Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Midget policepersons
I've always been puzzled/annoyed by unrealistic depictions of houses. Good example in the publicity for a new see-through radar being sold to police. This is actually a bit less annoying than most; the perspective is reversed and the front part is impossible, but the back part is plausible. Obviously they used some type of 3D digital software to make this image, so maybe the fault is in the software; but the exact same type of stupidity showed up in hand-drawn pictures long before digital models.
It's not hard to find more realistic models.
For instance (ahem) my free model of the Default Spokane House. This is the same sort of basic '50s house that the five midget policepersons are monitoring in the unrealistic image.
Descriptions on the radar maker's own website reveal a vastly more important type of unreality. The radar can see through non-metallic house materials. But aluminum siding is common in the white working-class neighborhoods where midget policepersons do most of their monitoring, and older houses often have foil-encased insulation in the walls.
My house has aluminum siding. I've always seen it as a mixed blessing; it protects the house from external combustion (forest fire embers, teen dickheads throwing firecrackers) but it hinders radio reception. Now I can see the latter as an advantage!
¶ 4:36 AM 
I've always been puzzled/annoyed by unrealistic depictions of houses. Good example in the publicity for a new see-through radar being sold to police. This is actually a bit less annoying than most; the perspective is reversed and the front part is impossible, but the back part is plausible. Obviously they used some type of 3D digital software to make this image, so maybe the fault is in the software; but the exact same type of stupidity showed up in hand-drawn pictures long before digital models.
It's not hard to find more realistic models.
For instance (ahem) my free model of the Default Spokane House. This is the same sort of basic '50s house that the five midget policepersons are monitoring in the unrealistic image.
Descriptions on the radar maker's own website reveal a vastly more important type of unreality. The radar can see through non-metallic house materials. But aluminum siding is common in the white working-class neighborhoods where midget policepersons do most of their monitoring, and older houses often have foil-encased insulation in the walls.
My house has aluminum siding. I've always seen it as a mixed blessing; it protects the house from external combustion (forest fire embers, teen dickheads throwing firecrackers) but it hinders radio reception. Now I can see the latter as an advantage!
¶ 4:36 AM
