h a l f b a k e r yInvented by someone French.
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We first set up a system of cables and pulleys that is
suspended from a gantry,
and connected to an oversized pair of reinforced
boots. The connection
between the pulley system and the boots is
quadruple-purchased, connecting
at the bottom of the boot. The ends of the cables
run up the
insides of the
boots, terminating in a handsome leather strap at the
top of each boot.
To use, you simply stand inside the boots, grab the
straps, and utilize mechanical advantage
to lift yourself a few inches off the ground (if you
can lift one quarter of your
body weight a foot high, you can lift yourself three
inches off the ground with
this system). Once a certain height is reached, a
camera is automatically
triggered, and the resulting photograph is emailed to
you. The trap is now set.
From then on, you can go around telling people that
you “literally” pulled
yourself up by your bootstraps. Then you just have
to wait until some smartass
comes back with, “Really, you /literally/ lifted
yourself off the ground by
yanking on your own bootstraps?” Simply produce
the photograph (with
appropriate flourish), and savor the look on his face.
Durn tootin!
Bootstrap_20pulling
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 23 2012]
Need help finding your trivial pants?
What_20Pants_20Should_20I_20Wear_3f
Sorry, no Windows version. [Alterother, Jun 25 2012]
"Died of states' rights"
https://en.wikipedi...states%27_rights%22
Historian Frank Lawrence Owsley [8th of 7, Oct 04 2020]
Not alone
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgJ3g-9k2Bk
"Governments" are things that people just made up [spidermother, Oct 04 2020]
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Annotation:
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I'm guessing that boot-straps attached to a generator, then using that electricity to power a winch might be more successful? |
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It'd be harder to communicate what exactly was
happening via photograph. You don't need to lift
yourself very high—just enough to make your claim
technically valid. |
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I wouldn't want to be in your shoes, [ytk]. |
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walk a mile in the other guys shoes, then you're a mile away and you have his shoes..Terry Pratchett, I think? |
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No, older than that. Still, it's a great tribute to Pratchett that other peoples' achievements are starting to get attributed to him - like Charlemagne. |
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{leaves cheap joke set up for next poster} |
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There's something very Handey about that quote. |
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Not a fan of the overmisuse of the term "literally"
like "I LITERALLY jumped 300 feet in the air I was so
excited." but I wince in silence. |
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Bun, though you can get the same effect by saying
"Shut up poindexter." This works surprisingly well. |
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"I literally said I jumped 300 feet in the air I was so excited." |
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"After climbing Mount McKinley I was so excited I literally jumped 20,320 feet in the air." |
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"Hiking in Death Valley was so exciting I literally jumped -282 feet in the air!" |
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Though I stand atop a mountain, I am still only the height
of a man. |
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How about a Ninja-team of instant arboriculturalists
to cover your ass next time you say "It's literally a
jungle out there" ? |
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The pulley concept is widely known, but I have to wonder how many people have actually used one. |
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I recall being exposed to one in elementary school, and then fifty years later I used one to pull a stalled car up a slight incline. It felt really strange, because you could see the ton you were moving but it felt like a hundred pounds. |
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We were rather hoping this would be a deep pit with sharpened spikes - and a somewhat perforated [Unabubba] - at the bottom, but we will give a bun anyway. |
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Though I post annotation twice, I am still only saying something once. |
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You can literally say that again! |
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How to Create a Smug Pedant Trap. |
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Step 1. Create website where said 'Smug Pedants' will
naturally congregate. |
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Step 2. Encourage atmosphere at this website where Users
are encouraged to confront other Users about misspellings,
trivial breeches of website rules and any technical
inaccuracies. |
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Step 3. (I don't know what happens at Step 3, but [jutta]
assures me that we will all be surprised and It won't hurt
for
long.) |
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//Encourage atmosphere at this website where Users are
encouraged to confront other Users about misspellings,
trivial breeches of website rules// |
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Trivial pants? Where do I get a pair? |
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(Are you looking for trivial pants to cover your inconsequential gonads [ytk]?) |
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I, like, literally halfbaked bootstrap pulling, before it was cool. |
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Oh God, I'm a closet hipster. |
