5 ms·

When my little brother was 3 or 4 he stepped on a nail in our yard, probably dropped during some recent construction. It went all the way through his poor littl

by evan_ 2y ago

When my little brother was 3 or 4 he stepped on a nail in our yard, probably dropped during some recent construction. It went all the way through his poor little foot, straight through, out the top. I can see it, vividly, in my mind's eye. Mom scooped us up and rushed us, still barefoot, to the ER. I remember him being almost calm- not the way I would have reacted. They x-rayed his foot and soaked it in a tub of what I now know to be iodine to kill bacteria. I remember this clearly: it was the first time I'd ever seen an x-ray in real life, rather than just in alphabet books. Fortunately the nail totally missed anything important, so they just pulled it out and bandaged him up- no worse for the wear. He went on to be an honest-to-God track star so it obviously didn't have any lasting effect. Decades later we were talking about something and he said to me, "Why don't they use that x-ray water anymore?". I had no idea what he was talking about so I asked him to elaborate. The way he remembers the incident is that they put his foot into a bucket of amber liquid and, once submerged, his skin became transparent. He looked in and saw his own bones, blood vessels, and- in the middle of it all- the nail that was causing such a fuss. He described wiggling his toes, flexing his ankle, and seeing the bones and tendons move, directly, with his own eyes. His toddler brain, probably in shock, had combined the x-ray film and iodine bath. Over the years it had grown more detailed and reinforced. He described it with such clarity that I almost wondered if I hadn't been mistaken. He didn't believe me when I told him how I remember it. We called our mom who confirmed my version of events, plus did some googling, which finally convinced him. Anyway I just sent him this article. It's interesting that not only is the x-ray water he remembers theoretically possible, it would actually be amber.

