Don't set fire to ants, kids.
Remember the solar eclipse in 1999? I went to Cherbourg for the day to see it - out overnight, day in Cherbourg, back on the evening boat. It was an overcast day, but the clouds parted half an hour before the Big event and closed in again half an hour afterwards, so I saw the whole thing, from a hill in the middle of town with the Musée de la Liberation on it. The only downside were a few really snotty English couples showing their contempt for foreigners. As one posh woman - who arrived late - said, very loudly "I explained that they would need to get out of the way so we could have a good view, but they refused to move. Well, what can you expect - they are French, after all." It still amazes me that someone could think it appropriate to speak like that when visiting another country. Ah well.

Anyway, for those of you who haven't seen an eclipse, it gets remarkably dark remarkably quickly at totality, and then remarkably light remarkably quickly afterwards. As things came back to normal, I counted five people with video cameras (which were quite expensive in those days), including Mrs Snotty's husband, looking at them in a bemused way, tapping them, peering through the viewfinders, turning them off and on. It clearly hadn't occurred to them that while pointing a video camera at a solar eclipse was fine, pointing a video camera directly at the sun as it emerged from a solar eclipse probably wasn't so clever.

It was the looks of bafflement which really made my day, and which remain the strongest memory I have of the trip.
(ubergeekian, Thu 30 Aug 2012, 22:32, 5 replies)

What really gets me
is people who can't tell the difference between angle brackets and the square kind.
( Ghoti Fingers, Thu 30 Aug 2012, 23:26, closed)

It's the people who are too lazy to preview who bug me
especially when they have been posting on Fark, can't remember if b3ta works the same way or not, and can't be arsed to check.
(ubergeekian, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 7:26, closed)

I went
to Lizard Point in Cornwall for the eclipse, and enjoyed the awesome atmosphere created by totality, even though the clouds meant no visible corona. What amazed me most was looking along the coast and seeing hundreds, maybe thousands, of camera flashes firing...
(Rsoles, Thu 30 Aug 2012, 23:53, closed)

I'm with you there
likewise the barrage of flashes you see in the audience at any stadium concert. Every one an act of ignorance. Pretty minor, maybe, but the numbers involved add up to a big pile of ignorance of the range of a flash gun.
(Zedsquared, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 13:03, closed)

I remember
that eclipse well. I was watching it at my uncles house, with the BBC coverage in the background.
One of the commentators commented, "You may notice your radio reception improves when the sun is completely covered as radio waves travel better at night."
Errr....yes. Maybe. However, the waves still have to travel through bloody daylight to get to the dark spot.
Ignorant twat!
(dchurch bah, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 11:13, closed)