Life's great mysteries (things that make NO sense)

[Ivan Seeking]

The tallest man and the shortest woman.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Why is it that the one thing powdered sugar doesn't stick to is pastry? And what is the one thing we put it on?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A vegetable is the edible portion of a plant. ... A fruit is the mature ovary of a plant. So a tomato is botanically a fruit but is commonly considered a vegetable. According to this definition squash, pepper and eggplants are also fruits. Then there are seeds such as peas which are also considered vegetables.
https://vric.ucdavis.edu/main/faqs.htm

Since the ovaries of a flowing plant is an edible part of a plant, does that mean all edible fruits are also vegetables?

 

[epenguin]

I think it's a hangover from the days when more snail mail went out. Personally, I've been using those things for years. I mail probably an average of 3 paper bills a week. I don't have a smartphone and have no interest in on-line bill pay.

I've found them quite useful. still have to send a few letters. Now actually the letter itself is scarcely more trouble than an email – you just print it out and fold it up. What I found took far more of my time was the envelopes. If I hadn't done one for a month say, it would usually take me at least four tries before I got it right, printing it on the back and upside down, wrong way round etc. But even more attempts if I had to print my sender's address in the top left corner as we do, a lot of trouble, used to write those by hand often. So helpful if I could just stick a preprinted label there.I make a modest regular contribution to a charity that saves stray dogs and finds them homes. In exchange it gives me these stickers with cute pictures of doggies, I keep up my subscription in gratitude. OK by now I have enough labels to last me quite some years, but I guess I'd feel bad now abandoning the dogs.

 

[Keith_McClary]

And after all that you have to be careful of paper cuts while licking them.

cute pictures of doggies

I have red air-ambulance helicopters.

 

[phinds]

And after all that you have to be careful of paper cuts while licking them.

No licking - they're self-adhering

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What do your cats really think of you?

Why do they have to think about doing something for 1 to 5 minutes before finally doing it; like jumping up on the couch.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Why do people bother to fold their underwear?

 

[DrGreg]

Why do they have to think about doing something for 1 to 5 minutes before finally doing it; like jumping up on the couch.

They're doing a health and safety assessment, working out the chances that the couch might jump on them, or run away.

 

[Twigg]

That time the Matlab installer tried to invoke black magic in my filesystem:

(I think it was supposed to be the "tools" directory? Or maybe summoning a demon, who knows!)

What do your cats really think of you?

They definitely see servants in all of us.

 

[strangerep]

The thing I fail to understand is people who spends countless thousands of pounds to go on holiday to a hot country, stay in a hotel a hundred yards from the beach...and then go swimming in the hotel pool instead of the Sea!

It make zero sense to me, you could have swam in a pool in your own town...

Depending on the time of year, there can be some seriously dangerous things in tropical seas. I love visiting the Whitsundays area in Australia (because the intense blue of the Coral Sea is an absolutely stunning spectacle -- I can spend hours just staring at it as if hypnotized). I've lashed out and booked to spend a week here in early August. Can't wait.

Nevertheless, I'd be unlikely to go swimming in the Coral Sea without serious wetsuit protection, because of Irukandji jellyfish. Also consider: sharks. [Edit:, although,... I hear the sharks have been complaining that their meals, delivered in a rubbery skin, are too difficult to unpeel.]

 

[gmax137]

I can't fathom why the prospect of looking at a menu on your phone would cause you to leave a nice restaurant!?

I think it was a case of this, maybe

 

[some bloke]

Corn, like ketchup, is a vegetable.

Technically, as Tomato is a Fruit, Ketchup is a smoothie.

"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad."

 

[StevieTNZ]

This picture:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/worl.../trump-trousers-getty-twitter-070621-1120.jpg

Is he wearing a nappy?

 

[WWGD]

Every building has fire-related signs " In case of fire use stairs, not the elevator". Including , some, in the ground floor. Who, other than firemen, wants to go into a burning building?

 

[WWGD]

Is this post just about technology or can we post stuff about people to? The thing I fail to understand is people who spends countless thousands of pounds to go on holiday to a hot country, stay in a hotel a hundred yards from the beach...and then go swimming in the hotel pool instead of the Sea!

It make zero sense to me, you could have swam in a pool in your own town...

Same for those who only eat out in chain restaurants while on holidays away from home.

 

[jack action]

Same for those who only eat out in chain restaurants while on holidays away from home.

Actually, that makes a lot of sense. That is the whole point of chain restaurants: a familiar feel you can rely on. It is scary for a lot of people to go into unknown territory and fewer people would travel if it weren't for these types of businesses. Not everyone is looking for an adventure.

 

[DaveC426913]

Not everyone is looking for an adventure.

