The dealership eventually gave in, but it put up a big fight over a fraction of a second delay.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19704884

A Purdue University student thought he kicked his way to a two-year car lease for making three field goals in a contest held during the Boilermakers’ season opener in West Lafayette. However, the dealership sponsoring the giveaway later reneged on the deal because of a technical. The final kick – a 40-yarder – left his foot just a split second too late on August 31. Car dealerships really cannot help but be bastards, can they?

…

    • Maeve
      3•7 days ago

      I know zip about photography, could you explain, please?

      • Trailblazing Braille Taser
        14•7 days ago

        Oh, this’ll blow your mind. Digital cameras don’t capture the entire image all at once. They typically capture one row of pixels at a time, so each row comes from a different moment in time.

        So the point I was alluding to is that two adjacent frames in a video carry slightly more timing information than they might appear to based on timestamps.

        Specifically, if you have two frames where a dot appears at the bottom and then a second dot appears at the top, you can’t be 100% certain that the first dot to appear actually showed up first, or whether it’s an artifact of the rolling shutter effect.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_shutter

        • Maeve
          7•7 days ago

          I’ll check out the wiki, but your explanation is pretty simple to understand and concise! Well done and thanks so much!

          ETA: just read it. Those distortions in the propeller and helicopter blades are wild. While not being a fan of car dealerships, I’m also not a fan of insurance companies. It would be fascinating to know the answer to this mystery.