What are Your True Colors?

DEAR
     Curious:
             Have you ever been surprised at how others describe your personality? I know I have, especially when people say that I am graceful. Since when did dropping things left and right connotate being graceful?

             In any case, it's fascinating to take a personality test to see your basic traits, so I've got a simple one here for you today! It's quick, easy, and you learn quite a bit about yourself! Take a look, and discover your true colors:

             To start, grab a pen and paper, then compare all four boxes in the row. Once you have a sense of the basic idea that each box represents, score each one from 1 to 4 depending on how well it describes you. 4: very well, 3: pretty well, 2: somewhat, 1: only slightly. Do this for all five rows, writing everything down so you can keep track!

Row One

Row Two

Row Three

Row Four

Row Five

             After you've written down the numbers for each row, look back at the colors of each box, and tally up the numbers you've paired with them: all orange boxes, all gold boxes, all green, and all blue. I ended with this: Blue: 18, Green: 12, Orange: 12, and Gold: 8. 

           After you have your tally, you can read these color guides to see your personality results! Everyone is a mixture of all colors, but we will all have a certain color that defines our personality more than the others. For me, it's blue! 

    

               So what color are you? Was it what you expected? 

With A Colourful Flourish,

Joélle.

The Mysterious Tumblr Dress

DEAR
     Netizens:
            A lot of people are on the internet for wayyyyy to long. This is not good for your eyes. It might take a minute to adjust your eyesight to anything else if you've been staring at a screen for a long time. But this mystical color-shifting dress that Tumblr user swiked uploaded not very long ago has everyone's knickers in a twist, and it has nothing to do with the brightness of a screen. The big question everyone's asking is, "Is it blue and black? Or white and gold?" Just take a look at the viral photo here:

            So, what do you see? Blue and black, white and gold, or periwinkle and brown? I just showed this to my parents. While I saw it as blue and black, my dad saw it in white and gold, and my mom saw the same as me. I closed my eyes for about 30 seconds, looked back at the screen, and while my mom's perception hadn't changed, I then saw what my dad was seeing. I just scrolled up while typing this, and the dress changed color again. After doing a lot of research and seeing this darn dress over and over again, I have now seen it in all three aforementioned color combinations. It's incredible!

             Of course, as I, a self-proclaimed nerd, enjoy doing research, I have discovered this tasty tidbit: apparently, there is some blue-tinted lighting in the photograph, and probably in the store, which most likely spurred on the argument in the first place. Different people have differently wired brains, which adjust to lighting and coloring at different speeds. This dress is just the right colors to flip that switch. 

           You know how you can look at a negative for a while, then look at a white space, and the negative is mentally projected in color? This is a similar principle. Depending on if your brain thinks what it's currently looking at is colored negatively or positively, the dress will appear in two different color sets: white and gold, or blue and black. Your mind is, in a nutshell, acting as a biological version of film tape, and your eyes, the camera, are seeing your head's confusion. 

           After looking through dozens of comments on Buzzfeed, Facebook, and Tumblr, it also appears that the majority of those who see blue and black first are female, and those who see white and gold are male. Females also tend to be able to notice the colors switch more often than males. And some people just can't tell how anyone would see it differently than they do! Interesting, huh? 

         This dress actually can be found on Amazon, and the description says it all: "dress, royal blue". But, you've got to admit, no matter the true color, the reviews and comments are way better! Read them all here!

          UPDATE: I have found an excellent article on wired.com that scientifically debunks the mystery! Read it here.

             So, my dear reader, what do you see when you look at the Mysterious Tumblr Dress?

With Crossed Eyes,

Joélle.