Category: reddit

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People Share Little-Known Survival Tips That Could Save Your Life

In a perfect world, none of us would need to know or use any of the information we’re about to go over.

We don’t live in anything remotely close to a perfect world.

Tragedies happen, accidents occur, life gets heavy. In those moments, the thing that tips the scales might be something as seemingly unimportant as “that random factoid I read on the internet.”

Reddit user GlumExcitement9 asked: 

“People of Reddit, what is a surprisingly unknown survival fact that everyone should know?” 

So listen, we sincerely hope you never need this stuff.

We hope you never find yourself waiting to be rescued, facing down a person determined to hurt you, or falling off of a ship in the middle of the open ocean.

But just in case …

Whistle While You Wait

“Pack a whistle.”

“There’s no chance your voice will hold out yelling at the top of your lungs, and whistles carry long distances. Especially handy if you’ve injured yourself, and need to rely on others finding you.”

“SOS in Morse code is … – – – …”

“So three short blasts, three longer ones, three short, pause….and repeat.”

“This is an especially handy and harmless device to give kids that are along for a hike (along with, ‘if you get separated, stop walking and blow the whistle lots, and we’ll come to you’).” – Bubbafett33

Don’t Climb

“Contractor and someone who has designed quite a few subway and stations here.”

“Here’s something we’re taught during the first day of security clearance classes and this is how we design stations as a standard feature on every new platform being built. Older platforms may not have this or will have some other safety feature.”

“Having said that – many subway platforms have a space big enough for a person to fit under in case they fall onto the subways tracks.”

“So if you fall off the edge of the platform and onto the tracks and there’s a train coming, roll to the side. There’s likely a gap you can fit in.”

“It might be tight, and you’ll certainly get dirty, but better than standing up, scrambling to try and climb out, and dying.” – IndianInferno

“I work for NYCT. There are niches you can stand that are safe if you fall.”

“As long as there isn’t a red and white stripped board, you’re good.”

“Another fatal and idiotic piece of advice I hear a lot is to lie down flat between the running rails. This may work in a few stations and in specific spots in those stations but do not try this!”

“Just look along the wall for niches and flatten yourself against the wall in there. If there’s no wall then stand next to a column and hold onto it with one hand.”

“Then just try to stand flush with the column.” – CrankBar

Self Defense Is Cowardly

“My family runs self-defense classes. They include multiple black belts and lawyers.”

“In terms of ‘fights’ – bar brawls, people in the street, muggings, etc.:”

“- If they have a weapon, any weapon, run. Seriously, you will die, no matter how good you think you are or how many test-disarms you’ve done in a dojo.”

“Run like f*ck and be prepared to kill if cornered.”

“We’ve witnessed experienced black-belts hurt themselves with a real knife (after signing disclaimers!) so badly that they were hospitalized when they were JUST SPARRING, not fighting for real.”

“It’s just not worth it.”

“- If the fight is just ‘brewing’, repeatedly announce that you don’t want to fight them (attracts help, shows you’re not trying to one-up them, covers you legally, and doesn’t prepare them if you do fight).”

‘ Say things like ‘Nah, man, I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to fight you. Look, I don’t want to fight you. Whatever, man, I don’t want to fight. I’m just gonna walk away, alright, I don’t wanna fight you’.” 

“- If it’s not immediately life-threatening and you can avoid it, try not to throw the first punch. Again, legal coverage, but also means you’re not the guy who gets into something they didn’t want to.”

“The first punch is the trigger for everything to kick off. Up until that point you can still defuse everything back to harsh words and idle threats.”

“Once a punch is thrown, someone’s getting really hurt and you literally have no idea if the other guy is more experienced or better at it that you. No matter who you are.”

“However, you can *react* to anything that appears to come towards you perfectly legitimately… if he’s “faking out” a punch, you have no idea of that but can act as if it was real.”

“- If you’re surprised, ‘attacked’, etc… without warning… it’s no holds barred.”

“Literally, who cares about his eyesight, his future fatherhood prospects, whether his kneecaps will ever work again or if he can breathe.”

“You can’t afford to end up on the floor, be incapacitated yourself, stunned, reeling, unconscious, for him to summon aid, or even just to fall to the ground awkwardly.”

“And YES, that guy could stab you and you wouldn’t know until after he walked away, things are really that quick!”

“Your brain doesn’t notice some subtle movements, your body won’t scream out in pain because of the adrenaline, and someone who knows what they’re doing will not attract attention to the weapon until it’s in you, etc…”

“You can’t take that risk.”

“Once it gets physical, don’t stop until you’re sure he’s not able to harm you, and then run away anyway for good measure (legal hint: report to the police at the first opportunity, don’t wait).”

“Once they have shown they have an intention to hurt you, and they’ve started to act on it – nothing is out of line.”

“And to quote the legal people in our clubs who were always asked the questions: If you feel your life is genuinely in danger, you can do almost anything to protect it until the point it’s no longer in danger. Worry about the legalities later.”

“But if your life is in danger, you would act to protect.”

“Going back in for another kick, or using a weapon when he’s already down and you could run, or anything else? Yeah, that’s not self-defense.”

“You’re not *defending* yourself by walking back into a fight you could have easily escaped.”

“Victims who ‘just tried to punch him once, but he punched back, so I shot him’ are also often harder to take seriously for self-defense than ‘he was three times my size, I was on my own, he attacked, I was in a struggle for my life at that point’.”

“That’s especially true if they were heard trying to stop the fight from happening, ran away immediately when they could, and called the police as they ran.”

“You can also act in defense of others, but again – you are defending. You’re giving them time to run away – wife, child, friend, whoever.”

“If there’s a threat, that’s what you’re giving them; the opportunity to escape the threat.”

“But there’s literally nothing wrong with breaking the guy’s knee as your first action (kick it so it goes sideways) – in fact, from a self-defense point of view, it’s perfectly legitimate. It’s a perfect way to prevent pursuit and allow you to escape.”

“Self-defense is cowardly, at its heart.”

“Do everything you can to capitulate, avoid the fight, etc… but if it escalates, take the quickest, most effective way to incapacitate them and then run away.”  – ledow

You Vs. The Ocean

“If you are ever caught in a rip current, swim perpendicular to it. If you swim into it, you will die.”

“If you let it carry you out to sea and aren’t a strong swimmer, you will die.” – [Reddit]

“I’ve been caught in a rip current. This advice is incredibly useful to know, because without it you’re also going to panic real hard when swimming towards the shore doesn’t work.” – homarjr

“I was caught in one, too, during my freshman year of college. I almost died.”

“I would have if it weren’t for my friend, who was a lifeguard, that was nearby. I tried the whole swimming parallel to the beach method, but what everyone conveniently forgets to mention is that you STILL have to swim back to shore.”

“This task is seriously exhausting. If you’re not VERY in shape, you’re pretty much f*cked if you’re caught in a rip current with no one out there to help rescue you.” – enginerd12

“Been a sailing merchant for 12 years. If you ever fall off a ship/ferry at sea and you’re lucky enough to be spotted – don’t try to swim your way to safety. The ocean will win.”

“The more you try to swim, the lesser your chances of survival. Just try to keep afloat and conserve energy (and body heat) while rescue team do what they’re supposed to.”

“Unless you are in hypothermic waters, the best bet always is to stay afloat without trying to swim to somewhere.” – trendz19

Snakebite Position

“Lead the pack if you’re scared of snakes. You’ll disturb them but the person behind you is more likely to get bitten.” – knittingtaco

“Mountain biker from southern Arizona here.”

“In the summer, we trail ride at night to avoid the heat. When on single track, whoever is behind the guy in front is in ‘snakebite’ position.”

