Accidental Camera
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| I picked the winner in the Poker Stakes - not that I can pick him out in the picture! Actually, it's #5 Gucci Factor, on the outside. No news here: Missed the hearty exacta. |
Seeing things that are otherwise obscured seems to be
something in common to both stock picking and horse handicapping. With that in
mind we share bits of this posting from sister site Moon Herald Traveller. It
is about the Accidental Camera.
Recently picked up an off-beat article - like so much on the Internet, I got to it with almost a random sequence of clicks. At first, Natalie Wolchover’s “The New Science of Seeing Around Corners” (Quanta Magazine Algorithms Column, Aug 30, 2018) seemed damn stupid to me. A scientist looks at light on the wall and sees movement. Big deal – so what?
I read on a bit, put the article down, but soon it seemed I was seeing everyday things a little differently. Thanks to Cecelia, as well, I found the pond ripple effect of reflection of light on a lobster pot. It was the reflection of overhead kitchen light as the fan spun.
The article discusses natural camera shots that are formed by sun rays passing through a window and alighting on a surface. They were seen by an MIT scientist, noticed as color patches on a wall while in a hotel room on vacation in Spain – good idea that – and he theorized the existence of something called an “accidental camera.”
These are formed by windows, houseplants and other objects that render images of their surroundings – kind of like the desperado one might see in an ice-filled jigger of tequila coming to get you with knife. Maybe there are accidental camera a'lurk in big data sets too ... that's why you find this excerpt here on Epitomigm.
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