Green Oasis

A wonderful childhood memory, painful to watch as an adult, create a paper Transformer.

Once you’ve settled the great toilet-paper debate (over not under… unless you have pets or small children), you can move on to a more civilized TP arrangement.

Go fly a plane today!

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings,
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
(High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.)

This spinning silhouette optical illusion is pretty funky. Check it out first, then come back. I’ll wait.

…

For me, she spun clockwise first. I wonder if this depends on a person’s handedness. I tried really hard to get her to change directions by convincing myself that the outstretched arm was her left. I couldn’t get my mind to make the flip that way. She stubbornly insisted on spinning clockwise.

I changed her direction by staring at the shadow of her foot. I have to really focus on the shadow without allowing my peripheral awareness to see the black silhouette. All of a sudden, she’s spinning the opposite direction!

Her apparent direction of spin has some persistence. I can look away for about five seconds and she’s still spinning counter-clockwise when I look back. Too much longer and she goes back to clockwise rotation.

Sometimes her movement stutters back and forth as my mind struggles to reconcile her ambiguity.

Fun.