“We’ve all at one time or another had to bunnyhop a rattlesnake” – tucsonyeti

The Star

“Elevator stuff: The STAR symbol on the elevator panel indicates the floor that is the most direct route to outside. It’s not always the first floor.” – AtopMountEmotion

Leave It To The Professionals

“Don’t f*ck with garage door springs.” – SpitefulShrimp

“Used to work on commercial and residential doors and openers. Seen a broken spring go through a cinderblock wall.”

“The main thing to look for are the red bolts.(assuming the door was installed correctly.) Those are the ones holding tension on the springs/lines.”

“Screw with something else you might break it. Screw with the reds they might break you.” – ThePrevailer

“THIS is what almost killed me!”

“I was trying to fix a gap in my garage door a couple of years ago and started to unscrew a couple of bolts with the door closed.”

“One of them flew right by my face. I almost pissed my pants and couldn’t sleep that night just thinking about how I almost won a Darwin award.” – Lapare

Sure, some of this is stuff we’re not really likely to use, but how many elevators have you been in.

Did you know what that star was for?

Had you even noticed it?

Exactly.

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People Divulge The Darkest Facts They Know About Cartoons

*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.

Cartoons have a special place in our memories.

The tinkling sound of the cereal hitting the bowl. The calm of the house settling around us.

There is something brightly nostalgic about those memories, something almost too good to be true.

Of course, if something seems too good to be true…

Before we dive into the darkness, a content warning. There will be mentions of suicide, murder and domestic abuse.

Redditors heeded the siren call of nostalgia when Reddittor Amateurfatgeek22 asked:

“What are some dark facts about cartoon shows?”

That’s smurf’d up. 

“There was a Smurfs PSA that was made for UNICEF I believe where their entire village is carpet-bombed.”~Djangolives

Apparently, someone should’ve spent some time on Undercover Boss.

“Ren and Stimpy was an absolute nightmare for the people who worked on it. John K ordered them not to make the same face twice.”

“Pretty, but it was hell for the workers because they were constantly drawing things.”

“John K was a nightmare boss.”

“One of the producers had a sign on his wall labeled ‘John’s knees’ and invited people to kick it.”

“By the time he left it was reduced to a hole.”

“They made several episodes that were just the animators ranting about how much of an asshole that John K was.”~CrazyCoKids

The darkest of facts.

“A literal dark fact: Batman: the Animated Series had their backgrounds drawn on black paper instead of white paper, to make Gotham appear darker.”~PianoManGidley

Someone’s got a bone to pick.

“The creator of Skeletor was inspired by a corpse in a haunted house that he was 100% sure was real. Turned out he was right.”~Scodo

The implications aren’t so fun.

“In Disney’s Gargoyles, Goliath believes his entire clan is either dead or turned permanently to stone, and he asks the Magus to turn him to stone forever as well.”

“Yes, there were improbable terms to break the curse … but effectively, he was committing suicide.”

“He knew he was among the last of his kind and did not know if he would ever wake up again.”

“He left behind a rookery full of eggs (the next generation) when he did so.”

“Also, in City of Stone, Demona smashes statues that are humans turned to stone — she kills people on screen in a Disney cartoon.”

“Lots more examples from Gargoyles, but those two stick out.”~mynonymouse

Speaking of implications…

“There’s no normal animals in Pokémon, yet you see the characters eat meat all the time”~t00nland

Some shows hid their darkness in plain sight.

“Not so much about the production, but there is an obscure animated movie called The Adventures of Mark Twain that is stop motion animated, and in one pretty f*cked up scene Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Becky are greeted by an angel who says his name is Satan.”

“Except he looks nothing like a traditional angel, he holds a mask on a stick for a face which contorts into a demon and skeletal face at times.”

He then has the kids sculpt a village with people and a castle out of sand, and Satan then brings them to life.”

“The sand people get along but soon start fighting and Satan kills them by summoning lighting, causing an earthquake, etc…”

“The kids are horrified, but Satan just nonchalantly says they can make more and waxes poetic about how life is a vision and we don’t matter.”

“I can’t really do justice describing how eerie it is, but if you look up disturbing kid’s cartoons on YouTube, it’ll pop up.”~Lrehcsa1926

The whole point of some of these shows was the darkness. 

“When the Wind Blows is a movie that uses a bright palette and pleasant childhood aesthetic to tell the story of nuclear attack aftermath could-bes.”

“It follows an awfully gullible elderly couple with an overzealous trust in their government as they go on with their lives after the strike, which progressively gets worse as they succumb to radiation poison.”

“Sounds bad?”

“The pamphlet they seem to rely on is real and it’s just as out of touch and unsettling.”

“It has been suggested that it’s actual purpose is allowing for a better clean-up after you’re f*cking dead.”

“See also here.”~SoCriedtheZither

While other times the darkness lurked behind the scenes.

“The studio had to get someone else to sing ‘Soon You’ll Come Home’ in All Dogs go to Heaven because the voice actor, Judith Barsi, had such a traumatic home life because of an abusive, alcoholic father that she couldn’t sing the song without having a breakdown.”

“She and her mother were murdered by him before the movie was released in a double-murder/suicide.”

“She was only 10.”

“She was also the voice of Ducky from Land Before Time.”

“Her tombstone reads, ‘Yep! Yep! Yep!’ “~nnelson2330

After so much darkness, how about we end on something a bit lighter?

“I remember reading an interview with an animator who worked on the original She-Ra back in the 80’s, made by Filmation that there was some rather weird arguments from the producers over She-Ra not being lady-like enough.”

“Like a proper lady shouldn’t pick up and throw a tank, despite the fact that’s the literal point of the character, the most powerful woman in the universe.”

“And there’s an actual clip of her throwing a tank in the opening credits.”

“Of course there was a lot of push back from the artists and directors that She-Ra should be kicking all kinds of ass, and hurling tanks around.”

“I noticed in the last season of the new She-ra there’s a scene where she’s throwing tanks around and someone admonishes her for it saying ‘We don’t throw tanks at our friends’.”

“I can’t help but wonder if that was a nod to the old She-Ra and the hard time they got for tossing tanks around.”~Patches67

The cartoons we grew up with were meant for our enjoyment and education.

It’s interesting that the subject-matter didn’t always line up with those lofty goals, and truly heartbreaking that behind the scenes, events were sometimes much darker.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

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People Share The First Thing They’d Buy If They Had Unlimited Funds

No matter how hard we work, put in the overtime and save our hard-earned cash, the money we have in the bank never seems to be enough.

Aside from spending on necessities like groceries and putting money aside just in case of emergencies, there doesn’t always appear to be enough cash to treat ourselves to luxury items.

But what if stressing about lack of funds is eliminated from your daily life?

Curious to hear about the first things strangers online would purchase if money was no object, Redditor ApArAmY asked:

“What is the first thing you would buy if you had infinite money?”

Not-so-humble abodes were the first things that came to people’s minds.

To Own…

“A house.” – potatowarrior1

A Family Commune

“That was my first thought too.”

“I’d buy a big piece of land, and build my sister a house, myself a house and my parents a house – then my sister and her kids would still be near me but we could all move out of our parents house.”

“I’d build a house for my parents so it was fully accessible for my severely disabled brother, with a roof hoist so my mum wouldn’t continue to damage her shoulder lifting him.”

“I’d give them a fully heated swimming pool so my brother could swim whenever he wanted to, he loves swimming but we only have outdoor pools where we live.”

“I’d give them a big fancy spa so my mum could relax when she needed it and the swelling in her feet would go down. A sensory room for my brother, and a real train caboose for my dad for his model trains.”

“My sister’s house would have a bedroom for each of her kids, plus another room to act as their play room, and it would be fully fenced so the kids could go outside and play as much as they liked without any worries about them running on to the road.”

