• Random Dent@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Presumably the odds of getting squished by the hand is 1 in 8 billion-ish, if it’s properly random. The odds of winning the Powerball lottery is apparently 1 in 292 million, so it’s probably not something to really worry about lol.

      • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I wonder if it picks a truly random person, or if it sort of stays in one geographical area and sort of makes its way across continents slowly, like over the span of weeks? If its the former, it would be distinctly unsettling to see it hovering over your city like a thundercloud. If its the latter, it would be quite the spectacle to see it breaking the sound barrier as it hurtles around the world.

        • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 day ago

          It wouldn’t need to break the sound barrier. Killing someone once a day should mean one death every 24 hours (assuming the hand uses its own hand time zone).

          The Earth’s circumfrence is about 40,000 km, meaning the hand would need to travel at most 20,000 km in 24 hours which requires a speed of 833 km/h, whereas the speed of sound is 1235 km/h.

          • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            You are right, thank you! Unless the Hand wants to get there early so it can spend 12 hours hovering ominously over the person its going to kill.

        • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          I suppose if it’s the former it would be even safer, as you could somewhat plan to stay out of it’s way. Or like, if it’s over Europe and you’re in Africa, you know you’re 100% safe for the next little while.

          For the latter, maybe it exists in a dimension above our own. By which I mean… imagine if you were a 2D circle on a piece of paper, with a 3D hand pressing it’s finger on the piece of paper. When the hand lifts it’s finger off the paper, it effectively vanishes from your field of reference, then when it presses down somewhere else on the paper it looks like it magically came from nowhere.