Ask Lemmy
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My buddy got himself a cat a few years ago. (She adopted him)
I would tease him about becoming a cat person. "I will never become a 'cat guy', I'm not going to spoil her. She's just a barn cat to keep the mice out"
The barn in question was the Mother-in-law house at his folks that he was staying in.
After a few months of us cat owners teasing him, I asked him point blank "have you ever slept in an uncomfortable position as to not disturb your cat?"
After a good half minute pause we got a "err, I mean yeah, I don't want to disturb her if she's asleep!"
He became a total cat dad until the day he moved into a dog house and left her with his folks. He still dotes on her when he comes home to visit.
A while ago, I was speaking to someone from the UK online. They were the type of person who assumed that all of the UK's problems were being caused by migrants, and they were outraged at an article which said that migrants and other vulnerable persons will receive priority care. They had no issue with other vulnerable groups getting priority care, except for migrants.
They then went off on a tirade about how "migrants are taking over" the UK. So, I asked them if they personally knew any of these migrants, if the UK is really being "taken over" by them.
They said "no" and didn't know what to say after that.
Not really one, but at work multiple times I’ve proposed a solution to a problem and someone else (generally with more influence) had a different idea that I knew wouldn’t work well.
The best approach I’ve found is just to ask them questions, “What happens when ___?”, “How will your solution handle X?”, etc. As long as they engage honestly, I’ve been able to get them to come around to my solution.
It’s slow and tiresome, but is a good lesson for me on how to work with other people. I’ve already thought through all those questions before proposing “my” solution; I sometimes need people to get on the same train of thought.
When was Santa's birthday?
Most people catch on pretty quick, but it still trips some people up.
Had to look it up. St. Nicholas' true date of birth is lost to time, but traditionally it's said to be the 15th of March.
Interesting.
That reminds me, I recently saw the results of a study on the birth dates of people in their 90s and 100s and so, and they noticed a pattern. Many of those birth dates were apparently just estimated, as they were almost all listed as being born either on the 1st of the month or on the 15th.
Birth records that far back hadn't exactly been standardized or made official quite yet.
So it only makes sense that they don't know for sure when St. Nicholas was born.
The Wikipedia article I got the info from basically says that mid-month was considered a good time for religious celebrations. With St. Nick being a literal religious entity, that's probably why his "birthday" was put there.
The mid-month habit goes a lot further back than St. Nick too. For similar reasons to St. Nick's birthday, Julius Caesar's assassination is/was said to have been on that date (aka the ides of March). It might even have been. There's no way to be sure.
Is this just a trick question, that leads people into saying that Santa's birthday is Christmas? Or is there a point behind it?
Nah, that's pretty much it, if they say Christmas, they fell for it.