That tap on the wrong shoulder, you know all of us have done that and fallen for that,

Switching vodka with water. Either for a friend who’s too drunk, or when doing mischief.

“Hey, look over there!
“Over, where?”
“So endeth the trick.”

Edit: found the commercial, I misquoted it but hey, it’s been a while:

https://youtu.be/ueDEs-783To

Just heading out for a pack of cigarettes.

The old “yawn and put arm around their shoulder” trick. And of course there’s the more NSFW version of it.

We used to love making prank calls as teenagers. The old standby:

You: “Is your refrigerator running?”

Callee: “Uh, yeah”

You “Then you’d better go catch it”

Sadly, it seems this is now a lost art….

Fake throwing a ball. Dogs seem to still fall for it.

I mean, the basic concept of the bait and switch (promise one thing to get people interested, then offer something else instead) has been around for ages and everyone knows about it but sometimes people still fall for it.

Funny variation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Looketh over there.

Just the tip.

The old hole in the bottom of the popcorn bucket…..

I believe Rahab is the oldest trick the The Book.

Edit: /u/JackDonaghysWingman comin’ with knowledge and shit

Uh-oh, too slow!

Sneaking comics in behind the textbook. Or in today’s day and age, phones.

One day back when I was in second grade, this kid named Wesley claimed that he had a secret to tell me.

As some folks likely remember, the accepted behavior for receiving a secret was always to lean towards the speaker and adopt an expression of wide-eyed anticipation. They, in turn, would put their mouth right next to your ear, cup their hand around their lips, and whisper whatever dire revelation they had to offer. The listener would occasionally feign a reaction – usually by shouting something like “You did what for how many cookies?!” – or perhaps ask for a repetition, and then both parties would step away from each other… and yet somehow feel closer.

That’s how it was supposed to go, at any rate.

On the day in question, Wesley went through the predictable steps of approaching me, leaning towards my ear, and then cupping his hand around his mouth. Rather than any kind of sensitive information, though, the only thing that I heard was a shrill “Aaaaah!” as the other boy screamed into my skull.

“Hey!” I protested, pulling away. “That’s not funny.”

Wesley’s laugh sounded rather similar to a monkey’s shrieking as he answered. “Sorry, sorry! I just… I couldn’t stop myself! Sorry! I’ll tell you the real secret now.”

Once again, he leaned in close to my ear… and once again, he screeched “Aaaaah!” into it.

“Knock it off!” I shouted, shoving him away. “Do you actually have something to tell me or not?”

“Sorry!” Wesley replied, still laughing. “Sorry, yes, I do! I really do!”

I raised an eyebrow at him (which probably looked absolutely ridiculous from a second-grader). “I don’t believe you.” I started to walk away, but Wesley chased after me and grabbed my arm.

“No, no, Max, Max!” he pleased. “No, I really have to tell you a secret. Please? I promise I won’t yell in your ear anymore.”

Now, I’ve never been the brightest knife in the cookie jar, but even I knew to examine that situation with some skepticism in mind. That was why, as I allowed Wesley to approach me, I readied myself to retaliate.

“Okay,” I said, “go ahead and tell me.”

I could hear Wesley drawing a deep breath as he leaned in towards my ear… so rather than waiting until he shouted again, I preempted the attack by elbowing him in the solar plexus.

Or, well… trying to, anyway. I must have been off the mark by a bit, because Wesley responded by squealing “Oooooooow!” in my ear, then running off to report me for assault. (“You hit me! I’m telling on you!”) I wound up receiving a rather stern lecture from my teacher, and I only narrowly avoided having her call my mother. It was a thoroughly irritating situation all around… but I learned something that day, too.

Always aim for the groin.

TL;DR: “No, no, really! I’m telling the truth this time!”

Hernán Cortés and the Conquistadors’ contribution to fall of the Aztec empire.

I’d love to see the life of Napoleon. It would take an entire 13 episode series, if not two seasons to do it justice.

The second Punic war, with the crossing of the Alps, the battle of Cannae, Scipio’s conquest of Spain, what more do you need?

The fall of the Russian royal family, starting with the death of Rasputin. It would easily fill a 10 episode order and help dispel a lot of myths about the death of Rasputin and the family.

Rise of Genghis Khan.

Should be shot from alternating Muslim and Christian perspectives, preserving the mystery of the Mongols for as long as possible.

