So many people take virtually everything for granted and hardly question anything. I like questioning things. Taking things for granted leads to lazy and sloppy thought and having your life controlled by the people you never question.
So what if the question is unusual? It is better to ask a thousand stupid questions than to avoid asking one pertinent one.
Why are companies not prosecuted for selling the same item at different prices just because some people have the nerve to ask for a discount?
Anything off for cash? What are you trying to say? Do you think I can not put it through the books and so evade tax for you? Or perhaps you think that you are better than everybody else and deserve to pay less for everything? Or do you just think that it's worth a try?
Discounting listed prices should be a criminal offence. Everybody is entitled to pay the same fair price. If the price is not fair nobody should pay it. If it is fair everybody should pay it. The current situation is grossly unfair as many people always pay full price and others haggle at every opportunity. I am not saying that prices should be rigid but that if a discount is given to one person it should be offered to the next person too.
Why are large shops called stores?
Storing goods is the opposite of their reason to exist, their job is to sell.
Cartoons let's get real
Firstly I need an answer to a mystery that has been bugging me for years; SKY WRITING. It happens in cartoons but I have never seen it done in real life. Is it possible to write messages in smoke across the sky using a light aircraft? Has it ever been done or is it simply a cartoon myth? I have seen airshow displays of groups of planes making simple patterns with smoke, crosses and a heart for example, but surely the idea of a wizened little old World War One veteran hiring himself out to write "Happy Birthday Betty" across the sky in fine script is just total nonsense.
Most people I talk to about this fail to recall any instance of seeing it themselves and at the same time they seem to think I am being sad and obsessive to mention it. Debunking bullshit is never wrong, I make no apology for it, if I get it wrong that is another matter, I climb down but at least I took a stand, so many people just go with the flow, whatever, whatever.
Ok, so you don't believe in God ---- but not to believe it skywriters! For shame. Yes, skywriters exist outside of cartoons. In fact not only have I seen them, but here in California I have seen two distinct types. In one case the plane writes in script creating a single continuous line for each word. Smoke is turned on and off at appropriate intervals in order to create space between words or cross "T"s and dot "I"s. The other type of skywriting plane emits smoke blobs in a grid formation so that the result is a series of uppercase letters that are composed of dots or blobs of smoke. I must admit that skywriters are not nearly as prevalent as they were when I was a child. The next time my digital camera and a skywriter are in reasonable proximity I will let you know, and you can let me know if you want to see the picture. Valerie Fischer |
All I can say is that I have been expressing my incredulity on this issue for a long time and you are the first taker. There is certainly no such thing in England, I suggest that has as much to do with the legislative climate as the physical climate (I assume clear blue skies and negligible wind are essential). I can imagine our civil aviation authority telling any putative skywriters to stop being so silly and dangerous and take out an advertisement in a newspaper instead, newspapers rarely crash into houses. Is freedom of expression so much more valuable than life in America? I would not be surprised. However that would still not explain why I have managed to live 38 years without seeing live action of a skywriter but dozens of cartoons, have I just been watching the wrong channel? I would love to see real evidence if you can find any. Perhaps I should do a web search, but am I that curious? |
Good morning Martin, (One minute past midnight counts as morning, I assume.) I admit to censoring my original comments. I was tempted to say that the reason you have not seen a skywriter is because they don't work well in the fog. Unfair I know; especially since I have never been to England. Basing my conclusions on "Foggy London Town" ranks right up there with basing yours on cartoons I suppose. Are we even? I assume that the reason skywriters are often seen "down the shore" (East Coast US parlance) or "at the beach" (West Coast idiom) is because of the clear air over the ocean. As for wind, often the first part of the message becomes unreadable before the last part is complete. Freedom of expression more important than life? ---- probably in certain circumstances. Wars have been fought for less. However I do believe that it would take only one occurrence of a sky writing plane crashing into a house to bring out the FAA with regulations and laws. I would guess that much more damage has been done by newspapers crashing into houses. Perhaps the newsboys in England have better aim than those in the US. Here we have broken windows, destroyed shrubbery, and homeowners falling off the roof while in the process of retrieving a poorly aimed newspaper. You underestimate the power of the press! Yes, you should probably search the web for evidence. Somehow that makes more sense than communicating with some woman a continent away who claims to have seen them - and the first taker at that. That is little in the way of proof. Or .... you could just trust me! Valerie |
| I did a quick search and found nothing conclusive. Lots of pictures of towed banners but no smoke written messages, I did see one company that claimed to offer the service but no photos, just a drawing, despite offering plenty for its towed banners. Perhaps it does exist but is uneconomical to do in practice. |
Hello Martin, And of course, I have nothing better to do than look up sky writers on the internet. Curiosity is insidious at times. Are you ready for this? I wasn't! Guess where skywriting began. In ENGLAND!!! "Skywriting originated in England around World War I. Maj. John C. Savage of the Royal Air Force used smoke from airplanes to send military signals over long distances." "Skywriting was first used for advertising when Capt. Cyril Turner wrote "Daily Mail" over England in May of 1922. In October of that year he wrote "Hello USA" above New York." http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/01/25/p22s1.htm |
Don't ask me why I bothered to track this down. Stephen MJ Brennan |
So, shot down in flames, sort of.Skywriters are real, if an endangered species.
