Earth May Have Been Hit By a Gamma-Ray Burst In 775 AD 157
The Bad Astronomer writes "Studies of carbon-14 in Japanese trees and beryllium-10 in Antarctic ice indicate the Earth was hit by a big radiation blast in 775 AD. Although very rare, occurring only once every million years or so, the most likely culprit is a gamma-ray burst, a cosmic explosion accompanying the birth of a black hole. While a big solar flare is still in the running, a GRB from merging neutron stars produces the ratio of carbon and beryllium observed, and also can explain why no bright explosion was seen at the time, and no supernova remnant is seen now."
Umm? How far away would it have been? (Score:1, Informative)
I thought a nearby GRB would wipe out all life, all the way down to viruses.
At least that's what Michia Kaku and his bullshit "science" documentaries on Discovery Channel have been telling me.
Re:Umm? How far away would it have been? (Score:5, Informative)
Depends on intensity I imagine. The article notes it had to be further then 3000 light years away or they'd have expected it to cause an extinction event - and also that there are "short" and "long" GRBs.
gamma ray burst is thought to be generated along t (Score:1)
Re:Umm? How far away would it have been? (Score:5, Informative)
also, couldnt a grb at worst wipe out life on just half the planet? Surely if you're on the "dark side of the earth" for this event, you would be safe.
Sure, if you can build the 40,000 km long, 30 km high wall around the terminator fast enough to prevent your part of atmosphere from getting spoiled with all the NO2 generated by the gamma burst interacting with the atmosphere.
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The concentrations would have to be startlingly high to actually wipe out all surface life. Even then, the life that doesn't breathe, or lives in the ocean, or just isn't as badly affected as large mammals would be just fine.
Re:Umm? How far away would it have been? (Score:4, Informative)
From here [msn.com]:
Google: Get to know it. Make it your friend.
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FTFY
The increased UV radiation at the surface is an issue if you're on the surface. If you are an organism living below a few metres water depth, or under a few cm of soil, then it's much less of a problem. The loss of those more sensitive species would certainly be a problem, but with our technologies we should have a pretty good chance of surviving as a species. It might be 90% or higher casualties, and it wou
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The increased UV radiation at the surface is an issue if you're on the surface.
An extinction doesn't require the whole range of species being wiped out, but a big enough number of them. I think that a very weakened ozone layer would actually mean that many diurnal species would actually disappear, enough for it to be considered an extinction. Besides, the life forms able to survive this (without artificial means like us) are precisely the niche ones that would take a good time to recolonize the planet. I mean, for most of the living species on the planet, plants (and plancton) are the
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The experiment has been done, repeatedly. The time taken for essentially complete re-colonisation of the planet from a rump of species surviving a mass extinction, is trivial. A mere couple of million years. In the more restricted case of colonising a newly-emerged island, it's even less - a mere tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Though trop
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In case you're not trolling: an extinction event refers to something that suddenly causes a number of species to become extinct. To use your analogy, it's the difference between one person going to a restaurant's toilet (because it was just that time to go), and a hundred people all trying to go at once (because the buffet drinks were spiked).
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Not merely species, but entire genera and even higher clades such as families and orders can vanish. The dinosaurs which were almost completely wiped out in the KT event are a sub-order. And of course, we are in the midst of a major extinction event right now, due to human activity since the Pleistocene.
Re:Umm? How far away would it have been? (Score:5, Informative)
I thought a nearby GRB would wipe out all life, all the way down to viruses.
It would. But if it was farther away, it would just create a bunch of radioactive isotopes in the upper atmosphere while leaving life on the ground mostly unmolested.
If only someone had an estimate of how far away this one was, and had presented it in something that would describe this news item in detail. We could call it an "article".
For non-douches who also didn't RTFA, it's estimated at 3000 to 13000 ly away. For comparison, in Phil's book "Death from the Skies" he discusses what would happen as a result of a GRB from 100 ly away, and the result is Very Bad(tm).
Re:Umm? How far away would it have been? (Score:5, Informative)
For comparison, in Phil's book "Death from the Skies" he discusses what would happen as a result of a GRB from 100 ly away, and the result is Very Bad(tm).