“I’d make sure it had a room just for her for all her crafts with enough storage room for wool and material, and a stationary section so she could geek out all she liked over pencils and quills and pens and stamps.”

“And I’d have a two bedroom place with a built in movie theater and a room just for my DVD and book collection with a table large enough to play board games at.”

“I’d have an aviary for my birds, and a knitting/crochet nook, and a large kitchen with every baking utensil, and a bath large enough for me to be submerged fully without either my knees or boobs being out of the water, and I’d enjoy living in a house again instead of a rented room on my parents property with no bathroom or cooking facilities without having to go outside and up a flight of stairs regardless of the weather.”

“And if there was enough room, I’d add a guest cottage and a little house for my nana.” – ngatiara

Aiming Higher

“A f’king castle. Gimme that sh*t.” – SylverTheKnight

Indulgences.

We seldom treat ourselves with things that aren’t necessarily essential in life.

Stargazing

“Telescope but I mean a really good expensive one.” – [deleted]

Freshest Posh Food

“Idk I kinda feel like sushi so probably that.” – littlewing2733

A humble snack

“It sounds silly, but an ice cream sandwich.”

“Several years ago, I was living paycheck to paycheck and had a fair amount of credit card debt. I fell behind in my mortgage and lost my home to foreclosure.”

“Shortly after I was notified, I drove over to a 7-11, bought an ice cream sandwich, and ate it while crying in my car.”

“Unfortunately, every time I eat an ice cream sandwich, it’s still a bittersweet feeling. I always think of the day my favorite childhood comfort food became forever intertwined with my sense of complete and utter failure.”

“After coming into life-changing money, I would hope that an ice cream sandwich would taste as good again as it did when I was a kid.” – Steve-in-rewrite

Motivators

“A personal trainer to get me in shape and an assistant to follow me around and slap food out of my hand.” – Neither_Most

These may not be essential, but they certainly would some Redditors very satisfied.

Bathing In Comfort

“This very moment if I were given unlimited money, I would go and purchase a freestanding bathtub. I think that’s what they’re called. Like one that can fit my 6’4 ass. I take extremely frequent bubble baths after work and I need a tub that actually fits me.”

“Yes, I know I don’t have to work but I still stand by my first purchase. I f’ks with bubble baths.” – Quit_your_dayjob

Revenge Rain

“Amazon. I’d make all the workers pee in bottles… then I’d take those bottles and make it rain anywhere Jeff Bezos is. I’d pay them an extra $15/hr too.” – megapuffranger

“Sounds ridiculous but a dog nanny. I have two dogs and they are my babies. However, they really limit what I can do.”

“Want to get away for a weekend? Ok, who is going to take care of the dogs? Need to work late? Great, they are going to piss everywhere when no one let’s them out.”

“I would definitely do more but my first purchase would be a full time dog nanny for sure.” – thatotherchicka

Senator For Sale

“A US Senator! Or several of ’em. I’ve always wanted my own Senator.” – a_dangerous_noodle

The Price Range

“They’re pretty cheap I believe. When we find out about bribes I’m always shocked at how f’king cheap these whores will sell us out for.” – poopy_poo_poopsicle

I love to travel.

Ever since I started working on cruise ships and I worked with hundreds of staff members from different parts of the world, I became fascinated to learn about their history and our cultural differences.

Because I have so many international friends because of this wonderful experience, I would love to visit them and spend some time in their country.

This goes well with the fact that I also love food.

I would indulge in the culinary delights of the countries I’m visiting without worrying about making a dent in my wallet.

So, I’d travel to my heart’s content.

What would you buy?

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People Describe The Most Badass Historical Figures Of All Time

History is very rich and full to the brim with stories of people who led full and interesting lives. The problem, of course, is that you probably heard about the same ones over and over again.

You’re probably tired of hearing about George Washington by now, and that’s okay.

But what if people told you that as cool as Washington’s life was—it would do you good to learn about how he tackled a smallpox outbreak that could have decimated his troops—there are others out there who are just as cool, if not cooler?

We heard about Raoul Wallenberg, Ben Salomon, and others after Redditor Master_Mudkip asked the online community:

“Who would you consider the most badass person in history?”

“He got away with it…”

“Raoul Wallenberg.”

“During World War II, he posed as a Swedish ambassador and confidently lied through his teeth to Nazis for years to save tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust.”

“There were instances of him flagging down trains bound for death camps, and yelling at the machine-gun-toting SS men that Swedish citizens were on board, handing out homemade fake passport documents to as many Jews as possible as he went.”

“He got away with it for so long because Fascists have a thing for confident authority figures.”

“The guy was captured by the red army in 1945 and likely died in a gulag.” ~ crappyentrepreneur

“They say when his body…”

Ben Salomon.”

“The dude was just a dentist who got drafted into World War II. He was tending to injured soldiers when four Japanese soldiers entered the tent and killed a man he had just saved.”

“This man killed all four of them, then grabbed a machine gun and fired upon the incoming Japanese forces, letting the injured escape.”

“They say when his body was discovered, 98 enemy troops lay dead in front of him. He had been shot 72 times and bayonetted over two dozen times before he died. What a legend.” ~ DarkwingDave007

“I’m sure most of us have thought…”

“Welles Crowther, aka The Man In The Red Bandana.”

“I’m sure most of us have thought about what it must have been like in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and it must have been debilitatingly petrifying.”

“He was 24 years old working on the 104th floor as an equities trader.”

“Made his way down to the sky lobby of the South Tower and found a badly burned woman, carried her down 17 floors, then went back upstairs to help guide others to the only passable stairwell.”

“Stayed up there helping others and working with the fire department until the towers collapsed. He’s responsible for saving around 20 lives and died a damn hero.” ~ FrankSkapopolous

“She went undercover…”

“Nellie Bly.”

“She went undercover and endured abuse to cover neglect and abuse in Blackwell’s asylum.”

“She then went to Mexico and called out the dictator for going after the press and oppressing his people and then fled/was exiled from Mexico because of that.”

“She traveled the world in 70-something days to prove you could travel the world in 80 days or less (based on the Jules Verne novel), also did some reporting on the Eastern European front in World War I, and was arrested after she was mistaken for a British spy.”

“And she did so much more! Such a badass and one of my historical heroes.” ~ Cheshire_Cat8888

“No one…”

“Witold Pilecki volunteered to enter the Auschwitz death camp and escaped it to report what was happening there to allies of Poland. No one gave a f*** at that time.” ~ Buckszpryt

“Then when he landed in Okinawa…”

“Desmond Doss, an army medic in World War II who was constantly belittled and abused by his battalion and superiors for refusing to use a weapon as it went against his beliefs.”

“Then when he landed in Okinawa and more than half of his battalion were shredded by Japanese machine-gun fire, Desmond Doss crawled through the dirt over the course of several days to as many of his injured allies as he could and dragged them all the way back to the 40-foot cliff they had scaled up from, and lowered them to safety.”

“Some of these injured men were lying 15ft from the enemy machine gun itself, and all the while Doss wore his medic helmet, which stood out like a giant bullseye on a battlefield where the Japanese soldiers were ordered to kill doctors first to crush morale.”

“In the end, he saved the lives of 75 men and survived with an arm fracture from a sniper round and several pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body from when he tried to kick a grenade away from him and his men.”

“He was the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor.” ~ -CorrectOpinion-

“He is widely known for his exploration…”

“Peter Freuchen. He was a Danish explorer, journalist, author, and anthropologist.”

“He is widely known for his exploration of the Arctic Circle and discovery of vast areas of Greenland.”

“He was an Indigenous rights activist, having married an Inuit woman. He escaped a death warrant issued by the Third Reich for punching Nazis.”

