Play the Modern Times Game! The idea for this game came to me in a dream. It is based on a scene from Modern Times, a Charlie Chaplin film. It’s the one where Chaplin is working on an assembly line, mind numbingly screwing in bolts with a spanner until he finally goes mad.

What inspired me most is the fact that reality simulation games are ever so popular nowadays, especially on Facebook. I can understand that running your own virtual farm can be considered challenging and rewarding is some way. Having to regularly clean your online aquarium on the other hand is starting to move in Tamagotchi land.

But when I saw my sister the other day playing a game where you have to make hamburgers in a fast food restaurant, that too me just seemed a tad absurd. Nobody enjoys doing this demeaning tasks in real life, yet once it is moved into the virtual realm, it all of sudden becomes fun and games.

And so I’ve created the ultimate reality game. Yes, like Charlie Chaplin in the film, you too can become a factory worker on an assembly line at the time of the depression. In order to play this game, you need to switch your mind to zero and get to work.

Like a real job, each level takes 12 hours to complete. You are however afforded a break half way through during each working day. So it does take some endurance to complete each shift in one go, but keep in mind that you are rewarded for your hard work. I believe the pay is about ten dollars an hour. But the last time I played, the work pace was upped meaning you’ll probably earn more if you don’t get fired for slacking. So it’s not like your earning minimum wage here and it may even be worth giving up your day job just to play it.

Ironically, it takes longer to play a single shift of this game than it took me to actually create it.

Have fun. ;)

I have long held the belief that washing machines can on occasion become accidental portals, which in turn allows travel to other dimensions. It would explain the missing sock phenomena which states that given enough time, you’ll end up with just one half of each pair.

A possible explanation for this, may be due to the centrifugal forces that are created inside a washing machine when it is in spin mode. That, and the combination of all the amazing advancements they’ve integrated into washing powders to give us cleaner than clean clothes. Together. they may be powerful enough to create mini worm wholes, large enough, that something like a sock could disappear in to it. It’s also possible that larger items of clothing might disappear in the same fashion. But because they usually don’t come in pairs, we rarely notice that they were gone in the first place.

A universe filled with missing socks

In other words, it’s more than likely that a universe, in a dimension other than ours, has been turned in to some kind of giant landfill, full of unmatched socks and other missing items.

It then raises the question, if we can build a washing machine big enough, could we send a person through it? And who would volunteer? There’d be no guarantee that one would be able to return back to our world. And spending the rest of you life between mismatched socks is hardly anyone’s idea of paradise.

Traveling back and forth between dimensions

Well, since yesterday, I may have proof that two way travel between our dimensions is possible! Bear with me: I’ve been missing a pair gloves for over a year now. Yesterday, I decided to conduct a full scale search party in the hopes of finding them, but to no avail. Failing to find them, I decided to collect the clothing items that needed to be cleaned, and placed them in my washing machine.

This morning, as I proceeded to empty it, I was surprised to find my missing gloves between the rest of my clothes! The only plausible explanation is that they traveled more than a year ago to another dimension, and then returned this very morning. Two-way inter-dimensional travel therefore must be possible! I can’t imagine the things my gloves have seen, the places they’ve been. But they did return in good condition, so I imagine that were ever went to, it can’t be that hostile for man.

A small spin for man, a giant cleaning for mankind

So if anyone has any ideas on how to build a giant washing machine, it would be greatly appreciated. For if all goes well, it’s very likely we may be on the verge of discovering new worlds and other dimensions. Or at the very least, all our missing socks.

A few days ago, a color conspiracy, enacted by women, swept over the social webs to raise awareness and at the same time, pull one over on us men. So now more than ever seems like the appropriate moment to publish an excerpt from the longest ’short’ story I’ve ever written, but decided not to complete. (I happen to be working on something more important right now). Never the less, rather than leaving this to collect dust, I’ve decided to share with you these little wisdoms and what fascinating things the colors of lingerie have to reveal:

Little Black Books

One of the main characters in the story –  a man –  has a tradition amongst his friends, that every time one of them gets married, they have to hand over their little black book to one of the left over bachelors. It’s their way of closing a chapter in their lives. And when they do, they also have to write down in it, a lesson learnt, and worth passing on, that gives an insight in to the mystery, that beholds every woman.

Our character happens to be the last man to remain unmarried. As such, he has managed to acquire all the life lessons of his tied down friends. Of course, not all these lessons are to be taken seriously and many of them are either childish, or either clichés, rather than useful real life lessons. The classic cliché among them being that the perfect breast size is a handful. No more, no less. Clichés are the words of amateurs.

So one of the more intriguing lessons he received, was passed on to him by a friend who was a real player in his day. From his experience, every woman has a distinct style in the way she makes love to a man. He never really took much notice to it, until it started to dawn upon him that one can tell how a woman is in bed beforehand, simply by looking at the color of the lingerie she’s wearing.  And so came about the men’s guide to color theory:

The First Principle: What’s hidden, is most revealing.

The first principle of the theory, even though it is based on an old joke,  remains relevant, because it holds a grain of truth:

As a man shuts the door behind him – as he leaves for a date with the girl of his dreams –  he can only wonder if he’ll get lucky that night.

When a woman shuts the door behind her –  as she is about to embark on the same date with the man of her dreams – she already knows.

Women, in general, always have the last say. So when they do say ‘yes’, they come prepared. And that includes all layers of fashion, from the shoes on her feet, to the dress she is wearing, and the undergarments beneath it. You can be sure that of all her lingerie, she’ll pick her best set that will surely make her feel sexy, and at the least, unembarrassed when the time comes to reveal her true curves. Lingerie says more about themselves, than it does about the person they are trying to impress.

The Second Principle: The different styles of sex.

The second principle of the theory states that sex is like dancing. They come in many forms and styles.  Some people are great dancers, others just shuffle with their feet. Some of us will try out different forms, while the rest us will stick with what we know.  So you can always expect that when you place someone who is dressed like hip hopper on the dance floor, he’ll hip hop. Only a few will dare to tango when the music changes. Same goes for sex. Though we might role play and try some different things to add some spice to the romance, it’s hard to leave our distinctive styles of making love to the same partner.

