|
|
|
-
Invisible ink is normally associated with childhood pranks and recess tricks. But when did it become a matter for the CIA? In an effort to become unclassified, documents from World War I written with invisible ink outlining various treatises – such as the formula for invisible ink and invisible photography – are now the subject of litigation. Well, classify this:
Write your own invisible message using lemon juice heated with a little water. After writing on a piece of paper spread a little iodine over the writing. Think you're clever? Well, drop us a line.
- “In the early days of the process of identification,
the identity of a person was established through his signature .
The invention of photography was a turning point in the history of this process. It is no less
significant for criminology than the invention of the printing press is for literature. Photography
made it possible for the first time to preserve permanent and unmistakable traces of a human
being.”
– Walter Benjamin, The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire, 1938
- Next time you're thinking about streaking in the Loop
or expressing your gregarious and righteous self, be aware that you have a voyeur: Big Brother is watching.
The public eye is sharper than ever before with the installation of several more security cameras in the Loop
area of downtown Chicago. There are a good number of cameras functioning, divided into the usage
categories of government, private, traffic and public domain. At least 10 exist solely for the purpose of monitoring traffic intersections. New York artist
Dennis Beaubois employs theatrics to
address the growing concern of surveillance on the streets of his home city. His art interacts with
the cameras through the use of posters directed towards the cameras to communicate his concerns of
identity and privacy.
- Scientists in Britain are lobbying to build the world's
most powerful matterscope. Unlike its archaic microscope counterpart,
a matterscope
bounces around neutrons that make the waves needed to create an image of individual atoms. The
neutrons hurdle down a concrete tunnel one kilometer in length to gain the necessary speed. At $1.7
billion per scope, they better see something.
- The next time the power goes out in the middle of the night and nature calls,
rest assured that all public rooms such as bathrooms are
marked with Braille, as required by law for public buildings. Braille illiterate, are ya?
Just don't have an accident.
-
The Talking Book Center provides the free
loan of recorded and Braille books and magazines, music scores in Braille and as well as recorded
materials for residents of Chicago who are unable or have difficulty reading standard print materials
because of visual or physical impairment.
- Looking to increase security or have a little spying to do? Check out Chicago Spies and find
products ranging from pepper spray to hidden cameras. It's your
all-in-one spy shop depot.
- Ever wish you could
look through people's
clothes walking down the street? X-rays have a higher frequency wave than visible light, which is
why we don't see it during our daily lives. They can penetrate through skin and tissue – but not denser
objects like bones and metal – making what lies beneath visible without peeling off our skin.
Conventional photographic film is used because it causes the same chemical process as visible light.
Doctors only use the negatives from the film to view our bones and organs.
- You're leaving the house and you're through the door when a little nagging voice
calls out, “Did you turn the coffee pot off?” Shit! No! Umm … maybe! Rushing upstairs, you prove that
you turned it off. Oh, no! Now where are your keys?
In only a few years, the Boston-based company Micro Optical
will place their newly developed memory glasses on the market. The glasses contain a miniature television
that transmits prerecorded messages that flash at you throughout the day. The images zoom at your eyes at
180 th of a second, a speed not consciously detectable. But the company claims that the glasses will
improve memory by 50 percent. So, where are your keys now?
- Citizens of Alaska, don't expect to see sunshine for the
next few weeks. The sun officially went down November 18th
and won't appear again ‘til January 23rd.
- Dust mites, whose microscopic size allows
them to feed on dead skin while remaining undetectable to the human eye, thrive in pillows and sheets.
If you need an incentive to do laundry this week, visualize this microscopic meal while falling asleep
as a mental exercise.
- The left and right retinas of babies are not sufficiently developed enough to
work together until about four months of age. Until that time, babies, like dogs, need high contrast images
to make visual sense of their surroundings. Black and white patterns are said to work best.
- The Chicago Harbor Lighthouse,
the first lighthouse built on Lake Michigan, dates back to 1832 and is still functioning, but not open to
the public.
- In 1972, Harmony Wonder created a cartoon television series on a low budget.
The Inviso-Team was
composed of five superheroes that were never seen on screen, so they never had to been drawn. Later in
the series, the Team developed the power to walk through solid matter, allowing the animation of doors
opening and closing to be eliminated. But we're not sure the series even existed. E-mail the guy at the above link and ask him. Who knows? It may just be his attempt to justify his existence.
- A German restaurant chain in Berlin and Cologne, Unsicht-Bar (achtung: this page is in German), serves meals that
are concealed from patrons' view. All customers
are blindfolded and forced to focus on their other senses while eating. The concept was created
by the Organization of the Blind and People with Poor Eyesight. More than two-thirds of the staff is
visually impaired.
- Astigmatism is defined as an uneven curvature of the eyeball's front surface, or
cornea. Eyeballs are often assumed to be round like baseballs, but many eyes are actually more akin
to footballs in shape. It is this oblong shape that can cause distorted vision in astigmatic eyeballs.
- In 1933, Ralph Wiley,
a college student working as an equipment washer
in the Dow Chemical Laboratory, wasn't able to scrub off debris on a piece of glassware. What he
actually discovered in the debris was a Saran film. The product of a chemical reaction, Saran films
were found to seal out moisture and air and eventually were used to create Saran Wrap.
|
| |
