They all fall down
October 2, 2010 10:50 PM   Subscribe

The world record for human mattress dominoes has been increasing exponentially for the last few years. From 41* to 159 to 256 to 380. But China definitely dominates the world record, if mattresses aren't required.
posted by twoleftfeet (20 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
...

You know, I usually hate it when people point to some endeavor and call it silly or pointless, but this is silly and pointless. The first I can sort of understand as an advertising stunt, but the rest? Especially the Chinese one that's not dominoes at all. It's just people leaning back. They weren't even required to have physical contact from their predecessor before leaning back to keep the chain going.
posted by kmz at 11:18 PM on October 2, 2010 [1 favorite]


I just see it as a way I could help set a World Record. Because I can fall just as good as the next guy.
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:22 PM on October 2, 2010 [1 favorite]


It's all fun and games until someone removes a tag.
posted by doubtfulpalace at 11:29 PM on October 2, 2010 [4 favorites]


It's particularly dumb when you think of the epic fort they could've built with all those mattresses. I'm talking Minas Tirith here.
posted by Ritchie at 12:04 AM on October 3, 2010 [5 favorites]


Why'd they mute out all the gunshots?
posted by Sys Rq at 12:39 AM on October 3, 2010 [1 favorite]


Bedbugs have never had it so easy.
posted by undecided at 1:08 AM on October 3, 2010


Meanwhile here in the Americas, we're brainstorming to break the world record for sexual lawsuits in one sitting...
posted by mannequito at 1:18 AM on October 3, 2010


Already the record has been beaten. It's now at 400, awaiting verification.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:19 AM on October 3, 2010


Just wait until North Korea starts competing.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:16 AM on October 3, 2010


You mean I spent the entire night crawling around on the concrete deck of the Intrepid plotting out that entire thing and marking it out with tape with no kneepads for a record that lasted less than two weeks?? The bruises haven't even faded yet!

And for the record, we made a couple forts, and the heap of mattresses we made during loadout was epic.
posted by nevercalm at 3:54 AM on October 3, 2010 [1 favorite]


41 to 159 to 256 to 380

That's pretty clearly linear growth, not exponential.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:01 AM on October 3, 2010 [6 favorites]


That was retarded.

Real dominoes don't gently lay back from a sitting position, they fall, rapidly.

I'd be impressed if the people had done it all from a standing position.
posted by bwg at 4:40 AM on October 3, 2010


This is not the story about Anderson Cooper and 379 strangers flopping on mattresses on an aircraft carrier that I fully expected to see some day.
posted by pracowity at 4:55 AM on October 3, 2010


I also think setting out to break Guinness Records is mostly pretty stupid, but this looked like a good use for an aircraft carrier.
posted by MtDewd at 6:07 AM on October 3, 2010


I like the part where the people get bopped in the face with a mattress.

Of course, this is just going to escalate to human scale games of "Mousetrap" and what then?


What then?
posted by device55 at 6:53 AM on October 3, 2010


I assume the people are just there so they can fake-resume if one of them mis-fall?
posted by ymgve at 7:08 AM on October 3, 2010


What's the record for human soft tissue injuries to the knees and ankles?

I let people beat me with sticks and this just made me cringe.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:00 AM on October 3, 2010


I assume the people are just there so they can fake-resume if one of them mis-fall?

Actually, Guinness wouldn't allow that, and they shot the whole thing in one take with one camera following the whole thing to document it (the cameraman who did it is a smoker and was pretty winded when he finished the run). They were originally planning on 2 or 3 takes, but they happened to get it on the first intentional shot, after the middle third happened to fall because someone let go of their mattress and knocked over the next 100 or so people. We reset and started again.

The closest one that almost missed we actually tweaked off his mark just a bit at the very last minute, and it turned out that it worked.

Real dominoes don't gently lay back from a sitting position, they fall, rapidly.

I'd be impressed if the people had done it all from a standing position.


On the Regis one, they fell pretty quickly, and from what people were saying afterwards, it actually kinda hurt.
posted by nevercalm at 10:07 AM on October 3, 2010


At least one turn in the 380 looked pretty fishy, knock 'em down wise.

Some of those people look like the got hit pretty hard. Maybe it is pointless, but I kind of like pointless. Y'all take life too seriously.
posted by Bovine Love at 10:08 AM on October 3, 2010


That's pretty clearly linear growth, not exponential.

Definitely not linear growth. The last two numbers happened within weeks of each other.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:36 PM on October 3, 2010


« Older Digital Hygiene Dilemma   |   A collection of band flyers Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments