Category Archives: Imperfect perception

Disproving cable claims?

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

A while back I wrote to the Australian Skeptics regarding its $100,000 prize. It offers this to anyone who can prove capable, under agreed protocols, to perform some actual paranormal task. For example, divining water, moving stuff through the power … Continue reading →

Posted in Cables, Imperfect perception, Mysticism | 2 Comments

And we have a mechanism!

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

I have been asked whether Mr Hughes, author of the loopy pamphlet ‘A Decade of Tuning Tips (Part 2)’, has given any explanation as to why putting a piece of paper under one leg of a couch, or snipping the … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Imperfect perception, Mysticism | 1 Comment

A Decade of Tuning Tips (Part Two) – 3

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Oh, I’ve been so terrible. I was chatting to someone today and whinging about the British hifi media of the 1980s, only to remember that I had failed to follow up on a series of posts started a couple of … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Imperfect perception, Mysticism, Rant | 13 Comments

Death on Oz?

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Incredible! I’m listening to a recent episode of the Skeptoid podcast, this one on Hollywood myths. It turns out that some people actually believe that the suicide of a Munchkin was recorded on film in The Wizard of Oz. Brian … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Cinema, Imperfect perception | 2 Comments

The many faces of 3D

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

If anything demonstrates how our senses provide us with a useful abstraction of the world, rather than a photographic image, it is surely the various 3D technologies now proliferating. The sensation of 3D is a weird thing. At some engine-room … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D, Imperfect perception | Leave a comment

The Loudness Wars

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

The previous post, Greg Borrowman made reference to ‘The Loudness Wars’ and gave a small explanation. But he has now drawn my attention to a very useful little video that explains what this means in practice. It is here, and … Continue reading →

Posted in CD, Imperfect perception, Music | 3 Comments

Tilting the lens on The Social Network

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

The other night I watched The Social Network on Blu-ray, and soon I’ll be writing a review of it. But I wanted to highlight here one brief part of it: a section starting around 84 minutes into the movie, called … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Imperfect perception, Video | 2 Comments

The imaginary world of colour

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Colour is a construct of the mind. Out in the real world what we perceive as colours is simply a small subset (less than an octave) of the wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. Evolution has endowed us with a mechanism … Continue reading →

Posted in Imperfect perception, Video | 1 Comment

Imputing meaning to nothing

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Lately I’ve been going through the oeuvre of Brian Dunning, specifically his Skeptoid podcasts. As I’ve previously noted, I think he probably does the highest quality skeptical stuff on the web, and a lot of his podcasts are on things … Continue reading →

Posted in Imperfect perception | 4 Comments

The brain/eye mechanism at work again

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

Here is an excellent video, from Quirkology author Richard Wiseman, illustrating an aspect of the blind spot in the human eye that I’d never before thought of. Go and have a look, and then come back here. The new wrinkle … Continue reading →

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