Obvious Things You 0nly Just Realised - 2020

[Paul Calf]

The Tim Burton film Alice Through the Looking Glass is the worst thing ever made.

I got in to see it for free and still felt ripped off.

[touchingcloth]

Knowing the mnemonic of "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived" I'd never really internalised that this goes in chronological order, meaning that the timeline I had in mind of...:
- Henry wants to get divorced, but can't because of rules so out comes the axe
- Same story but with another woman
- Henry creates a church so that he can separate from his wife without separating her head from her body
- Same story but with another woman
- A death at some point before, after or between those four women
- Last one lives

...can't be correct, and the fact that each beheading came after at least one divorce just makes old Henry look as wanton and cruel as banter Harry with his gunshipping of Muslims.

[Cold Meat Platter]

I got in to see it for free and still felt ripped off.

I've never seen it but I want reparations from the ponce nonetheless.

[kittens]

jigsaw puzzle is named after the tool jigsaw that would be used to make it which is called a jigsaw because it jigs up and down. always assumed a jigsaw (the saw) was called a jigsaw because of jigsaw puzzles and someone was like what shall we call our new saw then and someone thinks let's go for a funny name and instead of naming it after what it is or what it does they just name it after a thing that already exists that has "saw" in its name. but no, it's the other way around. Goodnight

[Jockice]

The Tim Burton film Alice Through the Looking Glass is the worst thing ever made.

(Cough) Billy Elliot.

[Paul Calf]

jigsaw puzzle is named after the tool jigsaw that would be used to make it which is called a jigsaw because it jigs up and down. always assumed a jigsaw (the saw) was called a jigsaw because of jigsaw puzzles and someone was like what shall we call our new saw then and someone thinks let's go for a funny name and instead of naming it after what it is or what it does they just name it after a thing that already exists that has "saw" in its name. but no, it's the other way around. Goodnight

Oh yeah. Even though this is an obvious thing, my hat is nonetheless fucked.

[touchingcloth]

jigsaw puzzle is named after the tool jigsaw that would be used to make it which is called a jigsaw because it jigs up and down. always assumed a jigsaw (the saw) was called a jigsaw because of jigsaw puzzles and someone was like what shall we call our new saw then and someone thinks let's go for a funny name and instead of naming it after what it is or what it does they just name it after a thing that already exists that has "saw" in its name. but no, it's the other way around. Goodnight

Semi related, but I first realised that the "jig" in the name probably refers to the unit which the blade is mounted into. When I worked in the wonderful world of tape storage the mechanical engineers used a "jig" for test stuff, which was like a tape drive with spools and things which could have their positions and angles changed to work out the optimum placement before taking a new design to be manufactured. So I always assumed that that sort of jig is kind of the same things as what a jigsaw has.

According to wiki the earliest jigsaws were made using a fretsaw before the tool had been invented, but after it was invented people started calling the puzzles after it even though they weren't used in cutting the pieces - STOP GETTING SAWS WRONG - so in a parallel universe we could have a situation where advertisers said "fretting over what to get your dad for fathers' day? Fret ye not - fretsaws, from Moonpig". But we don't, and that's tragic.

[olliebean]

According to wiki the earliest jigsaws were made using a fretsaw before the tool had been invented, but after it was invented people started calling the puzzles after it even though they weren't used in cutting the pieces - STOP GETTING SAWS WRONG - so in a parallel universe we could have a situation where advertisers said "fretting over what to get your dad for fathers' day? Fret ye not - fretsaws, from Moonpig". But we don't, and that's tragic.

The obvious question which you apparently didn't realise is "What were they called before they were called jigsaws, then?" The answer - which I had to look up for myself - is, rather pleasingly, "dissections."

[touchingcloth]

The obvious question which you apparently didn't realise is "What were they called before they were called jigsaws, then?" The answer - which I had to look up for myself - is, rather pleasingly, "dissections."

I did look that up, but I didn't mention it because I didn't want to please you, specifically you, olliebean.

[olliebean]

I did look that up, but I didn't mention it because I didn't want to please you, specifically you, olliebean.

And that's an obvious thing I've just realised.

[Icehaven]

Pretty obvious though

I came to the right thread then!

[olliebean]

"Chap hop" is a thing.

[touchingcloth]

"Chap hop" is a thing.

I saw what's his face the "gentleman rhymer" some place in about 2004 and even then it was gash.