Or every organ,

I look for adventure on holiday, but my GI tract often has other opinions on the matter.
(In fact, the more adventure I find, the less adventurous my GI tract wants to be.)
Give your GI tract what it wants. Because if it doesn't want to go on an adventure today, you will not be going on an adventure today.

 

[hutchphd]

Well, not the adventure you had planned at least. I add this description of a trip to Ryan's Steakhouse to this erudite topic (with warnings to the squeamish:

https://texags.com/forums/34/topics/1950635

I admit to finding that vignette hilarious.

 

[gmax137]

with warnings to the squeamish

+1 to that, @hutchphd is not kidding. I may never eat beef-a-roni again.

 

[WWGD]

Actually, that makes a lot of sense. That is the whole point of chain restaurants: a familiar feel you can rely on. It is scary for a lot of people to go into unknown territory and fewer people would travel if it weren't for these types of businesses. Not everyone is looking for an adventure.

How much of an adventure is eating in a restaurant you've never been to? Just look up online reviews to make sure it's not horrible.

 

[hutchphd]

+1 to that, @hutchphd is not kidding. I may never eat beef-a-roni again.

Incidentally the restaurant in question is no longer in operation. If memory serves the demise was not too long after the original publication of the vividly descriptive article.
I'm with you on the Beef-a-roni...oh, to have such a command of descriptive prose...

 

[DaveC426913]

How much of an adventure is eating in a restaurant you've never been to? Just look up online reviews to make sure it's not horrible.

Spoken like someone with a GI tract that thinks it's still 18 years old and invulnerable.

 

[WWGD]

Spoken like someone with a GI tract that thinks it's still 18 years old and invulnerable.

Yes, I admit I have been lucky digestion -wise. No major issues, tho I avoid spicy foods.

 

[Mondayman]

I never ate out, because I can come up with better meals than restaurants. For example, I was only about eight years old when I discovered melted cheese on crackers. Combined with a Tupperware of grapes, boom, that's a golden snack right there. Or the time I put a mini pizza in between two hamburger patties and had a pizza burger.

 

[WWGD]

I never ate out, because I can come up with better meals than restaurants. For example, I was only about eight years old when I discovered melted cheese on crackers. Combined with a Tupperware of grapes, boom, that's a golden snack right there. Or the time I put a mini pizza in between two hamburger patties and had a pizza burger.

True. Melted cheese , like bacon, is one of the magical foods that makes just about everything better.

 

[JT Smith]

True. Melted cheese , like bacon, is one of the magical foods that makes just about everything better.

For me it's ketchup. Yes, I'm still 9 years old in some ways. Also tortillas. I'll put just about anything in one. Most people think my spaghetti burritos are weird but if they tried one I think they'd like it. It's not that outside the box, noodles in a wrap.

Of course there's usually some ketchup in there too.

 

[WWGD]

For me it's ketchup. Yes, I'm still 9 years old in some ways. Also tortillas. I'll put just about anything in one. Most people think my spaghetti burritos are weird but if they tried one I think they'd like it. It's not that outside the box, noodles in a wrap.

Of course there's usually some ketchup in there too.

Whatever works for you. Why not?

 

[Keith_McClary]

Biodegradable plastic garbage bags.

If it is going to the landfill, do we want it to degrade, producing CO2 and CH4, or just sit there for hundreds of years ("carbon sequestration")?

 

[some bloke]

Biodegradable plastic garbage bags.

If it is going to the landfill, do we want it to degrade, producing CO2 and CH4, or just sit there for hundreds of years ("carbon sequestration")?

That only works if it makes it to landfill!

The one I absolutely do not get is people who will bring bags to pick up their dog doo, and then tie it in and fling it into the bushes. You made the decision to get a dog, take the responsibilities and either flick it into the bushes with a stick or pick it up and take it home with you!

 

[dlgoff]

But please don't think that pumping the gunshot victim's blood out of their body with CPR will help their survival. Lordy.

I have nearly zero medical knowledge and would know better to not do this.

 

[jbriggs444]

The one I absolutely do not get is people who will bring bags to pick up their dog doo, and then tie it in and fling it into the bushes. You made the decision to get a dog, take the responsibilities and either flick it into the bushes with a stick or pick it up and take it home with you!

My wife and I have a nick-name for the unknown neighbor(s) who leave little tied-up green plastic bags with dog poo right next to the trash can: "Dead eye".

We normally pick up bags as we walk and deposit them when we pass trash cans. It is annoying to have to bend over and pick up a bag that is sitting right next to the receptacle.

It is also annoying to have to reach into or under a thorn bush to retrieve a bag that a more considerate litterbug could have simply dropped on the sidewalk.

 

[Keith_McClary]

bring bags to pick up their dog doo, and then tie it in and fling it into the bushes.

They only pick up if someone's looking.

