Main/General/Real Life/Headscratchers


 * So that whole thing about how certain insects (cockroaches are the most commonly mentioned, but I know there's another one) can survive a nuclear attack because they're not affected by radiation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you'd first have to worry about surviving the enormous explosion preceding the fallout. Now I've burnt cockroaches with homemade flamethrowers, and I know that once those bastards are utterly charred there's no magical resurrection for the pile of ash left. I can buy that if the entire human race died in a nuclear war, the cockroaches will survive in the radioactive wasteland left, but the statement "Roaches (and some other bugs) can survive nukes because radiation is nothing to them" is wrong, isn't it?
 * I may be interpreting it as something else, because the way I see it, they weren't saying that roaches can literally survive a nuclear missile explosion if they happen to be anywhere near it. They were just saying that after the big explosion and heat wave, the roaches that survived will come out with nary a scratch.
 * the humans(all zero of them) that survived the blast will be fine too
 * The point is that some cockroaches, and some humans, will be outside the lethal radius of the blast. Many of those of humans, however, will still be killed by radiation. The cockroaches, being highly resistant to radiation, will not.
 * Cockroaches (and most every insect) are indeed much more resistant to radiation than humans. It is all about cell division - human cells are dividing all the time, while insects usually only undergo cell division when they molt. So while bugs are at a state of heightened vulnerability once a week or so, humans are that vulnerable all the time.
 * Am I the only one a little concerned by the fact that you've actually burned cockroaches with flamethrowers? O.O Homicidal, much?
 * Actually, I hear that Real Life gives you bonus points for doing things like that. But killing other players when you aren't in a PvP zone has MAJOR consequences unless you buy some great DLC by the name of Laywer.
 * Insecticidal, you mean?
 * People have a tendency to overexaggerate cockroach survivability just by hearing and spreading a few half truths.
 * How come formal clothes are always stiff, constricting, uncomfortable, and just generally encumbering?
 * Because otherwise people would wear them all the time, and they wouldn't be formal anymore.
 * And because people seldom wear them long enough to break 'em in, or to get used to wearing them.
 * For some time, formal clothes followed the 19th century fashion, which required very stiff silhouette from those wearing them (generally the upper classes) to appear unflinching in the eyes of the public. The fact that quality in the fabrics of the time was not top-notch only helped
 * The other issue is that people who only wear formal clothes to formal occasions are already wired from the event itself. If you wear a three piece suit or a tux for something other than a major life event, its not as bad IME.
 * Who in the world invented the tie? It is exceedingly ugly, looks uncomfortable and a pain in the neck to put on? If the idea is to look handsome, old style naval uniforms with epaulettes were far cooler. If the idea is to be convenient, it is hard to think of any practical use for a tie other then to hang the guy who thought up the idea.
 * The tie derived from the scarves worn by dashing Croatian soldiers ("cravat" = Croat) in the 17c.
 * How high up does any given country's air space extend? To the end of the atmosphere?
 * There is no set definition, but the FAI has established 100 kilometers as a benchmark, US law states that only 80 kilometers marks the limit of its air space. There is gap between 19 miles and 99 miles where planes can not get higher and orbits and not get lower, once you pass this gap the vast majority of states agree that you are in space and not earth.
 * There is no lower limit to an orbit given sufficient speed.
 * If you are going 7 miles per second at an altitude of 7 miles you will burn to an ash in a few seconds!


 * So how come whenever I look for TV series on DVD, the discs contain like three episodes? Do they really buy such cheap DVDs that they can only fit maybe three on and then decide to sell the entire seires like this to increase profit margins? I figure maybe the stuff produced in the early 00s had those as the cheapest they had (since it was a new format anyways - There were still VHS tapes being made in like 2002)
 * People would not buy them as often if everything fit onto one disc. People are essentially aesthetically greedy; therefore, they would take issue with there being so little product for so much money. For the same reason there are inserts and overly complicated box design rather than just a paper bag with a slap on sticker.
 * In addition to the above, depending on the series some DVD boxsets also have to squeeze on a fair bit of extra information -- menus, piracy and copyright warnings, audio, commentary and subtitle tracks, special features, etc -- on top of just the episodes. It might not seem like much, but it adds up to space used. Plus, depending on how long the episodes are -- 45minutes to an hour especially -- how high the quality of the transfer is, and whether the DVD has a 'play-all' function or not (which in several cases means putting on the same episodes twice so that you have one set of tracks that follows each other and another set of separate tracks), even on a high-quality disc a fair bit of space can still be used up quite quickly.
 * I have no idea where else to put this, so here it goes: Why I can understand why this would be done to TV shows, since there might be information that will still be relevant later on and stuff like that, but if someone intends to discuss noted plot holes and the like in, say, Batman Begins, the assumption would be that he has already seen the film and thus needs no spoiler warnings.
 * Depends on the medium, I guess; if it's a TV show or one Headscratchers page devoted to an entire series of something (like a comic book or a film series or something), then there's a chance that not everyone's seen every episode or installment, so it's just being considerate to people who might not have seen it all. Then it just becomes a force of habit on pages where these tags might not necessarily be needed.