I’m thinking The Hundred Years’ War would make a pretty epic series.

From Wiki:
>It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, wherein five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe. The war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline

It’s knights in armor, and epic battles, and political intrigues, and alliances forged and broken. The Black Plague and Joan of Arc both play parts.

All of them, I’d watch the shit out of anything historic and HBO, I loved BoB, Generation Kill, John Adams and The Pacific.
But if I had to pick one event I’d love to see the conquest of Alexander the Great.

The discovering of the New World, rather the “Space Race-esque” competition that was going on between countries to establish colonies on said land.

The Great Emu War, in 1932 Australia.

The Nika riots.

Constantinople, 532.

Chariot-racing hooligan gang street-brawls spilling out of the hippodrome and into the streets and into the palace, all decked out in bright silk gang colors, bringing the empire to the brink…. until….

Well, I’d hate to spoil the ending.

The Sengoku Period of Japan, during which the daimyo (local warlords) engaged in near-constant fighting for control of the country. It was essentially Game of Thrones with samurai. A series could center on the three most prominent daimyo, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Definitely has to be the French Revolution. The entire ordeal with King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette is pretty much a drama in itself and the political corruption of Robespierre and his “Cult of the Supreme Being” can all help to make the series interesting :’D

The Thirty Years War. It was one of the most devastating conflicts in European history until the world wars. Mercenary armies were in vogue then and because their only loyalty was to coin, they would ravage and ransack whatever towns they came upon, especially if they lost and coin was not guaranteed. A large part of the fighting took place in the German and Italian states and it was a major depopulation event for them. Entire villages and hamlets simply ceased to be and disappeared off the maps. Famine and disease ran rampant. It was so bad, the people believed God had been dethroned and Satan sat on the seat of power in Heaven.

War of the Three Kingdoms. End of the Han dynasty, China was divided into different factions and territories. Eventually they began to merge into three kingdoms. The Shu Kingdom, whose leader claimed blood ties to the old dynasty, the Wei Kingdom, who had installed the previous emperor as a puppet ruler, and Wu Kingdom, who had declared independence from Wei. It reminds me a bit of Game of Thrones, but with less emphasis on outright combat scenes and more on subterfuge and tactical maneuvers.

There was a pretty good Chinese TV series made about it in 2010. I think you can find English subs of the series on YouTube.

Nice try, HBO intern.

When a pregnant woman receives heart tissue damage, the fetus will send stem cells to repair it.

Everybody else is blown away by the capacity of the brain, while I’m amazed at how the forearm can twist. You have two parallel bones, and your muscles pull them so they cross, which rotates your arm. How crazy is that?

The human hand is one of the most insanely fine tuned pieces of organic machinery on the planet. It contains an absurdly dense amount of nerve cells and special nerve adjustments that make it incredibly sensitive to extremely small signals. Because of this, and the insane art that is the natural craftsmanship of our hands, the human hand has a dexterity for precision that other apes do not have, let alone the rest of the barbaric in comparison animals.

And you use it to jack off and browse memes

Saccadic masking!

I’m not an expert at this, but I’ll give the explanation as I understand it.

Basically if you move your eyes too quickly, your brain will freeze details that should be blurred and process that image, preventing you from actually seeing motion blur. I think you would most likely get sick if you could actually see things blur that much?

Anyway, a cool result of this would be the “stopped clock”. If you dart your eyes around really fast and then stare at a clock with a second hand, you’ll see one second last longer than it should. This is due to saccadic masking blocking any visual processing.

Edit: Many of you have mentioned the stopped clock effect is due to Chronostasis instead of Saccadic masking. You could very well be correct, but I believe they’ll similar/related. I always encourage anyone to read rather than take a redditor’s word for it!

Also, you’re very welcome to everyone who’s happy to have solved a personal puzzle. I love random facts for this reason!

I’ve always thought the resilience of the human body is pretty damn incredible. Your body will fight with every ounce of its being to keep you alive, literally. Your body will digest itself to salvage nutrients for vital organs, your cells will kill themselves if they can tell there’s something wrong with them for the good of the rest of the body, and you have so many reflexes that you wouldn’t even begin to understand until they actually kicked in when you go into survival mode. The instinctive drowning response, for example. Every part of your body is focused on keeping your mouth above water for air. My personal favorite response is fight or flight. Normally your muscles are limited in how much power they can exert so they don’t get hurt excessively during routine tasks like exercising. When your adrenaline surges, that limit is gone. Your muscles will work as hard as they possibly can without restraint, and you don’t feel the pain of overexertion either. This is where we get those stories of people lifting cars off their children – hysterical strength.