It also explains why a man in a perfectly happy relationship with a very experienced partner would still cheat on her. It’s not that he’s looking for something better. Sometimes, he just wants to boogie rather than salsa all the time. And of course, the same goes for her motives to do the same. But before you start thinking, just keep in mind, that when it comes to sex and relationships, few are as forgiving to ask, you save the last dance.

The Third Principle: The color guide.

Just like one is inclined to dress according to how they dance, so to do women choose their best lingerie in harmony to the way they make love. But until I’ve taken part in rigorous scientific tests to ensure that the given results are indeed correct, these observations are best not taken too seriously.

Scarlet Red:

Scarlet red is young at heart, eager to please, but inexperienced. Her idea of sex is formed by what she has seen on the silver screen, and influenced by what she reads in ladies magazines. Therefore scarlet red acts the part of the seductress, believing that this is the path to passion. She has a lot to learn

Bordeaux Red:

It would seem that the color red turns darker with the benefit of experience. Lady Bordeaux no longer makes love in a fashion that she thinks is expected of her, but has discovered that she too is an involved partner. Sex is no longer an act, but a form of art in which she plays center stage. Not only is she a master seductress, she will equally demand – and will even be quite vocal about it – that her needs are met as well. In return, Lady Bordeaux might even teach you a thing or two.

Black

Black may very well be the most complex of all colors to decipher. A discerning gentleman must take note, not just of color alone, but also of texture and garment, if he is to determine what he is letting himself into.

Plain Black Cotton:

Miss Black Cotton, just like Scarlet Red, still lacks experience between the sheets. But while the one seeks passion, the other is wild and raw. For in the mind Black Cotton – whom has still to discover that her body has much more to offer – sex is a no nonsense affaire. Foreplay is formality. She would much rather get to the point. Intercourse is the climax she’s hunting for and she’ll ride you like a wild stallion to achieve it. Stubborn, she is difficult to teach and unwilling to be introduced new things. Hopefully time will turn her into a better lover, but for now, you’ll have to make do. It takes stamina to endure her lust.

On the other hand, Miss Black Cotton, could also be an adventurer in hostile conditions, wearing black for practical reasons. As such, she may not really be showing her true colors. Did I already mention that black is a tricky color?

Black Lace:

Of all colors, Lady Blake Lace may be the most classic of them all. She enjoys a bit of everything, but not too much of anything. Although not afraid to experiment, she avoids extremes and prefers moderation. In her heart, meaning is more important than style or adventure. She does not have sex, but instead makes love. And so for her, missionary is not just acceptable, but respectable. Her on top is sufficiently empowering. And to spice things up, there is always doggy for a touch of naughty. And to complete the list, a spoon will make her swoon.

And while it’s not necessarily technical skills that will impress her, it’s quite ok to introduce new positions into play, as long as they are not too complicated or straining. Just keep in mind that with Lady Black Lace, it’s the feeling that counts. It’s the little attentions that make her happy.

Black Velvet: (& Violet aswell)

You will need to keep an open mind when faced with little Miss Velvet. She’s a tad eccentric and possibly even borderline fetish. She lives in a spiritual world, one filled with candles and symbolism. Sex is something she takes seriously. For her, setting and mood is important, almost to the point it is ritual like. With her, it’s probably never boring. You might find yourself with her in strange places, or discover that a full moon is a reason to dive into bed, or an open field.

Blue

Blue is for the girl who is driven by her fantasies. She has a clear idea of what she wants and will settle for no less. She won’t compromise for something else. Unlike with Lady Black, Blue really appreciates style. It’s also very likely that the film “Dirty Dancing” was a moment of epiphany during her formative years.

Deep Blue:

Lady Deep Blue’s state of mind can probably no better be described than by Kylie Minogue’s song “Slow“. For making love to Lady Deep Blue is an intense affair, slow, and with each other’s eyes locked in an embracing gaze. She’s not the type to spill any words when making love. One must communicate with subtle gestures as not to interrupt the flow of the moment.

Pale Blue:

Miss Pale Blue is infatuated by the exotic. It’s probably her curiosity that may have initially driven her to try something a out of the ordinary, but along the way, must have realized that men from exotic places not only dance differently, they also make love differently. And in that sense, to Miss Pale Blue, sex is just a continuation in bed of something that started on the dance floor. As such, making love to her is no simple affair. Especially for us men who are accustomed to doing only a single thing at a time. It requires skill, rhythm and agility. Just like any exotic dance, every part of your body has remain in motion and in sync with hers: moving, grinding, flowing, feeling.

And so the next time you hear the phrase “Once you go black, you never go back”, size may not be the real reason, and more likely the initial sales pitch.

Yellow:

Yellow is a sex kitten and a rare find. She is acutely aware of her seductive prowess and knows very well how to put her skills to good use. She has a natural born talent in winding men around her finger using just her charm. Unsurprisingly, most women see her as a threat.

Sex with little Miss Yellow is an experience its own right. One might as well just sit back and enjoy as she takes full control and plays you like a toy. She is very assertive in bed, constantly teasing, seducing and having a ball. Don’t be surprised to find yourself gasping for air as you try to keep up with her antics. And it’s probably because she enjoys sex so much she’s surprisingly experienced for her age.

Mixed Match:

Miss Mixed Match doesn’t really care about how she looks. Why spend time and money on lingerie if it’s going to end up on the bedroom floor within seconds anyway? Miss Mixed is the girl next door, and may even be a little bit of a tomboy. For she prefers the company of boys rather than girls. Sex with her is a playful game: something not to be taken too seriously. She’s the girl who is most likely to initiate a cushion fight while making out and will end up wrestling with, before continuing what you started.

Orange:

Pop open a Heineken and celebrate. It’s very likely Miss Orange is a Dutch girl out on a special occasion.

