6492 Images, missed calls, made an offer on a condo.

I missed 3 calls from my brother in jail last night... I hope he tries calling again, when I'm home. I was out looking at condos, and at dinner with my mother. The upside is that I put in an offer on the one I saw a few weeks back on Harrison, in Hollywood. I know that Newt'd really dig the layout, and only a little work is needed. tile the bedroom, a little grout in the bathroom, and that's about it. I hope that the seller is ready to let it go.

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( pictures, fiddled with. )

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GP sent me the following -

"Someone sent this link the writers list I belong to. I found it to be pretty interesting. It deals with perception and some experiments people have done.

http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/media/sciam.html

Basically there's a one-minute video of two teams, each with 3 players. One team has white shirts and one team has black shirts. They're tossing around 2 basketballs. The subject's task is to count the number of passes made by the white team. About 35 seconds into the video, a guy dressed in a gorilla outfit enters the mix, beats his chest for about 9 seconds and then leaves.

When people do this test, the results are that 50% never see the gorilla guy. Yep, 50%. Doesn't mater who you test. Out of any group of people, 50% will concentrate so hard on watching the basketballs that they don't see anything else in the film.

The effect is called inattentional-blindness. It probably happens because (1) visual perception does not work like a camera. We "see" what our brains process, not what our eyes see. (2) heavy concentration on
one thing requires enough brain resources that there's not much left over for other tasks. (3) we tend to see what we expect to see, not what's really there.

None of this is a problem when you have lots of time, it's only a problem when you have no more than a few seconds to perceive and interpret some unusual event."

Pretty Nifty... I know that I can get tunnel vision at times.

6493 - Spammers Attack, take five!

Fifth instance of severe spambotting. This time some robo-clown from 217.27.147.184 has decided to try to comment spam two January lj entries with promises of "indian porn". (entries 6402 and 6427, to be precise)

Of course, I screen anonymous posts before releasing them, so I won't share any linkage to spambots.

Wasn't LJ_dev going to put some sort of identify-response system in to stop botting?

6494 observation on seeing the unseen.

There's no photographic evidence of people turning invisible, which if you think about it, might be more convincing than if there was.

6496 house brain bomb.

• I can see most of my apartment in warm colors like orange and cream and rust. Make the bathroom a cooler purple, or green.



• room for candles on the wall



• Perches away from candles for Newt



• lots of shelf space in general.



• a good spot for my bed



• a good spot for my computer



• tile or wood floors



• a good spot for the futon to read, watch tv, and such.



• wall hangings... maybe tapestry type gear



• thick horizontal blinds on the windows 2 1/2 inch? Durable.

I need to get the hippies to help paint my new place. (if this one doesn't work out, than the next) I want to make a place that will be as comfortable as possible for me. I can see my friends suffering from "little kid syndrome" because everything will be built on Scotto-scale. Chairs will be higher, allow my feet to be flat on the floor. Plates and silverware are already sort of "From the Beanstalk" collection. it'll be swell to be able to just make someplace my own, without having to be beholden to a landlord. Condo-folk might forbid any outside Scotto-weirdness, but inside, it'll be all mine.

6498 I think I'll go out in the cool and make myself warm.

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Classic solitaire with pinup girls on the cards.

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It's 9:30, I'm off call now. I can salvage a chunk of this evening. I'm going to take a walk in the brisk night air. (Currently: 56º)

I'll say hi to any friendly coffee drinks I see for you, dear journal.

Maybe an Irish coffee, even.

Until later... Next Scotto-time, same Scotto-channel.

6499 Back from walkies

And a lovely walk it was, too. I hoofed it up to Cheeburger Cheeburger, and got a big honkin' portobello melt with a chocolate milkshake. I'm confident that I've gone well over my points with those. After, I walked to kilwins to pick up a little treat for later, (three turtles.. going to be goo-od! For those keeping score: Turtle: Cashew; Dark (105 cal/6.5 g fat/2 g fiber/10.5 g carbs) 2 points each.)

There was a fun couple next to me, and one of the girls was fretting... in a fudge shop, and she gave up chocolate for Lent... ah well. Only 38 more days, right? Have some Maple fudge!

It amazed me how many people were dressed for a New York winter out and about... bundled up in black padded leather jackets...While I'm walking around in a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and khakis. The upper 50s is not the arctic circle, but there are so many "tropical flowers" down here.

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Playing with Time video clips all are worth watching.

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Matchstick rockets are made by combining a paper match, a straight-pin, a paper clip and a little tinfoil, transforming these ordinary household items into a streaking, flaming jet of hot gases and eye-blinding fun!