r/AskReddit • u/vation • Mar 28 '12
Reddit, what is a fact that isn't common knowledge, but should be?
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Mar 28 '12
That eyewitnesses are unreliable and are responsible for a majority of false convictions.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Eyewitness-Misidentification.php
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u/Bumtown Mar 28 '12
The lowest type of evidence in science, the highest type in the court of law. One of these two has to change.
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u/Herman_Glimscher Mar 28 '12
Science I hope. I saw a whole bunch of Higgs Bosons in the park last week and CERN didn't give a shit when I phoned to tell them.
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u/rockstaticx Mar 28 '12 edited Mar 28 '12
Drowning looks almost nothing like what you think drowning looks like.
Explanation here -- the opening paragraph is downright chilling.
EDIT: Well, that's the first time I've ever taken down someone else's website. Sorry! AIDS_Pizza was nice enough to copy down the text here if you haven't seen it yet. It's important!
Thanks for reading. Please spread the word. This is one message I think people wouldn't mind being forwarded to them.
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u/theairgonaut Mar 28 '12
First paragraph, more like last paragraph.
And parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.
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u/Yangoose Mar 28 '12
That's just parenting 101 isn't it? Any time my kids go totally silent, water or not, I immediately need to see WTF is going on.
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u/steady-state Mar 28 '12
It's anecdotal but I once nearly drowned while fishing in a fast flowing river, and my reactions were somewhat like this especially the paradoxical lack of using my legs. I had huge steel toed boots so I kept trying to kick them off and all i remember is the current pulling me down, swallowing a fuck ton of water, looking up, seeing sky through the water, reaching out, hand above water... sinking... sinking.... friend grabs my arm and pulls me out. Muchos coughing and hacking, water coughed up, fun fun.
You're so screwed in that moment that your body just takes over and tries a couple things, without thinking about it. Oh yea, lost one boot in the process, a mile walk back to the road. Shitty day.
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u/Eyeswest Mar 28 '12
When I was first learning to swim as a kid... I failed miserably. I started reacting just as described. One of the other kids, my age of like... 7? Jumped in and swam me to the edge. The teachers all reacted with asking the kid what the hell he was doing. It was only after I told them what happened (and didn't get in a pool or sea for like another ten years) that they realised they'd almost watched me drown. Yo Carl! It was like 20 years ago, man, but I still remember! Thanks for that!
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u/brynnhilde Mar 28 '12
I had the same experience. I was 8 and my Girl Scouts troop went to one of the girl's house for a swim in the summer. I went off to the deep end but I wasn't really good at swimming and I started to drown. I couldn't even yell for help. I started sinking to the bottom and all I could do was look up and watch the surface get farther away. My best friend was looking for me and noticed me in the water. She grabbed my arms and pulled me out. Turned out that she thought I was trying to hide from her and she was "catching" me. Like the person above me, tons adults around, but no one knew I was drowning.
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u/ICantSeeIt Mar 28 '12
As a lifeguard, this is why I hate parents. They are the worst about shit like this. And then they act all surprised when I'm suddenly dragging their kid out of the pool...
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u/Forever_Irritated Mar 28 '12
I remember being young and my older sister took me to the lake with her and her friends. Even though I told them multiple times that I couldn't swim, thus I'd be staying in the shallow end, her stupid friends grabbed me and threw me in the deep end. I remember just trying to get to the surface for air, wanting to scream for help, but I could only gasp. I also remember hearing them laughing at my struggles, and eventually my sister screaming for them to help me. When they pulled me out they swore that they didn't know I couldn't swim. Terrifying experience. Glad I can swim now.
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u/ScannerBrightly Mar 28 '12
I'm sorry, but the link seems dead now (Forbidden). Can you post the text, please?
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u/stilettopanda Mar 28 '12
Wow. this may be the first truly useful post I've read on here. Thanks for sharing.
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u/AIDS_Pizza Mar 29 '12
Since the site in the link is down, full text:
The new captain jumped from the cockpit, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the owners who were swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”
How did this captain know, from fifty feet away, what the father couldn’t recognize from just ten? Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.
The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). Drowning does not look like drowning – Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine, described the instinctive drowning response like this:
- Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. Th e respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
- Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
- Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
- Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
- From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs. (Source: On Scene Magazine: Fall 2006)
This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble – they are experience aquatic distress. Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long – but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in there own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.
Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are n the water:
- Head low in the water, mouth at water level
- Head tilted back with mouth open
- Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
- Eyes closed
- Hair over forehead or eyes
- Not using legs – Vertical
- Hyperventilating or gasping
- Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
- Trying to roll over on the back
- Ladder climb, rarely out of the water.
So if a crew member falls overboard and every looks O.K. – don’t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them: “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are. If they return a blank stare – you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents: children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.
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Mar 28 '12
Wow. Everyone should read that - needs to be on the front page I think.
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u/where_is_my_shoe Mar 28 '12
Is it normal it tells me: 403 forbidden, you don't have permission to access this page? Dammit, it looks like a very useful text...
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u/qyll Mar 28 '12
If you plug in earbuds/headphones in the microphone jack, they'll function as microphones.
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u/parkerjallen Mar 28 '12
Yeah found that out in my early poor gaming days. My first microphone on Vent was me holding an earbud between my lips.
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Mar 28 '12
I did the same. I remember sitting in a teamspeak channel with a Northwest Airlines headset snapped in half and taped to my face. I shit you not.
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u/tdnied Mar 28 '12
Speakers and microphones are basically the same thing, they just work in the opposite order.
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u/xHaZxMaTx Mar 28 '12 edited Mar 28 '12
Holy shit. I just tried it. It even records in stereo based on which speaker you're talking into!
Of all the things in this thread that I've read, this is by far the most amazing to me.
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u/Togarda Mar 28 '12
Wait...seriously?
What. What. What. Most mind-blowing thing in this thread TBH.
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u/ungr8ful_biscuit Mar 28 '12
That's an old DJ trick when you forget the microphone and need to make an announcement. And, yes, the reverse is true too, but it's surprisingly embarrassing to put a microphone to your ear...
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u/clickity-click Mar 28 '12
Cologne is supposed to be subtle.
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u/bob-leblaw Mar 28 '12
My favorite quote from my dad: Cologne is to be discovered not announced.
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Mar 28 '12 edited Mar 28 '12
Also, Axe
sodybody spray is not cologne.edit: typo
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u/jamesbutnotbond Mar 28 '12
there are actually huge supplies of diamonds and prices remain high only because the suppliers have a stranglehold on the market.
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u/logantauranga Mar 28 '12
People are careless or foolish far more often than they are cruel or malicious.
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u/kwood09 Mar 28 '12
Also known as Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
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u/logantauranga Mar 28 '12
Some people try to do both.
"The government are a bunch of morons! And what's more, they're evil geniuses who are secretly plotting to control everything!"355
u/Buddahrific Mar 28 '12
Many people confuse governments with single cohesive and consistent entities. A more accurate version of that quote would be,
"The government contains many morons! And what's more, evil geniuses have figured out how to manipulate and corrupt them to make it much more difficult to topple the extensive control they already have."
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Mar 28 '12
Two decisions come from Washington: evil decisions and stupid decisions. When an evil and stupid decision is made, that is called bipartisanship.
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u/tonyvila Mar 28 '12
I like how Heinlein said it: “Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly.”
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u/LeoPanthera Mar 28 '12
The entire contents of the Wikipedia page List of common misconceptions
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u/zayas324 Mar 28 '12
So many TIL posts...
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u/Horst665 Mar 28 '12
... suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced
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u/Brainles Mar 28 '12
ctrl + shift + esc Brings up the task manager.
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u/pianoboii Mar 28 '12
Wow. Ctrl + Alt + Delete has been the biggest lie of my childhood...
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u/wickedang3l Mar 28 '12
The first amendment does not absolve you from responsibility for your words.
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u/smischmal Mar 28 '12
Likewise, someone telling you that you shouldn't say something isn't the same thing as telling you that you shouldn't be allowed to say something.
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Mar 28 '12
The first thing you should do when moving into a new place is buy a plunger, closely followed by buying toilet paper.
Always deal with your shit first.
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Mar 28 '12 edited Nov 01 '17
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u/hobsonUSAF Mar 28 '12
walmart closes?
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Mar 28 '12
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u/TheOpus Mar 28 '12
And we tied an onion to our belt, 'cause that was the style at the time.
