The stupidest idea you or someone you know has come up with

I had a friend tell me yesterday that they had come up with an 'idea' (for lack of a better word... perhaps death sentence?)

They asked: What would happen if you got a car up to 5th doing 250 - 300kph, threw it in reverse and slammed down the accelerator?

I replied: Firstly, you wouldn't be able to get it in reverse. But if you did I'd say about 50% of the gearbox and drivetrain would fall to pieces.


They intend to test this theory next week at the local (legal) drag strip.


So what is the stupidest idea or theory that you or friends have come up with? Did it end up as badly as anticipated?

reply to post by fooffstarr


Tell them not to try such stupid stuff. Even if you suddenly change the gear from 5 to neutral, the car will decelerate rapidly as the high speed cannot be maintained by the lower gears.

As for my stupidest idea, once during my childhood days, during the summer, it was very hot in school and I said to my friend, we can move the city into the sky and move the sky to the ground.

Those were the old days.

reply to post by fooffstarr


A girl in my high school claimed to have done that with an automatic (although not at that speed). I can't imagine how it's possible so I assume she was lying. Hopefully your friend won't go through with it.

Anyways, when I was around the age of 4 or 5 or so, I thought it would be 'pretty' to get a hole puncher and use it on my hair to create little hole designs throughout my hair. Crimping was in so I guess I thought, 'Hey. Why not holes!' So away I punched, apparently ignorant of the little thing we call 'gravity.' As soon as I let go of the chunk of hair I was holding to inspect my progress, it all fell to the floor.

I always played the games Sonic the Hedgehog when I was young.
I was a really fast runner as a kid (still am). One day, I was about 9 years old, I saw a steep hill.... I thought, "Hey! I bet I could run down that full tilt and be just like Sonic!

I tried it.......
FACEPLANT!!!! :bash:

[edit on 6/7/2009 by Slash]

When I was a kid I was a big fan of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles!

Everytime I saw a manhole cover, I would shout for them to come out and say hello, it took time for my mother to make me continue walking lol.

Not really that much on topic thou, hmmm, when I think of something I'll be sure to post.

Thanks for all the stories.

And trust me, I'm doing my best to get my idiot mate to change his mind.


Another time from my childhood would probably classify for this thread.

Myself and a school mate were throwing a frisbee around the backyard and it managed to get stuck in a tree.

So I threw a stick at it to knock it down... and the stick got stuck.

So, in all my infinite wisdom, I stood under it, picked up a rock the size of my head and threw it up to knock it down.

It was like slow motion by the time I realized the rock was going to have to come back down.

A bloody mess and 6 stitches later the frisbee blew down by itself

Marrying my now ex wife.

Dumbest thing I have ever or will ever do in my entire life. There is nothing I could do now that would top that stupidity.

Originally posted by whatukno
Marrying my now ex wife.

Dumbest thing I have ever or will ever do in my entire life. There is nothing I could do now that would top that stupidity.

Marrying my husband---Stupidity off the richter scale
You are not alone !!!!

Russian roulette with a semi automatic? Nah never seen that, I wonder is anyone has ever truly tried it.

A pretty stupid thing me and some others used to do was to go up near the train tracks, the section I'm talking about is a high speed section - and back in the day there was literally almost nothing to stop a person getting to them in a million ways... In fact we had this one hang out there was no real other way to get there other than sliding down a bank and crossing the lines. Pretty dumb in retrospect.

One of the many dumb things we did was to get stuff and watch the trains smash it, nothing really substantial (to a train) this one time I was actually walking under the bridge at the same time a train came over at speed, unknown to me others had propped large parts of fallen trees against the rails and the tracks so that the wheels would smash the chunky part of the wood (if any of that made sense).

Any way all I really remember (BTW I think I was about 7, the others were older) was coming round back into consciousness, but strangely on my hands and knees - they said I had just stayed like that fo like 60 seconds so I was basically knocked out, or knocked silly.

The worst part is cos the other boys were a little older they did not want to get into trouble, they made me not tell anyone... So there I am, 7 years old and concussed and then I have to sit through a family sunday roast - I eat a little, throw up on my plate my parents think I have had too much sun and tell me to go to bed.