|
Why do all cartoon balloons and parachutes hold so little?
Umbrellas offer minimal parachute effect and helium filled party balloons have very little lifting ability. And breath filled ones none at all. I remember trying to launch a simple banner made of a bumper sticker with helium balloons, it took about a dozen to lift this pathetically light payload. I am not just sneering at a stupid plot device I find that it is widespread in all cartoons to show balloons, airships and parachutes triumphing against gravity with small sized devices. I regularly see balloon sellers holding around 100 helium balloons without the slightest suggestion that they are experiencing any lifting effect.
Another bit of so-called harmless licence is given to cartoonists to show that ignorance can defeat gravity. A character will only fall off a cliff when he has realized that he is not standing on firm ground. I suppose we all become the equivalent of bilingual, we learn that there are two different Universes and sets of physics.
And another point, I was not being sexist when I wrote of cartoon characters as he. I struggle to recall any female cartoon characters ever falling or being involved in any violence, is that significant? Is it somehow not funny to see a female fall? Oh, I have just remembered Chicken Run, a unique cartoon filled with active female characters.
Why are modern American cartoon heroes so massively over muscled? Even Skeletor would easily win a Mr Universe contest against a regular human bodybuilder. Some characters are even more grotesque. Doing a few quick calculations by eye suggests that the typical super-male super-hero is approximately five times the mass of his female counterpart. He would need three seats in a typical aircraft to accommodate his shoulders. How would the Earth survive if it relied on two of these freaks to be in the same cockpit, car or elevator at the same time?
Why do all American sports require freaks?
Boxing requires stocky cubes of muscle and bone. Basketball requires giants and Gridiron football requires most it's players to be human battering rams.
Why do Americans think that soccer is a game for girls and yet hockey is for men who get discharged from the military for being psychotic? In Britain hockey is played by schoolgirls, and soccer isn't. British schoolgirls also play rounders, a game that is extremely close to baseball, obviously its direct ancestor. Rounders uses the same diamond and centre pitching point layout but with posts for bases and a smaller, one-handed bat. Why did these games switch sexes when they crossed the Atlantic? I won't be as ungentlemanly as to suggest that Americans were too dumb to understand cricket, besides, I don't understand it myself.
American football hardly involves the feet at all. There is actually more legitimate hand to ball connection in soccer than there is foot to ball connection in American Football.
And what about that William Webb Ellis? Picks up the ball during a game of football, runs to the other end of the pitch, plonks the ball down and then insists he has scored. Was he the only boy to have paid his fees to Rugby School that term? What would have happened if Mike Tyson had demanded that he had scored when he bit off a piece of Hollyfield's ear? I think the parallel stands, both were obviously way outside the accepted spirit of the game.
Why are the flies in underpants so enormous?
Who on Earth needs three buttons on their underpants? No man or two legged animal has a penis so big that it needs three buttons. Who are they trying to kid?
Tips
Do chefs and waiters in expensive restaurants really believe their work is worth as much as they charge, or as much as they get tipped? Don't you think that tipping is a terrible tradition?
