Things you see people do and laugh (because it makes no sense)

[Eos]

saying "what" then answering/responding before you repeat it.

Oh. My Fucking. God.

There's an older woman at school who does this. Constantly. In addition, she will often cut off the asker with her "HUH?" before the asker has completed the question. Also, pronounces chamfer as camfer. AFTER being told it's chamfer by the instructor. Twice.

I want to yell across the lab to not be a nimrod.

 

[CZroe]

Leaving the paper place-mat in the fast food tray when stacking it after dumping the other items. The whole point of the paper is to aid in clean-up before stacking (pull/slide the whole sheet + trash into the trash can).

Putting the toilet paper roll on the roller with the loose end hanging toward the wall.

Putting "In memory of..." dedications on things that aren't being dedicated (cars, tatoos, etc).

 

[CZroe]

You're overlooking the fact that the energy required to flap is going to make you hotter so nothing gained. Especially when your hand tires and you stop - you will feel even worse.

It leads to another thing - opening the fridge door and putting a fan in front of the fridge to cool off the kitchen! Same effect. :biggrin:

It's no different than a dog panting. The only difference is that dog needs to move air through moist, warm, body areas to evaporate hot water and carry heat out while we only need to move it over our skin (dogs do not have sweat glands). It absolutely demonstrably does cool you down assuming humidity is less than 100% and air temp is lower than your body temp. The larger the fan, the more a small movement is magnified. Yes, the law of equal and opposite reaction applies, but it's a negligible increase in energy expendatures for a significant enough cool-down.

Oh! And you can often hear a broken filament shaking around and impacting the glass in a blown bulb. If you can't see the filament because it's frosted, it can confirm that it's blown.

Waving your hand around with a stench can dillute the stench with surrounding fresh air assuming it's still concentrated.

Sometimes, adjusting the thermostat down can kick it on sooner because it also moves the dead-zone that keeps the system from rapidly and destructively turning on and off when it hovers around the target temperature.

 

[Jeff7]

you'll make yourself sweat more by fanning.

Thus continuing to enhance the evaporative cooling effect.


This depends entirely upon the rate of evaporation and the motion of the air, versus the efficacy of the muscles in a person's arm.
- Moving the paper generates forced convection cooling. Assuming the air temperature is lower than your body temperature, this will provide a benefit.
- Evaporative cooling. The effectiveness of this is dependent on the humidity.
- Inefficiencies in muscles will generate heat as they move.

The problem here lies in the fact that there's not a lot of quantified data available for any of this. I'm pretty sure that there are conditions where fanning yourself will result in a reduction of your surface temperature. (At the expense of warming your local environment - no different than a fan.) But, without the necessary data, it's not easy to say when that is.

So first, we shall assume that a person is a sphere...

And the plane takes off.


Edit: Looks like CZroe beat me to it.

 

[brainhulk]

people who don't remove the foil off the suppository before inserting it their rectum

 

[Rubycon]

It's no different than a dog panting. The only difference is that dog needs to move air through moist, warm, body areas to evaporate hot water and carry heat out while we only need to move it over our skin (dogs do not have sweat glands). It absolutely demonstrably does cool you down assuming humidity is less than 100% and air temp is lower than your body temp. The larger the fan, the more a small movement is magnified. Yes, the law of equal and opposite reaction applies, but it's a negligible increase in energy expendatures for a significant enough cool-down.

I'm not a dog. No it really does make you hotter in the end. This is like beating a dead horse. Like the airplane on a treadmill discussion that's open and closed. Or .999 vs. 1. But people will keep beating the horse. Poor horse.

Oh! And you can often hear a broken filament shaking around and impacting the glass in a blown bulb. If you can't see the filament because it's frosted, it can confirm that it's blown.

CFLs and LED lamps have no filaments. I've also heard rattles in brand new bulbs from glass fragments loose inside the envelope. A lot of people will assume a bulb is no good if the top is darkened.

Waving your hand around with a stench can dillute the stench with surrounding fresh air assuming it's still concentrated.

Purely psychological. People do this especially around other people. Perhaps they tooted and are augmenting the dispersal of their personal stinky cloud?! D:

Sometimes, adjusting the thermostat down can kick it on sooner because it also moves the dead-zone that keeps the system from rapidly and destructively turning on and off when it hovers around the target temperature.

This need not apply. Re-read what I posted. If it's 85 and the 'stat is set to 75 there will be a call for cooling. If not there is something else wrong. If there is a call for cooling and the system is functioning normally dropping it back further does nothing. Well except causing a service call the next morning when they forgot and the damn thing runs all night and the evaporator coil freezes over! :biggrin: Now a two stage system will have more capacity when the second stage kicks in when the ambient and setpoint have sufficient delta. Of course the typical thermostat jack-off does not know this or cares.

Short cycling of a cooling system is caused by several tings. A simple poor choice of location of the thermostat may be one, over sized system may be another. The span between call in and satisfy should be sufficient to prevent short cycling on most systems - regardless of settings. (within the normal 65-88 degree setpoint)

..

 

[highland145]

Financial decisions.

Tax time is coming and a lot of my customers will get thousands back because of E.I.C. A month later they need a $300 loan because they're broke.



all the way to the bank,

but

 

[soulcougher73]

I agree with Dr. Pizza. I thinkg fanning yourself slowly with a piece of paper or what not is cooling. You dont expend much energy by moving your wrist compared to the amount of energy received in cooling. I know it always makes me feel better on a hot day. If i got hot doing it obviously id stop

 

[PingSpike]

I'm not sure about that fan one. Wouldn't the air immediately around your sweating body be more humid and hotter (usually)? I would think circulating the air would speed up the heat loss. I guess the increased heat from muscle movement probably does offset that though. I would think it just feels better though. Its kind of like how a fan in a room doesn't make the room cooler, it actually makes it warmer...but you sure seem to sweat less when a fan is blowing on you.

 

[AstroManLuca]

People who are waiting at a red light, and they start creeping forward slowly while it's still red. Then the light for the cross traffic turns yellow and they immediately start creeping forward more, even though obviously it takes a few seconds to turn red and then another 1-2 seconds for their light to turn green. So they end up getting halfway across the crosswalk and then slamming on the brakes just as their light turns green. Meanwhile I'm in the lane next to them anticipating the light change and I just zoom off because my mind is capable of learning from past experiences.

People who leave their blinker on even when they're not turning. Bonus points if they leave one blinker on for so long that eventually they make a turn in the opposite direction. Turns from laughter to anger if they have their blinker on for so long that I think they've just forgotten, then they wait until I'm right next to them to actually change lanes instead of doing so in the past 30 seconds when I was leaving room for them to get in.

People who fly past me when I'm driving the speed limit, then slam on their brakes when they notice the cop ahead of me.

People who get your name wrong even when you've corrected them multiple times.

People who treat their possessions like shit and then complain when they don't work any longer. i.e., people who drop their cell phones twice a day, download viruses on their computer, use their DVDs as coasters and never put them back in their cases, etc. Or when they don't do any research on something and just buy whatever the salesman at Best Buy tells them to, then complain that they don't like whatever it is they bought. Bonus points if you gave them specific advice which they asked for and, of course, completely ignored.

 

[mpo]

Let's get a list going!

I'll start with:

• Shaking a light bulb furiously while holding it up to the ear to see if it's any good.

I have a couple of fixtures with bulbs that are mounted either horizontally or with the base up.

Sometimes the filaments will break, but will land in an orientation that maintains a marginal circuit. After a bit, the bulb will start flickering when the switch is on.

If the bulb still flickers after rescrewing the bulb in, I would rather shake the bulb to hear if the filament is broken than break out the multimeter to see if the base is broken. 99 percent of the time it is a broken bulb.

 

[lokiju]

Someone that washes their hands after using the bathroom just to open the door to get out of the bathroom with their bare hand. Yes it's a germaphobe kind of thing but I've seen people scrub their hands like they're a doctor scrubbing before performing a surgery just to use their bare hand to open the door that other people who don't even wash their hands after taking a dump grab bare handed.

People who lean and dodge and move while sitting on a couch playing console video games (I even catch myself doing this from time to time)

 

[Number1]

Dr Pizza wins the thread, no contest.

 

[BergeLSU]

I agree with Dr. Pizza. I thinkg fanning yourself slowly with a piece of paper or what not is cooling. You dont expend much energy by moving your wrist compared to the amount of energy received in cooling. I know it always makes me feel better on a hot day. If i got hot doing it obviously id stop

You are cooling your face at the expense of your arm. A person's body temperature is not spread out equally.

 

[Wyndru]

Using software apps as a full filesystem tool (i.e. ACDSee)

 

[CPA]

you'll make yourself sweat more by fanning.

I see the next airplane on a treadmill debate. This issue definitely needs its own thread.

