Thanks for all of the comments yesterday. I think I am right in thinking that there was a sex split, with males tending to see a naked woman and females tending towards the shoes. I have no idea what that means.
Quite a few people have pointed out that this week a rather unusual photograph was released onto the web. It is the only photo of Phineas Gage, a railway worker who, in 1848, was unfortunate to have an iron rod pass through the front portion of his brain (with surprisingly few psychological effects other than him becoming more ill-tempered – there is more about him here).
Here is the pic…
So, it seems like a good candidate for a caption competition (thanks for the suggestion Emma)….any thoughts?
P.S. Just in case you missed it yesterday, I have set-up a Facebook page here for a new secret project that launches in a few weeks- feel free to join and spread the love.
July 23, 2009 at 7:00 am |
Keep an iron that rod – it could be dangerous.
July 23, 2009 at 7:00 am |
“I only have eye for you”.
July 23, 2009 at 7:01 am |
I’d rather have a bottle in front of me…
July 23, 2009 at 7:04 am |
I was born Lucky.
July 23, 2009 at 7:06 am |
Well, now that you’ve seen the size of my rod *wink*…
July 23, 2009 at 7:07 am |
“You wouldn’t trust any other crowbar to pass through your head. When only the best will do.”
July 23, 2009 at 7:08 am |
“I’ve been working on the railroaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggh!”
July 23, 2009 at 9:11 am
I have to say that this one right here is the current #1 favorite in my test population.
Test population consists of: Me, my housemate, and housemate’s friend in San Francisco. We all died laughing. Fortunately, the afterlife has WiFi! (Yeah, I need sleep.)
July 23, 2009 at 7:08 am |
“Oh man, I forgot to draw on the other eye, now people to the left of me will notice I’m asleep.”
July 23, 2009 at 7:09 am |
Spare the rod and spoil the child.
July 23, 2009 at 7:10 am |
Iron rod in my brain? Hell man we need iron!! Good for the blood!
July 23, 2009 at 7:11 am |
Well, the eyepatch made me look fat, so…
July 23, 2009 at 7:12 am |
You call that a hat-pin? This is a hat-pin.
July 23, 2009 at 7:13 am |
Caption : “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry”
July 23, 2009 at 7:21 am |
In 1847 railway construction was all fun and games, then …
July 23, 2009 at 7:28 am |
btw, We recall seeing a documentary on Gage, and in the reinactment of the doctor attending him he reaches one hand into the bottom of the wound and the other into the top and says something to the effect that his hands are touching through his head.
Always seemed rather surreal. I still remember it, and am reminded of a similar reinactment of the doctor attending to President Lincoln, poking some wire into his brain trying to remove the small lead ball (no doubt doing far more damage to his brain).
July 23, 2009 at 7:31 am |
Railways make Meter gage, Broad gage and steely brained Phineas Gage
July 23, 2009 at 7:33 am |
Aaaah! I think I’ve got something in my eye!
July 23, 2009 at 7:45 am |
So… There I was, chatting with her… And I said “would you like to see my famous iron rod” and POW!
July 23, 2009 at 7:47 am |
Carlsberg don’t do stupid Victorians… But if they did…
July 23, 2009 at 7:48 am |
Mother Gage: “Now put away that stick Phineas, you’ll put your eye out!!”
July 23, 2009 at 8:04 am |
Remove the beam from your own eye.
July 23, 2009 at 8:04 am |
My acupuncturist said that this was about the right size to cure my asthma.
July 23, 2009 at 8:16 am |
Never get tired of telleing that story. In fact I never, ever get tired…
July 23, 2009 at 8:21 am |
Soon after this photo, the world’s last professional javelin catcher retired.
July 23, 2009 at 8:21 am |
Well, I guess I needed that job like a hole in my head.
July 23, 2009 at 8:32 am |
Ummmm, can you please direct me to the land of the blind?
July 23, 2009 at 8:36 am |
I’m a clever devious bugger really… by walkin round with a huge stick and one eye closed it draws peoples attention away from this fuckin stupid bow tie my mam made me wear this morning !!
