On a drive when I was ten, I asked my dad why the tall, skeletal towers had blinking lights. He said so planes wouldn’t crash into them. So I asked what the towers were for, and he said to hold up the lights.
That fucked with me for like ten more years.
The second half of this experiment is far less wholesome:
To verify their findings, these scientists reran the experiment by cutting off ants’ legs at the knees. Those ants consistently undershot their targets, showing definitively that ants do actually count their steps.
So yay, verified results via torture!
I was being mostly facetious (I’m not originally from either place, but I lived in Florida for a while and live in Michigan now).
You’re right, and I don’t disagree with you at all. Yes, we’ve had an emotional need for stories – more for connection with one another than for individual understanding, which cultural stories provide.
I’m saying there’s a difference between cultural stories and organised religion. The former is benign and can translate our questions into a semblance of meaning, and the latter which becomes dictatorial dogma that amplifies the worst of us, turning our basest instincts into abhorrent action.
I don’t think we disagree that much, you and I. I used to think organised religion wasn’t something I could get behind, but I thought to each their own.
The more I learned about it and the more I saw the bad influence it did to people I loved, the more I realised it’s nothing but a terrible influence in the world, holding us back as a people, and causing needless suffering and death.
I’m a user experience designer. My favourite story is from aviation engineering. I don’t remember the year or all the details, but the US Navy had put stupid amounts of money and time into engineering a new fighter jet. It was worked out on paper and built to exact specifications. Then, during the first human test of it, the pilot ejected on the tarmac before it took off. The plane crashed, obviously, but the pilot couldn’t explain what happened (apparently he had a concussion from his unscheduled landing).
The plane was built again, and shortly after takeoff, the pilot again ejected without explanation.
What the fuck was going on?
In the retelling I heard, someone finally noticed the design of the cockpit was to blame. In trying to cram all the standard controls plus new ones into the smallest amount of space, the designers had moved the eject lever right next to the lever to adjust the seat position – they’d coloured the eject lever red, but the pilot couldn’t see that since it was below and slightly to the right of his ass, and both levers were the same size and shape. Nobody noticed this was a problem until at least two pilots accidentally ejected on takeoff.
This might be apocryphal, I don’t know, but I learnt it as an example of how things might look good on paper, but you can’t really know until a user fucks everything up.
I assume you’ve quit your day job.
Wait. We’re unironically calling social media for women Giggle and then we’re surprised it might be sexist? April first was like a week ago…
I call shenanigans. This comment was a damp fish at best. It felt like haddock.
This bullshit has convinced non-psychotic people to commit atrocities. It’s not a leap to think it convinces actually psychotic people their delusions are true. Especially when they say so themselves.
I remember it played a nursery rhyme like a music box when both armrests were gripped.
That’s my sister and I visiting my great-grandmother in her infirmary in *1975. The chair wasn’t meant for visitors, but for children housed in the infirmary.
The chair had metal armrests that acted like actuators, and a metal box under the seat that played nursery rhyme songs like a music box when both armrests were gripped and the chair rocked.
Was this a common thing, perhaps mass-produced, or just something jerry-rigged by some guy?
Have you seen anything like this? Thanks!
(Sorry for reposting; my post went wrong last time.)
Shortly after this picture was taken, we were on a float with my mother for the bicentennial parade. She made both our outfits of a (very itchy) polyester gabardine, and she wore a dress to match.
The apples my sister is holding meant something, but I don’t remember what and now I can’t ask her. I’d be very interested if anyone knows the significance of the apples during the US bicentennial.
I was 5 and my sister was 3.
They’re both semi-feral and don’t always get along. Precious (the calico) doesn’t often have patience with her daughter, and Moppy (the big one) spooks at everything, real or imagined. I’ll never get another picture like this, so had to share.
Proof this is a Bethesda game. It feels like home.
The chicken vs egg question has never been about chronology or science.
It’s been about religion vs science.
Science says the egg came first: something nearly imperceptibly not quite a chicken laid an egg that hatched a chicken. That’s how evolution works, with the egg coming first.
Religion says a god poofed a chicken into existence. The chicken came first, and only ever laid pure chicken eggs. The eggs will forever hatch a chicken and nothing but a chicken.
That’s the chicken vs egg thing. It’s not a puzzle at all, it’s just science vs religion.
e: simplified. I’m too wordy by default.