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rynner said:
Today I loaded some pics, taken on Sunday, onto the computer.

One was this view of St Just-in-Penwith (where Jethro comes from!)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/ ... G_1613.jpg


As you see, the pic is taken in bright June sunshine.

But when I zoomed into it, I was surprised to see this ghoulish figure...


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/ ... Ghoul1.jpg


What the heck is that? :shock:




But after tweaking the brightness and contrast quite a bit, the ghoul became somewhat more human:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/ ... Ghoul2.jpg

Still maybe not someone you'd like to meet down a dark alley at night, but at least (probably) human! 8)



This just goes to show that even in perfect lighting conditions, cameras can still throw up apparent anomalies.


(Here, the brightness and contrast that was about right for the overall picture was not right for that particular figure against that particular background.)

actually, i swear i know this bloke. he looks just like this bloke at university. he had very curly, springy black hair, which would grow up just like that. also he had a very shambling, lazy way of walking and would slouch as he walked, and he looked just like the 'ghoul' in this picture.

mind you, i still wouldn't like to meet him a dark alley. not that he's evil, he's completely harmless, but he irritates me worse than an itchy spot i can't reach on my back
 
Fireball sparks plane crash alert

A meteor shower sparked fears a large aircraft was crashing into the sea off the Hebrides.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency in Stornoway received dozens of calls on Friday night about a fireball falling from the sky.

Lifeboat crews in the Western Isles were alerted as emergency services prepared for a large scale disaster.

However, the cause of the fireball was linked to meteor shower Kappa Cygnid which peaked at the weekend.

A coastguard spokesman said: "We received numerous 999 calls with around 40 alone on Friday night.

"People were reporting seeing something like a plane going down with a tail of smoke behind it.

"It would have been a shooting star from meteor activity."

Five meteors

The spokesman added: "We discussed the situation with RAF Kinloss and other sources and concluded it was meteor activity."

Kappa Cygnid is active between 15-22 August.

Five meteors can be seen in an hour but it can also result in bright yellow-blue fireballs, according to the British Astronomical Association's website.

Were you able to capture the meteor shower on video footage or digital picture? If so, send it to Scotland's news website by emailing [email protected]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/hig ... 270598.stm
 
Last night, at my computer, I heard a clattering sound from the far end of the room, where the kitchen unit is. A short while later I heard it again.
The layout of the building is such that it couldn't have come from outside, and I thought it was the sound of falling ice in a defrosting fridge. But I wasn't defrosting the fridge, so I wondered if it had broken down. I checked the fridge and it was working OK.

By now I was beginning to harbour thoughts about ghosties and ghoulies...!

Today I discovered the cause of the noises - two self-adhesive plastic hooks used for hanging kitchen utensils on a wall cabinet had fallen off!



Now the only question is why two hooks would fall off in a short space of time - they weren't one above the other, so one fall shouldn't have triggered the other.... :shock:
 
rynner said:
Now the only question is why two hooks would fall off in a short space of time - they weren't one above the other, so one fall shouldn't have triggered the other.... :shock:
I've just thought of a possible answer to that - yesterday morning the plumber installed a new shower unit in my bathroom. This involved much drilling and banging on the other side of the wall with the kitchen cabinet on it, so that may well have loosened the hooks.



See, I always said there's no such thing as ghosts! :D
 
My most unshakeable misperception occurred on a school or church group picnic to a local dam and associated park when I was around 10 - 13 years old (early 1960's).

At one point we were standing on an overlook that gave us a panoramic vantage over the front face of the dam, the powerhouse, and outlying environs. Next to the spillway opening was a safety station - a brightly colored fencepost upon which hung a life preserver, a box (probably a first aid kit and / or phone), and some other apparatus. On top of the post sat a red or orange cone (like one of those road construction cones).

When I first directed my gaze at this safety post, my initial impression was of a relatively tall gnome, portly in the middle, with a pointed hat. I laughed at myself, knowing it was an arrangement of safety equipment. No matter how much I looked and re-looked at it, I couldn't 'grasp' or 'see' anything other than that gnome figure. It was as if my visual center had 'locked up' on the gnome interpretation.

