter under the glass nor is the perceived depth a reality in any context, but only perceived due to the stereo view which our two eyes afford us. Let me know how or if this changes your perspective.

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Most of us are familiar with the claim that if a bird eats rice, the rice will expand and the bird will explode if it eats enough. This causes me to wonder: Since rice is a very common product in many Asian countries, wouldn’t birds eat it on a regular basis and… well, explode? If this is the case, one might assume that the bird population would be significantly less than in some other areas. (more…)

Have you ever thought about how incredibly ignorant the phrase “do me a favor” actually sounds? I understand that this phrase has been around for a while now and that there are not many other words which can get away with this type of treatment, but I mean, come on! “Hey, can you do me a sell. I’ve not quite met my quota for the day,” or how about “How may I help you today?” … “Hi, I’d like you to do me a chicken sandwitch, please.”

I work in a call center and hear this uttered on a near daily basis. It really annoys me. I also often come across random interchanges of the words “is” and “are.” Why are this so difficult? :p (more…)

If a character from Star Trek enters a holodeck and changes into clothes which are part of the holo program, then exits the holodeck, are they then naked? (more…)