Odd questions

[Walsingham]

If butter melts in a pan, does this mean the butter is in love with the pan?

[IndiraLightfoot]

Who am I?

[Walsingham]

Who am I?

 

You are Vladimir the Putin. And I claim my five pounds.

[Tagaziel]

What do you feel when you shoot yourself in the head?

[Walsingham]

What do you feel when you shoot yourself in the head?

 

Well, I guess you could answer this knowing two things:

 

1) The speed of the bullet effects vs the processing speed of your nervous system

2) That the brain itself has no pain receptors

[BruceVC]

"if a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it… and it hits a mime, does anyone care?"

 

 

[Tagaziel]

Well, I guess you could answer this knowing two things:

 

1) The speed of the bullet effects vs the processing speed of your nervous system

2) That the brain itself has no pain receptors

No, but the skull does. Plus, the trauma might not cause you to lose consciousness immediately.

[Walsingham]

Well, if you factor that in, then it would depend a very great deal on where you got shot in the head.

[IndiraLightfoot]

"if a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it… and it hits a mime, does anyone care?"

 

 

A certain art school for mime in France certainly will. Otherwise, a resounding negative.

[Woldan]

What do you feel when you shoot yourself in the head?

 

Depends on the damage done. The brain itself cannot not feel pain. According to various war books I've read there are three ways the body responds to head injuries:

 

1.) Severe damage - the person hit loses consciousness right away and dies pretty much instantly. 

2.) Moderate damage - great confusion and then the brain shuts itself down, the person loses consciousness. 

3.) Light damage - the person doesn't even notice the injury for hours and sometimes even days. 

 

Rifle rounds will make ragout out of your brain at distances under 400 meters, largely depending on the caliber used, see #1, same with shotguns at reasonable distances. Most people shot in the head with service pistols survive, see #2 and #3. People shot in the head with small caliber pistols usually survive, some even don't notice their injury, see #3.   

So if the injury doesn't put you in an early grave right away you'll be either extremely confused and lose your consciousness or you don't notice the injury at all. 

Edited January 15, 2014 by Woldan

[Nonek]

Given that time is linked to space and space did not start its expansion 'til the advent of the big bang, and therefore there was no time as we know it before the big bang...would you like a toasted teacake?

[Woldan]

Why is everything thats really fun heavily restricted or even outlawed? 

[IndiraLightfoot]

Societies have always feared hedonism the most, as this threatens the very fabrics of society and its ideological superstructure, not to mention production and predictability.

[Woldan]

And I thought people having freedom, fun and a healthy amount of hedonism was the best thing for society because it keeps aggression and frustration low which increases overall safety, productiveness and order. 

[Amentep]

agression and frustration rise when people have unequal access to/experience of hedonism - and when you start deciding when, where and how much hedonism people are going to have...you're back where you started with regulating fun stuff.

[Woldan]

agression and frustration rise when people have unequal access to/experience of hedonism

Thats only half the truth, regulations in general regulating things that shouldn't increase aggression and frustration in the population even if it affects all equally. This usually leads to a decrease in productiveness.

[Blarghagh]

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Someone actually found out. Or rather, they MAY have found out. The paper is in the Annals of Improbable Research, and was improbably peer reviewed. It also has highly improbable animal care protocols. So from what I can tell the actual possibility of this study having been done is...improbable.

But they did get a number!

 

Paskevich and Shea. "The ability of woodchucks to chuck cellulose fibers" Annals of Improbable Research, 1995.

 

Groundhogs, aka woodchucks, aka whistle-pigs aren't hogs (obviously). Instead they are rodents (of the Sciurid family, which I personally feel to be an awesome name). They live all over the US, and it's pretty common to see them along the side of the road (usually as roadkill, but sometimes you get lucky and see a live one).

They don't ACTUALLY eat or throw wood. Instead, they eat grasses and insects and pretty much everything else at ground level they can get their hands on. But they can, apparently, CHEW wood, and that's where the idea for this study came in.

The authors decided to use the word "chuck" to mean "chew" (I suppose because upchucking is the opposite?), and wanted to see how much wood a woodchuck could chuck. They obtained 12 woodchucks (by "various means" that are not described, I picture some middle aged guy in a suit trying to stalk one), and food deprived them to ensure they would eat the wood. Then, they fed each woodchuck a 2x4 (yes) and watched how fast they ate it.

All the woodchucks ate the wood, none actively attempted to toss it, and none upchucked. They could, apparently digest the wood pretty well, and consumed it at a rate of 361.9237001 cubic centimetres per animals per day (no error bars, and the food deprivation was nuts, 12 days, leading me to think they didn't REALLY...). They note that, while none of the woodchucks attempted to throw the wood, they probably would have, had they been capable.

So the next time someone asks you, how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? You answer is clear! He'd chuck 361.9237001 cubic centimetres of wood per day, which is the wood that a woodchuck COULD chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

*As the authors have been so gracious as to address the question of woodchucks and wood, I would like to propose to them their next series of studies: how much ground could a groundhog hog if a groundhog could hog ground? I will look forward to seeing the data.

[Rosbjerg]

And I thought people having freedom, fun and a healthy amount of hedonism was the best thing for society because it keeps aggression and frustration low which increases overall safety, productiveness and order. 

 

Our system works best with a fair degree of inefficiency (to keep up constant production), lack of safety and overall frustration (to keep people spending money and investing in the system). Modern consumerism requires an unnaturally high degree of consumption, which needs to be fueled by an overall feeling of dissatisfaction.

[Malcador]

Why are people always skating counter clockwise on the ice rink here.

[kgambit]

Why are people always skating counter clockwise on the ice rink here.

 

Do people skate clockwise in the southern hemisphere?

[Walsingham]

Why is everything thats really fun heavily restricted or even outlawed? 

 

Because high energy states threaten ordered purposive systems stability. Equally high energy states are impressive and order exciting. Hence fun.

[Guard Dog]

In the NFL in the US, why do teams fire coaches who have failed only to replace them with coaches who have failed elsewhere? Wouldn't it save a lot of time to keep the failure you have?  

 

The length of time a dog spends selecting that perfect place to poop is inversely proportional to the temperature outside, but only when he knows you're waiting for him.

[Amentep]

In the NFL in the US, why do teams fire coaches who have failed only to replace them with coaches who have failed elsewhere? Wouldn't it save a lot of time to keep the failure you have? 

 

Illusion of change, I guess.  The fans know the owner/management have done SOMETHING, even if it means nothing.

[Walsingham]

Although causality is linear in time, is emotion obliged to be linear?