The silly question thread

[Zeraph]

Originally Posted by Jetée

e.g.
What would happen if I found a crisp, cool, unopened and abandoned bottle of Pepsi One underneath a park bench on a hot summer's day, and claimed it as my own? To go further, say I dropped my wallet at the exact moment I picked up the bottle, the original purchaser of the soda remembers that he had misplaced his product earlier in the day, goes in search of it, happens upon my wallet and calls me? If he was a real dick in this unfathomable scenario, and had found witnesses that saw me swipe his refreshment only to gulp it down before their eyes, could he submit my name to the authorities for due compensation? Am I safe in claiming "9/10th possession", or is there even a remote possibility that I could be charged with theft?

There's something like a minimal damages, for instance to get the attention of the FBI you have to do something like at least 5 thousand dollars worth of damages. Police are more along the lines of common sense. Really though, if the police want to arrest you they can find a reason. That's for criminal, if you mean civil IIRC there's something similar. You can also counter sue them for wasting their time over a drink. So while it might be technically possible for you to get in trouble for that you're never going to in real life.

[Xerxys]

Did cavemen actually drag their women with the hair?

[thespian86]

Originally Posted by Redlemon

I was told that the preferred term is now "hamthrax".

hahahaha just saw this now. I lost it.

[MSD]

I know silk and synthetics have to be ironed at low temperatures, but why does every iron have a really low setting that warms it up but makes it utterly useless for ironing clothes? Is it to balance out the universe for that setting every toaster has that reduces perfectly good bread to a lump of charcoal? Are the toaster manufacturers in cahoots with the people who make smoke detectors?

Originally Posted by Jetée

What's the basis for the law and coined adage of "possession is 9/10ths of the law", and how is it applied in daily life situations?

"I was just holding it for a friend." You're still holding it and you're still in possession.
"I dropped that $50 bill and that guy picked it up." Your word against his and unless you've got some other evidence, he gets to keep it.

Originally Posted by Xerxys

Did cavemen actually drag their women with the hair?

I doubt it. I don't think cave women had the same sex-negative social conditioning women today have. They probably enjoyed it.

[Jetée]

Originally Posted by MSD

"I was just holding it for a friend." You're still holding it and you're still in possession.
"I dropped that $50 bill and that guy picked it up." Your word against his and unless you've got some other evidence, he gets to keep it.

Alright, you posted two sides of the coin's argument. Thank you.

One more scenario:

Say I am in possession of, let's say, a drum set. It's a sweet piece of goodness, to keep it short. Now, I've got a friend who buys the same drum set, though years later. He prizes it highly, puts it on a pedestal, everything, nearly, save claim an insurane policy for it. Later in this hypothetical, we'll suppose that his kit gets stolen, and he is distraught. I invite the friend over months later to try and get him out of his depression, and he notices my drum set for the first time. He, too, says "it's friggin' sweet" and adores how much it reminds him of what he recently lost. So much so, in fact, that he now notices its the exact model and color scheme of his separate but stolen drumkit.

Hysterics ensue, and he thows out the accusation that *I* stole his drum set, even though this is just a case of coincidence and mistaken identity. He calls the cops, and explains "his version" of the account (that I stole his drum set and became his friend just to do so) when, in actuality, my true account of the story is that I have had the drum set at least a decade before he bought his; BUT, the problem is I don't really recall where I got my drums, if and/or I paid for them, nor do I hold documentation/receipts/pictures 5 years me standing before the drums, smiling. However, the friend does hold a receipt for the same model of the drums, and presents it to the authorities or judge as evidence that I stole his equipment.

Say this scenario is played out before digital tagging and unique identification markers on each separate equipment (in the 1970s, I guess) and everything goes wrong in my case, not a word of my story is believed.


Would my inherent property be granted to some naysayer in a court of law, given the above circumstances, (i.e. he, having documentation and an accusation, and me, having no backstory nor any records of my possession of my own drums) and absolutely not a leg of credibility to stand on but my word against his, could this happen at all? Where does the "9/10th" clause protect and/or harm me in this case?




Granted, it is farfetched, but not out of the realm of imagination turned reality.

Abridged version: Can any ol' snob come into my residence, spin around in a circle, point to one of my possessions, ask if I hold a receipt to it (my reply: no), and subsequently complain to the police that I "stole his" property, and would he stand to gain my stuff in my own failure to produce any documentation, while he only has his accusation?


