John KennedyWhen an article says "some scientists think" then remember this: I, a scientist, once thought I could fit a whole orange in my mouth. I could, it turns out, get it in there, but I hadn't given sufficient thought to the reverse operation. 🧵
I should also, on reflection, have practiced in private. I had an audience, which grew as my initial satisfaction at an hypothesis well proven, slipped rapidly through stages of qualm, disquiet, then alarm (mild through severe) and ended in full blown panic.
When one panics, one's muscles tense, which is of course, the opposite of what I needed here. I had been quite relaxed at the start, but now I couldn't get a finger between the orange and the very taut edges of my mouth.
Above and below, the orange, which was now under some pressure, deformed to make a nearly perfect seal against my teeth. I hadn't previously been aware of how much oxygen one needs to consume an orange, but I was made aware of it now by its sudden and ongoing lack.
I forgot for a moment that I had nostrils and tried to breathe in hard through my mouth. I have big lungs. When the doctor tested my lung capacity, I blew the end clean off the cardboard tube.
I've always been vaguely proud of that; mostly for want of more tangible achievements and because I am, when all is said and done, the kind of person otherwise predisposed to shove a whole orange in his mouth without cause.
Those enormous lungs - my pride and joy - expanding in this moment of crisis to their fullest extent, had created a hard vacuum behind the orange, which, at that point imploded.
From now on, things which had been unfolding at an almost leisurely pace, started to happen rather fast. So, I will take this opportunity to say that no one had actually tried to help me up till now. This was not for lack of opportunity.
Later, someone mentioned the kind of details - veins like worms scribbling incomprehensible messages across my forehead, eyes popping out as if on stalks, laced with tiny red veins - which one can only truly apprehend at a distance that wouldn't have made help impossible.
But back to the imploding orange. Although it didn't diminish appreciably in volume upon implosion, the released juice vaporised, turning into a burning acidic cloud that instantly flooded my lungs.
My lungs very sensibly responded by collapsing rapidly aided by an involuntary and powerful spasm from my diaphragm.
The vapour and oily zest from the orange's skin mixed with mucus scoured from my lungs (that spread flat, we must remember, would cover a tennis court) as well as the last of my residual oxygen, exited now through my rediscovered nostrils as a magnificently abundant yellow foam.
And, having a volume in excess of what could easily egress at speed via those narrow tubes, it also squirted out through nearby exits, including around my eyes.
Even that wasn't enough and the build up of pressure finally proved too much for the orange, which left my mouth like grapeshot from a cannon, like the superluminal jets generated by matter falling towards a black hole at relativistic speed.
Temporarily blind and gasping in my own private world of consequences, I was unaware of the cone of devastation that I had unleashed upon the unluckier segment of my audience, occupying roughly one steradian of solid angle to my front.
When I finally recovered my senses and the cycle of whooping inhalation and coughing fits had exhausted itself, I was greeted not by the concern that I felt such a brush with death merited, but with a disgust that later reflection suggests may not have been wholly unwarranted.
So, anyway, whenever you read "some scientists think", think about me and recalibrate the lower end of your expectations accordingly.
An unrolled version of the thread can be found here:
https://diagrammonkey.wordpress.com/2022/08/06/some-scientists-think/
madopal@micefearboggis This is why scientists need engineers
@micefearboggis
Science: I wonder if we can do this?
Engineering: I wonder what happens if we do this?
Philosophy: I wonder if we should do this?
Science: I wonder if we can do this?
Engineering: I wonder what happens if we do this?
Philosophy: I wonder if we should do this?
@madopal
History: We did this. It did not end well.
History: We did this. It did not end well.
@micefearboggis Sadly, we never listen to history
Ozzelot 
@madopal @micefearboggis Capitalism: Eh, let's do this again, for money.
Samhain Night
ReginaldExcellent@madopal @micefearboggis Poet: I wonder lonely as a cloud?
Phil Thane ✅
Matias H. Castillo
Alexander The 1st@madopal @micefearboggis QA: "Having established that we should *not* do this, *how* can we do this?"
@madopal @micefearboggis Also QA: "And/or can we make it so that someone *else* does this for us?"
Raphael@madopal @micefearboggis Sadly, software "engineering" seems to have to learn the same lessons all over again. Hope it'll be less bloody than for older disciplines.
Dr Micha Campbell@micefearboggis thank you! I remember seeing this thread on the other place years ago, and it has not become less funny with repetition!
@michcampbell Glad you enjoyed it again.
@micefearboggis glad you survived it
Paul McO'Smith III@micefearboggis @michcampbell of course a lot of scientific discoveries have been made using precisely this kind of model. some of the scientists didn't live to see the results, but they were amazing nonetheless. in this case, as a survivor, your mission with your discovery is not "don't try this at home", but "don't do this.". Congratulations!
@pavsmith @michcampbell When I was a kid, I was enthralled to discover an old catalogue of chemicals which, among other more esoteric chemical characteristics, listed what each compound tasted like. This was the case for several compounds also listed as deadly poisonous, leading me to an early conclusion that the last words of many chemists historically were probably. "It's sort of like raspberrggghhh".
