The NEVERENDING Kinda' Dumb Question Thread

[Jazzman]

The dumbest question I've ever been asked was when I went from Fl to college in Massachusetts in 1975 and more than one moron asked me if we had malls in Fl. As in "Where do you go to buy your clothes? Do you have to go to NYC?". Not that I had any designer clothes or anything; they just didn't think the south had department stores.

You think it's bad being from Florida - try being from Alabama!


But no seriously it's weird - I often berate the South for being backwards, and yet I admit I get irritated at ignorant comments like that. Go figure.

[Chet]

I'm NOT going there.

[otterpop]

If love is blind, why does Victoria's Secret sell so much lingerie?

[Zoning Goddess]

I'm NOT going there.

Of course you're going there. You're going to Texas. Where you will get more than your share of nosy questions about being from "anywhere" else. If you don't "share", the natives will be suspicious. Good luck! hehehehehe.....

[Mud Princess]

So... why is that Turkey, the country and Turkey, the bird have the same name??

Hey, this IS the dumb questions thread, right?

[btrage]

If love is blind, why does Victoria's Secret sell so much lingerie?

Because is feels so nice.

[Seabishop]

So... why is that Turkey, the country and Turkey, the bird have the same name??

Hey, this IS the dumb questions thread, right?

From Wikipedia . . .

"When Europeans first encountered turkeys in the Americas they incorrectly identified the birds as a type of guineafowl (Numididae), also known as Turkey fowl (or Turkey hen and Turkey cock) from their importation to Central Europe through Turkey, and that name, shortened to just the name of the country, stuck as the name of the bird. The confusion between these kinds of birds from related but different families is also reflected in the scientific name for the turkey genus: meleagris (μελεαγρίς) is Greek for guinea-fowl.

The names for M. gallopavo in other languages also frequently reflect its exotic origins, seen from an Old World viewpoint, and add to the confusion about where turkeys actually came from. The many references to India seen in common names go back to a combination of two factors: first, the genuine belief that the newly-discovered Americas were in fact a part of Asia, and second, the tendency during that time to attribute exotic animals and foods to a place that symbolized far-off, exotic lands. The latter is reflected in terms like "Muscovy Duck" (which is from South America, not Muscovy). This was a major reason why the name Turkey fowl stuck to Meleagris rather than to the guinea fowl (Numida meleagris): the Ottoman Empire represented the exotic East."

[otterpop]

I have always been puzzled why we call the day Jesus was supposedly crucified "Good Friday"? Don't think Jesus thought it was a good Friday. I am sure every Friday preceding that Friday was a lot better for him.

"Hey they are crucifying our Lord and Savior!"

"That's good."

Or is it "oh good, only a couple more days and I can start drinking again and I don't have to eat fish on Friday."

And my family and wife wonder why I am a lapsed Catholic.

[JNA]

STUPID -
How do they breed turkeys with dogs to create turkey dogs ?

[Zoning Goddess]

What is lint and why is there so much of it in the dryer filter? Is this just an indicator of how quickly our clothes are falling apart? Why do brand new, very soft silky sheets produce lint? Dryers run pretty hot; why can't they burn up the lint as they go?

[kjel]

What is lint and why is there so much of it in the dryer filter? Is this just an indicator of how quickly our clothes are falling apart? Why do brand new, very soft silky sheets produce lint? Dryers run pretty hot; why can't they burn up the lint as they go?

Lint is basically the very small fibers that detach from fabric. Mostly they get loosened from fabric in the washing process. Drying causes the fibers to go airborne and then collect in the dryer lint trap. As far as the quality of fabric, there are some that are more prone to being "linty". Long staple, tightly wound and woven fibers shed less. Lint is quite combustible so you don't want the dryer to be hot enough to burn up. The finest lint that makes it through the filter and into the exit duct can in fact catch on fire.

[Jen]

So do people in the far far north require fridge/freezers? I know its a dumb question,but is food spoilage a major concern for northern Alaskans? And do they ever wake up with ice in the toilet bowl? Speaking of which how does the whole sanitary sewer thing work up there? Collection/ treatment and discharge?

[zman]

So do people in the far far north require fridge/freezers? I know its a dumb question,but is food spoilage a major concern for northern Alaskans? And do they ever wake up with ice in the toilet bowl? Speaking of which how does the whole sanitary sewer thing work up there? Collection/ treatment and discharge?

Reading a book once about the Yukon Quest (second fiddle to the Iditorod[sp?]), the author went extensively into the fact that refridgeration is important up North due to keep food at 40degrees or so, keeping some food from freezing. Essentially, refridgerators acted as a warming device of sorts.

[dandy_warhol]

The expert often says "oh, but you won't be interested in selling it of course" whilst the owner agrees by nodding vacantly as you can almost see the £ signs rolling around in their eyes.

do british computer keyboards have a £ sign on their keys whereas Amurrican ones have a $ sign? is the £ sign on the #4 key?

[Mastiff]

Speaking of which how does the whole sanitary sewer thing work up there? Collection/ treatment and discharge?

Just like water systems, sewers are at a depth below the freeze line. But, if you've ever been down a manhole, you'd know it's warm anyway, due to the breakdown of organic materials in the system... on real cold days, you'll get steam vapor out of sewer manholes!

[Journeymouse]

do british computer keyboards have a £ sign on their keys whereas Amurrican ones have a $ sign? is the £ sign on the #4 key?

Nope. I't's over the #3, where the hash (#) symbol is. The British hash is where the American back-slash is. I have an American keyboard - don't ask me how - and I often have to remind myself where things really are as what's displayed doesn't always show up on screen, if you see what I mean

[jsk1983]

Related to the above question, how do people in Asian countries that use characters instead of letters type? I'm sure there is an obvious answer but I just can't figure it out!

[JNA]

Related to the above question, how do people in Asian countries that use characters instead of letters type? I'm sure there is an obvious answer but I just can't figure it out!

Wikipedia has a discription and operation of keyboard layouts for non-Latin alphabets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout

[Michele Zone]

Related to the above question, how do people in Asian countries that use characters instead of letters type? I'm sure there is an obvious answer but I just can't figure it out!

My recollection is that this was a serious and unresolved challenge for creating a Chinese keyboard -- at least the last time I read anything about it.

On a side note, I have also heard that many programming languages get written in "English" even if it is, say, a French website. They don't adapt HTML (or whatever) to read "rouge" instead of "red" and "blanc" instead of "white".

[mgk920]

My sense on written languages (like Chinese) in today's modern computer-driven World is that at least with Chinese, due to popular use, the language itself is evolving in the direction of using 'Latin' letters to phonetically spell out the spoken Chinese words. This was done with the Turkish language in the early 20th Century (previously, they used the Arabic alphabet).

In fact, the words on modern Chinese coins are spelled out in both traditional symbols and in Latin-letter 'Pinyin'.

Mike

[kjel]

My sense on written languages (like Chinese) in today's modern computer-driven World is that at least with Chinese, due to popular use, the language itself is evolving in the direction of using 'Latin' letters to phonetically spell out the spoken Chinese words. This was done with the Turkish language in the early 20th Century (previously, they used the Arabic alphabet).

In fact, the words on modern Chinese coins are spelled out in both traditional symbols and in Latin-letter 'Pinyin'.

Mike

That's somewhat true with Arabic, although it has the advantage of having a finite alphabet. But when using IM or writing something casual like email generally it is written in a combination of letters and numbers (some of which resemble arabic letters) and it's done in English.

[mgk920]

To expand on that, when the Hmong refugees were resettled from their native SE Asian highlands into North America starting in the late 1970s/early 1980s, it was found that their language had no written form at all - it was oral-only. Because they lived simple lives as subsistence farmers (before being marked for destruction by the Commies for helping our side during the Vietnam War), they had no need to write anything down. Coming here to the 'Western' World, they now needed a written form in order to get along, so linguists quickly created that version of Hmong, a language about as different from English as one can get, by phonetically spelling out their spoken words with the familiar 'Latin' alphabet.

I frequently see that 'Latinized' written Hmong in multi-lingual official forms here in the Appleton area, as well as on some store signs. Also, as a group, the Hmongs have assimilated into the USA culture at an amazingly fast rate.

Mike

[Richmond Jake]

... - it was oral-only......

Well, there's actually nothing really wrong with that.....you say that like it's a bad thing.

[mgk920]

Well, there's actually nothing really wrong with that.....you say that like it's a bad thing.

Not a bad thing at all in the old country, but a definite shortcoming in their new home. Thus the Latin-letter written form that was devised for it.

Mike

[Dan]

Sitting in a coffeehouse somewhere in central Austin, I'm going to ask a question that I've been pondering for the past couple of years: where do all of the old laptop computers go? I'm using a 12" Apple iBook G4 (1.33 GHz, 512 megs of memory) that's about four and a half years old. Everybody else in here are either using Mac laptops that can't be more than a year old (chicklet-type keyboard) or high-end PC notebooks.