It honestly reminds me of that film with Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito [I don't know the name of it, (Oh, and that episode of "The Practice" where the sister got caught with crack in her hand, even though the brother was selling it)].

[Xerxys]

What theory does star-trek and star-wars legitimize "warp"? You know, travelling at almost the speed of light in some sort of ship/capsule whilst everything inside the capsule operating normally?

[MSD]

Originally Posted by Jetée

Abridged version: Can any ol' snob come into my residence, spin around in a circle, point to one of my possessions, ask if I hold a receipt to it (my reply: no), and subsequently complain to the police that I "stole his" property, and would he stand to gain my stuff in my own failure to produce any documentation, while he only has his accusation?

He would have to provide evidence that would allow a prosecutor to convince a jury beyond a shadow of a doubt that you did it.

Originally Posted by Xerxys

What theory does star-trek and star-wars legitimize "warp"? You know, travelling at almost the speed of light in some sort of ship/capsule whilst everything inside the capsule operating normally?

"Inertial dampers" protect the ship and its contents. This is a fun read:

Amazon.com: The Physics of Star Trek: Lawrence M. Krauss, Stephen Hawking: Books

Amazon.com: The Physics of Star Trek: Lawrence M. Krauss, Stephen Hawking: Books

[Xerxys]

What does, "only a rebel from the waist down" or really, "from the waist down" mean? When I first heard this phrase I seized my first opportunity to use it and people laughed their asses off. It makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever!!

[Zeraph]

The iron has that as literally a warm up mode. turn it on and go do something else and itll be ready that much quicker than you actually need it. Safer than leaving it on the mode you actually want it to be since that might start a fire.

The toaster I am not positive on, as I haven't done testing. But I'm pretty sure the higher settings are for frozen stuff.

Ok, there's civil court that he could sue you, that depends completely on jurors. There is no "beyond a reasonable doubt" for civil court. It's whatever you can convince your peers. The other is criminal and it depends on the cop like I said. If the cop wants to he can. It's his word against yours and by a rule judges always go by the cop unless given a very specific and convinceable reason not to. And the cop could simply go by possession of stolen property...whether you meant to or not doesn't matter.

Warp? What do you mean? The theory goes that it gets around the speed of light by warping/bending the space around the ship. It elongates it behind, and shortens it in front. So the ship itself isn't moving by normal standards, only the space is warping in a bubble around the ship, hence why things are normal on board.

rebel from the waist down is refering to your genitals. It's just a colorful saying that you listen to the brain in your gonads and not your head.

[777]

Originally Posted by Xerxys

Did cavemen actually drag their women with the hair?

Yes, this later evolved to mating dances which evolved to the night clubs of today. Hence, the phrase, "Going Clubbing".

[Xerxys]

^^ ROFL

I was introduced to deadpool after I saw the fourth (first) X-men recently released. (I still bang my head at paying for that travesty) but I still don't know for the life of me what his ability was.

I know he could regenerate after the encounter with the weapons X program but before he was given that ability to regenerate, what could he do? Was he like the chick from Heroes? Erm, Micah's Cousin, wait, got it, she had Adoptive Muscle Memory.

[Jetée]

Off the top of your head, could someone (or a few people, even) tell me the definition of 'predicate'?

(I might already know the meaning of the word, and I can enter a search query just as well as you can, so what I wish to know is the type of person who can recall such archaic knowledge that was beat into them at a young age; also, if you want to look up the true definition of the word after you submit your answer in order to see if you were at least contextually relevant, that's all right, too)

[Xerxys]

Very simpkle examples provided by google, the simplest I can get actually.

# make the (grammatical) predicate in a proposition; "The predicate `dog' is predicated of the subject `Fido' in the sentence `Fido is a dog'"
# affirm or declare as an attribute or quality of; "The speech predicated the fitness of the candidate to be President"
# connote: involve as a necessary condition of consequence; as in logic; "solving the problem is predicated on understanding it well"

[Jetée]

But did you know of the definition, before consulting google?

[Xerxys]

Yeah I had a long definition lined up to do with it kinda being like an adjective in which it defines nouns but this time not only nouns but entire functions of a sentence, then google explained it best.

[MSD]

Originally Posted by Zeraph

The iron has that as literally a warm up mode. turn it on and go do something else and itll be ready that much quicker than you actually need it. Safer than leaving it on the mode you actually want it to be since that might start a fire.

