Slashdot Mirror
Prevent Gmail From Emailing Under the Influence
mikesd81 writes "Google has developed 'Mail Goggles,' a Gmail add-on that makes sending email from Gmail more difficult during certain times (which you can set). If you have Mail Goggles installed, it will force you to answer a series of math questions before sending out any new messages. You can adjust the math difficulty and times this option is in effect. If you get any of the questions wrong, Mail Goggles will say, 'Water and bed for you. Or try again.' Of course, if you set the math settings too high, you may have a tough time solving some of those problems in under 60 seconds, even when sober. Then again, if you're sober, you could just turn Mail Goggles off and hit send on that impassioned letter to your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend or that flame to your boss."
I can't do math unless I'd drunk, you insensitive clod!
im so wasted right now
mods would have more free time. Oh, wait...
All this means is that people will phone or sms or worse, show up drunk on their ex's door more often (perhaps even drive there). Sure it's a lot easier to send a drunken email than go see someone in person so that'll stop some of it but the reality is if you're a serial drunk, you need to get some help. Nothing else is going to fix it.
I've never understood why Western society (and others) glorify the pissup.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I think I'll turn this on... Not that I drink.
I can see this being more useful by being integrated with a USB breathalyzer peripheral. Does such a thing exist? Hmmmm . . .
Subject line says it all. That's what I get for half-assed spellchecking.
We might as well apply the monkey-typewriter theorem and have the hardest setting require a successful proof of a Millennium Prize problem.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
The difficulty is sort of disappointing. Even on the hardest setting, it asked, for example, 9x10 and 9x4.
They had this for mobile phones :/
*me waits for google android*
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
I'd probably be in contact with more people from college and a few exes if I'd had that 10 years ago. ;-)
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
For those of us who use mutt with gmail: Just install twenty or so different editors and then set up a script so mutt will chose a random editor each time you start it. Leave ee, ed, nano, and pico plus your usual editor out of the script. That might work, if you really need this service. At least for a few days, at which point you've learned every editor. Then I guess you're back to square one.
Caveat Utilitor
If you're not sober enough to do the math, perhaps you're sober enough to copy/paste them into google so it can give you the answers ;)
This sounds familiar... "You are trying to send an email, Allow/Deny" But when you "geekify" it (add some maths), it makes it acceptable. Maybe if this is popular enough, we'll see it in the next version of Windows? Can't wait!
Do Obama and the Democrats deserve a lift in the polls...
Perhaps the best use for such a measure here on Slashdot would be preventing posting from another story! ;-)
I miss you so much. Your so god damn sexy and I need you. I'm getting naked and I'm going to wait for you to come over.
I'm reminded of the old saying, "If you make owning a gun a crime, only criminals will own guns."
If you hide drunk mailing behind math problems, only Engineers will drunk mail.
*shudders*
But what if you're a mathematician? There really should be some option to replace it with sports questions.
I would think most (or at least) some of geeks are using POP or IMAP access for GMail, that eliminates need to even visit gmail.com, hence the tool doesn't make a difference.
All that effort solving the math problems on time, just to type "You're a dick" and stagger off to bed.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
i ws gingo to ber the first psot but i cna't fnd het buottosn :(
1) This would only be comparable if Allow/Deny happened at times when you're likely to be drunk.
2) Even a drunk person can hit Allow if given enough time.
Dost think in a moment of anger
'Tis well with thy seniors to fight?
They prosper, who burn in the morning,
The letters they wrote overnight.
I used to do the most difficult math proofs while drunk, just to mess with the other math majors heads. Its actually easier in a way. If I know it sober, I know it drunk. They should just scan the email for references to your mom jokes. If it doesn't have one, I'm probably drunk and forgot to include it.
Complex Mail Transfer Protocol - coming soon!
That's right. Apparently it also looks like a sports car and serves as a remote control. Pretty sweet.
Those pictures are rather sketchy, though.
I'm sure they thought this through and also require answering a math question for turning the app off?
