What's the dumbest idea you had at age when you shouldn't be that dumb?

[Jayson1]

I have have a had a few brain farts as Iike to call them in my life. Here is a few off them.

In high school I read Stephen hawking's "A Brief History in Time" because I thought the soultion to time travel might be in it. I I was really hoping that we might get it done in my lifetime.
I once went without the internet for 3 years because it didn't occur to me to plug something in.
I thought "Mr Robot" was a show that would have robot's in it, even through most the pilot episode.
I had a imagininary friend of sorts in my head a few years ago when my ocd was getting really bad. It wasn't a hallucination because knew she wasn't real but I was basically talking to her a lot. Thiis is when I tried to will myself into driving my truck into a lake, but that didn't happen because the ole fear of death emotion took over.

Jason

 

[Spot's Meow]

Well that got dark pretty quickly.

Regarding the not having internet for 3 years, my husband had a similar issue when we were dating. The first time I came over to his apartment I noticed a very long Ethernet cable connecting the router in his living room to his PS3 in the bedroom. I asked him why he didn't connect the PS3 to the internet over wifi and he said he didn't have wifi. He'd been using this setup for years and found it very inconvenient. Of course, I walked over to his router and pointed to the sticker that had the wifi name and password and asked "so what are these for?" Poor guy had just assumed that wifi was a feature you had to pay extra for.

My sister is 20 and just realized that IHOP and International House of Pancakes are the same thing. Her friend asked if she wanted to go to the International House of Pancakes and my sister said "didn't you say yesterday that we would go to IHOP?" Confused stares ensued.

 

[Finn]

I had a college friend who thought pink flamingos were made up.

Imagine his surprise when we went to the zoo

 

[Smellincoffee]

As a child I wondered if the musicians weren't actually playing the music at the radio station.

 

[Redfern]

Here's a notion that seems like something from Arnold's "Running Man"...

When I was maybe 6 or 7, I thought characters that got killed in TV shows were "death row" inmates in real life. My "reasoning" only applied to the "bad guys". I'm not sure if I had an explanation for characters who were "victims" of a given narrative. I just remember developing this concept after witnessing a villain careen off the road and his car exploding upon impact. It was probably an episode of "Mannix".

 

[auntiehill]

It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I realized the song "Little Red Corvette" isn't actually about a car. I was sitting in my car, had the radio on, and a red Corvette pulled into a nearby parking space. I smiled as the song came on just then. I was looking at the car and listening to the lyrics and it finally dawned on me.

 

[psCargile]

Thiis is when I tried to will myself into driving my truck into a lake, but that didn't happen because the ole fear of death emotion took over.

Roll the window down before you do that, give yourself an escape route.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I realized the song "Little Red Corvette" isn't actually about a car. I was sitting in my car, had the radio on, and a red Corvette pulled into a nearby parking space. I smiled as the song came on just then. I was looking at the car and listening to the lyrics and it finally dawned on me.

It took me a long time before I realized the truth about certain songs, such as:

- "Toy Soldiers" (I had SUCH a crush on Martika back in the day.. ) and "I Want Candy" --> drugs
- And of course YMCA.

 

[publiusr]

A bad brain fart on my part.

I had read of a communication sat that was sent to the Moon and back so as to be in a useful orbit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAS-22

Now, stupid me thought that maybe Mir could be salvaged in the same way--but left at the Moon. I had foolishly believed in that old phrase that Low Earth Orbit means you are half-way to anywhere in the solar system.

Nope.

Mir is very deep in the Earth's gravity well. PAS-22 got lobbed upwards farther. The trajectory wasn't there--but the energy was--so it was salvaged.

Now--in geosynch (unlike LEO) it really doesn't take much energy to leave. Thing is--geosynchchronus orbit means you have to circularize--and it is easier to travel in a more direct path if your LV stages give you the energy.

I should have known all that--but it was the 90's--and I was just learning that a lot of rocket fuel was good old fashioned kerosene--andt that there are all kinds of little things that can work against you.

 

[captainkirk]

It was a long time before I realized that John Lennon was one of the Beatles and not the guy Leningrad was named after.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It was a long time before I realized that John Lennon was one of the Beatles and not the guy Leningrad was named after.

You win.

 

[thestrangequark]

I have a good one:
When I was a tot I had a black and white tuxedo cat named Edwin Meise (named for the attorney general...I heard his name on the news and liked the way it sounded: I was four). We were utterly bonded. He followed me everywhere like a puppy and slept with me every night. When I was six we moved house and he got lost.
I was devastated. I made puff-paint tee shirts with his picture on them and my siblings and I wore them every day for two weeks. I made lost cat signs, and a month later was still totally depressed. At last, my mother brought home a new black and white tuxedo kitten and told me her name was Minnie Meise, and that she was Edwin's baby. She told me that since Edwin couldn't come home to me, he wanted me to look after Minnie for him.

Now, obviously if I'd taken the time to think about it I'd have had the cognitive ability to suss that this was a white lie by the time I was ten, but I just never thought about it. Never questioned it. It wasn't until I was a freaking 18 year old adult and we were all happily talking about the circumstances of adopting Minnie that it dawned on me that she wasn't really Edwin's baby, and that my mom had just made up the story to comfort me!

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

It was a long time before I realized that John Lennon was one of the Beatles and not the guy Leningrad was named after.

When did you realize it was his uncle Vladimir?

 

[rhubarbodendron]

As a child I wondered if the musicians weren't actually playing the music at the radio station.

Nothing wrong with that. When I was a child they still did, on occasion. (yes, I know I'm a dinosaur

)

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

A bad brain fart on my part.

I had read of a communication sat that was sent to the Moon and back so as to be in a useful orbit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAS-22

Now, stupid me thought that maybe Mir could be salvaged in the same way--but left at the Moon. I had foolishly believed in that old phrase that Low Earth Orbit means you are half-way to anywhere in the solar system.

Nope.

Mir is very deep in the Earth's gravity well. PAS-22 got lobbed upwards farther. The trajectory wasn't there--but the energy was--so it was salvaged.

Now--in geosynch (unlike LEO) it really doesn't take much energy to leave. Thing is--geosynchchronus orbit means you have to circularize--and it is easier to travel in a more direct path if your LV stages give you the energy.

I should have known all that--but it was the 90's--and I was just learning that a lot of rocket fuel was good old fashioned kerosene--andt that there are all kinds of little things that can work against you.

You need a delta-v map.

My dumbest mistake was believing my elders and supposed betters when they said God was real but the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas weren't.

 

[Greg Cox]

I don't want to admit how old I was when I discovered that Rhode Island wasn't actually an island.

 

[Finn]

I don't want to admit how old I was when I discovered that Rhode Island wasn't actually an island.

I'm sure there are more than a handful of adults who still don't realize it out there...

 

[Hugo Rune]

I had a college friend who thought pink flamingos were made up.

Imagine his surprise when we went to the zoo

Would have love to see his face when you rented the Blu-Ray for him.

Hugo - he'd wish it didn't exist

 

[Finn]

Would have love to see his face when you rented the Blu-Ray for him.

Hugo - he'd wish it didn't exist

 

[publiusr]

You need a delta-v map.

I've seen one that was a tree. The subway delt-v map nneded the great galactic ghoul as the subway bandit