• Mothra@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    313
    ·
    9 months ago

    I have to give them credit, they actually consulted a real expert whilst they were drunk. Most people don’t, not even sober

    • grue@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      93
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      To be fair, “do hummingbirds have feet” seems eminently wikipediable. I’d like to think that if I ever felt the need to drunk-dial an expert, it’d be for something less trivial.

      • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        88
        ·
        9 months ago

        seems eminently wikipediable

        Telephones existed for a century before wikkipedia…

        In the before times: The guinness book of records started as a promo by the guinness brewery given to pub owners to settle bar argumnets like this one.

      • TheGreenGolem@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        49
        ·
        9 months ago

        Not even 20 years ago smart phones and the internet weren’t ubiquitous. I’m only 35 but even I remember personal stories about bar disagreements where we just simply couldn’t use our phones to search the net. Because all they were capable of is dialing a number and Snake.

        • uid0gid0@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          21
          ·
          edit-2
          9 months ago

          Way back in the 1950s some guy had the same observation you did. He came up with an idea for a book that would solve disputes over trivia by bar patrons. 70 years later the Guinness Book of World Records has over 22,000 entries in their database.

          • Arielcorn@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            9 months ago

            began as an idea conceived by British engineer and industrialist Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of the Guinness Brewery, to solve trivia questions among bar patrons. During the early 1950s Beaver was involved in a dispute during a shooting party about the fastest game bird in Europe; however, the answer could not be found in any bird reference book.

            Wow. That guy sure was serious about bird trivia!

        • 100_kg_90_de_belin @feddit.it
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          9 months ago

          When we kids there would always be someone who would rush home to look stuff up on the encyclopedia and get back with the results

        • Dutczar@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          9 months ago

          I read that as “capable of dialing Snake”…

          Snake? Snake! SNAAAAAKE! DO HUMMINGBIRDS HAVE FEET?

        • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          9 months ago

          I’m around the same age and I’m pretty sure we had Google on our phones by the time we could drink. That was the in between time where they still had buttons, but they had browsers and colorful screens. First iPhone released in 07. We were pretty much the first ones to have ‘smartish’ phones, though, so some people definitely still had snake bricks.

          I think most people also still weren’t used to having the world’s knowledge in their pockets and would forget that Google was even there, too. It’s crazy how easily urban legends and false rumors spread around back then, before everybody knew how to fact check.

            • froh42@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              edit-2
              9 months ago

              I was legally allowed to drink beer in 1985 with 16. I had my first mobile phone in 1997 or so.

              Yeah, fuck, I’m old.

              But I definitely had bar trivia discussions before I was online.

            • TheGreenGolem@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              9 months ago

              Exactly. Our legal drinking age is 18, but we were binge drinking every Friday from the age of 15. Not one bartender gives a shit here. At least back in the day. That’s 2003-2004.

      • meliaesc@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        32
        ·
        9 months ago

        But they don’t just want the answer, they want to share an experience with the people they’re with in a clever and fun way.

      • scottywh@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        23
        ·
        9 months ago

        To be fair, there’s no time period listed on when the event described allegedly occurred and Wikipedia hasn’t always existed.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        22
        ·
        9 months ago

        There’s nothing trivial about bar room disagreements. People die over those. That professor just saved someone’s life.

      • Zorque@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        16
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        9 months ago

        You’re that guy who posts lmgtfy links anytime someone asks for an opinion on something, aren’t you?

        • TheGreenGolem@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          9 months ago

          There is an episode of HIMYM where they are in a similar situation. Before the smart phones they would argue over some things for days, now they just check it in 10 seconds. No fun.

  • Geek_King@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    132
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    When I was little, my mom dropped me and her friends kid off at a church for arts and crafts, I was 5. We we given toilet paper rolls, pipe cleaner, glue, and some other stuff to make butterflies. I studiously started making mine, I got the wings, the antenna and asked what I was supposed to use for the legs. A full grown ass women look me right in the eye and said “Butterflies don’t have legs”.

    I had seen butterflies land on flowers and latch on with legs, I was so confused how an adult wouldn’t know that.

    • EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      84
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 months ago

      I remember asking my teacher why you could see the moon during the day and my teacher told me you couldn’t.

      This too left me very confused, because I had seen the moon that very morning from the school yard.

      • evranch@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        49
        ·
        9 months ago

        Last year my daughter told me her grade 4 teacher had told the class “Well nobody really knows how magnets work” to which my science-obsessed daughter replied “You mean you don’t really know how magnets work!”

        I confirmed to her that yes, our understanding of magnetism is about as complete as it can get. Of all the mysteries the universe has to offer, magnetism is not one of them.

      • psud@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        9 months ago

        Stupid/inconstant adults stick in your mind. I’m lucky to have mostly had good teachers, just one teaching vowels one week taught us a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y

        Then the next week tested our learning, and marked my answer “a, e, i, o, u, sometimes y” wrong because it’s only aeiou. Sure teacher. No vowels at all in by, but the same sound at the beginning of bicycle has one.

        I think they must have been reading from a book when teaching, but working from their own ideas for the test

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      9 months ago

      I’m curious how that person thought that butterflies rested… Or did they just continually flap their tiny little wings until they died?

      But, I mean, you were at a church…

    • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      9 months ago

      Unless you were dying and/or making your Will, you didn’t bequeath anything to anyone. I wish I knew what word you meant.

    • jasondj@ttrpg.network
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      9 months ago

      Did you get into a debate about wether jackdaws were crows, then put on Groucho glasses and defend your own point?

      • Zoop@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        I’m lurking through posts trying to distract myself because I’m in an overwhelming amount of pain, and this comment of yours just made me actually laugh out loud a bit. Thank you for that! Especially the ‘putting on Groucho Marx glasses to defend your own point pretending to be someone else’ part. That whole situation, and the way you just described it as if it were happening in a bar instead of on a forum, just amuses me way too much. Also, I just accidentally typed “anuses” instead of “amuses,” which also amused me way too much…

        Anyway the point of my rambling is you’re fucking funny and I appreciate you, dammit.