knodi123 2y ago
That's fascinating! I also have a vivid childhood memory that I can see, clear as day, despite knowing as an adult that it's impossible. It's really uncomfortable to combine the facts that a.) memory is unreliable, and b.) memory is what gives me my sense of self. (if you don't accept that second fact, that's fine, I'm not here to convince anyone or debate)
nullorempty 2y ago
Well, he actually might have been perceiving what otherwise we don't perceive.
ajb 2y ago
That is a fascinating story. Historically there were actually "live" x-ray machines, where you could have seen yourself wiggling your toes. They aren't used now due to the horrific exposure to x-rays, but before that was understood to be bad they were used in shoe shops (!). I don't know that they were ever used in hospitals though https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  And of course the most harmed by fluoroscopes weren't the customers (bad enough) but the sales staff, who had multiple daily exposures day after week after month after year. Checking your Wikipedia link: Yikes! These were used into the 1970s. And of course industry denialism of any possible harm the devices might cause.... SMFH
  - mh- 2y ago
    1981 in West Virginia according to some sources. https://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/shoexray.htm https://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/shoexray.htm
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      My head can only shake so much.... At least they had the good sense to give it up when notified.
- smeej 2y ago
  I had a motion x-ray as recently as 2020. I don't know enough about the technology to know why this was different, but I have a copy of the video. Edit: This is the type of machine it was: https://www.dmxworks.com/ https://www.dmxworks.com/
  - ajb 2y ago
    That's cool. I wonder how they reduce the dose enough that it's safe. Presumably they were quite careful about how long the exposure was?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
zackmorris 2y ago
I don't know why I'm replying to this other than to add another anecdote about the fungibility of memory. I first saw a Macintosh computer around 1984/85 when I was 7 or 8 years old, and I vividly remember the color screen. They were demoing MacPaint or possibly a SuperPaint beta and I recall the palettes being in color. Except Macs at that time were black and white! Now I realize that it was probably synesthesia where some of the gray patterns looked blue, yellow, brown or even pink. So basically it was like dreaming and seeing colors which don't exist. Although nearly all of my dreams are in black and white, and I only remember a handful of dreams that had color, like a recent one that had a fruit bowl with all of the colors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperPaint_(Macintosh) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperPaint_(Macintosh) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Color_Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Color_Classic (hadn't been created yet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVcv8ORSZEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVcv8ORSZEQ Color Macintosh Plus (mod) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slY_F1MxGlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slY_F1MxGlk The Mac Plus had modern multi monitor support in 1986 and I got it working! (not me!) I'm especially curious about the last link, because there's a remote chance that someone had a Mac Plus with a color video card that I was lucky enough to witness in a rare demo. But the odds of that are pretty slim. Maybe some old graybeard knows of such a thing.
- FiatLuxDave 2y ago
  Are you sure it was a Mac and not an Apple ][ ? I believe those had support for color at the time.
  - zackmorris 2y ago
    Ya I'm positive it was a Mac Plus form factor and not an Apple ][ (cool brackets btw, very nostalgic). And 90% sure that the drawing program was MacPaint, although I can't explain why I remember it being in color. - While I'm here, I want to link back to an earlier comment I made about synesthesia where patterns look like colors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40602237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40602237 https://gagadget.com/en/446542-a-photo-of-a-coca-cola-can-that-looks-red-but-is-made-up-of-only-black-and-blue-pixels-is-being-shared-on-social-media-how-does-it-work/ https://gagadget.com/en/446542-a-photo-of-a-coca-cola-can-th... I think this mechanism was at play because I had never seen a dot matrix black and white display before, and thought that the Mac OS checkerboard gray pattern was especially cool. I distinctly remember one of the darker gray patterns appearing blue. So I wonder if my mind filled in the pink/red like in the Coke image. The brick wall and roof tile patterns also stirred my imagination, perhaps triggering a feeling of red. I think most people with sight have rod cells which are sensitive to cyan, so I've always wondered if a negative afterimage in low light could simulate red for people with varying degrees of color blindness, technically color shiftedness, since they can see colors like gold/khaki that people with ordinary vision can't see but only see as a secondary mix of red and green light making yellow: https://www.google.com/search?q=negative+afterimage https://www.google.com/search?q=negative+afterimage (click Images for examples) Unfortunately Google broke their search engine so we can't link directly to images anymore, a 1000th reason why it maybe shouldn't exist as a company anymore due to its recent behavior, but I digress: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21530274/format-for-a-url-that-goes-to-google-image-search/21530382#21530382 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21530274/format-for-a-ur... I also had dozens of concussions growing up feral in the 80s, and I think that may have exacerbated my neurodivergency and ADHD symptoms, giving me endless curiosity. I stumbled onto an article the other day about shroom microdosing possibly regrowing connections between brain cells to treat traumatic brain injury, similar to this one: https://jmvfh.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/jmvfh-2022-0084 https://jmvfh.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/jmvfh-2022-... So I wonder if psychedelics and exercises to train the visual cortex to discern colors better, combined with various medications that might slightly shift the opsin receptor frequencies in the eye, could improve color discernment for some people. As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that our memories and perception of reality itself can change over time, because everything we perceive is actually in our minds. So for example, I had forgotten about the Mac Plus for 30-40 years, but now the memory is more vivid because it's connected to recent thoughts through time. It's going to be weird in 10-20 years when something like Neuralink allows us to see without using our eyes. I suspect that we will discover new colors in the ultraviolet and infrared range that birds and insects see that we haven't seen before, as well as new impossible colors like green plus magenta/purple making octarine, the color of magic: https://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/04/19/octarine-the-imaginary-color-of-magic/ https://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/04/19/octarine-the-im... I guess this got long and random, but hey, it's Saturday.

by evan_ 2y ago

knodi123 2y ago

That's fascinating! I also have a vivid childhood memory that I can see, clear as day, despite knowing as an adult that it's impossible. It's really uncomfortable to combine the facts that a.) memory is unreliable, and b.) memory is what gives me my sense of self. (if you don't accept that second fact, that's fine, I'm not here to convince anyone or debate)

nullorempty 2y ago

Well, he actually might have been perceiving what otherwise we don't perceive.

ajb 2y ago

That is a fascinating story. Historically there were actually "live" x-ray machines, where you could have seen yourself wiggling your toes. They aren't used now due to the horrific exposure to x-rays, but before that was understood to be bad they were used in shoe shops (!). I don't know that they were ever used in hospitals though https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope

dredmorbius 2y ago
And of course the most harmed by fluoroscopes weren't the customers (bad enough) but the sales staff, who had multiple daily exposures day after week after month after year. Checking your Wikipedia link: Yikes! These were used into the 1970s. And of course industry denialism of any possible harm the devices might cause.... SMFH
- mh- 2y ago
  1981 in West Virginia according to some sources. https://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/shoexray.htm https://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/shoexray.htm
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    My head can only shake so much.... At least they had the good sense to give it up when notified.
smeej 2y ago
I had a motion x-ray as recently as 2020. I don't know enough about the technology to know why this was different, but I have a copy of the video. Edit: This is the type of machine it was: https://www.dmxworks.com/ https://www.dmxworks.com/
- ajb 2y ago
  That's cool. I wonder how they reduce the dose enough that it's safe. Presumably they were quite careful about how long the exposure was?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

