What Happens When You Drink & Drive

• Algonkin
  April 9th, 2008 at 9:55 am

  Very cool opticle effect.

• Pudifoot
  April 9th, 2008 at 10:06 am

  i don’t get it :-/ what visual effect?

• Miss Cellania
  April 9th, 2008 at 10:17 am

  Pudifoot, try reading the words individually. It looks different from when you look at the picture as a whole.

• Algonkin
  April 9th, 2008 at 10:21 am

  Ooops..I meant optical 0_o

• nygenxer
  April 9th, 2008 at 10:54 am

  No…that’s what happens when the mushrooms juuust start kicking in.

• bean
  April 9th, 2008 at 10:55 am

  Looks like the advertisers missed the point on this one. If someone is in a car driving, they won’t have nearly enough time to read through that whole thing word by word and see the effect. If someone is already drunk and reading it before getting into their car, the swaying of the sign will just blend in with the rest of the world spinning around them.

• nygenxer
  April 9th, 2008 at 11:01 am

  How does that work? I’m thinking the illusion is due to the shading behind each letter making it seem that a light source is coming from a different direction for each letter. Did I get that right? Do I get a cookie?

  I’ve printed as a jpeg and it’s still moving.

  And seriously, that’s what it’s like when magic mushroom start kicking in.

• Nastia
  April 9th, 2008 at 11:07 am

  they should’ve just put a dead person, I don’t see how that picture would stop anyone from drinking and driving

• Jacques
  April 9th, 2008 at 11:12 am

  Looks like a flag flying in a gentle breeze.

• Ali S.
  April 9th, 2008 at 11:24 am

  @Nastia

  But then everyone would be looking at that and that could kill someone!

• stacyj
  April 9th, 2008 at 11:45 am

  Ha, at first I didn’t notice anything at all but once that optical effect kicked in, it WAS pretty neat! I do agree with bean that it seems somewhat problematic in terms of drivers not having time to process the illusion, or of it being worryingly distracting to drunk (or sober!) drivers … but even so I can’t help but admire its cleverness =) Perhaps it’d be a good ad for those marquees inside airports, or subways, or other places where passersby are walking rather than driving …

• tabest
  April 9th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

  oh god that almost made me sick! More like being on psychadelics.

• roger
  April 9th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

  My comment disappeared… these are called ECVP waves, I think this guy Akiyoshi Kitaoka invented them:

  http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/ECVPwaves.html

  Here’s an academic article on the subject:

  http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=v070698

• CheeseDuck
  April 9th, 2008 at 2:29 pm

  Ahh.. I think I’m drunk. Cause the picture is all screwy and stuffs.

• Scooter
  April 9th, 2008 at 3:22 pm

  nice use of drop shadows to make the way the individual lettters look like they are coming from different directions.

• empty-minded
  April 9th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

  Maybe the intent is that the police arrest all those people who stand in front of the sign looking at it with google eyes. Maybe.

  I wonder what it looks like to those who do not read English?

• RobGF
  April 9th, 2008 at 8:53 pm

  I can never see these optical illusions. Even reading each word one by one I just don’t see it. I understand there is suppose to be some sort of “wavy” effect. Could someone describe what the illusion should look like?

• The Mutt
  April 9th, 2008 at 9:15 pm

  I don’t get it. Is that because I only have one eye?

• Miss Cellania
  April 9th, 2008 at 9:37 pm

  You can only see the effect when the eye moves across the image. If you stare at it steadily, it won’t move. But move your eyes around it, and the words just past the edge of your best focus will seem to start waving.

• Thomas
  April 9th, 2008 at 10:18 pm

  I actually am drunk, and I can’t tell the difference. I’ll check tomorrow to see what all this optical illusion stuff is about.

• otterly
  April 9th, 2008 at 11:32 pm

  Really fantastic, should be launched on bus shelters world wide.

• the real sam
  April 10th, 2008 at 12:19 am

  I want to be drunk all the time then!

• Rosi
  April 10th, 2008 at 2:10 am

  Oh I can never see these things. I focus too much on one point I think, or for some reason my brain can’t be fooled by them. It might have something to do with the fact that I have no sight in one eye. I don’t really know much about the science behind these, so I can’t tell why I can’t see them.

• Oomi
  April 10th, 2008 at 6:11 am

  Nifty!

• su.wei
  April 10th, 2008 at 7:17 am

  i feel like im swimming in glycerol

• Avraamov
  April 10th, 2008 at 9:12 am

  i’ve been swimming one-eyed in glycerol while drunk and on mushrooms, and now i’m going to drive home from mumbai. do i win a prize?

• Thomas
  April 10th, 2008 at 9:42 am

  You win another beer!

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