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Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news
Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like blackouts, misconceptions and epic games v apple. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was hawk-eyed.
But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!
A San Pedro nonprofit receives surprise donation from actor and comedian Jacob Wysocki
As part of a recent Game Changer episode Jacob shared that his mom had passed away this past year and that she'd worked with Rainbow Services, a domestic violence charity. Which inspired him to donate some money there as part of the episode. A bunch of fans made donations in response and Jacob shouted them out on Reddit leading to even more donations.
It's so sweet
HA, I just came to this thread with this link to post, and I am unsurprized that you beat me to it!
This is such a feel-good story, and I think it is one of the things that captures the goodness of Dropout in general and Jacob Wysocki specifically.
Jacob sounds like just the sweetest and most fun human being. I'm so glad Sam helped him back then, and now Jacob is helping so many others.
The fandom is very much on a "Jacob needs a travel show" kick too.
He does seem like just a great dude.
I was bummed when they included the entire Vic's sister UBC play but not Jacob's travel show. He needs an entire series for sure.
It may be that he didn't do much more than was shown, or that they intend to go forward with the travel show idea (costly though so that could be difficult)
Dropout seems pretty stacked for money this season. That whole episode cost way more than a season finale last season. Also, Jacob doesn't already have his own show, and if they stick to a skeleton crew and traveling very light in a van to exotic locations it doesn't have to be very expensive.
But it might be hard to guarantee the content would work in a longer format without other people to play off of, I guess
They're definitely doing larger budget things, but depending on where you go, travel shows do just increase costs - you're not just paying for Jacob's travel to a location and then but at least one cameraperson and PA and that's like, bare minimum that I can think of. (It's so different than YouTubers just running around especially with paying union rates or better) There's only so exotic you get from LA by van in a reasonable time period. I really wouldn't want to only see them out west.
But I mean, if they can in fact pilot it and love it ... I think it could be great
attorney files document with purple dragon watermark on each page. Judge was not amused
This one made me laugh, judges have thrown out filings and made lawyers resubmit them for much smaller formatting issues. Part of paying for a lawyer is paying someone who knows how to do that right. It's not your $20 logo, it's using it as a giant color watermark.
If this was just some frivolous lawsuit, I could appreciate the humour in it. But the detail that made it not funny to me, and instead get a bit mad at the lawyer in question:
Potentially jeopardizing that case just to spread brand awareness for your law firm is a pretty shitty thing to do, Mr. Perrone. So I can see why the judge was not amused by it either.
Oh for certain, he's banking on the brand recognition being worth it, but idk if that pays off the way he thinks.
I mean...we're talking about it here, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Of course, there's plenty of ways to be funny and have viral branding. In my previous city, Kansas City, MO, a firm called "Jungle Law" is infamous because of their ridiculous billboards and commercials. I'm sure every major metro has some well-known legal firm due to brand recognition, even if the brand is a little silly.
On the other hand, if a firm is advertising in this way, one has to wonder how good they actually are.
Sure but like, it doesn't inspire me with confidence about his lawyering.
There's a line somewhere where any advertisingisn't good advertising and I'm not sure exactly where it lies but for me this is on the other side of it.
Billboards with an anthro dragon? Or the Boozy Badger, a lawyer that got adopted by the furry community, and has a fursona because of it? That's fine. But "got chewed out by a judge for making basic mistakes and being pretty juvenile in the process, potentially harming his client's case" is more malpractice.
Initially when I saw the word dragon I was thinking of a very different kind of dragon…
I'm surprised you weren't thinking of the kind I was, the OPSEC dragon.
Loos to loaves: How the ‘nervous wees’ of London Marathon runners are being turned into fertiliser
Euronews – Craig Saueurs – 26th April 2025
A bit of tongue and cheek, but definitely offbeat.
The phrase is tongue in cheek, just so you know. :)
Given contemporary times perhaps this thread should be replaced with "Ordinary Headlines Friday".
former Caltrain executive found guilty of embezzlement and building an apartment in train station
Hmmmmmmmmm...so it is possible to build cheap housing, with good access -- excellent access, even -- to public transit, in a relatively dense area, in California. Maybe Caltrans should work with this contractor for further work!
/s obviously; not like these were build from the ground up and include the cost of land. But seriously, California: BUILD.
To stay with the theme of transportation, new from the southern parts of the USA, kangaroo's are escaping.
Kangaroo Sheila makes a run for it...
M1 Southbound lanes reopen after metal shards cause traffic chaos for Sydney commuters.
Pretty weird one, it's not often you see roads being blocked due to metal shards.
What a mess out of negligence by way of the driver and the trucking company. It doesn't speak to serious injuries apart from tires so that's good but what a mess.
POLL — Gorilla vs. 100 humans. Who wins? Experts weigh in on viral debate
Meet Root, the turtle with a mobility aid made of Lego - Wood turtle is missing his right front foot, causing his shell to scrape on floor cute picture and video
A hundred humans??? Obviously the humans would win, if only due to the endurance required to kill 100 humans. Then the humans could also circle around the gorilla and pin it relatively easily. A long reach is great, but it also gives you more room for people to grab and hold you.
But this reminds me of a debate we had at a summer camp I worked at one year. We reached out to a guy at the Smithsonian and got this response:
First, please forgive my slow reply. As a palcontologist, my strong suits are neither speed nor electronic communications so replies take me a bit of time. I trust you understand.
You very well may be surprised by the number of people who ask us questions about moden animals sparring with prehistoric ones. In fact, a large number of cats versus a Tyranosaurus Rex is a very popular inquiry specifically. You'll see a number of posts about it on various websites 1 understand.
In short, the cats would probably prevail in this scenario. All tyrannosaurids -rex in particular -were certainly ferocious. We now estimate their mass at 5.5 metric tons. They stood over 13 feet tall. Whether they seavenged or were predatory in nature is still the subject of heated academic debate. But, one animal simply couldn't match the daunting scale of a million smaller ones. The cats, while certainly not naturally prone toward cooperative behavior, would eventually be able to overcome the Tyvamnosaurus Rex. Statistically at least one cat would be able to attack the eyes, choke the dinosaur or any other number of possibilities. So, to answer your initial question simply-the cats win.
This scenario is scientifically impossible to reproduce, so we'll never know for sure. But it has been amusing to speculate about with my colleagues over the last few years, and I appreciate you asking.
Sincerely,
C. Arthur Cooper, III
Research & Collections Assistant, Vertebrate Palcontology
What number of humans do you think a male silverback in its prime could prevail against?
And how many cats is nearly but not enough to overcome a t rex?
I think definitely three, but four is where it stops being so guaranteed (assuming no weapons are allowed). I wouldn't be surprised to see it defeat six humans, but beyond that... probably not great odds.
And it's highly probabilistic because a large part of the cat's "strategy" would have the T-Rex choke on them, but it comes out to generally somewhere between 37,000-84,000 cats, assuming all animals are immortal if not killed by their opponent.
Otherwise, assuming the animals are not magically powered up in any way and are able to find sufficient sustenance, probably at least a few billion cats. T-Rexes in the wild lived 20-30 years, so I suspect a healthy specimen that doesn't have to fight anything other than cats would probably live 30+ years and it's extremely rare for cats to live that long, so much so that I'm highly suspicious of even the documented instances.
Assuming that wild T-Rexes pretty much hit their lifespan limit, assuming 1/100,000 cats live to be 30 years old, you'd need about 300,000 cats to be 95% sure that one of them will outlive the T-Rex.
So 296,838 cats would be nearly enough.
But in reality, we know the answer. T. rex died out 65 million years ago, whereas F. catus is still strong af.
Here’s a 367 lbs human who can deadlift 1000 lbs demolishing two smaller people at once. The biggest challenge he faced was catching them.
https://bloodyelbow.com/2025/03/03/worlds-strongest-man-eddie-hall-brutally-kod-two-featherweights-at-once-in-2v1-freak-fight-debut/
Silverbacks can weigh up to 600 lbs, can lift 1800 lbs, and have sharp teeth.
Silverbacks fighting regular sized people would be comparable to someone like me fighting a bunch of children who weigh 40 lbs each, or five year olds. I think a reasonably fit adult human could kill hundreds of children that size per hour.
This ignores intelligence and the ability to work together, plus it's just exhausting. You absolutely cannot keep fighting that long without wearing out. Gorillas also don't fight for long periods of time.
