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the same sort of feeling as discovering a glitch in the matrix I imagine.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Great idea for a thread!
I was in an abandoned building taking pictures, when I set off a really loud alarm and had to run out of the place.
The next day, I was contacted by someone on Flickr who recognized the building from my photos. He said he was there the same day, and asked if I'd heard the alarm go off. "Heard it?" I said, "I made the alarm go off!" He replied, "I hate to break it to you, but I'm the one who set off the alarm." We compared notes. Both of us had had the experience of entering a stairwell, and 5 seconds later, hearing the alarm go off. So it turns out we had both walked into the same stairwell, on different floors, at exactly the same time.
Posted 101 months ago.
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This is a similar kinda weird but not really story. I'm about to open a gifted school in Cincinnati and have been on the lookout for a good fencing instructor to hire full time at the school. I did a bunch of internet searches, put out an add in the paper, and didn't find much of anything fencing related in cincinnati. Then I did a simple "cincinnati" tag search and found some girl fencer who belongs to a fencing club/school I didn't know anything about: IN CINCINNATI.
So it's not really a syngergistic story, just interesting.
Posted 101 months ago.
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This is driving me nuts.
There's this photo on Flickr of a girl photographing some street performers in Japan. The girl in the photo was browsing Flickr and she noticed this photo that she was in. I think she recognized her tattoo or something. Anyway, she contacted the other photographer, and they were both amazed that they had found each other.
I just can't find the photo, though! Has anyone seen this?
Posted 101 months ago.
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Yeah, I blogged about that here.
And here's the photos you're talking about.
So amazing...
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Ooooh, thank you! That is so bizarre, in a cool way. :)
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hrm i think woodcreeper and andipantz have a little bit of a coincidence...let me go ask them
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My experience isn't as random, since I had seen andipantz's photographs of Northern Liberties, Philadelphia, prior to visiting the area. When the person we (Matt and I) were with mentioned we were in the NOLIBS, I did find myself looking for places I had seen in andi's photo stream. As far as I knew, I hadn't seen any of the places she photographed, until I posted my own images. I can clearly remember taking this photograph while walking quickly down the street to my car (it was cold):
I liked the lantern, and the peeling paint around it, so I snapped a quick shot and hustled to catch up with Matt and our friend Jason. After posting the image to flickr I noticed the number on the door, 801. It look vaguely familiar. "Hadn't andipantz had something from the 800 block in her photos??". So I checked her flickr stream, but nothing turned up. Then I checked her website, and sure enough here's her picture. Crazy, huh?
It's just really cool how we both saw and chose to photograph the same spot from different perspectives.
When flickr worlds collide.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Oooh. Spooky!
Posted 101 months ago.
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what a cool thread :)
Last Tuesday I found a group on flickr called Angels of the North, which is brilliant, because I've just moved here, and I posted on the thread, and mailed the group's admin, because I need to get out and meet more people.
That very evening, Friday's Child (for it is she) turned up for the first time to our singing group. And this is she, annotated at the Sage Gateshead later that evening.
Not as spooky as that other one, but cool :)
Oh and Friday's Child's son and me seem to have bought our cameras at the same shop which is more weird than it sounds, because he lives in Cardiff.:D
Posted 101 months ago.
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Towards the end of last year, I took a picture of (half) an amazing rainbow. Last week, I found someone with the other half :-)
Posted 101 months ago.
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This
happens to me
flickr.com/photos/stepinrazor/409883/ (the pete coincidence goes even stranger, at that)
Posted 101 months ago.
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Is anyone keeping track of all the times in which such amazing coincidences do not take place, and are therefore ignored?
I mean, it's neat to wow at the coincidences and they can be quite amusing, but hopefully we're all keeping in mind a sense of proportion? When it happens, we pay attention. When it doesn't (which is most of the time), we just don't think about it.
Try it, as an exercise. Count how many photos you have in your photostream, for which no "amazing coincidence" can be mentioned.
Posted 101 months ago.
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for which no "amazing coincidences" can be mentioned
I think you forgot the all important word "YET" Gustavo. ;)
Posted 101 months ago.
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Gee, Gustavo, way to rain on our parade! ;-)
Seriously though, I think what's interesting about Flickr is that it enables us to see the coincidences that happen all the time but are normally invisible.