“Won the $64,000 question as a contestant on the game show. He wrestled a polar bear and won. And as if this all wasn’t enough, he escaped a near-death encounter in a blizzard by fashioning a spade out of his own frozen feces.” ~ SpaceMonkeyXLLII

“That teenage girl…”

“That teenage girl that was the sole survivor of a plane crash and made her way through the Amazon…. She’s definitely up there!” ~ smokeandlavender

To which this person replied…”

“Julianne Koepke.”

“While injured, bleeding, and functionally blind nonetheless. She had a strong prescription and lost her glasses in the crash.”

“I remember reading that she waded through a river, using a shoe to tap in front of her and scare off possible snakes. She was then found by a native tribe boating in the river.” ~ lordoftoastonearth

“It’s common to be brave…”

“Definitely Major Hugh Thompson. I’m sure there are people who have done similarly brave things, but not that I know about.”

“In 1968, Thompson managed to stop the My Lai massacre almost single-handedly. He arrived after many civilians had already been killed, and couldn’t understand how they had died.”

“After realising his fellow American soldiers were firing on unarmed civilians, he landed his helicopter between the Vietnamese and the soldiers.”

“He then told the troops that if they continued to do what they were doing, he and his crew would open fire on them. After getting back to base, he filed a complaint about what he had witnessed.”

“His complaint was covered up, and he was shunned as a traitor. It wasn’t until 1998 that the army acknowledged he did the right thing.”

“It’s common to be brave in war when you know that you’ll be lauded as a hero – it’s another thing entirely to do it knowing you’ll be seen as a traitor.

“He turned against his troops and country to protect innocent lives, despite what it would cost him, and I think that’s about as brave as you can get.” ~ hellebellet

Well, I don’t know about you, but I definitely feel enlightened after reading these.

Wouldn’t it be great if you had heard about these when you were in school at some point?

Perhaps that would have made history class more interesting for many of you.

We all know the basic memorization model isn’t necessarily the most conducive way to learn.

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People Break Down The Facts That Sound Like BS But Are Totally True

Lies and truth are not one in the same, but the are related. That’s because the most fantastical tales are forged in reality.

Which is why they say truth is stranger than fiction.

I mean look at the world we’re living in. Look at the half decade we just survived.

There are things we’ve all been privy to that if we told our younger selves years ago about we would’ve laughed in disbelief.

But facts are facts.

No matter how wild they can seem, the details are real. We just don’t know how anyone is left stunned by truth anymore.

Life is an Onion article, get comfortable.

That is why a shy Redditor wanted to get together and share some shocking, pearl clutching facts we may not have been so willing to originally believe until we got receipts.

They asked for:

“The most BS-sounding-but-true fact you know?”

“The RAM is watching”

“Cosmic rays from outer space cause glitches in your electronics. In some electronics, cosmic rays are the primary source of soft errors.”

“Cosmic rays are one of the main reasons that servers and high reliability computers use error correcting RAM.” ~ random_reddit_accoun

EVERGREEN

“Trees have such intricate root systems that a tree low on one particular type of nutrient will acquire some from his neighbors and make up for it later.”

“This is especially prevalent during the winter months when some trees don’t have leaves and so need extra help from their evergreen friends.” ~ kewlkidmgoo

HOT SUMMER

“In the early 1900’s a wave a molasses rushed through the streets of Boston at 35mph killing 21 people. For decades later, locals said on hot summer days they could still smell molasses in the air.” ~ bartlechoo

I’m Melting

“If you melted down the Eiffel Tower, the pool of iron would be less than 3 inches deep (in a square area the same dimensions as the tower base).” ~ Reddit

“You know those arch things connecting the legs of the Eiffel Tower? If you know anything about architecture, you’d probably assume they make perfect sense.”

“They are there to transfer the load of the tower above down to to the legs. Arches are perfect for that.”

“Nope. They’re a scam. Eiffel designed the thing without them, but the guys holding the money thought it looked too rickety.”

“And people wouldn’t pay to go up in it. So they forced him to bolt on fake arch panels to make it LOOK stronger.” ~ DrColdReality

KABOOM!

“There were people who were killed by the Atom bombs who were born during Japan’s Samurai era.”

“Japans military went from swords, spears and bows to planes, tanks and aircraft carriers in a single humans lifetime. And people say Civilization is unrealistic.” ~ neohellpoet

APPROVED

“The United States in World War 2 created a bomb that used bats.”

“The bats would be carrying small incendiary charges and would be released from the bomb in mid air, causing them to fly and scatter to different buildings in the area.”

“The charges would then detonate and set all the buildings on fire. It was tested and proven to be very effective.”

“This was actually APPROVED by the government for development and production, and then cancelled because of the atomic bomb.”

“The idea was thought up by a Dentist who was friends with Eleanor Roosevelt: Link” ~ DinosaurFriend

Under the Sea

“The Pistol Shrimp can create a cavitation bubble that when collapsing can create a sonoluminescence that can reach temperatures near the temperature of the surface of sun and the sound competes with some of the loudest creatures in the ocean.” ~ DaddysWetPeen

NUMBERS

“If every star in our galaxy had a trillion planets, each with a trillion people living on them, and each of these people has a trillion packs of cards and somehow they manage to make unique shuffles 1,000 times per second, and they’d been doing that since the Big Bang, they’d only just now be starting to repeat shuffles.”

“That was copied from this QI article.”

“The number of ways to shuffle a deck of cards is 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766, 975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000. ~ ccnova

The Choir Sings

“On March 1, 1950, the West Side Baptist Church exploded at 7:27 p.m., right when the scheduled choir practice was supposed to be occurring.”

“The explosion was powerful and swift, taking a nearby radio station off the air. However, not a single choir member got hurt.”

“All fifteen members were delayed from attending the practice. Two women had car troubles, one had trouble with a particularly difficult math problem, another was listening to their favorite radio station.”

“The list goes on and on. If they had been at the church on time for the choir practice, they would have died.” ~ SecretAgendaMan

Repeat…

“There is an immortal jellyfish. When it gets old it reverts itself back into it’s youngest stage and relives life over and over again!” ~ Rdken13

MICRO

“This is more scary that bull crap but its true nonetheless, there are thousands of micro tumors in your body right now and they only need correct conditions to become cancerous.”

“Your body kicks butt at fighting these micro tumors so you have nothing really to worry about.”

YUM

“Chocolate doesn’t have caffeine. Caffeine is added to chocolate because people, in err, expect it to be there.”

“In actuality it naturally contains theobromine which is a methylxanthine, like caffeine. This is what makes chocolate bad for dogs.”

“Also the toxic dose for them is similar between dogs and humans at around 150g/kg if I remember right.”

“Humans just weigh more and don’t tend to sneak into the pantry and eat a 2 lbs block of bakers chocolate.” ~ IRageAlotInIn

CARGO ISSUES

“In the Age of Sail, piracy was seen as simply part of doing business.”

“When approached by a pirate ship, a merchant vessel would almost never put up a fight, simply turning their cargo over instead. Why?”

“Because, as a cost of doing business, cargo was insured against piracy and there was no point in risking life and limb to protect it.” ~ Blenderhead36

They say don’t believe everything you read, but I just read a lot of stuff that makes sense.

Look at it this way, even if it’s odd, it’s still knowledge.

Collect as much of that as you can.

You never know when Jeopardy! will call.

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People Divulge The Coolest Facts About The Human Body They Know

It’s easy to dismiss everything going on inside of us as unimportant and anyone who didn’t pay attention in high school biology class might agree with that statement, but the human body is a wonder of science and nature.

 

By all accounts, we all appear mundane on the outside.

We are all of us just a walking, talking bag of bones, electrical impulses and chemical reactions in a meat suit with an appetite for excellent television and an addiction to overpowered, miniature super computers we carry with us everywhere.

