Slashdot Mirror
Blame Your Mistakes on Technology
Techdirt has an quick look at how it is becoming much more common for people to blame their mistakes on technology. "There are people driving off cliffs and through flooded roads and taking detours that span half of England, apparently at the behest of their navigation units. Things got so bad in one place that authorities even had to put up "ignore your sat nav" signs. Now, a woman's car got hit by a train, and for some reason, she's blaming a GPS navigation unit."
I work for a company that makes software that is used for navigation, and there are a good amount of tech support calls complaining about how the "program sent us down an unmarked dirt road!" They don't seem to realize that they drove themselves down the dirt road, on the suggestion of a computer. I think we've all seen our GPS's be off by a bit, some people are missing the fact that nothing is perfect, especially not a box with a tiny screen.
23. Turn right at Long Wharf 0.1 mi
24. Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 3,462 mi
25. Slight right at E05 0.5 mi
that's why i like google:)
Yeah, a simple destinationElement.innerHTML = "Loading..." before the call would do wonders. Some sites are nice enough to do that when employing AJAX. (BGG uses "Updating...")
That said, the biggest problem with AJAX is the same as with frames: They screw up the idea of bookmarking a page.
This is in England! She had to open a huge great gate paitend white with red markings, weighing nearly half a ton to get on the tracks. This style of gate gates appear nowhere in England except at level crossings. If she did not know that, then she had clearly never taken a driving test.
She is not only stupid, but also criminally insane.
However, the British newspapers have it in for GPS because their staff are too stupid to be able use it themselves.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Actually, in the McDonalds case it was not the issue of spilling coffee that was in question. The woman admitted she spilt the coffee, and it was a stupid thing to do.
The issue was that McDonalds like to keep their coffee at about 98C because it lasts longer that way. Most people drink coffee at about 60C, any more and it burns you. Most people do not expect to be severly burned by coffee, because it is usually not hot enough. McDonalds, in an attempt to save money by brewing fewer pots, handed her a cup of dangerous liquid without any warning. Even if she had sipped the coffee, it would have burnt her mouth.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I was always taught BIDMAS:
Brackets
Indices
Division
Multiplication
Addition
Subtraction
Seems to be how everything works over here in the UK, and all US devices I've come across follow that order as well.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
She was a passenger in the car that her grandson was driving. He had stopped the vehicle specifically so she could remove the lid for adding cream and sugar.
Let me repeat myself. Stella Liebeck was sitting in a motionless car when she spilled coffee that was so hot that she required skin grafts.
Stop making assertions about how stupid people are based on made-up "facts".
But then again, I could be wrong.
Stella Liebeck was not driving. She was a passenger in a vehicle stopped specifically so she could safely remove the lid.
But then again, I could be wrong.
Actually, she would have been fine, even then, if she'd been slightly observant.
Reading the article, it's clear she made it through the gate, and then, like a fucking moron, parked on the train tracks to close the gate behind her. If she'd just driven another ten feet and then gone back, her car would have been fine, although she could have been trapped on the wrong side waiting for the train to pass.
I don't know in what universe you can drive over railroad tracks without noticing. They're quite noticeable even on main roads with automated control systems, I can just imagine how bumpy it was on this unautomated gate. And she got out of her car while parked on them!
Oh, not to mention, she not only drove over them, she walked up right next to them to open the gate in the first place! I'm sure there was some sort of 'train' sign posted. Even the fully automated systems tell you to, after all the signals say you can go, to look for a train and then go.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
there isn't a universally agreed-upon set of rules for humans and calculators/computers.
The Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction order has worked for me in all situations - I'm curious which situations it fails in.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I boil a kettle, immediately pour the water into the cup, add creamer and server. It's likely to be far hotter (close to 100 degrees C) than the coffee at McDonalds. I drink (well, sip) it pretty much straight-away as well. So does everyone I know.
You're a fucking imbecile if you think you're putting 95C or whatever water in your mouth. I'm sorry, but you need to learn this now, before someone hands you a cup of water that hot and you actually put in in your mouth. (Or, hell, hold it in your hands if it's a non-insulated cup.)
No human being can drink anything above 80C, or they at least can't take two sips of it because they're screaming. 70C will cause scalding within a second on your skin, and while it's possible to drink something that hot very quickly without causing physical burns, it's not a very clever idea. Thank goodness people's stomachs are full of liquids which immediately cool it down.
60C liquids will scald you within 5 seconds, and somewhere around there is about the hottest coffee is ever consumed on purpose, although it's usually handed out about 70C, which is still somewhat dangerous, although nowhere as dangerous as handing people a thin cup full of 80C liquid because it will cool quickly and some people are taking it for a thirty minute drive.
And for all you people using Fahrenheit, be sure to to recall that 10 degree C is about 18 degrees Fahrenheit. There's a pretty large difference between 60C and 70C and 80C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
You forgot to "Link to this page" before copying the URL. I think this route is what you meant.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I would assume that most people would assume it will give them a damn nasty burn. Combined with the fact that hot liquids that are kept pressed to the skin (i.e. via clothing) and not allowed to ventalate steam (i.e. in the crotch) will cause extremely severe burns. 3rd degree would not suprise me at all. But then, I don't go sticking cups of boiling liquid in my crotch.
To that end:
http://www.firehouse.com/magazine/archives/1998/S
http://www.thermomegatech.com/brochure/ThermoMix_
http://www.bunnomatic.com/pages/coffeebasics/cb6h
Wanna bet when she spilled the coffee it was in contact with her crotch for longer than the 1.8 seconds it would take to develop third degree burns?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The coffee as-poured by McDonalds is ~82 degrees C.
. html8 50.html
I get 190F = 87C from the source below.
so while she's driving.
She wasn't driving. You know nothing.
The basic summary of the case is this:
"in the ten years prior to Stella's accident, over 700 men, women, and children had been burned by the unsafe McDonald's coffee. For years, McDonald's sold coffee that was "unfit for human consumption", and made $1.3 million dollars a day in profit doing so. Information such as this wasn't really reported by the media. What was reported was the $2.6 million dollar jury verdict.
The jury arrived at that figure by calculating the profit of two-days worth of coffee sales, and "fining" McDonald's that amount to get their attention and make them fix the problem.
It worked. The day after the verdict, McDonald's lowered the coffee temperature to a safe-but-hot 158 degrees. (70C)"
Links:
http://www.corpreform.com/2003/11/more_about_mcdo
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
As such, it will give driving directions to any western European country from any Continential state.
The wierd part is, it will not give directions to get to Brazil from New York, even though it IS driveable
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com