I don't know his name but his face sure rings a bell...face blindness tests

A tweet or two and the requisite post on BoingBoing about Oliver Sax and his prosopagnosia—or "face blindness" pointed me to the faceblind.org testing site to see if I was good at recognizing faces or not. I think I am pretty good at recognizing people, it is the names that I have a hard time with.

The test confirmed by suspicion. I am pretty good at recognizing faces. For the unfamiliar faces test the results are below:



With a 93% vs. an average of 80% or an even lower 65% which might indicate someone has some face blindness. The test faces were creepy and generic. I guess that is on purpose to remove other cues.

For the famous faces test, the results are below:

I got 97% correct, vs. an average of 85% or even 50% indicating some face recognition difficulties.

I don't know his name but his face sure rings a bell...

Snow drops herald spring

Spotted these snow drops blooming in the yard. Spring must be around the corner.

Fortune Cookies dispense problem solving and optimization advice.

"A problem clearly stated is a problem half solved" certainly captures the need to clearly set up a problem and how the work to do that can be a significant but useful part of the solution process.

On the other hand "Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment" fails to capture that in an optimization you might find a local maximum using such a technique and fail to globally optimize the whole system.

This week's fortune cookies offered or inspired surprising insight for a slip of paper inside a cookie.

Snowy Day on the Shellpot Creek

Snow pillows are back on Shellpot Creek.

The snow amounted to 3.5 inches by my measurement at the driveway a few feet from the garage.  

Migrating Birds

Can you see the long line of migrating birds in a "V" flying across this picture? I think that direction is roughly west. There was another line just as long preceding this one. Taken on full digital zoom with my definitely not crappy iPhone. Those of you that remember my heroic efforts with my previous phone, the crappy Treo camera will recall my frustration with picture taking then. Now it is a pleasure.

T-shirt: How to explain your research at a party.

My new t-shirt reward for renewing my subscription to Science arrived. I wore it proudly yesterday.

How to explain your research at a party.

I have probably used all of these techniques at one point. Diagram, Lecture, Demonstration, Embellishment, Puppet Show, Interpretive Dance.

One might have just as easily titled this "the six stages of increasing desperation when explaining your research at a party."

First picture of Shellpot Creek with the new iPhone.

The creek is flowing but there is still ice and snow around.