Stuff you just don't get.

[21st Century Schizoid Man]

Someone I once worked with acquired a monstrous SUV truck during a midlife crisis, and attempted to park it in an underground car park he'd used for years. Hanging in the entrance to the car park was a sign, announcing the maximum clearance within. When he realized he couldn't get his SUV under the hanging signboard he got out and flipped it up and over, to rest on the bar it was hanging from. Then he drove under it--and jammed his SUV very firmly under the first concrete cross-beam in the parking area. Yes, the signboard had been positioned at the maximum clearance height.

Grant Hutchison

So why didn't he just flip the concrete cross-beam up?

[21st Century Schizoid Man]

Note: Not aimed at any specific politician!

The TV just said the President of the USA is on his way to California to be briefed on the wildfire situation. This is standard procedure; every time there's a major disaster the President is expected to go to the area. All Presidents, always.

What's the point? Is he going to learn anything he couldn't over the phone, or by watching TV? Instead he has to go to an area where emergency services are already severely overloaded and add to their workload to provide security for him and take their leaders away from doing their jobs by talking to him. It's not just pointless, it's counterproductive.

Again: Not just this POTUS, they've all been doing it for decades and I've been annoyed by it just as long.

You'd think these days they could do it with CGI.

[Noclevername]

You'd think these days they could do it with CGI.

Do what they do on the late night shows, just stand them in front of a green-screen.

[Gillianren]

Heck, it never occurred to me to have salted caramel flavor in coffee creamer. I didn’t even realize that was a thing. I don’t drink coffee often, and then I use regular creamer to mellow out the bitterness. I’m usually not that big on added flavorings in tea or coffee.

I don't drink coffee, though I do occasionally add flavoured syrups to my hot chocolate, when I'm feeling decadent. But surely, if I wanted coffee-flavouring in my drink, I'd drink coffee?

[grant hutchison]

Thundersnow in Scotland last night. Usual phone calls to police to report explosions and aeroplane crashes. Usual vox pops on the TV news, featuring incredulous people saying they thought it was "too cold for thunder", including one woman who had done an internet search at four o'clock in the morning, who revealed to a breathless viewing public that "apparently, there's this thing called thundersnow".
It's just not that uncommon at this time of year. Why does it keep causing astonishment and confusion?

So I'm braced for the TV news report about panicky people who saw an arc of colour in the sky, shortly after a rainshower had passed over.

Grant Hutchison

[Gillianren]

I've been joking for years that there's something in our water that makes people forget what our weather is like. How else to explain how no one seems to understand how to drive in the rain or that we do actually get snow pretty much every year?

[Swift]

Thundersnow in Scotland last night. Usual phone calls to police to report explosions and aeroplane crashes. Usual vox pops on the TV news, featuring incredulous people saying they thought it was "too cold for thunder", including one woman who had done an internet search at four o'clock in the morning, who revealed to a breathless viewing public that "apparently, there's this thing called thundersnow".
It's just not that uncommon at this time of year. Why does it keep causing astonishment and confusion?

So I'm braced for the TV news report about panicky people who saw an arc of colour in the sky, shortly after a rainshower had passed over.

Grant Hutchison

I remember doing a night hike one winter, overcast and very snowy, and every once in a while the cloud cover would light up. We weren't sure what it was until one of the flashes was followed by a low rumble. I suspect the thunderstorm was far enough away, and the snow was doing a good job muffling the sound, that we didn't hear the thunder at first.

It wasn't scary at all and was actually rather beautiful.

[Torsten]

I remember doing a night hike one winter, overcast and very snowy, and every once in a while the cloud cover would light up. We weren't sure what it was until one of the flashes was followed by a low rumble. I suspect the thunderstorm was far enough away, and the snow was doing a good job muffling the sound, that we didn't hear the thunder at first.

It wasn't scary at all and was actually rather beautiful.

Sounds like a wonderful hike.

[Noclevername]

Do what they do on the late night shows, just stand them in front of a green-screen.

In our recent Zoom Thanksgiving event, one of the participants had a digital background inserted into their display, meaning we saw that family sitting (mostly) in front of a big portrait of George Washington from the dollar bill. I say mostly because, if one got too far from the camera, they were excluded into the background. So a fidgety kid seemed to keep appearing and disappearing up old George's nose for the whole time...

