Old wives’ tales

Datsun310Guy said:

We need to step this up a notch.

My wife's grandmother told me when you feel a cold or flu coming you should take the can of turpentine and take the cap off.  Put the hole on your tongue and tip up some turpentine and swallow what is on your tongue to help with the sickness.

Who am to argue with a lady to made it to 87 years old? 

Once I sat down on her couch and a cup that had some liquid and napkins stuffed inside.  When I asked I was told she mixed snuff with flour (probably Martha White) and put a chaw of it in her mouth and spit into the cup.    

We'd take a couple of drops of turpentine on a spoonful of sugar occasionally back in the day

My Grandma dipped snuff & chewed Juicy Fruit gum  together. I still can't stand the smell of Juicy Fruit.

In reply to wheelsmithy :

I don't care if the Italian tune up doesn't work, it sounds cool so I'm gonna keep doing it.

GameboyRMH said:

stanger_missle said:

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

My SIL is convinced that that she has to turn off the AC before shutting off her car.  Apparently her father told her this at some point and she now takes it as gospel.

I thought I was the only one who has heard this.

My ex-SWMBO's father told her that and she told it to me. I never believed it and my ex would tell at me when I didn't shut it off.

A good reason to do this is to help the AC evaporator dry out before you shut the system off and seal up the car - this should make it harder for mold to grow in the HVAC box. I turn the AC off (in good times when it's present and working) and crank the fan to full power between parking and shutting off the car for this reason.

That makes total sense. Her version was that its hard on the A/C compressor when its running and you either shut the engine off or start the engine. It sounded like total BS to me.

jfryjfry said:

I was wondering about old wives’ tales circulating before the net and wondered if anyone had heard the same ones I heard growing up. 

And on a separate note, wondering which ones are true and how the ones that aren’t came into being. 

 

For example, when I got my first car in 91 I heard that if you just ran an open header, when you shut the engine off, it could suck in cold air and bend a valve. 

I was very concerned when I told my dad about it and he just laughed. 

I dunno about straight pipes, but I dropped a valve guide out of the head on my bike when there was a bad crack in the exhaust near the port.  Couldn't see it under the chrome cover.  After a long run, I stopped to gas up, went inside to get some water and cool off, came back out, cranked it and was only firing on one cylinder.  The guide dropped out of the head and held the valve open.

stanger_missle said:

GameboyRMH said:

stanger_missle said:

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

My SIL is convinced that that she has to turn off the AC before shutting off her car.  Apparently her father told her this at some point and she now takes it as gospel.

I thought I was the only one who has heard this.

My ex-SWMBO's father told her that and she told it to me. I never believed it and my ex would tell at me when I didn't shut it off.

A good reason to do this is to help the AC evaporator dry out before you shut the system off and seal up the car - this should make it harder for mold to grow in the HVAC box. I turn the AC off (in good times when it's present and working) and crank the fan to full power between parking and shutting off the car for this reason.

That makes total sense. Her version was that its hard on the A/C compressor when its running and you either shut the engine off or start the engine. It sounded like total BS to me.

I just used to do it so the starter didn’t have to throw the AC compressor over next time you started the car. 

Toyotas won't kick the the compressor clutch in until the RPM signal is over some value, like 600 or so.  So the compressor won't be engaged when starting.

If the cows lay down, it's going to rain.

You have to let your car warm up to operating temperature before driving it      (may have been true in the past)

ShawnG said:

Nuclear power is not a viable solution to our energy problems.

I've been to the Hanford nuclear waste facility. This statement is truth, not a wives tale.

Daylan C said:

In reply to wheelsmithy :

I don't care if the Italian tune up doesn't work, it sounds cool so I'm gonna keep doing it.

It totally worked on my Alfa Romeo. 

You have to rev an RX-8 to 4k rpms before you shut it off to keep it from flooding.

For non auto related wives tales, Hungary is full of these:

Walking on a cold floor is bad for your balls.  The cold will travel up your leg and ruin the sperm in your testicles.

Not wearing ear muffs in cold wind will allow the wind to get in your ears.  A head cold is the result.

If you drink something hot and then drink something cold, you will get sick.

There are so many more.  Of course I listen to none of it, but when I do catch the inevitable cold during cold season everyone in the office just HAS to remind me of all the times I didn't wear ear muffs outside or had a glass of water after drinking coffee/tea...

Brett_Murphy said:

If the cows lay down, it's going to rain.

You have to let your car warm up to operating temperature before driving it      (may have been true in the past)

 

Is it the e9x M3 that has a warm up in its owner manual? My friend has one and he does it every time, he hasn’t had to do bearings so maybe it’s a good thing...

In reply to Hungary Bill :

Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, in the clear.

That's more like an old frat boy take though.

GameboyRMH said:

joey48442 said:

You can’t switch from synthetic oil back to Dino-poo. You can go either way of course. 

This was true back when synthetic oils first became available off the shelf from what I understand, with what was available back then, switching back from synthetic to organic would cause the engine's seals to shrink.

There's a similar one in computing, the belief that if you don't overwrite data on a hard drive 8x or something with random data it could be recoverable with ultra-high-end equipment. That was true of hard drives made in the '90s and earlier, but for modern drives one overwrite is enough, even if you just overwrite with zeroes.

TLAs and militaries still physically destroy hard drives out of fear of this sort of thing.

It turns out volatile memory isn't volatile.  There are ways to read what was in RAM.

A healthy dose of paranoia isn't a bad thing.

The0retical said:

In reply to Hungary Bill :

Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, in the clear.

That's more like an old frat boy take though.

You know, this is something i've done some extensive testing on.  I think there might be something to it.  It has to do with the rate at which you consume alcohol vs the rate at which your body can absorb it.

If you start with shots, you'll get tuned up pretty quick and slow down as your body will be absorbing high concentrations of alcohol.  If you move to beer you're switching to a much lower concentration over a longer period of time allowing your body to finish off the liquor reserve and move on to the beer before you crash.

Now, if you start with beers and tune yourself up over a longer period of time you'll reach the same level of inebriation but with a LOT more liquid for your body to process.  Now if you finish it off with a shot of high-test and crash, I think there's a better chance your body is going to still be working on the (harder to break down) methanol in the morning.  And that's where the upset tummy and splitting headache come from.

Still testing the theory though.  Ymmv and all that 

Javelin said:

ShawnG said:

Nuclear power is not a viable solution to our energy problems.

I've been to the Hanford nuclear waste facility. This statement is truth, not a wives tale.

Nah, thorium reactors should be the future. 

Unless those reactors are made by Ford, right? Lololololol

Hungary Bill said:

The0retical said:

In reply to Hungary Bill :

Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, in the clear.

That's more like an old frat boy take though.

You know, this is something i've done some extensive testing on.  I think there might be something to it.  It has to do with the rate at which you consume alcohol vs the rate at which your body can absorb it.

 

If you start with shots, you'll get tuned up pretty quick and slow down as your body will be absorbing high concentrations of alcohol.  If you move to beer you're switching to a much lower concentration over a longer period of time allowing your body to finish off the liquor reserve and move on to the beer before you crash.

 

Now, if you start with beers and tune yourself up over a longer period of time you'll reach the same level of inebriation but with a LOT more liquid for your body to process.  Now if you finish it off with a shot of high-test and crash, I think there's a better chance your body is going to still be working on the (harder to break down) methanol in the morning.  And that's where the upset tummy and splitting headache come from.

 

Still testing the theory though.  Ymmv and all that 

Mythbuster checked this, and their limited sample size found the opposite.  It was extreme enough that Grant didn't even puke on the beer before liquor test.

Hungary Bill said:

 

Now, if you start with beers and tune yourself up over a longer period of time you'll reach the same level of inebriation but with a LOT more liquid for your body to process.  Now if you finish it off with a shot of high-test and crash, I think there's a better chance your body is going to still be working on the (harder to break down) methanol in the morning.  And that's where the upset tummy and splitting headache come from.

I'm sure it was a typo, but you should absolutely not drink methanol. I just had some splash on my lips and spent about 5 minutes trying to wash it off without swallowing.

Brett_Murphy said:

Hungary Bill said:

 

Now, if you start with beers and tune yourself up over a longer period of time you'll reach the same level of inebriation but with a LOT more liquid for your body to process.  Now if you finish it off with a shot of high-test and crash, I think there's a better chance your body is going to still be working on the (harder to break down) methanol in the morning.  And that's where the upset tummy and splitting headache come from.

I'm sure it was a typo, but you should absolutely not drink methanol. I just had some splash on my lips and spent about 5 minutes trying to wash it off without swallowing.

Nope,not a typo.  Methanol exists as a biproduct of fermentation in all beers and wines.  It's the reason why you have to throw off the first stuff that comes out of a still.  In beers and wines it's concentration is low enough to be relatively harmless (aside from hangovers and whatnot).  When distilled it comes out in high enough concentrations to act as the optical nerve poison that it is.

I wish Beer Baron were here as he would have formal education on the matter, but I believe "stress" on the yeast during fermentation (high abv target, or low nutrients) causes higher methanol production in your batch.  For washes we run through the pot still, we try to stay under 10%.  Not sure if thats a wives tale or not, but I go with it because it's what the old men told me.

In reply to Hungary Bill :

Are you sure you didn't mean acetaldehyde?

Methanol does exist in minute quantities but that isn't the problem after drinking to excess.  It's the ethanol and ethanol accessories (acetaldehyde)

Not sure.  Like I said, I'm just a backyard brewer and am not formally educated on the subject.  When it came to methanol, .4 to 1% was the highest reported content that I've read about.  All the others were less.  (Mostly found in wines?)  Here's a link to quick reading on the subject:  https://homedistiller.org/intro/methanol/methanol

But!  I got another wives tale:  Drinking strong liquor will make you go blind.

Originated in the bootleg days when less than scrupulous distillers would add methylated spirits to their product to up profits.

 

Ooh!  You need to wait 30 minutes after eating to go swimming (or else you'll get cramps)

"you'll shoot your eye out kid!"

Miatas are chick cars.

I don't know if that was ever really fair, but around here it's a Wrangler.

Hungary Bill said:

Nope,not a typo.  Methanol exists as a biproduct of fermentation in all beers and wines.  It's the reason why you have to throw off the first stuff that comes out of a still.  In beers and wines it's concentration is low enough to be relatively harmless (aside from hangovers and whatnot).  When distilled it comes out in high enough concentrations to act as the optical nerve poison that it is.

 

The breadth of knowledge on the board doesn't surprise me. It's how we all manage to have discussions while generally remaining civil.

Old wive's tale: If you get stabbed by a catfish, rub some fish slime on it.
 

Brett_Murphy said:

Hungary Bill said:

Nope,not a typo.  Methanol exists as a biproduct of fermentation in all beers and wines.  It's the reason why you have to throw off the first stuff that comes out of a still.  In beers and wines it's concentration is low enough to be relatively harmless (aside from hangovers and whatnot).  When distilled it comes out in high enough concentrations to act as the optical nerve poison that it is.

 

The breadth of knowledge on the board doesn't surprise me. It's how we all manage to have discussions while generally remaining civil.

Old wive's tale: If you get stabbed by a catfish, rub some fish slime on it.
 

Just learned that catfish carry knives.