Life's Puzzles
 

Life is full of puzzles, such as why Chinese takeaways are closed on Tuesdays or when I need a screwdriver I can never find the correct one.
In an age of Google answers for most questions, the puzzling ones are getting more frustrating...............

Our local Chinese opens on Tuesday:) I guess given that most don't it can also be viewed as a mystery.

Or where all the odd socks go in the wash? Or why you always bang your toe into the corner of a door but never touch the door if you have shoes on!! Why buses always come in two's.

Plus if you have £1.67 in small change the bill will be £1.68.

I've heard it rumoured that you will be presented with them after your death.

Then there's Theodoric's first law of supermarket shopping.

If n = the number of people at a checkout and d = the number of available dividers, then d < n - 1, except for the special case of n = 1, when d approaches infinity.

Why is it if you get to the bus stop early, the bus will be late and if you get to the stop exactly on time or just after, it will be early.

lol

Not to mention the fact that the longest queue moves fastest, except for the special case where you're in the longest queue.

How very,very true and how very, very infuriating.

That will be odd because I will still insist on having the other sock.:p

Why does the battery and or credit always run out when your car has broke down?

I think that's the whole point. They will laugh at you.

However, I 've got a cunning plan. Buy loads of pairs of the same socks. When they go missing in the washing machine, combine the odd ones to get complete pairs, and do the same after your death. They'll be gutted :p

forgot to say that it is on your mobile phone :dunce:

Seeing you say always, have you considered a car change?

nope got a £10 topup voucher in the glove box and a car charger now.

Thats easy;) Cause you sit turning the car over when its never going to start. You should top your phone up regular:p

why is it that every time you ring the wrong number it is never engaged

how do chickens know what size to lay eggs so that they fit in the egg cup

Why is it that you always get your password wrong when you are taking your time and when you are in a hurry it always works first time :confused:

Cheeky Martin ;)

I dont sit trying to kill my car it just dies.

And I top up every other day as it is.

Isn't that the other way round?

why don't they make left handed screwdrivers? ;)

why do the buses always have the heaters on on the hottest days of summer and then never have them on in winter? (i actually know the answer to this one ;) its very silly)

To prevent the engine from overheating?

yup left-handed screwdrivers arent made so engines dont overheat ;)

yeh seriously heaters are on to stop the engines overheating... ive never understood why though. any bus engineers care to enlighten me? why is he engine heating system piped into the busheating system? seems silly... maybe im just naive...

Why Do Holidays Fly By :(

The central heating system in my dad's house would do the same. It would start pumping hot water around in the midst of summer (despite the heaters being off). This was because it supplied the hot water as well. Since my dad was away over summer, no hot water was used, and the system needed to loose the heat. It took me a while when I was staying there to figure how to lower the water temperature to prevent it from doing this...

would that be the thermostat? ;)

Yes, it would, but, this being a mystery thread, it happened to be in the last place I looked, and that was not an obvious place. :D

yes i wonder why everything is always in the last place you look...another of life's mysteries ;);););)

also how come when youve just climbed into the bath or shower and you're the only one in the house, why does the telephone always ring or someone always knock at the door? :mad: :mad:

The heat will come from the engine cooling system (or some other hot part of the engine; I don't really know). However, the point is that it is not a separate heating system. You are therefore taking heat from the engine and pumping it into the rest of the bus; just like a fridge as it were (a vision of the driver sitting there with his winter woolies on has just passed through my mind). As long as the system pumping the hot air into the bus does not produce more heat than is being pumped away, the engine will be being cooled.

When you find something, its always in the last place you look !! mystery :)

That is so true Nor. :)

And why when going on holiday do you always wait till you get to the airport before checking to see if you have the passports then have to run back home again. :(

Either that or its in the first place that you looked, except you did not see it there.

And to top it off, you put it there in the first place.

Well when you think about it its always in the last place you look, since you stop looking after you find it :)

Why is boss always there when you do something you shouldn't
and never when your brilliant.

I hate that about life.......
When its work/school/college/whatever it goes s l o w , but holidays go fast.