Different cultures have different ways of handling it. In Australia apparently tipping is just not expected. I think tipping is thoroughly wrong. People should be paid the right amount to do the job and they should do the job right. A waiter could do an average job and receive a huge tip one day and the next do much better work and receive nothing. The reward for the job should be entirely in the form of wages or regular fees. If you want to thank somebody for excellent service then just do it, tell them they have done well. If you order a pizza and it turns up forty minutes later delivered by a man who is paid to deliver it why should you feel guilty about simply paying for the pizza?
When I designed kitchens for people they never gave me a tip even though I spent several hours working hard specifically to give them what they wanted without costing them too much. Why do some people always get considered for tips and other people never do? Would you tip your accountant? Your bookmaker? Your lifeguard? It is not just a matter of how much these people earn, I didn't earn much working in an off-licence (liquor store) but I didn't get tips there either. I can't work out why people consider it is right to tip a taxi driver but not a train driver, why you tip a hairdresser but not a dentist. The man who fitted your kitchen but not the man who designed it. The man who delivered your pizza but not the woman who cooked your fish and chips.
In my current job I often wheel out heavy domestic appliances to load into people's cars, in a year I have received one tip. Some of my younger colleagues who earn the same but have lower expenses receive far more tips.
I have a theory that waitresses receive tips in an inverse ratio with their waistlines. Fatter, older or less attractive people get fewer tips. Yet another reason to stop this grossly unfair practice.
Am I the only person who wonders about this stuff? |
When aliens finally make contact with us will they think like men, women, computers or something altogether different?
Men and women think very differently. I have always presumed that there is an objective truth out there somewhere, so I get to thinking whether rational aliens will get along better with men or women? Or will they just want to keep well way from all of us?
Can you imagine an alien? An intelligent being who was not sexually attracted to either men or women. A being that did not assume that a hairy head and less hairy body were attractive. A being that might be even more curious than I am about what human flesh tastes like, and can you eat the skin if it is roasted right? Or perhaps an alien might be so disgusted by our habits, smell or appearance that they would not want to make contact.
Maybe aliens are even more sexually screwed up than we are. Perhaps they spend 50% of their waking hours having sexual fantasies. Or even 50% of their time having sex, it is quite possible from an evolutionary perspective, lions and bonobos are at it all the time.
Perhaps they have a different number of sexes.
Perhaps they think that we might abduct them.
Perhaps they have theories that life on their planet was created by beings from this planet.
When little old ladies leave all their money to "Guide Dogs for the Blind" are they trying to help the blind, or do they think the dogs need the money?
The Guide Dog for The Blind Association is the richest charity in Britain. It receives massively more money than it really needs but will not stop raising money, because that is what it does, it is a fund raising charity.
Many charities are also involved in fund raising activities that are totally irrational. My granny collected aluminium foil for years with a view to raising money for charity. It never seemed to occur to her that aluminium foil was ridiculously light and hard to collect. A huge bag full weighed next to nothing, and when sold for scrap presumably would barely cover the costs of stuffing it into the smelter never mind collecting it in the first place.
There are also charity collections of used postage stamps. Why? Where is the huge market that will pay good money for enormous numbers of extremely common stamps? I am always suspicious of any scheme that is not commercial; collecting waste paper is OK because it is obviously commercially viable, so is collecting aluminium drinks cans, the fact that commercial companies do it without charitable motives proves that it is worthwhile.
I know people like to feel useful but is it possible that their surplus energies could actually be directed at something worth doing? Why must we see enormous quantities of goodwill and voluntary work wasted on pointless things?
Is it necessary to shave your head to collect money for charity? Or do something equally stupid?
Why not just donate your income direct, tell the boss to direct your earnings for the day to the charity of your choice. Or if your job is so mundane and boring that you don't want to do it any more than you must why not trade places with somebody else for the day instead, that way something that needs doing gets done. And if you want to do something as glamorous as parachuting or trekking in the Himalayas don't have the nerve to dress it up as if you are doing it for some good cause and expect the rest of us to pay for it. I often see people planning their feats of life affirming daring-do, who select the charity with a pin, then expect the rest of the gullible people to pay for it all.
Why is there no Music Of White Origin award ceremony?
If that would be racist why is the Music of Black Origin award ceremony not seen as racist? It is not an argument to say that all the other awards are for white music, that is absurd.
Has there ever been an academic subject that has been disbanded?