For almost every picture I've ever taken, I'm sure there's someone else who captured something similar, or another aspect of the same same place, or even the same moment from another angle. Normally we have no connection to these people. They're strangers, why would we ever talk to them?
But Flickr turns that situation inside out: when two people shoot the same subject, suddenly it's possible for them to find each other, and revel in that coincidence. And suddenly these strangers aren't complete strangers anymore. I think it's wonderful.
I think a more meaningful measure of proportion is this: compared to your everyday life, how many coincidences per week do you experience on Flickr? In my experience, the ratio is about 100-to-1. How's that for a sense of proportion? :-)
Posted 101 months ago.
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Gustavo your'e the numbers and statistics guy, do your thing!
Anyway in response to this thread, I love coincidences, they rock my world and it makes humanity that much closer. Those six degrees of separation at work... It's a beautiful ting. (and I misspelled "thing" on purpose) :D
Posted 101 months ago.
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way to rain on our parade
Nah, as I said spotting the coincidences can be amusing; they're neat. I appreciate the beauty in discovered connections, and enjoy them even more as an interesting window into how our mind works.
The voice of reason and all that. No need to fall into mysticism and search for obscure and supernatural "explanations" when the world can be interpreted very naturally - and enjoyed even more because of that.
Understanding does not negate wonder: quite the opposite is true.
Posted 101 months ago.
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> Is anyone keeping track of all the times in which such amazing coincidences do not take place?
I have been. I actually keep a blog of them.
Posted 101 months ago.
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I just wrote a comment to Fubuki starting "synchronicity strikes again." Yes, my life has been chock full of these mysterious collisions. I used to be inclined to "fall into mysticism" about them, as Gustavo puts it, but now I just wonder. They happened so often and dramatically that people close to me would be affected as well. I mention this because it was not only my experience of "my" synchronicities that struck me but witnesses to "my" synchronicities were also struck and awed.
I understand what Gustavo is saying but I also experience some of these "apparently" outrageous and improbable coincidences as mind jolting and creates (for me) a sense that something besides my conscious mind, ego etc... is in charge of my reality, similar to iv0, leaving me to wonder. Not conclude. We know that space and time are not simply what they appear to be. Not mysticism, just physics. Whether or not synchronistic events as we experience them have anything to do with that fact is not known. To say it's a mystery is not to say it's supernatural, nature itself is VERY mysterious AND to some degree that we don't know, also understandable!
Lord, I haven't had dinner yet. So I better shut up and come back later. Hope I made some sense. I hope the thread continues.
Posted 101 months ago.
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I also experience some of these "apparently" outrageous and improbable coincidences as mind jolting and creates (for me) a sense that something besides my conscious mind, ego etc... is in charge of my reality
Undeniable, the feeling is there. There is (and has been for enough time to evolve our intelligence) a selective advantage in being able to identify non-random correlations in a complex world. The "problem" is that our cognitive process for identifying such correlations "misfires" frequently enough.
If you wish, it's the selective advantage of some paranoia: better consider some random coincidences as significant than miss real connections and suffer the consequences.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Oy, I can go get quotes and stuff but the idea that synchronicities are neurological blips is far from proven. We'll see how punchy I get about this! Deja vus are explained as brain blips also which I can imagine to be more probable than synchronicities from what I know of neurology and from my personal experience, but again, we (the researchers "we") don't know. What is known about the workings of our brain is still very primitive, despite all the recent progress. That I do know.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Eric, I too have been counting since this morning and have so far identified 15,241,383,936 examples of coincidences that did not occur.
Hmm...odd. I just noticed that number is a perfect square! What are the chances of that?
Posted 101 months ago.
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Two things -
First, I'm not saying that synchronicities are explained by neurological blips, I'm saying that our perception of their significance would be.
Second, I'm not saying that synchronicities are explained, but that naturalistic explanations can be proposed - hypotheses that can be tested - and as long as these are available, there is no need to resort to the metaphisical, unnatural or mystic.
Posted 101 months ago.
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there is no need to resort to the metaphisical, unnatural or mystic.
there may indeed be no need, but whyever not, if it suits, fits, feels right, whatever? i think what a lot of us feel, including you GG, is that our sense of wonder at these combinations comes despite any possible rational explanation, and that seems to mean that we don't, on the whole, seem to need one.
big stuff on its own in these rational times.
Posted 101 months ago.
