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What Common, Everyday Occurrence Do You Find Strange?

OK, so my sense of normality is a bit warped.

mejane said:
And why does nobody (especially me) know when to use "their", "there" or "they're"?
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Their = belonging to them
There = a place
They're = they are

Simple, really.

FraterLibre said:
As to why many are compelled to answer the telephone no matter what, it could be curiosity. If they didn't answer, they'd nag themselves wondering who it might have been.

Also, since answering machines, it's not as urgent in my household. We'll either get it or not.
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Ah, the joys of an answering machine. It's like the little lookie-hole in doors - lets you decide whether you're in or not. Quite often, I'm not.:D
 
I think one of the reasons people answer the phone is it could be something important. Like a message somebody has died or such. Now how many people do you know though, who have recieved any big important messages over the phones. That you've gotten a job is probably the biggest. So it does seem stupid.
 
A Look Back

Xanatic - You've hit on something there. The urgency could be a hold-over from the days when there was perhaps one telephone in each small town, and it was used most often to deliver urgent news.
 
beakboo said:
Clocks are the devil's work, ticking away the seconds of your mortal life. i won't have one in the house.
sorry no capitals, i have one arm trapped under a cat. :(
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Alarm clocks - Does anyone wake up 'Naturally' in order to get ot work on time??? Snooze buttons are even wierder, you just drift back off nicely, & it's off again!
 
I almost always wake up 1-5 minutes before my alarm goes off, no matter when it is set to. Of course, I invariably end up falling back asleep only to be woken up by the alarm a couple minutes later...
 
4imix said:
Alarm clocks - Does anyone wake up 'Naturally' in order to get ot work on time???
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Well, yes, I do. Does that make me weird? (no, it's my personality that makes me weird)
 
Maybe its me thats weird. i have to set the alarm for 7, snooze it till 8, to get to work for 9! I 'Naturally' wake up around 9.30 :eek:
 
Iron ships, they are just wrong. Wood floats, so making wood boats is better. But it can't be that you can just bend ,etal in a certain way and make it float. Like with something like a hangarship that weighs hundreds of tons. I know the physics behind it all, but it just seems counter-intuitive. I don't have the same thing with airplanes though.
 
I Wake Up When I'm Done Sleeping

Anyone here ever read Longitude, or watch the TV series about it? Without clocks, no navigation.

Eek.
 
I've never understood gambling. Why would anyone want to do that? It's like burning money. And if they're that good at maths that they can work out the odds, why aren't they doing something usefull with their brain?
 
Xanatic said:
I don't have the same thing with airplanes though.
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Tonnes and tonnes of aeroplane whizzing through the sky isn't counter-intuitive??? Why did it take so long to build one that worked? Although, actually, when you think about Bernoulli's (sp?) Principle and suchlike, it should've been bloody obvious yonks ago.
I like gambling, but I can't count for, um, stuff. I go for the horse with the best name. I win sometimes, too. Not often, but enough to keep it fun.
 
I'm with beakboo on that one. Watching people gamble makes me sick.
 
Well, it's sheer gullibility, I think. You put in a little bit of money, and hope like hell that a lot of money comes out the other side. I prefer gambling with my life, to be honest (anyone who has flown with me can vouch for that). It didn't cost me anything, and if I lose, then I'm not going to feel bad about it for very long, am I?
I'm not entirely sure what, exactly, I win, though...
 
Someone I love gave me a clock for ?mas, it had cute kittens on it:cross eye . Quite a dilemma. But in the end it's gone the way of all clocks - to the charity shop. I'm going to tell them it broke, and then at a later date, let it be subtly known that I hate clocks.
Love is one thing, clocks are quite another.
SMASH THE CLOCKS!
 
Tick Tock

garrick - Far worse. I AM a clock...on my mother's side. Dad was a chronometer.
 
Oh my, good thing I'm not wearing a wrist watch :)

I know planes should seem weirder, but they just don't. And I think Bernoullis principle is actually not that important in flight as most think.
 
Chronically Late, Are You?

Ah yes, smashing all the clocks brings up the short story, "Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman," by Harlan Ellison. You clock-bashers would LOVE it.
 