What your body can do in life or death situations is pretty fucking cool.

Your body usually kills one cell a day that would have turned to cancer. Usually.

Usually….

Breastmilk actually changes it’s composition to meet the individual nutritional needs of the baby(ies) feeding from the breast. For example, if mom is nursing a toddler (who is more prone to short little “drive by” nursings) the child get more bang for their buck and gets a full session’s worth of proteins, fats and vitamins in their one minute fly by the same as a 3 month old gets in their 25 minute session. As they get older, the quantity of vitamins, fats and proteins changes as well to meet their individual needs. This is even true if mom is tandem nursing two babies of different ages: the milk actually customizes itself to ensure they both get exactly what they need, and the amount of milk she makes is dependent entirely on how much stimulation she gets (ie. the more the baby nurses at the breast, the better supplied they are. This is why using bottles and pacifiers mucks up someone’s supply: the baby wastes all their suckling needs somewhere else).

Even cooler, the milk makes antibodies for the viruses mom and baby are exposed to and fighting off. I always thought the coolest part in particular was that before the mom even know she or her baby are sick, her milk is already creating medicine (antibodies) to treat her child. It’s like a built-in vaccine that is constantly being updated to fight off the latest bugs. This is the main reason why breastfed babies are better equipped to fight off both short term illness and long term disease (like respiratory illness, asthma, allergies, etc).

And it comes in a real pretty container, too.

My dentist told me once that gums heal super quickly. That when you have a cut or something in your mouth it heals faster than a cut on the skin

I think the tonsils go under-appreciated. Most times they do an awesome job of keeping harmful bacteria from finding its way into your airways and making you sick.

When you lose weight, most of the fat you’ve lost doesn’t pass through stool or just “burn off”. About 90% of that weight lost is exhaled as carbon dioxide. Science!!!!!

Also: here’s a source that’s interesting
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30494009

You can lose up to 75% of your liver and it can grow back to its full size, kind of like how a lizard can re-grow its tail but we do it with an extremely complex organ.

Edit: also, if you were to donate part of your liver to someone else, the piece you donated would grow into a full liver as well.

We can outrun most animals in long distances due to our ability to cool, our efficient 2-legged running, etc. Over short distances, we’re boned.

Mitochondria have different DNA which likely stems from the fact that they were once bacteria internalised by another single cell organism (probably archaea) very early on in the evolutionary process creating the single most important symbiotic relationship. Mitochondria are responsible for all of the energy production in your body.

Look at an object on the wall across the room. Now keep looking at it while you move your head back and forth, up and down. Your eyes stay pointed at that spot. Not hard to do, is it?

For that to happen, you brain needs to calculate the direction and rate of change your head is moving in 3 dimensional space and then send corresponding signals to the muscles in your eyes to exactly counter match the rotation and speed in order to keep them pointed at that spot. And not only that, the muscles that have to be moved (and the rate at which they move) are different for each eye, since if you turn your head quickly right, you R eye contracts the muscles on the nose side to compensate, and the L eye contracts the muscles on the temple side.

It’s an absolutely amazing, fine-tuned process involving incredible spacial calculations and microsecond signaling and adjusting that we do all the time and take completely for granted.

Our general understanding of sleep boils down to “we get tired”.

If you mean what do we understand but most people don’t realize is extraordinary then it’s our healing ability. Compared to most other higher animals we’re basically x-men meets the terminator, we can survive and heal from things that would outright kill most animals and can chase things for days without rest.

Not me, but my sister. Her firstborn was a gorgeous kid, and turned into a handsome guy. Her second? Ugliest kid any of us have ever seen. Thought he would grow out of it: 25 years later, we’re still waiting. This poor guy is just downright ugly, there’s no way to sugarcoat it. Plus he’s a little shorter than average.

Apparently the first words my mother said when she saw me was, “Oh, we got an ugly one!”

Thus began my life.

Well, I am very unattractive, so it made sense that my child would follow suit. When he was first born, the euphoria of having your own kin and a little version of you is pretty overwhelming to the point of not even thinking of things like that.

