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!

why is there no mouse flavoured cat food?

@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!

I hit a seagull in the roar today after reading this!

I'm late 40's and have been driving for 30 years, and have never hit a bird, ever! 😅

@OnSecondThoughts

Why does the washing machine make me wait about 3 minutes after it's stopped before letting me open the door? Surely 20 seconds would do?

My lovey machine doesn't. It's instant unlock. Best Buy ever!

@Roseinbloom20

I enjoy watching "period" shows like Outlander and The Tudors etc. and all I can think of is people must have absolutely stunk back then, everyone and everywhere you went it wound probably have just smelt like death.

I know the tv shows are dramatisations but they'll show people riding on a horse for days or weeks, wearing the same clothes and no toilets/showers/toothbrush and then a couple will kiss or have sex in a field and all I think is omg neither of you have washed in days! Imagine a time before toothpaste or deodorant or access to indoor plumbing or sanitary products! I know I'm some parts of the world they don't have these things but I just imagine walking around Tudor London and heaving from the smell

That's where the wedding bouquet came from: had to mask the smell!

[quote RedLemon]@ImInACage I wonder this too!! Also, who first came up with glass? Like, melted sand and stuff WTAF?[/quote]
Have you never seen Sweet Home Alabama - when lightening hits sand it produces glass.

@WildWestWanda

When you go through a drive through McDonald’s, and a couple of lanes filter into one. How do they know if they’re giving the food the right vehicle

Next time you go, and you've placed your order, look up straight ahead before you drive off. You'll see a cream/grey pole with 2 cameras. One facing your car and the other facing the payment window.

They get the car married up with the order, all high tech stuff! But works really well.

You'll always feel 'watched' now!

When you are driving behind a lorry or trailer carrying hay bales and it’s all blowing off is there ever none left when it gets to the destination?

Not as interesting as most of the pps but I spend a lot of time wondering what it’s like to be celebrities/wondering where certain very famous people are, what they had for breakfast, what they’re really like, how weird it must be

Another astronomy one. As all the stars in the sky are so far away, could they have all gone out ages ago but we just wouldn't know yet?

Whelp!

@BambooWhoosh, there's a chance some of them have, as light takes so long to cross the universe, but hopefully they all haven't!

Why is it spelled 'England' but pronounced 'Ingland'?

@mineofuselessinformation Thanks. I find it really strange that looking at the stars they might not be there any more but I'm looking at an historical event iyswim.

@BambooWhoosh yes, but then again, I've often wondered if we're all a higher being's experiment!

@Lovetoridemybicycle

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

Before the pandemic I attended a lecture by Jim Al-Khalili, and someone asked this in the Q&A at the end.

He explained the answer by asking us to think of the universe as the surface of a bubble, rather than the air inside the bubble. As the bubble expands, its surface expands, but it's not expanding into anything, if you see what I mean. Except he explained it better.

@mineofuselessinformation Urgh it messes with my brain. Too spooky by far

My first one is the fact that the atoms we are made of are 99.9% empty space. The rest of it is just forces, and that's the "contact" you feel when you touch something.

My second one is the vertiginous idea of being in space (which we are, if you think about it) and when you look "down" (not towards the centre of the Earth, but out) the nothing "below" you goes on for ever.

Basically, thinking about things on a much smaller scale or much larger scale than our everyday human experience.

What is phlegm made of?
Sorry to lower the tone...

Who decided that whale vomit should be in perfume or monkey shit should be in coffee? It's not like they are normal things one would choose to experiment with.

[quote BambooWhoosh]**@mineofuselessinformation Thanks. I find it really strange that looking at the stars they might not be there any more but I'm looking at an historical event iyswim.[/quote]
Is it any more weird than seeing somebody kick a football on the other side of the field, and hearing the impact a second later?

What is phlegm made of?
Sorry to lower the tone...

Cockles.

@BorderlineHappy

Your boys have half of your DNA and all of your mitochondrial DNA, it's only the nDNA that won't pass on, but the chances are that it will be in another relative, so in my case my cousins and one cousin's daughter.

But there will be other relatives eg my maternal grandmother was one of 6 children, only 1 was a boy so their mother's (my great grand mother) mDNA is in my second cousins and their children.

@CatsArePeople

why is there no mouse flavoured cat food?

Love this!!!!!!!

@CatsArePeople @TeddingtonTrashbag

Cat food isn't 'x flavour', it IS 'x'!

Humans harvest fish, cows, sheep, pigs etc but we don't harvest mice, so it'd be hard to get them in the tin!

[quote mineofuselessinformation]@BambooWhoosh, there's a chance some of them have, as light takes so long to cross the universe, but hopefully they all haven't![/quote]
You should read "The Nine Billion Names Of God" by Arthur C. Clarke en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God#:~:text=%22%20The%20Nine%20Billion%20Names%20of%20God%20%22,published%20before%20the%20creation%20of%20the%20Nebula%20Awards.