 

[Linflas]

I agree with Dr. Pizza. I thinkg fanning yourself slowly with a piece of paper or what not is cooling. You dont expend much energy by moving your wrist compared to the amount of energy received in cooling. I know it always makes me feel better on a hot day. If i got hot doing it obviously id stop

Generations of church going old ladies in the south would agree with you. You just need a light strong fan with a lot of surface area and you fan slowly to not heat yourself up more with the effort.

 

[feralkid]

Putting the toilet paper roll on the roller with the loose end hanging toward the wall.

I guess you've never had a cat.

 

[Vic Vega]

Tap the top of a soda can to knock the bubbles down(!) :^D

I've watched people do this my entire life in utter amazement. Like a ritual to the ancient gods of carbonation, no soda shalt hence be'ist openendeth withoutest thoutest sacredest tapping of hither bubbles.

 

[Vic Vega]

saying "what" then answering/responding before you repeat it.

I do this only when I am expressing anger, outrage, surprise or confusion. It's like saying Fuck for the same emotions. Sometimes I combine them for "What the fuck?" Typically, I just use "What" with some body language (arms waving, eye popping, etc) when in mixed company. :awe:

 

[destrekor]

you'll make yourself sweat more by fanning.

Pretty sure the doctor's right on this one.

The energy expenditure for a simple and slow waving motion with a decent "fan" (not a flimsy piece of paper the size of an index card, for instance - something that helps move air in a way that can be measured in CFM) can certainly be less than the net cooling effect.

Of course, it's not as effective as immersing yourself in strong winds... and if it's windless, the other only method of inducing airflow across your body without using actual electricity is through movement - and arm motion is less taxing than whole-body movement (walking around, for instance).


And a local cooling effect can often create a perceptible feeling of increased comfort, even if the rest of the body is not seeing any additional cooling.

It's physics. Your not heating yourself up by using energy locally to perform minor movement, as the heartrate has likely increased by no more than 5bpm (if that!) and your aspiration has likely not changed at all.
If anything, by increasing airflow across your face/head, you will likely encourage the body to decrease the rate of aspiration; with less use of the diaphragm and surrounding skeletal muscles, it probably balances with the minor energy expenditure in the shoulder/arm.

 

[destrekor]

I do this only when I am expressing anger, outrage, surprise or confusion. It's like saying Fuck for the same emotions. Sometimes I combine them for "What the fuck?" Typically, I just use "What" with some body language (arms waving, eye popping, etc) when in mixed company. :awe:

I actually do it as he describes. There's a strange disconnect somewhere in my brain, and after someone says something, I recognize things were said but feel I don't immediately comprehend/understand what was just said. After I say what, all of a sudden the words come flooding into my conscious mind and I am then able to begin responding.
It sucks, but sometimes I (or others) get a kick out of it. More often than not, if anything, they are mildly annoyed by such... I feel I can't change it, so whatever.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Let's get a list going!

I laugh when I see people having kids. And for nothing other reason than looking for entertainment without protection.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I actually do it as he describes. There's a strange disconnect somewhere in my brain, and after someone says something, I recognize things were said but feel I don't immediately comprehend/understand what was just said. After I say what, all of a sudden the words come flooding into my conscious mind and I am then able to begin responding.
It sucks, but sometimes I (or others) get a kick out of it. More often than not, if anything, they are mildly annoyed by such... I feel I can't change it, so whatever.

I do this a lot too. Annoys my wife. She says something, I understand all or almost all of it, say "what" anyway, then I realize that I didn't need to say what.

Usually I say it if I miss, say, the first part of the first word she said in a sentence, but it doesn't matter because I understand the rest of the sentence. I say what because I missed part of one word but in reality I understood the whole thing.

 

[destrekor]

I do this a lot too. Annoys my wife. She says something, I understand all or almost all of it, say "what" anyway, then I realize that I didn't need to say what.

Usually I say it if I miss, say, the first part of the first word she said in a sentence, but it doesn't matter because I understand the rest of the sentence. I say what because I missed part of one word but in reality I understood the whole thing.

Yeah that too. You realize something is missing, and the brain immediately thinks the whole thing should be repeated to be absolutely sure of what was said. But then your brain gets a second to put all the pieces together and actually has a fully-formed thought, as once some actual thought-processing was devoted to the words recently strung together, it's able to deduce a comprehensive meaning to the whole thing... even though something was missing. Language and our ability to comprehend complex grammar (even if unable/unwilling to string it together yourself) is great like that, and it means we can - on most occasions - reply appropriately to something even if we were missing a good chunk of the original data.