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Actually the darwin awards has one of the best writeups on Lawnchair Larry, unfortunately they have added some dumb cartoons recently, but it has more info than the summary article and some good real pictures.

Well, keep in mind many of the suckers die prematurely. That's why we have the Darwin Awards.

We'll all be better off once the people who would drink gasoline, drink gasoline

God, now they're trying to slashdot the Darwin Awards !

Thomas-

I need one of these engines for my SAAB.

If you were going for the Darwin award, someone beat you to it.

The fact that you are looking for it for your saab, here is the darwin award to go with it.

A PS that isn't plugged in is no danger!

Wrong! Dangerously wrong! Do you want someone to be killed by blindly believing this statement?

A switching PSU is dangerous after unplugging the mains for quite a while. You know that:

Sure, there are big capacitors in there, but after a couple of days, even these have trickled to a full discharge.

The important statement is that it takes a lot of time for the capacitors do discharge. And you don't really want an amateur to fiddle with a switching PSU, without knowing about dangerous parts and without proper equipment (at least an isolating transformer and properly isolated tools). At least I don't want it.

So, please kids, don't try this at home. Don't open any equipment that operates at more than 40 volts or generates more than 40 volts. Don't try to repair that equipment unless you want a Darwin award or you have had a proper training.

Tux2000

just keep your browser tuned to http://www.darwinawards.com/. If you don't see trepanation, you'll see lots of other odd stuff.

or evolution in action?

Tourists have been flocking to the site for several days now, hoping to see the volcano erupt ... and get their names enshrined in the Darwin Hall of Shame.

Chainsaw romance

He'll have to do one better than this guy, who only rated an honorable mention.

I'd say he's trying to get rid of his Mother-in-Law

Oh, and here I was thinking he was shooting for a Darwin Award.

an honorary Darwin award, I think.

If you've heard of something like this related to the Darwins, perhaps you're thinking of this urban legend.

an honorary Darwin award, I think.

If you've heard of something like this related to the Darwins, perhaps you're thinking of this urban legend.

For his next projects, Giuseppe will be working on Jet-Powered Segways, aptly to be named JetWays.

Two words: Natural Selection. Maybe their teenagers aren't ready for the Darwin Awards Like this guy from Texas or this guy from North Carolina

Two words: Natural Selection. Maybe their teenagers aren't ready for the Darwin Awards Like this guy from Texas or this guy from North Carolina

The early war gases were mostly Chlorine, which is not hard to make.

"The South American cane toad, Bufo marinus, was introduced to Australia as a biological control for the cane beetle, which destroys millions of dollars sugar cane each year. This was an environmental disaster. First, the toad never developed a taste for cane beetles, but instead slaked its prodigious appetite with all manner of endemic fauna. Second, the toad has two poison sacs behind its head, and its toxins are not restricted solely to these glands, making it poisonous fare for Australian wildlife during every stage of its lifecycle."

Educate yourself, http://anotherguy.com/darwin.html or http://www.darwinawards.com

That word, embrace. It is more flexible than I had initially thought. And it took an article title like this to demonstrate this.

We could, for example, begin using it in lieu of opposites and still retain the original meaning, like if we were talking about the Boston Embracer. Or this warm and fuzzy story about cooperation, understanding, and symbiosis between man and pet.

With this new meaning-neutral language which we here at /. have pioneered, all I can say is, thank you Microsoft for the wonderful product you are kind enough to allow me to buy from you.

planes can use propulsion systems much more exotic than a reciprocating mechanical engine

So, a fairer comparison would be to strap a jet engine on top of a car... Errmmmm, never mind... That one's been done...

Or a really good one if he's trying to get a Darwin Award

Yay! Go stupid (soon to be dead) guy!

PS - Something tells me this guy has a mullet, too.

I said "1-man IT shop" dumbass... not "1-man company". Learn to read. And to answer your other question, its "insightful" because it provides a direct answer to the original poster's question of "What sort of experiences do the rest of slashdotters have along these lines?". I have experience along these lines and I stated as much.

Perhaps you'd enjoy relating to the other inbreds oft mentioned over at The Darwin Awards

-3 Flamebait Mod... but heck, we only have so much patience. Sometimes the dumbnuts that post without reading deserve a good flaming...