But there’s more to us than that.

For example, did you know your liver is capable of regenerating itself like Wolverine or that you can produce enough spit in a lifetime to fill up two entire swimming pools?

WARNING: some of it is kind of gross to those with weak stomachs.

Just when we think we know everything about the human body, the internet goes and surprises us with a bit of blood and gore.

Redditor Actionkat63 asked:

“What’s a strange, but true fact about the human body?”

We’re All Queens

“The acid in your stomach could burn your skin! I always thought that was pretty interesting, and reminds me of the scene in Alien, where the alien blood burns everything.” ~ RebaRocket

Get Your Running Shoes On

“Humans can outrun almost every animal on long distance.” ~ WantedJOCZ

“Long distances only. Humans have been known to jog for days at a time without sleeping, and we seem to have evolved as endurance predators (ie, jog after an animal until it’s literally too tired to fight back).”

“In cold weather the only animal that beats us is huskies, and in hot weather we can be outdistanced by camels and IIRC kangaroos, but otherwise we tend to win in the end.” ~ Pseudonymico

They Can’t Wiggle Out Of This

“Your intestines are in near constant motion, wiggling like a worm.” ~ EasilyForgotten1

But Are We Still Allowed To Lick Things?

“We know what everything would feel like on our tongues without even licking it.” ~ meh2557

“I’ve read this before and it blew my mind looking around at everything and realizing how weirdly, fascinatingly true it is. I’m assuming it’s a combination of you know textures from your fingers and that stage of infancy when babies put everything in their mouths.” ~ ablondedude

Care Package: Incoming!

“When pregnant, if a mother suffers a heart attack or other large physiological issue, the fetus will release a swarm of stem cells that move to the affected area, greatly helping in survival and healing.” ~ SugaBear9001

Flip The Switch

“that the brain operates on the same amount of power as a 10-watt lightbulb” ~ boringg-moon

Shut It All Down!

“Our immune system is so strong it can kill our own bodies’ cells: so techinically we do have a self destruct sequence” ~ SheepSh-t2525

“Our cells have a self destruct sequence also. If things start getting weird, your mitochondria send a signal to the brain which sends a signal to the cells lysosomes which then burst open and destroy the cell.”

“It’s called apoptosis or programmed cell death.” ~ callisstaa

Every Adults’ Kneecaps Feel This One

“Until the age of like 2 ish babies don’t have real kneecaps, they are made of a squishy cartilage type thing” ~ Bunchnivski

Lots of their bones are squishy cartilage stuff, and only grow into bone as they age. Compare this baby hand with this adult hand x-ray.”

“We can actually use this development of cartilage into bone in the wrist to figure out roughly how old somebody is.” ~ elcarath

We Just Need To Keep Believing And Soon We Can Also See Over Tall Walls

“We have the same number of bones in our neck as a giraffe.” ~ Team_Captain_America

“Giraffes’ neck vertibrae are just really big.” ~ KaityKat117

It Truly Is Liquid Gold

“Human breast milk adapts it’s nutritious content to fit the need of the offspring. Baby lacks iron?”

“Next dose of milk will contain more iron. It’s amazing.” ~ Grimms_tale

“how does that work?”

“like.. how does the body of the mother know what the baby needs?”

“or is it more a ‘the ingredients of milk change over time, as the baby goes through different stages of grow’?” ~ Chepi_ChepChep

“Breastmilk is SO cool!! There’s a reason why it’s called liquid gold!”

“More fun facts:”

“1- breastmilk can be dripped into babies eye/ear/nose to treat infections (as mentioned by someone below, it works best as an anti-inflammatory, which can help! Also, it’s more of a preventative than a cure.)”

“2- breastmilk does change depending on babies needs and as they grow”

“3- breastmilk contents differ depending on babies gender”

“4- breastmilk can help with cradle cap”

“5- it works on mild eczema!”

“6- the components of breastmilk could lead to treatment for cancers! possibilities still under trial”

“7- it’s “made” out of the mother’s blood”.

“Milk is made inside glands from the blood stream. Breast milk is NOT made from the mother’s stomach contents”

“The foods mom eats are broken down in the digestive system. Blood reaches the milk glands where it delivers carbohydrates, nutrients, white blood cells, enzymes, pro- and pre-biotics water, fat, and proteins into the gland. link!”

“8- mothers can detect issues with the baby through all of that kissing, which tells her body what to produce (like more antibodies ect) whoa!“~ Exotic-BlueBird

And That’s Enough For Today…

“It’s possible for your bowel movements to go backwards, causing you to poop from your mouth” ~ ipakookapi

“Just a way your body adapts to changes. If, for some reason you can’t poop, your body will attempt to expel it like its other waste products. You’ll find your breath will go rank, you’ll throw up poop and you urine will smell strong.”

“This will happen shortly before you die of sepsis, since all of these methods collectively aren’t good enough to dispose of everything you need.” ~ Gh3rkins

Never forget the human body is a fascinating and marvelous wonder of biology, chemistry and physics.

Just never be surprised when it does something surprising and/or upsetting to learn about.

We’re only human, after all.

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People Share The Craziest Conspiracy Theories That Have Been Proven True

Conspiracy theories are attractive.

It might be easy to dismiss someone who believes that the moon landing was faked or that Covid-19 vaccines aren’t safe, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

According to the Fight Fake News initiative at Louisiana State University (LSU), “Conspiracy theories are captivating because they provide explanations for confusing, emotional and ambiguous events especially when official explanations seem inadequate.”

People “naturally want to make sense of the world,” the initiative notes, observing that conspiracy theories “provide structured narratives of events that comport with how some people process information.”

So what happens when a conspiracy theory turns out to actually be true? Your brain just exploded at the thought, huh?

People were keen to share information after Redditor BrilliantKrill asked the online community:

“What are some popular conspiracy theories that have been proved?”

“The United States…”

“The United States really did engage in a secret and illegal bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam war.” ~ Redditor

To which this person replied…

“Yep. Led to the rise of the Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge. If you don’t remember, Pol Pot instigated a massive genocide in Cambodia.” ~ tface23

“He was a world-class drinker…”

“Hemingway went off the grid at the end of his life believing that the FBI was tracking him. He was a world-class drinker and not the best individual.”

“He wasn’t wrong about that.” ~ thatthingdo

To which this person replied…

“The sad part is that being tracked fueled his anxiety which eventually contributed to his decision to kill himself.” ~ TXR22

“The Black Hand…”

“The Black Hand did give Gavrilo Princip the gun he used to kill Archduke Ferdinand. They had other assassins on that route.”

“And even though this hits up all the marks of a conspiracy theory, it’s true.” ~ Bitlong_Salad

To which this person replied…

“The Serbian prime minister knew about the plans and tried to discreetly warn about it but was misunderstood.”

“The original assassination plan included grenades, but every assassin failed, Princip actually intended to kill one of his fellow assassins, who was caught and failed to commit suicide, when the archduke happened to pass by on his way to visit wounded officers in the hospital.” ~ GrandTheftPony

And on that same note…

“When you hear the full story of Ferdinand’s death, it’s much harder to consider it a conspiracy.”

“I mean, everything about it was so poorly thought out down to the fact that Ferdinand was the highest-ranking ally the Black Hand’s cause had within the government at the time.” ~ HandicapperGeneral

But what about phones, eh?

“That older Iphones are purposely being slowed down.” ~ mark484877

But hold up!

“It’s not so black and white, but you are correct. What a lot of people fail to mention is that Samsung does the same thing if not worse because you can ‘speed it back up’ for a fee.” ~ tireddrew

And then this happened:

“Have you heard of Verizon or Google doing the same? My Pixel 2 battery used to last me 2+ days easily before the phone was paid off.”