[Trebuchet]

Thundersnow would be an extremely rare event in these parts, because we get T-storms and snow just two or three times a year each.

[21st Century Schizoid Man]

Thundersnow would be an extremely rare event in these parts, because we get T-storms and snow just two or three times a year each.

I don't believe there's been any kind of snow here in all of recorded history.

[Swift]

In our recent Zoom Thanksgiving event, one of the participants had a digital background inserted into their display, meaning we saw that family sitting (mostly) in front of a big portrait of George Washington from the dollar bill. I say mostly because, if one got too far from the camera, they were excluded into the background. So a fidgety kid seemed to keep appearing and disappearing up old George's nose for the whole time...

My employer is using Microsoft Teams, and it allows you to both blur the background or substitute various images. My boss likes the blurry one, and several other people I work with have chosen other ones (usually ones that look just like a house or an office - so I don't understand the point, unless they are hiding a big pile of dirty laundry in the background). But they all have the weird attribute that people disappear, or parts of them do, when they move to certain points in the frame.

I have picked one that looks like Ring World a couple of times.

[Trebuchet]

I don't believe there's been any kind of snow here in all of recorded history.

Ok, I'm calling foul on that one! You don't say where "here" is!

[Delvo]

I don't see much point in a fake background that's close to a normal home or office. I'd put myself in space in front of the Enterprise ("D" of course) or a Minbari warcruiser or both... or on Pandora... or a giant close-up of a bug... or at least at a real reef or a real deep dark forest on Earth that I was obviously not at during the meeting. If you're going to be fake, fake something worth faking.

Until shortly before Thanksgiving, I hadn't ever used Zoom, then my sisters thought of using it for a bit on Thanksgiving, so one of them planned on a test run with me a few days before just to make sure we could get it to work. The idea that there were fake backgrounds hadn't occurred to me. But I did go to Niagara Falls State Park (about a 20-minute drive from my new home) to surprise my sister with the background. (It was not just Niagara Falls but Niagara Falls at night, including the city lights of Canada's city on a cliff across the gorge from us and the color-changing lights they shine on the waterfalls.)

[KaiYeves]

I don't see much point in a fake background that's close to a normal home or office. I'd put myself in space in front of the Enterprise ("D" of course) or a Minbari warcruiser or both... or on Pandora... or a giant close-up of a bug... or at least at a real reef or a real deep dark forest on Earth that I was obviously not at during the meeting. If you're going to be fake, fake something worth faking.

Until shortly before Thanksgiving, I hadn't ever used Zoom, then my sisters thought of using it for a bit on Thanksgiving, so one of them planned on a test run with me a few days before just to make sure we could get it to work. The idea that there were fake backgrounds hadn't occurred to me. But I did go to Niagara Falls State Park (about a 20-minute drive from my new home) to surprise my sister with the background. (It was not just Niagara Falls but Niagara Falls at night, including the city lights of Canada's city on a cliff across the gorge from us and the color-changing lights they shine on the waterfalls.)

On the other hand, if you’re alone on a sailboat in a nonstop race, using a cafe backdrop is pretty funny, as Jean Le Cam showed in this video.

[Extravoice]

For better or worse, my employer doesn’t allow video teleconferences. When someone talks, their icon is highlighted. It is frequently a portrait photo, but all too often it is a default silhouette icon.

[grant hutchison]

I'd be glad if people used more fake backgrounds. A lot of TV news these days features journalists and interviewees sitting at home. Too many background distractions--either there's some interesting artwork on the wall, or a shelf of books with just-about legible covers, or some strange domestic location that makes you wonder something like, "Is she actually sitting in a sauna at the moment?"

Grant Hutchison

[Trebuchet]

I'd be glad if people used more fake backgrounds. A lot of TV news these days features journalists and interviewees sitting at home. Too many background distractions--either there's some interesting artwork on the wall, or a shelf of books with just-about legible covers, or some strange domestic location that makes you wonder something like, "Is she actually sitting in a sauna at the moment?"

Grant Hutchison

I've been very much enjoying all those backgrounds. I pay more attention to them than to what's being said. Especially if they are elsewhere than in an office with books behind. I saw one in a bedroom!

