Color perception Thursday

I lifted this image from the brilliant Richard Wiseman. It illustrates another cool quirk about human eyes and their ability to perceive color.

Click on the image below and it will start its animation. Stare at the black dot in the center of the photograph.

Did you see it?

When the image changes, it's a black and white photograph, but your eyes should see it as a normal color image for a couple of seconds until your eyes adjust. Go back and try it again if you missed it.

What's happening there is what's called a negative afterimage. When you stare at something long enough, the cone cells in your retina adapt to the image and stop processing new information. They go into a feedback loop that continues to send information to your brain that's a copy of the information they've already sent.

Once the image they're perceiving changes, it takes them a couple of seconds to adapt to the new information. In the lag time, your brain can't make any sense out of the signals that it's getting so it more or less makes up what it expects to be there.

Afterimages are why you can't see colors accurately if you stare at them for too long.

Afterimages don't just work on still photos either. This one moves and it's cool beyond description.



Human eyes and human brains are amazing machines but they are fallible. It's important to know where the chinks in the armor are.

It's April Food Day again

In June, 2009 the number of Food Stamp participants in the US numbered just over 35 million, the largest number on record. It's also the latest figure available, and it represents a 22% increase over the previous June's count. That's an enormous number of people.

Food stamps don't come close to feeding someone with anything resembling a balanced diet and food stamp recipients have to make some odd food choices. Check out this video from CNN. A reporter, Sean Callebs, lived on a food stamp budget for a month and in this video he talks about his experience.

Food stamp recipients, and needy people who can't get food stamps, depend on the nation's food banks in ways no one could have imagined a year ago. But the good news is that a dollar in the hands of Feeding America (formerly Second Harvest) can turn into 10 pounds of food for the needy. The need's not unique to the US either. My Canadian readers can participate in April Food Day with a donation to Food Banks Canada. If you'd like to participate in April Food Day, all we're asking is that you donate a buck. That's it. A dollar in the hands of a food bank can turn into seven meals. If you're motivated to give more, know this: $25 will make 75 meals for your needy countrymen. It's not magic but it feels good to make a tangible difference.

You'll see this logo scattered around the Internet as a bunch of us are posting on the same topic today. Whether it's here or somewhere else or on your own in your own time, think about making a donation to the nation's hungry.

Many thanks to Meg Fairfax Fielding from Pigtown Design and Chris Cox from Easy and Elegant Life for putting all this together.

Now remember those links. It's Feeding America in the US, and Food Banks Canada for Canada, obviously. If you'd like to make a donation from or for somewhere else in the world, here's the link to Feed the Children.

Lacey fences

The design site Doornob Design clued me into a cool re-imagining of the chain link fence yesterday.

The Dutch design agency Demakersvan rethought the omnipresent and always dreary chain link and applied a little old world charm to it. What a great idea and yet another terrific example of thoughtful industrial design. I swear, this has been a week for it.

It has me thinking what other patterns would work in this medium. Can I get it in argyle?

I love this Sharks and Jets homage. Street toughs look less tough when they're climbing over a Lace Fence.

When hell froze over

In the wonders never cease department, Apartment Therapy's The Kitchn picked up my post about Richard Holschuh from Saturday. They got my name right, my URL right and most of all they got Richard a world of exposure I never could have on my own.

To make matters even better, the lead paragraph started with an Apartment Therapy royal we.

We're smitten with these concrete countertops from Richard Holschuh, an artist and artisan from Vermont. His company creates custom concrete countertops for kitchens, baths, and other areas, and some of them blow away our usual ideas of what a concrete surface can look like.

I guess the key to getting websites with traffic counts in the millions to notice me is to mock them endlessly.

Apartment Therapy's The Kitchn: Concrete With Soul

Who needs a chocolate Easter bunny?

Vosges Haut-Chocolat has a new collection of truffles that celebrate spring. And then some. While it's true that Vosges Haut-Chocolat is an advertiser, a good turn always deserves effusive praise.

From their press release:

Inhale the scent of fresh cut grass and springtime blossoms, gallivant in your galoshes in April rain showers…spring is a time for renewal, rejuvenation and a reminder to celebrate our magical Mother Earth. The Green Collection was inspired by the spices, teas, fruits and flowers indigenous to Asia, including Japanese cherry blossoms. The launch of the collection is centered on the life cycle of these beautiful blooms, and is available for a limited time only!

The 16 piece Green Collection includes:

• Ellateria (4): Indian green cardamom + dark chocolate + white poppy seeds
• Kaffir (4): Thai kaffir lime + fresh coconut + dark chocolate
• Kayoko (4): Japanese matcha green tea + white chocolate + cherry blossom petals
• Buddha's Leaf (4): Malaysian pandan leaves + dark chocolate + cocoa powder

Vosges Haut-Chocolat has three locations in Chicago, including one in O'Hare. They have two locations in New York and one in Las Vegas. Of course their amazing chocolates are available everywhere through their website.

I love good chocolate and the offerings from Vosges Haut-Chocolat are the best I've ever found. Which by the way, is why they're an advertiser in the first place.

See the rest of their offerings here.