I was going to post this on my TAM4 travelog (which I’m in the process of writing), but that’s getting pretty lengthy, and I was afraid people might not read it all the way through… and I wanted to share this story. It’s a bit long, but bear with me.

Dr. Richard Wiseman is an extremely smart and funny guy. He’s a psychologist and stage performer, and he studies such things as peoples’ perceptions of luck and of change. Why do some people have such strong feelings that they are lucky or unlucky? How do we detect changes in our environment? For the latter, he conducts tests where people are put into situations where something is changed without them knowing what, why, or how, and he sees if they notice. It’s actually very funny, which brings us to the heart of my story.

Last year, at TAM3, it was brought to our attention that Richard and I look quite a bit alike (it helped that our clothes were similar too). Sure, there are some differences: he is thinner than I am, his glasses are different, and he speaks with a British accent, but overall all we could easily be mistaken for each other, as you can see in the picture there. This gave us both an idea for a fun prank…

We started exchanging emails over the next few months, mapping out our plan. Finally, when TAM4 rolled around, we hammered out a few details and got ready for his talk.

The next day, he was the first speaker, which was perfect. Before his talk, I went around behind the stage and hid. He went on, and I listened covertly as he got a lot of laughs showing various optical illusions and joking about them. About 20 minutes in, he started a video clip, which is where the fun began.

The clip was of a guy, the unwitting subject of a perception test, who walks up to a desk and is asked by another man sitting there to fill out a form. A few seconds later, the man at the desk bends down to pick up a piece of paper, but when he comes back up, he is replaced by an entirely different guy. Incredibly, the guy filling out the form doesn’t notice that the man he was just talking too has been replaced by someone else. The audience was getting a good laugh out of this, but I was hoping we were about to get a bigger one…

Right before showing the clip, Richard complained his throat was scratchy, so he walks offstage to get some water. However, instead of him walking back onstage, I did. I was dressed almost exactly as he was (actually, it’s weird we both have similar purple shirts), including wearing a spare pair of his glasses. To maintain the illusion, I was carrying a bottle of water, pouring it into a cup.

The hope was that I would be able to carry out this little trick for about 20 or 30 seconds before anyone would notice. I would talk with a British accent (I actually impressed Richard with my ability to imitate him) and then ease back into an American accent, talking the whole while on how things can change right in front of people and they won’t notice.

Before…

… and after

Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite as planned. Damned skeptics! They’re too observant! I hadn’t even gotten halfway to the podium before a roar of laughter erupted from the front rows. They knew immediately it was me and not Richard walking back out. I heard later that someone yelled out, "It’s Phil Plait!" (I’m sure the same kind of person who spoils movie endings to all his friends). Despite that, a lot of folks in the back were initially clueless that we had pulled a switch, including several friends of mine. It wasn’t until they heard the laughter and started looking more closely that they noticed I wasn’t Richard.

Anyway, it did get a huge laugh, and I had people coming up to me all day and the next telling me it was the funniest moment of the whole meeting. In fact, I was stayed in the those clothes the rest of the day (Richard changed into more casual clothes) and twice — twice — people came up to me and talked to me thinking I was Richard.

So in the end, even though it didn’t go exactly as planned, we still pulled off a great joke. Now I just have to think about what to do next year…

‘

Blog carnivals are collections of like-minded blog entries collected in one place. The premier science carnival is called The Tangled Bank, and is published bi-weekly.

This time, Tangled Bank #44 is up at Afarensis. There’s a great reading list there, including (modestly– sure) one by me.’

I love Hollywood, I really do. But studios and theaters have screwed with me for the last time.

I’ve seen maybe four movies this year (including two I reviewed). Setting aside for a moment that the movies were generally pretty bad (or okay at best), I had to pay upwards of ten bucks to see them. Then, after that particular gouging, I had to sit through ten — 10 — commercials! A couple of them were moderately entertaining, but I really, really hate commercials. Being basically held captive and forced to watch them is just plain bad business practice.

And I can see it’s going to get a lot worse:

Domestic revenues at movie theaters may fall below $9 billion for the first time since 2001 after averaging $9.3 billion over the last three years. Factoring in higher admission prices, the number of tickets sold is expected to finish at about 1.4 billion, the lowest since 1997.

So revenues are tanking. How will they make that up? Charge more? I doubt it; people will stay away in droves if they do that. No, they’ll add more commercials. And as fewer people put up with that, and stay home to use Pay Per View or Netflix (and as TVs get better, that’s a pretty good option), that’s a vicious cycle.

So I’m done. I may still go when a movie is reviewable for my site, but that’s it. I have a DVD player. I can wait.

‘We just watched Tim Burton’s remake, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

Don’t get me wrong: it’s a fun movie, and I do like Johnny Depp. But.

Gene Wilder is a god.

That’s all I’ll say about that.

In other news, after months of hounding by friends and BA readers, I finally picked up the DVDs for the science fiction show "Firefly".

Golram! It rocks! That was one of the best series in any genre I have ever seen. When the pilot for a show blows you away, you know you’re onto something: the pilots usually stink. The cast, the writing, the direction… it was all gold. We’re anxiously waiting to get the movie "Serenity" from Netflix.’

While surfing around the web, I found a statistic that said there were roughly 298 million people in the United States right now.

That surprised me. I thought we were hovering around 250 million. So I went to the source: the U.S. Census Bureau. On that site they have a population clock, and sure enough, we’re at 297+ million people here in the US of A^*. Wow.

According to that site, the population has a net increase of one person every 10 seconds (accounting for births, deaths, and net immigration). Given that rate, and the current number, it looks like we’ll hit the 300,000,000 mark in about 253 days, in early September (the 9th, according to my calculations). Since they use a formula to calculate the population instead of actually counting people, this is approximate, but probably close.

I’m not one for arbitrary milestones, but I have to admit that’s pretty interesting. I’ll have to check back on that clock in a few months and see how close we’re getting.

At Dec. 30 at 18:29 Greenwich time, we had 297,813,672 people. The world population was at 6,488,327,783. These are estimates based on formulae.

Comparison shopping websites are all the rage. They do the online searching for you, grab prices for products, and display them so you can pick which one you like best. In fact, it’s a pretty cool service, and I read a few every now and again.

But somehow I don’t think I’ll be using Your Shopping Showcase. Here is what they say they do:

Your Shopping Showcase features a wide variety of great products for home and work. We have done all the research on these on these fine merchants, so you can rest assured that you will find what you need at the right price. There are also articles and other bits of information that you can browse. Please feel free to look around and click on any of the links that interest you.

Great, eh? So let’s say you want to buy a shower curtain. Where does it send you?

To my pareidolia page. Seriously. Here’s the link: Shower Rods & Rings (Shower Curtain).

If my page helps you make your decision to buy bathroom supplies, then I have a Moon hoax to sell you.

Subtle. I like it. And appropriate, given yesterday’s radio debate.

Also available as postcards, posters, etc., as a holiday gift for that special someone with too-high aspirations.

Hat tip to Secular Front.