White

It goes without saying that white is the color of innocence and for whom sex is not taken to lightly. In fact, making love to a lady white is like signing a contract of long term commitment.

White Cotton:

Miss White Cotton is the inexperienced clumsy partner in bed. Her insecurity makes her feel a bit nervous and perhaps even somewhat passive. But that does not necessarily mean you’ll have bad sex, quite the contrary. She’s probably the type that will later evolve into becoming a Black Lace lady as her confidence grows. Success with Miss White Cotton is measured by meaning and feeling rather than by technical skill. With her, something as simple as missionary can be magical. But trying anything too complicated or ambitious may very well end up in disaster.

White Lace:

Miss White Lace is the make-believe virgin. She has probably had more prior lovers than she’s willing to admit, but this time round, she’s sure you’re the one. And you better make sure that is the case or there will be hell to pay. As such, making love to her is a bit of a neurotic experience. A rollercoaster ride. Any hint that may endanger your relationship or make her feel insecure will spell trouble. Emotionally, she’s high maintenance. But if you love the passion of big fights followed by making-up sex, she’s your girl.

Pink or Peach

Miss Pink is naively romantic and preciously passive. If in bed, she shows any sign of initiative, it’ll be for hugs and cuddles. Otherwise, she’ll expect you to take the lead and do all the work. If you don’t know any better, have low expectations or simply love always being in control, then perhaps, she’s a dream. Otherwise, she’ll quickly tire with little chance of the both of you living happily ever after.

Deep Purple:

You Tarzan, she Jane! Miss Deep Purple is a jungle girl. She’s into rough wild animal sex. Loud and energetic, it takes quite some endurance to keep up with her as she shows you all four corners of the room. If you ever wanted to try out every position described in the Kama sutra, she’s probably the woman you want to take along with you on this crazy venture. And a wild ride it would be.

Emerald Green:

Unless she’s Irish, Mrs. Emerald Green is the wedding ring amongst the lingerie colors. She already in a relationship with a partner or a husbands somewhere. So if by chance, you should come across her, it’s most likely she’s just out for a fling. Mrs.Emerald Green is seeking a brief encounter of excitement to spice up her life. Making love to her can quickly become a strange cocktail of fantasy, seduction, control and guilt (and possibly even jealous partners). You just can’t tell what you’re getting yourself into with Emerald Green.

In Conclusion

And with that overview, I leave you with just one final question. What is your favorite color? ;)

I’ve always had this nagging feeling that certain places, even though they are physically quite close, always seemed to be so far away. Further even than distant places, simply because they are more time consuming to reach thanks to a lack of direct highways or too many traffic lights along the way.

So while the shortest route between two points may be a straight line, the quickest route on the other hand is determined by the fastest mode of transportation at your disposal. To illustrate this, I created a time travel map that positions cities relative to Brussels based on how long it takes to reach them using only public transportation.

The first striking thing is the effect of high speed train travel. Distant places such as London, Paris, and, in a few days from now, Amsterdam, are now a lot closer to Brussels than ever before. With Thalys and the Euro-Star, Paris is actually seems easier to reach than many places within Belgium. It’s actually quicker to reach Amsterdam with the Thalys, even though it is more than 200km’s away from Brussels, than it is to get to Riemst at only half that distance from the capital.

The time distortions between near by areas can be quite great too. Take for example Hasselt where I live. It’s just under an hour away from Brussels thanks to a direct train line. Zonhoven, which neighbors Hasselt and is only slightly further away from Brussels, but doesn’t have its own train station. So travelers to this town need to switch to a bus on their last leg of their journey. The result of this is that it actually takes them longer to get home than for a Parisian to get back to Paris.

And if you live in Peer, but work in Brussels, you better make sure you have a car. Otherwise you might as well move to Amsterdam if you have to rely on public transportation. I’m also glad I don’t live in Chimay, though this map might explain why they had to brew their own beer. It simply took them too long to get their alcoholic nourishments elsewhere.

While this is not a travel map, but a travel graph, the distance between Brussels and Amsterdam is relative to the transportation mode used.

Of course, this is a static time map. A true time map would naturally have to be dynamic. It would have to be linked to GPS, so if I were in Hasselt, all cities would be positioned relative to my new position. It would also need to be time sensitive. During rush hours, Brussels for example would then grow further away from me as traffic jams would increase the time to get there. For a public transportation based map, a city would grow closer by the second until the next scheduled bus or train arrived. If however you missed it, and there is for example only one bus, your destination would all of a sudden jump an extra hour away from you.

If this data was made public and easy to access, It would make for a nice up to date interactive map you can always carry with you on a smart phone.

One might think that time travel is difficult at best and impossible at worst, but it’s not. It’s actually quite easy to accomplish. The most widely used method of time travel today is called growing old. We do it all the time.

The Dangers of Time Travel

If on the other hand, you want to travel back in time, that’s a whole different challenge. So let us assume we’re going to build a time machine that will let us do just that. How do we test it to make sure it works? Unless of course you want to be the guinea pig and risk ending up in a time or place that might not be so hospitable to your fragile existence. You wouldn’t be the first time traveler to end up frozen in the middle of space, due to the small oversight of earths moving trajectory around the sun, and the relative motion of the solar system within mind puzzling accelerated expansion of the larger universe. But let us not worry about that for now.

One theory states that even if a time machine were built, you would still not be able to time travel to an age prior to the existence of your workable machine. It was proposed as a reason why time travelers have not come back from the future so far, for lack of a vessel present in this day and age to do so. It also prevents you from going back in time and killing yourself before you were able to actually build your time machine, thus making it impossible to travel back in time to kill yourself in the first place, and creating a temporal rupture in the fabric of the space time continuum that could possibly destroy the entire universe. In other words, before we can bump into other time travelers or create utterly destructive paradoxes, we first have to build a time machine.