zackmorris 2y ago

I don't know why I'm replying to this other than to add another anecdote about the fungibility of memory. I first saw a Macintosh computer around 1984/85 when I was 7 or 8 years old, and I vividly remember the color screen. They were demoing MacPaint or possibly a SuperPaint beta and I recall the palettes being in color. Except Macs at that time were black and white! Now I realize that it was probably synesthesia where some of the gray patterns looked blue, yellow, brown or even pink. So basically it was like dreaming and seeing colors which don't exist. Although nearly all of my dreams are in black and white, and I only remember a handful of dreams that had color, like a recent one that had a fruit bowl with all of the colors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperPaint_(Macintosh) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperPaint_(Macintosh) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Color_Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Color_Classic (hadn't been created yet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVcv8ORSZEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVcv8ORSZEQ Color Macintosh Plus (mod) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slY_F1MxGlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slY_F1MxGlk The Mac Plus had modern multi monitor support in 1986 and I got it working! (not me!) I'm especially curious about the last link, because there's a remote chance that someone had a Mac Plus with a color video card that I was lucky enough to witness in a rare demo. But the odds of that are pretty slim. Maybe some old graybeard knows of such a thing.

FiatLuxDave 2y ago
Are you sure it was a Mac and not an Apple ][ ? I believe those had support for color at the time.
- zackmorris 2y ago
  Ya I'm positive it was a Mac Plus form factor and not an Apple ][ (cool brackets btw, very nostalgic). And 90% sure that the drawing program was MacPaint, although I can't explain why I remember it being in color. - While I'm here, I want to link back to an earlier comment I made about synesthesia where patterns look like colors: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40602237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40602237 https://gagadget.com/en/446542-a-photo-of-a-coca-cola-can-that-looks-red-but-is-made-up-of-only-black-and-blue-pixels-is-being-shared-on-social-media-how-does-it-work/ https://gagadget.com/en/446542-a-photo-of-a-coca-cola-can-th... I think this mechanism was at play because I had never seen a dot matrix black and white display before, and thought that the Mac OS checkerboard gray pattern was especially cool. I distinctly remember one of the darker gray patterns appearing blue. So I wonder if my mind filled in the pink/red like in the Coke image. The brick wall and roof tile patterns also stirred my imagination, perhaps triggering a feeling of red. I think most people with sight have rod cells which are sensitive to cyan, so I've always wondered if a negative afterimage in low light could simulate red for people with varying degrees of color blindness, technically color shiftedness, since they can see colors like gold/khaki that people with ordinary vision can't see but only see as a secondary mix of red and green light making yellow: https://www.google.com/search?q=negative+afterimage https://www.google.com/search?q=negative+afterimage (click Images for examples) Unfortunately Google broke their search engine so we can't link directly to images anymore, a 1000th reason why it maybe shouldn't exist as a company anymore due to its recent behavior, but I digress: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21530274/format-for-a-url-that-goes-to-google-image-search/21530382#21530382 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21530274/format-for-a-ur... I also had dozens of concussions growing up feral in the 80s, and I think that may have exacerbated my neurodivergency and ADHD symptoms, giving me endless curiosity. I stumbled onto an article the other day about shroom microdosing possibly regrowing connections between brain cells to treat traumatic brain injury, similar to this one: https://jmvfh.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/jmvfh-2022-0084 https://jmvfh.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.3138/jmvfh-2022-... So I wonder if psychedelics and exercises to train the visual cortex to discern colors better, combined with various medications that might slightly shift the opsin receptor frequencies in the eye, could improve color discernment for some people. As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that our memories and perception of reality itself can change over time, because everything we perceive is actually in our minds. So for example, I had forgotten about the Mac Plus for 30-40 years, but now the memory is more vivid because it's connected to recent thoughts through time. It's going to be weird in 10-20 years when something like Neuralink allows us to see without using our eyes. I suspect that we will discover new colors in the ultraviolet and infrared range that birds and insects see that we haven't seen before, as well as new impossible colors like green plus magenta/purple making octarine, the color of magic: https://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/04/19/octarine-the-imaginary-color-of-magic/ https://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/04/19/octarine-the-im... I guess this got long and random, but hey, it's Saturday.