"Peace Studies", "Women's Studies" and the like get formed as academic disciplines and then grow up into self defending fortresses. If there is a professor of it it must be a real discipline. I have a working hypothesis that 90% of all ideas are wrong, from this it seems entirely feasible that totally bogus subjects could continue to operate in Universities ad infinitem. They protect their subject matter, defend their budgets, defend against encroachments by other academic disciplines and they get Universities around the world to compete for the honour of playing host to them. All this grand edifice can, theoretically, be built entirely on bullshit.
To become an academic discipline you just need to convince one committee once that you have a valid subject matter and means of operating. Think about psychology, one of the most widespread of academic disciplines today but think about what weak foundations it is built on, merely a tissue of words and theories, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility to imagine a world in which psychology was just found in women's magazines, newspapers and airport bookstalls. A world in which Universities considered it not rigorous enough to be given equal status with sociology, and no more deserving of a place within medicine than acupuncture.
Psychology talks about things it cannot point to or fully explain, what is the difference between the theory of the super ego and the theory of mystical energies or flows? How far is psychology removed from phrenology or astrology? Well, now we can see a huge distinction, but most of that distinction is the result of the academic legitimacy that it has received subsequently. My point is not that psychology is not a real subject but just to question if a bogus subject could ever be thrown off campus.
What proportion of our children have been made to feel guilty that they are people and not trees?
Childrens television is full of sentiments that make me cringe. My daughter often berates me with misguided green propaganda. I don't think it is healthy that almost every documentary about wildlife ends with a sob story about extinction and habitat loss. These are real problems and need to be addressed but we risk alienating the young or turning them into green-psychotics.
Education can be really effective at highlighting the potential dangers of the modern world. My own education was excellent, many people may find it hard to believe but I had learned in secondary school, which I left in 1979, about CFCs in aerosols being a danger to the ozone layer, about why lead was in petrol and why it should be removed and about deforestation, habitat loss and mass extinctions, I even learned about prion proteins and their dangers. I learned about it without hysteria and I learned about it at an age at which I was capable of understanding it. Such issues are far too complicated for the child of 8 to learn about, and not suitable material for cartoons.
Why is cocaine only grown in South America?
Is it that difficult to grow? Is there nowhere else it could grow? Somebody is missing something here, is it me? There must be a bit of profit in this cash crop! South American potatoes, chillies and maize have spread world-wide why not coca? There must be parts of North America, Africa and Asia that have similar climates. Even if it costs more to grow there than in South America it must be more economical to grow your own than buy it off a gangster.
Reply
Why are there seven days in a week?
I know it comes from the Babylonians but that is no answer. Why is a seven day week universal? What is a week anyway? A year is related to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. The Month is (loosely) related to the behaviour of the Moon. The day is so natural a unit of time that no explanation is required, but what is a week?
Why do so many people think that there are 52 weeks in a year? (Do the sums, 365 is not divisible by 7, neither is 366 nor 365.25)
Is this entirely down to founder effect, somebody in ancient Babylon decided that one day off in seven was about right and it stuck? Probably because of natural innate human conservatism, seven days in the week was good enough for Great great grandfather Abraham it's good enough me...
Naturally I ignore any explanations that talk about God creating the world in 7 days. That story is predated by the Babylonian civilization.
Regarding "Why are there seven days in a week?" One possible source for 7, rather than any other number, is that 7 was the number of moving celestial bodies known at the time (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). That, of course, doesn't (and isn't supposed to) counter the idea of "founder effect" but it's a probable source for 7. As you point out: the day, the month and the year all have a celestial source so it's a good bet that the length of the week has one too. Could be worth a mention. -- Dave Pearson |
Is there any word for toilet/lavatory that is not a euphemism?
All the toilet words seem to come from words for bathroom. My pocket dictionary sends you round in circles between water closet (a small room with water in it), toilet (the act of washing) and lavatory (from the Latin for bathroom).
I think the best we can do is privy, bog and loo.
What
is the smallest number of pixels required to display a pornographic
image?
With the rise of WAP phones and WAP pornography this question becomes pertinent. Any suggestions? Send it in. If it is good enough I won't be able to publish it. (!) Reply
Has there ever been a violent anti-violence film?
For my money Mary Poppins is an anti-violence film, most films are pro-violence, in effect if not in design.