Build a Time Machine

Let’s start small. A box the size of a small box will do. As for the creation of your machine, a quick search on the internet should do the trick. Plenty of recipes exist such as: bending the space time continuum, creating worm holes, or accelerating your box to 88mph using a flux capacitor and bolts of lightning. (On a side note: It was once possible to buy nuclear grade plutonium from Libyan terrorists to power flux capacitors , but that no longer is an option as Libya has abandoned and disassembled its nuclear program). Also make sure to check Wikipedia as they have some wonderful theories on how to avoid the problem I mentioned earlier about the world being in motion which in turn ups the risk of ending up in space.

Testing the Time Machine

Once your time machine is ready, testing it should be fairly easy. Close the box. Switch it on. Write down the current time and date. We may need this later. Then open the box. If the box remains empty, the experiment failed and it is not yet suitable as a vessel for future operators to send things back in time with it. You may need to make some modifications or maybe even give it a good bang with the hammer. But whatever happens, don’t give up.

If on the other hand, you were to find, for example, an apple in your box, then chances are, your time machine works. Congratulations! Victory dance! However, exercise caution if the object inside the box happens to be Schrödinger’s cat; perhaps alive; perhaps dead. In the best case, Schrödinger may not be too pleased you stole his cat in this way. In the worst case, what you may have here may not be a time machine, but rather an infinite improbability drive. Before fiddling any further with it, I would advise you to first purchase either the latest edition of The Lonely Universe or a copy of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. You’ll need it just in case something goes horribly wrong and you find yourself on the other side of the Milky Way. As a matter of fact, get both books. While the latter will be quite informative on your predicament, The Lonely Universe will list all the cheapest places to stay and eat whenever you find yourself in deep space. But I’m running astray. To get back to our test and keep things simple, we’re sticking to an apple as an example. Take it out of your time machine and close it.

The Final Step

Now that we’ve managed to create a working time machine, that doesn’t mean the test is over. Hell no! We still need to place the object back into the box, and preferably somewhere in the future, so we can find it in the past at the moment we started conducting the test. Failing to complete this last step would leave us with the puzzling question as to where the apple came from and how it got into our time machine in the first place.

If you’ve created one of those fancy time machines with a built in interface to enter the destinations date and time coordinates, input that data in right now. If on the other hand, you’ve left out such sophistications, cross your fingers and hope for the best. Now zap that apple back into the past. If you reopen it, the box should be empty again concluding a successful time travel test. Cause enough for another victory dance.

Check List

This test should be repeated every time one builds a new time machine or to check if an existing one is still in working condition. And if you really want to be scientifically professional, here’s a quick check list:

1. Make sure the time machine is empty before starting the test, then close its door.

2. Switch on the time machine.

3. Write down the current time and date.

4. Open the door.

5. Take out the apple.

6. Close the door.

7. Wait thirty minutes. In the mean time, DO NOT EAT THE APPLE!

8. Open the door.

9. Place the apple back into the time machine.

10. Close the door.

11. Enter the time and date coordinates written down in step 3.

12. Send the apple back into time.

13. Open the door and attain that the apple is no longer there.

14. The test has successfully been completed.

15. Perform a victory lap.

For laughs, most time travelers will usually do this test using either an egg, or a chicken, depending on whatever appears first.

It’s finally out: The Strange Maps book by Frank Jacobs, the man behind the wonderful Strange Maps blog. The book itself has become a hefty anti-atlas bringing together some of the strangest, weirdest and interesting maps ever created or found.

I’m also glad to say that it contains two maps of my own.

Fitting for a complex little country as Belgium, it hosts some of the most absurd national borders you’ll find on this planet. When it comes to enclaves, exclaves and counter-enclaves, it’s only outdone by the border mess in Cooch Behar on the Indian/Bangladeshi border.

The Baarle-Nassau & Baarle-Hertog Enclaves/Exclaves

The most famous of our crazy borders is the situation in the town of Baarle which is split into several Dutch parts (Baale-Nassau) and Belgian parts (Baarle-Hertog). Most sane people when creating borders would simply draw a line with one side going to one country and the other side to the other. The British were famous for this approach and divided the world using only straight rulers, rarely taking in to account the situation on the ground. In Baarle however, rather than just drawing border lines, plots of land were assigned to either one of the two nations depending on old treaties that went way back. The result is a town that has become a patchwork of enclaves and counter-enclaves. Borders run straight through houses and buildings. It’s not uncommon to find yourself in a café or other room where half of it is in Belgium and the other in the Netherlands. This resulted in the front door policy. Any house in Baarle falls under the jurisdiction of whatever country the front door opens to. So it’s not uncommon to change your front door if the laws of the other country would happen to favor you better at that time.

Legend: Black border is the main border between the two countries. Red borders are Belgian enclaves within the Netherlands mainland. Blue borders are Dutch counter-enclaves inside Belgian enclaves. And the green border is the only Dutch enclave within the Belgian mainland. Each enclave is assigned a number. H numbers belong to Baarle-Hertog. N numbers belong to Baarle Nassau.

And if things weren’t crazy enough, more than a hundred years after the final border treaties were signed, someone apparently discovered an overlooked plot of land (H22). During all that time, it had practically been a no man’s land without anyone realizing it. In 1996, it was finally assigned to Belgium bringing its exclave count to 22.

The VennBahn Enclaves

Less known, but equally as absurd is the Vennbahn border. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Germans build a railroad that ran from Aachen all the way to down to Luxemburg and called it the Vennbahn. All seemed fine until silly little Franz Ferdinand got himself shot, setting off a dangerous domino effect into motion that finally led to World War One. Germany decided to invade Belgium on its way to to France, but got bogged down for four years and ultimately lost.

