What Is It? Blog

What Is It?

What Is It? is a place for engineers to test their knowledge (and sense of humor). Each week (or month, or...) the CR4 team will post an unidentified picture of an object, tool, animal, something. We're looking for your best (or funniest) guesses at what it might be in the comments.

Yes, we take [appropriate] submissions. Send them to cr4admin@ieeeglobalspec.com.

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What Is It? for 4/8/12

Posted April 08, 2012 12:00 AM
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#1

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/08/2012 6:35 AM

Safety fence at a race track.

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#2

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/08/2012 10:49 PM

I also agree that it is a safety fence, or guard rail fence of some sort, but due to the angle of the shadows I am inclined to think that the picture is upside down.

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#5
In reply to #2

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 5:57 AM

or 90 deg...

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#11
In reply to #5

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 10:16 AM

I agree, the angle was wrong.
But I see a conduit running up one post, and the structure is curved...So My guess is it's a net cover for a circular structure that is lighted. Perhaps a theatre or sport areana of some sort.

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#3

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 1:42 AM

Cage at zoo for these (90deg rotate)

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#4

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 4:56 AM

Microscopic view of Roman Catholic Condom.

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#25
In reply to #4

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 9:52 AM

Included, but not obvious, is the 'active sperm transport' feature.

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#6

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 8:12 AM

Edge of a radio telescope collector

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#7

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 8:34 AM

The safety fence around the top of a light house.

Bazzer.

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#8

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 9:07 AM

A safety fence along the periphery of a skyscaper observation deck?

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#10
In reply to #8

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 9:29 AM

Could be, could be.

Bazzer

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#9

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 9:25 AM

Safety rail of overhead highway pedestrian crossing. Mainly designed to prevent pedestrians dropping items (bricks, whiskey bottles, etc.) onto moving traffic.

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#12

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 10:43 AM

If I had to guess, it is a net that is related to baseball.

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#13
In reply to #12

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 10:57 AM

Spacing's too wide for that.

I'm not so sure that #1 is right, either.

Starting to lean toward a "people" net.

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#14

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 2:35 PM

Life in the big city!

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#15

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 6:19 PM

A fence, somewhat like this one (below, but which Phydeaux has evidently trashed again in pursuit of dinner).

The original pic, right-side-up:

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#16

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 6:44 PM

A fence antenna or antenna fence or even a space antenna.

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#17

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/09/2012 11:33 PM

Fence over rooftop basketball court.

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#18

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 2:25 AM

Othello: Jealousy incarnate.

Albert Einstein: 'What is it' relative to what?

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of asking "What is it?" was encoded into the object "fence" and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this question.

Charles Darwin: It is the logical next step after having no fence there at all.

David Hume: The veritable actualisation of custom and habit.

Werner Heisenberg: Well whatever it is, I am fairly certain I haven't a bloody clue as to its momentum.

Ernest Hemingway: It is thus to die. In the rain.

Aristotle: It is what it is.

The Evil Emperor: I have foreseen it.

Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the fence found it necessary to exist in this photograph.

Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that this individual fence be made manifest at this historical juncture and therefore synchronicitiously brought such an auspicious occurrence into being.

Oliver North: Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it has something to do with our National Security being at stake.

Bill Clinton: I didn't inhale.

B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from its inception had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to obstruct passage, even whilst believing these actions to be of its own free will.

Nietzsche: Gaze at the fence and the fence gazes also at you.

Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of this image of a fence having been made manifest, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Machiavelli: It is there so that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a fence which has the daring and courage to boldly stand its ground, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of obstructive virtue? In such a manner is the princely fence's dominion maintained.

Karl Marx: A historical inevitability. Morons!

Plato: That which is there for the greater good.

Buddha: To ask 'What is it?' is to deny one's own Fence-Nature.

Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with that (bleep) and I'll find out.

Douglas Adams: Forty-two.

Salvador Dali: The Fish.

Timothy Leary: The Establishment's answer to everything.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: An opportunity to transcend the moment.

Pyrrho the Skeptic: What is what?

Richard Nixon: I forget.

Morpheus: It is the One.

The Sphinx: You tell me.

Mark Twain: The news of its existence has been greatly exaggerated.

Molly Yard: It's a hen!

Zeno of Elea: It's there to prove you can never reach the other side.

Neo: The fence is not Real.

Blake: O to see heaven in the backside of a wild fowl!

Supreme Soviet: There has never been a fence in this photograph.

Katt Williams: It's a (bleep)(bleep)(bleep)(bleep)(bleep)(bleep)(bleep)(bleep) fence.

Kafka: Hardly the most urgent enquiry to make of a low-grade insurance clerk who woke up this morning as a hen.

Whitehead: Clearly the enquirer has fallen victim to the fallacy of misplaced fencedness.

Hamlet: That is not the question!

George W. Bush: Yesterday, you made note of my -- the lack of my talent when it came to dancing. But nevertheless, I want you to know I danced with joy. And no question Liberia has gone through very difficult times.

Barack Obama: We're the country that built that fence!

Leonard McCoy: It's dead, Jim.

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#20
In reply to #18

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 7:52 AM

Name dropper!

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#22
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Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 8:13 AM
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#26
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Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 11:27 AM
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#19

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 4:48 AM

Liberal-Arts Major: You want fries with that?

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#21

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 7:59 AM

It's a suicide net/barrier, or anti-suicide net/barrier if you prefer.

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#23
In reply to #21

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 8:18 AM

Well, I suppose that would depend on the direction from which one approaches it. It is rather unique I admit. Unfortunately the shape makes it a little difficult to change one's mind.

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#24
In reply to #21

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 8:45 AM

Nope, it's a suicidals dicer !

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#42
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Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/19/2012 12:01 PM

Fence or no fence, I'm snuffin' it!

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#27

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 3:35 PM

I don't know what it is, but I believe straddling it could be a bit painful.

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#28

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/10/2012 6:59 PM

Safety barrier for an overpass walkway.

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#29

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/11/2012 1:21 AM

It's the net around the looney bin...aka CR4...

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#30

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/11/2012 3:30 AM

where did the laundry went?

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#31

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/11/2012 7:58 AM

Many guessed that it is a security fence of some kind. That's right! It's at the top of the Space Needle in Seattle, WA. Here's what it looks like from below:

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#32
In reply to #31

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/11/2012 3:17 PM

And here are a couple confirming that the original was the wrong way up: SWB123 at post 2 deserves a GA for excellent observation.

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#33
In reply to #32

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/12/2012 6:50 AM

It may need to be rotated 90 degrees but I took that photo from below, looking up - not straight on. So it is not upside down. The parallel wires were closer to the floor and the crossed ones were up above.

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#34
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Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/12/2012 7:34 AM

Splitting hairs a bit here, but, "wrong way up" is not the same as "upside down" .

Good question, and, interesting answer anyway: thanks.

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#36
In reply to #34

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/12/2012 1:15 PM

I always liked the expression 'downside up' better.

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#35
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Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/12/2012 11:39 AM

One look at the shadows in the original pic and you know the pic is on its side.

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#40
In reply to #32

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/15/2012 12:32 PM

What a dish. The..um..Space Needle.

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#37
In reply to #31

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/15/2012 6:10 AM

It'll be interesting to see if anybody from Seattle confesses to not realizing .

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#38
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Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/15/2012 9:54 AM

I don't think Bill Gates is on CR4.

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Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/15/2012 12:26 PM
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#41
In reply to #31

Re: What Is It? for 4/8/12

04/15/2012 12:42 PM

I'm sorry, Savvy, but you've got it wrong. It is this:

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