Onelargeprawn
How cool is this? By using a simple yet nifty visual effect, GIF creators are able to bring out eye-popping 3D qualities from 2D animated GIFs. Two vertical stripes are added to the GIF, and when a moving object blocks these lines, our brains are tricked into thinking that the object is coming out of the image.
Have a look at some of these wonderful “3D” GIFs after the jump.
If you thought the boligrafo portraits by Juan Francisco Casas were photorealistic, you’ll be astonished at the level of detail in the hyperrealistic paintings by Jason de Graaf.
The Canadian painter creates scenes that look as if they were photographed or computer-generated. Instead, he painstakingly applies acrylic paints to canvas to create the illusion. Have a look at some of his incredible, intricate paintings after the jump.
Gizmodo posted a rather trippy optical illusion yesterday where the green and the blue in this spiral are actually the same color. As interesting as that is (the explanation is here), one of the commenters submitted another illusion that caught my eye.
The Benham top, created by nineteenth-century British toymaker Charles Benham, is a disc that contains a black-and-white pattern, which when spun gives the illusion of colour. These colours are visible on different parts of the disk, and not everyone see the same colour.
I see red quite clearly. What about you?
The answer to why different people see different colours on Benham’s top is not a concrete one. Hit the jump to read one of the theories.
English illusionist/mentalist/wizard Derren Brown had prepared for this moment for over a year, and on Wednesday night, he showed off his latest trick – correctly predicting Wednesday night’s UK lottery numbers!
Broadcasting from a secret location, Brown had written his predictions down on a line of ball, but for legal reasons could not show them before BBC One’s live National Lottery draw. Moments after the draw, Brown revealed his predictions, which were an exact match for the winning numbers, making him the first person ever to successfully predict the national lottery numbers live on air! See the video below or watch it in high quality at YouTube.
Since the video aired, various theories have been flying around the internet including:
YouTube user mutatedmonty posted a clip of his solution. Check it out.
In another programme tonight, Brown will talk through a number of ways he might have pulled off the trick. In the meantime discuss the theories at the Derren Brown Lottery Predictionblog.
UPDATE: The BBC reports that Brown claims he asked asked 24 people to guess the Lotto numbers and then used an average to make his prediction. A professor of pure mathematics at the University of Oxford called shenanigans, saying “Mathematically it is complete rubbish. It is a bluff on his part”. Others claim split screen trickery was used.
[via PS3ZA member PsyMonkey