July 23, 2009 at 8:40 am |
With irony he announced, “I am no longer Gage, call me Rod.”
July 23, 2009 at 8:52 am |
Eye, eye!
July 23, 2009 at 8:53 am |
I’m in ur railroadz
disprovin ur dualism
July 23, 2009 at 8:53 am |
In these thieving times, Phineas always kept one eye in his wallet.
July 23, 2009 at 8:54 am |
aye, this is me “eye ‘un”.
July 23, 2009 at 8:55 am |
“I traveled to the R&B Railroad and all I got was this huge hole through my skull.”
July 23, 2009 at 8:59 am |
Just nitpicking… It’s a daguerreotype not a photograph
July 23, 2009 at 9:05 am |
“You think this is impressive, wait’ll you see my *other* rod. *winkwinknudgenudgeknowwutImeanknowwutImeansaynomoresaynomore*”
(This is a clear sign that I need sleep. Night!)
July 23, 2009 at 9:05 am |
“Be careful with that rod! You’ll have someone’s eye out in a minute!”
July 23, 2009 at 9:25 am |
“you think the bearded lady or strong man is freaky? watch what I can do with this bar..”
July 23, 2009 at 9:32 am |
First cyborg implant only partial success.
July 23, 2009 at 9:43 am |
“Don’t ever insult a pole dancer with PMS!”
July 23, 2009 at 9:48 am |
And so it was official…Phineas became the first referee, although few rarely questioned him after “the pickle incident”.
July 23, 2009 at 9:59 am |
Shameless rip-off from Pharyngula today:
Q: What tool is used to measure a hole in the head?
A: A Phineas gage.
Rimshot!
July 23, 2009 at 10:20 am |
Gage’s safety tip for working with explosives? “Walk softly or carry a very large iron rod. In your head.”
July 23, 2009 at 10:36 am |
“I was going to pass down the tricks of my trade, but i only got one pupil”
July 23, 2009 at 10:41 am |
You know the first thing that came into my mind?
July 23, 2009 at 10:59 am |
“An unknown Victorian gentleman poses with the latest in neurosurgical implements. Neurosurgery was a popular hobby among the Victorian upper classes; the gentleman depicted here is holding an early version of the instrument that Walter Freeman would later patent as the ‘Lobot-O-Matic’. Many cases of blindness — as may be indicated here by the single closed eye — were probably caused by amateur neurosurgical experimentation, and not ‘self abuse’, the fashionable diagnosis of the day.”
July 23, 2009 at 11:00 am |
I just read through the comments from yesterdays post and there doesn’t seem to be any significant gender divide?
I count about 5 women who saw shoes before seeing the woman’s back, but this is out of ~200 replies. And at the same time there were 3 women who couldn’t see the shoes at all! More importantly, almost all the responses were identical for men and women, seeing the back first, then later seeing shoes (whether or not they saw the shoes without being told varied, but not along gender lines).
Seeing the results you expected to see much?
July 23, 2009 at 11:11 am |
“Yes, it did smart a little.”
“No, I never batted an eye.”
July 23, 2009 at 11:13 am |
What’s brown and Sticky?
A stick!
July 23, 2009 at 11:26 am |
“Now, about that mote in your eye…”
July 23, 2009 at 11:39 am |
My teachers all said that I should have pursued a career in Law instead. I have a mind like a steel-trap.
July 23, 2009 at 11:53 am |
“I’m the real iron man”
July 23, 2009 at 12:26 pm |
A man walks into a bar……..
July 23, 2009 at 12:50 pm |
“Sticks & stones may break my bones, but iron rods pass right through me”
July 23, 2009 at 1:05 pm |
Welcome to the “Land of the Blind”…..I am your king
July 23, 2009 at 1:21 pm |
“I for one salute our new Cyclopean overlords.”
July 23, 2009 at 1:38 pm |
That’s not a spike, THIS IS A SPIKE!