This sounds familiar... "You are trying to send an email, Allow/Deny" But when you "geekify" it (add some maths), it makes it acceptable. Maybe if this is popular enough, we'll see it in the next version of Windows? Can't wait!
By "geekifying" it, you stop people from clicking "OK" reflexively. Isn't that where UAC fails?
Does it harm World intellectuality having Uber Smart Google Employees spend their time on more usable stuff instead of this brain dead add-ons? Some psychologist should make a research at collaborative IQ decline of 'uber smart' people getting together at Googleplex. May I ask if those candies and comfortable cushions worth your brain cells?
Isn't that supposed to read as: Google Giggles?
Did Google take the Ballmer Peak into account?
Reminds me of this:
http://www.virginmobile.com.au/services/duti.html
I don't know about anyone else.. but I'm a pro at turning settings off when drunk...
Defective Logic
Is that where you wake up to an e-mail so ugly you chew the mouse off?
Knowing fellow slashdotters, they'll probably turn it on just to get random math problems to solve. At least I would.
...yesterday, before I gmailed my boss after a few bowls of loud-mouth soup following a bad day at the office!
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
2. e-Bay goggles.
2. Keep your computer in a cabinet or room with a combination lock. (Ever try to open one o' those babies after too many cups of liquid courage?)
3. AOL. (Your email will probably get lost anyway.)
4. Use an email address like v1agera694Ucheap@gmail.com or r0llexxBargains@gmail.com. (Your message will be flagged as spam and never read anyway.)
5. Don't email after more than two drinks. Ever, no matter how innocuous your message may seem.
6. Don't drink more than you can handle, especially on a regular enough basis to need something like this, you moron.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
This seems to me like a drunken captcha. I expect a new outsourced market to develop - dictating email messages (while hammered) to armies of third-world operators to put in on your behalf to get round this.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
But that's LISP for you. Perhaps getting drunk helped shut down the C side of my brain or something....
Engineering is the art of compromise.
For a long time, my plan has been to build something like this into my house. When I want to adjust my thermostat, for example, I want the house to give me a quick little test to see if I'm mentally alert. Regardless of the outcome, the house would then let me adjust the thermostat.
However, it would remember the results. And if it determines over a long period (say, a couple months), that I'm suffering significant mental degradation, to the point where I'm likely to not be able to take care of myself, the house will wait until I'm sound asleep one night (which it can determine by monitoring my temperature with infrared sensors, and listening to my respiration, for example), and then do something to kill me in my sleep (gas, probably).
When the house is sure that I'm dead (no breathing for a long time, and body temperature down to ambient room temperature), it will then call the coroner's office to report my death.
How about simply having an I'm-going-drinking mode that you can't turn off for x many hours, that keeps your outgoing mails in an outbox for review for y hours. Emails in the outbox could be deleted or edited before the delay finishes, and maybe you could have a setting to keep-and-send-only-after-approval to stop anything sent going out at all until you've (hopefully) sobered up and checked it for "what-the-heck-was-I-thinking?".
no
With the end of year approaching it's reasonably likely that the frequency and severity of alcohol consumption will steadily increase for the next few months.
Your house might interpret your state as a physical and mental decline rather than a mere seasonal variation and bump you off early on the first of January.
Of course when you wake up with that hang over you might wish it had, however it's only a short term feeling and you'll forget about it in time, certainly by the following New Years Day.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Justin the kicn of tmei!
I wish they had this on Sloshhhhhdot. (my boss is an idiot)
Please ignore the last post. I really, really didn't mean it. I'm so sorry that I wrote that about my boss. So sorry. He is a wonderful, wonderful person. I am crying into my beer thinking about how I could have written that. I really really love him............. zzzZZZZZZZ
Just imagine how context sensitive the ads will be if they know you are drunk and horny!
Winkey shortcut mapping for 64bit windows. WinKeyPlus
would be to enable it on all arithematic student gmail accounts all the time. Whenever they successfully send a mail they learn something.