This went on all day ... From varying distances and angles I would see the gnome no matter how much I reminded myself what I was 'really' looking at ... By the end of the day this effect had become so disturbing I was actively avoiding looking at it ...
 
I've got a question re misperceptions, can anyone help?

A few months ago I was walking past one of my daughter's bedrooms and just glanced in through the door. There, on the top of her dressing table, in front of the mirror was a sleeping cat, curled up on some old clothes. I just thought 'oh, there's one of the cats' and walked on. But then I realised that the cat I'd seen had been ginger, and ours are black and tabby, so I went back to investigate; it being unlikely that the house cats would have let an intruder indoors, let alone to curl up and sleep.

Of course, it wasn't a cat at all, but an orange fur hat, which had been given to my daughter by a friend. I'd never seen it before that day, and it really did look like a sleeping cat!

My question is: if I'd been hypnotised (or otherwise regressed) at the point at which I'd walked past the first time (before my return to verify the scene) and asked what I'd seen in that room, would I have said that I'd seen a sleeping ginger cat, or could my mind, given a chance to 'revisit' the scene, have disentangled the 'impossible cat' from the pile of clothing and said that I'd simply seen something orange?

In other words, would my subconscious be more 'intelligent' than my conscious mind?
 
Memory is said to be reconstructed (cf Loftus). Hypnosis either is or isn't an altered state of consciousness (see Spanos for non state theory). Not a good start :D

I am not personally convinced by regression hypnosis. Thus, as you now know you 'saw' a cat you would either be, under hypnosis (and your level of belief in what you expect from hypnosis) prepared to say you saw a cat or a hat. I suppose it all depends on your self image (what you believe about your memory and credibility) and your beliefy in hypnosis (what you believe happens to you under the 'fluence). My gut feeling is, now that you know the 'cat' to be otherwise, would be to correct yourself (if under hypnosis) - I'm sure there would be lots of reasoning why (self justification etc). But evidence, (lofuts again) does indicate that latter perceptions/corrections/propositions etc can overlay/rewrite previous memory.
 
If one were to try and approach the question from the purview of cognitive psychology constructs like 'visual buffer' or 'episodic vs. semantic memory', the most important factor would (arguably) be whether the 'review procedure' (be it hypnosis or whatever...) had the effect of directing your attention to:

(1) the raw perceptual 'memory' of the basic scene as seen (i.e., what might still be retrievable from your 'visual buffer', 'short term visual memory', or whatever one may wish to call it).

(2) the episodic 'memory' of walking past the room and seeing an orange fuzzy 'X' (noted because some theorists distinguish between the raw perceptual 'input data' and the 'recorded but un-semantically-interpreted tape transcription').

(3) the initial semantic 'memory' of your conclusion a cat had been lying there.

(4) the later (revised) semantic 'memory' of the conclusion it'd actually been a hat.

I wouldn't bet money on the 'review procedure' necessarily leading to one versus another such 'object of review', and hence one or another specific 'conclusion after review' ...

Wait more than 0.5 - 1.5 minutes, and (1) is a lost cause. Alternative (2) may not be retrievable after a very few minutes, and perhaps not at all if you'd not attended to or focused on the perceptual experience in the moment. Timing of the invocation of the review procedure could determine whether (3) or (4) were 'in play' ... No way to tell ...

Disclaimer: I invoked constructs from the classic 'information processing' approach to cognitive science not because I personally 'believe' in them, but rather because of their situational utility for illustrating nuanced distinctions ... :D
 
succinct as ever EG. Regarding visual buffers, one has to then look at the cortical substrates involved and posit 'what is going on' re: attention and working memory. The cogntive explanation, as I understand it, would involve an interplay between the binding of the visual image and the cognitiion that occurs from this - thus leading to a reappraisal of the image. As such, one is still prey to the problems of reconstruction. As we have both said, the answer to this question (what is 'x' when recalled under hypnosis) could be one or the other.

