Young David

I found this great optical illusion on “Mighty Optical Illusions“. What’s interesting about this one is what you see reflects your own particular culture and environment:

A “Psychological” Optical Illusion: This one has been circulating the net lately, so it would be shame if I didn’t share it with you guys as well. What is the story behind the picture below? The influence of culture and environment can have an effect on our visual perception - believe it or not. This theory was first explored by Robert Laws, a Scottish missionary working in Africa during the late 1800’s. Take a look at the picture below - what you see will largely depend on where you live in the world. After that you have examined the picture, scroll below for a more detailed explanation.

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If you’re one of those Harry Potter fans now suffering from post-Potter depression in the wake of the release of the final book, and your subsequent night-long reading spree, you’ll be relieved to know that it doesn’t have to be over…

Welcome to the world of Harry Potter fan fiction!

Fan Fiction is defined as derivative works of fiction, from short stories to full-length books, created by independent authors, featuring characters and settings from the original story. Before you scoff at “home-made Harry Potter“, consider the following:

• There are over 42,000 fan written stories on www.harrypotterfanfiction.com.
• J.K. Rowling has endorsed fan-created derivative works of the Harry Potter stories, on the provisio that they be non-commercial, and of a non-sexually-explicit nature. (To avoid exploitation of fans, especially younger ones).
• One fanfic author has been contracted to write for Random House Publishing, following the online success of her (originally in spanish) fanfic novel, Harry Potter and the Decline of the High Elves.

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I found this image on creativebinge. A funny way of pointing out that facebook is currently populated mainly by the younger generation (my mom is an exception here - she’s on facebook, and she’s got a blog!)

I found this post on Craig Box’s blog today, dealing with GreaseMonkey scripts. What I found really interesting was the GreaseMonkey script for eliminating that annoying “blurred text” effect on ExpertsExchange.com.

I stumbled across “Zona Heroes“, a french (?) site dealing with one of my favourite TV shows. I have no clue what’s written on the site, but the following images grabbed my attention:

My wife & I have been watching “Grey’s Anatomy“. Throughout the first season, I’ve been telling her how much “Izzie” (Katherine Heigl) looks a lot like local talent, Charlize Theron. Today, I found some evidence! Ha!

By far the most popular thread on my blog a post is “Millenium Leisure International - A bit fishy?“, questioning the legitimacy of what was then called Millenium Leisure International (MLI), and is now called Lifestyle Membership Management (LMM).

At time of writing, there are 178 comments on the post, the majority of them negative. There are the odd positive comments, which to my mind, sound strangely similar to each other. (Each mention something called a “Negatron”?)

Anyway, I though I’d stick this post up to help web-searchers to find the new name (LMM).

Having just got meself a new Nokia N-70, I stumbled across this page, which included some handy tips I didn’t know

I was invited to attend a presentation for Millenium Leisure International. I wasn’t given much in the line of details, just “It’s not a pyramid scheme, go see the presentation”. Initially, I was game, until I heard some of the word on the street, about fraud, investigation, etc.

A quick SA google retrieved the following results:

• IOL: Reserve Bank probes alleged pyramid scheme
• IOL: Plan dupes investors, quick returns promised

If ABSA has frozen their bank account, and the Reserve Bank and the SAPS are investigating them, then I don’t want anything to do with it. From what I can tell from the IOL reports (I haven’t seen the presentation, so I can’t say for sure), whether it’s classified as a pyramid scheme or not, your return on investment is based on how many of your friends you can drag along and sign up.

I don’t do that to my friends.