Coincidences.....what are your strangest?

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ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
The thermostat on my kettle clicked and my browser crashed at exactly the same time.
Probably not a 'coincidence', more a 'cause'...? :whistle:

I remember working on a system with an unreliable digital control connection between 2 racks of equipment. The cable and connectors were in good condition, but the connection was prone to picking up interference which crashed the system several times a day. In the end the problem was solved by upgrading to a twisted-pair cable and differential drivers/receivers. Before the change the office kettle switching off 20 feet away would cause failure. After the robust communication system replaced the dodgy one we could never get it to fail again!
 

stephec

Legendary Member
Location
Bolton
The thermostat on my kettle clicked and my browser crashed at exactly the same time.
You've had your vaccine then I take it?
 

byegad

Legendary Member
Location
NE England
It used to happen to my dad all of the time.
Once on camping holiday in Cornwall we went out for the day to a nearby town. As we walked up a shopping street dad as greeted by a work colleague. Neither knew the other was even on holiday that week never mind where they'd be going. Further up the street we met another of his colleagues, who similarly didn't know where we were holidaying and was surprised to hear of the presence of the guy we'd met not 100yds back. Turning the corner we bumped into his secretary with her husband who was yet again amazed to hear of two other colleagues, although she did know where we'd be, as in somewhere in Cornwall, they were staying in Devon, but had gone out for the day over into Cornwall. As we all lived some 400 odd miles away, my mother's comment about a 'works outing' went into family history.
Similar meetings, with a single colleague, seemed to occur nearly every holiday ranging from in Scarborough, relatively close to home, to Norfolk, Scotland and Wales.
Dad had a 'big personality' and was well liked by most of his colleagues.
 

Bazzer

Setting the controls for the heart of the sun.
When aged around 19/20, myself and a couple of mates decided to get a coach to Torquay to meet someone who used to live near us, but who had recently married. From there we had few plans except to visit Newquay, but with a tent we would go wherever our money, buses and our thumbs took us.
We ended up in St Ives and one morning as we walked near the town centre I heard this shout of "Bazzer!" and the good looking girl who lived at the house at the bottom of the track which led to my parents' house, came bounding over and buried me in huge hugs. Our paths rarely crossed despite living so close to each other and neither of us had planned on being in St Ives.
 

Accy cyclist

Legendary Member
I posted yesterday evening on CC about my car's bumper suffering a dent. Last night as i was doing the washing up,my flask dropped on the floor as i was about to take the top/cup off. I picked the flask up to find that the cup had suffered a dent.

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Then low and behold a cycling friend of mine has just sent me a text message saying he's knackered as a few of them cycled up to Dent and back (not on the motorway obviously:rolleyes:) yesterday.

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They say these things come in threes!:ohmy:
 

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HMS_Dave

Grand Old Lady
I remember when i was a kid, our local corner shop owner would allow local regulars to run a tab for your groceries. Our neighbour decided she would run up a tab and she must have known she was moving away and went without paying. Very frustrating for our trusting shopkeeper, who was asking about her whereabouts. No one knew where the family went. About 2 years later, we were in Barmouth in Wales. As we walked past a house, out stepped our old neighbour! No mistaking her and her kids at all. Especially as she darted back in after clocking us! I don't think my parents reported her to the shopkeeper, as of course there were many questions. It may not have been her place but a relative or a friend. But it was a very remarkable coincidence, just at that time, just so happened to step out not 2 metres from us...
 

Ming the Merciless

There is no mercy
Photo Winner
Location
Inside my skull
The thermostat on my kettle clicked and my browser crashed at exactly the same time.

That is the problem when your PC is in the kitchen
 

Ming the Merciless

There is no mercy
Photo Winner
Location
Inside my skull
Not as strange as you may think.
According to probability theory, you only need 23 people in a room to put the probability of 2 of them having the same birthday at 50%.
Presumably there were more than 23 people in your university group, and you would most likely be from a similar demographic regarding age, then the odds of it happening would appear relatively unremarkable.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem

That is the probability of same day and month, so say September 30th. But this was same year as well.
 

Brandane

Legendary Member
Location
Costa Clyde
I'm convinced that if you pick any random stranger, and talk to them for a while, you will uncover some strange coincidence. Motorbikers; we have a habit of talking about bikes with each other, so here are 2 strange motorbike related coincidences..

On a flight back from Orlando to Glasgow I got talking to the family next to me. Chatting about motorbikes, it turns out the guy sitting beside me - his mother once worked in a Honda dealer in Greenock. Knowing that I had once bought a bike previously owned by the son of a woman who worked in the dealer's office, I asked if it was the guy sat next to me who had been the previous owner of my bike - and it was!

Pulling up on my motorbike at Knockhill race circuit beside another biker, the conversation (short version) went...
"Have you come far?"
"Dumfries".
"Oh, I was on a ship in my merchant navy days 40 years ago with a guy from Dumfries. Once we got home, we had a drunken weekend in Dumfries. Can't remember his address but I think the area was called Georgetown."
"I live in Georgetown, what was the guys name?"
"Stevie T***".
"His mum and dad are both alive and well; their garden backs on to mine... "
 
When I was about 17 - so probably 1977 - I went off for 3 week working on a farm with my friend. The farm belong to my friends brother-in-law (his sister was a lot older than him) and was in a small place in Ilderton near London, Ontario (Canada)

Anyway - the 'town' was basically 2 farm houses around a railroad crossing where there was a depot where the local farmers went with the wheat etc for the trains to load up with.
That was the place - all of it apart from a dozen or so farms with the nearest neighbour a couple of miles away

Anyway - while I was away from home my parents decided to have a 'just the 2 of us' holiday in Scotland - touring round and booking forward as they went

Anyway - when they were in the far North they pulled into a car park with stunning views and my Mum took the dog off for a walk.
My Dad leant against the car and was enjoying the view - when a car of the same make and model pulled in alongside
so he got talking to the people in it
turned out it was a hire car - the people were from Canada
Oh - said my Dad - my son is in Canada at the moment - where about are you from
Oh Ontario
Oh - that's where he is
Oh -OK - we are near London
Oh - I think he said he was near there aswell

it narrowed down to these people were the family from one of the 2 farmhouses that made up the town!!
 

stephec

Legendary Member
Location
Bolton
About 12 years ago I visited my company's agents in South Africa to help them out with a problem they had at Kellogg's factory in Johannesburg, which resulted in me getting grief for the week off Kellogg's global director of engineering.

Whilst I was there I was mainly working with one of the agents salesmen who was like my taxi driver and assistant for the week.

A few years ago I'm in The Boyne, an Irish bar in Hildesheim, Germany, where we have to go every couple of years for training. I'm talking to one of the blokes from our course and telling him all about my South African abuse when I turn around to face the same salesman who'd been with me for most of it, turns out there's a sales conference at the same time.

And as we both liked Guinness we had a rather good night.
 
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