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Old 11-08-2019, 08:18 AM   #11
Daigoro
 
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Default Re: Occupational Forensics

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A shepard's soft hands.
A mason's or lime burner's cough(?)
...
A hatter's madness.
A beat cop's saunter.

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Originally Posted by khorboth View Post
For instance, woodworking tools are often sharp in unexpected places. leatherworking tools are kept polished clean except on the handle. I'm sure there are more that could be investigated.
Getting away from the medieval era, but it's always distracting for me when a movie or show has a media scrum scene, with extras all holding their SLR cameras the wrong way. People used to compact cameras hold the body with both hands, but photographers hold an SLR with one hand supporting the lens, to control the zoom and hold the camera's weight more evenly.
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Last edited by Daigoro; 11-08-2019 at 08:23 AM.
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Old 11-08-2019, 12:07 PM   #12
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Default Re: Occupational Forensics

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People used to compact cameras hold the body with both hands, but photographers hold an SLR with one hand supporting the lens, to control the zoom and hold the camera's weight more evenly.
Left hand under the lens with fingers on the lens, right hand on the grip. Yup, it's a dead giveaway if a person holds a (D)SLR camera any other way.
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Old 11-08-2019, 02:05 PM   #13
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Default Re: Occupational Forensics

Another couple
A fisherman's knit, the knit patterns of fishermen's jerseys were distinctive at some points to help identify which village a body lost at sea came from.
In some cases they smoked with their pipes upside down. Which leads into how cigarettes were held/smoked by the different classes, ember towards the palm amongst the lower classes.

Bushmen (in NZ at least) were noted to have one shoulder higher or bigger than the other.

Flax workers had a unique aroma from retting.
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Old 11-08-2019, 09:00 PM   #14
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Default Re: Occupational Forensics

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Left hand under the lens with fingers on the lens, right hand on the grip. Yup, it's a dead giveaway if a person holds a (D)SLR camera any other way.
That's how I hold any camera with a lens. I also tend to lean against something stable when I take a shot.

I was never a very good news photographer, but I did learn a few things from those who were.
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Old 11-09-2019, 08:34 AM   #15
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...
Aside from the different "hands formed by cutting cork, laying slate, and polishing diamonds", two that Holmes remarked upon were a weaver's tooth (which has a groove worn in an upper lateral incisor by friction with a thread) and a compositor's left thumb. Having worked in a lot of kitchens I can tell you that right-handed cooks get cuts on their left hand and burns on their right one, left-handed ones vice versa.
I'm not at all a cook, so maybe that's why my experience is opposite. I pull things out of the oven with my right, so have suffered burns there. Actually, I have one at this moment.
And sometimes, being an idiot, I give my right hand a sharp object. Righty has stabbed lefty a few times in my life even though I don't have a twitch. My family jokes that it's jealous of lefty.
And I'm extremely left handed.
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Old 11-09-2019, 09:14 AM   #16
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Default Re: Occupational Forensics

For the modern era, if one suspects they are of a given profession, find a show with that profession depicted and arrange to have them view it. Watch their reaction. Can any of us help but cringe at the wrongness?

Criminal investigation shows are good fodder for this. There's probably been a CSI, or NCIS or Law & order with your job on it. And it's been done just so wrong that you can't hide your reaction.
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Old 11-09-2019, 09:38 AM   #17
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For the modern era, if one suspects they are of a given profession, find a show with that profession depicted and arrange to have them view it. Watch their reaction. Can any of us help but cringe at the wrongness?

Criminal investigation shows are good fodder for this. There's probably been a CSI, or NCIS or Law & order with your job on it. And it's been done just so wrong that you can't hide your reaction.
There was (or maybe still is, I dunno) a show on CBS called Scorpion. Several of the characters were supposed to be computer experts, with one of them a master hacker. It was painful to watch.

I also learned something about the construction of nuclear fission reactors when my brother was in nuke school in the Navy - I looked through some of his unclassified notebooks. The Scorpion episode in which they had to do something inside a reactor building was the last one I could bring myself to watch (I kept hoping the show would improve, but that one killed that last gasp of hope).
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Old 11-09-2019, 11:40 AM   #18
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Default Re: Occupational Forensics

Mechanics invariably seem to have dark bits on the edge of the quick on the fingers. Most also tend to have smudges in odd places.

Most treble viol players (violin, viola) sit with the right leg tucked back - to keep the knee clear of the bow. It tends to be habitual. My stand partner in grade 7 (1981-'82) still did so in 2010, even tho' he quit playing in 1985. I tend to, as well; I don't play as oft as I should, and haven't played violin regularly in over a decade.
Cellists tend to sit knees apart - the cello's cutouts lock between the knees/thighs. Concert attire often shows slight wear from the cello.
Violin, viola, cello, and bass all use rosin on the bow... . Many violists (the collective for players of any of the 4) will often have small amounts on their clothes after performance or practice. Also, many will keep any fragment of rosin bigger then the width of the bow...
Note tho- for medieval viols, they were all played in the lap or betwixt the knees, like the cello; playing the trebles on the shoulder is largely a late renaissance transition.
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Old 11-09-2019, 11:57 AM   #19
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Default Re: Occupational Forensics

This topic, by the way, was the starting point for Robert Heinlein's urban noir fantasy "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag." Worth a look if you haven't read it.
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Old 11-09-2019, 05:36 PM   #20
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I'm not at all a cook, so maybe that's why my experience is opposite. I pull things out of the oven with my right, so have suffered burns there. .
I used to do that and in College ended up with a huge burn on the back of my right hand from touching it to a heating element coil. It didn't really scar but it took _years_ to fade away. Now I'm much more careful about that sort of thing.

My last cosmetically large cooking wound ended up being on my foot because that's where the melted cheese splashed after the screaming hot container just out of the microwave got dropped and hit the floor. The doctor called it 2nd degree and expected it to pucker and scar but it hasn't. I can still see exactlyw here itr was 2 and 1/2 years later. I am more careful about trays of italianesque microwave dinners now too.

Things like my melted cheese splash damage might suggest that there's a significant random element in these sorts of risks/injuries.
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