Unanswerable questions

[mountainm]

Why is it, if you ask someone to smell your finger they look repulsed but if you ask them to smell your wrist and they jump at it?

It's hard to get your wrist into the places you can get your finger.

 

[GGTBod]

You clearly are lucky and have not seen some of the specialist adult entertainment out there on the internet

 

[SCOMAN]

PEOPLES FRONT OF JUDEA?!?!? P**s off We're the Judean Peoples Front!

Splitters!!

 

[stonehippo]

Here's one I wonder about sometimes. Who was the first to shave a sheep, twist it into a long stringy thing then take two sticks and say "I've got an idea what I can do with this?"

 

[GGTBod]

i think finger knitting came first like chinese macrame, i got no idea about the sheep shaving though

 

[tiger stacker]

Here's one I wonder about sometimes. Who was the first to shave a sheep, twist it into a long stringy thing then take two sticks and say "I've got an idea what I can do with this?"

Do you mean making wool or the worlds first kebab.

 

[Harvestman]

Hang gliders.

"Look what I've made!"
"What is it?"
"It flies! Without an engine!"
"How does it work?"
"Well, you just hold onto this bar here, and run over the edge of a cliff. Go on, try it. It will be fun!"
"Err, after you, I think..."

 

[Man of Tanith]

bungee jumping is similar

 

[CallsignSam]

Do you mean making wool or the worlds first kebab.

I laughed far too hard at that.

 

[Shewie]

Your downstairs loo.....does it have a light that shines into the garden or does it have the loovent thing that triggers when you pull the lightswitch ?
M

Nope, the loo is on the side of the house with the security light at the back, no vents and a different circuit for the light. I have a theory but it's probably flawed When the loo is flushed, the water going down the waste pipe and into the main drains outside, causes some kind of change in air pressure at the drainpipe drain which is almost directly under the security light. A change in air pressure is enough to set off the something in the light.

It's bizarre though, the first few times I noticed I was going out the back door because I thought somebody was out there, it took me a while to put the two together

 

[reddave]

There is a modern version of that in regards to artificial vanilla flavourings that come from the beaver anal scent glands, who the hell was first to scoff a beaver anus and decide yes that is what i want my ice cream to taste like? How is that cheaper than real vanilla? Is someone out there farming beavers for their anusi?

Probably orientals. They still wolf down locusts, spiders and all sorts of creatures but prefer soya milk

 

[boatman]

Even the questions are age old.

He was a bold man that first eat an oyster-Jonathan Swift

 

[mrostov]

One thing that has always intrigued me is how the original natives of the Americas figured out nixtamalization. Nixtamalization is just not something you look at and instinctively say, "I need to do this."

Most of the original people in the Americas grew one variety of corn or another as a staple of their diet and practically all of those used one form of nixtamalization or another. Nixtamalization is the process of adding an alkaline agent of some sort during the preparation of corn (maize), without which corn does not release it's full vitamin content to the human body.

This is why tortillas and tamales taste the way they do. Powdered lime is added to the dough or batter (such as in Indian fry bread). It's interesting to watch the batter for Indian fry bread made from traditional blue corn varieties turn a more pronounced shade of blue when the lime is sprinkled in.

The old native way to make the lime is to bake pieces limestone in a really hot campfire, then pound it to powder using a mortar/pestle arrangement, typically with a hollowed out tree trunk.

Another method of nixtamalization learned from the native tribes is to use wood ash to create a lye solution and pre-soak the corn kernels in it to create hominy, which, when ground up, is that southern US breakfast staple, grits.

 

[British Red]

If mankind had shaken hands and sat down for meal together instead of shaking spears and demanding the others folks food, would we have been out among the stars by now ?
On the other hand, they say that war drives invention.....
M

The "cylinders" in engines were only possible when we learned to bore a near perfect cylinder in a billet of metal. We learned to bore accurate cylinders in metal to make cannon.

Were it not for war we would probably still be sitting around and picking lice off each other

 

[Blaidd]

I think I'd prefer the lice. Friendly little chaps. lol

 

[Harvestman]

One from a Bill Bryson book I am reading:

"Who looked at sand and thought, "you know, if I add some potash to this stuff and then heat it up, I bet I could make a hard transparent substance. We could call it glass"?"

 

[stonehippo]

I was just wondering about archeologists in the future going through our landfill sites and going ***. I say this because I was just about to throw a rubber chicken in the bin. Imagine yourself in their place. What would be your pet theory of the uses of this?

 

[GGTBod]

Imagine a body in the bog style scenario in 5000+ years and the body with loads of plastic surgery modifications, were they tribal? Signs of nobility? Lunatics?

 

[British Red]

Imagine yourself in their place. What would be your pet theory of the uses of this?

Ritual Significance

(Its how they explain everything they haven't got a Scooby about)

 

[stonehippo]

Ritual Significance

(Its how they explain everything they haven't got a Scooby about)

i now have a mental image of the Arch bishop of Canterbury with a rubber chicken. That might tempt me back to church.