When I travel, I like to be done traveling as fast as possible. I don't want to spend a lot of time 'on the road'. So what do you do these days? Indeed you fly. Flying is the quickest way to get somewhere... Well, if your destination has an airport... And if there is an airport at your origin... And if there is a carrier flying from your origin to your destination. I happen to be so lucky to live in a place nearby an airport—a big airport (well, Europe's 5th largest). Big airports tend to serve many different carriers, and different carriers tend to fly to different places. So I am in de fortunate circumstance to be able change my destination according to where there is an airport and a carrier flying from my home town to that airport. So in principle, I can fly all over the world right from my own home town, and I get to see the worlds ... airports! (Fortunately I like cities very much, and airports tend to be near to cities, so I often get to see these cities when I fly there). But... flying is not cheap... and so I don't fly a lot... Actually I am flying more and more frequently these days (another advantage of doing science); I'm not nearly as frequent a flyer as E.J. is, but I'm making progress. And now it is becoming even easier (even if you're not in science!): recently Pier H opened at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, which was opened especially for so called low-cost airline's! These low-cost airline's are cheap, cheap to the bones, cheap in every sense of the word... but they suffice, they do exactly what the tell you; they bring you from A to B—nothing more, nothing less. If only I wouldn't keep forgetting the names of those low cost carriers out there... To help remember, I compiled a short list of low-cost airlines flying from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport to other interesting places in Europe
Be sure to bring your own food and drink, or have some money in your pocket.
Visual illusions have fascinated me ever since I can remember. It's probably the reason why I gained interested in neuroscience and psychology. We all know the famous illusions like the Necker-cube, Kaniza's triangles and the impossible staircases of Escher 
(strictly not visual illusions, but cognitively pleasing anyway). We probably also all know the 3D stereograms for which you have to cross your eyes; these were already amazing. Ingrid Christoffels today sent me the visual below as well as this link to Akiyoshi's illusion pages, which contains many spectacular examples of visually induced illusion of motion.
