Chess Pieces Illusion

One set of white chess pieces and the other black. The difference is easy to see. Right? Well believe it or not, only the background surrounding the two set of pieces is different. The pieces themselves are identical. Yep, that's right. They are exactly the same shades of white and gray.



This illusion was created by Barton L. Anderson and Jonathan Winawer and published in Nature, 434 in 2005, Image segmentation and lightness.

Here is a nifty video which allows you to see that they are in fact the same.

Aurora Australis From Space

Cool video of the Aurora Australis created from various images and videos taken from the International Space Station.



NASA ISS : Aurora Australis from space from FullWerks on Vimeo.

Is it racist to not want to judge by race?

Last month the Supreme Court, in a 6-2 decision, upheld a Michigan Constitutional amendment banning the use of race as a factor in college admissions. It was a controversial decision which sparked a great deal of debate among both opponents and supporters of affirmative action.

One of these debates occurred on Fox News Sunday between Jennifer Gratz and Shanta Driver. I had seen the two present their views before and both pretty much stuck to their normal scripts, at least until the very end when Driver dropped a bombshell by saying "this is a racist decision that takes us back to an era of states rights where white majorities can disenfranchise minority communities and now prevent us from getting higher education."

So, if I understand correctly, Driver believes that the members of the Supreme Court who voted to allow the amendment to stand are essentially being racist because they are not in favor of discriminating on the basis of race.

You might think that perhaps Ms. Driver let her emotions get the better of her during the interview and that she doesn't really think that it was a "racist decision"...except that there is a very long quote of her responding to the decision on BAMN (By All Means Necessary) which starts by saying "Today's Supreme Court decision upholding the ban on affirmative action in Michigan is a racist decision."

Jennifer Gratz gave what I thought was a perfect response to Driver's cheap tactics saying "I think it is unbelievable that someone would sit here today and say prohibiting racial discrimination is a racist decision, I think that that tells us where the level of discourse is today. Look, good people can disagree. But we can’t have name-calling and baiting like this.” Couldn't have said it better.

Star Wars vs Harry Potter

And now we come to what may very well be the greatest, most epic battle of our time.



Created by YouTube user RackaRacka, this short film has it all. Cool effects, good acting, awesome choreography and a simple yet effective plot which keeps you on the edge of your seat. These young amateur film makers get the gold star.

IRS seizes tax refunds of children to pay dead parents debt.

This latest example of government overreach is just crazy.  According to Marc Fisher of the Washington Post, hundreds of thousands of taxpayers have had their tax refunds withheld to satisfy a debt owed to the government resulting from Social Security overpayments. The debts in question are more than 10 years old and are the result of mistakes made by the Social Security Administration. And here's the real kicker, often the tax refunds were confiscated from the children of the individuals who actually received the overpayments but have since died. As far fetched as it sounds, the Social Security Administration has somehow come to the conclusion that it is perfectly fine to go through old records, dig up ambiguous debts and hold lineal descendants responsible for them.

It seems these aggressive debt collection efforts started three years ago though according to Fisher, no one wants to take responsibility for it. What is known is that a single sentence included in the 2008 Farm Bill removed the 10-year statute of limitations on the collection of government debt. What this has to do with farming I have no idea but here is the offending section: SEC. 14219. ELIMINATION OF STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS APPLICABLE TO COLLECTION OF DEBT BY ADMINISTRATIVE OFFSET. (a) Elimination.--Section 3716(e) of title 31, United States Code, is amended to read as follows: ``(e)(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, regulation, or administrative limitation, no limitation on the period within which an offset may be initiated or taken pursuant to this section shall be effective.  As a side note, this section is a total of 63 words. The farm bill itself is 276,602 words long. This alone speaks volumes about how confusingly dysfunctional government has become.

The removal of the 10 year statue of limitation explains how Social Security is now able to try and collect on old overpayments but how do they justify holding the children of the recipients responsible? According to the article, Social Security officials say that if children indirectly received assistance from public dollars paid to the parent, the children's money can be taken no matter how long ago the overpayment occurred. This seems pretty flimsy to me. For one, how would they know if the children received any benefit from the overpayments. Maybe they had lousy parents that went to the casinos every weekend or blew it at the local bar. There is no way to know. Also, there is a reason why contracts with minors are unenforceable. It's because as a society we believe they lack the capacity to fully understand what they would be agreeing to due to their age. It seems to me the same principle would apply here. 

Fisher reported that over the past 3 years the Treasury Department has collected $424 million in debts that were more than 10 years old. He points out that most people who have tried to appeal the confiscation were either denied or gave up after enduring long hours on hold. Still, it is amazing to me that it took this long for someone from the media to discover and report about this. Since Fisher's article was published last week, there has been a huge backlash which has prompted members of congress to address the issue. As a result, the Social Security Administration is currently suspending the program. But there are still unanswered questions and I'm sure there will be some fallout. 

Social Security, Treasury target taxpayers for their parents’ decades-old debts

No good deed goes unpunished

Last month, Virginia Beach middle-schooler Adrionna Harris saw a boy at school cutting his arm with a razor blade. She convinced him that he shouldn't be doing it, took the razor away and threw it in the trash can. The next day she told a teacher what had happened. But instead of applauding her efforts, school administrators at the Bayside Middle School decided to give her a 10 day suspension with a recommendation of expulsion.