[21st Century Schizoid Man]

in front of a big portrait of George Washington from the dollar bill.

Ah, so that's who that is. I always thought it was Barbara Bush.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

I'd be glad if people used more fake backgrounds. A lot of TV news these days features journalists and interviewees sitting at home. Too many background distractions--either there's some interesting artwork on the wall, or a shelf of books with just-about legible covers, or some strange domestic location that makes you wonder something like, "Is she actually sitting in a sauna at the moment?"

Grant Hutchison

I just found out that the Whose Line Is it Anyway crew were doing livestreams before their shows in the spring. One of them had a background which had a piano and a person asked if he played, he went back and tripped over the screen he was projecting the image was on, of course the piano was fake he was going for a joke.

[Delvo]

I don't remember who it was, but there's a reporter who did a bunch of his stuff with the Oval Office as his background for a while, which people thought was fake until some give-away happened and people asked him about it on-air. He hadn't told anybody, but he didn't need a fake image of the Oval Office... because he had meticulously recreated the room in his home. He gave a little on-air tour walking around and interacting with the objects and telling the stories of how he'd found & obtained the necessary items. I seem to recall that the opposite side of the room, out of the camera's sight when aimed at the Oval Office replica, was a recreation of some other famous location, too, but not where. (If you search for it online you'll find several more people who've done their own Oval Office recreations too, but this guy was unique for doing news reports from his and not even telling anybody at first.)

[Solfe]

I'd be glad if people used more fake backgrounds. A lot of TV news these days features journalists and interviewees sitting at home. Too many background distractions--either there's some interesting artwork on the wall, or a shelf of books with just-about legible covers, or some strange domestic location that makes you wonder something like, "Is she actually sitting in a sauna at the moment?"

Grant Hutchison

I should use images from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds as my background.

[pzkpfw]

My employer is using Microsoft Teams, and it allows you to both blur the background or substitute various images. My boss likes the blurry one, and several other people I work with have chosen other ones (usually ones that look just like a house or an office - so I don't understand the point, unless they are hiding a big pile of dirty laundry in the background). But they all have the weird attribute that people disappear, or parts of them do, when they move to certain points in the frame.

I have picked one that looks like Ring World a couple of times.

I did one where I took a picture with the camera app of the shelves behind me, inserted my own severed head with dripping blood on to one of the shelves, then used that as a background. (Disclaimer; it looked rubbish).

Another where I made a picture of many copies of my head (MS Paint and transparent C&P) and used that as a background - me slumped down in my chair so only my head in the image. Gave one person a start when I suddenly started talking after being still for a bit.

Another with a sort of Andy Warhol bean can grid - but with Dr Who Cybermen ... except some of the cybermen were co-workers wearing headsets I snipped pics of earlier.

It's a bit of fun, and I'm in a team that is fine with my messing around.

Mostly I just use an unblurred picture of those messy shelves behind me; but occasionally position something "odd" to be found or not.

[SeanF]

If you really want to use the digital backgrounds, you should probably hang a green screen (or even just a solid, neutral color sheet, as long as it's relatively uniformly lit) behind you. That should help alleviate the "disappearing into the background" problem, as it's much easier for the algorithm to identify what's actually background and what isn't.

[Trebuchet]

I should use images from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds as my background.

Fun fact: Tippi Hedren is my wife's third or fourth cousin, on her Werner line!

This morning I'm not getting why the Kitty keeps coming in and mewing at me to come and groom her, but then doesn't sit to get groomed as usual. I've asked but she just says "Meow?".

[Trebuchet]

"He'll be comin' down the chimney down!"

Wut?

[Noclevername]

"He'll be comin' down the chimney down!"

Wut?

Well whoop-de-doo, and dickery dock.

[grant hutchison]

Why is Santa like an umbrella?
He can come down a chimney down, but he can't go up a chimney up.

Grant Hutchison

[Trebuchet]

Why is Santa like an umbrella?
He can come down a chimney down, but he can't go up a chimney up.

Grant Hutchison

Where the heck is the "like" button!

[Noclevername]

Maybe it's just for emphasis, as over a bad phone connection. "He'll be comin' down the chimney. Down!"