George Washington date/time of death (WTFfacts)

[Darren Dirt]

George Washington died the last hour of the last day of the last week of the last month of the last year of the 18th century.
http://twitter.com/WT@%&#Facts

all TRUE stuff, kinda like a Twitter version of "Ripley's BION".



including interesting etymology...
"The term 'scumbag' originally referred to a used condom."
"Hewlett-Packard's name was decided in a coin toss."

and biology phenomena...
"Yawning is contagious - even thinking about yawning is enough. After reading this fact, there is a 50% chance you will yawn."


and "well that explains it!" trivia
"Kurt Cobain shot himself about one month after Justin Bieber was born."



all true. and mostly not very life-changing.

[Thorin]

George Washington died the last hour of the last day of the last week of the last month of the last year of the 18th century.
http://twitter.com/WT@%&#Facts

all TRUE stuff, kinda like a Twitter version of "Ripley's BION".

They need to fact-check better.  Washington died around 10pm on December 14, 1799, if Wikipedia is to be believed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington#Death

That would be the second-last hour of the third-last week of the last month of the second-last year of the 18th century.

[Mr. Analog]

But the internet said it was true!!

[Thorin]

but ... then the internet was shown to say it's not true?

[Mr. Analog]

So I'm not wrong then :B

[Darren Dirt]

It's "internet true" which is certainly good enough for a Twitter skim-read every now and then

[Thorin]

On average, someone in the United States is killed by a drunk driver every 45 minutes.

1 year * 365 days/year * 24 hours/day * 60 minutes/hour = 525,600 minutes
525,600 minutes / 45minutes/death = 11,680 deaths

Looking up on Wikipedia, find a link to a 2004 NHTSA report (http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/TSF2004.PDF) which had 16,694 persons killed in alcohol-related crashes (9,185 drivers, 3,418 passengers, 33 unknown occupants, 1,560 motorcycle riders, 2,211 pedestrians, 249 pedalcyclists, 39 other/unknowns).  Hmm, so that "fact" sounds plausible.  Oh wait, what's the definition of "alcohol-related" in this report?

NHTSA defines a fatal crash as alcohol-related or alcohol-involved if at least one driver or nonoccupant (such as a pedestrian or pedalcyclist) involved in the crash is determined to have had a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of .01 gram per deciliter (g/dl) or higher. Thus, any fatality that occurs in an alcohol-related crash is considered an alcohol-related fatality.

So if I'm stone-cold sober and run over a drunk pedestrian, I am now part of an "alcohol-related crash".  Which most people would instantly connect to "drunk driver".  And it doesn't have to be a truly drunk pedestrian, it could be a pedestrian who had two beers and waited an hour or so before walking down the road.  I think we can all agree that an hour after consuming your second beer, you're not exactly "drunk".

Okay, a little more reading, on page 7 of the report:

The reader may also notice that many tables have rows or footnotes for ?unknowns? for FARS data, but not for GES data. The reason for this difference is that almost all the GES unknown data have been assigned values through complex statistical procedures. FARS unknown data, on the other hand, are not assigned values, with the exception of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) test  esults. When the alcohol test results are unknown, BAC values have been assigned to drivers and nonoccupants involved in fatal crashes, using a method of multiple imputation that was revised  in 2001.

Oh, so they also just plain guess?

Is it seriously that hard to make a report that says "X number of drivers with a BAC higher than Y were found at fault in Z number of crashes killing N number of people"?  Then they could actually say how many drunk drivers killed how many people, instead of "someone, other than a vehicle occupant, involved in this crash may have had alcohol in their blood, we're pretty sure but not 100% sure".

And all that thanks to wanting to fact-check some twitter post.

[Melbosa]

Sometimes I just love reading our threads

[Mr. Analog]

That's for sure...

How do you drive someone with OCD crazy?

[Darren Dirt]

How do you drive someone with OCD crazy?

I thought those of us with OCD are already crazy.

So if I'm stone-cold sober and run over a drunk pedestrian, I am now part of an "alcohol-related crash".  Which most people would instantly connect to "drunk driver".  And it doesn't have to be a truly drunk pedestrian, it could be a pedestrian who had two beers and waited an hour or so before walking down the road.  I think we can all agree that an hour after consuming your second beer, you're not exactly "drunk".

^ welcome to how the current heads (but apparently not in-line with the intentions of the founder*) of "MADD" get all their fear-based funding. A buckled, drunk passenger quietly sleeping in the back seat of the car while his sober driver spins out on black ice and ends up killing the sober driver of the other vehicle = "alcohol-related death".

Sick and irrational and unreasonable, but hey that's statistics (aka "damn statistics/lies") for ya.

"These statistics seem almost designed to conceal whether or not the alcohol was actually responsible for the accident, because often the police test everyone involved in an accident." <-- from an anger-inducing article on the subject here: "ANTI-DRINKING ACTIVISTS DRUNK WITH POWER" but hey, whatever you can do to keep getting your $12million+ cheque every year from the gubmint, right?




* In 2002, founder Candice Lightner stated that MADD "has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned -- I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving". Lightner had left the group in 1985.
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers_Against_Drunk_Driving#Shift_from_reducing_DUI_to_reducing_alcohol_use

[Thorin]

A buckled, drunk passenger quietly sleeping in the back seat of the car while his sober driver spins out on black ice and ends up killing the sober driver of the other vehicle = "alcohol-related death".

<OCD>

Actually, no, they say "driver or non-occupant", specifically excluding passengers.  So if a passenger is the only one with alcohol in their system, that's not considered an alcohol-related crash.  If a pedestrian or pedal cyclist or horse rider has alcohol in their system and you hit them, it's considered an alcohol-related crash (but not if the person with alcohol was riding double on the bicycle or horse and was clearly a passenger).

</OCD>

I'm sure the number's not that far off, just, I wish they would calculate the number properly.

[Darren Dirt]

* In 2002, founder Candice Lightner stated that MADD "has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned -- I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving". Lightner had left the group in 1985.
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers_Against_Drunk_Driving#Shift_from_reducing_DUI_to_reducing_alcohol_use

automated mass transportation would certainly bring an end to MADD; "drunk driving" would be a thing of the past.
Evacuated Tubes ftw! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03kVU2FYl6U

[Mr. Analog]

Well if we're going to discuss impossibilities we could simply teleport drunkards to their beds (note: teleporter operators must be teetotallers)