Re: Sat Nav directed me into path of train

"Graeme Wall" <rail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:9b148be74e%rail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Try standing in a country lane where there is no visual clues to distance,
just vegetation, now estimate, without moving, how far 75 metres is away
from
you. Unless you are one of a very small number of people you'll get it
wrong.

I have a friend who can estimate distance remarkably accurately - OK, it
*is* for small distances less than a metre. I don't know how she does it.

I gave her a piece of paper (deliberately cut to an arbitrary size so it
wasn't A4) and got her to draw parallel lines at various odd spacings (47
mm, 13 mm, 85 mm etc) that I dictated to her. Measuring afterwards with a
ruler, she was correct to with +/- 2 mm.

She didn't even use any "human measurement" such as the length of her thumb
joint - she just moved the pen immediately and confidently to the required
distance.

It's the same type of "either you can do it or you can't" skill as perfect
pitch. I can judge musical intervals (one note relative to another) fairly
well but I've no concept of absolute pitch. I met someone who hated watching
films that had musical scores because "the music was all wrong". She was
referring to the fact that cinema films (as opposed to UK made-for-TV
programmes) are shown 4% fast to match 24 fps to 25 fps TV. I've read of
experiements where people with perfect pitch are given a sine wave generator
with a continously-variable frequency control (wth no markings!) and can
accurately set it to any given note.


.

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