 

[DaveC426913]

A few years ago, over the course of a summer, I had full poop bags flung over the fence into my pool. Happened about 6 times.

Never found out who it was; never had any known encounter (let alone beef) with any neighbor who owned a dog.

 

[gmax137]

A few years ago, over the course of a summer, I had full poop bags flung over the fence into my pool. Happened about 6 times.

Never found out who it was; never had any known encounter (let alone beef) with any neighbor who owned a dog.

That's disgusting.

 

[berkeman]

A few years ago, over the course of a summer, I had full poop bags flung over the fence into my pool. Happened about 6 times.

Two words: "Counter-battery fire"...

 

[berkeman]

So I was doing some simple tasks on my laptop at home while the evening news was playing on TV in the background. I happened to glance up during an Entresto commercial (a drug to help folks with serious heart issues), saw an image of a highway interchange, and went back to typing on my laptop. Then about 10 seconds later I went "wait a minute, that makes no sense...".

I rewound the TV (the wonders of modern Internet cable TV boxes) to the image and stared at it for a solid minute trying to decode where it could possibly be in the world and what its purpose was (are they driving on the left or right? Are those carpool lane flyovers? WITW?).

I finally realized that it was a Photoshopped/Artist Rendering meant to be in the shape of a heart (a common theme for Entresto advertisements). Lordy, it looked so real that it had me going in circles for that minute!

 

[Vanadium 50]

Two things i hear in drug ads belong on this list:

For birth control: "...do not take if you are planning on becoming pregnant...". Ya think?

For something else"...side effects include...heart failure...If these persist, call your doctor". If heart failure persists, a doctor isn't what you need. An undertaker is what you need.

 

[hutchphd]

Never found out who it was; never had any known encounter (let alone beef) with any neighbor who owned a dog

You better hope they have a dog!
Speaking of which I went into my back yard a few months ago and found, in my fenced yard, what looked like a single perfectly formed 12 cm long 2 cm diameter brown present. This was a perfectly formed deposit that I would have been proud to claim as my own. I wondered with some chagrin whether there was a sasquatch (or perhaps a wino) in the woods!
After a little online research I discovered this was very likely opossum scat. Apparently the single ridiculously large linear turd is their hallmark.. you'd think they would have to make a noise...I have since noted a few more, and I do like the possum.

 

[DaveC426913]

So I was doing some simple tasks on my laptop at home while the evening news was playing on TV in the background. I happened to glance up during an Entresto commercial (a drug to help folks with serious heart issues), saw an image of a highway interchange, and went back to typing on my laptop. Then about 10 seconds later I went "wait a minute, that makes no sense...".

I rewound the TV (the wonders of modern Internet cable TV boxes) to the image and stared at it for a solid minute trying to decode where it could possibly be in the world and what its purpose was (are they driving on the left or right? Are those carpool lane flyovers? WITW?).

I finally realized that it was a Photoshopped/Artist Rendering meant to be in the shape of a heart (a common theme for Entresto advertisements). Lordy, it looked so real that it had me going in circles for that minute!

View attachment 284574

OMG, I saw this the other day too, and rewound and paused it to see what cars were going the wrong way!

 

[Bystander]

The "Watchman" ad, barefoot gallop along a dock/pier by an elderly gent barely missing rusty, badly driven crooked nail-heads.

 

[Keith_McClary]

Why are there camouflage reading glasses ? I bought a pair because they were on sale cheap. Now I can't find them.

 

[some bloke]

Here's another, common one: Scissors which come in packaging which requires scissors to get them out!

 

[DrGreg]

Credit card numbers are always quoted in groups of four digits like this:

1234 5678 9012 3456​

So why do most websites reject a number if you include the spaces? Have programmers not worked out how to ignore spaces?

 

[phinds]

Credit card numbers are always quoted in groups of four digits like this:

1234 5678 9012 3456​

So why do most websites reject a number if you include the spaces? Have programmers not worked out how to ignore spaces?

Even more to the point why are date inputs SO touchy on many systems and so variable from system to system?

I mean, credit cards at least are a specific application but dates are used with lots of applications.

 

[DaveC426913]

Have programmers not worked out how to ignore spaces?

The ones who listen to their Usability Specialists have.

 

[phinds]

The ones who listen to their Usability Specialists have.

Which is to say, very few of them.

 

[Keith_McClary]

The ones who listen to their Usability Specialists have.

Do they agree with the Security Specialists?

xkcd

 

[jrmichler]

Yes, this is for real. A company in Kentucky.

 

[some bloke]

Yes, this is for real. A company in Kentucky.
View attachment 284817

Alas I have no picture of it, but for several years where I used to work (presumably since fire escape signs were mandatory) they had a fire escape sign on a wall with no door. No arrow, just a sign indicating that there was a fire escape there. There was no bricked up door, there simply was never a door there to begin with!