[touchingcloth]

The chase in Terminator 2 doesn't take place in an unfinished road, but in a dry river running through massive concrete culverts.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The chase in Terminator 2 doesn't take place in an unfinished road, but in a dry river running through massive concrete culverts.

It's the la river isn't it?

[touchingcloth]

It's the la river isn't it?

Apparently so, but I think when I've watched it in the past I haven't really questioned it and half assumed it was just a bad, plain set, where they wanted a road but couldn't be arsed tarmacking it.

Related note but watching it made me think of Arnie's political career, and then realise that I've never seen a Ronald Reagan film, as he retired from acting quite a long time before becoming president.

ETA: another related note, but his shotgun is single barrel, so what's all the one-handed flippy business while he's riding his bike about?

[touchingcloth]

Squinting works for the same reason decreasing a camera's aperture does: smaller hole, more stuff in focus.

[Endicott]

Similar, when I was deciding to buy a lens hood, I found out that - lens hoods work for the same reason that putting your hand up and shading your eyes works.

[Paul Calf]

Squinting works for the same reason decreasing a camera's aperture does: smaller hole, more stuff in focus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collimated_beam

Collimated light.

It's the la river isn't it?

Just realised that this is what I assumed to be a dry canal in GTA 5's Los Santos.

[buzby]

Squinting works for the same reason decreasing a camera's aperture does: smaller hole, more stuff in focus.

Smaller iris/aperture increases the depth of field and  reduces the amount of light entering the eye/camera. Squinting for people with normal vision is a reaction used when trying to focus on distant objects in bright light conditions. In a camera, if you use a small aperture in low light to increase the depth of field then you have to increase the exposure time and/or use faster film to compensate for the reduction in the amount of light entering the camera.

My sister has a near-permanent squint in one eye as a result of a childhood accident where she lost the lens and cornea and and the iris is frozen (she had an artificial lens implant and cornea graft once after the reached 21). At anything above moderate light levels she has to squint to see anything from that eye.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collimated_beam

Collimated light.

It's not really collimated light, squinting and contracting of the iris is mostly rejecting nearfield scatter. It doesn't make the photons entering the eye any more parallel.

Just realised that this is what I assumed to be a dry canal in GTA 5's Los Santos.

The culvert of the Los Angeles River. Built by the Army Corps Of Engineers from the late 1930s onwards after a series of serious floods. Most of the water that is visible in it today is outfall from one of the large sewage treatment works, as the actual river has been largely dry since the 1950s apart from during the spring floods.

[olliebean]

It's not really collimated light, squinting and contracting of the iris is mostly rejecting nearfield scatter. It doesn't make the photons entering the eye any more parallel.

No, quite the reverse in fact. It forces all the light to enter the eye through a smaller aperture, thus producing a (very slight) pinhole camera effect.

[touchingcloth]

Smaller iris/aperture increases the depth of field and  reduces the amount of light entering the eye/camera. Squinting for people with normal vision is a reaction used when trying to focus on distant objects in bright light conditions. In a camera, if you use a small aperture in low light to increase the depth of field then you have to increase the exposure time and/or use faster film to compensate for the reduction in the amount of light entering the camera.

My sister has a near-permanent squint in one eye as a result of a childhood accident where she lost the lens and cornea and and the iris is frozen (she had an artificial lens implant and cornea graft once after the reached 21). At anything above moderate light levels she has to squint to see anything from that eye.

It's not really collimated light, squinting and contracting of the iris is mostly rejecting nearfield scatter. It doesn't make the photons entering the eye any more parallel.

Squinting isn't just used for focussing on things in the distance in bright light, but I will squint if trying to use a computer monitor without my glasses, or when trying to see my phone when too pissed. I note your point about "normal" vision, which I don't have in either of those scenarios.

In photography a factor which influences perception of depth of field is the concept of "circles of confusion":



The top image shows three beams of light passing through a large aperture. Only beam 2 is in focus and brought to a sharp point, beam 1 is farther than the focal point and beam 3 is closer, meaning they resolve as circles rather than points.

The bottom image shows the same three beams with the lens focused at the same point just with a smaller aperture. Beams 1 and 3 resolve as circles still, but due to the smaller aperture the circles are smaller and at some print/viewing sizes could appear to be the same as the sharply focussed points rather than as a blur.