Of course for all the preppers out there it should also be said that the closest confirmed GRB is 1.3 billion light-years from Earth, the observation period isn't very long but it's hardly a common occurrence. Which is also why I'm a little sceptic that we've had one right on our doorstep only a few thousand light years away.
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Because given the size and age of the universe, that would be extremely close to us in time and space. They don't happen frequently, and the odds it would happen so near to us are (sorry) astronomical.
Re:Umm? How far away would it have been? (Score:4, Informative)
There was another event that led to modification of the natural isotopes in North America:
http://ie.lbl.gov/paleo/paleo.html [lbl.gov]
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/nuclear.html [uga.edu]
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Well, IIRC from the book, basically everything on the facing side of the earth would be dead and on fire. It would also entirely destroy the ozone layer in that hemisphere. Once the atmosphere had equalized, what would be left wouldn't be enough to protect the survivors from the sun, so they'd all die too, just more slowly and painfully.
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Half the world on fire is still only half the world on fire. This planet is broken up into land masses separated by ocean. There would be a lot of soot and byproducts causing terrible air quality, and probably some "nuclear winter" style weather for a while. Lots and lots of things would die, but certainly not everything. As for the loss of the ozone layer, the soot would probably make up for that. The ozone layer would recover and animals would modify their behaviour to avoid excessive sun damage in the me
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Half the world on fire is still only half the world on fire. This planet is broken up into land masses separated by ocean.
If the earth were oriented favorably such that only some of the landmasses were facing, rather than parts of all of them, that would be helpful, yes.
As for the loss of the ozone layer, the soot would probably make up for that. The ozone layer would recover and animals would modify their behaviour to avoid excessive sun damage in the meantime.
You are grossly underestimating the time it would take for the ozone layer to recover from this kind of depletion, and how devastating the sun's UV would be without it. The ozone layer hasn't fully recovered since the CFC ban in the 90s and that was comparatively tiny. More than half the ozone layer would be gone (because the ozone layer is in the upper atmos
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If the earth were oriented favorably such that only some of the landmasses were facing, rather than parts of all of them, that would be helpful, yes.
OK - I give up after much staring at a globe ...
I can get the Pacific Rim on one side ... so Asia, Australia and North America but can not for the life of me see how you would extinct Europe and particularly Great Britain.
Or I can center Sri Lanka and wipe out Australia, Africa, Asia and possibly Europe ... but not a hope of impacting the Americas.
Or center the Antarctic and EurAsia is safe.
Or center Northern Europe, I get everything except SE Asia ... Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, etc
etc ... etc
How woul
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You don't need to get Asia and Europe, they're connected.
There will always be islands on the far side of the GRB and far enough from the major landmasses that there's little chance the global-scale fires would reach them.
That's really a secondary effect to death-by-Sun.
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The soot clearly wouldn't provide protection for long, I certainly concede that. Just how completely the ozone layer would be depleted isn't really clear, however. Even in a worst case scenario, loss of the ozone layer doesn't mean all UV light gets through. The UVC gets blocked by the rest of the atmosphere regardless, the major rise would be in UVB. The direct effects would be very bad for the short term and long term health of non-nocturnal land animals incapable of finding shelter. The nocturnal ones or
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Why would you think soot could replace ozone as a UV blocker?
Because carbon-carbon bonds absorb UV light. It would be temporary compared to the overall length of the UV depletion, of course. The chief survival mechanism would still be sheltering from the light. Things living in high latitudes would have a much easier time. Don't get me wrong, it would be devastating to life in general and there would be mass extinctions and very tough living conditions. But the world wouldn't be sterilized. There are events that could certainly sterilize the world, but the one under
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If only someone had an estimate of how far away this one was, and had presented it in something that would describe this news item in detail. We could call it an "article".
I would still call it an article if it just contained the word "the".
Re:Umm? How far away would it have been? (Score:5, Funny)
I would still call it an article if it just contained the word "the".
Definitely.
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This kind of pun is why I still read /. Well done, Chris.
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> Wouldn't it be possible to calculate where that black hole formed in the night sky at the time, and where it is located at the present?
