Humour thread

[Dreamtimer]

This shower is eerily similar to one we have.

With the exception that I don't store my whisky in there.



Too funny to pass up. Too bad Ivermectin doesn't work on the LUNA parasite.

[Aragorn]

A friend just left me a riddle on Telegram. It took me a while to figure it out ─ I was also busy over at the Manjaro forum and the PCLinuxOS forum in the meantime ─ but it dawned on me eventually. So here goes...

John was born in 1932, and at 74 years of age, he died in 1950. How can this be?

Let's see who's wearing the smarty pants around here in our little Shire.

[Wind]

Hmm... As an 18 year old adult he aged that much mentally during those years?

[Aragorn]

Hmm... As an 18 year old adult he aged that much mentally during those years?

Nope.

[Wind]

D'oh, I give up.

[Emil El Zapato]

A friend just left me a riddle on Telegram. It took me a while to figure it out ─ I was also busy over at the Manjaro forum and the PCLinuxOS forum in the meantime ─ but it dawned on me eventually. So here goes...

John was born in 1932, and at 74 years of age, he died in 1950. How can this be?

Let's see who's wearing the smarty pants around here in our little Shire.

It can't? ...

[Dreamtimer]

Busy-body gettin' busy?



Frank seems to be the moniker of some very smart fellows...




(re the riddle: The speaker was 74 when John died? (first hazard-a-guess))

[Aragorn]

A friend just left me a riddle on Telegram. It took me a while to figure it out ─ I was also busy over at the Manjaro forum and the PCLinuxOS forum in the meantime ─ but it dawned on me eventually. So here goes...

John was born in 1932, and at 74 years of age, he died in 1950. How can this be?

Let's see who's wearing the smarty pants around here in our little Shire.

Hmm... As an 18 year old adult he aged that much mentally during those years?

Nope.

It can't? ...

But of course it can ─ otherwise it wouldn't be a riddle.

Frank seems to be the moniker of some very smart fellows...

What's even funnier is that in the original version of the riddle as my friend posted it to me, the person's name was Frank, but I changed it to John before I posted it here in order to avoid any associations with myself.

(re the riddle: The speaker was 74 when John died? (first hazard-a-guess))

Nope.

As it says, John was 74 years old when he died. But it doesn't say that they'd be Earth years.

Mercury ─ the innermost planet of our solar system ─ completes its orbit around the sun in only 88 Earth days. So if you convert the 18 Earth years that John was alive into Mercury years, then it adds up to 74.

As an aside, Mercury is tidally locked to the sun, which means that it's always facing the sun with the same side. And this, in turn, means that in terms of the difference between day and night, it is eternally "day" on Mercury, while in the definition of a day as being a planet's full 360° rotation around its axis, Mercury exhibits three such full axis rotations per two of its own years.

[Emil El Zapato]

But of course it can ─ otherwise it wouldn't be a riddle.



What's even funnier is that in the original version of the riddle as my friend posted it to me, the person's name was Frank, but I changed it to John before I posted it here in order to avoid any associations with myself.



Nope.

As it says, John was 74 years old when he died. But it doesn't say that they'd be Earth years.

Mercury ─ the innermost planet of our solar system ─ completes its orbit around the sun in only 88 Earth days. So if you convert the 18 Earth years that John was alive into Mercury years, then it adds up to 74.

As an aside, Mercury is tidally locked to the sun, which means that it's always facing the sun with the same side. And this, in turn, means that in terms of the difference between day and night, it is eternally "day" on Mercury, while in the definition of a day as being a planet's full 360° rotation around its axis, Mercury exhibits three such full axis rotations per two of its own years.

I knew dat' ...

[Aragorn]

I knew dat' ...

But it still didn't help you solve the riddle, did it?

[Emil El Zapato]

But it still didn't help you solve the riddle, did it?

no, but i did consider dog and cat years ..

[Aragorn]

no, but i did consider dog and cat years ..

That was my initial thought as well when I first read it. But dog and cat years don't progress linearly in comparison to human years ─ some parts of their lifespans evolve faster and some evolve slower. For instance, my brother got a new puppy early this year ─ I think it was February. It's a Bernese mountain dog. Every week, his weight would increase by one kilogram. Right now he's about nine months old and he's already as high (at the top of his head) as my waist.

According to my brother, the dog is also in puberty right now, and that's allegedly going to last for three years. But Bernese mountain dogs have a very low life expectancy ─ they grow to be about ten years old max, and usually less than that ─ and so a three-year puberty is very long when compared to a human lifespan.

Also, cats tend to live much longer. My brother's border collie was 13 years old when he died of heart failure, and this one's not expected to live for 10 years, but my brother's cat died at about 19, and my own Siamese cat ─ my ex took it with her when she left me and then dumped it at her parents' house ─ lived to be 23, and was still very active until just before it died.

So, I figured that there would have been something more deterministic about John's age, given that there are only 18 Earth years between his birth and his death, while he was stated to be exactly 74 years old when he died. And that then led me to ponder the length of a year on the other planets in our solar system, with Mercury having the mathematically closest-matching solar year. And my calculator confirmed it.

[Wind]

Astronomy... Did you remember that thing about Mercury from the top of your head, Aragorn?

[Aragorn]

Astronomy... Did you remember that thing about Mercury from the top of your head, Aragorn?

Not the exact length of Mercury's orbit around the sun, no ─ that's why I had to pop up the calculator and verify the exact duration by way of Wikipedia ─ but the fact that it had a much shorter solar year than Earth and that it could have been a match, yes.

[Dreamtimer]