@micefearboggis @michcampbell they're simply taking one for the species.
hey! everyone! this tastes like raspberry. whatever you do, don't drink it!
...as you quietly push the body under the table with your foot.
Tim McCormack@micefearboggis @pavsmith @michcampbell Yeahhh I had the same reaction when I was leafing through the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics as a kid.
I asked my dad "How do they know what [something toxic] tastes like?" and his response was just "Because they're scientists." :-D
@micefearboggis @pavsmith @michcampbell as a fellow scientist, however, I do have to ask: is it reproducible?
Wait do I have some oranges nearby?
@AlexWe @pavsmith @michcampbell My jaws don't open quite so wide any more... so it's not exactly reproducible.
@micefearboggis @AlexWe @michcampbell i'd definitely have to try it with a mandarin*.
* based on your experience, and the likelihood of it going wrong, i am not going to try.
@pavsmith
"i am not going to try"...
...Is the right response.
@micefearboggis oh, and i'd forgotten about this one. why being profoundly anti-science may be a lifesaver!
@pavsmith As a scientist, you have to survive long enough to make it into a management position. Then you're fine.
Zeke 🇨🇦@pavsmith @micefearboggis hahahahahahahahah
Asta [AMP]@micefearboggis @pavsmith @michcampbell I’m also now imagining lab notes of other observing scientists saying things like, “Dr. Miles succumbed to the compound’s toxicity before they were able to relay the precise taste of it, although not, it should be noted, before they selfishly asked us to ‘tell my spouse I love them.’”
KING of PDX@michcampbell @micefearboggis Because otherwise you'd have been up for a Darwin award, some scientists think.
@adhocster Survival of the jammiest
Kat@michcampbell @micefearboggis oh my god yes! i read the replies to try to figure out if this was the same story, or if two people somehow independently did the same experiment. still as delightful the second time.
Jo Tamar
Clifton RoystonI just delivered this as a dramatic reading to my family, which nearly incapacitated my wife with laughter for several minutes.
Thanks again, I think we all badly needed this.
@CliftonR It's all in the delivery...
Amro has been@michcampbell @micefearboggis If only we could say that about history in general.
Matthias Krämer@micefearboggis Reading this, I was happy the whole time that you certainly survived, otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell the story. And that was bitterly needed reassurance throughout the story.
GunChleoc@micefearboggis Now go ahead and have a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobstopper
You know you want to.
BoneHouseWasps🔶🇬🇧🇪🇺@micefearboggis Genuinely one of the finest threads I have ever read.
Not sure if that's like, a *huge* compliment as social threads are classically 2 or 3 people shouting slurs at each other until an accusation of Nazism brings proceedings to an abrupt halt.
But still, I enjoyed it.
@BonehouseWasps A compliment?! I'll take it.
Ann H@micefearboggis I think we have found the “I was off my head meeting the Irish President” level thread of the fediverse.
Autoerotic Defenestration@danielaKay Good. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Bart Whiteley@micefearboggis there is an episode of MASH about this.
Joan of Contention 😷@micefearboggis AHA!! I *knew* I had read and cried laughing at this before! 🤣
@micefearboggis This is well written in a humorous style, but I think I actually laughed mostly just as an attempt to cope with the stress this story induces 😅
@words_number Yeah. It hits different folks differently. I'd like to say I planned that, but no, I didn't.
Robots can be gay deal with it@micefearboggis
I'm not sure which this reminds me of more, the real neurologist that tried desperately to take notes while having a stroke, or the fictional doctor (likely inspired by the former) in Atomic Heart who's mental echo in his brain interface device begs you excitedly to study his body decompose.
I'm not sure which this reminds me of more, the real neurologist that tried desperately to take notes while having a stroke, or the fictional doctor (likely inspired by the former) in Atomic Heart who's mental echo in his brain interface device begs you excitedly to study his body decompose.
@MontgomeryGator Well, that's two more books for the to-read piles.
@micefearboggis
Atomic Heart is a video game, an alternate-history soviet sci-fi.
It's a shooty game, all the robots go nuts and kill everyone. You're in a Soviet science city, the first to get all these new technologies at once. You're also someone who got brain damage in war, and the top scientist fixed damage to your brain, and you're trying to get to him. There's this whole complicated set of politics and backstabbing going on, more and more of it showing that there's something going on in this world that is hidden from most people.
If games aren't your thing, you can kinda just get the vibes from this intro sequence I unfortunately can't find the exact talking corpse I'm talking about.
Atomic Heart - Opening (No Commentary)
@MontgomeryGator I've got a pile of video games to play too... Thanks for the recommendation.
cobalt going beige today@micefearboggis Oh oh oh oh, man I needed that! Only time I've laughed in the last 3 days. I hope those who follow me end up seeing this link to the whole piece. Who-HA that was good reading!
@cobalt I'm glad it made you laugh.
Ellie Kennard@cobalt
And I'm so glad you (or was it Deborah?) introduced me to John! Followed after nearly choking on my own breakfast.
@micefearboggis
And I'm so glad you (or was it Deborah?) introduced me to John! Followed after nearly choking on my own breakfast.
@micefearboggis