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

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The discussion centers around various everyday frustrations and confounding design choices, particularly focusing on touch screens in cars. Participants express concern over the safety implications of touch screens, especially when compared to traditional knobs and buttons that can be operated without visual attention. The conversation shifts to other topics, such as the inefficiency of snail-mail solicitations from charities, the use of QR codes in restaurants, and the perplexing behavior of tourists who prefer hotel pools over the ocean. The dialogue also touches on the complexities of air travel, including the need for arrival and departure screens at airports, and the reliability of airline information. Additionally, there are humorous observations about the absurdities of life, such as the design of paper towels and the peculiarities of fruit classification. Overall, the thread highlights a collective frustration with modern conveniences that complicate rather than simplify daily tasks.
  • #251
I find this hard to believe.
You need a better source than some bitcoin website.
 
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  • #252
Monsterboy said:
I heard the aquarium owners use jellyfish as a currency. Everything else are priced at multiples of a jellyfish.
A currency for every profession, I guess.
The only thing I keep wondering is that why economists picked the Big Mac.
Maybe a task for psychologists.
But I wonder, on what basis would they pick their currency o_O

Well, to be honest we too have an alternative currency in the neighborhood. I think we can call it 'village currency'. For example, if you have some fancy pumpkins (the more warty the more worthy), you can just gift them around as 'village currency'. If you have some fruits, it's the same. Works with everything you don't need but may came handy for others.
We deal in wild mushrooms, mostly. Sometimes picking them during a hike is just for the thrill of hunt, but we don't like the species - so we just gift it away for some 'village currency'. Cep mushrooms are hot sale, for example.
Usually we got the neighbors come over to feed the cats if we are away.
What comes around goes around.
 
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  • #253
Hornbein said:
Astral tax deduction.
Haha, no she was Jewitch.

That clearly puts her in the menorahty
 
  • #254
Here is something I recently learned that is surprising... A lot of young women have a thing for the now deceased Bob Ross. I first learned about this when I was dating a young lady in her 20s. She said he was hot! I've learned since that many young women apparently find him sexy and like to watch his old series, which taught people how to paint and ran for many years

1632615243892.png
When you ask young women what they find sexy in a man, you get a lot of surprising answers. But the one that stopped me cold in my tracks came from a gorgeous young blonde woman. When I asked what she finds irresistibly sexy in a man, she said when she sees a man holding a baby!

On a similar note, Pink Floyd made a big come back with young women [which I totally understand], as well as vinyl.
 
  • #255
Ivan Seeking said:
Here is something I recently learned that is surprising... A lot of young women have a thing for the now deceased Bob Ross. I first learned about this when I was dating a young lady in her 20s. She said he was hot! I've learned since that many young women apparently find him sexy and like to watch his old series, which taught people how to paint and ran for many years

View attachment 289719When you ask young women what they find sexy in a man, you get a lot of surprising answers. But the one that stopped me cold in my tracks came from a gorgeous young blonde woman. When I asked what she finds irresistibly sexy in a man, she said when she sees a man holding a baby!

On a similar note, Pink Floyd made a big come back with young women [which I totally understand], as well as vinyl.
He does look like a very nice and gentle man.

As for the holding the baby, that doesn't surprise me at all. It is ultimately the point of all this, eh?

Surely you mean The Dark Side of The Moon album, which is also quite gentle. I'm sure they won't go for Ummagumma.
 
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  • #256
There is a viral trend of people watching/listening to Bob Ross to help them fall asleep.
 
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  • #257
Jarvis323 said:
There is a viral trend of people watching/listening to Bob Ross to help them fall asleep.
Hornbein said:
He does look like a very nice and gentle man.
He had a very calming voice and manner. I can understand using him to go to sleep! LOL! No doubt a lot of women got their Zen from Bob.
 
  • #258
Ivan Seeking said:
He had a very calming voice and manner. I can understand using him to go to sleep! LOL! No doubt a lot of women got their Zen from Bob.
There is a lot of variation.

8 hours Bob Ross voice Rainstorm

Fall asleep to Bob Ross telling Stories

Some people just want to listen to the brush.

