People Share When Random Folks Gave Way Too Much Information

I get it that some people are just awkward. Or nervous. Or strange. Or uncomfortable in social situations.

But even if they do fall into any of those categories, it would be nice if they kept odd/bizarre/downright creepy stories to themselves.

These aren’t ice breakers, people!

Folks on AskReddit talked about situations where people shared WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION.

1. I get it…but…

“Cashier at St. Louis Bread Co. informing me she’s on her period and flowing very heavily.

I get it, I’m a fellow woman, but damn. Its a restaurant.”

2. We won’t be coming back.

“A while ago, my now-wife (then, my fiance) and I were preparing to get married here in Austin.

We spent several Sundays visiting some of the churches in the area that might serve as the ceremony venue to get a feel for them.

We visited one beautiful, fairly large, older church near downtown. At the appropriate time in the service, the minister/priest, an older gentleman – roughly late 60s-ish, started giving an odd sermon about tithing and how the parishioners had been letting the church down and in a way they were stealing from God by not giving enough. It was a bit of a strange one. And it didn’t seem well-constructed and thought out; much more on-the-fly than sermons I was used to.

Anyway, after about 10 minutes of this, he wrapped up and asked everyone to bow their heads for prayer then immediately walked off the stage and started walking down the aisle. My wife and I were about 2/3 of the way back and in an empty row – the service was not particularly well-attended. I’m thinking to myself, “Well, that was kind of a weird… What’s he doing? He’s heading toward us… Oh. God…”

While the congregation was still mid-group prayer, he walked to our row and then slid all the way in until he was right next to me. Everyone was watching him (and now us) as they “Our Fathered” (or whatever it was). We finished the prayer and then sat down for the offering and a song. He then leaned over and whispered, “Good morning.” We shook hands and he continued, “I wanted to let you know that I just had a mental breakdown up there a moment ago.”

“Oh… Hey… That’s alright! I… thought it was… great!” I stammered in reply.

“You’re kind, but no. I’m kind of falling apart. I saw you two come in and recognized you were new. I didn’t want you to take that sermon as typical of our congregation… I have to get going. It was a pleasure meeting you both,” and he got up and walked right out the back door.

We didn’t choose that church.”

3. An interesting choice.

“Me, sits down for my lunch break at work. Random coworker comes and sits down and says to me, “so I’ve been watching cartoon monster porn”.

4. Wasn’t ready for that one.

“Starbucks barista here. I was working the drive thru and some lady comes in asking for an iced coffee with heavy cream.

I pay it no mind as it’s not even close to my weirdest order. She gets to the window and starts trying to explain the motifs behind getting this drink. “By the way, I’m not getting this for the caffeine. I’m constipated.”

Whatever still hasn’t phased me, I’m used to weird shit like this. She continued, “I tried an enema two days ago and that bullshit didn’t work at all!”

That’s where I had to stop and go to the back to breathe, I was not ready for that.”

5. Mortified.

“My coworker went into great detail (including a hand drawn diagram) about how constipated she was after one of her c-sections.

She said she was so uncomfortable that she asked her husband to try to dig some of the poo out of her butt with his finger. So she put a towel down on the bed, laid on her side, and he got to work. After some successful digging she rolled over and noticed a butter knife on the bedside table and asked what it was doing there to which he responded “well, it was too hard for my fingers”.

We are nurses, she told this story at the desk to a group of at least 5 people. We were all mortified.”

6. Let’s have a talk.

“My coworker told me that he has had flare ups of gonorrhea over 30 times, he has herpes, and god knows what else.

He said he can’t remember how many times he’s had a q-tip swab in his penis hole. He doesn’t believe me that I’ve never had an STD and is constantly bringing it up.

I don’t know what compels this man to constantly talk about STDs but he must have a forest fire going on down there.”

7. Mom talk.

“Chatting with another mom at the park.

Now we can chat about some pretty weird things. Like, discussing your kids pooping habits would be a normal conversation. Even to some extent discussing how things are going the bedroom isn’t that weird.

But I’ve had some weird things other moms have confided to me. The one that stands out was a mom who confessed she was a closeted lesbian, in a loveless marriage who has a huge crush on her teenage son’s girlfriend.

It got even weirder too.”

