Comments on: Really Excellent

By: Categorically Not! - Movement - Asymptotia

Categorically Not! - Movement - Asymptotia — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 17:38:06 +0000

[...] The next Categorically Not! is Sunday 7th January. The Categorically Not! series of events are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, (with ocassional exceptions). They’re a series – started and run by science writer K. C. Cole – of fun and informative conversations deliberately ignoring the traditional boundaries between art, science, humanities, and other subjects. I strongly encourage you to come to them if you’re in the area. There’s a website of past and upcoming events here. You can also have a look at two of the last two descriptions I did of some events here and here, and the description of a recent special one on Uncertainty that was held at the USC campus is here. [...]

By: Music and Language | Cosmic Variance

Music and Language | Cosmic Variance — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:49:11 +0000

[...] Diana Deursch has done some research on “tone languages”, for example – languages where what sounds to English speakers like single word actually takes on several different and often unrelated meanings depending upon the pitch/tone at which it is spoken. The example of Mandarin is given (which makes me reflect quite a bit on the bizarre misunderstandings I had from time to time in my walkabout last year in Taiwan – I like to try the language a bit, even if there is an alternative… this sometimes gets me into trouble), and it leads to fascinating insights when you couple it to music. She discovered, for example, that the speakers of tone language have a vastly greater number of people who have perfect absolute pitch as compared to people who speak non-tone languages. There are links to her work from the radio program’s website. There are also links to her collections of audio files of musical illusions, which put me in mind of the optical illusions discussion I blogged about not so long ago, and associated links. [...]

By: A University of Wonderful Things - Asymptotia

A University of Wonderful Things - Asymptotia — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:01:21 +0000

[...] I’ve come to realise that there are all sorts of really interesting people on the USC campus, involved in fascinating work and interesting projects of one sort or another. This is of course true for any university. However, I am still finding pleasant surprises and connections quite regularly. The last major such discovery for me was in the early Summer, when I found out that the excellent writer Aimee Bender (e.g. “The Girl in the Flammable Skirt”) is on the faculty here. (I mentioned this and described her contribution to one of the Categorically Not! events in this post.) [...]

By: Categorically Not! - Apocalypse! | Cosmic Variance

Categorically Not! - Apocalypse! | Cosmic Variance — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 22:57:22 +0000

[...] The next Categorically Not! is Sunday 24th September. You may recall my post on the Categorically Not! series of events held at the Santa Monica Art Studios. They’re fantastic, and I strongly encourage you to come to them. Have a look at the last two descriptions here and here, and the description of the recent special one on Uncertainty that was held at the USC campus is here. [...]

By: Uncertainty - Asymptotia

Uncertainty - Asymptotia — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 01:14:25 +0000

[...] These are, as I said, events that build upon the Categorically Not! series held at Santa Monica arts studios on Sundays, and about which I have blogged extensively on Cosmic Variance (see some recent descriptions here and here). The old Categorically Not! series stop will not stop. The Santa Monica series will continue, but there will be some gaps to accommodate the USC events. We hope that the regular Santa Monica crowd will make the short trip across the city to USC on those nights. For more information on all Categorically Not! – type events, visit the Categorically Not! website. [...]

By: Categorically Not! - Uncertainty (Revisited) | Cosmic Variance

Categorically Not! - Uncertainty (Revisited) | Cosmic Variance — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 00:42:18 +0000

[...] The next Categorically Not! is Thursday 31st August. You may recall my post on the Categorically Not! series of events, started by K. C. Cole, and held at the Santa Monica Art Studios. They’re fantastic, and I strongly encourage you to come to them. Have a look at the last two descriptions here and here. [...]

By: Categorically Not! - Transparency | Cosmic Variance

Categorically Not! - Transparency | Cosmic Variance — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:00:56 +0000

[...] The next Categorically Not! is Sunday 4th June. You may recall my post on the Categorically Not! series of events held at the Santa Monica Art Studios. They’re fantastic, and I strongly encourage you to come to them. Have a look at the last two descriptions here and here. [...]

By: I See Book People | Cosmic Variance

I See Book People | Cosmic Variance — Thu, 11 May 2006 06:44:36 +0000

[...] Well, it was a splendid party on the terrace. I won’t go into the details since I’m very tired and you’re probably not that interested anyway. I met a huge number of interesting people. I was there mostly through LA Times connections (via K. C. Cole and Jonathan Kirsch) and so I met an awful lot of excellent columnists, critics and editors. There were some other USC people there as well such as Annenberg School of Communication people, excellent author and USC professor Aimee Bender (who I met just a week ago at Categorically Not! in Santa Monica), and Barry Glassner, our Executive Vice-Provost, who’s also a noted sociologist and author (see his “The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things”, for example). But I also met a lot of authors (some already mentioned), publishers and agents. [...]