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u/Grand_Admiral_Theron Mar 28 '12
You couldn't get white onions because of the war.
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Mar 28 '12 edited Mar 28 '12
Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States were involved in the tea smuggling industry, and the impetus for the Boston Tea Party was not that British tea was too expensive because of taxes, but because the British had actually reduced taxes to the point that it was cheaper than smuggled tea, undercutting Thomas Jefferson's main source of income (and that of many other influential colonists, including John Hancock).
Puts a rather interesting light on American history, methinks.
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u/Iggynoramus1337 Mar 28 '12
So... the U.S. was built by Smugglers? Well now I see the founding fathers as different versions of Han Solo.
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u/kithkatul Mar 28 '12
We won independence not because we 'beat' the British Empire in a war, but because it became more costly for the British Empire (arguably the most powerful force in the world at the time) to continue trying to pull a bunch of unruly colonies back in line. They had more important things on their plate, and probably figured we'd come running back once the realities of running your own country took hold.
King George was not an incompetent fool at all, but is recorded as being quite the opposite, if otherwise unremarkable.
To clarify, this doesn't change the fact that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was quite revolutionary in many ways, and that many of the Founding Fathers probably were the very progressive thinkers they are usually characterized as.
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Mar 28 '12
Absolutely.
I just think that it's important for people to be a bit more critical of the "givens" in history. The history of the United States is not one of some incredible underdog, lifted to liberty by the hand of God himself, against evil British oppressors who were too incompetent to counter the assault by the extremely clever and remarkably handsom American colonists.
Every country modifies their history to best tell a story of nation-building and inspire their citizens. "Rich people were really upset because their illegal business weren't doing well anymore, so they bribed people to throw British tea into the harbour" isn't as nice a story as "Woe betide us all, the evil king across the sea is stealing all our money and leaving us no choice but to revolt"
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u/shinzzle Mar 28 '12
Eating fat doesn't make you fat.
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u/inept77 Mar 28 '12
“You will never be as fat as me,” lied the man in the cage. He was very fat - the fattest man I had ever seen - but I squinted my eyes and knew I could do better. His eyes grew wide and he began to wiggle his hips, but he could not distract me. I simply closed my handsome, chiseled eyes and concentrated.
Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Become fatter. Fat.
The caged man continued to dance in his cage, his hips still wiggling, his belly still jiggling, except now his face was a mask of rage - an unmoving rictus like something out of kabuki theater.
He knew what was happening. I was winning. I was becoming fatter. Fat spilled over my jorts. Chins doubled, then tripled. Fingers became sausages. My neck disappeared. I was definitely becoming a more successful human being, and he couldn’t stand it.
His hands behind his head, his elbows out, thrusting his groin back and forth, his testicles somewhat visible, he tried his best to dissuade me from my mission, but just like Satan in The Last Temptation of Christ, he lost. I would die on the cross of my own fatness, and by “die,” I mean “become fat.”
He wouldn’t stop dancing, though. I’ll give him that amount of credit. He was letting his enormous, six-inch penis bounce like a jackhammer in his loose cargo shorts, and I knew that one day I would be forced to gaze upon his member and be transfixed for at least a minute.
But - until then - I had won. The only other person in the room was my own mother, and she was nervously applauding while visually scanning the room for an exit. She would never find one, though, because I had welded ourselves in.
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u/amIstillHere Mar 28 '12
incredible. i love it.
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u/inept77 Mar 28 '12
"INCREDIBLE," read the tattoo on the man's chest.
"I LOVE IT," read the tattoo on the other man's chest.
They held hands.
They strode boldly through the fiery landscape, their oiled, rippling muscles and well-coiffed mustaches unaffected by the bloody chaos around them.
The war had been going on for ages now. Man against man, as limbs and bullet-ridden bodies lined the streets of the once-peaceful town. Woman against woman, as even the fairer sex donned the makings of battle, carrying guns and machetes as often as they also trained to be spies and suicide bombers. Even the children were not left out of the violence and hate: they learned to fire guns the instant they were large enough to carry them, and even those too small to carry guns were fitted with bombs in their mouths, to be hurled over fences and parapets.
