# Very stupid overheard conversations **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 30, 2020, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858 "2020-11-30T21:44:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/81 "2020-12-07T16:19:12Z")
I once overhead, “I’m so glad lead isn’t poisonous.” (to be fair, I don’t know the context.) ---
**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:** [December 7, 2020, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/82 "2020-12-07T17:47:13Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I once overhead, “I’m so glad lead isn’t poisonous.” When I was in school there seemed to be a large number of people who believed pencil lead (graphite) was the same as lead the metal. This extended to the belief that stabbing someone with a pencil would give them lead poisoning. So I could imagine someone being relieved to learn that _pencil_ lead wasn’t poisonous. I just hope they don’t take that to mean the metal is safe as well. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/83 "2020-12-07T19:02:41Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > I’m going to ask for a citation on this. Here’s a cite that backs up what I said about cats, and about us humans. > **[The Offbeat Reason Why Cats and Dogs Lay In The Sun and Lick Their Fur -...](https://antranik.org/the-offbeat-reason-why-cats-and-dogs-lay-in-the-sun-and-lick-their-fur/)** > > Turns out, our furry friends are doing a lot more than just sun bathing and being OCD about keeping themselves clean. That said, I have to acknowledge that you can find all sorts of stuff on the web, and finding it doesn’t make it true. If anybody has more of a direct line to authoritative information, I’d be very happy to hear it! ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/84 "2020-12-07T19:14:10Z")
On impact. Ba-dum-bum! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/85 "2020-12-07T20:08:39Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > When I was in school there seemed to be a large number of people who believed pencil lead (graphite) was the same as lead the metal. This extended to the belief that stabbing someone with a pencil would give them lead poisoning. I think every kid struggles with the idea that words don’t have single clear and non-overlapping definitions. I was 6 or 8 or so when somebody clearly explained to me that lead the soft metal and lead the pencil core made of graphite were completely unrelated things. I think a lot of people get a lot further in school or even adulthood before anyone clues them in. In fact the name “lead” for pencil cores stems from initial confusion; In the 1500s a deposit of graphite was discovered and was mistakenly believed to be a form of the lead metal. They quickly noticed it was good for making writing instruments. Hence the “lead” in pencils. It was a couple centuries later that chemistry finally advanced to the point where they knew what graphite really was and wasn’t. By then we were stuck with the name, mistaken though it was then known to be. 2+ centuries after that we’re still repeating the mistake to each and every kid. I guess we’re real slow learners. I don’t know how much worse English is in this regard versus other languages, but it seems like it has a pretty bad case of megahomonymia. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/86 "2020-12-07T20:28:36Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > > [@Morgyn](#): > > > > One night I was working in the lab and overheard two other students discussing the fact that one of their disks was out of space. The other student said, “It’s double-sided. Just turn it over and use the other side.” I was so stunned I didn’t correct this misinformation. > > When I was in middle school we would routinely do this with 5.25" floppies on the Apple ]['s in the computer lab. It worked fine. Apple ][e’s used single sided disks, so I suppose they could be flipped. PCs, however, used double sided disks. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/87 "2020-12-07T21:21:34Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > … PCs, however, used double sided disks. Not true; at least not from Day One. You’re right that real quickly first diskettes and then drives became double-sided. But back in the Verry Earlye Dayes day they sold special punches that you could use to cut the rounded rectangular head access hole into the casing on the unusable “B” side of what was sold as a single sided diskette for use in a single sided drive. It also had a notcher to cut a write protect notch into the opposite side as well. Which means that with such a diskette and a single-sided drive you could make a diskette read-only on one side & RW on the other. Here’s a good explanation > **[Floppy disk variants | Flippy disks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk_variants#Flippy_disks)** > > A flippy disk (sometimes known as a "flippy") is a double-sided 5+1⁄4-inch floppy disk, specially modified so that the two sides can be used independently (but not simultaneously) in single-sided drives. Many commercial publishers of computer software (mainly, relatively small programs like arcade games that could fit on a single-sided floppy disk) distributed their products on flippy disks formatted for two different brands of computer, e.g. TRS-80 on one side and Apple on the other. Compute! pu... The larger article on floppy drives has more background on the single & double sided drives and disks. > **[Floppy disk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk)** > > A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy or a diskette) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive (FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device. > The first floppy disks, invented an... ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/88 "2020-12-07T21:33:22Z")