“Within a week of paying it off, my battery suddenly started lasting me about half a day with minimal use, and the phone started running slowly as well. Come to think of it, the GPS issues started around then too.”

“When using maps, the GPS can tell me where I am, but doesn’t update location once I start navigation.”

Looks like there’s some disagreement here.

“Service providers have no control over when your phone’s hardware clocks out. But a lot of Android phones usually die when they hit the 2-3 year mark.”

“As much as people hate on Apple, I’ve been a user since 2012 and have had an excellent experience. I used to be Android, but I had an LG phone that really soured the experience and now I’ll never go back.” ~ tireddrew

“A proposed CIA operation…”

“Operation Northwoods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods“

“A proposed CIA operation to train Cuban refugees to commit mass shooting sprees in cities like Miami, to help convince the public that we should invade Cuba and kill Castro. Luckily, JFK had the sense to reject the idea.” ~ Redditor

Oh, and speaking of that:

“Operation Northwoods is a classic example of a Western government planning a false flag against civilians to justify war.”

“I do see this example ‘refuted’ in the sense that it was merely in the brainstorming stages and not operationally ready, but it was meant to be implemented fairly soon after the memo was written – US planners anticipated Cuba would sign a defense pact with the Soviet Union in the coming months.”

“Such a pact would’ve tied America’s hands behind its back in trying to thwart the Cuban revolution.”

“I think it’s noteworthy how the generals casually throw in a reference to ‘Remember the Maine’, in connection with planning a false flag. I wonder if it’s an open secret in military/intelligence black ops circles that such incidents were actually carried out from the inside.”

“One scenario from Northwoods – the swapping of civilian airliners with drone aircraft – is thought by some 9/11 Truthers to have been used to carry out the September 11th attacks.” ~ 50YearPlanBro

Okay, okay… just hear me out for a moment here—just one more about this, okay? Okay? Good.

“As in it never got past the memo phase and was never close to being implemented? Have you even read the actual memo the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave JFK.”

“It’s so badly written that it reeks of someone telling their subordinates the government version of ‘I need pictures, pictures of Spiderman’. DoD wanted to prove it could come up with something and it was just….awful.” ~ CitationX_7N11C

And just listen to this observation:

“The term “conspiracy theorist” was coined during the JFK assassination to discredit the people that had a different interpretation from the official story.” ~ OttoManSatire

Is there something here?

“They turned ‘conspiracy’ into a dirty word. People act like it is some mythological creature but it is simply a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.” ~ OMGhateallofyou

According to Karen Douglas, Ph.D., a professor of social psychology at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom, “Believing in conspiracy theories and being suspicious about the actions of others is in some ways quite an adaptive thing to do.”

We don’t necessarily want to trust everyone, she points out, so conspiracy theories have always been around.

Which one will surprise us next by turning out to be true? We have no way to know, but there are at least a few people out there who are bound to feel vindicated.

Posted on

People Share The Absolute Scariest Space Facts They Know

For some, outerspace represents a sense of hope and advancement.

For others, the cosmos has more of that whole “terrifying hellscape” thing going on.

This article is probably going to vibe a bit more with group 2 than the “space, the final frontier” set.

Reddit user Zjaf asked:

“What’s the scariest space fact/mystery in your opinion?”

Who’s ready to get plunged into some fact-based existential dread? Let’s get into it. These are the space-facts that people find the most unsettling.

It’s HUGE.

“The sheer distance between things. It’s scary and somewhat depressing.” – regretfulbastard

“Definitely scary on the existential dread scale.”

“Even better, the scale is only increasing faster. Short of developing faster than light travel or the expansion of the universe slowing down, eventually the only things lighting up the night sky where humans once roamed will be our own galaxy and our nearest galactic neighbors.”

“All those other galaxies spotted by Hubble will be beyond the distance that we will ever see light from them again. The entire Milky Way will be in quarantine with just a few family members to call company for the remainder of the universe existing.” – desolation0

“If Einstein is correct (every experience so far has proved that he is, unfortunately), space isn’t meant for us.”

“Even if we manage to reach to build a near light speed spacecraft, it would take years to reach the nearest star systems – but time would seem to go by faster to everyone aboard the ship.”

“But it gets worse: any communication is also bound by the speed of light. Even if we create an outpost on Proxima Centauri b, it would take at least 8.5 YEARS to get an answer to any communication. And it’s the nearest planet. Any kind of united civilization is utterly impossible in these conditions.” – asshai

A Single Destructive Event

“The Kessler Effect is the theory that a single destructive event in Low earth orbit could create a cascade where satellites break up into tiny fragments.”

“Those tiny fragments would then go about taking out other satellites, breaking THEM up into smaller fragments and so on, until the earth is completely surrounded by a massive cloud of tiny flying death shrapnel which would make leaving this planet almost impossible.”

“If you look up how much space debris there is already up there and how many satellites currently orbit, plus the continued growth of the commercial space industry… I think about it a lot.” – sosogos

“A large volcano eruption has the capacity to knock out enough communication for long enough to trigger such an event. The fact that magma below the earth surface has the capacity to takeout satellites blows my mind.” – a55per

The Void

“The Bootes void.”

“An area of space where there should be 50,000 or so galaxies (compared to other areas of the same size) but there’s only about 60.”

“Could just be empty space for some unknown reason, or it could be an ever expanding intergalactic empire using Dyson spheres. Also I think it appears to be growing but that could just be galaxies moving away from the void” – nazi_marxist

“It’s 330,000,000 light years in diameter. You could travel at the speed of light for literally 330,000,000 years and see absolutely nothing.” – r0b0tMark

We’re Stuck Here

“This visual that either shows how slow light speed is or how vast space is, depending on which way you look at it.”

“I’ve seen videos showing the scale of the universe before, but this one really hit home for some reason. The speed of light, the fastest speed possible, looks painfully slow when you look at it in the context of even a fraction of our solar system.”

“We’re stuck here, aren’t we?” – [Reddit]

“This is the first time I was able to actually GRASP the scale of the universe. Holy sh*t is space huge…” – Cringetorics

What’s Beyond The Sphere?

“I can’t accept the fact that there is no end in space. But if there is indeed an end, then… what’s beyond it?”

“I’m stucked in the absurdity.”

“In the numerous answers I’ve received, the one that seems to come back the most is ‘the universe is curved, you would end up back where you started.’”

“Seems fair enough… Then again, that wouldn’t mean there is no limit.”

“On the contrary, that would just mean we are trapped in (or on the surface of) a sphere.”

“There is still a limit to a sphere. So the question remains… what’s beyond it?” – tartokwetsh

Way Overdue

“The earth is way overdue for a civilization/all life ending event.”

“Meteors and asteroids didn’t just stop hitting earth. Will it happen in my lifetime, my kids or my grandkids lifetimes? Or 1000 years from now?”

“Humans have only been here for a minute amount of time over the course of earths complete history and many things have happened to completely wipe out almost all life as we know it.” – tonkajoe6646

Brain Soup

“The Boltzmann Brain”

“The most likely ending to our universe will be all stars and black holes exploding and eventually the universe becomes a completely even soup of particles for all eternity.”

“In this theory, the Big Bang was actually a cosmic coincidence, in which enough of those base particles (literally every one that currently exists) collided in the even soup of a PAST universe. This collision caused the big bang to occur, thrusting into motion the energies that run our current universe.”

“Such an occurrence in the soup of infinite is INCREDIBLY unlikely.”

“What, instead, is far more likely is that just enough base particles came together in the exact right way as to create a literal floating brain in the infinite soup that has all of your memories and experiences up to the current moment.”

