I like that idea, I'll give that a try - IF it ever stops raining

I've actually tried this a bunch of times in lots of different countries. 15 mins seems about twice as long as reality to me, it's somewhere around 5-10 mins but seems to vary on latitude and time of year.

I like the idea of estimating by number of fingers, but this will also vary person-to-person. How long is their arm, and how fat are their fingers?

@@poyndextr that's one of the reasons why it's only an estimate 😄

I used to be so good at this that I could wow my coworkers by getting the time right down to within 5 minutes. Since I stopped landscaping, I haven't used it much. It helps out a lot if you know around what time the sun sets in your area, then you can approximate the time of day very accurately. Another trick is to see how far the sun is away from directly overhead of you (which would be 12pm), count how many fingers it is, then you have a basis to approximate when it rose and when it will set

Tunnel vision maybe ?

Think about it... @@joeys5429

Look behind you.

😂

So sorry to hear you only have one eye

To clarify: the ship needs to be identified first for the method to work, so the mast height is taken from a book, so it has a bit added accuracy compared to the method in this video.

I sort of recall that it was something like 2 miles for every foot in height at sea?

Duuude. Thanks for sharing that. Neat stuff :)

wearing glasses is a handy tool.small increments in the bifocal glass

Well with practice you'll get way better to the point you'll be able to tell after awhile.

An object of known size in the distance could potentially help. For example, if there's a car where you're looking at, you could say 4-5 car lengths, should be around 20-25 meters, since a sedan is like 4.5 - 5 meters long typically.

That's not a "feeling", that is rationalism...

@@Deniz1923 In the mountains, you'd not be able to spot a car at the relevant distances. It is too small. In my country, at least. I can see a few scenarios where this can be useful, but otherwise OP is correct. Also at shorter distances there's no point, as you can just walk there in a few seconds or a couple of minutes.

@@MrDxfusionWith practice you can just tell the distance. No need for rule of thumb.

The illegal flying is much more fun.

Or just be good at judging distances!

@@danthemansmail For real

JUST HAVE A GET AWAY DRIVER AND KEEP GOING DOWN THE ROAD ... IF STOPED THEM THEM THE DAMN DRONE IS FOLLOWING YOU !!

be careful where your drone's going while you're squinting at your thumb though 😂

thankyou for your service sir.

I’m going through SERE at the end of this month and am a little bit nervous! I know it’s amazing training but still… Not looking forward to “Resist.”

I was in Vietnam during that time frame (First Air Cav). You may have saved my behind. Thank you for your service!

How do you measure distances of 5km or more?

Always good to see one of the warriors of the old world around

well on a boat if there are even small waves, it will highly affect what you'll see, almost impossible to use this method.

@@I33nc3 No we are used to compensating and averaging in waves. Try using a bearing telescope in waves. Thumb is quick n dirty approximate. Very useful.

Phils tend to be awesome.

Average interpupillary distance is 63mm not 75, I’m an optometrist btw.

@@davidbridgman6892 fascinatingly, it doesn't change once youre an adult. You might gain/ lose fat in the face, but it stays the same

Isn't that the moon thing? Where we stretch out our thumb until it covers the moon and then we can ascertain certain 'flat' distances on a galaxial scale? Or is that just some warped memory of some other thing I learned years ago, like finding South in Australia by tracing a perpendicular line between the 'Two Pointers' of the Southern Cross and one down through the centre of the cross? Where the two lines meet, you drop an imaginary line and that's the direction of south...roughly.

I agree with you. I should have measured the distance between the tree and track going in to the forest. I only start making videos a few months ago, so I'll get better at it - hopefully 😊

So you are educated and work in an office, in a city ? You are city people mentality.

Correct - but often you are able to spot 'known' dimensions - say cars, buildings, height of trees, width of road etc to assist you to estimate the gap.

@@varmepumper3940 That's the only time it would really work at all. A mountain range in the distance wouldn't be helpful if you have no sense of the actual scale of the mountain. Maybe if you have a mountain range that you knew was X miles wide, but if you're having to use this, you're probably somewhere you wouldn't know that information. It would actually be more useful for knowing how far you've left a place. Like for example, if you were by a waterfall you figured was about 20ft across, then walked away from it and looked back. You could then use that as a reference to say how far away you've gotten from it. But I don't know how that would really be useful to anyone looking to navigate distances with it, because eventually that reference point will lose line of sight. You'd essentially have to stop and build a reference multiple times. So when you walked away from that waterfall and measured how far you went, you'd find something else nearby where you stopped and figure its width, and do the same thing again from far, and adding estimations together. Then you will know how far you've went. It would actually make more sense to use this method in conjunction with a map that did have distances written on it, if you knew where you were and how far you've travelled, you could estimate how far you've gone on the map. The real issue with distances though, even knowing scales of things, is topography. With enough hills and elevation changes in the land, the actual distance you need to walk could be double. So you'd have to get a feel for it, with flat land being the baseline measurement, and them knowing hilly areas would be much more than the base guesstimate.

But it's the ratio of the distance between your eyes and the length of your arm that's important. The proportions of the human body are pretty similar for most people. This is why it works so well (most of the time)

I believe that your are somewhat over thinking the "rule of thumb" concept.

JESUS H. CHRIST. The whole fucking point was to have a way to make a simple estimation that is approximately correct.

If you want to measure your thumb alignment you could also just use 10 cm instead of a 1 meter stick

You could also always use the outer part or inner part of your thumb as the markingpoint. That makes it even more accurate

Glad you like it!

yep, though for me it is 7 times, so sin(t)=1/7, and since is a small angle sin(t)~t, so x_far=x_sideways/sin(1/7)=7*x_sideways. though 10 is easier and its an estimation anyway

Something like you postulate is precisely what we used to use bow hunting. Well for heavens sakes. I just went to google looking for an example of 'old fashioned mechanical bow hunting range finder' and there are none. I guess everybody tossed theirs when the new fangled lasers came out.

@@OvGraphics That's a pity, can't beat old technology that didn't need a battery.

@@musikSkoolAnd in the apocalypse, stringing a recurve is much simpler than a compound!