Blinking photos

Here's a common problem: whenever you take a group photograph, someone always blinks. By the time you review the picture on your tiny digicam LCD and find that out, your group has dispersed and no one wants to get back and pose again for a second shot. How nice it would be if you knew ahead of time how many pictures you needed to take to be sure you'd get at least one where no one is blinking.

Well, if you do some simple probability analysis, you can. But now someone's done it for you and he got an Ignobel prize for it. Here's a simple description of the method, but if you don't want to read all that, just look at the graph on the left. Bottom line: if you have a group of 5 people, click every picture thrice. Oh, and remember to buy a large memory card.