Hermit Posted June 11, 2018 Report Share Posted June 11, 2018 Well, this is some SPECTRE level weirdness https://www.vox.com/2018/6/8/17438032/china-cuba-diplomat-attack-sonic-weapon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted June 11, 2018 Report Share Posted June 11, 2018 Weaponized bad feng shui. Duh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 11, 2018 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2018 Keep in mind that the legends are very different from history. Not just because of the supernatural elements; Charlemagne in the legends is not the strong ruler he is in history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starlord Posted June 13, 2018 Report Share Posted June 13, 2018 Worldwide IQ scores have been falling since 1975 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted June 13, 2018 Report Share Posted June 13, 2018 49 minutes ago, Starlord said: Worldwide IQ scores have been falling since 1975 In the Doctor Who episode "The Three Doctors" (man, that dates me) the Doctor describes television as a way to feed someone "useless and conflicting information". Since IQ measures how people process information, the decline does not surprise me. Intelligence isn't an inherent quality -- it is learned. And there will always be problems when you try to apply objective and numerical standards to something that, by definition, cannot be quantified. Social and cultural bias plays a huge role -- there was a lot of inherent bias in the ways intelligence was measured in the United States that produced the ludicrous idea that African-Americans were objectively stupider than whites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted June 13, 2018 Report Share Posted June 13, 2018 14 hours ago, Starlord said: Worldwide IQ scores have been falling since 1975 I wonder if the study was done by a bunch of guys age 60 and up, since if you turned 18 in 1974, you're (a) now 61 or 62, and (b) As Good As There Ever Was by this study's result. Gosh, no possible bias there. pinecone, Pariah, Enforcer84 and 1 other 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted June 14, 2018 Report Share Posted June 14, 2018 17 hours ago, Starlord said: Worldwide IQ scores have been falling since 1975 You're surprised how? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted June 14, 2018 Report Share Posted June 14, 2018 Anne Donavan, a legend of women's basketball, has died. A 6'8" center, Donavan won two Olympic Gold Medals as a player (at the 1984 and 1988 games -- she made the team for 1980 but missed the games due to the boycott) and another as a head coach (2008). She won a WNBA title as a coach, played in several pro leagues outside the US, and was a successful college coach. She made three different Halls of Fame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csyphrett Posted June 16, 2018 Report Share Posted June 16, 2018 Heard on the radio Grandmother strangles rabid bobcat to death with bare hands. CES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted June 16, 2018 Report Share Posted June 16, 2018 Was he bitten by a radioactive mountaineer ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44465587 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattern Ghost Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 Indonesian woman dies after being swallowed whole by a python . . . Gullible much, Fox news? Stories about Indonesians getting swallowed by 7 meter (23') pythons are about as credible as all of those Nigerian princes who need help moving their fortunes. I can't believe a mainstream outlet picked this up without some basic fact checking. Edit: NYT picked it up too. /facepalm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clnicholsusa Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 1 hour ago, Pattern Ghost said: Indonesian woman dies after being swallowed whole by a python . . . Gullible much, Fox news? Stories about Indonesians getting swallowed by 7 meter (23') pythons are about as credible as all of those Nigerian princes who need help moving their fortunes. I can't believe a mainstream outlet picked this up without some basic fact checking. Edit: NYT picked it up too. /facepalm And why was it necessary to explain that the woman "swallowed whole by a python" didn't manage to survive. I would think the headline would be more notable if the woman survived being swallowed by a constrictor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 12 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said: Indonesian woman dies after being swallowed whole by a python . . . Gullible much, Fox news? Stories about Indonesians getting swallowed by 7 meter (23') pythons are about as credible as all of those Nigerian princes who need help moving their fortunes. I can't believe a mainstream outlet picked this up without some basic fact checking. Edit: NYT picked it up too. /facepalm The Washington Post did so as well. Apparently there's visual evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm6f2OX6rHw. You may call that fake, but it's the second reported consumption of a human by a python in Indonesia within a year, and for the previous one the available footage is more graphic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilxj-3TslWg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattern Ghost Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 13 hours ago, Lord Liaden said: You may call that fake It is. They are all fake. No snake can swallow a human adult. Here is a picture of Fluffy, a 24' (bigger than the snake claimed)[ETA: Found a video of the Columbus Zoo measuring Fluffy in 2011. They got her at 20'1", so even this one is an exaggerated claim. Further research shows these guys seem to cap out around 20' or just shy of it in captivity, and this from breeders attempting to select for size.] reticulated python, next to a subadult female human: Note the size of the snake's head. Note the human's shoulder width. That snake cannot possibly open its jaws wide