Science on WT8P's Notes to Self

That’s no moon…

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:26:19 +0000

During last month’s Stone Concert, the CT scan showed two unexpected somethings.

Dramatic reenactment: The noisy TIE fighter? It is the least of your worries.

I went into my primary care physician ask what, if anything, I should do about them. Because I’m generally feeling fine, the gallstone can be ignored. (Update: Until next year.) I will probably have to cut back on the butter fried bacon twinkies smothered in bacon, wrapped between a pair of glazed donuts, sprinkled with Oreo bits, and surrounded by a moat of heavy whipped cream. (I really have never had such a thing, nor would I really want one. I have my bacon-limits.)

Pasta puzzle

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 07:21:51 +0000

I’ve been having a lot of fun reading “How to Fossilize Your Hamster“[1], an entertaining and enlightening collection of quirky science questions and experiments one can do to observe the the principles. It’s very conversationally written with abundant humor. For example, in answering the best way to get ketchup out of the bottle, where they detail seven methods to “exploit the thixotropic nature of ketchup,” they begin with:

“WHAT DO I NEED?

Inattentional blindness

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 04:29:49 +0000

Today’s keynote speaker, Daniel Simons, talked about inattentional blindness, the inability to perceive features in a visual scene you’re not paying attention to. It’s used in movies. For example, in The Matrix, the scene in which Neo and Morpheus first spar Kung-Fu style, there’s a stunt double for Keanu. Unless you’re looking for a tall Asian guy doing flips, you’ll perceive it as Neo opening a can of whoop-ass.

Simons’ first example was a powerpoint “card trick” where he presents five face cards. A person in the audience secretly picks one. The presenter then shows the next slide and the card’s no longer there – magic! Try it here.

In an especially funny video, he had someone ask a stranger for directions. As the stranger is explaining, confederates carrying a large box go between the two and they swap out the original requester with another person. The new person was 3″ taller, different color/more hair, Brooklyn accent at least an octave lower. In nearly all cases, the stranger kept trying to help.

They did another, similar one where someone lined up for an experiment and filled out a consent form. In the middle of a sentence, the person behind the desk ducked down, as if to pick something, then another person stood up and resumed the conversation. The person was handed back their consent form and asked if they noticed anything. Nearly all did not.

I failed most of the tests given, but surprisingly did okay in this example only because I didn’t hear the original directions (count the number of times the balls were passed around). Instead, I was focused on the quirky way the players were moving around.

The point was that one’s memory is busy storing what it thinks is most the relevant information. In the first switcharoo case, it’s the directions. In the second, it’s filling out the form. Conversely, you’re less likely to pay attention to what you don’t consider relevant, like what the person giving the directions looks like. Interestingly, an issue autistic people have is that they aren’t filtering on relevance, leading to all sorts of social miscues and obsession with tiny details.

Very cool stuff.

Liquid bandages

Thu, 02 Sep 2004 06:41:07 +0000

This may seem far-fetched, but I got a paper cut from picking up a cardboard box. The box slipped, and when I grabbed it, my finger brushed against the edge, leaving a large gash in my finger. Okay, maybe not “large,” but it hurt a lot and the cut was big enough that it needed to be covered. However, it was right on the joint such that a conventional bandage would overly restrict movement.

A sales parable

Tue, 25 May 2004 08:23:39 +0000

(for maximum humor value, mouse-over the dashed lines.) Long ago, before the mists of the dot com era wafted down upon the masses, I worked at a company that made

bananas. I traveled to a customer site with Tim, the company’s top salesman to observe his crafitness.

After we met with the Zookeeper and Primate Custodian, Tim went through the familiar sales spiel, highlighting the importance of bananas: high in potassium, a good source of energy while cycling, and in fashionable yellow. He was about to segue into the specific differentiators our bananas had, when the Zookeeper (the decision maker) asked the question: “Can your bananas be used to kill someone?“

Fun with Skittles

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:49:00 +0000

I’m taking a photography class in hopes that I can improve my technique. We have an exhibition in a couple of weeks, and I’m behind on the number of “exhibitable” (ahem) prints. This weekend I rented a fisheye (16mm f2.8) and a macro (105mm f2.8) lens and set out to take a bunch of photos around the greater Seattle area that I will develop later this week.

After obsessively photographing various foodstuffs with the macro lens — there were so many interesting textures — I bought a bag of Skittles for color. My kids instantly recognized the package and, not coincidentally, had a keen interest in volunteering to help me in a fact-finding mission.

Monday morning armchair physicist

Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:07:14 +0000

There’s a great urban legend that says a penny tossed off the top of the Empire State building will impact with enough force to embed itself in the ground. Or, if it hit someone in the head, it would kill them.

Last week’s Mythbusters (one of my favorite TV shows) busted the myth experimentally. However, I wanted to understand the math and physics a little better.

The theory behind the myth looks straightforward: the Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall. An object dropped off the top would take 8.8 seconds to reach the ground, by which time it would be moving at 193 miles an hour: