# Discussion thread for the "Polls only" thread (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 16, 2024, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636 "2024-02-16T02:56:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 296
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5902 "2025-03-01T15:52:58Z")
I’m not the expert that others here are but I believe Aragorn and dwarves have about the same lifespan. Aragorn is longer lived than most humans due to his lineage. He lived past 200. Dwarves also live into their 200s. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5903 "2025-03-01T15:56:13Z")
I was thinking more like 500 for the dwarves. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5904 "2025-03-01T16:49:36Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > I was thinking more like 500 for the dwarves. In the dwarf genealogy in the LOTR appendix, the dwarves who are not marked as having a premature death all lived to within a decade or two of 250. > [@DesertDog](#): > > He was a ten-year old kid living with people who live thousands of years (elves) visited by others whi live hundreds (dwarves), But he wasn’t just any 10 year old kid. Elrond knew he was the heir of Isildur and rightful king of Gondor, and was just dripping with prophesies. And the Appendix says “Elrond took the place of his father and came to love him as a son of his own.” So he probably wasn’t banished to his room while the dwarves visited. I find it interesting that that the time that Aragorn and Arwen met for the first time, he was 20 years old and she was 2,710 years old. Makes one wonder what they had to talk about. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5905 "2025-03-01T17:14:59Z")
Plus they were first cousins – 60-odd removals. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5906 "2025-03-01T17:35:56Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > I did not think of showering on cruise ships Yeah, I forgot about that. My mother went on a cruise many years ago and took me along. I don’t specifically remember using the shower, but we were on the ship for several days, so I expect that I did. And, come to think of it, I expect my mother did also; though she hated showers and strongly preferred to take baths. But we weren’t in that fancy a class and I doubt we had access to a tub. I’m sure we had access to a pool but she didn’t swim. ETA: I doubt Tolkein was thinking much about age differences affecting relationships. It does, from that aspect, seem like rather an odd combination, even when Aragorn was older. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5907 "2025-03-01T19:52:46Z")
I have showered on a cruise ship so that’s what a clicked. I’ve showered outside but not in the rain. Used a camp shower you can hang in a tree. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5908 "2025-03-01T20:13:34Z")
I have showered on a cruise ship, and a cold salt water shower on a research boat- refreshing on a hot day, but hard to get clean, soap wont lather. I have showered in the field, and camping. Including Natures free showers. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5909 "2025-03-01T20:28:09Z")
I have showered on an overnight ferry in Greece – the accommodations included an en suite bathroom. I’ve also showered in an Amtrak sleeper car, I seem to have been one of the few people who selected “train”. Showering on a moving train is a memorable experience. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5910 "2025-03-01T22:27:38Z")
When I attended Oregon State University in Corvallis, there were regular freight trains that passed through town with many open top cars full of wood chips bound for a pulp mill on the Oregon coast. Lots of people use to hop a train when it slowed for a curve in town, and ride 40 miles to the coast on the wood chips. ---
**Author:** ![Jegpeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jegpeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jegpeg)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5911 "2025-03-01T22:44:13Z")
I had the opportunity to. I was in an overnigth train in Sweden (in January) travelling in a second class sleeper (no shower) in the middle of the night the guard woke me up to say the heating had broken down and therefore I needed to move to 1st class (at the complete other end of the train). To avoid carrying my luggage I asked if it could be left in the second class cabin for me to pick up when we got to Stockholm and the guard said it could. The first class berth had a shower but with no change of clothes I decided there was little point taking advantage of it. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5912 "2025-03-02T00:34:48Z")
I guess I’m the only one with a train-hopping story. In college my roommate was deeply into early-to-mid-20th century literature – Faulkner, Hemingway, etc. He loved stories about old hobos and such. We started talking about how cool it would be to ride the rails and live like vagabonds. So one Thanksgiving vacation, we packed up some food and went down to the local train yard and hopped into an empty boxcar in a freight train. Our plan was to sleep on the train, get out the next morning wherever we ended up, bum around for a while, and … well, our plans after that were kinda vague. We figured we’d eventually hop a train back to college before the end of the weekend. The first part of the plan went off without a hitch. We found a train with an empty boxcar and climbed aboard. The train started moving and we watched the scenery go by. As evening fell we started thinking about sleep, but discovered something we hadn’t known before. Boxcars