Skinny Cupertino

Apparently, there’s an actual term for that fucking annoying thing that mobile phones do when you’re typing a text. You know – when you’re typing happily away, hit ‘send’ and then re-read your text to find that it’s auto-corrected about nine different words and now it reads like something a drunk tramp might shout at you from across the road. It’s known as the ‘Cupertino effect.’ This slightly bizarre name comes from the way that in some early word processors, the auto-correct facility built in to the software would change the word ‘co-operate’ to ‘Cupertino.’ Incidentally, Cupertino is a place in America where Apple Inc. is based. Who’d have thunk (auto-correct that, Blogger) that a name existed for such a random thing. Got me thinking (thunking?) though. I reckon I’ve discovered something that doesn’t have a name. Yet.

When I was out running a few weeks back, I noticed something a bit...odd. Well, two things actually. The first thing was that it was sunny. Let me repeat: it was sunny. For those unfamiliar with the term, ‘sunny’ means that the sky was a rich blue, there were no clouds, the sun was out and it was pleasantly warm. I know – hard to believe, right?! But there you go. A side effect of these alien conditions was that most of the trees I was running under or beside were casting shadows all along the paths and roads, and it is here that I noticed the thing that I cannot find a name for.

Basically, as I was running along I noticed that my own shadow, whenever it passed through the shadow of the tree branches, caused the outlines of them both to ‘shimmer’ momentarily. It’s really hard to describe in words and I doubt even a really good camera would be able to capture the effect properly, but trust me – the edges of the two shadows ‘break up’ as they pass through each other, and when you’re in constant motion (as I was, running), it’s really noticeable because your eyes adjust to following the pattern of your own shadow busting through all of these over-lying ones. This probably sounds like the ramblings of a fucking nut job, but trust me, it’s true. So, next time you’re stupid enough to go running and it also happens to be sunny (talk about infinitesimally minute odds), run under some trees and check out the fucked up kaleidoscope shadow stuff that’s going on. As I can’t find an actual term for this phenomenon online (or any reference to it whatsoever), I’m jumping in and calling it the CHarnock Refractive Interfering Shadow Theory. Or CHRIST for those among us who enjoy an acronym – I know I do. On second thoughts, that acronym might already be in use...but, y’know, sod it.

Use my new-fangled theory wisely and always credit me in your thesis...or I’ll bust through your bedroom window at night and destroy you with a cold fusion gun. Peace.