Belgium then demanded war reparations in the form of annexed German land which they finally got without too much trouble. It was then the Belgium must have realized that in doing so, they had also inherited the Vennbahn, or at least just parts of it. At several different locations, the railroad would cross back into Germany before reentering Belgium again. Rather than dealing with an array of border controls along this route, the Belgians came up with a brilliant plan. They decided to annex the land underneath the railroad as well. The results are several long thin areas of Belgian land, just a few meters wide, winding through the German landscape, and here and there even straight through villages and towns. And in doing so, it also created five new German exclaves, separated by a railroad from the mainland. In the mean time, the railroad has long fallen in to disuse, and is now being converted to bicycle tracks.

When I learnt about the Vennbahn, I immediately notified Strange Maps about this, but Frank replied that he already knew about it; he just couldn’t find a descent map of the place. After an exhaustive search of the internet, I came to the same conclusion. The best maps I could find only highlighted small sections of the Vennbahn. Because the land between the borders are just a few meters wide, they rarely appear on large scale maps. For the time being, you won’t even find them on the maps of Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. Though I’m glad to see that the wiki like OpenStreetsMap.org has included them.

And so I decided to create my own map that illustrates the situation rather than trying to depict an accurate representation of the borders. As I’ve said before, the latter is impossible at that scale.

By the time I had concluded my research and finished my map and sent it in, Frank had started working on his book and asked if I could also have a look at the Baarle situation. I gladly obliged and created the second map.

Another surprise was when I sent in my copyright release forms for the maps. We realized that until recently, before he had just moved to London, we both lived in the same town. For years, as I regularly followed the Strange Maps blog and wondered who the mystery man behind it was, and where he was from; he was apparently just a few streets away, collecting maps and posting his findings to the internet. The world truly is a strange and small place.

As for the book: If you love maps like I do, you definitely want this in your library.  I know its going to be keeping me busy for a while.

Introduction

Is it possible to imagine a truly new and distinct color? A color that cannot be derived from any of the existing colors we already know?

I’ve tried, and to date, I’ve failed. But I haven’t quite given up yet. And so the goal of this article is to detail my quest in search of this unknown and illusive new color. To do so, we must delve into the world of colors and learn how we perceive them all around us. But first, I want to make clear what it is I’m trying to do.

I want a new color.

I’m not talking about discovering a new tint of red, or giving name to a peculiar shade called ocean-green-berry-blue. No, what I want is an entirely new primary color. Let me clarify:

An Example

Imagine the experience of living your entire life in a black-and-white world. The only colors you know are black, white and grays. Without problem, you would be able to dream up a new shade of gray, even if you had never actually seen it before. It’s just a matter of mixing the colors you already know, in this case black and white. With that, predicting a new shade shouldn’t be too difficult. For example: mix a lot of white paint with a bit of black, and you know you’ll get light gray.

Now imagine that in this black-and-white world, you’re one day presented with the color red. Prior to this experience, you hadn’t even fathomed that such a color could exist. And even if you did know of such a color, and even if it was explained to you before hand, you still wouldn’t have known what red looked like until you saw it with your own two eyes. It would have been like trying to explain colors to a blind man.

Now the big question is, after discovering red in your otherwise black and white world, could you then sit down, close your eyes, and imagine a completely new color? Such as green for example?

To answer my question, I did just that. I shut my eyes, and tried to imagine a new primary color. I quickly realized this wasn’t easy at all. I could randomly picture new colors in my mind, but they were always derivatives of the colors I already knew. But somehow, I wasn’t able to create something new out of nothing. My brain would only allow me to create colors I was actually capable of describing. This is a major short coming of how our minds work if you ask me. And so if I am ever going to achieve my goal of imagining a new color, I will have to find a way to outsmart my own brain.

So instead of randomly trying to dream up a new color, I’ve decided to try out a new approach. I am going to design a new color and give it certain properties, so my mind will at least be able to describe it, even if I’m not yet able to actually picture it. But to do that, I will first have to start with the basics: how do we see colors?

The Source of our Colors: Light

The light we see around us is in fact electromagnetic (EM) radiation. You could say that they are little bits of quantum energy, flying about at the speed of light. But the truth is, we don’t really know. Scientists are still debating on whether light travels as waves, little photon particles, or a combination of both. It could even be something entirely different. What we do know is that the human eye is only able to see a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. At one end of the measurable spectrum, we have gamma rays, and at the other, we’ll find radio waves. Somewhere in between of all this, we have visible light.

The reason our eyes have adapted to only seeing a small range of the EM spectrum, is probably an evolutionary thing. That portion of the spectrum was the only part to penetrate our atmosphere and the ocean waters when we were still swimming about as fish. Once we did get out of the water, our evolutionary ancestors never really bothered to expand the reach of our vision. A missed opportunity if you ask me. Birds for example did do just that and they can not only see the colors we do, they’re also able to see in the ultra violet range. As a result, they may very well be able to see a lot more colors then we do, but more on that later. First, let’s go crazy…

X-Ray Vision

There is no inherent difference between the visible light we see and for example the signals sent to your radio. And even though we can’t see a radio wave directly with our own eyes; for all practical purposes, it too can be considered as being light. Radio Telescopes are a good example of this. Scientists use these special telescopes to register light from outer space with longer wavelengths than those that would otherwise not be detectable by their optical counterparts. Either that, or they’re just trying to listen to radio station hosted by aliens on other planets.

Indirectly, we are able to see beyond our vision. Think of x-ray scanners at the doctor or at the airport. We use night vision goggles to better see in the dark, and then there is the whole field of infrared photography.

But imagine our eyes did evolve to encompass the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Not only would this be a truly amazing feat, our world would also look entirely different.

So how would our world look like if we could actually view a larger scope of the spectrum? Let us say you are at home and you’re hungry. You decide to heat up some left over spaghetti from last night in the microwave. When you switch it on and look through its window, you’ll see it emitting light in the microwave range. But the cool thing is, you can also see how hot your food is getting by the intensity of the infrared light it is giving off. It takes out some of the guesswork while cooking your food.

