this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

I think people might have misunderstood what I meant. I didn't mean there's an actual projector and screens like in a movie theater. Let me elaborate:

Imagine you're standing in a room with a light behind you on a ceiling. You're facing a wall. The light is coming from behind you and bouncing off the wall. What you're seeing is a projection of the wall into your eyes. You wouldn't say that you're looking at the light directly behind you.

Imagine the overhead projector (if you're at least as old as I am). It doesn't have any electronics. It's just a strong light, a lens and a mirror. And it projects the writing on the wall. You're looking at a projection on the wall in the classroom. You wouldn't say you're looking directly at the ink on the transparent piece of plastic used in those projectors.

What if the window you're looking through was actually a prism that refracts light at a right angle and you'd be seeing stuff that's actually on the far left side of the house? Would you say you're looking directly through the window like you would if it was an ordinary window?

You can see this effect on the glasses if you place them on the table and look at them. You won't see the table cloth underneath the lenses straight through them. They refract the light and you will see an image on them of whataver object they're pointed at.

That's what I meant by projection.

Also, in the right conditions you can see through water and a reflection of something on it's surface at the same time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

In that case, you'd never see anything through anything but a "screen" because of the lens in your eye. (Using the definition of "screen" to be a "barrier", which in this case provokes a transformation, or projection, of light.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Yes, but I wear glasses so there's an additional "screen". That's all I was saying. It didn't occur to me at the time that we all already have lenses in the eye. So I guess me talking about glasses was redundant. I should have made the same post about those lenses. Fuck it. Live and learn ...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Doesn't matter, it's fun to see how far you can bend definitions (and I did go rather far with that one).

Also, I'm not sure where those down votes are coming from. Showerthoughts don't need to be fully logical, taking all edge cases into account, etc. After all, it's just a showerthought to discuss and joke/awe about.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I'm sorry, but I wasn't downvoting you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Oh, no no, I was talking about the down votes that you've been receiving. My bad!