I made a bit of a hash of that and timed out on edit of a paragraph after my into line. So mentally poke this into the previous after the intro: In the early days there were single sided disks and single sided drives. Soon after there were double sided disks that could be used in single sided drives by pulling them out & flipping them. Soon after that were the double sided drives that required double-sided disks. Which cost extra. So quickly there arose a real interest in using single-sided disks in double-sided drives. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2020, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/89 "2020-12-07T21:40:33Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > In the early days there were single sided disks and single sided drives. Soon after there were double sided disks that could be used in single sided drives by pulling them out & flipping them. Son after that were the double sided drives that required double-sided disks. Which cost extra. And as many of us discovered, special hole punches weren’t necessary. Just the regular one from the junk drawer in the kitchen would work fine. A template also wasn’t necessary, just another disk flipped over. Even though there were more expensive disks sold as “double sided” that supposedly had been verified as having a good surface on both sides, I never found it made any difference at all. The box of “single sided” disks worked fine, or rather, as well as any disks ever worked. Flippy disks. I’ll try to relate this back to the OP. Not a conversation that I overheard, but one that I’m sure took place: “It’s 1996 and very common for people to carry their computer presentations on 3.5 inch floppy disks in their shirt pockets, because USB memory drives are not yet a thing. Let’s use magnetic name tags for this conference, because nobody likes pins.” Which of course resulted in a conference with lots of people’s presentation disks unreadable. I suppose this was also before lanyards were invented. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/90 "2020-12-08T02:09:21Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > > [@RealityChuck](#): > > > > … PCs, however, used double sided disks. > > Not true; at least not from Day One. You’re right that real quickly first diskettes and then drives became double-sided. The post mentioned the Apple ][e, by which time PCs moved to DSDD. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/91 "2020-12-08T02:31:57Z")
Good to know. I’ve lived the whole PC timeline in detail but was oblivious about contemporaneous Apple products until the MAC II. So PC 386-ish. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/92 "2020-12-08T05:45:22Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > In the early days there were single sided disks and single sided drives. I wish. My very early PC had a cassette player for storage. Not an IBM triple-speed whiz bang thing. An ordinary Radio Shack cassette player. It was months before I could save enough to buy the single sided disc drive. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/93 "2020-12-08T06:05:36Z")
People I worked with were talking about the crash the next day. That’s how I found out that Lynyrd Skynyrd was a group, not a guy named Leonard Skinner who spelled his name funny. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/94 "2020-12-08T06:37:15Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > …not a guy named Leonard Skinner who spelled his name funny. And got ptomaine poisoning. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/95 "2020-12-08T12:57:07Z")
From drinking from a contaminated Price Pfister pfaucet. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/96 "2020-12-08T14:26:39Z")
I remember how unreliable the tape drive was on my first computer (Serial Bus Data Frame Checksum Error!) and how happy I was to finally get a disk drive. I can’t think of any technology where a very minor change resulted in so much improved performance - an ordinary hole puncher doubling capacity. End of hijack. Stupid overheard conversation: (Middle-aged man, smiling very broadly): “I just spent all my money on baseball cards!!” ---
**Author:** ![Jumpbass](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jumpbass/32/147_2.png) [@Jumpbass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jumpbass)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/97 "2020-12-08T14:36:08Z")
From what I recall, the band got their name from their high school PE teacher named Leonard Skinner. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/98 "2020-12-08T14:41:33Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Time/hassle-saving suggestion: > The arrivals area is always jammed with cars waiting for passengers to show up. In contrast, the departure area is always far less clogged: people drive up, drop off their passenger, and leave promptly. So now when my wife picks me up at the airport, we meet at the arrivals area so she doesn’t have to wade through a five-minute traffic jam to get to me. I think you zigged when you should’ve zagged. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/99 "2020-12-08T14:54:44Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > One night I was working in the lab and overheard two other students discussing the fact that one of their disks was out of space. The other student said, “It’s double-sided. Just turn it over and use the other side.” I was so stunned I didn’t correct this misinformation. As other pointed out this is absolutely correct if it is a single-head drive which were the standard I believe at the time of the 8" floppies. Hole punch? Dude just take another disk, flip it over and use that hole as a template to cut your second hole with a knife. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858/100 "2020-12-08T15:47:59Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I think you zigged when you should’ve zagged. See, it _is_ confusing! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-stupid-overheard-conversations/926858.md?page=6)