8. Google my name.

“Years ago, I lived in Florida. My girlfriend (now wife) and I went to a Chili’s one night to get some drinks with her co-workers. After they left, we went back inside to the bar for one more drink because it was still early and we lived nearby. This older guy walks in and sits down a few stools away from us and immediately starts giving us some lighthearted shit about football, then notices my girlfriend typing something on her phone. Within 60 seconds of meeting us, he decided to drop this:

“Oh, you like looking things up on them phones huh? Google my name.”

We Google his name and the first result is a news article that names him as the victim of an attempted murder-suicide by his wife. She shot him in the head, then shot herself in the head right after. She died, he didn’t. Police came after a call of shots fired, they found him unconscious but alive, medflighted him to a hospital and he woke up later that day.

And that was his icebreaker story!”

9. This is sad.

“About 1-2 years ago, I worked in a clothing store. One day, an elderly lady came in to our store. I asked her if she wanted some help and she said yes. We found what she was looking for and she left afterwards. All good.

She came in again about a week later and looked around the store. After a while, she started talking to me. Now, I’m a pretty open person and a good listener, but I definetly felt like she crossed a line when she told me about the time she was pregnant and her ex-husband kicked her in the stomach and killed their baby. I felt sad for her, but we’d only chatted 1-2 times before, so for her to be telling me this made me feel very uncomfortable; especially since she talked to me like we were long-time friends.”

10. A turn for the worse.

“I met a professional acquaintance at a friend’s show one night. We knew each other vaguely, having met a couple of times, so we started having small talk. The guy obviously had gotten one too many beers, and felt it was a great time to tell me all about his “dumb moves” from his early adulthood, how his fiancée cheated on him with his best friend and how he became an alcoholic. Alright. Definitely awkward, but manageable so far.

It took a turn for the worse when he suddenly felt comfortable enough to describe, in details, how he and his friends had raped a teenage boy that was black out drunk. The acquaintance and his friends were drunk and thought it would be fun to do that while the boy was literally unconscious and unresponsive. I noped the fuck out of the conversation right after that and hope I’ll never run into him again.”

11. Possessed.

“My super religious ex-girlfriend from college told me that she had been possessed by a demon.

It was about a year after we started dating. She was one of the most honest people I’ve ever met, someone who just couldn’t lie. I knew from the moment she told me this that she genuinely believed she’d been possessed. I kind of shrugged it off and tried not to ever address it…. and then I met her family.

On the first day I met them, the subject came up and I just couldn’t avoid it no matter how hard I tried. It turned out that she’d “sinned” by giving up her virginity (before we met) and this allowed the demon to possess her. They even had a name for the demon, which I can’t remember, but it was supposedly the name she’d always wanted to give to her future first-born son. The family had their pastor – who I would later learn had no pastoral training, no seminary schooling, etc. – come to their house to perform an “exorcism.” Long story short, this presumably freed her of the demon.

I continued dating her for another year or so after this. Any time we became intimate, she would be all into it, and then afterwards she would be terrified that she had possibly opened the door to let the demon back in.

Here’s my theory about what really happened, although I never got any confirmation on it. Within minutes of meeting her family, it became clear that this was a “truth-telling” family. They were honest and open about everything to an uncomfortable degree. It was almost as if she was raised to believe that lying was the greatest sin of all, right up there with fornication. So when she lost her virginity, she was so ashamed that she would just stay quiet about the whole thing so that she wouldn’t have to sin twice by lying about it. When she was confronted about it, instead of admitting it she would stay silent about it.

The family went to their pastor and explained the situation. This charlatan convinced them that this was a case of possession, and only through confession could she be released of the demon. I think the whole “exorcism” thing was just an elaborate ploy by the pastor to get her to confess to losing her virginity, which she did, and they were all brainwashed into thinking this was a successful exorcism of demonic possession.

I’m no psychologist, so I could be way off-base here. It’s just my best guess based on everything I was able to piece together.”

12. Liar!

“I brought it on myself. On 21st this month I was at a family meet. I started talking to a younger cousin who has seemed off & aloof for sometime & in a shitty job for someone as smart & ‘educated’. After pressing for a time, he swore me to secrecy & told me that he did not get his degree in Dec 2017 coz he had been suspended by the university for a displinary issue. His parents have no idea.