It seems the decision was the result of the school's zero tolerance policy which states that a student in possession of "any weapon...shall automatically be recommended for long-term suspension or expulsion." Never mind that she only had possession of the small razor blade for the brief moment it took her to throw it in the trash. Never mind that she was trying to stop a friend from harming himself. What's important, at least from the school systems point of view, is that they follow their ridiculous zero tolerance policy in the most draconian way without any thought given to the context of the situation.

Frustratingly, Adrionna's mother stated that she wasn't getting any sort of response from the school to her calls until she got the press involved. "It is amazing. They are listening to us now … she should be back in school tomorrow and that would be fair,” said Rachael Harris." Thanks to pressure from the press and social media, Adrionna's suspension hearing was held the next day and ultimately her suspension was dropped and the incident cleared from her record.


http://wavy.com/2014/03/19/student-suspended-for-taking-razor-from-self-harming-classmate/

Johannes Stoetter: Parrot

It would be easy to look at the photo above and think, 'that's a nice picture of a parrot, but it's not really all that interesting.' But if prompted to look again you might find upon a more scrutinizing investigation that it is actually a woman positioned and painted in such a way as to look like a parrot.

This amazing illusion is the latest work of artist Johannes Stoetter. The Italian artist is a former body-painting world champion (didn't know there was such a thing) and has amassed a great number of images including one that was trending last year of five women painted to look like a frog.

Anti-Gun Hysteria in Schools

Last year I sarcastically blogged about a boy being suspended from elementary school after fashioning his hand into a gun during a game of cops and robbers. Of course, this wasn't the first nor the last incident of school officials making irrational decisions regarding even the most benign references to guns:

• Pop Tart Pistol - Last year in Maryland, seven year old Joshua was suspended from Park Elementary School for two days for allegedly chewing a pop tart into the shape of a pistol and dangerously waiving it around. The school later sent the students home with a letter informing parents of the incident and citing the violated code of conduct. The letter also told parents that they should talk with their kids and help them express their feelings if they were troubled by the incident. It also said that the school counselor would be available if needed.

• Pencil Pistol - In Virginia, two second graders were suspended from a Suffolk elementary school for pointing pencils at each other and making shooting noises. A school spokesperson said "A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made." No really, she actually said that.

• Talking About Nerf Gun - In Washington, six year old Noah Aguirre was suspended for talking about guns. According to his father, the guns his son was talking about were Nerf guns they had recently purchases. The suspension was later overturned and cleared from his record.

• Cowboy Cap Gun - A kindergartner wet his pants after a two hour interrogation by school officials at Dowell Elementary School for showing another student on the bus his cowboy-style cap gun. Along with the interrogation, the five year old was given a ten day suspension. The mother said the principal told her that if the cap gun had been loaded with caps, it would have been considered an explosive and the police would have been involved.

• Quarter Size Lego Gun - A Massachusetts kindergartner was forced to apologize to the bus driver, serve detention and threatened with suspension after he was found with a Lego toy gun the about the size of a quarter.

• Another Hand Gun  - School officials at a North Carolina school levied a one day suspension on a five year old boy after he made a gun gesture with his hand on the playground.

• Airsoft Outside of School - Three seventh graders were given long-term suspensions from a Virginia Beach elementary school after shooting airsoft guns near a bus stop. School officials state that there was a student hit by a pellet only 10 feet from the bus stop which implies that this was enough to give them jurisdiction on the matter. The thing is, Aiden, one of the boys involved, lives only 70 yards from the bus stop. According to the boys, they never left his yard.

• Clear Plastic Toy Gun - Six year old Naomi McKinney was expelled from a South Carolina elementary school for bringing her brother's clear plastic toy gun to school. School officials considered her such a threat that they even sent a letter to her parents that if she’s caught on school grounds she’ll be “subject to the criminal charge of trespassing.”

• Hello Kitty Bubble Gun - In Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, a five year old girl was suspended for two days after making what the school called a "terrorist threat." Allegedly she told another little girl that they would shoot each other with her pink "Hello Kitty" bubble gun (which she didn't have with her at the time).

• And Another Hand Gun - The latest incident happened a couple of weeks ago in Columbus, Ohio. Ten year old Nathan Entingh was suspended for three days from Denvonishe Alternative Elementary School after making his hand into the shape of a gun, pointing it at another student and saying "bang."

These are just a sampling of the numerous stories involving innocent children being punished for acting like children. Throughout the nation schools have implemented zero tolerance policies which have become ever more draconian in both the way they are written and carried out. I find it difficult to understand how school officials can be so disconnected from the rest of the country when it comes to these sort of things. Just read the comments section below the articles and you'll find they are overwhelmingly condemned.

Administrators respond to reporters as if they are reading from a common playbook. It goes something like "due to confidentiality issues, we cannot comment on the specifics of the matter but we want to emphasize that student safety and security is of the utmost importance to us." I would love for someone to explain to me how this is a matter of safety. What line of thinking concludes that children playing cops and robbers could somehow put students in harms way? As far as I know, no child has ever been injured by hands, paper or pop tarts that have been shaped into guns.

The use of common sense tells us that there must be something more happening here than a desire to keep kids safe. In actuality, this seems to be an effort by some schools to indoctrinate children at a young age to view anything that even remotely relates to a gun as being evil. It is an ideology that some on the far left hold that any sort of reference to firearms is somehow directly connected to the atrocities of Columbine or Sandy Hook.

No one would disagree with the desire to keeps children safe in school. What people are angry about is the attempt by some schools to force their views onto their students even when it leaves rational decision making behind. Parents do not send their kids to school so that they can be indoctrinated with the teacher's or administrator's ideology. They send their kids to school to learn about reading, writing and arithmetic. I think it's well past time they get back to that.