iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

To restore to defaults: `defaults delete -g NSConvolutionOverride1 defaults delete -g NSSplitViewItemSidebarDefaultsToFloatingAppearance` Enjoy, best, Michael

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

#MacOS: Some design missteps in Tahoe can be remedied as I learned from c't today: Smaller corner radii: `defaults write -g NSConvolutionOverride1 -float 10` Wasted space around the floating sidebar: `defaults write -g NSSplitViewItemSidebarDefaultsToFloatingAppearance -bool false` Much better!

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

A new addition to my “Visual Phenomena and Optical Illusions” collection: “Mainz-Linez”. Here's the live demonstration and explanation of the somewhat mysterious title: michaelbach.de/ot/mot-Mainz.... Enjoy!

A static image of the Mainz-Linez illusion: 4 vertical wiggly lines, in the middle of each a red disk. A small black cross in the center.

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

michaelbach.de/ot/aud-Shepa... My demo of the ever rising scale, invented by Roger Shepard, had failed due to new security restrictions in browsers. I rewrote it and added plot showing amplitude vs. log(frequency), hopefully making it easier to understand this amazing effect. Enjoy! #illusion

Screenshot of the ever-rising Shepard scale with frequency spectrum.

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Reposted by Michael Bach

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Bluetorial-A dream and a bit of a nightmare Serving as Editor-in-Chief at Science was fascinating. I greatly enjoyed working with talented and committed editorial, news, graphics, and production staff. But the inside look into scientific publishing and AAAS was also deeply disillusioning.

media.tenor.com

a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on

ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Belatedly I notice that others also have posted likewise. No matter, strengthens the intent.

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Quitting the Washington Post: anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-qui.... Impressive, my admiration! Good read. Hope not harbinger of worse things to come. I learned of it via daringfireball.net.

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Bicycling through the nearby woods, I happenchanced upon this frosty gem.

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Reposted by Michael Bach

Brad Wyble @bwyble.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

How are people that used to be evidently smart so bad at understanding obvious truths that they actively destroyed the value of their core product?

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Reposted by Michael Bach

Marius 't Hart @thartbm.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Open the present by shaking the tree? Or is this Schrodinger's gift?

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

🧪In our journal club: Just had a paper where the authors needlessly made their figures rectangular, although the content was quadratic (same range on x- and y-axis). It really should be quadratic to understand the content better, also the identity line is then at 45°. Old gripe of mine, sorry 😎.

Two data plots. On the left needlessly landscape, on the right quadratic like the data themselves.

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Great! How did you do that, with a VDU? And what was the delay between center and periphery?

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

ah, can't remember ever having heard about that.

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

One possible explanation: Flash is brighter in the center. And in the retina 10x brighter is about 14 ms faster.

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Are you possibly referring to Mooney Faces?

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

A new paper on FrACT michaelbach.de/fract/: “Freiburg Vision Test (FrACT): Optimal number of trials?” (open access) dx.doi.org/10.1007/s004.... Mysterious “kink” at 18 trials (figure): 18 trials a good compromise between fatigue and precision for Sloan letters or 8-alternative Landolt-Cs.

Graph showing LoA steadily decrease with the number of trials, above 18 slower. Inset is the FrACT icon.

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

It helps if you know Objective C + Apples GUI toolbox (in fact, nearly the same). I programmed over 100 #visual phenomena ( #illusions) and a major vision test battery with it…

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I wrote a program to add the page numbers to the index words (its even on GitHub), but my editor said my selection was crap ( in politer words)… Advice I thought of too late: set up a long-lasting web page for errata and put the URL into the book.

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Michael Bach @bachmichael.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I just finished an experiment: For three weeks I responded to every "invitation" from a predatory journal with "STOP PESTERING ME". Results: I now receive about twice as many per day than before… Time to end the experiment and conclude that I'm just validating my email for them 😎. #science

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