We held 2 graduation parties for him with significance gifts. He had a gown & his parents were in the graduation square very happy for him. Nobody cared to confirm. He said he has resolved the issue with the Uni senate & will get his degree at end of year 2020. I suspect he could be on alcohol/drugs & keeping the secret for 2 years might have changed the course of his life. I have not told anyone.”

13. A bit off…

“Training a new hire at my old job. Guy was a bit off, but that was pretty much the standard for where we were working.

Giving him a tour of the facilities, describing his job duties…

He let’s me know that his dad “blew his brains out”.

By the end of my two years of working with him, I sympathized with his dad.”

14. WAY too much information.

“First conversation with the new co-worker.

Me: Hey, what do you like to do outside of work?

Him: I see a psychiatrist once a week because I’m dealing with severe depression. When I was 13 my grandpa shot himself in the head in front of me and it fucked me up.

Me: …

Me: I play video games.”

15. Nice to meet you, too!

“First time I met my husband’s grandmother, I asked “how are you?”

And she replied “I am ready to die”.”

Well, that was TMI all over the place. Yikes!

Do you have a story like this? Or have you ever shared WAYYYY too much?

Let us know in the comments!

The post People Share When Random Folks Gave Way Too Much Information appeared first on UberFacts.

You Should Think About Giving Your Loved Ones a Tasty Pickle Bouquet

Do you have a special occasion coming up? Instead of a traditional bouquet, why not gift your loved ones a bouquet made entirely of pickles?

Pickle bouquets are similar to other edible bouquets, such as fruit arrangements. But in this case, they consist of pickled vegetables, including peppers, tomatoes, whole pickles, and sliced pickles. Plus, bulbs of garlic and fresh dill add some extra flair.

All the different items make for a surprisingly pretty array of colors, much like a traditional bouquet. That said, they’re very different from the bouquets you’re used to.

The pickle bouquet was originally invented by Grillo’s Pickles for Valentine’s Day. The pickles in their bouquets range from sweet to sour to spicy.

“Not only is a pickle bouquet more beautiful than a dozen red roses, and healthier than a standard box of chocolate, it’s also far more creative,” Travis Grillo, the company’s founder and CEO, told Today.

“We know there are a lot of pickle lovers out there that would love nothing more than to get a Valentine’s Day gift loaded with their favorite snack.”

Grillo’s isn’t actually selling pre-made pickle bouquets — but you can make your own using the instructions on their website.

First, pick a selection of your (or your loved one’s) favorite pickles. Try to get a few different shapes, like spears, whole pickles, and slices. Also, look for different flavors, like dill and bread-and-butter. Don’t forget to pick up some other veggies and herbs for decoration.

Then pierce the pickles with bamboo kebab skewers and toothpicks to make a “stem.”

View this post on Instagram

? CONTEST ? ?BE OUR VALENTINE!!♥ Show us how much you love @grillospickles and get a chance to win a HUGE romantic getaway (or regular getaway) valued up to $750.00. Be as creative as you possibly can! Contest will start Saturday 2/9 and end on Valentine's Day 2/14. Winner will be announced on 2/15! Tag your friends. 1. Must be following @grillospickles 2. Show us why you should be our Valentine.(bouquets welcome) 3. Must tag @grillospickles in your post. . #allnatural #vegan #fatfree #kosher #glutenfree #raw #glutenfreevegan #eater #eatfamous #yougottaeatthis #foodbeast #buzzfeast #treatyoself #lovefood #huffposttaste #devourpower #food #foodporn #spoonfeed #feastagram #foodandwine #feedyoursoull #zagat #hypefeasts #eeeeeats #pickles #foodprnshare #forkyeah

A post shared by Grillo's Pickles (@grillospickles) on

From there, you can either arrange the stems in a vase or tissue paper. They’re heavier than flowers, so you’ll have to play around a bit to get everything to stay up properly. If using a vase, Grillo’s recommend using floral foam to stick the skewers into.

And voilà! Your perfect pickle present.

The post You Should Think About Giving Your Loved Ones a Tasty Pickle Bouquet appeared first on UberFacts.

