this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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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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Because you use light to communicate in sign language, and light is just an electromagnetic wave like radio but on another frequency. You just need to be in line of sight

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Really, radio communication is about creating and transmitting those radio waves. Sign language relies on reflected light waves so it’s actually a form of RADAR 😀

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Alas, RADAR relies on transmitting and then reading the reflected waves.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

RADAR: RA(dio) D(etection) A(nd) R(anging)

It doesn’t rely on self transmission. It can but you can detect and range other sources without generating it yourself.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s just what the acronym means, it doesn’t describes the actual process. I don’t think there is a single RADAR that doesn’t have a transmitter. At that point it would just be a… radio.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fair enough, though I would argue that’s a very specific subtype of radar and anyone saying “radar” refers to the type that is used in 99.999% of the cases.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah probably true. I only thought to look it up because I knew active and passive sonar was a thing.

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