Sunday Shorts: Stalking 101

Okay, let me start off with my legal warning: the tests in this blog are for fictional use only. Please don't stalk people or spy on them. Thank you.

I've been watching movies and whatnot for ideas lately, and some can be episodes but others (like the black eye) work best here in Sunday Shorts. I was viewing a certain former-spy thriller, and he looks through his scope at people in a building. He's got such a great view he can pick out who is in the room, and how tired they look. Wow!

But would that really work?

So I got out my stalker-goggles (aka binoculars) and went peeping. The things I do for you guys.

I used empty houses under construction and my own house to test this. I looked through my window into someone else's window (matching lighting sources so to speak), and I looked from outside into my own windows. I did my tests in the morning, afternoon, and at night.

Here's what I learned:

• If the sun is up, and the window is closed, you can't see a darn thing unless its right next to the window (like curtains, but not a person standing there).
• If the sun is down, you can see everything.
• If the window is open, you can see fairly well but not brilliantly.

Lesson here? Lighting is everything. If the lighting outside (aka the sun) is brighter than the lighting inside, you can't see what's inside. Even when I stood in the shade or looked at a shaded part of the house, the windows still had a glare that made it impossible to see much. But at night, I had no problems at all making out every detail.

Also, I felt super creepy doing this, even knowing the houses were empty.

So if you characters need to spy on someone, unless they have super awesome polarized spy gear, they better do their spying at night, or on a very dark and cloudy day.

Thanks for reading guys! Let me know if you have any ideas for things I can test in a video or just in a write-up here on the blog.

Keep your pants on!