 * Why do so many of the good-tasting things in the world have to be unhealthy? Shouldn't we have evolved to enjoy the taste of things that help us survive longer more?
 * Fat and sugar tastes good because it's only recently that people even had access to enough of it to be bad for you. For early humans, getting as many calories as possible is what kept you alive.
 * If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You.
 * Why are customers such FREAKING IDIOTS?!
 * The answer is that they aren't, the vast majority of customers are generally fairly sensible, however when in a service job (especially if you are specifically dealing with customers who have had a problem) the customers who take up most of your time will be the idiots as they will have the most problems by being too stupid to understand what they should actually be doing. As you are dealing with them most of the time (or all of the time) it therefore seems that they are all idiots. Its also why customers seem to be such A**holes (unsure if I need to censor myself but meh).
 * Because they don't know anything about the matter they are talking about and are too prideful to admit it. It depends on how they were raised, and not many were raised in a way that would enable them to admit they were in the wrong and to treat seemingly "lower" people nicely. Humans like being on the top, and unless taught not to do that, they'll treat others as lower beings to assure themselves of their "higher position".
 * Why do TV history documentaries so often first say that "skirmishing", "raiding" or "patroling" is "guerilla warfare" and then imply that it is some kind of revolutionary tactic? Every culture skirmishes and raids when they make war, from the smallest tribe to the greatest empire. If anything, it is "conventional" war that is rare; not only does it require special training but resources which not every one has and even empires often prefer not to engage in "conventional" war. As a corralary, there is no such thing as "guerilla tactics"; every war has skirmishing in between large battles. If the word "guerilla" means anything it must be a strategy, not a tactic; basing your whole plan of campaign on a series of raids, rather then simply going raiding. Because otherwise it would almost just mean "war".
 * Most people think that wars are glorious campaigns with regular battles that take place for the glory of whatever. And both governments and media are fine with keeping those people in the dark. Thus, "guerilla warfare" (which I prefer to call "hit and run combat") is something that appears to be rare, especially since the side that has to resort to these tactics doesn't have the time to bother themselves with how it is called, and the side that is a target of such attacks isn't keen to admit that they took place because it's bad for their public rating to announce that their opponents were able to strike them from their backs.
 * So here's something that always boggled me, a few instances too, here are some examples. So we'll look at EA using DRM and then forcing origin as a form of DRM. So people respond to this by pirating the game anyways and encouraging others to do the same. So lemme get this straight - in protest of EA using DRM and Origin, you're going to boycott it by pirating it, thus further "justifying" DRM and forced Origin? Am I the only one who thinks this is just really counter-intuitive? Also similarly, Arizona has a bill that would criminalize internet trolling - and there have been calls to, guess what, send goatse and tubgirl to the legislators. Am I the only one who thinks that's just plain dumb? Essentially all you're doing is giving them proof that they're right.
 * It could be explained as Fight Fire With Fire. In the former scenario, pirating the game and encouraging pirating shows that the DRM is not only ineffective, but counterproductive. The latter scenario is less defensible, though.
 * Except that it doesn't seem to be working - as they instead decide "we need to get stronger DRM" or "We need more copy protection". I have a better idea: It's called "Boycotting". You do not buy the product with DRM. You do not pirate it, either. You simply go without it. As a luxury good, you can live without music, video games, or movies. Don't give them a reason to support DRM. And likewise, DRM-free stuff should not report ridiculously high piracy rates. Remember that we live in a capitalistic society - they respond to where the money is, and you would think people would respond when a DRM'd product makes no money and the piracy rate's low enough they can't argue piracy is causing it...and likewise, DRM-free products should NOT be widely pirated. What happens when companies see 4.5 million pirated copies of The Witcher 2, or an incredibly pro-consumer product like World of Goo has a 90% piracy rate? They get the message that gamers are entitled babies and shouldn't be trusted. The whole "Fight fire with fire" was basically "They're treating us like babies! So let's cry and scream to get our way!"
 * The answer is fairly simple - there are DRMs that just do their job, and there are DRMs that make the game nigh-unplayable for some people. I once bought a game with such a DRM, and even though I had a legally acquired copy, I had to download a cracked version because the DRM made it impossible for me to use it. And with that, people pirate it not to show them "oh, screw you, we can get past your DRM so you need a stronger one because har har, we pirates", but to say "you know what, your DRM is making it impossible to play, so tone it down or we won't buy games from you". Try contacting any of the large game-making companies and asking for anything DRM-related - they'll simply ignore you, even if you are right. Piracy will always be there, and it's neither something good nor the ultimate evil game companies proclaim it to be. But it's still better than the DRMs because DRMs are a nuisance mostly to people who paid for the game. So, when someone has a choice between buying a worse version of the game, or getting a better version for free, only those who want to support the creator for some reason or don't want to risk. And then again, there are also people who pirate everything, just for the sake of pirating it, and those guys definitely aren't good either.