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I'm an American, and took this picture in Germany:
www.flickr.com/photos/fallsroad/3570465/
Whilst surfing about Flickr I encountered this photograph, taken by an Irishman:
www.flickr.com/photos/naoise/3508956/
I'm not much for metaphysics, but it does give me a small shiver to run across something like this, especially considering the perspective of the two photographs.
Posted 101 months ago.
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How about this one then...
irregulargirl posted these pictures recently that I had viewed previosly... www.flickr.com/photos/casoulbyrd/3703788/in/set-83328/ & www.flickr.com/photos/casoulbyrd/3673789/in/set-83328/
Now check out what I found tonight that shoegazer posted... www.flickr.com/photos/shoegazer/3740877/
Posted 101 months ago.
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Hey, Sherlock77...I think irregulargirl and shoegazer are boyfriend and girlfriend. (I am infering this)
I've noticed them both because based on the pictures they take, they seem to live about 3-4 blocks from me. In fact, I've taken many pictures of the exact same spots/things they have - again, because we're neighbors :)
example:
hers: flickr.com/photos/casoulbyrd/678093/in/set-11875/
mine: www.flickr.com/photos/ricardo/2158697/
(Reluctantly puts a chalkmark upon the board for Gustavo)
Posted 101 months ago.
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[responding to fallsroad's posting]
Ok, so two people took somewhat similar photos from not-exactly-the-same-spot under the same bridge. Different formats, different colors, different focal distances.
So what is shared? The approximate content. Is this astonishing?
Consider this photo I took of the Space Needle in seattle, viewed through a monument in Volunteer Park. I called this "cliche 5" because I'm sure many, many other people took essentially the same photo. A quick tag search for "space needle" finds this photo. What an uncanny similarity!
Looking at other examples from the same tag search reveals the same in squared circle format, and then yet another nearly identical squared circle of the same, by somebody else.
A mystical experience?
Posted 101 months ago.
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Well, that explains that one. Could happen though I suppose...
I don't have any photo buddies yet (at least fellow Flickr photo buddies here in Calgary), although if a friend of mine joins up we often frequent the same car shows throughout the summer so the same pictures might show up on here.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Understanding does not negate wonder: quite the opposite is true.
I'm beginning to disagree with that statement. :)
Posted 101 months ago.
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But this one did happen separately, at totally different times but at a certainly unique angle:
Exhibit A: someone who visited Calgary, www.flickr.com/photos/rouleau/3377238/in/set-84721/
Exhibit B: a Calgarian's picture, www.flickr.com/photos/zoester/677685/
This came to light recently via the Calgary photogroup
Posted 101 months ago.
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our sense of wonder at these combinations comes despite any possible rational explanation,
I agree fully and happily. This is another way of saying what I said above - having a rational explanation doesn't stop the wonder.
and that seems to mean that we don't, on the whole, seem to need one.
People do appear to be in need for an explanation, though. One can believe in some ad hoc metaphisical explanation, or one can try to really understand. The beauty of rational explanations is that they produce testable hypotheses, and there's no greater wonder than doing the experiment and seeing the prediction validated.
big stuff on its own in these rational times.
Rational times, really?
Posted 101 months ago.
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But this one did happen separately, at totally different times but at a certainly unique angle
Is that significantly different from the Space Needle examples above?
Posted 101 months ago.
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[i]Is that significantly different from the Space Needle examples above?[i]
I suppose not, just saying that it happens... fallsroad posted much the same thing as well
So... is there ever really an original photographic idea?
While I was taking pictures of these swings on Sunday...
Another Flickr member? Don't think there are that many of us in Calgary though
Posted 101 months ago.
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GustavoG:
I'm not claiming any mystical attributes to the two photos I linked, nor the fact of their existence. Superstition befuddles the mind.
Your Space Needle example is taken, but doesn't really fit.
The bridge in the photos is on the very far edge of a small German city. It is not a notable one, not old, historical, or particularly eye-catching. You won't find it in travel brochures, and so on. I've never been to Seattle, and I've seen dozens if not hundreds of angles of the Space Needle.
As for the perspective - I guess you had to be there. No major roads go past the underside of the bridge, and it isn't accessible while trundling down a city street like, oh, in Seattle. Nor are there any interesting public sculptures nearby to act as an intersting frame. One has to go find the spot to stand in. The perspective in this case, I am guessing, is probably due as much to focal length as to the exact position either of us were standing.
Now take into account the dull obscurity of that particular bridge in a country neither myself nor the other Flickr member are native to, and add in that we both posted those pictures on Flickr itself, much less that I saw his shortly after posting my own.
I don't think it is a matter of exact content, more a sense of occupying a similar, if not the same space at two very different times, and having them linked together through the aaegis of a simple photograph.
It makes me wonder, but I'm not off to see a psychic or anything. :)
(Edit: typos)
Posted 101 months ago.
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It's not mystical or mysterious, but it's kind of cool that I walked past this window on the very same day that someone else took this photo. The catch? I don't even live in Ottawa. I live thousands of kilometres away and just happened to be visiting a friend. Pretty cool.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Another Flickr member? Don't think there are that many of us in Calgary though
I don't know - is that really another Flickr member? Is her photo in Flickr?
Perhaps the strength of your next statement depends on the answer to that one? :)
If she isn't, and isn't about to post her photo in Flickr, is that not one of the very many counterexamples I mentioned earlier?
it's kind of cool that I walked past this window on the very same day that someone else took this photo
Kind of cool, yes. Sure.
Makes me wonder, how many Flickr members passed in front of that window that day? And how many photos of windows are there in Flickr now, that you didn't ever pass in front of, and probably never will?
Posted 101 months ago.
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GustavoG: I think you are kind of raining on our parade, actually. If you look back at this thread, you were the first person to introduce the idea of a "mystical or supernatural explanation" for coincidences, by negating it. Nobody else said anything about any kind of explanation at all for these coincidences. We were just hanging out, enjoying them for what they were: coincidences (not "synchronicity", which does have a mystical connotation.) I think you're reacting against something that nobody in here was actually saying. It's almost as if you're trolling or something. What's up with that?
Whatever your thoughts about coincidences, there appears to be a broad consensus that they occur more frequently on Flickr than they do in our day-to-day lives. I think that says something very interesting about the structure of Flickr, the way it allows those connections to happen. And it has potentially profound implications for Flickr-like systems in general.
I happen to agree with you that there's nothing supernatural about coincidences. I just think that's not the most interesting thing you can say about them. I'd much rather just read people's cool coincidence stories, and enjoy them!
Posted 101 months ago.
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Bizarre. Driving me nuts. Amazing. Spooky.
Ok, so perhaps nobody explicitly used the words "mystical" or "supernatural", but the implications are clear. This thread is not detached from our shared culture.
In my mind this got also entangled with the rather strong comment "there is no such thing as chance" in one of the photos presented in this thread.
Now a discussion on rational thought became trolling. Quite an unwarranted accusation, wouldn't you think? I'll nevertheless respond to your next point, since you raised it twice already.
Do coincidences occur more frequently in Flickr than in day-to-day life? I'm claiming that the interestingness of coincidences is mostly a matter of perception. Is it surprising that they are more frequent in an online, electronic medium that allows you to browse a much larger and diverse set of photos, taken by many more people? That allows you to do fast searches by metadata? Just imagine the amazing coincidences lurking in Flickr's database, that could be unearthed if image comparison was available?
As I said already, I also enjoy the coincidence stories, though I'd rather not just have them. And I don't think I'm doing anyone a disservice by offering rational explanations as an alternative to the horrendously prevalent obscurantist and mystical thought.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Just a report here. I left this thread and within a minute ended up at an image with a comment posted by LizHurley. My name is a complex subject but I was born Elizabeth Hurley. (It isn't now, let's leave it at that.) LizHurley had 50 or so photos of about 5 places she'd visited or lives in, I can only guess where she lives; she didn't say. One of the places was Marin County in California, where I live, and Santa Cruz where my mother lives.
Addendum to synchronicity: Liz lives in Mill Valley in Marin where I live. She had a photo of a church steeple (nothing fancy). This little steeple was THE view from our living room when I lived in Mill Valley 18 years ago.
Posted 101 months ago.
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GustavoG, I don't think anybody here disagrees with you that coincidences are a matter of perception.
Bizarre. Driving me nuts. Amazing. Spooky.
"Driving me nuts" was just quas complaining about how he couldn't remember where he'd seen those photos. I'm not sure why it's in your list.
"Bizarre" and "amazing" are just expressions of ordinary surprise. Nothing mystical there. If these experiences weren't surprising, they wouldn't be worth mentioning.
"Spooky" is ambiguous. It could mean spooky like a ghost, if you believe in that kind of thing. Or it could mean spooky like a stalker following you home, or Big Brother spying on you. What these all have in common is the suspicion that there might be some reason for the coincidence. But it doesn't have to be supernatural.
It seems to me that you introduced the idea of the supernatural into this thread so you could attack it in front of the group. Is "trolling" not the right word for that? Either way, no offense intended. I think we basically agree.
Do coincidences occur more frequently in Flickr than in day-to-day life? ... Is it surprising that they are more frequent in an online, electronic medium that allows you to browse a much larger and diverse set of photos, taken by many more people? That allows you to do fast searches by metadata?
I guess it's not so surprising, but it is interesting. Think of it: coincidences (we all agree) are emotionally significant experiences that give rise to reactions like "spooky", "amazing" and "bizarre". We now have a system that never existed before, which increases the frequency of such experiences for many people. Isn't that something genuinely interesting and new?
I should confess that I have a vested interest in certain kinds of coincidences, since I've spent the past five years doing a photo project that benefits greatly whenever they happen. Flickr has filled my coffers with what may be a lifetime supply of happy coincidences.
Posted 101 months ago.
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There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Gustavo
than are dreamed of in your philosophy.
If the Bard says it, it must be true. : D
Posted 101 months ago.
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That's a very interesting version of Hamlet you're holding there, gweedo.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Actually, I am employing an army of typing monkeys - this is the best that they could do on such short notice. ; )
Posted 101 months ago.
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can we have less of the existential discussion of the merits of coincidences and more coincidences please? :p
Posted 101 months ago.
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i have to agree with gustavo--there are always going to be certain things (especially buildings, signs) that many, many people photograph and those places are going to show up multiple times on flickr. for example:
 
this is not a particularly metaphysical coincidence in any way. it only shows that we both used the same tag.
the tattoo thing, however, is on a much different level. also on a different level would be if my own stolen roll of film from 1998 appeared in the found photos group (or if the pics appeared as someone else's). even that would not be metaphysical--it would mean that some very lucky person bought my camera and developed the film and happened to post the pics.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Know what? For almost half my life, my own personal mythology has been dominated by an amazing coincidence that happened to me when I was 18.
I just read this thread and instantly came up with a very plausible explanation for the coincidence, and so have now imploded a largish section of my inner story.
I am not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing.
Posted 101 months ago.
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probably a bad thing
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Now I'm curious, kimmers. What was the nature of that coincidence?
Posted 101 months ago.
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Here's the story
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What a coincidence, the same peep show door in Paris by duncan and tsnot ... :)
Posted 101 months ago.
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can we have less of the existential discussion of the merits of coincidences and more coincidences please? :p
Hear, hear. Sorry for the interruption folks! Oh, and GustavoG: on preview, "trolling" was too strong a word. Please substitute "digressing", a much less serious offense ;-)
Posted 101 months ago.
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This needs more than a topic; this needs a group.
Voila, Correspondence
Posted 101 months ago.
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What a coincidence, stepinrazor, I had considered doing the same thing : ) .
How will the group differ from 'diptychs' (in which, coincidentally, you are referenced)? How will corresponding images be displayed? In threads? Or will this group be more focused on conversations describing coinciding events?
Posted 101 months ago.
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Let's talk about it over there ;)
Posted 101 months ago.
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No groups were found based on your search for "coincidence".
(hint hint)
Aren't diptychs images composed of two sections anyway?
Posted 101 months ago.
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diptychs are two images placed side by side.
stepinrazor's group is for images that relate to each other in time:
"These are photographs that may have been taken on the same day, at the same time, of the same event by different people."
the two sections of a diptych need not relate to each other in this way, in fact they need not relate to one another at all beyond their intentional physical juxtaposition.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Psst, flickr.com/groups/24652221@N00/
Posted 101 months ago.
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Cool idea for a group! Although I think "Synchronicity" would have made a better name :)
Posted 101 months ago.
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i post here to this effect:
"It may just be that flickr helps us notice coincidences more often — but that doesn’t make them any less coincidental, now, does it? and maybe it even makes flickr interesting for new and different reasons."
Posted 101 months ago.
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that doesn’t make them any less coincidental, now, does it?
No, just like understanding the structure and dynamics of water doesn't make it less wet.
Perhaps I'm not understanding what you mean by "coincidental" - when you say that, do you implicitly think "significantly coincidental"?
The excerpt you quote here is not the clearest to undestand what you're trying to say. Your blog posting, though, clearly implies the belief in a "deeper mysterious significance" of the coincidences. The bit about Ye non-believers, with hearts of cold and minds closed to the Truth - well, you try to figure that out yourself. I'm not sure who exactly it is you're addressing in that invocation. Probably not me, as my heart appears to have the proper temperature and even if you mean the symbollism, it isn't cold by a far cry; and my mind is pretty much open to Reason. It's not closed to Truth, it's simply skeptical of Revealed Truth Without Reasonable Nor Testable Basis.
Posted 101 months ago.
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How do you define "significantly?" And what do you mean by "deeper mystical significance?" why does it have to be deeper? (ie deeper than what?) we define and assign significance (either statistically or otherwise) within whatever tolerence we want, and that's what's so great about this... people are seeing or realizing the existence of coincident events (flickr happens to be the means through which they see these coincidences) and finding pleasure in them. what more do you need for proof of a spectacular and interlinked universe? the significance of that spectacularness and interlinkedness...
Posted 101 months ago.
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is up to you to define.
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GO GG! The motto on our uni's law school is 'Truth is Great'... the unintended ironies here are fantastic, but i digress.
herewith:
anyone remember 'the celestine prophecy'? what a load of @^%#& (made even worse b/c it was so poorly written and plotted), and yet it sold extremely well. some people seem to need to imbue these coincidences with a weightiness they do not deserve, to make life 'mean' more than the wonderful fleeting quirk of Nature that it is.
if we receive a voyager like probe from E.T's homeland and it has a gold record with "yyy.flickr.com" inscribed on it i'll be mildy surprised, but only b/c their version of striatic has a top hat on instead of a bowler...
i suppose even ET wants to share his baby photos with the rest of the known and previously unknown Universe... :)
Posted 101 months ago.
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There's significant evidence that people have a linear function for guessing probabilities of particular coincidences, and that a good deal of the amazement about coincidences (shared birthdays is the classic example) derives from the fact that their probabilities don't change at a linear rate - i.e. they're much more likely than people intuitively estimate.
That said, I still think it's cool that I took a picture of someone a third of the world away and she found it in six weeks. And lives not far from here. Freaky even.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Good grief, matt.. I was just watching lain: KIDS today — there's a great monologue about no such thing as coincidence existing, just good judgement and better guessing-ability (and of course that kids are better than anyone at it)
blah blah blah, I'll stop now before I turn this thread into a post-modern discussion on this oddly prophetic anime.
Posted 101 months ago.
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iv0: and I misspelled "thing" on purpose
you can add '(sic)' to portray that intention.
e.g. All your base are belong to us (sic).
Posted 101 months ago.
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vacapinta: Eric, I too have been counting since this morning and have so far identified 15,241,383,936 examples of coincidences that did not occur.
Hmm...odd. I just noticed that number is a perfect square! What are the chances of that?
Did you know that the number 12,345,678,987,654,321 is square for 111,111,111?
Oh, and your number is 123456 squared... whou would've thought?
Posted 101 months ago.
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maaaan, I'm 3/4 done with reading... and I feel like sleeping...
sorry guys, my replies to your posts will have to wait 'till saturday morning :P
Posted 101 months ago.
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I only have one word to say on the matter:
Apophenia
Posted 101 months ago.
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But, but, but HyperBob, you said 11 words!
Needless to say,
Posted 101 months ago.
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You such a way with prime numbers GG.
You could sweep a poor man right off his feet, with the dizziness of your repartee.
Posted 101 months ago.
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*yawn*
Posted 101 months ago.
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Kind of related to Correspondence is The many faces of one place, though less caught-up in the idea of similar times...
Posted 101 months ago.
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So people are terrible at guessing probabilities, and suffer the emotional and spiritual consequences (erroneous wonder). They appear to be terrible at predicting their own happiness too.
ps--keep your rationality off my erroneous wonder, bub!
Posted 101 months ago.
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So how do you like this amazing coincidence?
Isn't math beautiful?
(True, not quite a Flickr coincidence.)
Posted 101 months ago.
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Indeed it is, and if you start with the letter A=100 B=101, C=102, and so on throughout the alphabet and you spell out HITLER. Then added up all the numbers. I wonder what you get?
H-107
I-108
T-119
L-111
E-104
R-117
Apophenia I would guess.
Posted 101 months ago.
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Being a bit of self professed maths nerd, and I love the idea that coincidence is based upon probability and even perhaps an inner working of some form of consciousness predicting such a probabilty and therefore seeming coincidences occuring...
It doesn't mean the basic maths itself doesn't have some higher or more evolved (I am reluctant to use the word spiritual, but who knows...) purpose in the grand scheme of things...
Just because there's a posibility coincidences can be explained away through numbers and formulae doesn't mean it might not also be some form of higher purpose...
Just a thought :)
Cherry xoxoxo
P.S I am by no means making claim that whatever coincidences happen are spiritual or mystical, merely that just because we have the ability to understand (or at least enquire) about mathematical theory doesn't mean that "mysticism" or "spirituality" can be explained away entirely.
P.P.S I am also aware that many of you possibly believe that the human condition to cling to something labelled as destiny or fate or whatever kind of other spirituality is an act that often occurs out of desperation to believe in a form of hope. I'm inclined to agree. But I never discount all possibility that I might be wrong ;)
Posted 101 months ago.
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Now see, what this tells me is that we need some Flickr swag to help catch coincidences even earlier (okay, perhaps at the risk of catching them before they happen, but so be it). Flickr camera bags anyone?
Posted 101 months ago.
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CherryVega: Though I hate math with a passion I recently saw the movie Pie. Creeped me out and gave a glimpse at a potential new turn in this LONG and near aimless conversation. (I can't spell forgive me)
Posted 101 months ago.
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Talk about coincidence.. I posted an image of the moon taken from the Southern and Northern hemispheres. 
Within a couple of hours, a comment was posted by Pogonip that a similar comparision image appeared on another websites "Picture of the day. (it has since been moved to here)
Posted 101 months ago.
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The very first comment on your photo is quite informative, I'd say. :)
Posted 101 months ago.
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HF, you mean Pi, right?
Posted 101 months ago.
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Two of us saw the same thing in a country far, far away...several months apart...and named them similarly...
www.flickr.com/photos/red_devil/3885364/in/set-102530/
www.flickr.com/photos/dogseat/4852970/in/set-122082/
Posted 101 months ago.
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Python Buzz Forum "It's no coincidence that the star-nosed mole's claws are curved like parenthesis".
Posted 101 months ago.
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"It's no coincidence that the star-nosed mole's claws are curved like parenthesis".
Posted 101 months ago.
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Found another one by chance!
See this image taken by DunJen, Chicago, in 04-04: www.flickr.com/photos/lonesome-cowgirl/3854925/
And now this by nibaq, Kuwait, taken in 11-04: www.flickr.com/photos/nibaq/1300248/
I think, there are a lot of similar coincedences on flickr, like these guys that for sure are photographed thousand times a day - they just have to be found. ;)
Posted 101 months ago.
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It's a small world!
I found a long lost coworker, now thousands of miles away, via a comment on one of my photos. She's not on flickr, but her friend is one of my contacts.
Posted 99 months ago.
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haha, i was wondering about that last night. when would i finally see someone i know but have lost contact with on flickr. anyone else have the same type of experience?
Posted 99 months ago.
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Not exactly the flickr related, but at least photo related, I met my step daughter's (well, my 'almost' step daughter's) real dad for the first time when I was hired to photograph his band. Neither of us knew it at the time, but one I got home and was reviewing the photos everyone figured it out real quick.
Posted 99 months ago.
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i just love this stuff!! small world indeed!
Posted 99 months ago.
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Non flicker related but a coincidence non the less.
I was 18 and lived in the city Gävle, and hopped on the bus from the city to where I lived. Normally I'd sit on an empty row of seats but that day, I sat down by this old lady and struck up a conversation. The conversation somehow turned to apartments and that we had lived in the same city (Härnösand) which is oh, I think 300-350 kilometres north of Gävle. Not only that, but it turned out we had lived on the same street...and that she had sold her apartment 10 years ago to a "nice young lady with 3 kids".
...my mom.
Facts: Populations of Gävle: ~90.000, Härnösand ~12.000.
Small world indeed.
Posted 99 months ago.
