Contrary to Popular Belief

[Colour Scientist]

I can never think of anything good when these threads come up.

Am, Wuthering Heights is not just a romantic love story, if it was it wouldn't be such a classic. It's pretty fucked up story about two really fucked up people.

 

[snagli]

Nevertheless, when Jesus came, he essentially rendered the Old Testament laws void, to make way for the new age of societies that were rising up (such as our own, two thousand years later). Jesus SAID not to judge LEST YE BE JUDGED, and to basically love and tolerate the SHIT out of everyone. That's four points of Biblical history against Westboro's beliefs right there...

I suddenly have the weirdest fantasy of Jesus being a Brony. I'll let that hang around for a bit.


OT: No doubt most people already know this, but I like to say it every now and again nonetheless: Thomas Edison wasn't a great inventor. He was just able to market things really well and make a business out of inventing. No, Tesla was a great inventor, one of the greatest inventors that will ever live.

 

[Denamic]

Mario uses his hand to smash bricks, not his head.
I know, blew my mind too.

 

[NoeL]

Contrary to popular belief, the dinosaurs weren't completely wiped out by some cataclysm - they evolved into birds.

More on dinosaurs, contrary to popular belief there's a shorter gap in time between humans and tyrannosaurus rex than between t-rex and stegosaurus (t-rex lived 65-67mya, steg lived 150-155mya).

Yay dinosaurs.

 

[WanderingFool]

As anyone who has ever fired one can attest, most shotguns have an effective range of more than five feet. We wouldn't use them otherwise.

I hate it when games do depict shotguns with shit range.

Also, when people say money cant buy happiness, they are typically not all that worried about money. When you dont have money, than can money buy happiness (or to be specific, piece of mind, which leads to happiness.)

What I really hate is how they're ONLY ever buckshot.

Contrary to popular belief, shotguns have solid ammo as well, often referred to as "slugs." These are actually accurate and still lethal at medium range. Kudos to the old Doom games for actually having these. Goddamn modern gaming and "lolol all that exists in the world is scattershot, hahahahaha."

And as someone who's been struggling with finances for 4 years, I agree on the money part. Having money itself doesn't make me happy, but the peace of mind that comes from it does.

Hell, BF3 is the only game I knowof that actually gave you the option of using different shells. Nothing quite beats sniping someone in bazaar with a rifle-scope shotgun though

 

[DoPo]

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is not about a country where everybody is constantly being watched. It's about a country where everybody might be watched at any given moment but can't tell if they are or not.

Well, it's often enough to consider it constant. Winston thought he was capable of avoiding th monitoring. He was wrong, after all. They don't need to be staring at each citizen 24/7 to qualify as "constant", they could grab a snack in the mean time and even just review recordings or even go by and look at a diary, if they wish. As long as it's consistent, and it most definitely is, it can be called "constant".

it's an undeniable truth that if you have an I.Q. of twelve, that will be noticable outside of I.Q. test settings. Very noticable.

is that even possible?

Yes, although IQ below 80 signifies some mental problems. 12 would be severe problems.

Contrary to popular belief, knowing a lot doesn't make you any more intelligent than anyone else.
[small]but that's just my opinion[/small]

Yes, "knowledgeable" is distinct from "intelligent", although in more informal speech "intelligent" is a synonym for "smart" or indeed "knowledgeable".

OT: "Unlikely" or even "impossible" events happen and people make a big fuss about them. They aren't special, though. Yes, a person winning the lottery is exceptional - it's about 1 in 14 million (in a 6/49 setup). And yet there have been so many other people who have participated in the lottery up to that point, that it would be stranger if nobody won. The same thing goes for every "unlikely" event - all the "likely"s get discarded to promote the fact that "this is phenomenal!".

 

[Aaron Foltz]

As anyone who has ever fired one can attest, most shotguns have an effective range of more than five feet. We wouldn't use them otherwise.

I hate it when games do depict shotguns with shit range.

Also, when people say money cant buy happiness, they are typically not all that worried about money. When you dont have money, than can money buy happiness (or to be specific, piece of mind, which leads to happiness.)

What I really hate is how they're ONLY ever buckshot.

