where the cursor meets the letter
Oh the colorful joy when a text cursor crosses a letter line! Have you noticed this when you type? The effect seems most prominent when crossing the cursor with a steeply sloping line. Intentional effect – or accidental phenomenon?
rim reflection
I thought this was a chalk outline on the pavement until it became evident this was light – a halo coming from the Jeep rim. There’s a lot of shiny chrome going on in there – but since most of the geometry is curved, the complex reflections are lost in the abundant daylight. It is … Read more
Eichler’s all around
A weekend walk around an Eichler neighborhood in Grenada Hills… Some homes beautifully restored. Some badly decayed. Others restyled. Kind of mind blowing.
fork focus
The world’s most ubiquitous solar concentrator.
eye experiments
Fun sightings for the New Year: 1. Ping pong eyes: Ping pong is all the rage these days. That means we have more balls to recycle after they’ve lost their bounce. It’s just fun to walk around the neighborhood with these on. They provide a good intro to the Ganzfeld effect (discussed previously) – and they … Read more
almost something on the winter solstice
What was supposed to happen: The solstice sun would set directly between two of the Channel Islands, San Miguel and Santa Rosa, making for a beautiful ‘accidental’ observation. Using Google maps and satellite imaging, I calculated that if I were to stand on Rincon Beach in Carpenteria, I would be aligned to see this solar … Read more
feynman on light
Richard Feynman gets electromagnetic…
rods and cones – as they see it!
Here’s an attempt to graphically illustrate the unique sense capacity of rod and cone cells in our retina. Image 7 isolates cone cells and shows how their primary response is to color and detail information in the center of our vision. Image 8 show how rod cells respond to light values and object boundaries in … Read more
car light (special guest photos!)
I’m happy to say this my first blog post using guest photos! Nathaniel Kean and Michael Knopoff (colleagues at Montalba Architects) submitted these photos of a light show that appeared on a wall in the office. Luckily, this phenomenon captured more of their attention than the meeting they were in – and they were able to … Read more
flight light
Flying north to Oregon in the late evening with the overhead lights off, the cabin glowed indirectly from the horizontal sun. An accidental Ronchamp! Wide, diffuse glow from small apertures is a wonderful thing.