And while you wait for your spaghetti to heat up, you see you’re about to get a call. You’re mobile is emitting a beam of light to a nearby cell tower which you can see beyond your walls glowing in the distance like lamp post. It’s your friend on the phone asking you to turn on the radio. A song dedicated to you is about to be aired live on your favorite station. Simply by looking at how the light from radio waves is being absorbed by metallic objects (it passes through all the rest like glass), you can actually see where in your home you’ll get the best reception. Same is true for the reception of your mobile, you wi-fi connection, TV and GPS. In fact, you would also have night vision, be able to look through clothes. Of course, everybody would be able to see through your clothes as well. And you would also have x-ray vision. Though for the latter, you’ll still need a source that emits x-rays. Something you don’t want to do too often. But it’s time we headed back to reality.

How Our Eyes Detect Light

Being able to detect electromagnetic radiation is one thing, but sorting them into colors is another. For that, we have to look at how our eyes register light. We have two kinds of photoreceptors: rods and cones. The rod receptors aren’t capable of detecting color, but they are very sensitive to light, making them especially useful in the dark. They do however need time to readjust when light levels change. This is especially apparent when you move from a well lit room into the darkness. At first, everything will appear black, but after a while, your vision will improve and you’ll be able to make out more things in the dark. More interestingly, rod receptors aren’t able to detect red light and therefore its light sensitivity won’t be affected by it. So if you’re out on the prowl at night with a torch, it’s actually better to use a red beam of light instead of white as it won’t affect your night vision. It’s also the same reason why some car manufacturers use red dashboard lights.

Cone receptors work best in daylight and are responsible for our color vision. There are three types of cone receptors, each able to pick up specific wavelengths. One is primarily responsible for red, one for green and another for blue. A chemical inside our photoreceptors turn photons into an electrical signal. That signal is then sent to our brain, and it is in here that the actual colors are formed. And when the cones in the same region are triggered, but in different wavelengths, our brains will mix those primary colors and form new ones in the process. Red and green signals will for example form the color yellow.

We see this best when looking at rainbow where we are presented with the whole range of spectral colors from violet on one end, to red on the other. And when our red, green and blue receptors are all triggered at the same time at full intensity, we see the color white.

Loopholes in our vision system:

It’s all very well to know how our eyes work, but if I am going to design a new color, we may need to figure out if there are any loopholes in our vision system. Luckily, they do exist.

The Whiter than White Mystery

The first oddity I’ll put forward are the fluorescent colors. Why are they odd you ask? Well, normally, when light hits an object, it can do three things: pass right through it, get absorbed and or be reflected. For example, if you wanted to reflect all light, you could shine it on a mirror.

Fluorescent colors on the other hand reflect more light from their surface than what they’re actually receiving. Quite a feat when we consider we’re not dealing with a light emitting source here. How is this possible? It’s actually absorbing light from the ultra-violet spectrum and then converts it to visible light before reflecting it back. The same process happens when for example you leave a black bag out in the sun. When visible light hits it, it is converted to heat which is then radiated in the infrared spectrum. So within the visible light range, our black bag will look dark, but will appear bright in the infrared range.

Detergents

That is pretty much what is happening with fluorescent colors, but in the opposite direction from the perspective of our visible spectrum. Instead of appearing darker like our black bag, fluorescents will actually appear brighter than any other surrounding color. This interesting property is also used in washing detergents. Special dyes are added to convert ultraviolet light into visible light making your white clothes appear whiter than they actually are, though maybe not necessarily cleaner.

Office Paper

Similar dyes are also used in office paper. Place it against any other white object and it should appear brighter and whiter. In fact, it will have a blue-violet shine to it. A sign that it is bordering on the verge of the ultra-violet spectrum.

Toothpaste

The most interesting example of such dyes is in the use of teeth whiteners. This is where applied color theory really shines through. Teeth are naturally yellow looking. If you add white to it, you will either have to use a very opaque paint or all you’ll get is lighter tint of yellow. However, another way of neutralizing a color is by adding its complementary color to it. And the complementary color for yellow happens to be blue. It’s by no accident that your toothpaste maybe entirely blue or contain traces of it. Your teeth will not only look brighter as a result, but will also appear whiter without looking too unnatural.

And while this may all be very fascinating, I’ve so far failed to see an immediate way to exploit this particular loophole to my advantage. So lets move on…

The Magenta Mystery

When we split white light through a prism, or an elaborate rainbow, we can see the individual colors flowing from red to violet. They represent all the colors in the visible range of the EM spectrum. Yet one color is missing: magenta. Magenta is not part of the spectrum at all, yet we are still able to distinguish it. How is this possible?

When we see a color that is a mix of both red and violet wavelengths – which are at both ends of the spectrum – our brain can do one of two things. Either it represents this mixed color as something in between these two wavelengths(green for example), or it invents an entirely new color. The fact that we are able to see magenta, is proof that our brain has chosen to do the latter. So even though red and violet are at opposite ends of the spectrum, magenta makes it possible to link them making our color system look like a closed loop.

Prior to this knowledge, one could argue that the colors we see are not properties of our mind, but are based in the physical world around us. I’m not that inclined to believe that anymore. And the fact that magenta is unarguably a fictional color, gives me hope that our brains may be able to create more fictional colors.

Sounds promising? In Part II (coming soon), we’ll be wondering if birds see white when we do, and then I’ll go on to explain how I plan to design my new and novel color called Qualia.

Improvising My Way Through School

The biggest culture shock I’ve ever had to experience in my life was when I had to return to my own country. I was thirteen when I was sent to a strict Catholic school in my new home town. Until then, most of my youth had been spent in international schools abroad. In comparison, my previous schools had been very lax and easy going. To add to the difficulty and after for years of living in an English speaking environment, I had pretty much forgotten how to speak Dutch and had to relearn it for the third time in my life.. I was given a crash course over the summer with a private tutor. But even then, it would take years before I actually mastered it well enough to take part in conversations. It was a frustrating experience. By the time I had found the right words to say, the conversation had long moved on to something else.

