March 3, 2011
The term illusory motion is used to define the appearance of movement in a static image. This is an optical illusion in which a static image appears to be moving due to the cognitive effects of interacting color contrasts and shape position.
Another type of motion illusion that causes an optical illusion is when a moving object appears to be moving in a path other than what is perceived by the brain. An example of this can be demonstrated by placing a colored filter over ones eye of the observer, and swinging a ball back and forth in front of them. To the observer the ball appears to be swinging in a circular motion.
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March 3, 2011
The Zöllner illusion is a classic optical illusion named after its discoverer, German astrophysicist Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner. In 1860, Zöllner sent his discovery in a letter to physicist and scholar Johann Christian Poggendorff, who subsequently discovered the related Poggendorff illusion, in the original drawing by Zöllner. In the illusion the black lines seem to be unparallel, but in reality they are parallel. The shorter lines are on an angle to the longer lines. This angle helps to create the impression that one end of the longer lines is nearer to us than the other end.
This is very similar to the way the Wundt illusion appears. It is also is similar to the Hering illusion and the Müller-Lyer illusion. All these illusions demonstrate how lines can seem to be distorted by their background.
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March 3, 2011
An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. An illusion is different from a hallucination; a hallucination is sensing something which is not real, but an illusion is interpreting what we sense wrongly.
The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a percept that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. There are three main types: literal optical illusions that create images that are different from the objects that make them, physiological ones that are the effects on the eyes and brain of excessive stimulation of a specific type (brightness, tilt, color, movement), and cognitive illusions where the eye and brain make unconscious inferences.
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March 3, 2011
Seattle Hempfest is an annual event in Seattle, Washington, the world’s largest annual gathering advocating decriminalization of marijuana. Founded in 1991 as the Washington Hemp Expo (attended by 500 people), it has grown into a 2-day annual political rally, concert, and arts and crafts fair with attendance typically over 250,000. Speakers have included Seattle city council member Nick Licata, actor/activist Woody Harrelson, travel writer and TV host Rick Steves, and former chief of the Seattle Police Department Norm Stamper.
Sixty people were cited for illegal marijuana use at the 1997 Hempfest, and about twenty were arrested the following year. Eventually Hempfest and the police reached a modus vivendi: there was only one arrest in 2001. The political context surrounding marijuana in Seattle and Washington has changed considerably over the years. Washington legalized medical marijuana in 1998. In 2003, Seattle passed an initiative that made adult personal use marijuana offenses the city’s lowest law enforcement priority.
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March 3, 2011
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is an American non-profit organization based in Washington, DC whose aim is to move public opinion sufficiently to achieve the legalization of non-medical marijuana in the United States so that the responsible use of cannabis by adults is no longer subject to penalty.
The organization was founded in 1970 by Keith Stroup, funded by $5,000 from the Playboy Foundation. Since then, it has played a central role in the cannabis decriminalization movement.
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March 3, 2011
A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a massive burst of solar wind, plasma, and magnetic fields rising above the solar corona or being released into space. CMEs are often associated with other forms of solar activity, most notably solar flares, but a causal relationship has not been established. Most ejections originate from active regions on Sun’s surface, such as groupings of sunspots associated with frequent flares.
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March 3, 2011
A prominence is a large, bright feature extending outward from the Sun’s surface, often in a loop shape. Prominences are anchored to the Sun’s surface and extend outwards into the Sun’s corona. While the corona consists of extremely hot ionized gases, known as plasma, which do not emit much visible light, prominences contain much cooler plasma. A prominence forms over timescales of about a day, and stable prominences may persist in the corona for several months. Some prominences break apart and give rise to coronal mass ejections.
A typical prominence extends over many thousands of kilometers; the largest on record was observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) in 2010 and is estimated at over 700,000 kilometres (430,000 mi) long – roughly the radius of the Sun.
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March 3, 2011
Faxlore refers to humorous texts, folk poetry, folk art, and urban legends that are circulated, not by word of mouth, but by fax machine. ‘Xeroxlore’ or ‘photocopylore’ is similar material circulated by photocopying. Cartoons and jokes often circulate as faxlore; the poor graphic quality becoming worse with each retransmission.
Because faxlore and xeroxlore is the (mis)appropriation of technology owned by the employer, it is often mildly subversive of the workplace and its values.
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March 3, 2011
Crepuscular [kri-puhs-kyuh-ler] refers to animals that are primarily active during dawn and dusk. The term is derived from the Latin word ‘crepusculum,’ meaning ‘twilight.’ Crepuscular animals may also be active on a bright moonlit night. Some species are active only in the dawn (matutinal) or only in the dusk (vespertine). Many animals that are casually described as nocturnal are in fact crepuscular, including most cats. Others crepuscular species include include dogs, rabbits, pigs, rats, deer, skunks, and wombats. Many moths, beetles, flies, and other insects are crepuscular as well.
The patterns of activity are thought to be an antipredator adaptation. Many predators forage most intensely at night, while others are active at mid-day and see best in full sun. Thus the crepuscular habit may reduce predation. Some species have different habits in the absence of predators. For example, the Short-eared Owl is crepuscular on those of the Galápagos Islands that have buzzard species, but diurnal on those without. Additionally, in hot areas, it may be a way of avoiding thermal stress while capitalizing on available light.
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March 3, 2011
Chronotype is an attribute of animals, including human beings, reflecting at what time of the day their physical functions (hormone level, body temperature, cognitive faculties, eating and sleeping) are active. This phenomenon is commonly reduced to sleeping habits only, referring to people as ‘larks’ and ‘owls’ where morning people wake up early and are most alert in the first part of the day, and evening people are most alert in the late evening hours and prefer to go to bed late.
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March 3, 2011
Lim Yo-Hwan (b. 1980) of South Korea, known by the pseudonym Boxer, is one of the most successful players of the real-time strategy computer game StarCraft to date. Dubbed The Emperor by his fans, he is the most popular Starcraft player with a fan club of more than 1,000,000 members.
Lim has a record of 547 wins and 416 losses (56.80%) in his professional career. He is one of the highest-paid professional gamers, with annual earnings that exceed $300,000 US Dollars and endorsement contracts that bring in an additional $90,000 per year.
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March 3, 2011
Lee Jae-Dong (b. 1990), nicknamed The Tyrant, is a South Korean professional StarCraft player representing team Hwaseung Oz. He is currently ranked second in the world by the Korean E-Sports Association and by ELO ranking (a rating system invented by Arpad Elo, used in chess to place players into categories – 2500 and above is grandmaster level). He is one of two players to achieve a winning percentage above 66% with a career record of 482 wins and 219 losses (68.76%).
The computer game StarCraft has an active professional competition circuit, particularly in South Korea. Two major television game channels, Ongamenet and MBCGame, each run a league viewed by millions of fans. Starting in about 2002, pro-gamers started to become organized into teams, sponsored by large South Korean companies like Samsung and SK Telecom. StarCraft is also the most popular computer game competition during the annual World Cyber Games thanks to its Korean fanbase, and it is among the world’s largest computer and video game competitions in terms of prize money, global coverage and participants.
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