Tuesday, April 08, 2008

The Doors of Perception (and loose panes)

If you read Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, you'll know that he uses one of those diagrams in the introduction that can be looked at in two ways (it's called a Necker cube apparently and it looks like this...



So far so good? I mean you can all see that this can be perceived in two ways, yes? If you stare at it for long enough then it should jump about.

Now then, let's get to the point, I was being given directions to somewhere by a Thai person and as I'm getting a bit handier at the language I wrote down the name in Thai to confirm the pronunciation. Two characters look very similar, they are kor kwai (k) and dor dek (d). I apologised for my ignorance and admitted I tend to get the two confused, to which my helper responded, a good way to remember is for kor kwai the loop comes out and for dor dek the loop goes in!!!

I give you kor kwai and dor dek...

Is anyone one of those loops popping out anymore than the other? They're not even three dimensional looking ffs! Which one looks more like a buffalo's backside? I mean someone send me some of them 3d glasses or better still a dab of LSD and I might just be able to work this shit out.

The kids were being dead loud at school today, so I slammed a door to shock them into quietude (I didn't have my banjo on me), unfortunately I didn't realise there was a pane of loose glass in the door. Not the cleverest of moves in a room of 50 people under seven years of old. When I apologised I was told not to worry it wasn't my fault, it's nice to see this warped logic working in my favour for a change.

Myself, Dtocky and Bamboo have been apart for nearly a month now, it feels like forever, in three more days we'll all be re-united in Laos (dodging the KGB multicultural lover police section).

Until then...
Take it East