A design student made a battered old Skoda “disappear” by painting it to merge with the surrounding car park.

Sara Watson, who is studying drawing at the University of Central Lancashire (Uclan), took three weeks to transform the car’s appearance.

She created the illusion in the car park outside her studio at Uclan’s Hanover Building in Preston.

The car is now being used for advertising by the local recycling firm that donated the vehicle.

‘Just amazing’

Ms Watson, a second year student, said: “I was experimenting with the whole concept of illusion but needed something a bit more physical to make a real impact.”

She was given the Skoda Fabia from the breaker’s yard at local firm Recycling Lives.

Owner Steve Jackson described her work as “amazing”.

“When I first saw the photos I was convinced it was something which had been done on the computer,” said Mr Jackson.

“But when you look more closely you see the effort and attention to detail she has put into it. It is just amazing.”

Jeffkrulik says:

From the voluminous shelves of the National Archives, here are vintage Swine Flu PSAs from 1976.
For those who don’t remember the great swine flu scare, here’s a website I just googled.

DrO says: “I wanted to point out to you that some people on LiveJournal came up with an idea of inserting dry spaghetti into hot dogs, then boiling it, and coming out with amusing culinary constructs that kids seem to love.”

Check out the link here.

Blogger Signaltheorist decided to evaluate the efficiency of the Roomba by tracking its movements:

I set up a photo camera in my room, turned out all the lights and took a long-exposure shot of my roomba doing it’s thing for about 30 minutes. The result is a picture that shows the path of the roomba through it’s cleaning cycle, it looks like a flight map or something. It really hits every spot!

Check out the link here.

In baseball, a curveball creates a physical effect and a perceptual puzzle. The physical effect (the curve) arises because the ball’s rotation leads to a deflection in the ball’s path. The perceptual puzzle arises because the deflection is actually gradual but is often perceived as an abrupt change in direction (the break). Our illusions suggest that the perceived “break” may be caused by the transition from the central visual system to the peripheral visual system. Like a curveball, the spinning disks in the illusions appear to abruptly change direction when an observer switches from foveal to peripheral viewing.

Check out the link here.