I have to give them credit, they actually consulted a real expert whilst they were drunk. Most people don’t, not even sober
To be fair, “do hummingbirds have feet” seems eminently wikipediable. I’d like to think that if I ever felt the need to drunk-dial an expert, it’d be for something less trivial.
seems eminently wikipediable
Telephones existed for a century before wikkipedia…
In the before times: The guinness book of records started as a promo by the guinness brewery given to pub owners to settle bar argumnets like this one.
TIL: Guinness Book of World Records origin story is the same as a D&D campaign: started in a tavern.
All great things start in a bar. Or coffee shop. Or in the shower. Or in a dream. But never in a meeting.
isnt a a bar evening just an optional meeting with no agenda and alcohol?
I mean… You could try a tea shop! Usually have good pastries too
Hey my local bar sells doughnuts!
Not even 20 years ago smart phones and the internet weren’t ubiquitous. I’m only 35 but even I remember personal stories about bar disagreements where we just simply couldn’t use our phones to search the net. Because all they were capable of is dialing a number and Snake.
Way back in the 1950s some guy had the same observation you did. He came up with an idea for a book that would solve disputes over trivia by bar patrons. 70 years later the Guinness Book of World Records has over 22,000 entries in their database.
began as an idea conceived by British engineer and industrialist Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of the Guinness Brewery, to solve trivia questions among bar patrons. During the early 1950s Beaver was involved in a dispute during a shooting party about the fastest game bird in Europe; however, the answer could not be found in any bird reference book.
Wow. That guy sure was serious about bird trivia!
When we kids there would always be someone who would rush home to look stuff up on the encyclopedia and get back with the results
I read that as “capable of dialing Snake”…
Snake? Snake! SNAAAAAKE! DO HUMMINGBIRDS HAVE FEET?
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But they don’t just want the answer, they want to share an experience with the people they’re with in a clever and fun way.
There’s nothing trivial about bar room disagreements. People die over those. That professor just saved someone’s life.
To be fair, there’s no time period listed on when the event described allegedly occurred and Wikipedia hasn’t always existed.
You’re that guy who posts lmgtfy links anytime someone asks for an opinion on something, aren’t you?
There is an episode of HIMYM where they are in a similar situation. Before the smart phones they would argue over some things for days, now they just check it in 10 seconds. No fun.
I once consulted my aunt (PHD English professor) for a small stakes bet ($5) because a friend and I were discussing whether or not letters have any fundamental rules on how they are written.
Turns out, no, they don’t. I.E. if I write: Hello there, ¥
¶®×°∆| Kenobi. As long as "¥¶®×°∆|" is understood as “General” than according to (american) English it is written “correctly”. There’s no edict that states a " T" must be written in that shape, therefore, any symbol that’s understood intent wise is correct.I lost that bet, cause WTF, how is that acceptable??
When I was little, my mom dropped me and her friends kid off at a church for arts and crafts, I was 5. We we given toilet paper rolls, pipe cleaner, glue, and some other stuff to make butterflies. I studiously started making mine, I got the wings, the antenna and asked what I was supposed to use for the legs. A full grown ass women look me right in the eye and said “Butterflies don’t have legs”.
I had seen butterflies land on flowers and latch on with legs, I was so confused how an adult wouldn’t know that.
I remember asking my teacher why you could see the moon during the day and my teacher told me you couldn’t.
This too left me very confused, because I had seen the moon that very morning from the school yard.
Last year my daughter told me her grade 4 teacher had told the class “Well nobody really knows how magnets work” to which my science-obsessed daughter replied “You mean you don’t really know how magnets work!”
I confirmed to her that yes, our understanding of magnetism is about as complete as it can get. Of all the mysteries the universe has to offer, magnetism is not one of them.
4th grade seems to be about the right maturity level to become a huge ICP fan, so it checks out.
It’s just that magnetism is really complicated the deeper you go, and there’s nothing else to compare it to.
I don’t wanna talk to no scientists
Fun fact: next time you see the moon in the day, study the angle of the sunlight hitting it — it doesn’t appear to line up with the sun. This is a perspective trick based on the fact the sun is way further away than the moon yet we perceive them the same distance. And no I cannot intuitively grasp this.
It has to do with apparent size of the sun and moon. The sun is 400 times wider than the moon and coincidentally 400 times further away, so they look the same size. With no other reference points as to how big each object is, we perceive them to be the same distance.
That bit I can at least fully comprehend. It’s the sunlight angle thing I can’t wrap my head around.
You want to know about space, you ask NASA
Stupid/inconstant adults stick in your mind. I’m lucky to have mostly had good teachers, just one teaching vowels one week taught us a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y
Then the next week tested our learning, and marked my answer “a, e, i, o, u, sometimes y” wrong because it’s only aeiou. Sure teacher. No vowels at all in by, but the same sound at the beginning of bicycle has one.
I think they must have been reading from a book when teaching, but working from their own ideas for the test
I’m curious how that person thought that butterflies rested… Or did they just continually flap their tiny little wings until they died?
But, I mean, you were at a church…
When Jim Morrison wrote People Are Strange, he actually meant People Are Stupid.
If birbs aren’t real, how come their feet are?
/s
This is what smartphones have taken from us.
#BirdsArentReal
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Did you get into a debate about wether jackdaws were crows, then put on Groucho glasses and defend your own point?
I’m lurking through posts trying to distract myself because I’m in an overwhelming amount of pain, and this comment of yours just made me actually laugh out loud a bit. Thank you for that! Especially the ‘putting on Groucho Marx glasses to defend your own point pretending to be someone else’ part. That whole situation, and the way you just described it as if it were happening in a bar instead of on a forum, just amuses me way too much. Also, I just accidentally typed “anuses” instead of “amuses,” which also amused me way too much…
Anyway the point of my rambling is you’re fucking funny and I appreciate you, dammit.
when worlds collide