People Are Sharing the Dumbest Thing Anyone Ever Said to Them

I actually remember the dumbest thing someone ever said to me, and how it kind of stunned me into silence for a good thirty seconds. There’s no way to respond to some comments, truly, that isn’t incredulous or flat-out rude.

Me? I just nodded and smiled.

These people have some pretty amazingly terrible stories of their own, and thankfully, someone thought to ask for them on Twitter.

Yay for us!

15. I promise her credentials are better than yours.

14. That’s not going to work out in her favor.

13. That’s not something you forget.

12. Just keep digging that hole deeper.

11. I need to hear the reasoning behind this.

10. I’m guessing this happens a lot.

9. I literally have no comment.

8. I would have struggled not to slap this person.

7. He picked the wrong lady.

6. It’s literally his name.

5. Well, that proves it then.

4. Why didn’t we think of that?

3. Oddly enough, it’s possible.

2. Yeahhhhhh that’s not how science works.

1. Pretty sure Canadians would take issue with this comment.

 

Mine was an actress – I complimented her on her ability to play two characters on a single show, saying that I could always tell which character she was playing when she came onscreen, even before she spoke.

Her reply, with a furrowed brow: “Do you mean right now?”

We were in an interview setting, soooooo. Yeah.

What’s your story? I know you have one!

The post People Are Sharing the Dumbest Thing Anyone Ever Said to Them appeared first on UberFacts.

This Toilet Designed to Limit Worker Bathroom Breaks Might Be the Most Evil Office Invention of All Time

We all have those really long, seemingly endless days at work where we’ll do anything to get away for a few extra minutes. You know, the ones where you pray that the clock hits five as soon as possible. And sometimes that means spending a few extra minutes in the bathroom, contemplating life and checking all our social media.

Well, one company in the UK is looking to curb the breaks when you spend an extra few minutes (or 30) sitting on the john. To do so, they’ve invented the StandardToilet. It is a very real thing, and it is, in all honesty, evil.

Capitalism at its finest.

The toilet has a tilted design that is meant to make people very uncomfortable while sitting on it;  the hope is that workers will not spend as much time in the bathroom during business hours because of the toilet is a literal pain in the ass. Isn’t that nice?!?!

The StandardToilet has been approved by the British Toilet Association (sounds like a fun place to work), and it works by tilting downwards at a 13-degree angle. Apparently, that strains your legs and feels like an extended squat. The founder of StandardToilet, Mahabir Gill, said, “Anything higher than that would cause wider problems. Thirteen degrees is not too inconvenient, but you’d soon want to get off the seat quite quickly.” Thank you for that!

Gill worked as a consulting engineer for 40 years and became annoyed when he would discover workers asleep on toilets or encounter long lines for the bathroom while working. So the idea for the StandardToilet was born. Gill says, “Its main benefit is to the employers, not the employees. It saves the employer money.”

Again, THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Isn’t capitalism the best?!?! Let’s hope and pray that this invention doesn’t make it to this side of the pond anytime soon. I know you need to catch up on your Netflix shows during your work breaks…

The post This Toilet Designed to Limit Worker Bathroom Breaks Might Be the Most Evil Office Invention of All Time appeared first on UberFacts.

This Is Why Dice Are a Lot Better Than Computers at Generating Truly Random Numbers

We have a lot of ways to do things at random: roll a die, flip a coin, pick a number – but one thing that actually doesn’t work so well: computers. Computers struggle to truly be random, even when they’re programmed to do exactly that.

You’ve probably noticed that even if you have thousands of songs on your phone, your shuffle function will “randomly” choose some songs more often than others.

The reason? Your computer follows an algorithm, which is essentially a list of instructions they use to carry out a task. They don’t know how to deviate from the set path (when they figure that out, the robot revolution will be upon us).

So, while engineers have come up with some ways to write algorithms that help computers pretend to generate random numbers, when it comes down to it, they really can’t be truly random because they are following instructions that lead them to their outcome.

The best we can do is a pseudo-random number generator, which honestly, is good enough to fool anyone who isn’t a computer programmer. But if you had the coding skills, you could, say, figure out the randomness behind an online poker program and make some serious cash.

