Notice anything odd

[jberryhill]

This is probably the right group for this.

There is a cute Cisco commercial which demonstrates videoconference technology by dramatizing how it can be used to connect two classrooms. After seeing this a few times, I thought I would pose it as a puzzler here. I thought it was funny.

If you haven't seen the commercial, this is it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uz3wQRFbvg

[lazarus]

1. what the deuce

are the Chinese schoolchildren doing in school at that time of night?

[jberryhill]

2. Nailed it

There is light coming through a window in the back of their classroom, but the scene setting shot is dawn in the US classroom.

[Orrex]

3. Cisco technology is so amazing that it lets you communicate 12 hours into the future

Or into the past.


Or something.

[lazarus]

4. They teamed up with GE

which produced an artificial sun for the Chinese children.

[SDuderstadt]

7. Now, wait a minute....

are you saying this technology is not possible? Please explain the movie, "Deja Vu" with Denzel Washington, then. After all, if it's not true, how can they make a movie about it???

[laconicsax]

9. The scene setting is actually in Nova Scotia

http://www.lunenburg.ednet.ns.ca/

Nova Scotia is 12 hours behind China, making the dual daylight setting a tiny bit more odd.

[SheilaT]

5. Yep. My very first thought

was, Time Zone difference!

That's a flaw that often occurs in movies and novels. Someone gets on a plane, travels across the country or across the ocean and no real note is made of time zones crossed, jet lag, or any of that.

[woo me with science]

6. LOL.

Good catch. :)

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. On the other hand ... this is Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

(since Ellen Page is from Nova Scotia, I think it's safe to say it's that Lunenburg) which, during summer, is on GMT-3 time. So 8am in the morning is 1100 GMT. Which, in Urumqi, China, is 1900 local time. Which is in daylight for a good 8 months.

So all it needs is for the Chinese kids to stay late at school.

Come on, surely you expected some nitpicking in the Sceptics Group? :evilgrin: