In other news... (humorous news items)

[ObsessoMom]

A lot of people mistakenly think hippos are less dangerous than lions, too. The fact that an animal won't eat you doesn't necessarily mean that it won't kill you for other reasons.

[Soupspoon]

I suspect that is true because most people see bears as dangerous, and moose...not. Which is an incorrect assumption.

Also, effecting the dangers of each, the relative ratios (and chances of encounter) of herding herbivores vs territorial omni/carnivorous beasties on a given footprint of land?

[CorruptUser]

Elephants are herbivores too, but get a bull in must and it will tusk up your shit.

Also,

[Yablo]

I suspect that is true because most people see bears as dangerous, and moose...not. Which is an incorrect assumption.

I'm really not sure how someone looks at a moose and doesn't realize it could kill them. A moose is what happens when bears and deer mate.

[Soupspoon]

By the rules of tigons and ligers I would have thought that would have been a dear or beer.

[commodorejohn]

I mean, anything with a large array of pointy objects on it is something you should instinctively know not to screw around with, let alone one the size of a tractor.

[Sableagle]

I mean, anything with a large array of pointy objects on it is something you should instinctively know not to screw around with, let alone one the size of a tractor.

[Coyne]

I suspect that is true because most people see bears as dangerous, and moose...not. Which is an incorrect assumption.

I'm really not sure how someone looks at a moose and doesn't realize it could kill them. A moose is what happens when bears and deer mate.

+1

I mean, anything with a large array of pointy objects on it is something you should instinctively know not to screw around with, let alone one the size of a tractor.

Actually, it has more to do with words like "feral" or "wild." I once knew a guy who picked up a "cute" adolescent (wild) cottontail bunny rabbit, which bit him. The teeth went easily through his leather work gloves and also all the way through the webbing between his thumb and first finger. Thinking larger, one has to be wary of the damage that can be caused by a thousand pound animal that can move all that weight at a run...even if damage is not intended. And then there's the diseases you can pick up....

Nature is a fine thing to see...at a safe distance.

[CorruptUser]

Not to mention that virtually all animals will eat meat if given the opportunity. Deer actually are not herbivores; during mating season, to gather enough nutrients to grow the antlers, the males will look for bird nests in order to devour the baby birds, not to mention their willingness to scavenge carrion.

[jewish_scientist]

My general rule of thumb is anything half as big as you can kill you.

[Liri]

That is an absolutely terrible rule of thumb.

[Zohar]

Can't be that terrible, a thumb isn't even a tenth of your size!

[pseudoidiot]

You could choke to death on a thumb though

<_<
>_>

Probably

[Dauric]

My general rule of thumb is anything half as big as you can kill you.

There's some microbes at the door that would like to have a word with you.

[Yablo]

To be fair, though, the rule of thumb didn't specifically mention anything larger or smaller than "half as big as you."

[pkcommando]

My general rule of thumb is anything half as big as you can kill you.

Did you just confess your Kryptonite Factor? You can only be killed by something that's exactly half your size? It's certainly a strange weakness, but it could have its advantages. "Silly you, that was only 49.3% of my size - I'm completely unharmed!" "Curses!"

I'd heard stories about moose, but I didn't necessarily believe them until a friend described driving by an accident scene where a car hit a juvenile. He didn't see the moose, or find out what happened to it, but he saw what was left of the car.

[Zohar]

You could also eat a raisin or spit to change your size instantly!

[Sableagle]

My general rule of thumb is anything half as big as you can kill you.

Half a big by what measurement? Length, height or mass?









Thousands of deaths a year, 20,000 deaths a year, 2 deaths in 10 years, 3 deaths ever, none at all ever, probably hundreds of thousands, about 55,000.

[speising]

at least two of them aren't animals, though.

[Zamfir]

at least two of them aren't animals, though.

Ooh, I know this. The copper penny is not an animal, and the gloves!

[CorruptUser]

It is a trick question. It turns out the penny is an octopus in disguise. Don't fall for it!

[HES]

To be fair, j_s didn't say smaller things can't kill you; just that all larger things can. Which, given the right circumstances, is almost certainly true.

[Soupspoon]

just that all larger things can.

