Inversions

No, not THE Copacabana, which is a fictional nightclub in a song; but the place on the NSW Central Coast where my wife, son, mother, several cousins, and assorted relatives are having a beach holiday. i’ll be there for two days, which is enough for some sunshine; then back home.

That’s what happens when you have a job! No more endless recreation time. The trade off is worth it though, because working is a very effective method for not being poor. And being poor really sucks. Trust me, I know.
Which, as a tangent, is why it is foolish to go to university and not study a career oriented degree. Impractical degrees are only useful when there are very few people getting degrees, like 50 years ago; and when society is wealthy enough to be able to accomodate luxuries like blowing 3 years of your life on things that have no economic impact.

There’s nothing wrong with it, ethically, but it may not be wise.

Tangent 2. I work hard so that one day, I will not have to work at all. How’s that for a paradox? I work hard because I hate work and the only way out, it seems, is through. (Hate is too strong a word – let’s just say that as rewarding as work can sometimes be, I prefer to not work).

This just shows how you can create something interesting very quickly with MS Paint. I did this in about 8 minutes. I’m really starting to think that the graphical tools around these days are under-utilised. Or maybe people are doing amazing things with them that I’m just not aware of.

These photos are amazing. An opening to an underground cavern right below the street… or so it appears. A car bursting out of a wall. And others.

Presumably you have to stand at the exact right spot for the illusion to work, which means that the amount of care and preparation that has to go into pictures like this is enormous!
These are vivid, striking illusions created in real environments.

This isn’t an illusion or anything, it’s just black and white circles and ellipses, made into interesting patterns. It was a really easy picture to make using MS paint.

I created a depression test some while ago. There are plenty of others online – they’re not hard to find. well, anyway, the bottom line is I just did my own quiz and I think I’m depressed. Fortunately, work has a free counselling service with a clinical psychologist available. So I will make use of that, I think.
why am I depressed?
I think it’s lack of companionship. I’m lonely.

Muller Lyer illusion

In this illusion all four vertical lines (the straight up and down rods) are exactly the same length. The one shaped like an arrow looks smaller, while the one shaped like a stick figure person looks longer. They’re not.  I know because I created this in MS Paint myself. It took about 3 minutes to do.

a whole stack of illusions here

plus lots of interesting clip art pictures here.

My family – my wife and son – have gone away for the week and I’m here alone on saturday night. I’ve just been watching TV and surfing the net. There was a time not so long ago when I was a social animal, and would go out on saturday nights and be with people. Usually cool people.
Times change.

Now I spend a saturday evening alone with some DVDs and a computer. .

I had intended to use this site to post a collection of interesting items on paradoxes, optical illusions, and complex puzzles.

However, I don’t have time to do that because I have spent all my creative energy over the past 3 years on a non-fiction book. Other than that, I have had to work for most of that time, have a very sick wife who is also quite unpredictable, and have basically single-handedly raised our son.

So I have become very aware of what economists call “opportunity costs.”  This happens when you have limited spare time. If I spend time developing websites, I can’t also spend time writing a book. Doing one will cost me the opportunity of doing the other.

But this is currently not a themed site, it’s just a blog. I tend to blog on different sites, depending on the topic. I figure, mixing them all up doesn’t help anyone. for instance I blog about living with a bipolar wife on my blog devoted to that topic; science on a science blog; politics on a politics blog; etc. But it’s really impossible to keep so many subject areas alive when I have such a time squeeze.

What is an opportunity cost?
That’s when making a choice closes off other possibilities.

If you invest your money in a business, that’s an opportunity cost for other investments that come along.

If you take up the first job you get offered, you lose possible opportunities down the road.

If you have invites to two parties on the same night, if you go to Party A, that costs you the opportunity of attending Party B. If you attend Party B, that costs you the opportunity of going to party A.

Every decision has opportunity costs. The salutory lesson from opportunity costs is to ask, “how likely is it that an opportunity will come along in the near future?”

If I make this decision, how likely is it that I’m shutting the door to other opportunities?
Of course, opportunity cost can drive you insane. You might never marry because you’re waiting for the perfect person; you can spend your life wondering “what if” about all kinds of things.

It’s important to recognise opportunity costs but also to keep them in their place.