Realizations that make you feel really stupid

[danzibr]

I make novice pixel art, and have been using a program called Aseprite for a couple years now. My biggest complaint was that you couldn't change the alpha. Hue, saturation, brightness (or RGB if you prefer), but not alpha.

It wasn't a big enough deal to make me get another drawing program, but it always bothered me. I'd have to mess around with sprites in GameMaker's image editor if I wanted to change the alpha.

Usually I keep the color editor open when I'm doing my art, not just making new colors. You know, just in case I want to change the hue, saturation, or brightness.

I'm about to start a new project where I'll *really* be needing to change the alpha. Now, I haven't updated Aseprite since I got it, so I thought maybe they updated it and now it can handle alpha.

I google "aseprite alpha" and sure enough, there's a guide on how to change the alpha. Hurrah! Not only that, it's in a super convenient location, immediately below where you change hue, saturation, and brightness.

Spoiler: What it looks like

Show

So I alt tab over to my Aseprite and notice I already had the alpha slider at the bottom. I just somehow never ever noticed it, for years, even though I've worked with the 3 sliders above it all this time. >.>

Anyone else have a tale like this?

[tomandtish]

Not a long-term one, but still my crowning moment of not realizing something. I'm running late for work one day (my wife has already left). I'm panicking because i can't find my phone. My wife calls me...

Her: "Can you do me a favor?"

Me: "No time. I'm running late and I can't find my phone".

Her: "You can't find your phone?"

Me: "No! I don't have a clue where it is!"

Her: "I know where it is. Go into the bathroom". (pause) "Do you see the counter?"

Me: "Yes, I do".

Her: "Look three feet above it".

Me: "$%^&%^!!!"

To this day I still don't know where the phone was when I answered it.

[DataNinja]

Not a long-term one, but still my crowning moment of not realizing something. I'm running late for work one day (my wife has already left). I'm panicking because i can't find my phone. My wife calls me...

That reminds me of a time that I was younger, and my mother was out for a walk. I needed to get a hold of her, so I called her. While I'm waiting on our landline for her to pick up, I hear her cellphone ringing. I started panicking, because I didn't want to leave the landline in case she picked up, but I wanted to make sure she wasn't missing some important call...

It took me longer than it should have to realize who was calling her cell. The call was coming from inside the house!

[Algeh]

It took me a really, embarrassingly, absurdly long time to realize the relationship between fractions and percentages. I knew how to deal with each of them as a thing that related to reality and represented a quantity, but I somehow missed the day/week/month/year/etc when I was supposed to learn that all you needed to do to convert a fraction to a percentage was to turn it into a decimal (which I definitely had known how to do since sometime in elementary school) and move the decimal point to change it to be talking about hundreds instead of ones. I think my idea of percentages was just entirely disconnected from the rest of math for some reason. (I had a LOT of disruptions in my k-12 schooling for various reasons, and have had to fill in a lot of random gaps as an adult.)

How late, you ask? I was in my student teaching and needed to put a bunch of math test scores (for the Algebra 1 tests I'd just written, administered to students, and graded) into my cooperating teacher's gradebook, which was percentage based. He very nicely explained how to convert a fraction into a percentage without yelling at me or asking how I came to be admitted to a graduate program to become a math teacher (and pass the math-specific licensing exam required by my state) without this particular piece of knowledge, which in retrospect was very patient and understanding of him.

I may be the only person to ever get a 10 on the Putnam Competition exam without knowing how to convert a fraction to a percentage at the time.

I also basically taught myself all of middle/high school algebra from first principles in some combination of discrete math, linear algebra, and particularly in abstract algebra when I finally learned the general case for the distributive property and assorted other pretty alarmingly basic concepts from algebra (I got A's and B's in abstract algebra, which I still think of as "the class where I finally understood algebra"). I pretty much didn't have a "real" math class after 6th grade until I arrived at college (I also missed basically all of 3rd grade math and quite a bit of other chunks of elementary school), and some absurd combination of memorization, pattern-matching skills, logic puzzle skills, and I really have no idea what carried me through the placement tests and a year of calculus before I hit discrete math, found proofs, and realized that math was supposed to make sense and that things happened for reasons rather than treating learning math much the same way I treated memorizing music for performance. Then, I just had to find out what those reasons were and write proofs for them for math to be a thing that made sense and I could do rather than an obnoxious thing that kept happening to me because I needed to jump through some hoops to meet prerequisites.