As he grew older, it was already somewhat obvious that he wasn’t a 10 in the looks department, however that doesn’t diminish my love for him in any way. I just want him to grow up happy and healthy!

I’m not going to use a throwaway for this, even though a ton of people know my username. Mostly because this is about honesty, for myself and anyone reading this.

I was an ugly-ass kid. Short, scrawny as hell. I had thin, greasy, mouse brown hair. I have a big nose and crooked teeth. I also developed cystic acne at the age of 9.

As I got older, I learned to dress better and take care of my hair. Things that I could change, I did. I grew my hair out and learned how to wash it and care for it.

Slowly as I got older, I got a lot more confident. I realized that crooked teeth and acne scars really didn’t matter. I learned how to flirt. I learned how to appreciate myself, even though if we’re being honest I’m maybe a 5 in straight looks.

But I had a daughter. And sadly for her, she had my nose. And my skin. And my hair. And even more unfortunately, she has her father’s big ears and even more crooked teeth.

When I look at her in a certain way, I honestly think she’s beautiful. Because unlike me, no one had ever told her she’s ugly. No one ever made her feel badly about herself. Confidence isn’t something she had to learn, it seems to be innate for her. She’s lucky for that.

But when I see her next to her pretty friends, I know she isn’t on their level. She will never be the pretty friend. She’ll always be the funny and outgoing one.

Do I feel guilty? Sometimes I do, I wish she had gotten my ears and figure, I wish she had gotten her dad’s jaw and eyes. But no one can predict what your kids will look like.

And I know that she’ll grow into herself, like I did. She’s not horribly ugly. She’s more… Unfortunate looking.

And our son? He’s almost angelic looking. Beautiful in every way. Life is sort of unfair like that. He’s shy and bookish, and he could grow up to be a model.

My cousin has an incredibly ugly child. She admits it but it doesn’t really bother her.

It’s not like she or her husband are super attractive. They both know from personal experience that you can have a great life with someone you love without being a winner in the looks department.

Why the fuck is everyone commenting about their babies? They aren’t suppose to be cute when they first come out. They were in water for a few months and than had to be squeezed out of a small tube. They have the hair and teeth of Gollum and make even less coherent noises. Kids before puberty shouldn’t count when rating ugliness.

At the company Christmas party like 20 years ago my dad’s new-ish coworker brought his baby. My dad admired the baby and said how healthy he looked. When the coworker walked away to introduce his baby to somebody else, my dad turned to the woman next to him and said, “That has to be the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen in my life.” Turns out that was the baby’s mama, and she was not happy to hear that. My dad ruined her night, and the next time he saw his coworker at work, the guy said to my dad, “Well I know our son is ugly but I was hoping my wife wouldn’t notice, but now she is very, very aware. Thanks.”

My dad is an idiot who frequently puts his foot in his mouth, but he also has a really dry/dark humor and meant it to be funny, not as insulting as it came out. My mom still brings up that story whenever she can as a lesson to know who the fuck you’re talking to before you say something stupid.

A friend of mine is a doctor, when he delivers a beautiful baby he tells the parents their baby is beautiful.
When he delivers an ugly baby he tells them their baby looks just like them.

Due to some vessels breaking while I was born I had two black eyes for some time.

Taking my occupation later on it only made sense. I am still ugly as fuck with my unshapely ears and nose.
Ma parents don’t feel guilty. I got ears after dad they say.

My older sister admitted privately that my children were much better looking then her own. Hers are all incredibly smart so maybe she wins in the end.

My dad ran crying out of the delivery room, my head had been squeezed a bit so it was slightly cone shaped, he thought it would be permanent. I’m a normal looking guy these days.

I asked my mother. She said she always knew I was ugly. Thanks mom.

Had to give him up for adoption. Couldn’t have a pleb ruining my pure bloodline.

Not my kid, but there’s this one on Facebook and the kid is absolute meme material.

If I just showed his face to the world he could be famous, but I would feel so bad.

Poor kid.

Ask your mother

A buddy and I, after a long night of underage drinking, were pissing in the back alley on the same block where I worked. Suddenly, police spotlight.

Cops asked what were we doing.

“Oh, just trying to get into my shop here to get some things before going home!”

Slip the key into the keyhole. CLICK Door opens, hop inside.

Cheap ass landlord used the same key for the whole block.

Wrapping my Xbox 360 in towels and letting it overheat to fix the red rings of death.

I was at a friend’s house maybe 25 years ago. He knew I knew electronics, so he asked me to fix his TV. I said “look – designing computers is not the same thing as fixing TVs” He insisted, so I took the TV apart. I notice a big transistor off color. I wrote down the number, went home and looked up the number and discovered it was an NPN transistor. So I searched my scrap pile for a similar transistor (well, an NPN transistor with the same footprint), went back to his house, replaced the funny looking transistor with the one I had and the damned TV worked. I was amazed I had fixed it.

It was mid August and I was in a park near Sudbury around Killarney National Park. He had to do some clear cutting in a horrible bramble bush area infested with horse flies. Close to where we worked there was a tool shed we were warned often had THOUSANDS of flies inside. There was no way we could get our tools out of there.

We brought some gasoline with us and I found a glass bottle. So I filled it up with gas, put a gas-soaked rag in it, and had someone run up to the tool shed to pull the door open and run away. I lit the molotov cocktail and hurled it inside.

This is what I was counting on. I had actually seen Molotov cocktails go off before and they usually burn themselves out pretty quickly. The gas just sits on the surface of where ever it lands and burns down to nothing. Most of it is consumed right away in a big fireball.

And that’s exactly what happened. We had a huge ass fireball and instantly killed several thousand flies. The tool shed, although run down and filthy, was perfectly intact and so were the tools. And the lingering smoke actually helped clear the whole area of flies.

I picked a desk lock with a small flat-head screwdriver and a paper clip.

I’ve definitely just smacked my electronics and had them work.

About 15 years ago a buddy and I had to be rescued from a mountain, but the search and rescue team were having trouble locating us. They wouldn’t attempt the rescue until they saw us due to the weather conditions and avalanche risk. I had the random idea to take pictures of the snow at our feet with the disposable camera I had on me. That did the trick. Apparently the flash reflecting off the snow could be seen all the way at the base of the mountain. That thought may have saved my life that night.

When I was a kid there was an opossum family in our neighborhood. I know because within a few days there were 4-5 young dead opossums on the road. I told my mom I would catch one and keep it from being killed. I made a trap out of spare wood and junk. Mom saw it and said “if that works I’ll let you keep whatever you catch”. Named my opossum “princess” and her favorite food was peaches. Mom regretted that bet.

Edit: here is an old picture of princess. I used to let her ride on my shoulder and mom would almost faint every time she saw it.

I was in the Navy and stationed in Japan. When we flew home we did not need a passport, just our military id. Well, I was flying home and had somehow lost my military id in transit to the airport. I managed to get through check-in and security with my US drivers license and my leave papers. When I reached Canada I was pulled into a tiny room by US customs though; they couldn’t believe I got on the flight either. This was after 9/11.

Cop here. During my first week on the job I witnessed a strong-armed robbery during a local music festival. The robber punched a woman in the face, grabbed her purse and ran away. Me and my partner immediately gave chase, but the robber was a fast little fucker and there was no way we were going to catch him. My partner flung his baton Frisbee – style at his legs which became entangled, causing him to fall. The robber actually gave us props when he was in the back of our car. Horrible tactics from a safety standpoint…but it worked. (Edit: ambiguous pronoun)

My PhD

Used a Yale key that was for my back gate on a Yale lock in Botanic Gardens in Belfast so I could take a short cut. Worked, saved myself 20 mins on a commute.

Moved to Indianapolis without a job lined up. Decided to just rent a mailbox and put it on my job applications that I blanket applied for in my car while sitting in a Mcdonalds parking lot.

Had 8 interviews lined up by the end of the day.

I was medium fucked up at some fancy club in SF and without really realizing where I was going, walked into some VIP section where there were drinks on the table, women were prettier, I may have seen some drugs, etc. I immediately sit at one of the tables and start making myself a drink. A bouncer comes over shortly after and asked who I was and if I was on the list. Feeling bold I turned and in my best entitled bored voice said “does it look like I’m on the fucking list?”
He walked away, and shortly later a group of girls sit down and start drinking with me. never expected that to work.

I gave cpr to a microwave, was asked to fix it by my sister and decided to be a smart ass, it started to work again.