True random number generators use physical phenomena akin to rolling a die – things like radioactive decay, background noise, or even the amount of time between your keystrokes. But again, we can’t even really call them truly random, since they’re still following an algorithm that has the physical phenomenon at its root.

View this post on Instagram

??: Takže, generátor randomných čísel mi vybral 5 čísel aby som z nich vytvorila nejaké líčenie! Potiahnite doľava pre výsledok! ❤ Čo si myslíte? . . ??: So random number generator picked me 5 random numbers to create some makeup look from it! Swipe to the left to see results! ❤ What do u think?? . . . ?PRODUCTS: @nyxcosmetics_czsk Honey dew me up primer @makeuprevolutionczsk Conceal & Define full coverage foundation – F1 @makeuprevolutionczsk Conceal & Define full coverage conceal and contour @catrice.cosmetics Nude illusion loose powder @makeuprevolutionczsk Hyaluronic fix hydrating & plumping makeup fixing spray @morphebrushes Palette by @jamescharles @makeuprevolution Roxi contour and highlight palette @makeuprevolution Brow pomade – medium brown @makeuprevolution Soph x highlighter palette by @soph @catrice.cosmetics Calligraph pro precise matt liner waterproof @misssporty Studio lash 3D volumythic mascara @dermacol_cz_sk Matte Mania liquid lip colour 15 Lashes from aliexpress . . . #nyxcosmetics #nyx #makeuprevolution #revolution #revolutionbrows #morphe #morphebrushes #morphebabe #catrice #catricecosmetics #catricemakeup #misssporty #misssportyczsk #dermacol #dermacoloriginal #dermacol_cz_sk #dermacolmattemania #jamescharles #soph #roxxsaurus #makeup #makeupartist #makeuptutorial #makeuplover #randomnumbergenerator #randommakeup #makeuplook

A post shared by ???? (@makeupsimy) on

Which means I’m going to just keep rolling a dice for my numbers.

Not that I often need truly random numbers anyway…

The post This Is Why Dice Are a Lot Better Than Computers at Generating Truly Random Numbers appeared first on UberFacts.

A Man Died of Sepsis After His Dog Licked Him

I routinely let most dogs I encounter lick me as much as they want. Now, after learning about this story, I can say that maybe I need to back off a little bit…

A 63-year-old man in Germany began to feel ill and ultimately died – and the culprit might freak you out a little bit: the man’s dog licked his face. A couple of weeks later, he got a fever, started experiencing muscle pains, and then had trouble breathing. He decided to go to the hospital to find out what was going on and he received some awful news: he had advanced kidney damage and liver dysfunction.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Holly Koffler (@hollykoffler) on

He was admitted to the hospital but things took a turn for the worse. The doctors realized he was suffering from gangrene and that he had a terrible sepsis infection.

Of course correlation is not causation, so how do we know it was the dog licking that did it?

The man’s bloodwork showed that he was infected with Capnocytophaga canimorsus, which is a bacteria usually found in the saliva of cats and dogs.

No treatments worked on the poor man, and he suffered for 16 days as multiple organs failed. Sadly, his family eventually decided to turn off his life support and the man passed away.

This may sound like something that has never happened before or that would never happen again, but there were two other cases of humans contracting Capnocytophaga canimorsus from dogs in 2018 alone. A 58-year-old woman in Wisconsin died after her dog nipped her, and a man, also from Wisconsin, contracted the bacteria after spending time with eight puppies. The man had to have both of his legs amputated and parts of his hands removed because of the infection.

Our advice: if you happen to be bitten by a dog or a cat, wash the area immediately with soap and water, and have a doctor take a look at the wound just to be on the safe side. Yikes…

The post A Man Died of Sepsis After His Dog Licked Him appeared first on UberFacts.

A New Video Game Lets You Play as Jesus Christ

Try to stop this guy, forces of evil!

Are you ready to play a different kind of superhero in the next video game you become obsessed with? Well, this one might surprise you just a bit…

I’ve often wondered why there’s never been a video game based on the Bible. I mean, it would probably be interesting (especially if you’re religious or a history buff) – plus, there’s all sorts of awesome stuff that happens in there. And I’m sure it would be extremely popular, right?