Fall Asleep FAST to 8 Hours of Bob Ross Brush Sounds​



Or just Brush Tapping

 
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  • #259
To induce sleep I used to read The Greening of America.
 
  • #260
Here's a new one, from the UK (don't know if the same marketing scheme operates across the pond!)

We have a radio advert for Mcdonalds, which I honestly find so amusing. It's one of those things where it is actually advising against buying the product, if you actually think about it at all!

"Like getting your money's worth? Buy a burger for 99p!"

Seriously? They're telling you that this burger is only worth 99p, and is therefore going to be tiny and made from all the bits of the horse cow which nobody wants and are therefore cheap! and yet, people actually think "huh, that means I'll be getting a substantial burger for really cheap!"
 
  • #261
While watching the TV news this morning I was reminded of the recent "in thing" among local law firms (the ones that advertise on TV, anyway): single-digit telephone numbers like 222-2222, 333-3333, 888-8888 and 999-9999.

As far as I know, this is a relatively new thing, just within the past few years. What's up with that? How did it get started? Is it even a nationwide thing, or just a local or regional oddity?

[added] Aha, it's not just here. I turned up a newspaper article from Springfield, Missouri.
 
  • #262
jtbell said:
While watching the TV news this morning I was reminded of the recent "in thing" among local law firms (the ones that advertise on TV, anyway): single-digit telephone numbers like 222-2222, 333-3333, 888-8888 and 999-9999.

As far as I know, this is a relatively new thing, just within the past few years. What's up with that? How did it get started? Is it even a nationwide thing, or just a local or regional oddity?

[added] Aha, it's not just here. I turned up a newspaper article from Springfield, Missouri.
The local police's phone number is 776-3333 and was 372-3333 20 years ago or so.

I think it might have used to be only 3333 back when only 4 numbers were needed. It seems that a lot of police departments have a XXX-3333 phone mumber in North America, and I suspect that it was the unofficial 911 of the time (when phone numbers were 4-digit long, that is).
 
  • #263
Camouflage tent ropes. Those miserable things are hard enough to see in the daytime, and invisible after dusk even with a flashlight.
 
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  • #264
Camouflage? How about US Navy blue camouflage uniforms:

1632791041357.png
 
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  • #265
jtbell said:
While watching the TV news this morning I was reminded of the recent "in thing" among local law firms (the ones that advertise on TV, anyway): single-digit telephone numbers like 222-2222, 333-3333, 888-8888 and 999-9999.

As far as I know, this is a relatively new thing, just within the past few years. What's up with that? How did it get started? Is it even a nationwide thing, or just a local or regional oddity?

[added] Aha, it's not just here. I turned up a newspaper article from Springfield, Missouri.
For my lawyer you just dial 666.
 
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  • #266
Using the Liénard–Wiechert potentials for a moving charge, for an observer at some point S, we find that even though the field detected at S comes from the retarded position of the charge, the Electric Field Vector points towards [or away from] the current position of the charge.

I think this proves physics is really just magic in disguise.

And why did Maxwell make such lousy coffee?
 
  • #267
I once got a pre-approved credit card. However my application was rejected. The pre-approval was contingent on approval of the application.
 
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  • #268
1632874142071.png


The universe blinked the first time I saw Euler's Identity. Whaaaaaaaaat?! I understand the math but Whaaaaaaaaat?

That was right up there with time slows down, live-dead cats, Spooky Action, unavoidable uncertainty, and closed timelike curves. But the more my reality fails the more I like it!

Oh yes, and let's not forget "You can fill it but you can never paint it!"
 
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  • #269
Hornbein said:
I once got a pre-approved credit card. However my application was rejected. The pre-approval was contingent on approval of the application.
I'm an identity theft victim, so I froze and put an alert on my credit. The idea is to make it impossible for me, and also the people impersonating me, from being able to get a loan. The next few days I started getting all kinds of offers for preapproved loans. It's good to know those preapproved loans might still require approval. I'de like my loan approval to be contingent on a DNA test.
 
