s/o adults should know this - retrospectively obvious things you've just learned

[cabbageweevil]

Re the boroughs of New York: I was doing a project recently, which proved definitely instructive about Staten Island.  I'd imagined hitherto, that it was a little island rather isolated in the waters generally off New York City.  Turns out that it's bigger than I thought, and markedly closer to mainland New Jersey -- separated from same, basically by narrow creeks -- than to the rest of NY City. One lives and learns...

I love the story of how it ended up in NYC--a rowboat race around the island.

Ah, Captain Christopher Billopp's exploit, isn't that right? (I looked it up.)

Caused to come to mind, a gruesome legend from long ago: supposedly explaining why the badge of Ireland's northernmost province of Ulster, is a red hand.  A tale of rival chieftains racing each other by boat toward the coast of the area -- the first one to lay hand on it, would be acknowledged as its overlord.  One guy, super-keen to win but his boat falling behind, cut his hand off and, with his other arm, threw it forward on to the shore, ahead of his competitors...

[jaxsue]

w/ Manhattan:

Manhattan Island is indeed an island.

However, the borough of Manhattan (in NYC's political divisions) comprises the island of Manhattan and a small section of land across the Harlem River that is on the mainland plus a few smaller islands.

Wikipedia has a map.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_City_location_Manhattan.svg

That tiny bit on the mainland was originally part of the island, but it was difficult to navigate, so they dug the Harlem River Ship Canal, which turned Marble Hill into an island. Later they filled in the original channel of the river itself, joining Marble Hill to the mainland, but they kept the political membership.

Re the boroughs of New York: I was doing a project recently, which proved definitely instructive about Staten Island.  I'd imagined hitherto, that it was a little island rather isolated in the waters generally off New York City.  Turns out that it's bigger than I thought, and markedly closer to mainland New Jersey -- separated from same, basically by narrow creeks -- than to the rest of NY City. One lives and learns...

I moved to this area (NY/ NJ) 7 yrs ago. I had also thought that Staten Island was closer to NY, and much smaller. I was surprised to find out the truth. Now in Central Jersey, I live where I can be in Staten Island in about 7 minutes!

[bansidhe]

This is so embarrassing...
For the first year or so that I used Photoshop, the Rotate Canvas dialog box mystified me. It looks like this:


I couldn't figure out what CW and CCW meant, so I'd just click one of them and hope for the best and if it didn't work, I'd cancel the action and click the other one. It was quite annoying, because I use that feature quite frequently and could never remember which one rotated left and which one rotated right.

Finally, one day, I clicked the wrong option for the umpteenth time and grumbled to myself, "I wanted that to go counter-clockwise, not clockwise - - OHHHHH!" 

Hey, it only took me a year to figure out what should have been obvious. 

[Lynn2000]

Okay, I will top that, because it's only in the last few years that I've realized where I live.  I remembered I was in the "East Central" part of the state because everything is called that... "Covering East Central news" from the TV and newspaper, for example. I did not realize the county I grew up in actually borders the neighboring state--granted we're in the part on the opposite side, but still. We're closer to the neighboring state than we are to a lot of places inside our own state. I had some relatives in the neighboring state and it was always a huge deal to visit them, or for them to come visit us--like, "Okay, gear up, we're going to Neighboring State, do we have food and water, overnight bag..."

Also, there is a large city in my state, and for my entire childhood it was like the city of Oz, shining on the horizon. I think we went there like twice in my life (not counting purely airport trips). I now live even further away from that city... but many people here will drive to that city and back in one day, and don't see it as a big deal at all. It's like two, two and a half hours away. It takes longer to get to my grandma's house (other direction) but we seemed to be able to do that often enough when I was a kid, even a round trip in the same day. So obviously some of that is my parents' reluctance to go to the city, but I looked pretty dumb when I grew up and goggled at people for treating a trip to the city so casually.

[Iris]

Re the boroughs of New York: I was doing a project recently, which proved definitely instructive about Staten Island.  I'd imagined hitherto, that it was a little island rather isolated in the waters generally off New York City.  Turns out that it's bigger than I thought, and markedly closer to mainland New Jersey -- separated from same, basically by narrow creeks -- than to the rest of NY City. One lives and learns...

I love the story of how it ended up in NYC--a rowboat race around the island.

Ah, Captain Christopher Billopp's exploit, isn't that right? (I looked it up.)

