You’ve given us another fine week of face palms and head scratchers. Thanks!
Balloons. Now they’re UFOs. And not just any old UFOs, but a clever distraction from a toxic train derailment. How does one’s brain work to come up with this line of ‘thinking’?
As a life-long amateur astronomer I’ve seen my share of weather balloons. They are startling to see at first because they’re out of the norm for the vast majority of us. So I understand people not knowing what they’re seeing. But once identified there is no reason to go beyond ‘weather balloon’. I’ve even seen one burst before, during a star party (astronomy viewing party at an observatory) out in Pittsburgh, which was extremely cool.
I’ve wondered before if the whole Foreign Accent Syndrome couldn’t be chalked up to listener interpretation. It’s a much more likely explanation then someone actually developing a spot-on accent. Just through general experience I’ve noticed that people I know are notoriously bad at pinning down foreign accents.
40-day fast. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Hi Sharon. The one concern many folks have with the owl is that with the high use of rodenticides in NY it will succomb quickly. Hopefully they capture it quickly
The Feb 2023 beaver story bears some interesting resemblances to a Nov. 2016 report, "Michigan Threatens Beavers Over Dams?" which you may have written about yourself. The NYT story (that I'm not able to access) <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html?_r=0> references this bizarre story about beavers and then indicates that some guy with a grudge in Pennsylvania wanted to localize it to make a point about PA bureaucracy… so he simply changed all the locations, using actual PA place names (that I’m well familiar with). I still remember the comment of my buddy who sent the message around in an email: “Hey, I just pass these things along to people who might be interested. I leave it up to you to decide if it’s true.” Snopes reported on the "beaver dam debris" in Aug 2000 <https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dammed-beavers/>
I'm reasonably sure that the 40 day fast attempt never happened. And I'm a little disappointed that the BBC published it. Nobody can seem to find pictures of the man actually fasting. And given that it's a publicity stunt you'd think that they would have taken at least a few.
You’ve given us another fine week of face palms and head scratchers. Thanks!
Balloons. Now they’re UFOs. And not just any old UFOs, but a clever distraction from a toxic train derailment. How does one’s brain work to come up with this line of ‘thinking’?
As a life-long amateur astronomer I’ve seen my share of weather balloons. They are startling to see at first because they’re out of the norm for the vast majority of us. So I understand people not knowing what they’re seeing. But once identified there is no reason to go beyond ‘weather balloon’. I’ve even seen one burst before, during a star party (astronomy viewing party at an observatory) out in Pittsburgh, which was extremely cool.
I’ve wondered before if the whole Foreign Accent Syndrome couldn’t be chalked up to listener interpretation. It’s a much more likely explanation then someone actually developing a spot-on accent. Just through general experience I’ve noticed that people I know are notoriously bad at pinning down foreign accents.
40-day fast. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Dam fool. Same thing.
Hi Sharon. The one concern many folks have with the owl is that with the high use of rodenticides in NY it will succomb quickly. Hopefully they capture it quickly
The Feb 2023 beaver story bears some interesting resemblances to a Nov. 2016 report, "Michigan Threatens Beavers Over Dams?" which you may have written about yourself. The NYT story (that I'm not able to access) <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html?_r=0> references this bizarre story about beavers and then indicates that some guy with a grudge in Pennsylvania wanted to localize it to make a point about PA bureaucracy… so he simply changed all the locations, using actual PA place names (that I’m well familiar with). I still remember the comment of my buddy who sent the message around in an email: “Hey, I just pass these things along to people who might be interested. I leave it up to you to decide if it’s true.” Snopes reported on the "beaver dam debris" in Aug 2000 <https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dammed-beavers/>
I'm reasonably sure that the 40 day fast attempt never happened. And I'm a little disappointed that the BBC published it. Nobody can seem to find pictures of the man actually fasting. And given that it's a publicity stunt you'd think that they would have taken at least a few.
I'm not sure why you would find pictures of it. It's hard when it's from another country unless you can search locally.