My Blog | Badsh
Why not work on something more useful like spam filters!?!? Granted, drunk emailing is well... luckily I'm a guy and not prone to getting drunk emails from women, regardless, spam is a bigger problem than ebc's! I get more spam in my gmail box than I do in my hotmail box... hehe hehe hehe I said box! It all started with me stupidly giving my gmail address to a computer moron, but I would expect better spam filters from an intelligent computer giant like Google.
Assume that 9 and 4 aren't just numbers but place holders for chickens and the "X" means crossing as in there are 9 Hens and 4 Roosters that you cross. In order to determine the number you have to factor in time as in at present the total it 13 but in six months the total number of chickens might be 46. The problem is based on time and other factors like disease and early death the total number could easily range from 0 to 100 over the next six months and range into the thousands over a period of years. Without knowing more details 46 may be an accurate answer but other factors like time, egg rate and fertility rates and survival rates need to be added to generate an accurate number. Then again it might be easier to just drink another beer and stop stressing about math so you can send a picture of your ass to the girl that just dumped you.
I am writing this email in regards of one that I had sent out a while back asking fellow list members if they had any leads for some work. I would like to thanks those of you who had replied to me with the leads for places like TMC and such. I greatly appreciate it. However there were also some on the list that were in the hiring positions that emailed as well and I have to say that I am a little disappointed. While some of them called me in for an interview they did not have the decency to call me back or mail me a "you suck" letter as I like to call them, telling me that I wasn't hired on for whatever reason. I remember a time, not that long ago where people had more integrity to TELL YOU TO YOUR FACE that a prospect didn't have a skill that they were looking for or for whatever reason, they just really didn't fit whatever wants (looks, goals, what have you) that the company in a whole was looking for. IF YOU DON'T WANT SOMEONE DON'T CALL THEM IN TO BEGIN WITH. I have been looking for someone to hire me for the last 7 months, I don't have the time to be teased with the thought and hope ACTUALLY having some local work. My advice for you, and you guys know who you are, is to start thinking about the prospective employee, the employees and your bottom line if you would like to start having a better reputation. I have OWNED my own business, and had the SAME hiring responsibilities as you folks and I have come to learn that in order to have a prosperous and successful business, you have to build a reputation as being good to your prospective employees so that when they ARE NEEDED they will come back and hopefully become a part of your business family. You guys and business practices disgust me.
Perhaps Google should do something like this: http://xkcd.com/481/
Calling atheism and agnosticism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.
ah but thats a Gaussian with mean=0 and sigma=0.5 (missing the 0.80 normalisation factor) so one would assume geeks would know all its properties.
Maybe if this is popular enough, we'll see it in the next version of Windows? Can't wait!
I don't like the idea of where that might go. "It looks as if you are trying to uninstall Vista. Please prove the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis"...
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
1. /. ogles
WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]
ogle
v : look at with amorous intentions
'Cos we've always known /. is over endowed with testosterone.
While this gmail thing is lulz and all, how about an equivalent requirement for starting automobiles?
(yes, I know your reply is going to point out the fact that this would decrease automobile useage in the United States by 40%.)
Mike B
...to gather drunkard statistics. I bet you'll see a lot more alcohol related google ads after failing a few of those tests.
A better thing would be, NOT to tell you you were wrong but to pretend to send the mail and then notify you few hours after (when you are PROBABLY sober) about your failure.
Although this has been one of the most fruitful sources of real hilarity on /. for many years, thanks commentators. I feel compelled to just note that the most laudable side effect of Google's Giggles will be a huge boost to the mental numeracy of the world's technocrats. I can't help but wonder if that was the intention all along?
Perhaps a better test for alcohol intoxication might be to turn off the browser's spell checker, yet not allow the mail to go until the spelling is word perfect.
Aw, so sorry, can't do that! It'll put the primary school teachers to shame, and Little Johnney /. Snooks might actually lean to spell, albeit somewhat belatedly.
Friends don't let friends Drink & Derive.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
This is kind of sad really.
Next we'll be issuing CUI (Computing Under the Influence) tickets against drunken internet users. Why not? Information Highway sounds like a road to me. And it's a great source of revenue.
So who's going to be the first to install breathalizers on notebooks?
The goggles! They do nothing!!!
