Ingenious idea exploits the annoying but necessary Captcha process to help digitize texts.

Playing Card Superstitions (Snopes Urban Legends Reference Page)

I did a web search on this phenomenon because it seems to happen to me most times I walk past a certain street light on my street. I mentioned it to a few friends who, of course, thought I was wacky. Then, taking my cue from the fact that it was one particular lamp post, I began to ask several neighbors on my street (yes, I live on a street where I know and talk to my neighbors; in fact, we have block parties). My rational side suspected that it was a defective lamp which cycles on and off (several commenters in the thread to which this post points offered explanations of how this might work with sodium arc lamps) constantly, and that I was guilty of observer bias for remembering, and generalizing from, those times when it went off as I neared or passed it. (By the way, I am talking about this happening when I am walking down the street, not driving, so the speculation that my car headlights were activating the photocell that turns the lamp off does not apply.) But none of my neighbors had noticed this about that, or any other, street light on our street.

So should I descend to pseudoscience — do I have some psi power going on? I don’t have to be thinking about turning the lamp off for it to happen; in fact, I often forget about this, especially in the winter when I am not out walking down the street after dark as much, and am only reminded when I notice the light go out. Or do I put out some kind of EM pulse to which that particular street light is sensitive? Some of the commenters suggest we are “electrical beings” and thus can affect electrical circuitry. Certainly an extrapolation, and I have never noticed it with any other light fixtures or other electrical equipment. And, unlike some of the commenters, I don’t notice the light go on again after I pass. But on the other hand, that light is never already off, it seems, before I approach it, or as I drive up my street.

I am in that cognitively dissonant position of being a skeptic but also having a healthy respect for the power of belief. The lamp post on my street goes right to the heart of that dilemma. After reading other people’s beliefs about their ability to interfere with street lights, I realize mine is a weak case, typically affecting a particular lamp which does not go back on after I have passed. To debunk my doubts, though, I suppose I’ve got to go out one nice summer evening and sit under that particular lamp for a couple of hours and assess whether it is cycling on and off. What do you think?

BTW, here is a good Wikipedia discussion of the phenomenon.

Top 10 Finalists. And here’s the winner [via rc3], which is elegantly simple and discombobulating — yes, my eyes deceive me. If you ever doubted that perception is an active process requiring synthetic input from the brain, you won’t after looking at this illusion and pondering the explanation.

…After Being Prescribed Paxil, Ritalin, Prozac, Lithium, Provigil, and Benadryl. — Jeffrey Greenstein (McSweeney’s Internet Tendency)

“For nearly half a century, SETI efforts have Searched for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Instead of searching for alien life outside our planet, the Lifeboat Foundation has decided to take the opposite approach and to search for ‘alien’ life on this planet. We call our efforts ‘Finding Artificial Life Created by Nanobiotechnology’…”

Thanks to walker for pointing me to this diatribe from Craigslist. It is clear, despite his/her disclaimers toward the bottom of the passage, that the ER doctor is very angry with this class of patients. But clean up the language a bit and it is something that ought to be posted on the ER door as an open letter.

Fred Kaplan in Slate Magazine: “Since Donald Rumsfeld’s departure from the Pentagon, American military officers are starting to speak their minds again�and what some of the best of them are saying is even darker than expected.”

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, James Comey, former assistant to Attorney General John Ashcroft, describes Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card rushing to the critically ill Ashcroft’s hospital bedside in March 2004 to pressure him to override Comey’s refusal to reauthorize the secret warrantless domestic surveillance program before its expiration the following day.

The researchers’ basis for determining if the dropped food is safe to eat depends on ascertaining what bacterial load they pick up from a dirty surface after various intervals. But that does not address the likelihood that the added bacterial load is probably an infinitesimal addition to the daily bacterial load to which we are exposed already, from the same varieties of microbes, even if we never eat a piece of dropped food. More important, although I am not a bacteriologist or an immunologist, I seem to recall an argument that exposure to dirt should be considered akin to an inoculation, invigorating the immune system, and that an obsession with cleanliness may actually leave a person in immunological jeopardy when the time comes to defend oneself. At least that’s my reasoning when I eat something I’ve dropped…and I utilize something more like a thirty-second rule.

Bruce Stutz, in the New York Times Magazine, gives a first-person account of his struggles to get off an antidepressant after treated with it. He speculates on whether these drugs have more costs than benefits:

Bruce Stutz, in the New York Times Magazine, gives a first-person account of his struggles to get off an antidepressant after treated with it. He speculates on whether these drugs have more costs than benefits:

The first time I saw this, I read it as Discordia. Now that miight be a holiday I would celebrate wholeheartedly.

Largely for those with privacy concerns; should this be in the closing-the-barndoor-after-the-horse-is-gone dept.? In any case, by asking Google to block reverse searches on your phone number, you can call even those with caller ID with impunity.

OTOH: 

What to do if you do want to be found through Google

Avoid Speeding Tickets. “Your online guide to Bear Traps and Exits for all the Interstate Highways of the United States. Bears are creatures of habit.”