That whole concept - and specifically that sharpness is a function of human perception more so than camera optics - helped me get over the megapixel wars and thinking that only certain resolutions of image can be blown up to poster size. Sure if you're trying to show every single hair on a spider's leg, but if an image has fewer points which need to be picked out and/or will only be viewed from a distance then you can get away with larger magnifications.

Also relevant is the origin of the word camera from camera obscura - dark chamber[nb]Also the same origin as legal proceedings happening "in camera".[/nb] - where in place of a lens a pinhole is used, which theoretically can provide infinitely sharp focus, but that would assume the pinhole is infinitesimally small and would also result in an infinitely dark image. Working camera obscuras (cameras obscura? Panino?) where nothing is absolutely sharply focussed, but the image is bright enough to view and the sharpness of any one object doesn't depend on it's distance.

So I think squinting works in a few overlapping ways. It physically closes off peripheral vision so there is less stuff for the brain to process, it provides a smaller aperture for light to pass through so the circles of confusion are smaller and perception of sharpness is increased, and it physically changes the shape of the eye's lens so if you're unable to do that as usual through injury or booze then it helps the eye to do what it normally should do.

[Sebastian Cobb]

ETA: another related note, but his shotgun is single barrel, so what's all the one-handed flippy business while he's riding his bike about?

Isn't it a semiautomatic shotgun that can take multiple rounds and he's flinging it, one handed to pump it?

[touchingcloth]

Isn't it a semiautomatic shotgun that can take multiple rounds and he's flinging it, one handed to pump it?

Maybe. I didn't know that was a thing, I always thought a shotgun was a one out, one in kind of thing. Shoes and shirt, too.

[JaDanketies]

That song "I get so lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely yeah... got to be some good times ahead..." is Freddie Mercury's solo work.

[buzby]

Isn't it a semiautomatic shotgun that can take multiple rounds and he's flinging it, one handed to pump it?

Maybe. I didn't know that was a thing, I always thought a shotgun was a one out, one in kind of thing. Shoes and shirt, too.

It was a highly-modified Winchester 1887 Repeating Shotgun. It's not a pump-action, it uses a lever action, the same as Winchester used on it's 1873 Repeating Rifle (the rifle usually seen in Westerns).

It was designed by John Browning who initally suggested using a pump-action loading mechanism (Christopher Spencer had introduced the first successful pump-action shotgun in 1882 having earlier pioneered the lever-action rifle, which Winchester had bough the rights to after his company went bankrupt in 1869), but the Winchester management rejected it as they were known as the 'lever action' company. Browning eventually won out, and he designed Winchester's first pump-action shotgun in 1893.

For the film, Stembridge Gun Rentals supplied four customised shotguns. All were modified to fire special blank shells, had the barrel and buttstock cut down (a configuration known as a 'Mares Leg', after the modified Winchester rifle used by Steve McQueen in the 60s TV series Wanted: Dead Or Alive) and the centre section of the trigger guard removed. Two had the lever extended into a large triangular loop to allow the single-handed 'swing-cock' manouvre to be used while riding the motorbike.

The standard cocking lever version is actually used for most of the film - seen in the bar scene at the start and the scene with the box of roses at the mall, for example:

[touchingcloth]

Do those things ^ have a magazine somewhere, or is the cocking manoeuvre just to cock the trigger rather than actually load a new shell?

[Cold Meat Platter]

Do those things ^ have a magazine somewhere, or is the cocking manoeuvre just to cock the trigger rather than actually load a new shell?

It's the tube under the barrel.

[Ferris]

Do those things ^ have a magazine somewhere, or is the cocking manoeuvre just to cock the trigger rather than actually load a new shell?

There's a tube magazine under the barrel. Each cycling of the action ejects the spent cartridge, resets the trigger, and chambers the new cartridge (in that order).

[touchingcloth]

Knowing the mnemonic of "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived" I'd never really internalised that this goes in chronological order, meaning that the timeline I had in mind of...:
- Henry wants to get divorced, but can't because of rules so out comes the axe
- Same story but with another woman
- Henry creates a church so that he can separate from his wife without separating her head from her body
- Same story but with another woman
- A death at some point before, after or between those four women
- Last one lives

...can't be correct, and the fact that each beheading came after at least one divorce just makes old Henry look as wanton and cruel as banter Harry with his gunshipping of Muslims.

The two beheaded wives - Boleyn and Howard - were first cousins.