have TERRIBLE suspension. Lying on the floor of the boxcar, the constant jolting was literally throwing us into the air. It was like trying to sleep in a cement mixer. After a few hours, we decided to get off at the next stop. We slept a little, fitfully, by the side of the tracks. At dawn we were pretty disillusioned with our trip and decided to just head back home. We walked to the railroad yard and were scoping out trains when a security guard saw us. He brought us into his office, took our names, and said if he saw us again he’d call the cops. Ok, plan B was to hitchhike back. We started walking along a minor highway with our thumbs out. We then learned another life lesson – two scruffy-looking college-aged men with long hair and carrying backpacks don’t get rides. By the time night fell again we had covered maybe 20 of the 200 miles back home, almost all of it by walking, and we were in the middle of nowhere. In desperation, my friend started knocking on the doors of random houses, asking for help. I thought this was likely going to get us in even more trouble, but amazingly, in one of the first houses we tried was a very helpful man who used his CB radio to call for any truckers heading our way. We got a lift from a trucker to a town with a Greyhound station, and took a bus back home. All in all, it was certainly an adventure, but not the one we were expecting. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5913 "2025-03-02T01:48:48Z")
_I’ve_ never hopped a train before (And thus picked “no” in the poll), but my grandfather did once. He wanted to find out where the train went, so he hopped on a freight train, and a few days later he ended up in Seattle (he started in Wisconsin). He then had to contact his dad to get him to send him money for an actual passenger train ticket back home. He would have been a teenager at the time, which I think would have made this some time in the 1930s or early 1940s, which I guess would have been the heyday of actual hobos. As an adult grandpa actually worked for the railroad, so I guess that’s kind of fitting. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5914 "2025-03-02T05:42:09Z")
I’ve gone out into rainstorms to enjoy the rain, but never with the intention of becoming cleaner. And I’ve showered outside at beach showers, but that doesn’t seem to meet the spirit if the question. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5915 "2025-03-02T08:11:55Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Showering on a moving train is a memorable experience. That’s one way to describe it. I’ve done it a few times, but only in European trains. Cozy, so to speak. Also showered on a cruise ship. Even took a bath on my last cruise - I had some sort of cold, and a bath was really nice. I’ve probably showered outside while wearing a bathing suit, but that I consider rinsing, not really cleaning. And I’ve certainly gotten caught out in the rain during the summer. Nothing like walking home just soaked. Fortunately it was warm the few times that has happened. If it had been colder, I would have been wearing a jacket which would have helped keep me dry. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5916 "2025-03-02T16:17:33Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > I guess I’m the only one with a train-hopping story. Not quite. My freshman dorm at NC State was right by the train tracks that ran through the middle of campus. It was on a slight incline coming out of the intermodal depot in downtown, so the trains were only going a few miles per hour at that point. Some beers had informed a couple of us that it would be a good idea to hop a train one night. About three of us caught it. As we approached the other side of campus, we realized that not only would we have to get off at some point, but that we would have to get back from gods know where. So technically, I have hopped a train for about 500 yards. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5917 "2025-03-02T19:51:11Z")
I do not use my phone while the car is moving and I am driving. The closest I have come is when there was an accident, traffic was stopped, so I sent a message saying I would be late. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5918 "2025-03-02T22:39:07Z")
Fitted sheets: other—my spouse can fold them properly. I let the wizardry happen without interference. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5919 "2025-03-02T23:22:09Z")
I’d trust a Waymo over a human driver any day. And [empirical](https://theavindustry.org/resources/blog/waymo-reduces-crash-rates-compared-to-human-drivers) [evidence](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2024/09/05/waymos-new-safety-data-is-impressive-and-teaches-a-lesson/) [seems to](https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/waymo-driverless-cars-safety-study/3740522/?amp=1) [agree.](https://www.therobotreport.com/new-research-analyzes-safety-of-waymo-robotaxis/) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2025, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5920 "2025-03-03T04:08:57Z")
Color me skeptical about research sponsored by manufacturers and their trade association. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2025, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636/5921 "2025-03-03T04:18:14Z")
I recently rode a waymo to the Phoenix airport. It was my second trip; i also rode one from one suburban home in Phoenix to another. I’d do it again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636.md?page=295) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-thread-for-the-polls-only-thread-part-2/997636.md?page=297)