It's not just a good thing, its the only way.

Nice simplistic defense of Social Darwinism.

Society strives to create an environment whereby you will be better off by putting energies into playing the game and getting ahead.

But when did this ever work satisfyingly? How much can a society do when the ruling caste has the power to shape the laws almost arbitrarily to their favor?

As the process continues, those who are doing well will make laws to allow them to continue to do well, thus further fostering the environment.

No, thus further fostering themselves. These laws, created by special interest groups, tend to benefit those who want to take the corruption game further. This does not necessarily mean that their average reproductive success would be enhanced because people are by no means (in the Darwinian sense) perfectly adapted to modern living conditions. We're still somewhat optimized for stone age societies, though with a completely different set of memes. How many politicians or CEOs do you know that do not have a single child? How many store clerks that have 3 or more? In evolutionary terms (wrt to maximizing your reproductive success), it's rather pointless to take baths in champagne or, as a woman, to have your breasts filled with a sticky substance that may seriously get in the way of your job of breast-feeding your offspring (in case you have any). There's no equivalent to mother's milk in terms of survival chances and developmental benefits.

There simply is no evidence that social success and reproductive success are closely related, nor is it obvious that they should in today's class societies. The theory of evolution describes an undirected, thoughtless, myopic and chaotic natural process that causes lifeforms - in the long term - to adapt to their environment. In no way is this a "good thing", since ethics are based on the subjective judgement of men. Nature isn't good or bad, it just is. What you describe isn't any more good or bad than the fact that rain falls downwards or that the Earth revolves around the sun.

Btw, social status, professional success and even high intelligence in your usual job by no means guarantee that you will not star the Darwin Awards. I know of another rather (in-)famous German lawyer who's barely able to get the grammar right when writing a moderately long sentence, and certainly not without making at least two severe spelling mistakes. It's no problem for him though because most certainly his secretary does all the paperwork, and he's definitely earning a lot of money. There's nothing inherently good about that. He knows how to play the game, and he does, but there's no evidence that this helps society, even though the laws usually are meant to help society (there's no indication that most of them regularily do, and all have exceptions).

This turns into a class system and accelerates until revolution and then socialism.

First, every society has different classes. Even men and women are two seperate classes in most societies, in one way or the other. Classes are not necessarily strictly separated. Second, "prevent their competitors"... competitors in which respect? If I skew the competition for social status in my favor, I have to fear less and less competition. But does this prevent my competitors, or just change the kind of competition? You don't tell. What should people compete for, anyway? What kind of competition helps society, what kind of competition hurts it? And as for point three, I mostly agree. I would say revolution is the outcome of skewing competition in a way that grossly defrauds the masses. This process starts from day one when you give the ruling caste(s) too much power in setting national policies, and it gets worse over time, until eventually it may be so obvious a

Try this Darwin Award nominee.

Wrong time, wrong place, wrong everything...

... seems to be Darwin Awards material.

If you do want to try it, make sure someone sends your story here so we can all enjoy.

Lawnchair Larry

Because it's a candidate for the Darwin Awards instead.

Really. I mean, I think I've got a good set of cojones, but this is over the top...

I think YOU are the prior "art"... :)

Ever heard of The Darwin Awards? :)

Stupid people deserve to be held responsible for their stupid actions. [snip] They're just hindering natural selection :)

interestingly, what you're advocating is called social darwinism.

the fallacy of that theory is obvious on its face. i will say nothng more.

i will say this, however: sometimes people don't have meaningful choices. saying that someone chose to sign a contract signing away their soul is a useless argument if that person doesn't have either an equal postion from which to bargain or some other reasonable choice.

IANAL, but IAALaw student.

You can't tell from the photo if there is a decent safety rail up there, to keep people from doing something they shouldn't... If the railing isn't high enough, I would be willing to bet a box of doughnuts that someone will earn a Darwin Award by the end of 2005 on that bridge (or, rather, under it in a 2-mile radius). Heck, they might get one in spite of the railing...

Darwin Awards!