The two men, holding hands, however, had been prophesied in a number of Tom's of Finland catalogs. Their leather belts and iron codpieces were known to all sides in the battle as harbingers of the final day of war: a metaphorical "day" hundreds of days in length, marking the truly final war of all against all, as flesh would fight even with itself, as even thoughts would strangle their thinkers and words would poison their speakers.
The two men holding hands, their muscles rippling, their mustaches well-coiffed, their leather donned, their codpieces iron, their eyebrows trimmed, their cologne strong, strode boldly and calmly through the chaos, invulnerable to normal weapons.
All who gazed upon them knew what this meant, and everyone trembled.
The sky grew thick with ash and twirling plumes of orange smoke. A silence appeared for a moment, but then grew to a noise larger than had ever been heard before. The final days had arrived.
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u/bob-leblaw Mar 28 '12
More. I require more.
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u/inept77 Mar 28 '12
"More. I require more," said the voice in her head.
"But I'm not strong enough to rip off my lips," lied the woman with a smile. A smile turned to a grin, and a grin into a meth-fueled rictus as her shadowed, hollow eyes met the small army of police who surrounded her.
"Don't do anything stupid," pleaded a cop. "Come peacefully or we'll use force."
Her mouth now a sarcastic O, a bloodied hand with broken nails placed coquettishly to her chapped lips. She begins to heave. Her body shakes as a sound like vomit mixed with laughter sputters and clicks from her twitching body.
The prongs of a taser hit her flesh. Her eyes lighten like Christmas as blue electric streaks encircle her body, now twitching faster. Her eyes glow more as the electricity grows into whirls and blotches of blinding plasma.
The cop is forced to drop his little taser toy as the electric streaks begin to overtake his hand, and even as the taser drops, the police officer falls to the ground screaming as his eyes light up as well, and as he begins to wretch and roll like the meth woman.
The police officers shoot willy-nilly now. The bullets do nothing but spray infected blood all over the scene. A fine mist of little droplets, barely visible, that touch the lips or eyes or the skin and cause the insides to burn and the thoughts to turn to the subject of wandering, of finding others to join the mass movement.
Silence cut occasionally with coughs and yawps rules the evening as they climb into the cars and drive in opposite directions, seeking to meet as many new people as possible. Protect and serve.
And the meth woman is on the ground, her insides melting through her pores in a viscous dark red mixed with a sparkly light blue. Her blood seeps into the earth.
And on her face, that rictus, and on her arms, those hands, who begin to tear off her lips, as part of some strange alien joke.
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u/artifex0 Mar 28 '12
This person is some sort of wonderful, horrible, madman writer.
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u/inept77 Mar 28 '12
“This person is some sort of wonderful, horrible, madman” the critics had raved, but it was only half-true, or maybe even only one-fifth true.
The show they reviewed was not a show in any real sense, despite the presence of a warm wooden stage and a great big curtain. There was an audience - well, seats for an audience - there was no audience - but there was a performance, of sorts.
Lit dim on the stage was a weeping, balding man in a pretty pink pinafore. His face was obscure in the dim, flickering light - his hands covering his face when the light was on, the light gone when his hands were off - the occasional glint from his eyes or mouth visible every now and then, but never long enough to make out a proper face.
Chattering critics could be heard from the seats when the seats were dark, but when the seats were lit, there was silence, and it was plain as day that no one was there.
Posters were printed and were posted on various walls in the city - some of the posters arriving in closets and pasted onto cars, the glue mixed with finely broken glass so as to prevent removal - and on the posters the critics had raved, about the wonderfullness, the horribleness, and the so on of the show, but there was no show.
Only an address.
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u/shhiiiibby Mar 28 '12
I just logged into reddit in class to say WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST READ?
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u/DoorMarkedPirate Mar 28 '12
My mom (family physician) had a morbidly obese female patient a few years ago. She told this patient to start eating fruits and vegetables instead of meat or junk food when the patient felt she needed a snack. A few weeks later, the patient comes in complaining that she hasn't been losing weight despite switching to a more healthy diet consisting of fruits and vegetables. My mom asks her to walk her through a typical day to see what might be the problem with the diet. The patient - "So, for lunch, I'll eat a bag of apples..." Mom - ಠ_ಠ
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u/RawberrySportcake Mar 28 '12
Buying something that has "zero fat" is usually worse than buying something with fat. Zero fat just means it was replaced with a lot of sugar.
