A couple of weeks ago, Slate provided a list of questions they were asked to explain and would not or could not answer. Since I have occasionally been accused of being a know-it-all, here are my definitive answers to those questions, helpfully untainted by actual evidence or facts.
- Could you play sports in space, if you had a spacesuit?
I think quidditch would work pretty well. - Can a baby get drunk off of nonalcoholic beer?
Yes. It contains a small amount of alcohol. I think a baby could probably get drunk off a liquor-filled chocolate. And decaf would make a baby look like a tweaker. - Very rare to find a hotel room with a light on the ceiling, they’re usually floor lamps or desk lamps. Is there some structural reason for that?
Floor and desk lighting is cheaper to install and maintain. Hotels thus need to stock fewer ladders. - Mitt Romney is running for president. His father, George Romney, a former governor of Michigan, ran for president in 1968. Is “Mitt” named for the mitten-shape of Michigan?
No. It’s the nickname of a family friend. Good question though. - How do surface-dwelling fish survive monster sea storms?
They move down or over or die or take a beating and tell their kids stories about The Big One. - If I drank a bunch of orange juice, which caused me to get heartburn, then ate a bunch of antacids, would it neutralize the vitamin C, thus providing no benefits from the ingested vitamin? If so, if you ate antacids continually, would you get scurvy?
I choose to believe that acidity is not the active feature of ascorbic acid. But you know, teach the controversy. - I’ve been looking for information on how the word “dick” became an insult, especially since people still go by the name Dick. Why would anyone choose that name, when it has other meanings?!?!
Richard Nixon’s nickname was Tricky Dick. Your basic Richards that came of age after his presidency began do not go by Dick. Let’s say born 1950 or later. - Why do male ice skaters have routines that are so feminine in execution? After all these years, there should be some kind of movements on ice that would be more masculine-looking. The gymnastics shows have them.
Butch male ice skaters play hockey. - Why are some cats softer to the touch than others? Is it possible I have the softest cat in the world?
Anything’s possible. The only way to know for sure is to test every cat using Mohs’ hardness scale. - In Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity, he says that Jason Bourne can pack with great economy of space, allowing him to pack much more in a small bag than it would seem. How would one do this, and is it even a real thing?
People vary in their packing skills. I pack a suitcase 2-4 times per week, and I’m terrible compared to my resourceful but relatively untraveled wife. She has better economy of space than I do. It’s highly likely Jason Bourne’s is even better. He is sort of awesome at stuff. - Do you have any idea why sporting the moustache was so much more common in the military than in any other job in 19th-century Western countries, and to some extent present-day Western countries?
Is that true? If so, it’s because the upper classers did it (I’m looking at you, Otto von Bismarck), so it was fashionable among the top generals and then their subordinates. In the military, fashion is top-down.
So how many of these am I totally off base on? It’s sort of cheating to base your responses on actual research, but I’ll reluctantly accept such a maneuver if you show your work.
