Inconsequential things you ponder on...

[mineofuselessinformation]

The local ice cream van plays the Match of the Day theme tune (has been doing it for years, so not to do with the Euros). I still can't work out the connection.

A neighbour over the road from me has a Ring doorbell. Since it plays the intro to the Go Compare jingle, is this some surreptitious form of marketing?

Yes, I probably do have too much time on my hands!

I wish I hadn’t clicked on this thread. I’ve never thought before about lots of the things mentioned and now my brain is going round in circles……

Why (in normal times) do people schlep into the overcrowded West End of London from all parts of the country when they probably have the same shops in a local centre that's less crowded, especially at Christmas?

In fact, why does anyone go to any shops in the crowds before Christmas rather than getting everything online?!

If the universe started with a big bang, then there must have been a time before the big bang. So what was there then?

Time started with the big bang too, so there wasn't a time before.

With bread, I think someone probably made a porridge, some little cave toddler probably played with it and dropped some near the fire and it turned into a type of bread.

Or maybe someone was making a sort of pasta, left it near a fire and because there was yeast it rose.

I do find it interesting how different cultures have dealt with the same inventions, China had gun powder for ages and only made fireworks.

@suckingonchillidogs

Given the amount of birds there are, why don't you see more dead ones? And the ones you do see have usually flown into a wall - what happens to the bodies of the ones who die naturally? I know lots get eaten by other animals but you'd think there would be more birdy bodies around!

They do! In the space of 4 months I’ve had two pigeons just fall out of the sky and land in my garden (one at the front and one at the back) The back one was eaten within about an hour and a half and my partner binned the other Gave me a real fright the first time it happened

@Americam

Where do all the flies go at night or whenever they’re not buzzing around you?

How did the pyramids/cathedrals/palaces/etc get built without machinery? I can’t get my head around that when you look at the size and intricacy and beauty etc of some of those structures.

There's a brilliant series on Youtube called Secrets of the Castle. It's on the Absolute History channel. It shows a replica of a 13th Century castle being built in France, using only the methods and materials that would have been used at the time, it's really cool.

Basically, it has taken about 25 years and a lot of man power, and it's still not finished!

@suckingonchillidogs

Given the amount of birds there are, why don't you see more dead ones? And the ones you do see have usually flown into a wall - what happens to the bodies of the ones who die naturally? I know lots get eaten by other animals but you'd think there would be more birdy bodies around!

Plenty animals happy to save themselves a bit of hunting by dining on freshly fallen birds - foxes, rats, larger birds, ferrets, cats. We don't see them drop too often as they will likely take themselves off somewhere discreet where they feel safer when they don't feel well.

@OccultGnuAsWell

In a similar vein to BalloonSlayer re food and calories.

If calories are burned by the body to keep us warm would I lose weight faster by sitting in a cold room?

And would I gain more weight eating exactly the same amount of food but in a hot country?

Yes. The body has to burn calories to regulate its temperature. So, if you are in a room that matches your body's natural temperature, you will need less calories than if you are needing the internal (ie bodily) heating or air conditioning on.

It's not much though, unless you're really freezing or really boiling, so it'll never catch on as a weight loss technique. It's much easier to have one less digestive than it is to sit in the walk in freezer for a few hours.

I have reported my post for deletion as one photo is uploaded in error.

I read on fb that if you hang a bag of water and 2ps above your door the flies won't come in. Lots of people backed it up. I mean who had a few flies in their kitchen and decided to tie up a bag of water and coins up to deter them.

1. Do dogs bark in regional accents/different languages? Would a French dog understand a German dog for example. Also, other animals...

1. How do we know we see colours the same? How do I know that what I call blue isn't what you call red. We both call the grass green but maybe your green is my yellow.

1. How weird is it that the brain named itself?

Re: old trees. When Notre Dame burned down, the renovators said it would be impossible to recreate the carved interior because it was made from old growth oak trees in the 13th century and France didn't have forest like that anymore (and certainly wouldn't want to chop them all down if they did!)

Cats did domesticate themselves. They are silent 99% of the time in the wild, they only learned to vocalise because humans are more likely to feed an animal that sounds like a human baby crying.

I always wonder what people from the past, Romans, Victoria's etc. would be like. Would they help you if you ended up there? Would they beat you to death? It blows my mind that they were actual real people with thoughts and dreams.