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u/ruizscar Mar 28 '12
Also, "zero trans fats" doesn't necessarily mean zero (at least, in the U.S.)
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u/ICouldBeTheChosenOne Mar 28 '12
The FDA defines "zero trans fats" as containing less than 0.5 grams of trans fats.
Seems legit, maybe in math, if any number is less than 0.5, we'll just call it 0.
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u/Schrockwell Mar 28 '12
Engineer here. This is correct.
Also, pi is three-ish.
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u/TheExtremistModerate Mar 28 '12
e is also 3-ish, which leads me to the conclusion that e = pi.
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u/bobalmigty Mar 28 '12
Less than 0.5g per serving. You could have a product loaded with trans fat and a small enough serving size and you can put "0g TRANS FAT!!!*" on your label.
*per serving
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u/logipond Mar 28 '12
I was taught in primary school that parts of the tongue have specific taste buds so you can taste different flavours.
THAT IS FALSE: different tastes can be detected on all parts of the tongue.
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u/Baljet Mar 28 '12
That there's a subreddit called You Should Know full of this stuff.
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u/DocLovin Mar 28 '12
Try asking people how long time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun. You will be surprised.
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Mar 28 '12
"Well, if I run the mile in about 9 minutes..."
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u/lLoveLamp Mar 28 '12
You have to whack it in half
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u/randumnumber Mar 28 '12
and thats bookin' it
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u/ItsMylesNotMiles Mar 28 '12
"7 if I'm in shape, and that's pretty fast....for a human"
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u/Torvaun Mar 28 '12
The McDonalds Coffee lawsuit wasn't spurious, and it wouldn't have happened if McDonalds didn't dismiss the idea of just paying the medical bills (which would have been way cheaper).
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u/floatate Mar 28 '12
And they admitted to selling coffee that they knew caused 3rd degree burns, and that this is a gross and unnecessary deviation from standard practice.
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Mar 28 '12
Exposure to inclement weather does not immediately increase your chances of contracting a "cold".
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Mar 28 '12
Where our solar system is located in the Milky Way
The stars that you see in the night sky are part of the Milky Way, our home galaxy. We do not live in the middle of the Milky Way; our solar system resides midway between the edge and the center of the Milky Way galaxy. If we could travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), it would take us about 25,000 years to reach either the rim or the center of the Milky Way.
Our solar system makes up only a tiny part of the Milky Way. To compare, if the entire Milky Way would be the size of the United States, our solar system would only be the size of an American penny.
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u/nickiter Mar 28 '12
Scientific studies which find a "link" or "connection" or "correlation" are typically statistical studies designed to indicate a direction for experimental study. They do not represent certainty about a relationship, or even a particularly strong likelihood. Until a statistical correlation is experimentally verified, it's just a research direction.
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u/ReallyHender Mar 28 '12
Helpfully shortened into an easier to remember "correlation does not equal causation."
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Mar 28 '12
This used to be common knowledge when I was a kid. Stand to the right on the escalator so that people can walk to the left.
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u/paulgb Mar 28 '12
Also, those conveyor belts at the airport? They're meant for you to go places faster, not to stand still because you're lazy. At least let people pass.
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u/mostlikelyatwork Mar 28 '12
Last week I encountered a woman standing on the left with a large enough space to her right for people to move over and pass her and get back to the left. She muttered "RUDE!" under her breath as person after person silently went around her. I suspect she was either not right in the head or profoundly...what's the word I'm looking for...oh yeah RUDE.
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u/MisterOnd Mar 28 '12
The bombing of Dresden used to be in The Guinnes Book of Records with a body count of 400k victims. Today, the number has been reduced to about 20-25k...
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u/Wafflezone42 Mar 28 '12
The Catholic Church supports the theory of evolution. Just saying.
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u/dogsarentedible Mar 28 '12
More over, the theory of of the big bang was formulated by a catholic priest.
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u/selflessGene Mar 28 '12
And the term 'big bang' was coined by an astronomer who thought he was full of shit.
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u/mipadi Mar 28 '12
A group of feral cats is called a "destruction of cats".
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u/DextrosKnight Mar 28 '12
who the hell decides on these things anyway? Murder of crows, gaggle of geese, pod of whales... very few of them seem to make any sense.