By: im

im — Thu, 04 May 2006 06:39:56 +0000

insider tricks …but it applies to more much more then that, doesn’t it?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 04 May 2006 02:27:11 +0000

of course Ilaria! it’s also true you knew a lot more about what I meant with that word….

By: im

im — Wed, 03 May 2006 20:10:21 +0000

jeff, did you like the sentence I composed using your initial word?

By: A Bit Tasty » Blog Archive » Illusion With More to Come

A Bit Tasty » Blog Archive » Illusion With More to Come — Wed, 03 May 2006 18:04:04 +0000

[...] Edit: one of my favorite science blogs Cosmic Variance wrote a lot about this topic and gave great links. Hopefully you will have forgotten about this when I go to write more on this topic so you won’t notice I stole everything I write from this post. [...]

By: Spatulated

Spatulated — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:43:22 +0000

Wow, suprizingly i just blogged about about an awsome illusion i found. you guys might like it, just click my name.

anyways, illusions are so freaking awsome. i hope to follow all of those links after i finish this paper.

thanks for the information

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:15:51 +0000

Great write up as usual Clifford. I think the thing I liked about this Cat/Not event was the interaction that was forced upon us. Getting up and walking around the room for the illusions, and writing and exchanging thoughts/words with our neighbors during Aimee’s part was great. At least one “interactive” part would be fantastic in future events, but that’s hard to plan, I know.

For the aforementioned “famous” video that illustrated perception, illusion, and attention span, you can go to: http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html . BUT — the critical part is that when you watch the video the first time, please carefully count how many times the white-shirted basketball players bounce the ball. It’s critical that you try to count that number correctly.

Feel free to post here what you think you count…

By: Clifford

Clifford — Wed, 03 May 2006 16:17:56 +0000

Michele,

It was great to meet you. Thanks for coming and thanks for commenting.

-cvj

By: Michele

Michele — Wed, 03 May 2006 15:51:23 +0000

Indeed, it was a great night. The enthusiasm of the Exploratorium scientists/artists is very contagious. For a more whimsical and entirely more satisfying version of the "pop out" cube illusion, which works by the same principle, make yourself one of the Paper Dragons originally designed in honor of Martin Gardner (the linked URL has a downloadable PDF, and includes a video of the illusion, which evidently can also fool the camera). I still have one of these dragons on my desk, and seldom a week passes that I do not find myself looking intently at it for a few minutes, moving my head up and down... seeing me must make for an interesting spectacle...

By: Jeff Nuttall

Jeff Nuttall — Wed, 03 May 2006 15:44:46 +0000

Jeff… that’s why I put posters up and advertise it in the department from time to time.

See, since I’m working under Dr. Judge at the Space Sciences Center, I spend all my time at the Stauffer Hall of Science and very seldom have reason to go to the Seaver Science Center, so I haven’t seen the posters. (At least, if there are also posters up at SHS, I haven’t noticed them.) Ah, well; I know about it now, at any rate.

By: Plato

Plato — Wed, 03 May 2006 15:15:28 +0000

Click on name.

If it seems confusing, it is sometimes when you mix such visualization techniques with theoretical defintions

An example of cubist paintings in relation to quantum gravity?

“Points,” on brane thinking?

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Wed, 03 May 2006 15:13:10 +0000

Unfortunately your right: The Bush Administration is a Master of Illusion. However – speaking with “first-line” optimism, reality will supersede illusion. Speaking with “second-line” optimism, if reality does not step-in to erase illusion, then – perhaps – a higher illusion will step-in to cancel the Bush illusion.

By: Plato

Plato — Wed, 03 May 2006 15:02:32 +0000

You know Clifford, I am learning to see in ways that I am not use too, looking at the theotical methods you scientists like to deal with.

But I truly find this “categorically not” most satisfying becuase of the broad range that is being implored here.

Are not all students of theoretics schooled with the artistic ways taught in your article to see with “imagination” this way?

I fondly think of Penrose and Escher here. Cubist art, to monte carlo methods developed in quantum gravity scenarios. Science and Art.