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If the thing that one did was -literally- literal, then it would be merely written about, rather than actually done, Shirley? |
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{whew} dodged a bullet there then. |
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If it were _literally_ literally literal it would be
written at the letter, rather than the word or
sentence, level, and thus incomprehensible. |
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I cryptoverlaptographically halfbaked that too. |
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//written at the letter ... level, and thus incomprehensible//
A? O, I C, U R O K. |
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Would it not be simpler to literally pull your socks up, literally turn over a new leaf or literally turn a corner? |
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So far, extensive research has failed to turn up a pedant who is not smug. |
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//Would it not be simpler to literally pull your socks
up, literally turn over a new leaf or literally turn a
corner?// |
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Yeah, but people might reasonably have actually
done one of those things and the smug factor isn't
nearly as high, so it's less likely to come up, and less
awesome when it does. |
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I'm a non-smug pedant, [8th]. Pompous and arrogant, yes,
but not smug. |
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"Pompous and arrogant, yes, but not pedant." |
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Three for three: bite me. |
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It would take more than a sharpened stake to
penetrate my hide, [8th], as you well know. |
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In any case, it's not smugness if you're actually right.
For instance, I notice your practically encyclopaedic
knowledge of weaponry and violence are often
trotted out, without you trying to sound the least
bit smug. |
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They've been doing it for so long that they hardly have to
_try_ any longer. |
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The Brits? Yep, possibly the most belligerent (maybe
second-most) nation on Earth. |
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Oh yeah ? OH YEAH ? Come over here and say that, we will kick your head in ... |
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One of my friends just did a great one. He literally went to greener pastures. He's moving back home to help out with the family farm. |
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Happened across this gem. I already bunned it. Good stuff. |
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//savor the look on his face.// |
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When I was a small boy, I had an Action Man figure (or it could
have been some other hero) who had a backpack. From the
backpack emerged two strings. You tied one string to a door
handle or other suspension point, and then you pulled *down*
on the other string. Miraculously, the figure would then
ascend. |
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This fascinated me until I took it apart to see how it worked,
after which it didn't. |
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I don't believe it was actually miraculous. |
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If it was a little figure of J.C., 97% of catholics would probably deem it "miraculous", 2% would probably say "Huh ? What ? Wait, let me put my spectacles on", and the 1% with no useable vision would pray to it to have their sight restored to them. |
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They're odd, that way ... big chunks of a complex belief system, predicated on a lot of unsubstantiated assertions by individuals who quite possibly either had profound mental health issues, or had been a bit careless about the wild mushrooms that went into their last meal. It may not always be that, of course - Patmos is fairly hot and sunny at times, and it could be that St. John the Divine simply spent too much time outdoors without a hat. |
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It's important to try and distinguish between "stuff that really happened" and "stuff that someone just made up". Pyramids are not natural structures, and exist whether you believe in them or not (try not believing in one and then attempt to walk through the space one allegedly occupies. Hint: wear shin protection). A reasonable conclusion on the basis of observable evidence is that "humans pushed big lumps of rock into a heap". |
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The belief system that persuaded them to do the pushing is ... a bit more flaky. Unlike the pyramids, which are unpleasantly solid. |
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Yeah, religious fundamentalists are weird. They
can't even decide whether they worship one
made-up deity or three - the Federal, the State,
and the Local. |
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Hello [spidey]. Its been literally ages since I last saw you here. |
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// Federal, the State, and the Local // |
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Ooooh, watch out for the State thing ... can be very dangerous ... |
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I've literally been staying off the web. |
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It literally scared the shit out of me when I
noticed that 1984 and Idiocracy were
documentaries, but I used it to fertillise my
macadamia and almond trees, so having grown
some nuts, I'm back. |
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<link> This guy gets it about right. |
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