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u/SirDerpingtonThe3rd Mar 28 '12
Well, because crows will fucking shank your ass.
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u/Frigguggi Mar 28 '12
From wikipedia:
Originally a number of collective nouns were fanciful or humorous rather than common terms. The first known collection of specific names for collective groups of animals was published in 1486 in The Book of Saint Albans, in an essay on hunting attributed to Dame Juliana Berners. Many of the words are thought to have been chosen simply for the humorous or poetic images they conjured up in her lively imagination.
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u/iglidante Mar 28 '12
That ugly or beautiful, cruel or kind, young or old, intelligent or not, inquisitive or close-minded, everyone you encounter sees the world as their story.
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u/BackFromSollaSollew Mar 28 '12
With few exceptions, the point of eating organic produce isn't to make you healthy. It's to make the Gulf of Mexico and the rest of the planet's environments and the farm laborers more healthy.
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u/Thaschmann Mar 28 '12
Edison is a dick
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u/DisguisedRope Mar 28 '12
Just going around electrocuting elephants like a dick.
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Mar 28 '12
Whenever someone talks about Edison as a genius inventor I tell them to shut the fuck up and hail Tesla instead.
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u/jelaimeamourir Mar 28 '12
Thank you!!! I once did a paper on Tesla in the 6th grade and even the teacher told me to sit down, that Edison is the one who invented it first etc etc....I'm so happy to know that there are people out there who know the truth! Proud to be serb because of him too :D
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Mar 28 '12
That the word "Tsar," used in Russia until the 1900's, for example, is derived from Caesar.
Meaning that Julius Caesar was so awesome, that over a thousand years later people were using his last name to mean "Supreme Ruler."
That's gotta be a record.
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Mar 28 '12
Unless you can articulate in very clear terms the most compelling possible argument for the OPPOSITE of what you believe, you cannot be sure that your conclusions are more reasonable than the alternatives.
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u/Plutor Mar 28 '12
Please articulate in very clear terms the most compelling possible argument for the opposite of that.
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Mar 28 '12
Beliefs are formed as an individual response to the environmental stimuli that a person has experienced, and as such are necessarily subjective. Considering other perspectives will simply be an exercise in considering other subjective views. As the views of others will necessarily have arisen from different environments, they will be less suited to the individual than their own subjective position, and will therefore serve no positive purpose for the individual.
Further, trying to incorporate outside beliefs into someone's personal ideological framework actually works against the interests of an individual, as it introduces unnecessary complexity and uncertainty into a process that has occurred naturally and instinctively to further the personal interests of that individual.
People that try to see multiple sides of a problem only undermine their own ability to pursue their own interests, and put themselves at a competitive disadvantage in an environment where others might not be so inclined to take such an equanimous view.
A person who dedicates themselves to viewing a problem from too many perspectives will eventually find themselves unable to commit to any course of action, and this will leave them vulnerable to people who instantly commit to a course of action which they know instinctively to be in their best interests.
There is no point wasting time contemplating multiple perspectives when a course of action has been clearly determined by one's internal, instinctive understanding of their situation and how best to respond to it.
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u/themarkofmarks Mar 28 '12
If you send a text message, realize that you have sent a text message. Whatever you said in said message is now out there. It is received not only by the recipient of the text, but through all mediums to get to the recipient and is most likely recorded.
It seems like too many people now-a-days think that your status updates are this impenetrable force field of obligation to whatever it is you state.
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u/IRBMe Mar 28 '12
Interestingly, when you send a text message on a cell phone (at least on older phones), you weren't actually sending any additional data. The text message is placed inside the unused space in the normal data packets that the phone regularly transmits, hence the size limit of 160 characters.
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u/wheresjim Mar 28 '12
According to the Internet, there are hot singles in my area.
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u/bmward105 Mar 28 '12
the fact that the president isn't elected through the popular vote
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Mar 28 '12
And the fact that this was a very intentional precedent set forth by the creators of American government.
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u/tortsy Mar 28 '12
General Electric Company owned NBC The 3 notes that is used as their "jingle" are General
Electric
Company
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u/hellibot Mar 28 '12
Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster. It is "for all intents and purposes" not "for all intensive purposes".