You booked a holiday and it's seems to you've waited ages before you go, though something you're dreading, you want to put off, seems to arrive VERY quickly.

I have never heard anyone say about this? Scissors or Clocks yep, never screwdrivers? Hmmm probably just me being stupid.;)

think about it...

how pointless would a left-handed screwdriver be...

i think a more worthwhile invention would be SCREWS for left-handed people. its hard to turn your left wrist clockwise...

Yes, but us lefties have the advantage that it is easier to unscrew a 'righthanded screw'.

The man has a point.;) To be honest I have never given it much thought how lefties go on with things like this. You learn something new everyday.

do left-handed screws actually exist? i havent stepped foot in B & Q for a while :erm:

im thinking buying a motorized screwdriver would solve all problems between the righties and us southpaws hehe

You do occasionally come across left-handed threads. A little memory at the back of my mind keeps insisting that it may be to prevent nuts coming undone due do the direction that the component that they belong to is rotating (if you see what I mean).

Your belly button eats them during the night, this is what belly button fluff is.


Picture this:
Lots of people at a bus stop
Bus arrives, takes ages for them all to get on.
Next bus arrives, not so many people, no such a long delay, so it eventually catches up with the first bus.

Yes, left handed thread screws do exist, as stated most commonly for on rotating equipment.

I can remember building a air raid type rotating siren that just HAD to have them on, in the right place.
Otherwise a big red disc was going to fly through the wall and into the next county.

Why is it that you can borrow a librray book that has not been taken out for the past 3 years, no-one else wants and if your a day over the return date, you get fined for it?

Why is it that women get on a bus, then search through thier handbag for thier purse and then search out for the change to pay thier fare? (Oh hang on, although still one of lifes great mysteries, this one is heading towards the anti woman thread.)

Why is it that the postman can always deliver unwanted SPAM mail, almost every day yet when your expecting a letter it never arrives?

most military vehicles have left handed threads on the wheel nuts

There's the obvious ones: Scissors, normal ones just don't work. Fountain pens, writing left to right, and having your trailing left hand to smudge it all up isn't nice.

Then there's the inconspicuous ones: screws, coffeemakers (pot on the right usually), saucepans: I'm the lucky owner of one that has 2 pouring thingies (one on each side). Most have one, on the left hand side when used by a right hander. On the left hand side for a left hander. Impossible to use. Try pouring to the 'outside' from a full pot. (that's clockwise for northpaws)

But, worst of all: Stringed instruments... I had to get myself a left handed guitar. Not only did it cost approximately twice what the right handed version cost, but try to learn playing guitar, when virtually every manual out there shows the mirror image of what you're supposed to do. I'm not a very good guitar player... :cry:

But then again, that's just me, not me being a lefty...

Why is it whenever I plan on eating or having a snack someone tells me something gross. Put me right off.

Blimey it shows how little I know about left handers.;) Consider myself educated.:D

I'm sort of ambidextrous, sort of cross lateral.
I use my left hand for writing and eating with a spoon, and my right hand for everything else (chopsticks I can use in both hands)
I'm left eyed too.
Also, a basic test at school showed that when it comes to thinking my left side is extremely dominent, which apparently explains my liking for science and maths and dislike for writing!
My 9 year old daughter is left handed, and our handwriting is so similar (must hide my credit cards!) but then I hardly ever write, choosing a computer because that way the letters can keep up with my brain.
With writing I generally use block caps to make it clear, but I tend to start some words with the second letter, then have to add the first.

A lot of left handers are the surviving embryos of mirror twins (where the embryo splits past the time you get identical twins, but before the time you get co-joined twins) so I could have had a brother!


PS - I can play a normal guitar (not very well but at least it wasn't expensive!)
PPS - Dad's totally left handed, and I have no idea how he manages to play a right handed clarinet!