And if the communication problem wasn’t enough, I quickly discovered I had little in common with my most of my fellow students. Frankly, I found them to be close minded. Not that it was their fault. They had simply lived very insulating lives. While I had already seen half the world by then, most of them had rarely ever left the villages they had lived in all their lives.

I also had a serious problem with the strictness of the school system. Being in a position to compare, I found that the way they went about things to be very counterproductive. And to make things worse, I was not only subjected to the normal school curriculum, I also had to spend an hour after school every day in study. It was a moment where one was supposed to do their homework and review the subjects they had seen that day. Doing my homework was rarely a problem, but I was never one to actually study. I simply didn’t have the patience to take the time and memorize stuff. If the subject matter was interesting enough, I would automatically remember it. Otherwise I couldn’t really be bothered. That meant that in practice, the subjects I enjoyed, I usually past with flying colors (Do colors actually fly?). And the subjects that couldn’t hold my attention didn’t get my attention either. When faced with tests and exams, I simply improvised my way through it. This is probably also the reason why I always failed in French. You can’t invent new words and grammar in an existing language spoken by two hundred million people around the world. They simply won’t stand for it, and my French teachers shared the same sentiment. My lack of effort in certain domains showed in my grades and is it’s probably also the reason I was forced to follow study in the first place. What goes around, comes around.

Subverting the System

I had to fill an hour every day in which I was not aloud to leave my desk or even make a sound let alone talk to the others around me. The only thing expected from me was to do my homework and study, and that posed a serious a problem. I really had no intention of wasting my precious time on this planet with such silly things. So I tried to make the best of my less the stellar situation and started to improvise my way out of it. On my first day, I decided to write a book.

Big mistake!

Coming from schools with a relaxed attitude, the concept of punishment essays was completely alien to me. In my previous schools, you really had to misbehave before a teacher would intervene, and at worst, that meant being sent to the superintendent’s office. Not so in my new school. Any behavior that deviated from what was expected of the ideal student was enough to get you punished. Talking in class? A two page essay on why not to talk in class. Chewing gum? A five page essay on why gum chewing is an abomination of civilization. Not paying attention? Rewrite the school rules three times. Even not knowing the correct answer to a question could at times be punishable by essay.

And each lesson would begin with the students – whom had previously been punished – coming forward handing in their essays. And each lesson would end with a role call of all the students that had received punishment during the lesson as a reminder of how much and when their essays where due.

And there I was, on my first day at study, confidently writing the first pages of my first book. As they saw me write, some of the students around me started to react in excitement pointing their fingers at me, sniggling and giggling. Puzzled by their reactions, I continued writing, but without a clue of what all the fuss was about. Alerted by all the commotion around me, one of the study masters walked up to my table. Once he saw what I was doing gave me a frown. He then asked me if I was writing an essay. Well, actually, I was writing a book. But fearing I had to explain myself in a language I didn’t quite master yet, I went for the obvious answer and replied with a simple ‘yes’. Little did I know right then that ‘essay’ was actually code for ‘punishment’. Unwittingly, I had gained the reputation of a troublemaker on my very first day of school.

I quickly gave up on my idea of writing a book and concluded that if I was going to survive in this environment, I would have to outfox the system and everyone in it. It’s here where I discovered the ninety/ten rule. If you appear to be good ninety percent of the time, people around you will automatically assume you’re also being well behaved in the remaining ten percent of the time. Of course, no one can possibly always be a saint 100% of the time. But in practice, most people never question this assumption unless given good reason to. We generally don’t like unpredictable and complex world views.

And so I was quick to learn how to become a mischievous little bastard without ever getting caught. Especially considering some of the things I pulled off where quite public affairs. I would skip school on occasion, get into fights, commit acts of creative sabotage, sneak my way out of ever writing punishment essays, psychological manipulation, signature forgery, trespass, gamble with money, indulge in chalk graffiti… all while maintaining the image of a boy that would never hurt a fly. As I said before, it was counterproductive system. I was much better behaved in the schools that showed more tolerance.

Art School

But back to my problem: how to spend an hour in study without actually studying? I learnt how to pretend. Turns out, it’s really easy to fake. It’s sufficient to just stare at a page to fool a study master that has to keep a watchful eye on a fifty other students. And instead of making notes, I made little drawing instead. And it was during this time that I started dreaming up all kinds of funny situations and translating them into to cartoons.

Predictably, while I was having fun during study, some of my grades suffered. When I passed my second year there, it was deliberated that my scores where ok, but not good enough to continue in this particular school. I was thrilled. I had always wanted to continue studying in an art school, but they had denied me that option on the grounds that I was too intelligent for such a thing (In Belgium, a school education is mandatory until you’re 18 years of age. As a result, art school had a reputation as a place for students who would have otherwise dropped out if it weren’t for this law). But thanks to my laziness and my grades not up to standards, I was finally able to do what I always wanted to do: learn something at school that I actually enjoyed. Add to that, it wasn’t Catholic and it wasn’t strict. It was perfect. It was also a relief. I knew that if I had to remain in a strict school, that eventually, the only thing I would learn was how to be become an accomplished petty criminal.

But things turned around. The predictions that the lack of discipline at my new school would further make my grades suffer, were proven wrong. It was actually quite the opposite. Though I must admit, I was still not able improvise my way through French, but at least I was passing, though just barely.

The Cartoon Collection

But after two years of study at my old school, I had managed to accumulate quite a lot cartoon sketches. And it was during my first year at art school that I brought them all together, redrew them in a formal format and started to ink them in. A year later, I had created about eighty such cartoons. I even managed to get one published in a national newspaper. My biggest dream at the time was to one day win a place at the International Cartoon Festival of Knokke. It had even become a yearly pilgrimage to take a train to the coast and visit the festival exposition.

But those dreams came to an abrupt end once my second year at art school commenced. Play time was over. Faced with being creative against constant and extreme tight deadlines plus a very tough grading process to boot, everybody’s stress levels skyrocketed. Those who couldn’t take it bailed out and probably still have nightmares from that period. I managed to hang on long enough to see the light. But it left me with little time for other things. Especially after I quite by accident started publishing my own weekly class newspaper (which I continued doing until I finally graduated from secondary school). Somehow by then, I had lost interest in drawing cartoons. Instead I had discovered I had new passion: though I couldn’t spell, I loved to write.