July 23, 2009 at 1:49 pm |
This is my rod. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
July 23, 2009 at 1:51 pm |
Man with glass eye unable to take a photo without blinking.
July 23, 2009 at 2:11 pm |
“… and she told me to shove it!”
July 23, 2009 at 2:15 pm |
“Have YOU had an accident at work?…”
July 23, 2009 at 2:23 pm |
Okay, same game, but I’ll break this time.
July 23, 2009 at 2:42 pm |
The last thing that went through his mind was his momma’s favorite saying, “It’s all fun and games until someone loses a frontal lobe.”
Well maybe not exactly the last thing…
July 23, 2009 at 3:00 pm |
Being the world record holder for being able to play the worlds largest flute is great, but attempting to play it in the dark was not a record I should have attempted
July 23, 2009 at 3:09 pm |
“Van Helsing prepares for his third attempt to slay the beast that has been ravaging the coastal city of San Francisco.”
July 23, 2009 at 3:36 pm |
Mama always said, “Spare the rod and spoil the child”.
July 23, 2009 at 3:46 pm |
Man, those turn-of-the-century LARPers were HARDCORE!
July 23, 2009 at 3:57 pm |
“Those crazy kids are seriously getting out of control with their piercings”
July 23, 2009 at 4:35 pm |
“Hey, you’d be cranky too if you had an iron rod in your skull”.
July 23, 2009 at 4:37 pm |
“Working the railroad can be hard, physical, monotonous dirty work… me, I think its better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick”
July 23, 2009 at 4:56 pm |
Will the real phineas gage say “eye”?
In the eye of the rod-holder
“…last thing I remember was being asked to keep my eye on this rod..”
July 23, 2009 at 5:05 pm |
“I did not have sexual relations with that robot…”
July 23, 2009 at 5:08 pm |
Phineas was renowned for his steely-eyed determination.
July 23, 2009 at 5:49 pm |
Damn! Someone beat me to it but “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”
July 23, 2009 at 6:57 pm |
Not a caption, but his ill temper was probably attributed to the frontal lobe damage from the accident. He probably had problems with impulse control, and might have seemed a bit like Gary Busey.
July 23, 2009 at 7:34 pm |
The inspiration for the Ghostbusters logo.
July 23, 2009 at 8:10 pm |
“A man who had points in mind when he said something.”
July 23, 2009 at 8:31 pm |
Well I just got well and truly poled.
July 23, 2009 at 11:50 pm |
It’s all fun and games, until someone loses an eye!
(However, Eccles9 has the funniest comment I’ve read thus far)
July 24, 2009 at 12:15 am |
You might have thought so, but I never saw it coming.
July 24, 2009 at 1:43 am |
Phineas R. Gage, the world’s smallest man at 4¾” high,
poses for the Guinness Book of Records whilst signing fan mail.
July 24, 2009 at 6:45 am |
At last, Phineas managed to get that irritating eyelash out of his eye!
July 24, 2009 at 10:49 am |
No I’m a German but how did you know my name was Walter?
July 24, 2009 at 12:27 pm |
You’d better paint another one, just in case. I think I had my eye closed.
July 24, 2009 at 6:10 pm |
You’ll have someones eye out with that… oh, too late!
July 24, 2009 at 7:18 pm |
If id doesn’t say “Mental Floss” it isn’t “Mental Floss”
July 25, 2009 at 8:36 am |
i swear to you love,
cross my heart and hope to die…
July 25, 2009 at 8:37 am |
i think my drink might have been spiked…
July 25, 2009 at 8:30 pm |
Please don’t bother me now…. I’m half asleep!
July 26, 2009 at 9:08 pm |
Alas my pole-vaulting days are over, but no fear, much joy can yet be gained from this one eyed monster.
July 27, 2009 at 9:39 am |
Injury Lawyers 4 you …
July 27, 2009 at 11:53 pm |
E L U Q R S V
next row:
c d l k q f s
August 10, 2009 at 10:05 am |
I thought they said I’d be taking POLLS…