Random Thoughts XIII - Radioenergopithecocracy

[Gori the Grey]

Do you ever wonder if we're living in the weird, alternate-history universe where something got screwed up and events unfolded in some totally bizarre way they shouldn't have?

I would say that Trump becoming president is almost certain proof that this is the case, yes.

 

[Takhisis]

There was a book I read years ago in which someone invents a device that lets them change history*. It's not exactly a time-machine, in the usual sense, because it doesn't let the character travel back through time. Rather, the invention allows them to kind of reach back through time and meddle with events, while remaining in the present. But after they mess around with history, they realize that everything is worse, and they spend the rest of the book trying to undo what they did. Of course the concept of alternate, parallel universes has really been in vogue lately (although it's not a new idea**).

Do you ever wonder if we're living in the weird, alternate-history universe where something got screwed up and events unfolded in some totally bizarre way they shouldn't have? Or maybe there was that odd, 1-in-a-million chance of something strange happening, but with a million chances, somebody had to get the 1, and it was us? Like, if you could look at the nearest 999,999 universes, you'd think 'hey, how come they all have _____, and we don't?'



* Had to look it up. It was Making History (1996), by Stephen Fry. I remember finding it so funny, I was worried people around me would think I was having some kind of fit.
** I think the first 'multiverse' movie might have been It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

So… Homer Simpson fixing his toaster?

 

[GenMarshall]

Do you ever wonder if we're living in the weird, alternate-history universe where something got screwed up and events unfolded in some totally bizarre way they shouldn't have?

There are times in the past decade or so that I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe where the point of divergence was the activation of the Hadron Collider and the death of Harambe.

 

[Kaitzilla]

There are times in the past decade or so that I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe where the point of divergence was the activation of the Hadron Collider and the death of Harambe.

Very astute!

The Large Hadron Collider was first activated September 10th, 2008.

Lehman Brother's declared bankruptcy with $600 billion in assets on September 15th, 2008 kicking off the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession that the world never really fully recovered from.

 

[Kyriakos]

Found it. It's 'The Queer Feet', it features a club named 'The Twelve True Fishermen'

Read it yesterday
The practical observation and idea was nice, but imo it was a bit too convenient that the criminal spoke of silver ^^

 

[Kyriakos]

One would suspect that, for the bot generating fifa coins (to sell to Chinese sites, making over 18 million dollars), it could have been handled in a way which wouldn't lead to charges. @Samson ? I mean the guy did use more than 10 accounts to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars daily.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Interesting tag suggestions...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

These are tags the forum suggested?

In that case, I wonder why it doesn't suggest that people make pizza the wrong way. We've had at least half a dozen threads about it over the years since I joined, and who knows how many before that.

 

[Kyriakos]

Purple-born ^^
Nothing spells civilization more than that.

 

[Farm Boy]

I do not like hay fever. I leak.

 

[r16]

am offended . Had like 5 or 6 posts in 2022 that clearly indicated that ı would not provide Fusion , yeah that Fusion , to Lockmart ... Who had announced that they would fit an F-16 with one , even if ı personally never said anything less than 20 tons , you know , truck size back in 2018 and 2023 should have been a reasonable date for release , some article ı can't read due to paywall issues says the company board cancelled the effort before 2021 . See , it is not me being an ox or something .

 

[r16]

any place where Russia remains humiliated is one where Western media is enforced as the Gospel truth .

 

[Birdjaguar]

Moderator Action: Even Random thoughts can be spam. Up your game guys.

 

[Kyriakos]

Having a memory of only a few seconds is a horror story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing
I wonder what prompted his change regarding not keeping diary notes after a time. Sad also because he was quite intelligent before the sickness which diminished him to this.

 

[Kyriakos]

A nice story, actually.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I don't suppose there's a 'Terrible News' thread? The death toll in Morocco has risen to +2000

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I don't suppose there's a 'Terrible News' thread? The death toll in Morocco has risen to +2000

You could start a news thread about Africa, if you wanted.

 

[Samson]

I don't suppose there's a 'Terrible News' thread? The death toll in Morocco has risen to +2000

I think it is worth its own thread.

 

[EgonSpengler]

There's a Verizon store somewhere in the area that must have a phone number that's off my office phone by 1 digit, because every once in a while I get a call from one of their customers. What's funny/interesting is that they almost never listen to what I say when I answer the phone. When I pick up the phone, I always give my company name, but the Verizon customers just start talking to me about their phone or their calling plan or whatever, and I have to interrupt them to tell them they've dialed the wrong number.

There's something in psychology, and I'm not sure what it's called, where people will miss something that's right in front of them because our 'field of awareness' actually begins several feet out. I've heard that retail stores will put big sales displays right in front of the entrance, knowing that a lot of people will walk right past it without even seeing it, because people's attention is already on the things that are 10 feet further away. I see it where I work: The door to the restrooms in my office building is literally 3 feet from the outer door of my office, but when I tell people they can find the restrooms by going through the red door, they walk right past it. I mean, this happens a lot. You'd think a red door would be pretty obvious, but it's practically invisible to anyone going out through that door. It's like people have take two strides before they start looking for the red door, and by then, they've passed it. It's like there's a cognitive gap there, some kind of 'blind spot' in the physical space just on the other side of the door.

So I wonder if people not hearing me say the name of the company when I answer the phone is a similar 'cognitive gap.' I wonder if I could say something totally ridiculous - "Evil Al's Torture Emporium, how can I hurt you?" - when I answer the phone and see if anybody notices.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So I wonder if people not hearing me say the name of the company when I answer the phone is a similar 'cognitive gap.' I wonder if I could say something totally ridiculous - "Evil Al's Torture Emporium, how can I hurt you?" - when I answer the phone and see if anybody notices.

As long as your boss doesn't mind...

I used to get phone calls from people looking for a plumber. The plumber in question had a number one digit off of mine, and people would not believe me when told they had a wrong number.

One person, when told how many more years I'd had my number than the plumber had had his, told me, "Well you should change your number then!"

Finally I called the plumber myself and told him that if he didn't ask his customers to be more polite when they called me by mistake, I was just going to let them think they'd dialed the correct number and I'd say rude things back. If they thought he was being rude to his own customers, too bad. This wasn't just one or two wrong numbers. It was over a dozen in a short period of time.