Caused to come to mind, a gruesome legend from long ago: supposedly explaining why the badge of Ireland's northernmost province of Ulster, is a red hand.  A tale of rival chieftains racing each other by boat toward the coast of the area -- the first one to lay hand on it, would be acknowledged as its overlord.  One guy, super-keen to win but his boat falling behind, cut his hand off and, with his other arm, threw it forward on to the shore, ahead of his competitors...

I'm picturing the "defeated" captain standing there, looking at a severed hand, back at the guy, back at the hand, and saying "Okay. Okay, if you want it that badly..." All the while backing sloooowly towards his boat and making frantic hand signals at his crew behind his back to get the boat ready so they could get the heck away from the crazy person...

[Slartibartfast]

Okay, I will top that, because it's only in the last few years that I've realized where I live.  I remembered I was in the "East Central" part of the state because everything is called that... "Covering East Central news" from the TV and newspaper, for example. I did not realize the county I grew up in actually borders the neighboring state--granted we're in the part on the opposite side, but still. We're closer to the neighboring state than we are to a lot of places inside our own state. I had some relatives in the neighboring state and it was always a huge deal to visit them, or for them to come visit us--like, "Okay, gear up, we're going to Neighboring State, do we have food and water, overnight bag..."

Also, there is a large city in my state, and for my entire childhood it was like the city of Oz, shining on the horizon. I think we went there like twice in my life (not counting purely airport trips). I now live even further away from that city... but many people here will drive to that city and back in one day, and don't see it as a big deal at all. It's like two, two and a half hours away. It takes longer to get to my grandma's house (other direction) but we seemed to be able to do that often enough when I was a kid, even a round trip in the same day. So obviously some of that is my parents' reluctance to go to the city, but I looked pretty dumb when I grew up and goggled at people for treating a trip to the city so casually.

I've actually felt the same way after moving across the country    I grew up in a city of 35,000 people - we were the "big city" for my portion of my state.  The nearest actual big city (i.e. something someone would have heard of) was ~45 minutes away.  They were special because they had a MALL.  A few of my mom's friends would go shopping at the mall just because, but I remember it being a really big deal - like, you might get to go there for your prom dress kind of big deal.  Mom always thought it was crazy to drive 45 minutes just to go shopping - in my hometown, pretty much nothing is more than 10 minutes away, and "rush hour" means having to wait through two cycles of the light on main street.

Now I live somewhere approximately the same size as the "big city."  And we have THREE malls.  And 45 minutes isn't an uncommon commute if you live on one side of the city and work on the other, especially if you do your driving during rush hour.  My mental estimate of "how early do I have to leave for X?" has gone from 10 minutes to 30 minutes most of the time 

[cabbageweevil]

Caused to come to mind, a gruesome legend from long ago: supposedly explaining why the badge of Ireland's northernmost province of Ulster, is a red hand.  A tale of rival chieftains racing each other by boat toward the coast of the area -- the first one to lay hand on it, would be acknowledged as its overlord.  One guy, super-keen to win but his boat falling behind, cut his hand off and, with his other arm, threw it forward on to the shore, ahead of his competitors...

I'm picturing the "defeated" captain standing there, looking at a severed hand, back at the guy, back at the hand, and saying "Okay. Okay, if you want it that badly..." All the while backing sloooowly towards his boat and making frantic hand signals at his crew behind his back to get the boat ready so they could get the heck away from the crazy person...

Making mental note: "for ever after, for me and mine -- stay far away from Ulster..."

[Dindrane]

I've actually felt the same way after moving across the country    I grew up in a city of 35,000 people - we were the "big city" for my portion of my state.  The nearest actual big city (i.e. something someone would have heard of) was ~45 minutes away.  They were special because they had a MALL.  A few of my mom's friends would go shopping at the mall just because, but I remember it being a really big deal - like, you might get to go there for your prom dress kind of big deal.  Mom always thought it was crazy to drive 45 minutes just to go shopping - in my hometown, pretty much nothing is more than 10 minutes away, and "rush hour" means having to wait through two cycles of the light on main street.

Now I live somewhere approximately the same size as the "big city."  And we have THREE malls.  And 45 minutes isn't an uncommon commute if you live on one side of the city and work on the other, especially if you do your driving during rush hour.  My mental estimate of "how early do I have to leave for X?" has gone from 10 minutes to 30 minutes most of the time 

I've had almost the complete opposite adjustment. I grew up in one of the biggest cities in the US. Anything you could get to within half an hour was super close by. Driving 45 minutes to an hour to get somewhere was not the kind of thing you'd do for every little thing (especially if that was the non-rush-hour travel time), but it wasn't that big a deal, and a lot of people had daily commutes that took that long. But, because I lived in the biggest city in the area, I rarely drove to other nearby cities unless it was to visit family or something. Basically none of them had really anything my city didn't, or at least nothing sufficiently different/better to get me to travel.