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Maybe more of an example of everyone thinking alike than a coincidence, but there seems to be a classic shot that everyone just *has* to take on entering the British Museum (go through doorway, look up and to the left, click...)
www.flickr.com/photos/willster/7700512/
www.flickr.com/photos/sjungling/7863005/
www.flickr.com/photos/murky/8459143/
www.flickr.com/photos/mlazopoulou/7526386/
www.flickr.com/photos/aqui-ali/5724088/
www.flickr.com/photos/rfinn/4982511/
www.flickr.com/photos/daveo/4900511/
www.flickr.com/photos/adrianhon/1114452/
And I know of three others not on flickr too...
Posted 99 months ago.
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thats excellent, owenbooth!
I'm sure there are more like these..archetypal shots? predictable shots? I can't help think it'd be fun to find these type of pictures and collect them...
Not only that, but it turned out we had lived on the same street...and that she had sold her apartment 10 years ago to a "nice young lady with 3 kids"
i just started chatting with someone at a party here in san francisco this past year. Turns out we had both lived in NYC. Really? What street? Same street. What address? Same address. It turns out, same room.
I had been living with two roommates. She was the person who they gave my room to after I left!
Posted 99 months ago.
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Not quite the same but nearly. Lived in an apartment next to an elderly couple a few years ago. My apartment was too small, so bought a house in the next neighbourhood. Day I moved, two removal trucks outside, one for me, one for the couple next door. We both moved, at the same time, from adjoining apartments in one neighbourhood to adjoining houses in another neighbourhood. Freaky.
Posted 99 months ago.
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I'm from Calgary and I have passed that iron horse many lunch hours. I have never taken a photo of it but have witnessed several tourist stop along the main avenue during the busy summer to photograph it... coincidence???? I think not... Tourist photo op??? Surely!
Posted 99 months ago.
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I had a Flickr-related coincidence a while ago, when I was investigating reports of lost contacts. I wrote a script to identify people with at least ten fewer contacts than when I did the last network sample. Once the results were ready, as i was browsing the (previously unknown to me) names that popped up, the radio was playing the Pink Panther Theme. I copied a user name, pasted into the browser, and saw the user's icon - the Pink Panther's smiling face.
Later on, they played "Linus and Lucy" on the radio, but while it lasted, I didn't see Linus, Lucy or any of the Peanuts gang anywhere. Too bad. ;)
(And indeed, that list is impressive, owenbooth. Thanks!)
Posted 99 months ago.
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Owenbooth, it would be so cool to have all of those images you posted of the atrium in one set of favs! Anyone know how to accomplish this other than the rote way of saving each to one's one favs?
Posted 99 months ago.
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I have to weigh-in and comment... similar photos of famous public/tourist-visited places aren't quite the same as photos of the same sign on a random street, the same graffiti, the same type of animal with the same type of plant.
Different gravitas.
Posted 99 months ago.
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copied this from a blog i posted about a week and a half ago. thought the experience was uncanny; that was until i found this group. apparently, flickr is making a habit out of stories like this:
while i was in taipei on this last trip to asia, i was given the privilege of presenting a little bit about yahoo and some of our recent annoucements in honor of yahoo's ten year anniversary. the mayor was invited as were members of the press, industry, etc. i did a fairly straightforward powerpoint presentation and then talked a little bit about our recent acquisition of flickr. i demonstrated the site's core functionality by first showing a typical collection of pics of sunsets with the appropriate tags, etc. i then turned the focus to the power of flickr's community and the subsequent innovation and creativity being fostered on the site. as an example i used a few screen grabs of the new transparent screen series i caught on flickr the other day (which, btw, the audience thought was very cool), e.g.,
www.flickr.com/photos/mmdc/7295073/in/pool-transparentscr...
so here's where the story gets interesting (if not surreal)...
after the presentation the yahoo folks brought us into a room of about 30 journalists to do a press conference (which apparently is not unusual in asia for visiting companies.) about three quarters of the way through the press conference, a young reporter named richy li working for the china times express stands up and starts to ask about flickr. however, before he gets to his question he mentions that he is a flickr user and that at about 10am the morning of my presentation (roughly one hour before i did the actual screen grabs), he did his own version of a transparent screen and sure enough, it was one of the screen grabs i showed during my presentation!
www.flickr.com/photos/richy/7344217/in/pool-transparentsc...
unbelievable.
imo, it's a true testament to the magic of what stewart, caterina and the rest of the flickr team have built and how social media is making our world smaller (and at times freaking me out. :)
Posted 99 months ago.
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