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  • #270
Did anyone mention tip screens on ipads at places people previously didn't tip. People are now getting tips for taking your money. This didn't make sense until 2020.

Another one is commercials during trailers for movies; basically commercials during commercials. How long until the commercial commercials have commercials too?
 
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  • #271
Jarvis323 said:
Did anyone mention tip screens on ipads at places people previously didn't tip. People are now getting tips for taking your money. This didn't make sense until 2020.

Another one is commercials during trailers for movies; basically commercials during commercials. How long until the commercial commercials have commercials too?
From time to time I will search You Tube for a commercial and have to watch a commercial to see it.
 
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  • #272
Ivan Seeking said:
From time to time I will search You Tube for a commercial and have to watch a commercial to see it.
Yes, but is it a commercial for a competing product? Now *that* would be smart advertising! :wink:
 
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  • #273
BillTre said:
The lay fish designation is an older term than the fish as defined by biology.
Its seems to just refer to some animal living in the water. This meaning has been around for a long time.

Shellfish is another good example: molluscs and crustaceans (and maybe some other things).
Neither are anything like a fish (to biology), and they aren't even closely related to each other.
This has even come up in law. there are old treaties defining fishing rights. One case came up invoking a treaty of, if I remember, the 13th century. Some category or other was entitled to take fish from certain seas (this was in the Channel Islands if I remember) but they were taking lobsters etc. which was contested.It was ruled that lobsters were fish at the time of the treaty.
 
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  • #274
epenguin said:
This has even come up in law. there are old treaties defining fishing rights.
Moby Dick, the "Royal Fish."
 
  • #275
What makes no sense?

William Shatner will go to space in about a week aboard Blue Origin. He has been to space many, many times. He should give someone else a chance.
 
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  • #276
Ivan Seeking said:
What makes no sense?

William Shatner will go to space in about a week aboard Blue Origin. He has been to space many, many times. He should give someone else a chance.

st tumblr_mubbrdAQdf1r60h6bo3_250.gif

st tumblr_mubbrdAQdf1r60h6bo4_250.gif
 
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  • #278
Vanadium 50 said:
Camouflage? How about US Navy blue camouflage uniforms:

View attachment 289814
I think the point is that if they fall overboard, the enemy will not be able to find them. I'm not sure this has been thought through all the way.
 
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  • #279
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  • #280
Ivan Seeking said:
He just hopes nothing is outside and looking back.
Something on the wing??
 
  • #281
DaveC426913 said:
Something on the wing??
OMG! I didn't even think of that!
 
  • #282
1633577069531.png

JEEEEEEEFFFFFFFFF!
 
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  • #283
So I was reading about quantum tunneling, and then I noticed google started suggesting I search "isolated tetrahedra". Is there a particular reason for this connection? People who search for information about quantum tunneling also search for information about isolated tetrahedra?

isolated_tetrahedra.png
 
  • #284
Jarvis323 said:
So I was reading about quantum tunneling, and then I noticed google started suggesting I search "isolated tetrahedra". Is there a particular reason for this connection? People who search for information about quantum tunneling also search for information about isolated tetrahedra?

View attachment 296111
No, it's suggesting searches that begin with the letters "is..."
 
  • #285
DrGreg said:
No, it's suggesting searches that begin with the letters "is..."
I know that. The mystery is why it has personalized the list it generates for me to place "isolated tetrahedra" at the top.
 
  • #286
Jarvis323 said:
I know that. The mystery is why it has personalized the list it generates for me to place "isolated tetrahedra" at the top.
You could retire tomorrow and buy a small Caribbean island if you can figure out google's suggestion algorithm. I think it's more secret than the nuclear launch codes, and certainly changes more often.

It also seems remarkably stupid sometimes.
 
  • #287
DaveE said:
You could retire tomorrow and buy a small Caribbean island if you can figure out google's suggestion algorithm. I think it's more secret than the nuclear launch codes, and certainly changes more often.

It also seems remarkably stupid sometimes.
The default suggestions I get for a-z at least don't seem too mysterious.