Contrary to popular belief, shotguns have solid ammo as well, often referred to as "slugs." These are actually accurate and still lethal at medium range. Kudos to the old Doom games for actually having these. Goddamn modern gaming and "lolol all that exists in the world is scattershot, hahahahaha."

And as someone who's been struggling with finances for 4 years, I agree on the money part. Having money itself doesn't make me happy, but the peace of mind that comes from it does.

Hell, BF3 is the only game I knowof that actually gave you the option of using different shells. Nothing quite beats sniping someone in bazaar with a rifle-scope shotgun though

Since you are mentioning guns... "silencers" are not silent. I'm sure FPS Russia can give you a good example.

 

[RustlessPotato]

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is not about a country where everybody is constantly being watched. It's about a country where everybody might be watched at any given moment but can't tell if they are or not.

Well, it's often enough to consider it constant. Winston thought he was capable of avoiding th monitoring. He was wrong, after all. They don't need to be staring at each citizen 24/7 to qualify as "constant", they could grab a snack in the mean time and even just review recordings or even go by and look at a diary, if they wish. As long as it's consistent, and it most definitely is, it can be called "constant".

it's an undeniable truth that if you have an I.Q. of twelve, that will be noticable outside of I.Q. test settings. Very noticable.

is that even possible?

Yes, although IQ below 80 signifies some mental problems. 12 would be severe problems.

Contrary to popular belief, knowing a lot doesn't make you any more intelligent than anyone else.
[small]but that's just my opinion[/small]

Like the " oh my god I was just thinking about you " when you pick up the phone and it's the guy you were just thinking about " .

O.T Being unique doesn't make you special.

Yes, "knowledgeable" is distinct from "intelligent", although in more informal speech "intelligent" is a synonym for "smart" or indeed "knowledgeable".

OT: "Unlikely" or even "impossible" events happen and people make a big fuss about them. They aren't special, though. Yes, a person winning the lottery is exceptional - it's about 1 in 14 million (in a 6/49 setup). And yet there have been so many other people who have participated in the lottery up to that point, that it would be stranger if nobody won. The same thing goes for every "unlikely" event - all the "likely"s get discarded to promote the fact that "this is phenomenal!".

Just like the "oh my god I was just thinking about you !" when you pick up the phone and it turns out to be the guy you were just thinking about .

O.T Being "open minded" doesn't mean "accept everything !"

 

[Legion]

"Then" is not a comparison word.

"I like chocolate more then candy"
"I am smarter then you"
"I thought Bioshock had a better story then Bioshock 2"

Do not make sense, for example. The word used should be "than".

What's worse is that this shouldn't even be a common mistake, but just like "I could care less" and "addicting" it seems to be used more and more often.

 

[Alcoholidayer]

Contrary to popular belief, knowing a lot doesn't make you any more intelligent than anyone else.
[small]but that's just my opinion[/small]

This is not a complete rebuttal, but considering the fact that all problem solving techniques constitute learned behaviour (i.e something you come to KNOW rather than inherently possess) I would argue that knowing a lot might make you more intelligent than other people, if you happen to know the right things and be in the right situation.


OT : Contrary to popular belief, the word 'loose' is not a verb which means 'to get defeated', but an adjective which means something else entirely.

 

[AlexWinter]

The original Star Wars trilogy wasn't really all that great, and people who complain about the prequels are just looking at the originals through Nostalgia Goggles.

This is opinion. I kind of agree though 'cept for the prequels being pretty bad.

-snip-

This is opinion. That I disagree with but that's because I'm not a real man. A woman's list of talents and quirks are what makes her attractive to me. Shiny things are nice but ultimately there's not much you can really do with them.

Also, just checking here, you do know that the scene you posted from American Psycho is satire, right?

OT: Contrary to popular there a cure for the hangover does exist. The bacon sandwich.

 

[Woodsey]

Frankly, I still maintain that if there had been a single person with a concealed carry permit in that Aurora theater, we'd be reading about a hero that stopped a potential massacre rather than some fucked up college student.

Yeah, having a shoot-out amidst a crowd of people would most definitely have helped that situation.

 

[DoPo]

"Then" is not a comparison word.

OT : Contrary to popular belief, the word 'loose' is not a verb which means 'to get defeated', but an adjective which means something else entirely.

I don't think those are "common belief" as much as "failing at English".

 

[F'Angus]

Hannibal never used elephants.