A new video game (release date TBA) on Steam called I Am Jesus Christ is filling that niche; like the name says, it will allow players to play as the man himself. The description for the game reads as follows:

“Become Jesus Christ, the famous man on Earth—in this highly realistic simulation game. Pray like Him for getting superpower, perform famous miracles like Him from Bible like casting demons, healing and feeding people, resurrection and more in “I am Jesus Christ.”… Game is covering the period from Baptizing of Jesus Christ and to Resurrection. Have you ever wondered to be like Him—one of the most privileged and powerful people in the world?”

It seems like the description was not written by someone with native English fluency, so I’m guessing the design team is overseas.

Here is the official trailer for the game.

From the looks of the trailer, Jesus can perform all kinds of miracles: he walks on water, makes fish appear, the whole shebang.

Twitter users were all over the release of the trailer with various thoughts and observations (and jokes, of course)…

 

What do you think about this game? Will it be good or ridiculous? Or just plain sacrilegious?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

The post A New Video Game Lets You Play as Jesus Christ appeared first on UberFacts.

12 Mindbenders That Might Just Mess With Your Sense of Reality

The simple definition of a paradox is this: a statement that contradicts itself or a situation which seems to defy logic.

These are all around us every day, and range from something mundane like saying “I always lie” and the complexities surrounding the idea of time travel.

If you’re into reading things that really bend your brain, I present these 12 paradoxes, designed to do just that.

12. When did it cease to be?

The Ship of Theseus always kind of fucked me. So, there’s this Greek dude called Theseus, and he’s on a very long boat trip home. His ship needs repair, they stop, replace a few rotten boards, and continue. Due to the particularily strenuous nature of this very long trip, several more of these stops for repairs are made, until, by the very end, not a single board from the original vessel remains.

Is this still the same vessel? If not, when did it cease to be?

11. Simple but not.

Pinocchio says “My nose will grow after I finish this sentence”

Does it?

10. The more traffic, the more traffic. Or something.

Braess’ paradox.

From wiki “the observation that adding one or more roads to a road network can end up impeding overall traffic flow through it. The paradox was postulated in 1968 by German mathematician Dietrich Braess, who noticed that adding a road to a particular congested road traffic network would increase overall journey time.”

9. Just stop it, people.

That “this page is intentionally left blank” page.

The page isn’t even blank anymore!

8. Triple make you crazy.

The UK ‘triple lock’ that people moving to the UK experience:

Need proof of address and photographic ID to open a bank account

Need a bank account and photographic ID to rent a place

Need a bank account and an address to get sent your photographic ID

7. The Legend of Zelda.

What about the song of storms from the legend of Zelda?

In the legend of Zelda ocarina of Time, you travel though time between child and adult by using the master sword, and doing so you can come back to certain areas to get different items from both times.

Well one song the you learn is called the song of storms and you learn it by going to the adult time and talk to a guy in a windmill. He tells you about a kid that came in 7 years ago and played a strange song and messed up the windmill and teaches it to you. After learning the song you can now go back to being a child and go to the guy in the windmill and play the song to him, despite not knowing it before as a child.

So questions are where did the song come from and who taught who the song? Did the windmill guy teach it to link or did link teach it to the windmill guy?

6. And around and around forever.

Jim is my enemy.

But it turns out that Jim is also his own worst enemy.

And the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

So, Jim is actually my friend.

But…because he is his own worst enemy, the enemy of my friend is my enemy.

So, actually Jim is my enemy.

But…

5. Where to put the hooks?

So i know this is just a silly thing but…..

At my old work, my department was food service. In our prep room, you had to always wear an apron. Always, no exceptions.

When leaving the preproom, you had to take your apron off to prevent cross contamination.

The bosses were trying to figure out where to put the hooks. Inside in the back of the door, or outside on the wall.

4. Definitely hard to explain.

The Banach Tarski paradox is one hell of a mind fuck.

Its basically taking something, and rearranging it to form another exact copy of itself while still having the complete original. Like taking a sphere, which has infinite points on it and drawing line from every “point” on its surface to the center, or the core of the sphere. Then you seperate the lines from the sphere, but because there is infinite points you now have an exact copy of the original sphere.

Its kind of hard to explain here so just watch the Vsauce video on it for a more in depth explanation.

3. The coastline is always growing…or something.

The coastline paradox.

