Persistent, Niggling Questions

[Nate the Great]

The other day I found myself (as is my wont) debating the number of truly pointless questions I keep asking myself from day to day. Questions where having the answers would serve no possible useful purpose, I just "want to know." This thread is just to serve the standard of catharsis. We can all post these issues that bother us, then proceed not to answer them. Maybe it'll even bring us closer together as we found out that we're not the only person to ever wonder about these things.

How come the countries of the world didn't agree on the right side versus left side of the road controversy years ago and just stick with one standard?

How can MMORPG's pretend to have reasonable economies when there's no standard for global resources, nor is there a poor person created for every rich person?

How come so many new shows get the short end of the stick when it comes to consistent programming, releasing new episodes at predictable intervals, getting a guarantee of thirteen episodes to give a fanbase a chance to build up, etc.?

What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about? (I really am sorry, but as a humor writer of sorts, I'm obligated to use this gag. I don't want to be kicked out of the Humorist and Parodist's Guild, do I?)

Additions?

[NAHTMMM]

I know I have some, but my mind continues to be blank on the matter . . .

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

How come the countries of the world didn't agree on the right side versus left side of the road controversy years ago and just stick with one standard?

By and large, they have. See?

[catalina_marina]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

How come the countries of the world didn't agree on the right side versus left side of the road controversy years ago and just stick with one standard?

For the same reasons we'll never all speak the same language. We'd never agree which option is the best, and changing is a bitch.

[Nate the Great]

Feel free to add your own questions.

As originally stated, I DON'T want this to devolve into a flamewar of "no, I'M right, and I'll tell you EXACTLY why!" Just get these things out, you feel better, move on.

[AKAArzosah]

Why are people always asking how much wood a woodchuck could chuck? IT'S NOT FUNNY ANYMORE PEOPLE!

How much have I really spent on eBay? (You know, the pet rock thing's not far off, I buy crystals)

Why do they call them 'lead pencils'?

How long will Nate's siggy get before Zeke puts a stop to it?

Why are trees GREEN (primarily)?

Why do I hate tomatoes but love tomato sauce?

Will Firefly ever truly be revived?





Why did the forum kick me out so I had to log in again before posting...?

[catalina_marina]

Aw, but I like trying to answer these questions.

[Nate the Great]

As for the signature, it's already at about maximum capacity (and there IS a maximum). Awhile back I tried to add a much larger scene and the forum barked at me. If I want anything else, I'll have to chuck something, probably the Bashir line.

Lead pencils used to actually have a lead mixture as the pigment. Graphite was introduced (I think, standard disclaimers apply) because graphite is less brittle and creates a better mark on paper. Plus that whole lead poisoning thing...

How many flaming insult e-mails did Apple get about that inane "do not chew iPod Shuffle" message in the official user manual?

How come Heinz or someone never said "this ketchup versus catsup thing is inane, THIS is how we're going to say it."?

[Chancellor Valium]

Why do people keep sending me junk mail? I don't want a zarking Chinese boat...

[Nate the Great]

If Spider-Man has to wear essentially elastic nylon all over his body to enable his wallcrawling powers to reach through it, how come it's not perpetually dirty? For that matter, why doesn't he just patent his webfluid formula and retire a millionaire?

(I apologize in advance) Why Daylight Saving Time? Just WHY? If the tradeoff for all that hassle is just a couple bucks, wouldn't you all be willing to pay it?

(This one occurred to me just yesterday) How do blind people know what the top or bottom of Braille letters are? Here's a diagram (since the forum can't handle spaces properly, each O is a dot and each X is a space):

OO XX
OX OO
XX OX

Same dot configuration, but different symbol. How can they tell?

[Katy Jane]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

(This one occurred to me just yesterday) How do blind people know what the top or bottom of Braille letters are? Here's a diagram (since the forum can't handle spaces properly, each O is a dot and each X is a space):

OO XX
OX OO
XX OX

Same dot configuration, but different symbol. How can they tell?

I'm guessing they would have letters before and after it to compare it too. if the top row of dots lines up with the top row of dots from the previous letter then it's the first one you show and if it doesn't then its the second one.

[Nate the Great]

Even so, it must take a long time to train your mind and fingers to detect such subtle differences and read as fast as a sighted person can. On a related note, I'm still curious about Braille letters on the buttons at a driveup ATM. Backseat banking? Probably the real answer is its easier to mass-produce ATMs if there are fewer differences between vestibule and driveup models.