“Statistically speaking, it is unfathomably MORE likely that nothing you’ve ever perceived exists and, instead, you are merely a floating brain in an endless expanse of nothing, imagining the universe and doomed to return to the soup from whence you came, none the wiser.” – Snaz5

ISS Lifeguards?

“There is a section of ocean where the closest help at any time is 250ish miles straight up. On the International Space Station.” – Overly-mannly-mann

“Point Nemo is the most isolated (from land) point on earth. Due to the isolation and low shipping lane traffic in this part of the world, the nearest humans to someone at point Nemo would be those astronauts on the ISS.” – ViperSRT3g

From An Astronomer’s Perspective

“Astronomer here! There are a lot of things posted here that are not really likely to happen any time soon or affect your life on Earth much. So, if you want something to worry about, may I introduce you to the Carrington Event of 1859.“

“Basically Carrington was a scientist who noticed a flash from a huge cluster of sunspots, which was the biggest coronal mass ejection from the sun ever recorded (aka a ton of material ejected from the sun at high speeds). It hit Earth within a day- aurora were seen as far south as Hawaii, wires on telephone poles burst into flame, and telegraph operators even reported contacting each other when not connected.”

“If a similar event were to strike Earth today, it would cause billions of dollars in damage, because blown transformers are super hard to replace and a lot of satellites wouldn’t be able to handle it (and it goes without saying you’d have a serious radio blackout for a bit until it ended on a ton of essential frequencies).”

“Electronics would be fried, batteries wiped, etc. Some scientists think it could zap us ‘back to the dark ages.’ “

“The crazy thing about the Carrington event though is we really have no idea how often such events happen. But we do know that in 2012 there was a Carrington-level solar flare that barely missed Earth…“

“We do know these biggest flares happen during solar maximum- the sun has an 11 year cycle of sunspots and the period with the most is solar maximum. The next max would be 2025-2026 or so.”

“However we really don’t know how common these big flares are. Interestingly data from other stars shows they seem to be much more common around other stars than our own, with huge implications for life in some cases.” – Andromeda321

It Might Be Up To Us

“You know those classic utopian sci-fi stories, where benevolent aliens come down and end all the wars and uplift them to super-intellects and give everyone miraculous technology and immortality and welcome them into a peaceful galactic union and everything?”

“Ever wonder why, if aliens are roaming around faster than light, they haven’t swung by us yet?”

“One of the answers to that question: We might be the first. Depending on how long it takes life to develop, we might be the first to evolve to a point where we could plausibly make that happen without nuking ourselves into oblivion or destroying our atmosphere or what have you.”

“It might be up to us whether we make it or not as an interstellar species. We have the responsibility of getting our sh*t together, because it may well be up to us to save everyone else.”

“Uncountable genocides, wars, famines, death on a scale larger than our species have ever understood. Literally the fate of the universe might depend on us.”

“I look around at us now, and that’s what scares me.” – sirblastalot

OK honestly?

That last one is the one that freaks us out most.

Posted on

People Break Out The Best Facts To Impress A Little Kid

Little kids are incredibly impressionable. Their minds are still learning and growing, which is a prime opportunity to tell them facts that will absolutely blow their little minds.

Whether you’re a parent, an aunt or uncle, a cool older sibling, or another adult in their life, there are a few facts you can tell them that will make you seem like you know everything about the world.

If you want to impress a young person in your life, this list will give you facts of all sorts that may even blow your own mind.

A Redditor went to Ask Reddit to ask:

“What are some cool facts to tell a 5 year old?”

Take notes!

Watch them try to do the impossible.

“You can’t lick your elbow.”

“Then you get a good 5min watching them try.” ~ CriticallyNormal

“Nah you wanna tell them that you can. Then they’ll try for the whole day and get increasingly p*ssed off.” ~ harkat82

“Actually a lot of kids can lick their elbow. Since they’re younger and more flexible they can bend their arms in weird directions in order to lick their elbow.” ~ chickenugget814

“You’re absolutely right. I just tried it on my 6 y/o nephew and promised him that he could have my phone (he always wants to play games with it) if he could do it. So yeah, bye Reddit!” ~ ninjatoes36

If you’re happy and you know it.

“Astronomer here! Clap your hands once, and then clap them again a second later. The two claps were actually done about 30,000 miles apart thanks to the Earth’s motion in space!”

“I did the calculation once and interestingly most of the stuff you think of, like the rotating Earth or out orbit around the sun, is a negligible part of it. The real contributions are from our star orbiting the galaxy, and the galaxy’s motion itself in space.” ~ Andromeda321

“Is that the earth moving around the sun or the sun moving around the center of the galaxy? Hey, are we aware if galaxies are rotating around a central universal point?” ~ whohw

“The earth moving around the sun is much, much less distance at any moment than the distance we get from the sun orbiting the galaxy.”

“Galaxies do not orbit around a central point, but galaxies around us are heading in the direction of the ‘Great Attractor’ which is outside our visible universe. It’s probably just an even bigger group of galaxies.” ~ Andromeda321

A free, new pet.

“The ducks at the park are free, you can take them home.” ~ NotDaWaed

“I tried this last week. Park police were not too impressed.” ~ mavinochi

“I caught one when I was a kid! And that’s how I got bitten by an angry mama duck.” ~ ZarquonsFlatTire

“Gotta be careful with them ducks. Some belong in gangs n sh*t.” ~ mavinochi

The Pacific Ocean.

“Every ‘c’ in ‘Pacific Ocean’ is pronounced differently.” ~ UWYO-Agent-7

“I just repeated Pacific Ocean several times in a really exaggerated manner just to be sure.” ~ AnRudIsAnamh

“Just told my wife ‘every c in Pacific ocean is spelled differently’… Whoops.” ~ Curran919

Numbers are weird.

“There are numbers below zero.” ~ Sergeant_Dimitri

“And other numbers orthogonal to the real number line entirely.”

“You might have to explain exponents/squaring things but some kids are precocious.” ~ 7788445511220011

“Are those imaginary numbers?” ~ rushingkar

“Yes. There might even be more examples that I’m not aware of tbh, but that was what I was thinking about.” ~ 7788445511220011

“Yep, we can get weirder. Real number exist in a line, complex numbers exist in a plane, and quaternions exists within a volume.”

“So, there exists a range of numbers orthogonal to both the simply real numbers and the simply imaginary numbers. Numbers above zero, numbers below zero, numbers to either side zero, and … hmm, before and after? back and forth from?”

“I dunno, I’m already disoriented.” ~ Haven_Stranger

Advice for dealing with bullies.

“If your being chased by a bully, run until there right behind you then drop into a ball and they’ll trip over you.”

“Then kick ’em in the d*ck.” ~ Lucidpotato666

“Did this as a kid. It worked SO well like it was a movie or something. I can still see him in the air.” ~ Mission_Huckleberry

“Will he ever land?” ~ PurpleVein

“That must have been one hell of a kick in the d*ck.” ~ striped_frog

Our top teeth may or may not be immobile.

“You can’t move your upper teeth.” ~ SNOUMANN

“Some other person on here said my upper teeth are moving at 30,000 miles per second.”

“Get your stories straight reddit. ComeOn!” ~ vitium

“My 7 year old can move one of her upper teeth- it’s loose and we’re waiting for it to fall out.” ~ linuxgeekmama

“Canadian dentistry simply consists of taking part in a hockey match where the offending teeth can be smashed out of your face by a large stick.” ~ imagine_amusing_name

“You can if you have dentures :D” ~ sodapopzero

Put ’em all together and what do you got?

“A group of zebras is called a dazzle and a group of giraffes is called a journey.” ~ Magicbean96

“Don’t Stop Believin’ this.” ~ termiAurthur

“I thought a group of giraffes was called a Tower…” ~ MyCatsAreDumb

“Eiffel for that every time…” ~ PawnedPawn

Today’s yesterday is yesterday’s tomorrow.