The more accurately you measure a coastline, the longer it gets… to infinity.

2. But you do, in fact, reach the door.

One of my favorites is Xeno’s Paradox.

In order to leave my apartment, just for example, I have to walk half way to my front door. Then I have to walk half the remaining distance. Then half that distance, ad infinitum. In theory, I should never be able to reach the door.

Now I love this paradox, because we’ve actually solved it. It was a lively, well-discussed debate for millennia. At least a few early thinkers were convinced that motion was an illusion because of it!

It was so persuasive an argument that people doubted their senses!

Then Leibniz (and/or Newton) developed calculus and we realized that infinite sums can have finite solutions.

Paradox resolved.

It makes me wonder what “calculus” we are missing to resolve some of these others.

EDIT: A lot more people have strong opinions about Zeno’s Paradox than I thought. To address common comments:

1.) Yes, it’s Zeno, not ‘Xeno’. Blame autocorrect and my own fraught relationship with homophones.

2.) Yes there are three of them.

3.) If you’re getting hung up on the walking example, think of an arrow being shot at a fleeing target. First the arrow has to get to where the target was. But at that point, the target has moved. So the arrow has to cover that new distance. But by then, the target has moved again, etc. So the arrow gets infinitesimally closer to the target, but doesn’t ever reach it.

4.) Okay, you think you could have solved it if you were living in ancient Greece. I profoundly regret that you weren’t born back then to catapult our understanding two millenia into the future.

5.) Yes, I agree Diogenes was a badass.

I hope this covers everything.

1. Just take a shot and pick a box.

Newcomb’s Paradox:

There are two boxes, A and B. A contains either $1,000 or $0 and B contains $100. Box A is opaque, so you can’t see inside, Box B is clear, so you can see for sure that there is $100 in it.

Your options is to choose both boxes, or to choose only Box A.

There is an entity called “The Predictor”, which determines whether or not the $1,000 will be in Box A. How he chooses this is by predicting whether or not you will choose both boxes, or just Box A. If the Predictor predicts that you will “two box”, he will leave Box A empty. If he predicts that you will “one box”, he will put the $1,000 in Box A. He is accurate “an overwhelming amount of the time”, but not 100%. At the time of your decision, the contents of Box A (i.e. whether or not there is anything in it) are fixed, and nothing you do at that point will change whether or not there is anything in the box.

It is a paradox of decision theory that rests on two principles of rational choice. According to the principle of strategic dominance:

There are only two possibilities, and you don’t know which one holds:

Box A is empty: Therefore you should choose both boxes, to get $100 as opposed to $0.

Box A is full: Therefore you should choose both boxes, to get $1,100 as opposed to just $1,000.

Therefore, you should always choose both boxes, since under every possible scenario, this results in more money.

BUT:

According to the principle of expected value:

Choosing one box is superior because you have a statistically higher chance of getting more money. Most of the people who have gone before you who have chosen one box have gotten $1,000, and most that have chosen both boxes have gotten only $100. Therefore, if you analyze the problem statistically, or in terms of which decision has the higher probability of resulting in a higher outcome, you should choose only one box. Imagine one billion people going before you, and you actually seeing so many of them have this outcome. Any outliers became insignificant.

In terms of strategic dominance, two-boxing is always superior to one-boxing because no matter what is in Box A, two-boxing results in more money. One-boxing, on the other hand, has a demonstrably higher probability of resulting in a larger amount of money. Both of these choices represent fundamental principles of rational choice. There are two rival theories, Causal Decision Theory (which supports strategic dominance) and Evidential Decision Theory (which supports expected utility). It is pretty arcane but one of the most difficult paradoxes in contemporary philosophy.

Robert Nozick summed it up well: “To almost everyone, it is perfectly clear and obvious what should be done. The difficulty is that these people seem to divide almost evenly on the problem, with large numbers thinking that the opposing half is just being silly.”

EDIT: I made some edits…to make it clearer.

EDIT: There are also an offshoot of Newcomb’s Paradoxes called medical Newcomb’s Problems. I’ve been in a situation like this before, I’ll describe it:

I went on an antidepressant, and there’s a history of manic depression in my family. My psychiatrist told me that for some people, antidepressants bring out their manic phase, and they find out they have manic depression. They already did have manic depression, so it doesn’t cause it, it just reveals it. She told me to watch out for any impulsive decisions I making, as that can be a sign of a manic phase.