I'm guessing insufficient data. The distance and bearing would need to be established with some precision.
As for finding a stellar-sized black hole 1,000 light years away, unless its effects can be noted, even its peripheral effects would be difficult to observe.
This is why we'll have to be careful once the scientists get off their lazy butts and give us hyperdrive. Th
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This is why we'll have to be careful once the scientists get off their lazy butts and give us hyperdrive. There you are, zipping along, and all of sudden, "chomp," you get eaten by an uncharted black hole. :)
There isn't such a high density of black holes that the risk would be that high.
Assuming your hyperdrive equipped vehicle still has to obey the laws of physics... the gravitational forces exerted by any celestial object, including dark matter, could be a risk.
Specifically... the risk of crash
Re:Umm? How far away would it have been? (Score:5, Funny)
Specifically... the risk of crashing into solid matter that doesn't emit or reflect light.
I see that you too own a black lab that sleeps between the bed and the bathroom...
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> There isn't such a high density of black holes that the risk would be that high.
There isn't a very high density of sandbars and reefs in the oceans, and yet, the USS Guardian (thanks to a bad digital map and an allegedly arrogant captain who allegedly ignored a warning from officials in the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park) managed to find one off the coast of the Philippines. :)
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No, the trouble is in finding where that point was in the sky. That requires the exact date and time of the day (unless it's precisely north or south).
The data would be very valuable in finding out what distance is dangerous in black hole forming, but alas, it's probably unavailable.
93 million miles (Score:3)
Re:93 million miles (Score:4, Informative)
> I've heard the 775 C14 anomaly attributed to a very large solar storm period too, even those these guys dismiss the idea.
The article claims that it would have to be 10 times more intense than any solar storm ever recorded. The article admits that it's a possibility, but (for various reasons) unlikely.
The tubeworms would never even notice (Score:2)
It would be pretty grim for anything near the surface.
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Alex, calling people idiots doesn't really help your credibility. Try not being a name calling jackass. 3 digit ID doesn't give you the right to be a prick.
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Alex, calling people idiots doesn't really help your credibility. Try not being a name calling jackass. 3 digit ID doesn't give you the right to be a prick.
Normally I would agree, but when the person you're responding to was being a douche to begin with, the response is warranted.
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... when the person you're responding to was being a douche to begin with, the response is warranted.
I disagree. If the person was repeatedly directing the douchebaggery to you, then you might have a reason. However, when there is a single comment about a television show (not the person, the show), and that comment is only a non-genteel expression of the poster's opinion about the show, then the name-calling is unwarranted.
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Just the opposite.
Douchebaggery directed against objective truth deserves more harsh response than personal attacks.
Three digit ID? (Score:2)
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"We cannot treat name-calling as reasoned debate."
That was a line in a speech delivered earlier today. I doubt he was referring to Slashdot specifically, but it's well taken here anyway.
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It's OK to be a prick to name calling AC pricks. Sometimes they need to be taught a lesson.
Calling someone a prick is never NEVER going to teach them a 'lesson'.
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Calling someone a prick is never NEVER going to teach them a 'lesson'.
And besides, they might hold it against you //rimshot
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I don't even know who this Kaku guy is and I still tend to agree with the assessment that the original post wasn't very well considered.
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The benefits of using I-statement are many. I encourage you to try. For instance by rephrasing as "I think you are an idiot".
And besides if you instead had written "I think you are an idiot" then I think you would be perceived much more mature that you probably are currently. In my opinion [slashdot.org] calling other people an idiot/moron/douchebag/whatever is childish. Even if it is true.
For Posterity (Score:1)
The Incredible Hulk was hit by a gamma-ray burst in 1962 AD.
and William of Bixby (Score:2, Funny)
became ye olde incredible hulke...
David of Banner (Score:2)
Bruce of Banner (Score:2)
The earth seems quiet... (Score:4, Funny)
But you not like earth when EARTH ANGRY! RAAWWWRR
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What more do we have to do to annoy it?
We've been drilling into it, scooping out large parts of it, flooding parts, draining parts, sucking stuff out of it, injecting stuff into it, etc...