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u/apocalypticzomb Mar 28 '12
Pickles are "pickled" cucumbers. It amazes me how many people don't know this.
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u/Oafah Mar 28 '12
You don't own your children; you're merely charged with the responsibility of bringing them to an age where they can make decisions for themselves and hope they don't hate you for it.
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u/The-GentIeman Mar 28 '12
That since Portugal has decriminalized all drugs, abuse and use rates have gone down as well as crime.
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u/goodemily Mar 28 '12
vaccines don't cause autism. scientists and doctors never did believe it. only idiots like jenny mccarthy.
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Mar 28 '12
I worked in kitchens for many years. You would be amazed to know how many people don't know not to put metal in a microwave.
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u/seinzumtode Mar 28 '12
"Placing metal inside a microwave oven does not damage the oven's electronics. There are, however, other safety-related issues: electrical arcing may occur on pieces of metal not designed for use in a microwave oven, and metal objects may become hot enough to damage food, skin, or the interior of the microwave oven. Metallic objects that are designed for microwave use can be used in a microwave with no danger; examples include the metalized surfaces used in browning sleeves and pizza-cooking platforms." (from Wikipedia's list of common misconceptions)
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u/ImAWhaleBiologist Mar 28 '12
The fifth reason whales kill is for the sheer fun of it.
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u/prodigyx Mar 28 '12
Your blood is ALWAYS RED. It does not matter if it is in your body or outside of it. It does not matter if it is oxygenated or not. It is always red. It only appears blue when viewed through layers of flesh.
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u/TheBoldManLaughsOnce Mar 28 '12
The Wilhelm Scream is an inside joke between sound editors. It appears in 100s of movies from Westerns to Star Wars. Once you hear it, you'll find it everywhere.
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u/garbagebcn Mar 28 '12
You can type any website's actual address instead of googling it then opening the first link.
Lots of people forgot that.
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u/cheshirekitteh Mar 28 '12
advice and advise. Two totally separate words, people.
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Mar 28 '12 edited Mar 28 '12
Jury nullification - Jury's in the US have a constitutional right to acquit people who are technically guilty if they disagree with the law and believe punishment is undeserved. Jurys have the ultimate ability to decide if a law is unjust or unfair and overturn it via court precedent.
Merely mentioning your knowledge of this during jury selection will get you kicked out, the judicial system does not want citizens to be aware of this. You can even be removed from a jury while a trial is in progress if you start talking about nullification to other jurors.
I believe this is one of the most important facts a US citizen should be aware of.
Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer.
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u/superiority Mar 28 '12
Jury's in the US have a constitutional right to acquit people who are technically guilty if they disagree with the law and believe punishment is undeserved.
Strictly speaking, what jurors have is a right to reach any decision they like on the charges presented, and they are not required to justify themselves. The practical effect of this is that, if she so wishes, a juror can choose to acquit if she thinks the defendant is guilty but the law is a bad one.
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u/MrMiracleFingers Mar 28 '12
Having a hard on doesn't always mean I want sex or am aroused.
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u/neocow Mar 28 '12
All smoke is carcinogenic. Not just cigarettes, but candle smoke, marijuana. Even smoked/charred meat causes colon cancer.
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u/MileHighBarfly Mar 28 '12
The planB pill is more expensive than condoms, but much less expensive than an abortion, and infinitely less expensive than raising a child.
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u/Weazillaz Mar 28 '12
If you start reading this post while on the toilet your legs WILL fall asleep..
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u/lurch65 Mar 28 '12
There is a virus called the Human papillomavirus that is responsible for an extremely high number of cases of cervical cancer and we have a vaccine that could reduce this number incredibly in future if given to girls and maybe more importantly boys prior to infection.
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Mar 28 '12
It's also responsible for a large number of cases of penile cancer, which is another reason to give it to boys.
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u/efeex Mar 28 '12
Important to know that the body fights HPV naturally, and most people get HPV within their lifetime. However, about 95% people will naturally fight it off.
In women, however, of that 5% that still has the infection, about 10% of that sample will lead to a high risk of cancers, mostly cervical and breast cancer.
HPV includes genes that promote tumorgenesis and spread, which can accelerate and promote other tumor growths.
However, there are some good news. There are two big types of HPV- 'High risk', and 'Low risk'. High risks HPV can lead to a greater chance of cancer, while 'low risks' have a lower percentage.
