Cinderella “plot holes” I am tired of hearing about
“Why didn’t her step family recognize her?” Because royal balls were basically the candle lit equivalent of clubbing in terms of both lighting and sheer numbers. Even if they were right next to her, they probably wouldn’t get a good look, especially since it would have started after sundown. Also, she was the help; they probably hadn’t looked at her in years.
“Looking for someone based on their shoe size is stupid!” See above.
“Was he going to have every size seven in the kingdom try the slipper on?” Prior to industrialization most garments were made by hand to fit the buyer’s measurements, including shoes. It’s why poor people only had one pair. It’s a lot smarter when you consider that they would’ve fit her like a glove.
“You can’t run down stairs in heels!” I know this is a misconception resulting from historical revisionism and disneyfication, but high heels were not originally women’s shoes. They were worn by men. Women wore slippers, which were basically ballet flats. So it’s debatable.
“Glass shoes don’t make any sense!” Okay first of all, it’s called the suspension of disbelief, and secondly, they’re gold in every other version but Perrault decided to change them to something else expensive.
“She just went to the ball to find a man!” I know this isn’t a plot hole but listen. As the daughter of a widower Cinderella would’ve been running the household finances and acting as hostess if he hadn’t remarried. By demoting Cinderella to a servant, her step-mother essentially guaranteed that she would never escape the house, because the only way for her to escape and maintain her status was to marry well, and no one was going to marry a servant. It was essentially the historical equivalent of your mom stealing your college acceptance letters out of the mailbox.
this was not an analysis i was prepared for, i’ll tell you that
In 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral noticed after a
hunting trip that burrs from burdock plants stuck to his pants and his
dog’s fur.
He took the seed and looked at them through a microscope to find that this seed
attaches to animal fur via the hooks on its surface to improve
distribution.
These hooks would latch onto anything loop-shaped, such as the fibers in his pants and his dog’s tangled fur. This inspired him to come up with the ‘Velcro’.
Velcro is a bio-mimicry of this burrs with small flexible hooks attached on its surface to attach to fluffy surfaces.
Although it goes by the name Velcrothe generic name is a hook-and-loop fastener)
And depending on the load that needs to be held there are different types of hooks that are available:
The sound that the velcro makes when you rip it apart is oddly satisfying. It is made when the loops are ripped apart from the hooks.
It was always in my head that the hooks or the loops would break whenever you would rip it apart. But turns out, they are extremely flexible.
For a long time I believed that this was the end of the story and that’s how far we had gone. But recently when I was trying to mount a board to the wall, I came across the 3M dual lock fasteners.
These use a mushroom shaped hook on both the sides to snap together in place.
And evidently it turns out the mushroom fastener design were inspired from dragonflies who used it for stability during mating (check source video above for more).
This is great, but since this is made of plastic this surely would fail at higher temperatures. You need something robust to handle higher temperatures, and this is where the Metaklett comes into the picture:
A square metre of this fastener, called Metaklett (made of steel), is capable of supporting 35 tonnes at temperatures up to 800 ºC, (Video)
There is something exotic in the blend of nature and technology that is manifested in the Velcro, I just cannot put my hand on what it is.
Have a great day!
Rayon also stems from biomimicry! As one the first manmade fibers (there were earlier attempts, most of which were alarmingly flammable)
, it was engineered in an attempt to recreate silk by exposing mulberry leaves (the silkworm’s diet) to acid (as happens in the silkworm’s stomach) and the resulting goo was forced out tiny holes (as with the silkworm’s spinnerets.)
Important thing to point out about travel by foot or horseback: if you’re traveling over mountains, you can basically cut those distances in half on a clean trail, and in thirds or quarters on a trail you have to blaze yourself. Although someone who’s been in the mountains for months or years may be able to travel at the paces listed above for several days at a clip. (For instance, it’s not uncommon for an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, carrying about 30 pounds, to do 20 or even sometimes 25 miles a day, six days a week, once they’ve had enough time out there to build up into an endurance athlete.)
Plot Designing 