Still waiting on the Next Big Story Idea, so for now, I will just share with you lovely people all the really neato stuff that I have come across lately.

Let’s start off with a little animated GIF that is sure to surprise you.

Talk about an eye-popping illusion, huh? It really blew my mind when I first saw it. I was expecting that it would be one of those clips you see these days where a 2D object on a piece of paper is turned into a 3D object via some kind of augmented reality trickery.

Instead, what looks like a classic bouncing cube animation from the early days of computer graphics turns out to be a perfectly mundane real world object that just happens to have the power to mess with your mind.

Aren’t optical illusions kick-ass fun? Take this classic “black balls” illusion.

THIS IS NOT AN ANIMATED GIF

for those of you who don’t read captions, let me reiterate : the above picture is not animated in any way. All those little black balls you see blipping around the places where the lines intersect are not really there at all, and are entirely products of your sense being fooled by the graphical trick of the illusion.

Freaky, n’est-ce pas? IT can be fun to mess with your own mind.

The same goes for this pic :

No animation here either, sport!

Despite all appearances, those balls are not animated in any way, either. It looks like they are floating and bobbing in an ocean of green. But they are just sitting there. The motion you see as you scan the pic with your eyes is entirely in your mind.

Now that we’ve got your eyeballs all warmed up and ready for something truly spectacular, feast them on this amazing video clip from America’s Got Talent and a little dance clash performance group called Team iLuminate.

Now remember, this is all taking place live, on stage, in front of America and a studio audience. No CGI or anything. Just…. this.

Now that, my friends, is an act. I mean holy crapsticks. It is impressive enough in video. I can’t imagine what it is like live, happening right in front of you. They cook light and shadow, illumination and contrast, glow strips and black velvet, and made a simply breaktaking visual display out of it.

The act lags somewhat in the middle, but it is still damn impressive. The first time I watched this video and saw the Shiva arms pop up, my eyes nearly popped out of my head and bounced off the screen.

I am a big fan of spectacle for the sense if it is done right, like these folks do it, or like Blue Man Group. There’s nothing wrong at all with making something purely to look amazing. Not everything has to be a multi-layered meaning-laden narrative Dagwood sandwich.

Sometimes, you just want to make people’s eyes go “whoa…. WTF was that?”

And finally, a clip that probably will not amaze your mind, but it definitely will warm your heart and might just blow your mind as well.

This clip shows what a young make orca named Luna learned to do in his attempt to communicate with the strange creatures known as “humans”.

That’s right. In an attempt to communicate with us, Luna learned to mimic the sound of the motorboats that plied the waters around his home.

Does that not just grab your heart and blow your mind? He is trying to talk with us, so he is repeating back to us the sounds we make. The sincere and innocent desire to communicate coupled with the degree of intelligence and mental flexibility that it takes to be able to even imagine trying to communicate with us thusly, let alone actually being able to use his existing vocal apparatus to do a pretty good motorboat impression, just makes me feel like giving an orca a big hug.

Not a good idea, I presume. I can’t even swim.

I wonder what Luna thinks of his attempts? Presumably, without even meaning to, we humans make our motorboat noise right back to him, and so the most primitive form of communication has been established : that of mutual repetition.

You know, like these guys.

Trust me, it’s corny now, but that shit was quite exhilerating back in the seventies. Holy crap, the aliens have Moog synthesizers too! Awesome!

That’s all the neat stuff for now, people. Goodbye!