I suppose if we actually built those 'elevators' from the new Recall movie, that might do the trick.
How many times did this happen? (Score:5, Funny)
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/06/04/1147201/what-struck-earth-in-775 [slashdot.org]
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Well, at least the dupes are a half year apart now...
Re:How many times did this happen? (Score:5, Informative)
This is not a dupe, the first article pointed to tree rings, the second confirms the results using Antarctic ice.
Re: How many times did this happen? (Score:2)
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If samzenpus doesn't know, Soulskill might. I heard he even has a hypothesis as to what happened then!
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/06/28/1356230/has-a-biochem-undergrad-solved-a-cosmic-radiation-mystery [slashdot.org]
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This link also makes clear that the press release referenced in this submission got the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle date wrong, saying it was 776 when it is actually 774 and therefore *is* a valid candidate for the explosion. Has anyone fired up Stellarium yet to check out the area of the western sky after sunset as viewed from Britain in 774?
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Hmmm. This event: Black hole formation or giant solar flare.
Other article: C14 creation: Supernova or giant solar flare.
I hereby declare the 775 event a giant solar flare.
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> I hereby declare the 775 event a giant solar flare.
I can't remember if the article specifically mentions this (yes, I did read it), but you'd think that someone would have recorded the event. We have some half-decent written records from that period, from the Chinese, if nothing else. If it was a solar event, you'd think we'd have the Mother Of All Auroras in the sky that evening. Surely someone would have noted it?
After all, the Crab Nebula was finally declared as the probable result of a supernova ex
That explains... (Score:3)
...why everything tastes like blue.
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...why everything tastes like blue.
Errmmm... no, that's because of the little sugar cubes...
Now we know (Score:5, Funny)
They were really the Glow-In-The-Dark Ages.
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Yes, it explains our stupidity too:
Study Claims Human Intelligence Peaked Two To Six Millennia Ago [slashdot.org]
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Yes, it explains our stupidity too:
Study Claims Human Intelligence Peaked Two To Six Millennia Ago
I tried to read it but it was too complicated for me.
His tree data is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
FTA: "In the last 3000 years, the maximum age of trees alive today, only one such event appears to have taken place."
The actual oldest trees are about 5,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_trees)
Though that doesn't devalidate his main point (that this has only happened once in 3,000 years). I just wish he'd fact-check a bit more.
Re:His tree data is wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
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I just wish Jerry would fact check more! Sorry, Jerry, I could not resist.
Re:His tree data is wrong (Score:4, Funny)
A tree older than the world? That must be the one Eve picked the fruit from!
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No, this predates Adam and Eve by a few days... and God said "let there be light".
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Located at the western edge of the Colorado Plateau in South-central Utah.
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If you checked that list, [wikipedia.org] there are only a few tested to be more than ~3000 years old, a few more claimed at high ages, and clonal tree colonies which would not provide the data he wants. So, yes, the article is wrong, but when the relevent scope is applied, the timeframe is within the expected error.
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Effects on Humans and animals (Score:5, Interesting)
Neither of the articles discuss what might have happened to living things at the time. Could some people have had radiation sickness for example? Could this have caused mutations?
Re:Effects on Humans and animals (Score:5, Funny)
It killed off all the creatures that only lived back then - dragons, elves, fairies, witches and the like.
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Yes, gamma radiation and magic are incompatible; that's why The Hulk was able to beat Loki so easily.
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Re:Effects on Humans and animals (Score:5, Informative)
According to this article [nature.com] from last year on the same event, the event caused an increase in the concentration of carbon-14 in the atmosphere of about 1.2%. That's apparently about 20 times the normal rate of variation, but the baseline level of carbon-14 is about a part per trillion, so we'd be talking about increasing the concentration of carbon-14 by about 10 parts per quadrillion. In contrast, the period of above-ground nuclear testing almost doubled the concentration at its peak in the early 1960s.
Given our indirect knowledge of the event in 775, it's unknown whether other radiological hazards would have been present in addition to the C14 spike, but there don't seem to be indications of mass dieoffs or famines.