Pendulum humor? Egad

My Grandfather could go either way. He was a real swinger.

23-Skidoo, eh?
 
Xanatic said:
Oh my, good thing I'm not wearing a wrist watch :)

I know planes should seem weirder, but they just don't. And I think Bernoullis principle is actually not that important in flight as most think.
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EH?!? The thing that makes aeroplanes go up instead of zooming along the ground, lopping of pedestrians at the knees, isn't important?!? But but but...the only other ways to fly are rocketry and flapping! Floating doesn't count.
 
This is getting so silly I'm sad to go home, but it is about ti... Ahem. Anyway, kill the white rabbit!
 
Clocks are part of civilization. The bigger the city, the higher the proportion of its inhabitants have watches. Think on't.

BTW, IJ, how then do you explain how planes fly upside down?
If the Bernouilli thing was all there is to flying, an upside down plane wouldn't be much better than the proverbial lead balloon.
 
Jellybeans, I say

About Time: Jellybeans.

Also, planes don't fly upside down. Only a rare few are designed as lifting bodies that can work both ways, depending on how the control surfaces are arranged by on board computers.

Stop being silly about Bernoulli's principle.
 
garrick92 said:
Also, the more likely that any given inhabitant will be murdered, run over, robbed, die of a heart attack, or commit suicide while suffering from depression. Think on that.
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I do. Never denied it.
 
rynner said:
BTW, IJ, how then do you explain how planes fly upside down?
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With great difficulty, a talented pilot and a high turn over in sickbags.
 
He Flips (And No Pancakes To Be Seen)

Is that an apple turnover?
 
Re: Jellybeans, I say

FraterLibre said:
About Time: Jellybeans.

Also, planes don't fly upside down. Only a rare few are designed as lifting bodies that can work both ways, depending on how the control surfaces are arranged by on board computers.

Stop being silly about Bernoulli's principle.
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Theres been a lot of argument about Bernoulli, because it doesn't explain upside down, it even has difficulty explaining how the bees hack it (Yeah, I know - micro turbulence but Bernoulli doesn't explain that either). You dont have to have specially designed wings to do downside up - a glider can invert and that definitely ain't designed to do so. I wouldn't do it in a 747 but that is because the main spar couldn't take the loading in that direction for too long and the fuel feed to the nacelles would cause problems. The big problem with inverted flight is not Bernoulli, its getting fuel to the engines. Do a google, the academic venom was fun to see last time i looked :)
 
Another Futile Attempt

When an ordinary wing is upside down, it is pulled downward. Planes that roll and level out upside down contintue to "fly" but gravity and "lift" combine downward on them. Essentially they're falling. If you're "flying" upside down and push the stick forward to "dive" upward, the plane stalls and tumbles. This isn't controlled flight.

An F-16 is a lifting-body shape and there are control surfaces all over it that subtly alter its shape to allow it to do many things ordinary aircraft cannot. Further, the F-16 is unstable and not airworthy without continual adjustments being made by onboard computers acting off sensors. A pilot doesn't really fly an F-16, but instead gives suggestions to a computer, which then figures out how best to comply within certain parameters.

High performance jets thus have more in common with the bumblebee, and both fly quite well despite it being impossible.

Bernoulli's Principle is involved in all this, and one can't fault him that his times weren't advanced enough to get into the details of things.
 
I'd like to see anyone invent a plane that could flap its wings like a bee! Now butterflies; they really do have bugger all to do with Mr. B, so what's going on there?
Anyway, I've made gliders do loads of things that they aren't meant to... some of them while I was in the air, too.
(Great thing in my early days, hearing the screams from the back seat...)
 
IJ you really ought to explain that it is usually the instructor in the back seat!

BTW I was watching a butterfly once being chased by a sparrow. The bird made 5 or 6 passes but could not get it's beak on the insect - fascinating!

Frater, note I am not arguing that Bernoulli is wrong, merely saying there is more argument about it than you are apparently aware of. That line you gave about invert flying being controlled falling sounds good until you realise that is all any flying is. The important word is control.
 
Falling Up And All That

Perhaps so, but if it's all controlled falling, how would any plane ever take off?
 
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