Source: Stephen Fry.

Not true, Hannibal did use Elephants, just only a few made it through the Alps, alot died of cold. - See Livy, History of Rome 21, 36 (Sorry I'm an Ancient Historian, couldn't help myself)


OT: Hitler wasn't German, he was Austrian.

 

[Legion]

"Then" is not a comparison word.

OT : Contrary to popular belief, the word 'loose' is not a verb which means 'to get defeated', but an adjective which means something else entirely.

I don't think those are "common belief" as much as "failing at English".

Well I assume that these people believe that they are correct, and it is an increasingly common behaviour.

It's also not limited to "normal" people making comments, it's included in reviews, games, articles and so on. Mass Effect 2 has Joker say "I could care less" whereas in the context he meant the opposite.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Herr Fuhrer had both of his testicles intact and he was abusive to his spouses, with only one of them not attempting to or succeeding in killing herself.

 

[DoPo]

"Then" is not a comparison word.

OT : Contrary to popular belief, the word 'loose' is not a verb which means 'to get defeated', but an adjective which means something else entirely.

I don't think those are "common belief" as much as "failing at English".

Well I assume that these people believe that they are correct, and it is an increasingly common behaviour.

It's also not limited to "normal" people making comments, it's included in reviews, games, articles and so on. Mass Effect 2 has Joker say "I could care less" whereas in the context he meant the opposite.

If that is the case, then every linguistic mistake can be called "belief". But I do think it's just people being bad at using the language and mimicking others who are also bad at it.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

There never was a Church ban on human dissection. In fact, the only instances of human dissection prior to late Middle Ages were in Alexandria, and then only for a very brief time. The law of pre-Christian Roman Empire DID forbid human dissection, but in most other cultures it was more of a taboo than law thing. Incidentally, when dissection became established as a scientific practice, it was at Church-run institutions (medieval universities, Padua being the first).

Also, since I'm on the Middle Ages boat already, medieval people didn't think the world was flat. There are outright references to the world being a globe from various writings throughout the period, and in fact we don't have any evidence of a strong belief in a flat Earth at any point since Ancient Greece.

OK, that's the last Middle Ages-related one: contrary to popular belief, the "humour imbalance" theory of disease was not exclusive to the Middle Ages. It was already dominant in the ancient world (both Hippocrates and Galen were proponents), it spread to Europe and the Middle East and remained the dominant theory of disease all the way until germ theory was developed in the late 19th century.

 

[C. Cain]

OT: Hitler wasn't German, he was Austrian.

The distinction between Austrian and German was somewhat artificial back then. Most Austrians considered themselves German. This is due to the fact that German nationalism was based on language and culture rather than geography. Which is quite understandable seeing how German nationalism arose during the Napoleonic Wars. Roughly sixty to seventy years before the foundation of the German Empire as a proper nation state.

Austria's distinct national character was only solidified after the end of WWII; as part of a coping mechanism in my opinion.

In a legal context Hitler was born as an Austrian citizen, became officially stateless in 1925, and became a German citizen in 1932.

Thus he was, to all intents and purposes, German.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

Citation Needed

Said person would have to have been WELL trained in the use of said concealed firearm for this to have happened, and even then placement of your 'hero' and a multitude of other factors mean that you can not conclusively say that the shooting would have been stopped.

How can I provide a citation for a hypothetical situation? In order to obtain a concealed carry permit, one must have had more than sufficient training with the firearm they will be carrying, they must prove that they are psychologically fit to carry, that they can hit a target very accurately with it at stand-off ranges(from my understanding up to 20 feet), and that they will know when to fight and when to stay hidden. They aren't just given willy-nilly.

Yeah, having a shoot-out amidst a crowd of people would most definitely have helped that situation.

As I stated, if you have a CCW, then you have been properly trained on when to draw and shoot and when to not draw and stay completely hidden AND be trained in manipulation and usage of the firearm in question. It would not have led to a shootout, but rather the person with the CCW attempting to get close and shoot him in the back. The only time shootouts happen is when there's a bunch of criminals shooting at cops, and that's because the cops attempt to fire back after being initially fired upon. The point of a concealed carry is so that YOU get the first shot and you hit your target rather than attempting to fire back at someone, which has been proved reduces your chances of hitting your target by up to 50%.