[chainer1216]

Recently i realised i didn't need a toaster to make toast.

[Vinyadan]

There's a lot. I mix up names in weird ways, so it took me a while to realize that e.g. Guns and Roses and Aerosmith are different bands.

I also just realized that you don't use your biceps when you do push-ups. You use the other muscle on the arm. So that's why I found pull-ups easy and push-ups hard!

[rooster707]

Recently i realised i didn't need a toaster to make toast.

...Tell me more.

[Crooked Man]

I thought the vampires teeth worked as straws. Like they were some type of weird supernatural mosquitos.

[AuthorGirl]

How to make capital letters with a keyboard:

1. Press the shift key and hold it down.

2. Press the caps lock key, then let off both keys at the same time.

3. Press the desired letter key.

4. Repeat steps 1 and 2.


. . . oh wait, the shift key actually works fine on its own.

[GolemsVoice]

I thought the vampires teeth worked as straws. Like they were some type of weird supernatural mosquitos.

Actually, as far as I know, there ARE myths and/or other media where they do work that way.

[Kid Jake]

I was almost 30 before I realized that West Virginia had actual, honest to God cities. I've went my entire life envisioning the state's population living in shantytowns, isolated log cabins and some sort of apocalyptic hellscape....

Granted that sums up MY limited experience with the place, but still...

[Velaryon]

I fairly often do things like look for my phone while it's in my pocket, or search the gaming table, my backpack, etc. for a pencil while I'm holding it. So far I've managed to mostly avoid looking for my glasses while wearing them (though I did do this with my sunglasses once, I think).

[rooster707]

I fairly often do things like look for my phone while it's in my pocket, or search the gaming table, my backpack, etc. for a pencil while I'm holding it. So far I've managed to mostly avoid looking for my glasses while wearing them (though I did do this with my sunglasses once, I think).

I have at least once (probably more) heard my brother's phone vibrate, put down my phone, and reached for my pocket to check my texts.

[BannedInSchool]

Took me way too long to get LOTRO's "Moor Cowbell" joke. I'll plead never having said it out loud.

[chainer1216]

...Tell me more.

Just heat up a pan on the stove.

Drop a piece of bread on there for a couple minute and then flip it over and wait until its as you like.

[Knaight]

Just heat up a pan on the stove.

Drop a piece of bread on there for a couple minute and then flip it over and wait until its as you like.

There's also always an open flame and some tongs (or two sticks), for camping.

[AMFV]

Even when you're only 6.5' off the ground you should probably still tie off, because overhang jacks can pull out and a 6.5' fall is enough to mess your arm up pretty good.

[Brother Oni]

I also just realized that you don't use your biceps when you do push-ups. You use the other muscle on the arm. So that's why I found pull-ups easy and push-ups hard!

In your defence, it depends on how you do them. There's numerous different techniques for press-ups, each of which focus different muscle groups, including the biceps.

[Leecros]

I have a handful of speech oddities based on false misconceptions about the meaning of certain words or terms that were never cleared up when i was young. They're rare enough that they don't usually show up in regular talk, but common enough that they do make me feel like an idiot sometimes.

The worst part is that even the ones that have been cleared up, I sometimes slip back into just out of the habit of me saying them for much of my life. Then I have to go "Yeah, that's what i meant" when it gets pointed out. That's really when I feel stupid.

[AMFV]

In your defence, it depends on how you do them. There's numerous different techniques for press-ups, each of which focus different muscle groups, including the biceps.

Well with pushups (a pressing exercise), your biceps will never be doing than more stabilizing. They just aren't involved with that particular movement, your chest is the principal muscle group involved no matter how you do them, although it's possible to adjust exactly how much your chest is involved, your chest is always going to be the main thing.

[FinnLassie]

As a teenager I felt really stupid about a lot of misconceptions that I had, but honestly... I don't remember them anymore. Nowadays I don't really even care – if I find out I've been wrong about it, my attitude is "Oh ok. Fixed." The latest thing was just a few weeks ago when my boyfriend pointed out that I've been writing cheapsteak instead of cheapstake. I've decided that oh whatever, I guess I'm a steak now. Gotta have some humour in life.

[Jarawara]

I was almost 30 before I realized that West Virginia had actual, honest to God cities. I've went my entire life envisioning the state's population living in shantytowns, isolated log cabins and some sort of apocalyptic hellscape...

I recently had the same thing, different place. My friend and I were discussing North Korea and the 'nuclear threat' (sorry, that should be "nucular threat", right?). He pondered our reaction if NK hit a city on Guam, and I responded "What cities - we got like, one military base and a bunch of dodo birds that they thought were extinct years ago."

Then I looked at Google Maps and found that in fact there are multiple towns and cities on the island, many far larger than the little one I live in!

I mean, not a big "moment of realization", but I do pride myself with being a military historian, and Guam was invaded in WWII. I should actually know a bit more about it than I apparently did.

[Gnoman]

As a teenager I felt really stupid about a lot of misconceptions that I had, but honestly... I don't remember them anymore. Nowadays I don't really even care – if I find out I've been wrong about it, my attitude is "Oh ok. Fixed." The latest thing was just a few weeks ago when my boyfriend pointed out that I've been writing cheapsteak instead of cheapstake. I've decided that oh whatever, I guess I'm a steak now. Gotta have some humour in life.

I'm afraid that the word is "Cheapskate", not "cheapstake".

[HalfTangible]

I have one of these every... month or so. At minimum. My best friend on skype loves to dunk on me (her words, not mine).

[An Enemy Spy]

I felt stupid this morning when I didn't realize there was dog pee on the kitchen floor until I was standing in it.

[tomandtish]

Just found out yesterday that my water heater has TWO separate breakers. one by the water heater itself, and one outside. Turns out you need to reset BOTH of them to avoid a $75 service call....

I'm afraid that the word is "Cheapskate", not "cheapstake".

Depends on if you are slaying vampires or not.... It's a crucial distinction!

[An Enemy Spy]

If you fight vampires with a cheapstake, you will regret being a cheapskate.

[AuthorGirl]

If you fight vampires with a cheapstake, you will regret being a cheapskate.

. . .

Thank you. Thank you so much for this perfectly awful pun that has made me disproportionately happy.

[The Fury]

A while ago I found out that the word "quesadilla" is a portmanteau of "queso" and "tortilla." I only discovered this when I was narrating my kitchen activities in Spanish.

[darkrose50]

A while ago I found out that the word "quesadilla" is a portmanteau of "queso" and "tortilla." I only discovered this when I was narrating my kitchen activities in Spanish.

I like to mispronounce quesadilla KAY-SAY-DILL-I-AH when ordering them at the Taco Bell drive though.

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I damaged some hair follicles shaving. I don't know what I did wrong, but my face now has a reverse beard mohawk (a strip where hair is not growing). Two hair follicles got infected (basically they became really big pimples).

My doctor said something something antibiotics and something something massage the infected hair follicle.

I waited for her to prescribe antibiotics, I called the pharmacy, and called her back asking her if she forget.

She wanted me to rub antibiotic ointment onto the infected hair follicles and massage the antibiotic ointment into them. I totally did not understand her instructions. I thought she wanted me to take antibiotics orally, and message the infected hair follicles.

This is not the first time we intercommunicated. I think that i need to ask for written instructions in the future.

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I have Asperger's Syndrome, and used to ask girls out on dates on accident, and then bring my girlfriend. So many slashed tires . . ..