I personally don't trust any banana (Score:2)
that's older than one day.
Good thing there weren't any cars back then (Score:1)
The wikipedia page has a curious entry (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/774%E2%80%93775_radiation_burst [wikipedia.org]
The part about witness accounts to a red cross like image in the sky, meaning someone may have actually seen the event...
Re:The wikipedia page has a curious entry (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/774%E2%80%93775_radiation_burst [wikipedia.org]
The part about witness accounts to a red cross like image in the sky, meaning someone may have actually seen the event...
I'd take that with a pinch of salt. I've been reading Tom Holland's "Millennium" and it mentions that one of the Holy Roman emperors (an Otto) was heading down to Jerusalem to hand his crown over to JC when he came down for the second coming, when the army he was with saw a dragon in the sky. They figured this was a portent of bad things, and weren't surprised when Otto died a few days later.
I wouldn't take that anecdote as evidence for dragons though.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/774%E2%80%93775_radiation_burst [wikipedia.org]
The part about witness accounts to a red cross like image in the sky, meaning someone may have actually seen the event...
We'd have to treat that as hearsay as no one around in 774 would be updating wikipedia.
Better check MySpace.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/774%E2%80%93775_radiation_burst [wikipedia.org]
The part about witness accounts to a red cross like image in the sky, meaning someone may have actually seen the event...
We'd have to treat that as hearsay as no one around in 774 would be updating wikipedia.
Well of course not. NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH !!
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I saw a green cross like image in the sky around midnight in 1989 during the solar storm. Just like this one, but the sky was darker and there was a tinge of red:
http://travelblog.viator.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Norway-Northern-Lights2-540x405.jpg [viator.com]
It also had the effect of making signals from FM radio stations from Norway strong enough to be heard on radio systems in Scotland.
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I question the article content (Score:1)
Did anyone read the link? (Score:2)
I just skimmed two-thirds of the comments here. AFAIK, no one read the link.
To sum up: they say the event they think occured was between 3k and 12k ly away.
Oh, and Michio Kaku is a better physicist than you are, regardless of what he dumbed down for the whatsit channel.
mark
GRB and power satellites (Score:1)
However, a GRB like the 774-775 ev
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
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no, there is still Eta Carinae 7800 light years away, and if it is part of binary system there is non-zero chance the pole might be oriented at earth when it blows. That would produce ten times lethal dose for anything on that side of Earth when it goes. It is near the end of its life and could hypernova at any time.....
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Didn't you pay attention in statistics class?
There is absolutely no reason that two once-in-a-million-years events couldn't happen on consecutive days. It's improbable but not impossible.
Re:Doubtful (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a bit of a backward way to approach it.
Normally, when we make observations that don't line up with our current understanding (e.g. "Where did all this carbon-14 come from?") we look for explanations. The most likely known sources of carbon-14 spike are GRB's and solar flares. Discounting those because the overall event is unlikely, in spite of the evidence, is what scientist dub "stupid".
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Some scientists call it maximum likelihood estimation, and others call it Bayesian statistics.
But you've got to calculate the likelihoods correctly in the first place, and that requires knowing the characteristics of the event in the first place. If there are features of the event that are strongly divergent with your "leading" theory, then the probability that that theory is the correct reason should be deemed highly unlikely.
Collect evidence, be prepared to revise your opinion if the facts don't support it. (The natural human approach is the opposite: "revise" the facts if they don't match the off
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I only crap once per day. The amount of time I sit on the toilet is only about 50 seconds. Considering that there are 86400 seconds in a day, the probability of me sitting on the toilet and crapping at any given moment is extremely small.
Yet here I am, sitting on the toilet and crapping while I type this on my phone. Or since it's so unlikely, is there another explanation for the smell and the splashing sound?
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> Yet here I am, sitting on the toilet and crapping while I type this on my phone.
Your fingers must be a blur if you're going to finish your bid'ness AND get something posted to Slashdot within that 50 second time limit.
Just sayin' ...
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There were a few- how else would you explain Grendel and his mother, that Beowulf slew?
mark "and I don't mean the comic book version, you ignorant slashdot sluts!"