So, it may be better to look at this problem from a Gestlat point of view as well. To whit; figure/ground, good continuation and so forth. The human brain is a pattern recogniser - the image seen corresponded, due to lighting and perhaps thoughts about cats and so, a cat was seen. As this conflicted with the actual information the subject knew about cats in the vicinity, a query was raised, and then resolved upon 'checking'. To then ask how this would be interpreted under hypnosis (say), one would need to establish is the image of the orange 'x' had been more firmly establish within memory as an item of clothing or a cat. Should the doubt remain, stronger, it was a cat, I suspect a cat would be recalled (and vice versa).
 
I had a similar experience to the cat/hat thing just last night.

Walking past the indoor pool of the local hotel, I glimpsed through the window a man in an orange shirt (I assumed a lifeguard or attendant) bending over doing something. I realised I had seen an image in a mirror so when I'd walked a few more yards I turned around to see if I could see what the man was doing.

No man - it was an orange lifebelt I'd glimpsed! :oops:
 
Sorry guys, I've been away! Just got back to read your excellent suggestions - thanks very much. :D
 
A webcam here of Edinburgh's Princes street:
http://webcams.scotsman.com/?id=2

Looking at it now (ie, at night), it seems to show blue UFOs or orbs in the top left corner of the image....

..until you realise they synchronise with vehicle headlights on the road.


(Oh well, back to the drawing board!)
 
I've had a few heart thumping moments, which have had normal explanations.

1 Gone to bed and turned the landing light off. Just as I settled down and close my eyes the light comes back on. After gathering my courage, and saying 'suppose I better have a look' to my wife, I went to investigate. I soon noticed that the light switch was halfway between on and off, and must have just rocked slightly back on. :roll:

2 Woke up one night and saw a looming horned shape at the end of the bed, :shock: which in reality was a grumpy black cat, disgusted that someone was in his spot.
 
i had the oddest thing happen the other night...

...was in my bedroom, when i was convinced i heard someone moving around the wheelie bins outside, and being somewhat paranoid, got worried maybe someone was going to try and break in (when i got burgled a couple of years ago, a wheelie bin was used to stand on to try and crowbar a window open)...

...so i went into the bathroom and opened the window to look out, and there's no-one outside, but the airing cupboard door was open, which i'd been sure was shut, and looking at the empty space within where my laundry bag usually is, i suddenly remembered that i'd taken my washing to the laundrette 4 days earlier and had totally forgotten about it...

...god knows what was going on there... my best guess is one of the cats has learned to open the airing cupboard door, and i misconstrued the sound as something totally different... and it was just handy that it reminded me about the washing...
 
I'm using a jar of coffee which has an airtight glass lid. Quite a nice jar, worth keeping for other uses when the coffee is gone.

Yesterday, after making coffee, I put the lid back on and it chinked! It didn't normally do that, so I looked at the lid more carefully. There seemed to be a groove round it which should have had an O-ring to make a tight seal, but there was no O-ring. I looked all about for it, but no sign of an O-ring anywhere. Annoying!


Eventually, the penny dropped.

There had never been an O-ring. The airtight seal was made by a plastic part of the lid, and
I'd been trying to put the lid on upside down, getting glass to glass contact instead!

Doh! :oops:
 
This isn't exactly a misconception but just me getting carried away really. I was walking through a field taking the dogs for a walk a week or two ago when I noticed that there were 3 or 4 perfectly circular areas where the grass was short, while the rest of the field had long grass and wild plants. I got all excited thinking I'd found an urban crop circle and took a few pictures. Then it occurred to me that the week before I'd walked past the field and there'd been some horses (presumably traveller's horses) tethered up there, each tied to a separate stake in the ground by a rope. I'd guess the lengths of the ropes were about the same as the radius of my "crop circles"... :roll:
 
We demand to see the pics! :D

Anyway, a cropped circle is pretty close! 8)
 
rynner said:
We demand to see the pics! :D

Anyway, a cropped circle is pretty close! 8)

Ha ha. I was going to use that pun but I decided it was too cheesy! :D

Here they are in all their glory: It was hard to get a good shot, being so close to the ground and all.

cropcircles.jpg


(I have a feeling that location will be very familiar to a couple of board members...)
 
