Fun Stuff > CHATTER
miscellaneous musings
Morituri:
In the US, the states of Michigan and Ohio fought a battle over who got ownership of the city of Toledo. The armies couldn’t find each other in the wilderness but stumbled onto each other in a bar that night. The only injury was when someone was stabbed with a butter knife.
Some people suspect that the soldiers and their commanders probably thought the idea of going to war against the other state was really stupid and that might be why they "couldn't find" each other. But nobody ever got in trouble for it. Except, oddly enough, the one guy who stabbed one of the 'enemy' soldiers with a butter knife. He went to court on assault charges.
But apparently Austria has an entirely different approach to these things. Once their army attacked itself and lost ten thousand men.
cybersmurf:
--- Quote from: Morituri on 27 Jan 2020, 09:30 ---But apparently Austria has an entirely different approach to these things. Once their army attacked itself and lost ten thousand men.
--- End quote ---
Not one of our proudest and brightest moments.
On the other hand, Liechtenstein went to war with fifty people, but 51 returned. No casualties, and IIRC someone from Italy joined their side.
Morituri:
Dinosaur-killer level meteor strikes only happen once every hundred million years or so, but when they hit, they hit everybody who’s alive at that time.
Therefore the odds of getting killed this way are the odds of everybody (or at least almost everybody) alive getting killed this way at once.
Because it’s more likely for a K-T sized meteor to hit during any one lifetime than lightning is likely to kill any one individual, it’s actually more likely for each of us, as individuals, to get killed by a KT-level extinction event caused by a giant meteor, than it is to get killed by lightning.
You may have heard this as a reason not to worry about lightning bolts. But that would be a misinterpretation. I've had lightning bolts hit uncomfortably close to me, and I think it's a good reason to fund Spacewatch, asteroid observatories, and space exploration.
Dngrsone:
--- Quote from: Morituri on 28 Jan 2020, 17:52 --- I've had lightning bolts hit uncomfortably close to me, and I think it's a good reason to fund Spacewatch, asteroid observatories, and space exploration.
--- End quote ---
This has happened to me enough times that I'm pretty sure my superpower is not getting struck by lightning.
Tova:
Relevant XKCD
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