What do.people with no sense of rhythm think all the banging about on drums is for?

@Mulletsaremisunderstood (I agree, they are!) thank you so much. I’ll watch that for sure.

TheFoundations - darn it so much for that theory

Sashh - Time started with the big bang too, so there wasn't a time before. This makes my head hurt. So there wasn't any kind of coming together of "universe stuff" (technical term) that triggered the big bang? But. . .but. . .how did it come to occur when it did and not earlier or later? Although thinking about it there couldn't be any earlier or later if there was no time. Aaaghghg I'm not clever enough for this stuff.

@TheFoundations and @OccultGnuAsWell I read an article a few years ago about life in a remote South Pole research station. They said that although food was plentiful they had all lost more than a stone because of the cold. I have tried to find it again but never could.

[quote Americam]@Mulletsaremisunderstood (I agree, they are!) thank you so much. I’ll watch that for sure.[/quote]
Be warned, you may go down a history/archeology Youtube rabbit hole with Ruth Goodman and Peter Ginn and never come back again .

Here is one I can't get my head around. You are a woman and you were born to a woman who had a daughter. Her mother (your grandmother) had a daughter too and because everyone has to have come from a mother, so on and so on back in time until the beginning of time. Now imagine that you don't have a daughter - think of that long line of women having daughters and the fact that it ends with you and you don't carry on the chain.

I find this really weird - it blows my mind that there is a chain stretching back until the first humans of a woman giving birth to a woman giving birth to a woman, until maybe it gets to you. You can also do it with men fathering boys.

This looks really odd written down I know. The way I have made it less of a head fuck is by thinking that alongside this incredibly long chain of daughters are lots of other branches of other daughters and sons that go off in different directions and also break off all the time.

It makes me wonder too, is there anything really specific in terms of how I was mothered that came from my grandmother, which in turn came from her mother and so on back into history. Probably a romanticised notion but this is what I ponder on!

@Nenanena

It's not exactly the same thing but I had a lot of trouble having my dog spayed. It wasn't just about 'I don't want my dog to have puppies', it was 'OH MY GOD I'm stopping a genetic lineage that's been going for MILLIONS OF YEARS. Who the hell do I think I am?!'

I have been guilty of terminating a little bit of evolution. It's hard to know how to feel about that, but it's not a good feeling.

I also get freaked out by being me. It was SO unlikely to happen. I could SO easily have been somebody else. Who would I have been? I would have been my brother or sister who has never actually existed. Because I won, probably very narrowly, in the sperm war. They would have a different life. And somebody unrelated altogether would live in my house, and somebody else would own my car, and somebody else would own my dog... my partner would be with somebody else... oh god, I need a drink... We are all, as individuals, terrifyingly unlikely.

Do dogs bark in regional accents/different languages? Would a French dog understand a German dog for example. Also, other animals...

My dog barks in a very distinctive Barcelona accent. He's a spaniel.

Sorry, couldn't resist

Great thread!

@ImInACage

I often wondered how the first person discovered that food tasted better cooked. Was it an accident and they dropped some food on a fire, or did they experiment? Also, who first looked at a cow's udder and thought "ooh I'd like to taste the juice that comes out of there"?

They probably didn't but its not a stretch to think if it can keep a calf (or whatever) alive, it might be worth trying.

Where do birds go to die? You don't often see dead birds. Maybe one that's met it's end at the paws of a cat. Or a pigeon hit by a car. Or a baby that's fallen from a nest. But normal just dead birds that have died of old age. Where do they go? Why don't we see them?

If the universe is constantly expanding, what is it expanding into?

@BeckyWithTheGoodHair5629456 apparently birds die somewhere they feel comfortable (aside from the ones that get eaten). A relative had a load of birds die in their garden and when they asked the RSPB because they were concerned it was something they'd done they were told that their garden was a bird haven and they were just coming to die there because they liked it.

@Lovetoridemybicycle I sometimes find myself pondering the universe, although the thought the entire universe could just end with no warning is unsettling. And the never ending journey, where if you travel to a point far enough away the rate of expansion exceeds the speed that you travel at so you can't go back to the start point or reach the destination because they are receding faster than you can travel so even if you carry on forever you will never get anywhere.

@majesticallyawkward interesting! Also just RTFT and a PP mentioned them actually dropping out of the sky. I live rurally and haven't seen this though. I'll have find something else to ponder now.