Rynner: Quote: There had never been an O-ring. The airtight seal was made by a plastic part of the lid, and
I'd been trying to put the lid on upside down, getting glass to glass contact instead!

Doh! Quote:


I've done that too! :lol:
 
I did a night shift last night and at some ungodly hour of the morning I was walking down the long, dimly lit "Nightingale" style ward. I walked past an old lady's bed and out of the corner of my eye I saw someone's leg, as if they were standing next to the head of her bed. I did a double take because a) I knew nobody was there, and b) because there wasn't room for anyone to be standing there as her bed was pushed right up against her locker. My heart leapt into my mouth and I thought I'd finally seen a ghost...until I remembered that the lady was an amputee and that she'd propped up her artificial leg at the side of her bed. :roll:
 
I took this photograph last night. Imagine my suprise when I found out that one of my friends is, in fact, a wizard.
smaller.jpg
 
H_James said:
I took this photograph last night. Imagine my suprise when I found out that one of my friends is, in fact, a wizard.
Certainly conjured up a neat orb there!

(Can't have been the moon, since that was at third quarter.)
 
There's road near here which appears to head off towards a pub which is about ten minutes walk away by my normal route, although I've never explored this road before, despite having lived here now for 18 months.

And there's another road near the pub which I had assumed to be the other end of the first road.

So today after lunch I decided to walk to this pub via this alternative route - I estmated it would only take five minutes longer than my usual route.

Not so!

The new road started off in the right direction, but then curved away in the wrong direction, and finally ended at a grass field.

I entered the field, expecting to find a footpath out of it in the right direction, but no.... The only other exit I found was in the wrong corner of the field, where kids had pulled back a piece of chain link fencing. At first I thought the gap was too small for my corpulent and inflexible figure, but I got through and found a narrow rugged footpath.

This led to a street on a housing estate, and finally, via two more similar streets, I made the pub. Must have taken 40 minutes, but after that little adventure I felt I'd earned a pint!

Later, at home, I checked the area on Google Earth, which covers this area in good detail, and I could trace my route quite precisely. But the exercise will teach me to be more wary of my famous 'sense of direction' in future!
 
Google Earth, whatever happened to just looking at a map?

Or even better Rynner, since you lived in the area for 18 months...just asking a local "where does that road go to?".
 
Scunnerlugzz said:
Google Earth, whatever happened to just looking at a map?
It so happens that Google Earth has better resolution here than any other map I can easily access.

Or even better Rynner, since you lived in the area for 18 months...just asking a local "where does that road go to?".
Firstly, it's quiet area, with not many people around normally.

Secondly, I didn't really need to know, as I'd already assumed I did know. :roll:

That's the point of the story - it was a mental misperception.
 
Ah, or perhaps the real point of the story was it was a misperception that technology or an inbuilt compass (and a map) could overcome the need to ask a local?

Only having a dram and getting involved, it is almost Ne'er after all ;)
 
Scunnerlugzz said:
Ah, or perhaps the real point of the story was it was a misperception that technology or an inbuilt compass (and a map) could overcome the need to ask a local?
Eh? What's that mean in English?

I was merely exploring a road I'd assumed went from A to B, only to find that it in fact went A to C instead.

I wasn't all that bothered either, as I enjoy exploring new places - I just hadn't expected to find so many new places today!

In fact, looking at the best streetmap I have, some of the roads I discovered aren't even shown - I probably need a more up to date map!
 
In English it means exactly what it reads.
Can you explain what you find difficult about that sentence? Don't worry I will type my explanation slowly and in CAPITALS if required.

You got a bit lost, and seem to have enjoyed it. No worries there.
You may find this happening more, and my simple advice was ask someone who knows.
 
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