The toaster I am not positive on, as I haven't done testing. But I'm pretty sure the higher settings are for frozen stuff.

Warp? What do you mean? The theory goes that it gets around the speed of light by warping/bending the space around the ship. It elongates it behind, and shortens it in front. So the ship itself isn't moving by normal standards, only the space is warping in a bubble around the ship, hence why things are normal on board.

The iron takes 30 seconds to warm up to max anyway and the toaster has a separate frozen setting. Warp drive creates a "warp bubble" that prevents time dilation and allows faster-than-light travel, the ship certainly moves through space.

[Chilly McFreeze]

Originally Posted by MSD

The iron takes 30 seconds to warm up to max anyway and the toaster has a separate frozen setting. Warp drive creates a "warp bubble" that prevents time dilation and allows faster-than-light travel, the ship certainly moves through space.

That explains Star Trek, but Star Wars uses Hyperspace rather than Warp drive to explain it's faster than light travel. In the Star Wars canon it's more a case of navigating a number of known safe paths through an alternate dimension or something similar. Apparently that's how they can justify the 'doing the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs' line when a parsec is a measurement of distance, not time - the Millenium Falcon can use routes that other ships can't, and as such could navigate the Kessel run (which might be half a galaxy in real terms) in less than 12 parsecs of Hyperspace. I'm not convinced it wasn't a genuine goof, but hell it works, even if they did add that retrospectively.

That's a pretty common way of achieving faster than light speed in Science Fiction - very similar to the Immaterium (or Warp, not to be confused with Star Trek's Warp speed) in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

[Xerxys]

What food is naturally colored blue?

[Jetée]

What products from the living body has DNA in it that can tell someone this ___ sample is from Molly, not Mavin?

More to the point, which traces of the body (leg hair, fingernails, earwax, saliva, snot, chapped lip peelings, dislocated eyeballs, etc.) can be used by forensic analysts to identify who is whom?

[BulletCatcher]

Why do you park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?

Why are they called buildings when they are already built?

Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?

What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way?

If an orange was another color would you still call it an orange?

If a cat always lands on it's feet and buttered bread always lands butter side down, what would happen if you strapped a piece of buttered bread to the back of a cat?

[DerekP]

Originally Posted by BulletCatcher

If a cat always lands on it's feet and buttered bread always lands butter side down, what would happen if you strapped a piece of buttered bread to the back of a cat?

You've been reading my secret plans for an antigravity device haven't you? This is the basic design of it's drive core. I knew I should've gotten in that patent application sooner.

Silly question: What exactly DOES "red" flavored soda taste like? I still can't identify it.

[Zeraph]

Originally Posted by Xerxys

What food is naturally colored blue?

blueberries

[MSD]

Originally Posted by Jetée

What products from the living body has DNA in it that can tell someone this ___ sample is from Molly, not Mavin?

More to the point, which traces of the body (leg hair, fingernails, earwax, saliva, snot, chapped lip peelings, dislocated eyeballs, etc.) can be used by forensic analysts to identify who is whom?

Anything that has cell nuclei on mitochondria in it. Since you're constantly shedding dead skin cells, that's pretty much everything.

Originally Posted by Zeraph

blueberries

If you crush them, they're purple.

[Xerxys]

^^ Anything else other than blue berries?

[Jetée]

Dewberry

[Jetée]

In the classical Greek alphabet, would Theta most likely be comparable to the Roman/English alphabet letter of "I"?

[Crack]

If you could drive a car at the speed of light and then turn on the headlights, what would happen?

[Xerxys]

We'd see the lights first before having the car hit us ... of course, or why else would we be standing in front of a car going at the speed of light?

[MSD]

Originally Posted by Crack

If you could drive a car at the speed of light and then turn on the headlights, what would happen?

As an object with mass would require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate to c, the car would have to be moving through a medium in which the speed of light is slower than the speed of light in a vacuum. Friction between this medium and the car caused by the relative velocity difference would heat it and destroy the car from the front forward and outside in. The car would therefore have to be accelerated to this arbitrarily high sub-c velocity in a vacuum prior to exceeding the speed of light..

Upon transition to a non-vacuum in which an object with mass could exceed the speed of light, you would switch the lights on and nothing would happen because your nervous system is incapable of acting quickly enough for the switch to be fully actuated before the headlights were destroyed by friction between the car and the atmosphere. The process would probably emit quite a bit of light, though.