Oh boys...I think I'm going to have a fun night tonight. These are going to be hilarious to watch. Here's a little exercize you can try to test evolution. Find the biggest building you can. Climb to the top of it. Fling yourself from the top. If you hit the ground and die...it's Darwinism in action! If, however, God miraculaously spares you, then you can have the smug satisfation that you were right. Because God would never let his creations hurt themselves...

That after failing to get a Darwin award using conventional baloons, someone would come up with a version that would guarantee you get the award. If you use a lawn chair as payload, anyway :-)

... Wendy "Darwin" Northcutt has announced that she will be relocating from New York to Mojave in order to be closer to the apparent location featured in many bazaar deaths that have suddenly started being reported in submissions to her well known website.

Unfortunately, it's paranoia of getting sued that drives this. Companies all over the place do things they know are ridiculous to cover themselves in the event that someone does a really stupid thing that they should know better. The company I work for has just annoyed over a thousand customers by insisting that advertising "lightboxes" are moved inside as we have been informed that there is a very slight chance that if someone touches it when it is very wet that they may get a minor electrical shock.

Of course companies need to act responsibly when they determine that a danger exists. However, the issue of mobile phones at petrol pumps is similar in many ways to the infamous do not eat stuff you find all over the place. Design something idiot proof, and they'll design a better idiot. People manage to hurt and main themselves doing all kinds of really stupid things.

* Petrol = Gasoline for Americans who don't what I'm on about

They are probably already eligible for an honourable mention. :)

Speaking of concern for one's safetly, I wonder if and when the suit will be tied into a Darwin Award

What's the model of that GE turbine, I need to do a conversion. I just hope I don't end up This Guy.

It's interesting to note that quite a few people have made it to the peak of Everest, and then died on the way down.

So as long as they don't impregnate someone at the top, its a gene that will eliminate itself. See, these are the kinds of things that would spice up the Darwin Awards.

Of course it will pale in comparison to Phase 2, when the European Space Agency augments the Skis with a JATO pack for the return trip, and possibly suborbital flight.

However, given the choice of your fascist hand-holding and increased traffic fatalities (assuming that the traffic fatality statistics aren't borked in the first place) I'll take the deadliness, please.

for those unfamiliar with the concept:

The Darwin Awards honor those who improve our gene pool... by removing themselves from it. Of necessity, this honor is bestowed posthumously.

The Darwin Awards honor those who improve our gene pool... by removing themselves from it.

Is there a Darwin Award for business and companies?

If not - Why not?

Is there a Darwin Award for business and companies?

If not - Why not?

The goal is to make it common knowledge that buying from spammers is stupid

The problem with "common knowledge" is that people who do stupid things are completely impervious to it.

Don't beleive me? Check this out.

If we wanted to build a bona fide organic human brain, yes we would need to quantify not only the brain's elemental composition but also how it functions. You are right in that it clearly seems beyond our reach to do that.

But AI isn't about building an organic brain. It simply seeks to replicate the output on a particular level i.e. not at the neuronal level but at the behavioural level say. To achieve the latter do we need to understand the deep functioning of the brain? There seems to be no compelling reason. And fundamentally, AI has to work with the materials available i.e. silicon and metal and our concept of logic. Organic systems evolved to suit their medium. We can't (at the moment) use that medium so we can only expect to have to find an alternative means to the same end. Sort of like fixed wings and airfoils vice flapping wings of bone and feathers.

As for the "trickery and deterministic patterns", that's human arrogance at work. How do you know that that isn't all there is to it? You don't. There is such a problem with the definition of intelligence that it actually makes benchmarking quite ... impossible. Do a Google search on the topic.

What is particularly nice to see is that the "oragutan" has learned over a long time period. It still mystifies me why we expect to achieve learning in short time frames (see all the arguments about how neural networks take too long to train). A human child using the most sophisticated natural computer (the brain) still takes years to grasp all the basic elements needed for survival. Heck, the Darwin awards show that decades is often not sufficient for adequate human learning.

I fear the day i have to buy a AV-tool for Linux. My opinion is : if a user is too stupid and runs email-executables, at least the only thing he deserves is to have all his personnal files deleted. Users should always be sponsored.

Nah, it's better just to lay out in front of a microwave dish.