I never saw a doctor or anything and I think I may of lost some potential IQ Oh yhea I still have permanent tinnitus that drives me mad, and continue to make bad decisions. :bnghd:

I did something really dumb last September.
My friend and I (Accuroman,fellow ats member) biked out to a cabin in the deep of the woods.Little did we know that where we went was surrounded by grow operations.
We got out there and were there about 30 minutes and were out back with a good view on the place when we saw flashlights looking into the cabin...being the aggressive idiot I am I yelled HEY really loud.
Next thing I know we have flashlights in our face and they are screaming to put our hands up...up they went.
I had a video camera in my pocket and we were filming the ride up and everything we were doing(thats a whole other stupid thing I will tell you in the end)
Being extremely tired and not thinking very much and being in the early stages of dehydration....I realized I had a video camera in my pocket and looked at my buddy and asked him and i quote *Should we shoot them*
It was a very tense couple of seconds to say the least.

The stupidest part of it all was why we were there.
We were having a competition,it was between 80 to 90 kms and we were not going to sleep in the cabin.We were going to sleep outside and the point of it all was the first to complain and whine loses the competition.

Yes...very stupid!!!!


Edit to add...yes I am embarrassed.

[edit on 8-6-2009 by DrumsRfun]

Well my friend and I wrote the book on stupid but since this is a family show.....

I had a genius idea a couple of years ago and conceived DA DA DA the DARKBULB!I told my workmates and they laughed at my idea.
Anyway its exactly like it sounds, completely opposite to a boring old lightbulb.You turn on the DARKBULB and it absorbs(or something didnt figure that part out yet)all the light in the nearby area.
So far im going to market it too migraine sufferers and goths

reply to post by Azador


Would you care to clue us in on the science involved there?

Thr only way I can imagine that working is if you can somehow create a huge gravity well... And well thus remiving everything else as well as the light!... I believe Einstien would call that little number a black hole... Good way to get rid of the Goths tho

reply to post by Now_Then


It works in my head isnt that enough?Lets not get caught up to much with all the namby pamby science stuff.
I will never let science(or reality)get in the way of a good idea.

reply to post by Azador


Perhaps you could create an impostor prototype that uses black lights instead of ... a miniature black hole.

reply to post by fooffstarr


I will consider this but i dont like mucking around doing things half arsed.I'd rather go wholehog and build my proper DARKBULB.
And hey if CERN are allowed to dick around with mini blackholes I cant see why I cant.At least i have practical applications


Edit to spell mini properly the rest is sweet

[edit on 8-6-2009 by Azador]

Me and a friend were playing with a radar speed gun on a dry lake bed in the Mojave desert.

This navy fighter jet made a low pass over the lake bed and we turned the radar gun on him to see how fast he was going.

Mistake!!!, They have a detector in the jet to warn then of a radar lock-on from a anti air missile.

The jet did corkscrews, popped flares and hit the afterburner and got the h**l out of there.

About 15 minutes later he was back.
He made a high speed pass and went strait up in full afterburner right over us
It got hot and dusty real quick and we never heard him coming.

We were left standing there in a hot dust cloud with our ears ringing wondering what the h**l had happened.

I know the pilot thought it was funny.:shk::shk::shk:

reply to post by ANNED


Ahahahaha. That is hilarious.

Note to self: Don't use radar gun on jet.

Back when I was in the cadets we did a lot of hiking up on the moors.

A stupid mistake my team mates made was to wind me up ruthlessly in a childish way... There mistake was that I was the only one that could be bothered to do the navigating (and I'm good at it!) Any ways in previous hikes we had all made navigation errors, just when I made mine I never let them get out of hand... So most of the time they left it to me and just feigned an interest.

Any way this time they thought they were really getting to me, I clamed up and gave the bare minimum in communication - they were having a great time seemingly at my expense... In fact so great was the jolity that they did not realise we had traversed the exact same steep sided valley 3 times... we had circled the checkpoint (where we were also to camp) just closely so that it was out of sight TWICE.

Suddenly I bust out in to hysterics out of nowhere - they thought I'd cracked... I could barely get the words out, we were all knackered.

Originally the final leg was about 3 km. Down one side of the valley and up the other, about 500 meters and voila!

I had taken them there, around once, back down and up the valley in a different position, large left hand loop tackled the valley AGAIN in a different position and by now we are a little under a km away from the checkpoint over flat ground.

We had made excellent time all day and I wiped out all our good work in one dastardly swoop... They started paying a little more attention to the navigation again after that little lesson.

Once I touched the metal ring around a fire to see if it was hot. The answer is yes and it is pretty cool to watch a normal finger-tip turn into a second degree burn blister in a matter of seconds.

Not mine, but once my brother was like "What if you were walking in a forest, and then you fell in a never ending hole. That is filled with clocks!!!"

Then he was like "You'd be caught in time!!!"

After that I told him how stupid his idea was, and then I had to spend a half hour listening to his logic on how it was possible.

Don't even ask what we were doing before this conversation happened.
:shk::shk::shk: