Mighty Optical Illusions » Toys

Shady Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:47:23 +0000

Those of you following my personal life will find it informational that me and my woman have arrived safely, back from NYC yesterday. I will talk more about my Manhattan experience in following days, but I can’t stop from feeling small again, now that I have arrived back home. New York is truly what metropolis stands for. Experiencing the atmosphere, and city’s flow – enables you quickly to perceive you are in the center of world’s action. First day we arrived, before I knew it – we were spontaneously picked of the street to take part in the Late Show with David Letterman (as audience, of course). You can watch the episode with Paul Schaffer, and maybe even spot me in the back-right section, wearing a striped white-blue sweater. We even got ourselves Paul Schaffer’s book at the end!

But let’s get back to illusions for now… I found this one on The Instructables. There you can find some instructions how to DIY this illusion yourself. Basically, it involves four different shades of blue that border each other. When viewed from left to right, the shades go from lightest to darkest. The illusion comes into play when an object is placed along the borders of each successive shade. Something strange occurs with our perception of the obvious difference in shades – neighboring shades appear to be precisely the same! Jump inside this article, to see the original pattern.

Now remove those pesky pencils away from the bluish pattern. How many colors do you see? I can assure you that both patterns are exactly the same! There is a video on YouTube called “Shady Optical Illusion” that shows you the effect in reverse. Be sure to check it out!

Find The Vintage Faults

Vurdlak — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:32:43 +0000

Find the fault in the above picture

It’s time again to plaaay “Spot The Object” quiz! The winner of this fabulous competition wins an exclusive all-included trip to Bahamas at one of the world’s biggest cruisers. Sponsored by Sir Lie-a-lot!

Nah, am just messing with you (like you wouldn’t figure it out). So once again we have few vintage cards for you to play with. There are 5 of them, and each one includes at least one logical mistake. Can you spot all of the faults, in all of these game cards? First one is placed on the right, while the others can be found below inside our small gallery. Normally, I would’ve included one of these per article, but since I find them so easy to solve I’ve included all of them.

If my memory servers me well, we’ve concluded that these were very popular back in the old days when our grandfathers were young. Perhaps not as precious as all those vintage baseball cards, but still valuable. While you are reading this I should already be in NYC for a week, and hopefully drinking cocktails and enjoying my 7th day in Big Apple. Why I’m writing all this in such a way, it’s because I wrote this article on the last day of September and set it to auto-appear today.

I just hope I haven’t jinxed myself revealing all this… If someone has a quick thought what else to see while I’m still on Manhattan, now is the time to comment! I’ll still be able to follow this site and approve content. Now, don’t forget the gallery below. Logging out. Aurevoir!

Few more examples for you to play with:

Empire’s Cryptic Canvas Illusion

Vurdlak — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:19:12 +0000

Another exam is upon me tomorrow, so rest of the day means more studying for me. To keep you occupied until tomorrow, check this new Cryptic Canvas game, Empire has launched. This is a time-wasting movie game, involving a painting that contains 50 movie references. It’s a nod to a painting that was put out a few years ago, containing famous rock bands – Virgin’s 75 Bands. The only clue Empire gives is that the movies hidden in the painting are from the last 20 years. I’m not going to allow more than 2 answers per comment, for the sake of allowing the rest of you to spend some time going through this. I’m sure that within a day you can check the comments below to find all 50 of the movies. If you have a feeling you already saw something like this, you’re right – M&M posted their 50 Dark movies on this site, Absolut released their own version where you have to find 82 vodka bottles, Lonely Plantet hid 45 cities in their piece, and Lovefilm managed to squeeze more than 100 movies in their poster (2 x times). To start this game, I’ll point out “No country for old men” – I believe the traffic sign with two old people not allowed is the one referencing this movie. Now I just need to find out what Empire as a company is all about?

50 Hidden Movies In Empire’s Cryptic Canvas

What’s Next…? Optical Illusion Furniture!

Vurdlak — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:06:00 +0000

Now here’s something you don’t see every day. Did you know that furniture could hold “optical illusion” characteristics as well? Sure thing, we had illusionary bottle holders, and all kind of designer games like Tic-Tac-Toe n’ stuff, but I don’t recall actual user-friendly furniture that would trick the eye?! Closest thing I can remember were all those illusion painted floors and walls. Well, this time I found some quite amazing everyday-life objects you use repeatedly. Check this little table! Doesn’t it look like it’s levitating? More surprises, including additional tables, stools, rugs… we even included Water faucets made of glass! Now hurry and find your favorite. I like first table the most, but the “Magic Faucets” look most realistic. Do you share my view? Thanks for visiting our website repeatedly. More awesome stuff will be published soon!

Love Ambigram Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:29:00 +0000

Got this item through an email message. Not much to be said about it. If you open the article, you’ll see another photo that explains the illusion. It’s really simple! An ambigram, AKA an inversion or flipscript is a graphical figure that spells out a word, not only in its form as presented, but also in another direction or orientation. Text can consist of a few words, and the text spelled out in the other direction or orientation is often the same, but can also be different. Now to give you all some short history lesson! (I copy pasted this from Wikipedia) – The term “ambigram” was first used to mean “ambiguous anagram” by Judith E. Bagai, a former editor of The Enigma, the official organ of The National Puzzlers’ League. According to John Langdon, ambigrams were independently invented by himself and by Scott Kim in the 1970s. Kim used the name Inversions as the title of his first collection in 1981. I have linked some words in this text with appropriate ambigram examples. Check them if you wish!

Shahar Peleg’s – Bottle Holder Illusion

Vurdlak — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 06:18:00 +0000

Remember Shahar Peleg, a multi-disciplined designer who runs Peleg Design that produced our recent Mirror Tic Tac Toe Illusion? Well, this time he produced some optical illusion bottle holders that look amazingly unreal. If you remember, few years ago (or maybe months), we already posted similar (if not the same) photo which resulted a pretty nice debate. Well, this article is a must have. Shame it isn’t available where I live. At least it would give me a nice conversation topic when my friends visit. When you jump inside the article, you can see another photo, and high-res close up of this illusionary object. Did you understand how it works? Answer is more than simple!

Shahar Peleg’s – Mirror Tic Tac Toe Illusion

Vurdlak — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:10:00 +0000

Now this one is eye-candy! One of the first games I ever learned to play as a child was Tic Tac Toe. We call this game differently here in Croatia, but if you translated the meaning literally, it would be “Crosses and Circles“. Mirror Tic Tac Toe by Peleg Design is a rad little optical illusion board game with half O’s and X’s that only are complete when put in play. I’m not exactly sure weather you see the O’s and X’s correctly if you look at the board under different, more extreme angle, but Sahar Peleg surely created very interesting and innovative approach to this game.

Shahar Peleg is a multi-disciplined designer, who designs, develops and produces commercial products in small quantities. Shahar designs every-day objects with additional values which give them a fresh character. His experimentation with optical illusions and “magic” result in smart and surprising products that challenge the spectator to take a closer, more detailed look. His products are characterized by minimalist form and with the use of ordinary materials, usually produced in “low tech” production processes and at times even handmade.

Chain Wine Bottle Holder Illusion

Vurdlak — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:14:00 +0000

Here and there, a piece of furniture or something useful takes a shape of optical illusion. We had an interesting idea for a lamp recently, and this time I bring you something completely original. Wine lovers will simply adore this. This bottle holder is made from chain that gives an impression it’s hanging from a flying bottle. Laws of physics are intuitive for us, and we know this can’t be true, but still it makes us think. Where is the solution? Its easy, and I bet all of you instinctively understand this. Still, awesome effect, don’t you think?

Door Hang Ambigram

Vurdlak — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:02:00 +0000

Funny thing happened today! I had a meeting regarding a company I’m registering. Me and my friend had an appointment with some well known lawyer, and all of the sudden – my friend farted! At least I thought he did… Boy was I embarrassed. You know the situation when something happens to someone other (even on TV) and you feel embarrassed for him? Well eventually he forgot to turn of his cellphone, that had that silly fart ring tone. You can get it for free (sorry, only works for US visitors), but I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t want this to happen to you :) Also, go and check our previous optical illusion, Mosquito ring tone – parent’s cant hear it!

Concerning today’s magic trick, here is a door hang also known as Magic Card Trick (am not sure why), but can be bought in a regular magic shop right next to shelf where magic wands stand :) Jose Maliel came across this come in – go away ambigram, just like the one I posted earlier. You can print it out, cut it, and then hang on your doors. Like you did with Necromancer or that iPhone cut-out. Funny thing, do you agree? Notice how the meaning changes if you flip the card for 180 degrees…

Anaglyph 3D Photos Illusion

Vurdlak — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 01:11:00 +0000

Eddy from Portugal took his time, and created these some cool Anaglyph images. If you don’t know what Anaglyph images are, imagine stereoscopic photos you can see in Stereograms section, only anaglyphs fit inside only one picture, instead of two (however, still two or more photos are fused into single one). To view these, you’ll need 3D glasses (those red/cyan ones), I’m sure almost everybody has them, lying somewhere around their house. If not, you can get them for 1$ or so on Amazon, or probably better – borrow them from your friend, or buy with some magazine. Here’s what Eddy wrote about his submission: “This is my first anaglyph test with only one webcam ;) Anaglyph images are used to provide a stereoscopic 3d effect, a very powerful brain trick illusion! I hope u like it… need 3d glasses red/cyan to view!!” The result should be something like 3D Dino illusion.