enough to get past even this young girl's shoulders. And unlike most animals, human shoulder blades do not collapse, meaning the snake is incapable of compacting its food as it swallows it as it would with other largish prey items. The largest thing this snake can eat weighs about 40 or so pounds (small pig, small deer) and is a much, much more streamlined meal. And all of that is setting aside well-known behavioral issues. Humans are not on the menu, nor do they smell like food. Wild reticulated pythons actively avoid human contact. Not to mention that the largest on record (Fluffy, in the pic above) is a well cared for animal with exceptional genetics and a premium diet. Wild snakes her size have not been found. A herpetologist from a zoo did a study on over 2000 wild reticulated pythons and found none even close to 7 meters. So, for these stories to be true, you have to accept that several very rare occurrences have lined up at the same time (and multiple times, since this is at least the fourth of these stories I've seen recently): 1. An exceptionally small person 2. with collapsible shoulder blades 3. encounters a wild snake that's world record size, which has never been recorded in the wild 4. and that instead of running (slithering), this snake mistakes the person for food and eats them. So, if you want to buy these stories and not listen to your fellow board member who has spent a lot of time around reptiles and discussing them with herpetologists, horticulturists, and specialty veterinarians, then that's OK. You have every right to express a wrong opinion. I'm sure the reporters reprinting this tall tale have done more research than I have, after all. Pariah 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 So, so the snake swallowing Jon Voight in Anaconda is just a story ? I'm, I'm crushed ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 No, Jon Voight was crushed. We don’t even have snakes here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattern Ghost Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 Here's another video of the latest incident (also graphic, ofc): Take note that the snake's head is to the left. When the guy starts cutting it open, the head is still to his left. The victim's head is ALSO to the left. So, she was eaten feet first. Snakes don't usually eat feet first, and it'd be especially difficult with a larger meal. So, add that to the list of improbabilities I have above. Edit: looking at it again, it does seem like a head first orientation. Camera after the cut away moved to opposite side of snake. /edit. Looking at the video of the male victim, it seems that he was also eaten feet first, but that's only based on looking at the direction of the ventral scales, and the video's a bit too blurry to be 100% sure. Also note that the camera is very good about following the whole process, right up until the just before the reveal, when it cuts away to the crowd at random, then comes back down to show us the shocking discovery. So, I'm sticking with hoax until someone explains how all of these improbabilities lined up not once, but twice in a row. Or until footage showing the ENTIRE process in one cut is posted somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 2 hours ago, death tribble said: So, so the snake swallowing Jon Voight in Anaconda is just a story ? I'm, I'm crushed ! So, I wasn't the only one with a vision of Pattern Ghost saying his monologue with the anaconda from Anaconda sneaking up behind him, about to be Owen Wilsoned? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 No Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starlord Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 On 6/6/2018 at 2:34 PM, Starlord said: I'm sorry, but 'No is relative.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 Start at 4:16. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattern Ghost Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 8 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said: Start at 4:16. "Growing up to ten meters, this reticulated python. . ." "Its huge body is as wide as a human's." The Discovery channel is not a credible source of information. Also, those deer are tiny, as I already pointed out above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 What's your definition of "tiny?" Hog deer: http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Axis_porcinus/ Range mass: 79 to 110 pounds. Range length: 49 to 53 inches. Notice in the video I posted how far the snake can distend its mouth to engulf the deer's body. Many snakes can unhinge their jaws to swallow large prey whole. Of course the circumstances leading to a human attack are rare. Two confirmed kills in a year, in a country of over 260 million people, is not statistically improbable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattern Ghost Posted June 17, 2018 Report Share Posted June 17, 2018 OK, Lord Liaden, I bow to your random internet facts. I'm done here. Believe this nonsense if you like. Also, I totally didn't know snakes can unhinge their jaws after keeping reptiles for over 20 years. Thanks for the info! Edit 2: It occurs to me that I've probably been excessively cranky today. My apologies, Lord Liaden. (Though I still remain highly skeptical about this story. ) Edit: OK, I'm going to point out one thing: The video says the deer they fed the snake is 30kg, so 66 lbs. Tiny deer, as I said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted June 18, 2018 Report Share Posted June 18, 2018 57 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said: "Growing up to ten meters, this reticulated python. . ." "Its huge body is as wide as a human's." The Discovery channel is not a credible source of information. Also, those deer are tiny, as I already pointed out above. All I heard was Mmmph, hmmm, mmm, phhf You need to get out of the Ancondas Voightus in a hurry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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