Left Eyed? You mean its stronger than the other? There's a lot to this left hand malarkey.;)

with both hands, put your finger and thumb toghether like you would if picking something small up off the desk.
Then put your finger and thumbtips from one hand against the tips of your other hand so you get a <> in between.
Hold this at arms length away from your body and find a spot on the wall or some small object to focus on through the <> so it looks like <->
Close one eye, the <-> will still be visible, swap closed eyes and you'll get - <> or <> - ie the - will move out of the space between your fingertips
The eye you had open where the <-> didn't move (ie you could still see it between your fingertips) is your dominant eye.
If it's opposite to your dominant hand, you are cross lateral.
People who are severely cross lateral tend to be very clumsy.
Think about picking up a mug of tea, you automatically know which hand to use, severly cross lateral people don't, both hands are equal so they have to choose every time

You'll probably find that there is no seperate heating system in a bus. The heat from the engine would be blown over the passengers when the driver turns the heating on. At least, it is done this way in most cars (apart from the luxury ones). If this is wrong, maybe any bus engineers/drivers will tell me?

One thing I would like to know. Why did the thermostat in the 1.8 litre Sierra my family had two years ago die in a traffic jam on the hottest day of that year? We had to have the heating on to stop the engine overheating, and even with all the windows open, we still didn't get much of a breeze as we were stuck in a traffic jame. I think I must have lost 1/2 stone in wieght in about 10 minutes..

Hang on, that could be Murphy's law (if it can go wrong, it will).

Why am I still up at 2:30am?

Cross-laterality, which is part of the cerebral dominance theory, also affects a person's ability to read particularly if the person is right-eye dominant. It's sometimes said that a person has a lazy left eye, which is the significant eye when it comes to reading.

The result is that the person has to be helped to make the left eye more dominant so that they can read from left to right more easily. I think that this generally tends to be more prevalent in boys/men.

Hey you know I have a friend thats left handed, he learnt to play right handed. If you dont know how to play an instrument how can it feel wrong to play right handed if your left?
I'm right handed, and I could play better if I fretted the strings with my right hand, especially for solos as I can move my right fingers faster than my left.
And to keep on topic.....
Why is it that when I snap a guitar string its always the one I need most/the most noticiable missing one?

Well, there is degrees of left/right handedness. Some people are ambidextrous, some have a slight preference for one hand, and some have a strong preference. You're right there's loads of left handers who play right handedly. It just wasn't for me. apparently, I'm an extremist.

Why the left eye be would be more significant when it comes to reading?

It's significant because we read from left to right and when you look at the page of a book the left eye is naturally facing the correct starting point i.e. the left hand side whereas if the right eye is dominant it has to move across to look at the start of the line which slows down reading.

Efffective readers read in smooth eye movements from left to right pausing for brief intervals (microseconds) at 2 or 3 points along the line to take in groups of words and derive meaning from what they are reading. Children who are right eye dominant (as I was) are fighting a natural urge to read from right to left and have to be trained to use their left eye as the dominant eye. I wore a patch over my right eye which forced my lazy left eye to be more dominant. When I left primary school I had a reading age of about 14 but then I did start reading at 3.

i'm afraid that sounds like pop psychology (as opposed to science) to me.

Fair enough.

But what about those races who read from right to left?

Well this thread has been an education;) Using the test by Xaccers my right eye is the nominate one. Also right handed.:) I have always hear about left hand scissors, clocks but never given any thought on the reading left to right, just natural to me. I remember when i was at school one or two the teachers used to impose writing with the right hand on the lefties, luckily this changed when new younger teachers came along.;)

I was going to try the test but will need to get an eye patch, I can have my left eye closed and my right open, but i can't have my right closed and my left open for some reason I find it impossible to do! Does this have anything to do with the dominant eye?

I just use the closest hand:D

Or top to bottom...

Like I said earlier, I think there is very little in this dominant eye and reading connection.

just had a thought about the left-hand issue again... screw-top bottles would be backwards wouldnt they...

hm

i think my brain has a problem with the dominant side thing, the same thign happens with both eyes :spin: :spin:

Nah, the original reason for a belly button (although this is obviously now out of date) is somewhere to keep the salt in when you eat crisps in bed.

For the life of me, I can't remember who originally proposed this totally plausible explanation.