“We will never experience tomorrow as by the time it’s ‘tomorrow,’ it will be today.” ~Redditor

“You can say this about right now. There is never a right now bc once you even say it or think about it, it’s gone.” ~ thedopestantelope

“I keep trying to explain to my almost five year old that no, it’s not tomorrow now.” ~ linuxgeekmama

“Easy: promise you’ll take him to the zoo (or Disneyland or whatever) tomorrow. Then, every day: ‘Are we going to the zoo today?’ ‘No, it’s today. I said we’d go tomorrow.’”

“Eventually, they’ll catch on: My parents don’t love me. Also, the concepts of today and tomorrow. The important things.” ~ theAlpacaLives

It’s all in what you eat.

“Flamingos get their pink colour from shrimp they eat.” ~ cthullu-and-the-maid

“But how many shrimps do you have to eat, to make your skin turn pink?” ~ greccojunior

“I have never eaten a shrimp and my skin is pink.” ~ diablorious

We tend to think we know it all.

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People Who Work For Dating Apps Share The Best Behind-The-Scenes Facts They Know

Online dating seems to be the norm for finding a partner these days, but the process can seem a bit esoteric and confusing for those who haven’t been using the apps all along.

Working for the companies that run dating apps and websites is more interesting than the average person might expect, too.

Reddit user brunetteht3 asked:

“Redditors that worked with a dating company (Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, etc.), what’s the most insane user stat or behind-the-scenes fact you found out about?”

Try Reaching Out

“I ran operations for an online dating company (notably not affiliated with Match). From database analytics I can tell you a few things.”

“Men initiate contact around 80% of the time in straight matchmaking, and if you are a woman looking to date other women and you simply initiate contact with another woman you have a good chance of success simply because it’s very very very common for women to match but then neither initiates contact.”

“IIRC we were able to determine that it takes on average about 3 dates before sex happens (I don’t recall how we worked that out, I’m not a data analyst, but presumably it was some keyword based algorithm looking at chat messages).”

“We got so many requests for information from the police that we had an informal system with them, to save them from wasting time getting warrants for information about people who we didn’t have data on, they would ask about a particular name/email/whatever other identifier and we would just say yes we have data about them or no we don’t, and if we did they’d then go get the warrant to get a copy of it.”

“The other thing I can tell you from our analytics, that really shouldn’t be at all surprising, is to get some decent profile photos.”

“Go get your talented friend or just hire a photographer to take some really nicely-lit well-composed photos of yourself and watch your match rate soar.” – jamesinc

Not The Best Job

“I used to work at a dating site in the UK. I was on the tech side but most of the staff was a group of young women who manually approved images and text changes to profiles.”

“There was about 10-15 of them and the turnover rate was about one a week. The work was just so mind numbing.”

“About 10 times a day they’ed shout that they’d ‘got another one’.”

“Which basically meant one of the hundreds of thousands of men on the site has differently thought ‘I’ve thought of something nobody else has tried, I’ll upload a picture of my c*ck’ at which point they’d all laugh at it, cancel the profile upload and go back to reading about people’s choice of pets or whatever else they thought was interesting.” –mvrander

This One Isn’t Either

“My ex bf worked for the Yahoo Italy dating site back in the earlyish 2000s. His job was to pretend to be a woman, and message male customers just as their accounts were going to expire.”

“This would encourage them to pay to renew their subscriptions. Once they renewed, he would ghost them.”

“He only lasted for a few months due to how unethical it was.” –visualisewhirledpeas

More Than One Word Per Text Is Probably Good

“I used to work at Bumble, although this was about 4-5 years ago. Globally, about 90% of the users are men, so there is a huge male to female disparity, although it’s not that bad on a per country basis (for some countries).” 

“The most depressing stat though was the histogram of word count in messages. Something like 91% of opening messages were just one word ‘hey’, and ~85% of conversations were just one exchange long (‘hey’ -> no reply ever).”

“Looking at human, digital mating habits splayed out in data science form was really depressing.” 

“The countries which had better male-female ratios (which I can remember) were the Nordic ones, Sweden and Norway were close to 50/50, and for a time, one of them even had more women on the app than men.”

“Not sure how it is now.” –trias10

It Might Not Always Work Out

“[There was] A dude with over 2000 right swipes and no matches.” –Deleted Account

“Bless him – that’s quite sad actually. Hope he found someone eventually.” –brunetteht3 

Maybe Don’t Use Dating Sites For Your Side Hustle

“Lots of gay guys get banned from grindr selling weed. Would get a lot of emails of ‘why am I banned’ .”

“Go to their profile and will say ‘HMU for that 🌳‘” –PayneTrayne

“At my bachelorette party in New Orleans someone wanted weed and was going to try to find someone on Burbon Street. My friend said it was way easier and safer for him to use Grindr 😂” 

“Took less than ten minutes!” –mathlady89

Too Bad They Don’t Take Monopoly Money

“Most dating sites and apps are owned by one company The Match Group. They have a near monopoly. I think Bumble is one of the few not owned by them.” –HueJass84

“Funny you should say that, Bumble is owned by a woman who was also a co-founder of Tinder. The rest of that founding team owns The Match Group.” –zadeon9

“To be fair, she (Whitney Wolfe Herd) launched Bumble as a more comfortable and empowering alternative to Tinder and later sued them for sexual harassment. This comment seems to imply that she’s somehow in cahoots with Tinder/Match.” –spacemanaut

 So Many Unsolicited Pics

“I used to moderate OK Cupid. The amount of unsolicited dick pictures men would send women, not even accompanied by any words was horrifying.”

“I mean, you’d expect it because online dating is a cesspit but the sheer amount would still surprise you.”

I had to look at each reported picture and say ‘Yes, that’s a penis’.” –Jimmypeglegs

“99% of the time, the dick pic doesn’t work. What happens after it’s reported?” –IsThisNameTakenThen

“I’m guessing they think it’s a numbers game? I’d only ever see the picture if it had been reported by the recipient, but if they liked it then fair enough.” 

“As to what happens afterwards, usually their account would be banned. OKC were usually quite quick at getting rid of surprise dick piccers.” –Jimmypeglegs

Everybody Lies, But About Different Things

“I worked for Match for a couple years. This is probably widely known but women frequently lie about their age and weight and men lie about their height and salary.”

“Also, it’s a big problem that women are inundated with DMs while most men get none.” –ChickumNwaffles

Dating Life Pro Tips

“Ok so I didn’t work with a dating company per se… But I helped software engineers optimize their profiles.” 

“Men get VERY FEW matches, regardless of how good their profile is. Women get A LOT of matches, but most of those matches are useless.” 

“1) Don’t try to appeal mildly to EVERYONE. Appeal strongly to a small subset of people. Emphasize who you are.” 

“2) Show don’t tell—what makes a person want to date you? Will you impress them with your volunteer work?”

“Will you bring them fun places? Will you make them laugh?” 

“3) Get good photos. If you have to, get a friend with a good camera to take photos of you multiple times over a day with several changes of clothes.” 

“4) Be brutally honest. Do you need to go to the dentist because your teeth are gray? Go.”

“Do you need to get a haircut? Go somewhere that charges $50 a haircut and tell them to do what they want (if male).”

“Do your clothes fit? Ask a fashionable friend.”

“Remember: people are judging you on your appearance as much as you are judging them. They can’t see you’re kind of funny or interesting.”

“They can see if you’re well groomed and making an effort.” –Katamende

While online dating might seem even scarier after reading these facts, it’s still worth giving it a try if you’re looking for love.

Just remember to put your best (online) foot forward!