Post Number 103: And now for something completely different

This time I'm posting two things that I have nothing to do with -- besides really enjoying them.

1) The TED Blog posted an excellent illusion the other day that really blew my mind. Check out the spiral below, and then try and wrap your mind around the fact that the blue and the green parts of the spiral are actually the same color. That's right, there's no blue and green, just a single blue-green color.

The BLUE and GREEN are actually the SAME color.

Honestly, I didn't believe that the blue and green could be the case, so i went about trying to verify it for myself. Click this link to see the time-lapse proof that I created by animating the removal of some of the stripes. (Cover up part of the screen with your fingers) And let me know if your mind was blown, please.

Here's the proof.

ps. I just viewed the comments, looks like someone did the same thing, so I just linked to theirs.

2) This second bullet is the best piece of software that I've used in a while: MWSnap. It allows you to take a screen capture (something I need to do with my 3D modeling at work on Solidworks quite frequently) in the easiest possible way.

Did I mention that it's free / donation only?!

Basically, I have it set up to load (minimized to the tray) when I start Windows, and when I use a keyboard shortcut (ctrl+shift+4), crosshairs pop-up allowing me to select the region of the screen that I want to save. Then it automatically saves to a new, numbered file, in a directory that I named (the desktop). Download it here.

Thank you, Mirek, you wrote some excellent software!

ps. Mac / OS X users -- fear not, this is built-in to your operating system! Just hit the Apple+Shift+4 and you'll get some cross hairs that do the same thing!

More to come on the unicycling front, great progress is being made! (But: I can't turn right!)