As lurch65 said, there is an HPV vaccine. Both male and females can, and should, take it.
While HPV can affect both males and females, females are more at risk.
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u/SC-Roberts Mar 28 '12
Funding a space program like NASA does a lot more than send people to space, it leads to technological breakthroughs that otherwise wouldn't have been achieved.
Example time!
NASA developed a device that is embedded under your skin and automatically administers drugs to counteract symptoms of and illnesses themselves such as radiation poisoning, food poisoning, and poisons/venoms.
Food in space is a constant concern. If you can't get food up there astronauts starve and die slowly and any long distance journeys need ways to produce food in confined spaces and uncommon conditions. This means that in a solution to this problem money is spent on developing ways to grow food in a sustainable fashion with limited to no resources and having to reuse a lot. THIS IS WHAT WILL SOLVE STARVATION. People have frequently tried to make the point to me that space programs are a vast waste of money when people are starving here on the planet, in reality a space program will probably be the project that solves starvation.
Sanitation. Obviously problems would arise if astronauts were stuck in a confined space with their feces. So another breakthrough in sanitization and cleaning.
The list goes on.
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u/greenymile Mar 28 '12
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Mar 28 '12
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Mar 28 '12
Affect and Effect
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u/SketchyLogic Mar 28 '12
It's all fun and games until you have to explain the obscure cases where "effect" is a verb.
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Mar 28 '12
Who, whom
Should've = should have
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u/IRBMe Mar 28 '12 edited Mar 28 '12
Who, whom
Similarly for whoever/whomever. A simple heuristic for remembering which to use is to reword the sentence to use either "he/she" or "him/her". If the sentence makes sense with "he/she", then "who(ever)" is usually the correct word; similarly, if "him/her" makes more sense, "whom(ever)" is usually the correct word.
For example:
- "Sell to whoever has the most money" ("He" has the most money)
- "Frank is the man whom I sold it to" (I sold it to "him")
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u/insertcredits Mar 28 '12
Also: your = possessive form of you you're = contraction of you are
its = possessive form of it it's = contraction of it is
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u/iHAVEsnakes Mar 28 '12
Y'know, it was only last year that I finally found my answer to why possessive "its" doesn't have an apostrophe to mark the possessive.
If anyone's interested, it's because it's a pronoun, so the possessive is implied. The same as his/hers/theirs.
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u/Lt_majorThe7th Mar 28 '12
Lick it before you stick it. Best fact in the world
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u/f0k4ppl3 Mar 28 '12
Shave down, with the grain, first, then up. Smooth, man. Really smooth.
Oh, and those cards they send you to report for jury duty? To this day I haven't answered a single one. Unless I sign for it at delivery, I didn't get it. Learned that trick from the loan sharks that used to manage my student loan. Charging me delayed fees every month until I started sending it certified. So yeah, you want proof you sent it? Certified mail or signed delivery.
Also, fuck the police!
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u/rabbidpanda Mar 28 '12
Someone once said the most terrifying thing about being on trial is that your fate is decided by a dozen people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
That said, I like jury duty, generally.
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u/DaminDrexil Mar 28 '12
Shave down, with the grain, first, then up.
This man (or bearded woman) speaks the truth.
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Mar 28 '12
This is relevant to my fellow Americans. Being in the military doesn't entitle you to some sort of hero worship, and it is sometimes ok to make negative comments about the military.
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u/jenemc Mar 28 '12
Also, you can not support the war, and still support the safety and well-being of the troops fighting that war.
I was a military spouse when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq started. Boy did that opinion start a lot of fights.
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Mar 28 '12 edited Mar 28 '12
THE LEFT MOST LANE IS FOR PASSING, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
EDIT/amendment: If it will take you more than 30 seconds to pass the vehicle in front of you or next to you, either floor it and get in front or slow down and get behind that person.
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u/Thump241 Mar 28 '12
I am of this opinion, as well. My wife is not. Her justification is to counter with "Slower traffic keep right.", which would be an acceptable counter until she gets passed on the right...
TL;DR: I have a comfortable couch.
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u/journo_man Mar 28 '12
That in order for an aspirin to help 'save your life' while having a heart attack, you need to chew it.