Not even that, as I (and at least one other person) read it…

[Coyne]

It is a trick question. It turns out the penny is an octopus in disguise. Don't fall for it!

They don't need to be octopuses in disguise, pennies can kill you on their own.

[addams]

It is a trick question. It turns out the penny is an octopus in disguise. Don't fall for it!

They don't need to be octopuses in disguise, pennies can kill you on their own.

yeah....But; I'm not a Dog.
I like Dogs...

Oh! Oh!
Dogs can kill.
But, they don't do it very much.

well...
Unless you are susceptible of Dying of Laughter.
Dogs are funny people.

[Sableagle]

just that all larger things can.

Not even that, as I (and at least one other person) read it…

j_s never said "only," so ... really ... that statement wasn't worth much, was it? We have to add a few tacit things to it to turn it into a thing worth remembering.

Of course, circumstances are everything, aren't they? Gloves or no gloves, a blue-ringed octopus entering your brain at supersonic speed would be no more or less deadly than a whale shark doing the same thing.

[heuristically_alone]

Can't be that terrible, a thumb isn't even a tenth of your size!

He never said anything less half your size couldn't kill you

Death by thumb sounds absolutely terrifying

[Soupspoon]

"Anything half as big as you can kill you" is equally as usefully interpreted as "Anything no more than half as big as you can kill you" as "Anything at least half as big as you can kill you".

In reality, pretty much everything can kill you, given the right circumstances, so "Anything less than half as big, exactly half as big or more than half as big as you can kill you" is an equally valid original axiomatic premise from which any and all more precise forms of JS's statement follows as derivatively true, so long as you don't need to start assuming "therefore !X=>!Y" out of thin air in any of those derivations.

(Natural language being messy that way.)

[karhell]

Can't be that terrible, a thumb isn't even a tenth of your size!

He never said anything less half your size couldn't kill you

Death by thumb sounds absolutely terrifying

[ObsessoMom]

Ah, the perils of digital warfare.

[LaserGuy]

My general rule of thumb is anything half as big as you can kill you.

Did you just confess your Kryptonite Factor? You can only be killed by something that's exactly half your size? It's certainly a strange weakness, but it could have its advantages. "Silly you, that was only 49.3% of my size - I'm completely unharmed!" "Curses!"

I'd heard stories about moose, but I didn't necessarily believe them until a friend described driving by an accident scene where a car hit a juvenile. He didn't see the moose, or find out what happened to it, but he saw what was left of the car.

Yeah, moose are very bad for cars. A typical car is going to hit their legs, which will throw the body of the moose right through the windshield (although from my reading, more collisions are actually caused by drivers swerving out of their lanes to avoid a moose rather than actually hitting a moose).

[HES]

(although from my reading, more collisions are actually caused by drivers swerving out of their lanes to avoid a moose rather than actually hitting a moose).

Given the previous sentence, that's probably not a bad thing

[Yablo]

When my brother and a good friend of ours moved up here to Alaska, they decided to drive. Our friend left Kentucky and picked my brother up in Wisconsin, and then they took Canada's highway west all the way to the traffic jam where a moose refused to move. Traffic on the highway was stopped for a few hours just because the moose wanted to be a dick and Canadians wanted to be polite.

[Zamfir]

That gets really good in India. The cows are very confident, you see them calmly walk onto the highway and lay down for a nap.

[Soupspoon]

The male cattle are the worst. Even if you wanted to earn the wrath of the locals, an auto-rickshaw is not match against a bull-dozer…

[Yablo]

I see what you did there. Normally, I hate puns, but I find I have an appreciation for those rare few that have some quality.

[jewish_scientist]

"My rule of thumb, which is defined by Oxford Dictionary as a 'broadly accurate guide or principle, based on practice rather than theory' is that anything half as big as you or bigger can kill you."
There, are you happy now.

Half a big by what measurement? Length, height or mass?

Yes.

[Liri]

I took it as you meant it, and it's still dumb. Did you skip over the various critiques?

[Soupspoon]

Be careful skipping over the critiques. They're a potential tripping hazard, especially as they're only ankle high and installed right next to the knee-high 'guard rails' by the buckets full of ebola.

[Yablo]

As long as the critiques are less than half your size, you'll live.