Last Friday, Bert asked me to name a few cool projects we had created recently. My mind drew a blank. Not that we hadn’t made anything cool, far from it. It’s just very rare to ever look back. Once a project is delivered, we’re usually already too busy working on the next one to sit down and contemplate on our achievements. As they say over here: Out of sight, out of heart.

For the past fifteen years, I have, as a graphic designer, worked on all kinds of internet projects. And if there is one thing I understand, it’s that a lot of what I create is ephemeral. Some of the designers I know never wanted to make the switch to digital, because when you design for print, you at least have something substantial that you can touch and feel at the end of the day. With digital, everything remains virtual. Add to that, I work in a fast paced sector and much of what I create will soon quickly become outdated or obsolete.

One example of this are those banner ads that annoy website visitors to no end. Banners are probably one of the most visible yet anonymous things I regularly get to create. It’s quite often that I’ll come across creations I myself have worked on while visiting mainstream sites in Belgium, and in lesser part also the European ones. At the same time, I also know that in a week or two, it will disappear without a trace, never to be seen again by the public at large. And chances are, I probably never will too.

There is another dimension to the ephemeral nature of what I do. My field of work is in constant change, always evolving, always in perpetual revolution. It takes quite some effort to keep up, but it also poses a huge problem when archiving my creations. Even if I meticulously backup everything I do and make sure it’s safely stored, there is still no guarantee I’ll be able to access those very same files in ten years from now. Chances are, I probably won’t be able too.

Case in point is my graduation project created just over ten years ago. It’s slowly degrading with every passing year. It was an experiment in interactive storytelling. New media was truly new back then and I wanted a way of telling stories in an immersive way just like books and films still do. Making it was a huge headache as I was constantly hitting against the limits of the hardware and software I had available to me the time. Many problems of which have luckily disappeared since then, in part, thanks to Moores Law.

Ten years later and many of the source files have been lost to hard drive crashes. The source files I do still have can’t be accessed anymore. They were saved on state-of-the-art hard drives of the time, a technology that isn’t supported in this day and age. While the data on them may still be ok, I have no way of hooking them up to a modern computer anymore. Nor is format of the source files supported anymore. The application I created them in has long been discontinued.

While I did find the final release, the CD it was burnt on is also in a state of decay. Despite being protected from light all these years, the CD itself has become scarily transparent. You can see right through it and most CD drives can’t even read it anymore. So while I still could, I made a backup on a computer where it still did work. The next problem I faced was the software I created it in. Not only the source files, but the final output files aren’t supported anymore. The run-time I had created back then won’t run on the newer operating systems that have since followed. After quite some reconfiguring and almost crashing my computer entirely, I finally did get it to run, but only half of it worked. In other words, unless I can get my hands on vintage hardware and software, my graduation project is pretty much lost with time. Or recreate it from scratch.

I did manage to recover some of the videos I had created for my story and remixed them into short you can see above. Without the interactivity and context, it probably doesn’t make much sense. But considered as an abstract form of digital poetry, I think it might just work. The original version was about the city of Qin. In it, we follow four characters who struggle to survive and break free from a highly sanitized and impersonal society. It’s still sad though. If I still had access to the original source files, I could re render the 3D animations in better quality and higher resolution than what was possible at the time.

While I was searching through my archives for more stuff around Qin, my biggest surprise was finding some of papers I had written during my school years. One was about the prairie houses built by Frank Lloyd Write. Another was about an ambitious dream house I had designed for myself. Unlike many of my designs, they had withstood the test of time quite well. Maybe my fellow print designers were right. Not only is paper more tactile, it also has a better chance of outlasting its digital counterparts. And so while I still have the paper versions, even if I do find the digital source files, chances are that I won’t be able to open them either. They are worth posting online, but that does mean retyping everything over again.

Does it bother me? Not really. Just like with everything else in life, nothing lasts forever. The things worth saving will be saved and the rest will be left behind as technology progresses. As a result, I see myself as a designer that creates ephemeral things. I used to worry about not having an up to date portfolio. Now, I would rather concentrate on creating my own things. The Pangaea Expedition is one such example. If it stands the test of time of some of the other things I’ve created, well, that remains to be seen. One can only try.

There are still some finishing touches to be done on the Pangaea Expedition site before it is ready for prime time. But in the mean time, I’ve finally completed the Nchiwe Map. It depicts the settlements of the Nchiwe civilization some 75 thousand years ago. Creating it was one thing. Exporting it to a 90×60 cm image was another matter. It was a real test in patience. Now I’m investigating which services are best suited to sell it as a poster. Lulu seems to offer the best quality prints at 300 dpi. That’s a 10800×7200 pixel image (77 mega-pixels). I’ve heard a lot of good reviews about the site. But while they may be great for books, the whole process of purchasing posters seems rather complex and not always very clear. Another problem is the fact that they offer the posters in three different formats. But for some reason, they don’t share the same aspect ratio. So if the buyer doesn’t choose the intended format, he’ll get a trimmed version instead. In the case of the Nchiwe map, choosing a smaller format means bye bye New Zealand (Aotearoa on the map). And Lulu doesn’t offer the publisher the option of only selling one particular format instead of all three.

The other alternative is Cafe Press. Their shop is more polished and clearer to use. At least you know exactly what you’re purchasing. My only doubt is the quality. While they do except 300 dpi images, they seem to prefer 200 dpi ones. Does this mean that they are printing it at max 200dpi or are they rightly assuming that for photo enlargements, up-scaling it beyond 200 is useless? I guess I’ll just have to purchase my poster and do a quality check before I actually start selling them.

Update: Looks like my choice has been made for me. I just got a mail from Lulu. They will soon no longer be offering posters for sale.