[ShaniFaye]

Originally Posted by MSD

Bleach breaks up oils and denatures certain proteins on your skin, leaving a porous, dry surface where bits of bleach stick around. Rinse them with white vinegar then rinse with water. The acetic acid reacts with the remaining hypochlorite ions, leaving a water soluble residue that rinses off. Any vinegar smell will wash off with soap.

Lemon juice also works, I've never had it fail in getting the smell of anything off my hands

[Zeraph]

Originally Posted by Xerxys

^^ Anything else other than blue berries?

crabs, flowers, snakes, birds, eyes, etc. There's quite a bit.

MG depends on how you want to define blue food, by common agreement blueberries are certainly blue. But if I squish a turkey its a bloody red but its feathers are brown and its meat is white ish. So what color is food that is a turkey?

[Xerxys]

Zeraph, I mean like vegetables or fruits. Besides dewbwerry and blueberry. Redmeat is originally colored silver, white meatis originally colored white, regardless of what color the animal it came from.

Let's say you have that machine that can see into the future like in that movie Ben Afleck was in. Now, I have no preference whatsoever when it comes to M&M's. So, you use the machine to check what color M&M I will choose 30 minutes from now. Isn't it possible that I can, simply by will, make sure that if you use the machine every 5 minutes for the next 25 minutes, influence the color of M&M I choose and give you 5 different outcomes?

[Zeraph]

I have no idea what you're asking Xer...

Why is the word 'tits' considered a bad word when its always used in a complimentary (if crude) way?

[Xerxys]

Tits, sounds like tittys and by extension any word that sounds naughty is frowned upon by society. Like niggardly.

What I am asking is ... geez, I think it was quite simply explained. I'll try again though.

I have an x number of choices. - In this case all the colors M&M's have to offer.
You have a machine that will predict which color M&M I will pick in the next half hour.
You use said machine 5 times for the next 30 minutes but inform me before you do so.

Can I make sure you get 5 different outcomes? I mean, I really don't care about the color of M&M I choose because they all taste the same to me so it will be up to me to make up my mind what color I choose.

[Spiritsoar]

Xerxys, I think I understand your question, even though I don't remember the movie youre talking about. It seems reasonable that you could affect the outcome by will, because the future is malleable.

My question is, why is cunt so much more offensive than any other word to so many females?

[wooÐs]

What's the longest someone held their tongue to a 9 volt battery?

[Grancey]

I heard today that New Yorkers do not put mustard on their hamburgers??!!?? What the fuck????? I wouldn't eat a burger without mustard. It's the American way people. And if you don't put mustard on burgers, then why the hell is it sitting on your pantry shelf??

[Zeraph]

Originally Posted by Xerxys

Tits, sounds like tittys and by extension any word that sounds naughty is frowned upon by society. Like niggardly.

What I am asking is ... geez, I think it was quite simply explained. I'll try again though.

I have an x number of choices. - In this case all the colors M&M's have to offer.
You have a machine that will predict which color M&M I will pick in the next half hour.
You use said machine 5 times for the next 30 minutes but inform me before you do so.

Can I make sure you get 5 different outcomes? I mean, I really don't care about the color of M&M I choose because they all taste the same to me so it will be up to me to make up my mind what color I choose.

That's what I don't get...machines like that don't exist so how can anyone answer that? It's just a complicated way to ask about free will...try the philosophy forum if you'd like.

[MSD]

Originally Posted by wooÐs

What's the longest someone held their tongue to a 9 volt battery?

Until it got hot and I thought I was at risk of burning myself. I could kind of taste for the next week or so.

Originally Posted by Grancey

I heard today that New Yorkers do not put mustard on their hamburgers??!!?? What the fuck????? I wouldn't eat a burger without mustard. It's the American way people. And if you don't put mustard on burgers, then why the hell is it sitting on your pantry shelf??

I could take it or leave it. It's there for hot dogs and any sandwich made of cold cuts except roast beef. That gets either mayo or horseradish. Turkey can also get mayo.

[Xerxys]

I saw an overhead(aerial) photo of a rescue helicopter in action over the sea. The picture was such high density that the helicopter literally looked frozen in mid air with no blurrs from it's rotors. So my question is, how fast do helicopter rotors spin and what are the chances of shooting a bullet through one of them?