Now, I live in the 2nd largest city in my state...but at just about 200,000 residents, it's roughly 1/10th to 1/20th (depending upon how you count) the size of the city I grew up in. Most people have not heard of where I live unless they are at least a little bit familiar with the state. I'd never heard of it before my husband moved here.

But what's funny is that half an hour of driving now takes me completely out of the urban area of the city. Most things within the city are 10 minutes away (or less). My commute to work is 3.5 miles, and I get super grumpy if it takes me more than 10 minutes to drive it.

Even though the closest at-least-as-big cities are at least an hour away (and the closest truly big city, which is still smaller than the one I grew up in, is 2 hours away), I go to other cities at least once every couple of months. It's often just a day trip to shop and spend some time in a more urban environment, not for any particular reason or to visit anyone. But deity forbid I have to drive more than 15 minutes within my own city to get anywhere.

[siamesecat2965]

This is completely stupid and inane, but in playing my umpteenth level of candy crush, i just realized that the stripes on the striped candies go either vertically, or horizontally, and as such, that's the way they move when you play them! I couldn't figure out why sometimes they went one way, and sometimes, the other. DUH. and I've been playing for over a year now. On 3 different devices!

[Seraphia]

This is completely stupid and inane, but in playing my umpteenth level of candy crush, i just realized that the stripes on the striped candies go either vertically, or horizontally, and as such, that's the way they move when you play them! I couldn't figure out why sometimes they went one way, and sometimes, the other. DUH. and I've been playing for over a year now. On 3 different devices!

I blew my Dad's mind when I pointed out that the direction you moved the candy to make the match-four would be the direction the powerup went when he got it from the match. He was on level 72 at the time, so it clearly hadn't hindered him a lot.

[GlitterIsMyDrug]

This is completely stupid and inane, but in playing my umpteenth level of candy crush, i just realized that the stripes on the striped candies go either vertically, or horizontally, and as such, that's the way they move when you play them! I couldn't figure out why sometimes they went one way, and sometimes, the other. DUH. and I've been playing for over a year now. On 3 different devices!

I hit level 90 something before I figured that out....

[Team HoundMom]

Can't count as an "adult" should know this because I was 11 when the song came out (1984) but....

I always thought the video for Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" was about a guy who moves away because he's getting bullied. 

Last night I was on the treadmill watching 80's videos and that one came on.  I just realized, 30 years later, that the guy is g@y for the swimmer and gets "g@y-bashed" then kicked out of the house for being g@y.  It made me so sad!  The nice part is at the end when he's on the train and his buddies show up and they share an apple because his bros don't care what he is.  I couldn't believe that the premise of the video just landed on me now. It's so obvious.

[siamesecat2965]

Can't count as an "adult" should know this because I was 11 when the song came out (1984) but....

I always thought the video for Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy" was about a guy who moves away because he's getting bullied. 

Last night I was on the treadmill watching 80's videos and that one came on.  I just realized, 30 years later, that the guy is g@y for the swimmer and gets "g@y-bashed" then kicked out of the house for being g@y.  It made me so sad!  The nice part is at the end when he's on the train and his buddies show up and they share an apple because his bros don't care what he is.  I couldn't believe that the premise of the video just landed on me now. It's so obvious.

I had the same revelation with the Kinks song "Lola" about a transvestite. Had no clue until college, and then it was like AHA, now the words make sense!

[siamesecat2965]

This is completely stupid and inane, but in playing my umpteenth level of candy crush, i just realized that the stripes on the striped candies go either vertically, or horizontally, and as such, that's the way they move when you play them! I couldn't figure out why sometimes they went one way, and sometimes, the other. DUH. and I've been playing for over a year now. On 3 different devices!

I hit level 90 something before I figured that out....

I was on 126 before the light bulb came on for me.  hehehehe

[Lynn2000]

I have been learning a lot about blogs in the "new blog help" thread in this folder. I knew "what" they were in the sense of, you type stuff and/or upload pictures in a certain format and it goes online where people can see it, basically like a personal homepage (I have one of those) but easier to update and structured more linearly, with the posts being dated. But, I didn't realize there was a whole other set of expectations for (some) blogs, of the interactivity with readers these days, keeping it updated, finding a niche, and so on. At least, that's a big part of many people's blog experiences. Really interesting to me.