I was in line at a convenience store and thought: should I buy a black and mild? I don’t really smoke, but for some reason it seemed appealing. Then I realized, that seems like an impulsive decision. But, if it is an impulsive decision, and I go through with it, and do indeed have manic depression, then I should just do it anyways. After all, it’s not making me have manic depression, it’s simply revealing something to me that I already had. On the other hand, if I don’t do it, then I have no evidence that I have manic depression, meaning that there truly is less evidence, and therefore I have no reason to believe that I have manic depression.

Expected utility = don’t buy the black & mild Strategic dominance = buy the black & mild

These situations aren’t quite as easy to see, but they’re interesting anyways.

I’m doing quite well now and all indication is that I do not have manic depression.

I’m off to take a nap to recover.

Do you have a favorite paradox? If it’s not here, please leave it in the comments!

Yes, we’re asking you to mess with our head once again. Because that’s how we roll.

The post 12 Mindbenders That Might Just Mess With Your Sense of Reality appeared first on UberFacts.

A Guy Was Caught Cheating After His Girlfriend Saw a Fitbit Physical Activity Spike at 4 A.M.

Oops!

We live in a very convenient world filled with state-of-the-art technology that is designed to make our lives a hell of a lot easier. But sometimes these tricky little devices can backfire on people, especially if they’re up to no good. And that’s exactly what happened to the boyfriend of NFL correspondent Jane Slater.

Slater took to Twitter to tell a scandalous story about her one-time boyfriend who got her a Fitbit for Christmas one year so they could get in shape together. Slater said, “I loved it. We synched up, motivated each other… didn’t hate it until he was unaccounted for at 4 am and his physical activity levels were spiking on the app, wish the story wasn’t real.”

Slater added, “Spoiler alert: he was not enrolled in an OrangeTheory class at 4 am.”

And her tales of heartbreak didn’t end there. Slater said on Twitter, “I also had a guy get drunk and bring another girl home forgetting I was spending the night there. We were set to go to church the next morning and I stayed in to get sleep. I could write a book.”

Maybe she should write a book, huh?

Other folks online sympathized with Slater and had a sense of humor about her situation.

Because why not laugh?

It is pretty funny after all!

And, on top of that, other people had similar stories…

Yep.

Uh huh.

For REALS!

Have you ever had something like this happen to you?

I really hope you haven’t…but if you have, let’s hear those stories in the comments!

The post A Guy Was Caught Cheating After His Girlfriend Saw a Fitbit Physical Activity Spike at 4 A.M. appeared first on UberFacts.

Walmart Is Sorry They Sold Sweaters Showing Santa Doing Lines of Cocaine

Oh boy, hang on tight for this one…

“We all know how snow works. It’s white, powdery, and the best snow comes straight from South America. That’s bad news for jolly old St. Nick, who lives far away in the North Pole.”

That’s part of  the description of an “ugly” Christmas sweater (made by FUN Wear) that was for sale on Walmart’s Canadian website – one that depicted a slightly deranged-looking Santa sitting in front of a coffee table upon which were arranged three neat little white lines of “snow,” to his apparent delight.

Yeah. Santa is really excited about getting to do some lines of good Columbian “snow.”

Some people were understandably outraged by the depiction, given (I assume) that Santa is supposed to be a wholesome character beloved by children everywhere.

Others, though, saw the intended fun in it (and would like to get their hands on one, if you know where and how).

FUN Wear sells other similar sweaters for all of your ugly sweater party needs, like Santa touching an elf and Santa roasting a snowman’s chestnuts over an open fire.

Walmart pulled the sweaters from their website with this statement:

“These sweaters, sold by a third-party seller on Walmart.ca, do not represent Walmart’s values and have no place on our website. We have removed these products from our marketplace. We apologize for any unintended offence this may have caused.”

tl;dr: Not everyone thinks Santa delighting in illegal drugs is funny, so maybe sell those things on Etsy, instead.

The post Walmart Is Sorry They Sold Sweaters Showing Santa Doing Lines of Cocaine appeared first on UberFacts.