Useless Facts

In 2006 the Lupus Foundation gave an award to the TV show 'House' for all their efforts to spread awareness of the disease, in spite of the fact that to that point the show had yet to correctly diagnose a case of Lupus.

 

Only if they only procreated late in that long life.

Most people parent the next generation when they're in their thirties (women over 30 get referred to as geriatric mothers for a reason), so you get three-and-a-bit generations every century. e.g., my father was born 1918, his great-granddaughter will be 6 in 2018. Or, if you're a serial teenage mother, about 7 generations per century.

Incidentally, it appears that old fathers are more likely to pass on genetic mutations to their children (who'd 'a thought it!) so, over a couple of centuries, you could easily build up enough mutations (virtually all mutations are malign, leading to miscarriage and disability) to wipe the line out.

 

Except for that one time it was lupus.

 

What's in a name, eh?

Well the main character of PKD's Valis is called Horselover Fat, and it's enough to put me off trying the book.

 

That's where that came from? Horselover Fat was the handle of the owner of the long-defunct Dysfunctional Family Circus site.

 

I'm guessing so. Never heard of that site but it's too much of a coincidence int it?

 

Supposedly, Mark Twain at some point lived next door to Harriet Beecher Stowe.

 

Apparently in a forum I'm on, if someone drops sarcastic commentary and jokes in the Serious Discussion thread regarding Trump, they get off easy. If I do it, I get my posts deleted and am slapped with warnings.

To re-iterate: they can make passive-aggressive comments to a Trump-supporting poster and that's fine. When I do it, I get into trouble and they're all, "OH HELL NO, BITCH!"

 

Can anyone shed any light on a little mystery?

While in town today I called at a Chinese supermarket to buy some shumai (steam pork dumplings), and while browsing the shelves for other goodies came across a small section which had all sorts of east Asian dollar bills, bundled into thick wads, being sold at 50p a bundle.

I wondered if it was play money for kids - not being familiar with east Asian money - but there were no other toys to suggest this and in any case the bills looked too authentic for play money.

It was very bizarre

 

It's probably "ghost money" or joss paper that's meant to be burned to provide funds for dead relatives in the afterlife. Not real money, but it looks similar.

Side note, about fifteen or so years ago, China changed its paper currency. A farmer who didn't trust banks changed over his old cash to the new stuff and put it in his mattress or whatever. His wife found it, mistook it for ghost money, and burned the family's savings in the graveyard.

FML?

 

That sucks.

 

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4th, 1826, exactly 50 years after signing the Declaration of Independence. Adams last words were something along the lines of "Thomas Jefferson survives" but Jefferson had died 5 hours before him.

 

Isn't Trump a big enough joke all on his own?

 

True, I just found it hilarious how if I made jokes like, say, enslaving Trump supporters, I get bitched out and have my posts deleted; yet other posts making passive-aggressive comments toward Trump supporters stay.

 

Redneck?!
Hey! I resemble that remark!

 

Some sources identify Barabbas as a revolutionary, so well might have been on the list for crucifixion and may have been one of the men crucified beside Jesus of Nazareth. Seems the only documented reference of the "traditional" release of a prisoner during Passover or any other time is in the Christian Gospels. Some older texts even give him the first name, Jesus.

 

Aah! Thanks, Iain. It's been bugging me all day.

 

Well that line of speculation has been quite thoroughly ... Jossed

 

And some sources suggest that Abbas was a Hebrew word meaning father, and was one which Jesus was particularly fond of using when referring to his heavenly father. Bar is a Hebrew word meaning son of (e.g. David Ben-Gurion).

Thus Bar-Abbas means Son of The heavenly father = Jesus Christ.

 

So if Jesus (of Nazareth) was the Son of God, and Bar-Abbas was the Son of the Heavenly Father... Does this mean the trial &c was an early version of the Schrödinger's cat experiment? He was both released and crucified, up until the moment when they rolled away the stone and found....

Saturday was International Blasphemy Day, I should probably back down a bit.

 

No matter which direction time flows, it will always be forward.
Kinda crazy if it runs backwards, it would still be forward for us.

So does this nullify the concept of time travel?
I am not sure. Maybe not, at least not going to
a point that has already happened. But how can
you go to a point that theoretically (and technically)
does not yet exist?

Unless you are really dimension hopping, instead of
actually moving through time. Simply moving to one
of the other 'Earths' in the multiverse. Which means
you could potentially keep hopping dimensions for
just about an infinite, and meet yourself in just as many
incarnations. With no repercussions to worry about with
the paradox of it all. So you could change the past, but
it would not affect your original position of origin.
Although you might screw up a whole new one.

 

What do we want? TIME TRAVEL. When do we want it? That's kind of irrelevant.

 

The average person eats 8 spiders in their sleep throughout their life. (Sorry if someone else already said this one, I didn't read through all sixty nine pages of this thread)

 

Vinegar dissolves pearls.

 

That's why Claudius dissolved the poisoned pearl in the glass of wine in Hamlet.