AAA (Ask Anyone Anything).

[Whateverfuckingnext]

Not sure if this has been done before (or done to death even), so apologies if so!

A thread to ask those burning questions and mundane ponderings. Anyone can ask or answer anything. Please no making things up though as that will spoil the fun!

I'll go first... Vegans. I completely understand the ethics of not eating and using animal produce that results in the harm or death of animals. I understand in particular the cruelty of the dairy industry. However, I am genuinely curious as to what the ethical issue is with free range eggs. For example, if someone raised hen's as pets, on their land, fed them good food etc. Then surely the unfertilised eggs laid are nothing more than a waste product and there is no cruelty involved? (I am genuinely curious and not trying to be inflammatory. I know Google exists but first hand experience and accounts are much more interesting).

Thank you and feel free to add your own!

Mine don't, that I've noticed, but there's some links in here which may be helpful with this question

www.fluther.com/194854/do-house-flies-fly-in-a-certain-pattern/

Perhaps this one explains why flies do not seem to notice an open window and often frustrate themselves trying to escape!

Perhaps this one explains why flies do not seem to notice an open window and often frustrate themselves trying to escape!

Digressing a bit, recent episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage had experts on bees and wasps. Apparently the former are a bit rubbish at escaping from windows but the latter can do it, which may be useful to know if you've got one you want to evict from your house.

I am going to be a CF and another question unrelated to my first.

Why don't we see cross-bred birds ( eg a seagull- raven mixed breed ) ?

That's interesting, I wonder why that is?

They're probably as genetically different as a mouse and a bear.

There can be crosses between closely enough related birds - I don't know if this ever happens in the wild but at a WWT reserve I saw some eider-goosander crosses. I don't know if they were fertile, crosses such as mules are sterile.

(A bird with the intelligence of a raven and the attitude of a seagull would be terrifying. They wouldn't just steal your chips, they'd organise a heist on the chippy)

Depends where you go for your gulls. The ones here in St. Ives seem to pretty much think they're the mafia! It gets pretty terrifying here in peak season!

Lou cee ah

🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Stand up / warm

Oh ha ha!

Is the woman a lesbian @Flossflower ?

In English, phonetically speaking I think it would be Loo - See - ah.

If a c is next to an i, e or y in English then it's the soft c sound (think cycle, circus, centre)

But this doesn't account for the fact it may not be an English name originally so may have it's own derivative rules.

After all the 'do you have an inner monologue?' conversations on here in recent years, I'm curious to know how the experience of people who were born deaf differs from hearing people in that context.

Do people born deaf have a similar percentage split in how many have a constant inner monologue and how many don't?

If hearing people say they can 'hear' their inner voice, what does the inner monologue of a deaf person consist of?

I don’t understand why this is a “ha ha”: I love meat, I eat lots of it and I don’t believe that animals have rights. I believe domestic animals exist for human consumption and entertainment. I do find it a little strange to hear vegetarians say they don’t eat meat because they believe animals do have rights and don’t believe that animals should be killed to appease human wants - because then surely you wouldn’t choose to keep a pet which is the absolute in human want and entertainment and requires animals to be killed so that you can feed that unnecessary pet.

You know when you’re adding things up on paper and one column adds up to more than a one digit number, i.e. 10 or more, you add the extra digit to the next column? Well, that’s our standard base, base 10. (A less abstract example: Hours, minutes and seconds are base 60; 60 secs in a min, 60 mins in an hour. Doesn’t work past an hour, though).

Binary is base 2. So 1 is 1, but 2 is 10, 3 is 11, 4 is 100, 5 is 101, 6 is 110 - and so on. Complete pain for a human being but very easy for a computer to process. Barcodes are just great long binary numbers.

I see some interesting looking variations of colour and shape among the pigeons in my DM’s garden, which would indicate that white doves, urban pigeons and the supposedly ‘homing’ ones kept as pets are pretty much the same species.

I have also wondered about genetic mixing in the wild rabbit population when I hear about local pet rabbits escaping their gardens then returning a few days later.

Yes, those are (I think) just mixes of wild, domesticated and then feral varieties of the same basic species. Rock doves were domesticated to create white doves, racing pigeons etc and then their feral descendants became common 'pigeons'.
There may be other distinct species in your DMs garden too - I only get woodpigeons and collard doves in mine.

Similar with ducks - lots of domesticated variants of mallards including white ducks, and then feral descendants of these.

@anunlikelyseahorse
Really interesting, thank you!

@maxelly that makes a lot of sense! I had always called anyone who didn't eat animal products a vegan, with some of those people not doing it for animal welfare but like you said for environmental or other reasons.

What’s to stop me deciding I’m a family travel vlogger and business expensing my way all over the world?

You can tell when you flip one over. White with black stripes.

My picture by the way. Copyright. Do not swallow.

How does your bladder work? I can sleep all night and be desperate to have a wee when I wake up, then an hour later have a very full bladder again but not have eaten/drunk anything in the meantime. I don’t seem to fill my bladder again so quickly in the same way through the rest of the day.

I promise I’m not a pee troll, as I appear to have killed the thread 😳