1) the music 2) how does the person in there even see? 3) also skating over its own tail 4) how is NO ONE on the ice fazed by this at all? 5) skating over its own tail 6) also is it hot in there? 7) there is a freaking T-Rex on the ice- how is no one staring?
8) going so fast the head tips right back so it looks like it’s permanently screaming
Railroad Tracks
The U.S. Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.
That’s an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used?
Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the U.S. Railroads.
Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.
Why did ‘they’ use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Why did the wagons have that particular Odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So, who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear
of destroying their wagon wheels.
Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
In other words, bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a specification, procedure, or process, and wonder, ‘What horse’s ass came up with this?’,
you may be exactly right.
Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.
Now, the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you will notice that there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.
The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.
The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit larger,
but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.
The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains
and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel.
The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know,
is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature
of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass.
And you thought being a horse’s ass wasn’t important!
Now you know, Horses’ Asses control almost everything.
One thing I love about Judaism is that long involved conversations about things like “can a zombie attend shul?” or “can i use my pet dragon to light candles on shabbat?” or “is meat from a replicator kosher?” are seen as completely normal.
Yes, but it should avoid contact with a Cohen if it can, and if the dragon is a Gentile sure, why not, a pet dragon is an ideal Shabbos goy, since it probably lives with you, and will get a kick out of helping. If it’s a Jewish dragon, though, no, it’s better for you to do it yourself rather than cause another Jew to violate Shabbat.
Wait wait… if a jew owned the dragon as a pet wouldn’t using the beast’s labor to light candles be pretty explicitly prohibited?
Good point. Is the dragon property, or is it a roommate?
I think it was ruled that one may allow a dragon to ignite a fire if (a) the dragon is non-sapient, and preventing them from lighting the fire would be animal cruelty, or (b) the dragon is sapient, non-Jewish and not in indentured service.
And one cannot bring a dragon into a household for the express purpose of lighting candles at a later date, since the Jew would be directly benefiting from the dragon’s actions on Shabbat.
But if the dragon just happens to live there already and feels the urge to light candles, it should not be stopped from doing so – as the sages said: “the same candle that benefits one can be used to benefit one hundred.“ (Shulchan Aruch HaRav, 276:6)
Lady Karasu 