How long has it been since people used brass brads (or whatever those "punch through and fold out the wings" things are) to actually hold real documents together, as opposed to using them as axles for construction paper windmills and such?

Why order meat rare? Issues of taste preference aside, don't the customers care about their health, and don't the restaurants get worried about food poisoning lawsuits?

Has anyone ever heard someone use the alternative to genericized trademarks? i.e. "I need to buy some facial tissue" as opposed to "I need to buy some Kleenix" especially when they don't intend to buy Kleenix brand?

Why do people make movies that set Shakespeare plays in later time periods, but still use the complete Shakespearean dialogue, which is archaic for the time period? There's gotta be a happy medium between authentic Shakespeare and modern vernacular, right?

How many people know that Mario the plumber was originally Jumpman the carpenter?

[Nate the Great]

I would make this one into a poll, but I've created too many threads lately. Please answer this one if you want...

What's the average number of floors that it takes before a person realizes "whoa, I'm dozens/hundreds of feet up. Yikes! What if the building tipped over?" For me it's about ten. Three or four don't scare me, but ten...

[Katy Jane]

I'd say it's about the same for me, granted i've only been up that high about twice in my life... in a bulding anyway.

[AKAArzosah]

People still BUY brass brads (or whatever) - we sell them and people buy them. Don't know what they use them for though.

And the number of floors up before I freak out, depends on the building and where I am in it. I'm fine if there's a floor below, but if I'm on a balcony or a building on stilts, then I freak. Even on the first storey. I will actually be constantly nervous - how can people handle knowing they're supported by nothing but twig thin beams?
Oh and I won't lean on glass windows. And those 'nothing but a plate of glass' balconies seem incredibly dangerous.

Why do I want more money even though I can't think of anything I want to buy?

Why the hell hasn't everyone done something about global warming and pollution yet?

Should I or shouldn't I go to University?

[Chancellor Valium]

The number of floors don't matter. It's that moment at the top of a very crumbly castle in eastern Europe, when you realise that all that's standing between you and going 'splat' is a single crenellation and a lot of air.

This is also a problem in the Whispering Gallery of St. Paul's Cathedral, and going up into the dome of St. Peter's in Rome.

[catalina_marina]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

OO XX
OX OO
XX OX

Same dot configuration, but different symbol. How can they tell?

How do you see the difference between a written l or e? They really look the same, only in a different ratio. The second symbol has twice as much vertical space between the dots as the first one does. Seems easy to me.

Now how your fingers could be trained to be so sensitive, I would not know.

[Nate the Great]

Okay, the O's are the dots. Both of the imaginary Braille letters are two dots with a third below it to the left. The difference is that the first has the triangle at the top of the grid, and the second has the triangle at the bottom of the grid. Therefore, different symbols. A blind person would have no idea which is which without knowing where the top of the line is.

I remember being VERY impressed that Matt Murdock AKA Daredevil's senses are so advanced that he can run his fingers over ordinary printed type and still read it. Think about how complex a letter is, and how hard it'd be to feel the differences in ink placement on a sheet of paper that'd still be impossibly bumpy from all the paper fibers at that resolution.

If you can't think of anything more to buy, then you're dead. There are literally millions of things you can buy. Most of them are unnecessary or unaffordable or embarrassing, but you can still think of them.

Actually, I think I've seen brass brads being used to hold the corners of small stacks of papers, just like staples, only more flexible. But not very often. Plus I'd imagine it's a bear to remove them all the time. You wouldn't just throw away a brass brad like a staple, they must cost ten times as much.

[AKAArzosah]

I can think of lots of things I could buy, just not anything I want to buy that still only costs a realistic amount of money.

[Nate the Great]

So you don't want money to magically appear because you can't think of anything to buy with it at the moment? I myself have often done cost/benefit analysis' based on the premise of "okay, if it's MY money I'd spend X for that, if my dad's buying it I'd let him if the cost was Y or lower (Y>X, of course), if it's coming from a gift certificate I'd buy it at Z (Z>Y), and so on.

The beauty of money as the basis of a bartering system is that (putting aside inflation issues), it will ALWAYS have value. One reason why I prefer gift cards to undesirable gifts OR cash, I'd feel obligated to use cash on boring stuff like food and gas.