1643314302058.png

Maybe one day google's search suggestion algorithm will discover a theory of everything, and then we'll slowly figure it out over time as it unknowingly steers us in the right direction.

Or maybe if it discovers a theory of everything, it will just internally try to leverage it somehow to maximize advertising revenue.
 
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  • #288
@Jarvis323
...I was reading about quantum tunneling, and then I noticed google started suggesting I search "isolated tetrahedra".

If the suggestions and/or search results seem out-of-wack, remove the Google cookies from the browser.

My searches vary from 'everyday mundane' to rather technical. When the technical searches start returning grade school stuff, I clear the Google cookie crumbs and all of a sudden Google Scholar results start showing up.

Try it; you'll like it! :))

Cheers,
Tom
 
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  • #290
Since I'm using Windows, the browsers have cookie removal capability built-in. On the toolbar (usually at the top) it typically appears under:
Tools
Preferences
Privacy
Show Cookies

You can also completely disable cookies (with an exception list if desired), or delete at end-of-session. (Often the deletion really occurs at the next browser start-up rather than upon closing)
 
  • #291
Tom.G said:
Since I'm using Windows, the browsers have cookie removal capability built-in. On the toolbar (usually at the top) it typically appears under:
Tools
Preferences
Privacy
Show Cookies

You can also completely disable cookies (with an exception list if desired), or delete at end-of-session. (Often the deletion really occurs at the next browser start-up rather than upon closing)
The bookmarklet is one click to remove the cookies for the site you're on. Now that many sites are popping up a cookies dialog bar at the footer, that says accept all cookies or manage cookie preferences, I usually hit accept all and then remove cookies.
 
  • #292
You can also use search engines like DuckDuckGo that don't track your previous searches. Google tries to match result to your previous searches.
 
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  • #293
WWGD said:
You can also use search engines like DuckDuckGo that don't track your previous searches. Google tries to match result to your previous searches.
Also run cleaning programs, free or 'professional' versions, at OS and browser startup a/o shutdown that eliminate cookies and other internet residue, as you prefer.
 
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  • #294
Klystron said:
Also run cleaning programs, free or 'professional' versions, at OS and browser startup a/o shutdown that eliminate cookies and other internet residue, as you prefer.
If I may say so, Google's strategy of returning results that match previous searches has helped promote radicalization in that ittends to keep people in their own bubbles by returning results/data within the range of one's experience, and not allowing new ones.
 
  • #295
WWGD said:
If I may say so, Google's strategy of returning results that match previous searches has helped promote radicalization in that ittends to keep people in their own bubbles by returning results/data within the range of one's experience, and not allowing new ones.
They now have algorithms to downrank sites that disagree with the mainstream media.
 
  • #296
MikeeMiracle said:
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...
Well where I come from it is logical. For 6 Month of the year you have Box Jellyfish, all year round you get your Sharks, and now Saltwater Crocodiles are speculating on Tourists for lunch or dinner.
 
  • #297
WWGD said:
Google tries to match result to your previous searches.
Dear Google,
If my previous search results yielded what I wanted I wouldn't be searching AGAIN! :headbang:
 
  • #298
WWGD said:
Google tries to match result to your previous searches.

Lol. . . there's no question about it. . . . :wink:

1643449641506.png


.
 
  • #299
Lupo said:
Well where I come from it is logical. For 6 Month of the year you have Box Jellyfish, all year round you get your Sharks, and now Saltwater Crocodiles are speculating on Tourists for lunch or dinner.
Yes, one can add riptides, sharp rocks, 'rogue' waves, cold water, strong currents, kelp tangles, live and dead jellyfish, oil and sewer spills, stoned surfers and boogey boarders, and sociopathic yachtsmen firing guns near shore to the dangers of open ocean swimming. Growing up close to famous beaches in Northern California, I loved ocean swimming while always maintaining a sharp eye for hazards.

Saltwater improves buoyancy and allows chlorination via electrolysis. A heated properly maintained saltwater swimming pool provides the best of both environments IMO.
 
  • #300
People who say/use "diffuse" when they mean "defuse;" the words are NOT equivalent.
 
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