I feel like the expert covered the whole gorilla thing very well.
It's Eddie Hall, isn't it? <clicks link> (not really, he's literally the only person in the world that sentence describes ;) Yep. That dude really is "The Beast". He's who I immediately thought of when this debate popped up too.
Eddie has also been training like absolute crazy lately, and his cardio is fucking insane now compared to when he did that 2v1 fight. Even so, it's still highly unlikely he could beat 100 other people in a fight, but I would happily bet $500 that he could beat 20 average people in a fight (esp since many of them would probably be overweight and totally out of shape) before whoever is left actually managed to take him down.
So I also think you're vastly underestimating just how many people a Gorilla could annihilate too, @updawg. Gorillas are not only stronger than humans but a hell of a lot faster in sprints than us too. So unlike with Eddie vs the two idiots he fought, a Gorilla would likely have no problem rapidly closing the distance on people and completely overwhelming entire groups of them before any of the others could do anything to help them.
And TBH, I think without weapons, even 100 average humans wouldn't be able to do all that much to actually even hurt a Gorilla. They also have incredibly strong/thick skin and bones compared to humans and even a dozen people punching it at a time probably wouldn't do much damage to it. Whereas the Gorilla could seriously hurts several people at once with just a swipe of its arm, much like Eddie did in the 2v1 fight. Not to mention that fact that the Gorilla could easily just flee as soon as it started losing.
Now, with even some makeshift spears allowed, yeah 3-6 people could probably take the Gorilla down. Although several of them probably still wouldn't be walking away from that encounter.
I think I just have a low tolerance for these sorts of things. Too many people think they could fight a lion or beat Serena Williams in tennis or whatever and I'm just not that interested. There's too many variables - do the humans run away? Do they work together?
And then killing children as somehow a reasonable comparison? Gross.
I am not really underestimating it. I just think it's dumb. I shouldn't have commented. Meh
Sorry, I actually didn't even mean to ping you, I meant to ping updawg, who made the 3-4 people claim. And that's fine to think it's stupid, because it definitely is. I just think it's fun to think about and debate over though (the gorilla vs # of humans part, not the killing children thing which is taking it a bit too far). But to each their own. :)
Good news for the humans—the best way to stop a gorilla from charging you is to just stand your ground. The gorilla just ran right into your trap, getting himself encircled and losing all his momentum. A gorilla may "be able to lift" 1800 pounds, whatever that means, but I suspect that two 200-pound men putting their body weight on each arm will do a decent job of immobilizing it enough to get its skull bashed in by the other guy.
And that's ignoring the endurance advantages the humans would have.
I agree that most likely not all humans would walk away.
I mean, if we take this super super realistically then sure, the humans could just stand their ground and the Gorilla would back off, or probably just flee in the face of 100 humans to begin with. But the presumption in the hypothetical question is that there is actually going to be a fight between the Gorilla and 100 humans no matter what, so the Gorilla or humans backing down or fleeing entirely shouldn't even enter into it. :P
Good luck to anyone attempting to grab onto the Gorilla's arms, LOL. IMO that is highly unlikely to work when all it takes is a wild swing of the Gorilla's arms to knock most people out cold, and a bite could absolutely destroy any of those people's limbs, heads, or torsos. Just watch the Eddie Hall 2v1 fight (with bonus Mighty Mouse commentary ;) to see how any grappling tactics would probably end up working out. Eddie's opponents trying to grapple with him is precisely how they both ended up getting rag-dolled and ko'd. ;)
And bash the Gorilla's skull with what? Human fists ain't gonna do much to a Gorilla's skull, and anyone that gets that close to its mouth even if the group do manage to take it down is probably in for a world of hurt. But if we're allowing weapons, even rocks, then of course even a few humans could probably win. However, in a straight up fight with no weapons, I am genuinely doubtful that any less than 20 people would be able to win against a Gorilla because, as I said before, I imagine Eddie Hall could probably take on a similar number of average people too.
Hundreds per hour? I feel like your arms would get fairly fatigued.
My thinking was based on splitting firewood. When I was younger I could split a few rounds per minute for 8 hours a day. Granted that’s only swinging an 8 pound maul, but I don’t know if it would take the same amount of effort to kill a small child as it does to split a log in half, and that’s while pacing myself to make it through a whole day.