This one is from several years ago — “Reflected and diffuse light from an obscured computer monitor can still be used to reconstruct what is on its screen, say UK researchers. The technique could be used to spy on computers through an office window, for example, even if the monitor was not facing the window.” (New Scientist) The system only works for CRTs, so your laptops and flat panel displays are safe. It was also thought that flat panels were safe from Van Eck phreaking, in which images can be reconstructed by tuning in to the radio coils in CRTs. But the same researcher from the earlier result, Cambridge University’s Marcus Kuhn, has reconstructed LCD images by tuning in to radio transmissions from the video cables carrying the signal to the display. (New Scientist via abby)

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Admittedly, this is from Fox News; so is it truly worrisome or their typical reactionary smear tactics?

Does anyone else remember this story, which I read in the ’50’s and which has stuck with me ever since… ?

Also:

Mathematical Fiction Homepage

And:

Moebius 17

If you can make heads or tails of it:

“Two writers are bombing a train. Eventually, drawing the highlights, they are suprised by the security staff. They are being chased but finally manage to escape. One of the two writers, starred by Johannes Benecke, decides not to give up until he gets “a fuckin’ picture of his fuckin’ train”. Trying to get a picture of his rolling canvas, he has to face a labyrinth of subway lines crossing each other, connections, quotations, fantastic observations, and paradoxical indications. However, Train No. 17 is missing inside the underground system. The Public Transport are looking for the disappeared train as well. The special Graffiti commission, special forces, and computer experts begin to chase. Parallelly, the chairman of the Public Transport, Himmel, is being accused of corruption while building a new cross connection. This is not by chance. In real life, Himmel’s name is Arno Funke who became Germany’s most sympathetic blackmailer of department stores using the alias “Dagobert”. Is he once again trying to escape in the underground with millions? Jörg Gudzuhn does not play a role in here. However, the actor starred already in 1994 as a commissioner searching the “Phantom” Dagobert. In 1991, he starred as a professor looking for a ghost train in Berlin in the movie “Moebius”. The current Moebius conspirancy started in 1997, when Frank Lämmer watched the Argentinian adaption of the story. Since that time, he has been on the “Moebius-stripe”. This differentially theoretical phenomenon, named after its discoverer A.F.Moebius, was not only engraved by the Dutch artist M.C. Escher in wood but has also animated the writer Esher to follow the nine ants of his namesake. Together with Jo Preußler he started the securing of evidence in 2002. After a wooden subway got cinematically lost inside the subway system of Buenos Aires, it is now up to No. 17. Both of the two Berlin film-makers have realized that one cannot get anywhere with this paradox using the five senses and a classical conservative world view. Therefore, they grab together with a crew of writers the motif of the short story “A Subway Named Moebius” by A. J. Deutsch(1950) and actualize the following idea: Two writers are bombing a train …”

Babel is immensely popular in Japan, in part thanks to a memorable and powerful role by Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi. But, reminiscent of a memorable incident caused by an episode of the Pokemon cartoon series a decade ago, a number of Japanese have been sickened by a one-minute scene in Babel involving a visit to a club in which strobe lights flash for about a minute. The phenomenon has prompted the posting of a health advisory on the distributor’s website and on posters at theatres showing the film. (Yahoo! News) While strobe-induced seizure activity is a well-known phenomenon in patients with preexisting epilepsy, it is quite rare. In contrast, this has some of the hallmarks of communicable hysteria. It is a little different from the Pokemon incident, which affected viewers simultaneously without forewarning, and which probably attracted a much larger viewing population.

“Switzerland is one of the world’s richest and most tranquil countries, but it also has more suicides than most. This may show that money doesn’t buy happiness, but some Swiss also blame the guns.” (Yahoo! News)

Fight Crime With Rented Robotic Exoskeleton: “Need to move a piano? Picked on by bullies? Want to uproot trees in the backyard? Not to worry. Soon you’ll be able to RENT A HAL-5 EXOSKELETON for just $590 per month. The robotic suit gives its wearer super strength.” (The Raw Feed)

…It’s in His Tail (New York Times)

i.e. ‘I feel like I’ve heard this bull before…’ World Bank chief still has Bush’s support (WorldNetDaily)

i.e. ‘I feel like I’ve heard this bull before…’ Bush Reiterates Support for Gonzales (New York Times)

“European astronomers say they have found the first Earth-sized planet beyond this solar system with temperatures mild enough to allow liquid water — a crucial step toward answering whether our cradle of life is unique in the universe.

The planet circles the star Gliese 581, which at 20 light years away is among the 100 stars closest to Earth. Dubbed Gliese 581c, the planet orbits very close to its star — closer than Mercury is to our sun. But astronomers with the European Southern Observatory say the star is dim enough that average temperatures on the planet would fall in the range of an ordinary Chicago spring day.

Click here to find out more!
If the planet has water — a big unknown — its size and climate could make it habitable, experts said. The planet appears to be about 50 percent larger than Earth and has five times more mass, making it one of the smallest far-off planets ever detected.

The conditions look promising enough that officials with the California-based SETI Institute, which looks for signs of radio communication from alien civilizations, said they hope to give the planet a fresh look this summer. Previous radio observations of Gliese 581 in the 1990s turned up nothing unusual.” (Orlando Sentinel )

Was Seung-Hui Cho “shooting a John Woo movie in his head”? (New York Times )

Was Seung-Hui Cho “shooting a John Woo movie in his head”? (New York Times )

“A survey is suggesting that only a tiny minority of us are getting eight hours’ sleep a night. But do we really need that much?” (BBC)