Good answers to lazy questions

One great use of social media

The worst part of social media can also be its best part. People post things to get attention, often to share what’s going on in their lives (vacations, milestones, thoughts), but sometimes just to provoke a response (“Fisherman’s Wharf is the best place in San Francisco. Prove me wrong”).

Recently I came across three posts on Threads that were written to get us talking, but in a fun way. Maybe we’ll all learn something. The responses are all quotations, typos and all.

If I throw in any gibberish from me, it’ll be in italics. Here’s the first thread:

I fact-checked these whenever I reasonably could, but a few errors might have slipped through because I have a pre-existing medical condition. It’s called “laziness.”

• When I explain the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire. A million seconds is 12 days and a billion seconds is 31 years. Watch peoples faces trying to comprehend the difference

• The egg that you were created from was carried by your maternal grandmother inside your mother’s embryo.

• Technically figs are not vegan. Every edible fig has (had) a dead wasp inside. In order for the fig to become an edible fruit it must be pollinated by a female wasp, but the inside is so small that when the wasp enters it shears off its antennae and wings, making it impossible to escape. The pollen she carries on her back, fertilizes the fig and turns it into edible fruit. Luckily for us figs have enzymes that completely break down and "digest" the wasp in the process.

• Cleopatra was closer to our time than when the pyramids of Giza were built. They were already ancient in her lifetime.

• One day on Venus is longer than one year on Venus.

• Birdsong has a natural calming effect for humans as historically, when we were hunter gatherers.. hearing the sound of birds meant that there were no large predators nearby

• Brad Pitt is older than Tim Walz.

• If the entire history of the earth was compressed into one year, dinosaurs would still be on earth on Christmas Day and everything that has happened from the renaissance to the present day would take Llacd (a typo for “place,” I guess) within the last second of NYE

• Public drinking fountains were created so that people would have easy public access to something to drink besides alcohol. They were set up by temperance societies and were actually called temperance fountains.

This one had a lot of ho-hum and “duh” responses, but these were less common.

• Texting yourself the flight code (and any connecting flight codes) so you always have a link with up to the minute flight info (gates, times) ex: AA2589

• Bring an empty water bottle so you don’t have to spend $2 billion dollars for bottled water after TSA

• ‘Walk’ the areas around your accomodation, metro stops etc. using Google street view, so you’re familiar with your surroundings, before you arrive.

• Never unpack the first night of a long stay. If there is an issue with the room, you won’t have to repack to move.

• Seek out a rooftop view at sunrise on your first morning at your destination. It’ll help you feel grounded and invigorated. It’s also a unique perspective from which to take in your first impressions of a place. (I’ll never forget hearing the call to prayer and seeing the city wake up from a rooftop in Delhi; that memory will be with me forever!)

• If you use your in-room safe, also put a single shoe in the safe, so when you’re packing, you have only that 1 shoe - which will prompt your memory to fetch it and the contents of the safe.

This drew way more responses than the other two. Ah, humanity.

• There's a parasitic worm called Leucochloridium that turns snails into zombies, taking over their motor functions and eye stalks in the most horrifying manner imaginable by making them mimic caterpillar movements so birds will eat them. The videos here are the most disturbing thing you've seen since JD Vance in that donut shop: https://www.wired.com/2014/09/absurd-creature-of-the-week-disco-worm/

• Chainsaws were originally invented as a tool to be used in childbirth.

• Lake Superior is so cold that a lot of the unaccounted for bodies will never be found because the cold temperature inhibits the natural body decomposition preventing bodies from surfacing, making recovery difficult. There’s been over 350 official documented ship wrecks, but estimated to be roughly 500+ and over 10,000 bodies.

• There are 96 bags of human waste on the moon.

• The process of digestion is horrifically painful, but our brain shuts off the pain response unless our receptors change the pain response type. So, we don't feel the pain of digestion unless something is wrong.

• The most contaminated/dirtiest thing in an Airport are the security trays WE ALL TOUCH.

• If you laid every person in the world end to end around the equator, about three quarters of them would drown.

Murphy Slaw 

Something old: I never knew about Charlie Chaplin’s work with deaf people, which helped him hone his skills in the silent-film era. If you’re intrigued by his connection with Helen Keller, here’s a letter she sent him after they met again in 1947.

Something new: Whether you’re avidly political or unavoidably unpolitical, you’re probably getting way too many texts asking for your vote or — more likely — your money. Here are some tips for making them

STOP

Something borrowed: We all get a case of the late-night munchies from time to time. Maybe this WebMD story can help you make at least a slightly better choice the next time they appear. If you need some tips in a hurry, feast your eyes:

Something blue: Pardon my oral fixation, but here’s a little more about food and health (mental health this time):