And save me some money.
Actually? I wish they had this for /. really. Err... I've come on in the morning and seen what I posted. I've seen what other people have posted.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Whats that you wanna fight mate! *hic*
In one of his novels (Microserfs, perhaps?) he said something about keyboards having a 'Drunk' key that when pressed would prevent you from sending emails for 12 hours.
I've drunk-dialed and drunk emailed too many times. So I quit drinking. If you need technology to tell you you're too messed up to be online, you might as well just give up and get an AOL account.
Oh thanks for that, now I've got coffee all over my keyboard ;)
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
HEY!
I derive better when I'm drunk!
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Based on many of the emails I see flying around the office regularly that probably should have been rethought, it would seem to me a nice feature to add to any email client is the ability to set a delay on the outbox, then ask the user the annoying Are You Sure? before actually delivering the email. Make this an option, and maybe there would be fewer Oh Crap moments or hot-blooded emails sent.
would people in Pittsburgh have 50% of their drunk emails go through regardless?
But I'd rather see this feature on eBay.
[Looks at stack of Atari 800 program cassettes that he has nothing on which to run them...]
that 5 minutes after Vista ships with that enabled hear about a proof of rzh
you also make it a PITA to use. Isn't that where long passwords fail?
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Maybe if this is popular enough, we'll see it in the next version of Windows? Can't wait!
I don't like the idea of where that might go. "It looks as if you are trying to uninstall Vista. Please prove the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis"...
Hey, it's working for the ReCAPTCHA initiative, so why not get a few unsolved mathematical problems solved in the process?
How about this: don't get drunk, don't use drugs. Side effects include, but are not limited to:
- sending stupid emails you will later regret
- driving right into the next tree
- chopping up your neighbor with an axe because it seems like a fun thing to do
- nausea, headaches and a general crappy existence
Don't underestimate no. 4, it's a real killer.
if you're a serial drunk
I have visions of John Belushi pouring beer on his cereal, "Little chocolate donuts: breakfast of champions!"
Free Martian Whores!
I've gotten drunk and used drugs plenty of times, and I have never experienced nausea, headaches or a generally crappy existence.
Then I assume you HAVE chopped up your neighbour with an axe because it seemed like a fun thing to do?
http://www.skullsecurity.org/blog/
If this were posted under "Idle," people would be so pissed right now.
I enabled it, saved, and see no way of managing the settings. Should a link have appeared along my Settings bar where I see other settings?
I'm kind of stoked as I had an idea like this a few months ago. Although I'd pretty much only need this on mobile, not on the web.
How can such people exist?
...in a society that supports and glorifies getting shit-faced drunk every night.
They just go out on an evening, get hammered, drunk drive their way back home somehow while the cops are busy pulling over speeders (who, in many countries, get tougher punishments for going faster than the sign says is safe while totally alert), then wake up with a nasty hangover and drag their asses to work. Heavy alcohol use is seen as OK (and abuse seen as no big deal) because the gubbymint hasn't labeled it an illegal drug. Those awful pot-smokers though, what a bunch of sorry lowlifes!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
But can you drink and integrate? After all, they say it's hard to derive backwards sober
What about being able to send through gmail from your blackberry without having to answer questions? That's always fun. Next up - blocking forum posting while under the influence!
Reminds me of this.
Really, if you get an SMS in the middle of the night you know that whoever sent it was drunk. You don't even need to read it. So between 00:00 and 06:00 you never send an email or SMS. EVER!
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
BTW, I think google captcha is the best sobriety test. I usually need a cup of strong coffee to pass it, even when sober.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
http://xkcd.com/323/
And people will go to some pretty long lengths to get Vista off a machine. So maybe this would be the push needed to get that type of problem solved.
"Oh my god I must prove the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis or be stuck forever on Vista!"
-Arthur
Is this a problem for people? Maybe because I don't drink myself into oblivion on the weekends, I haven't ever had problems EUI.
Forget Gmail, I need this for my E-Trade account
They should start a website of the emails that people were trying to send when they failed.
"Hostile workplace" lawsuits show that businesses have good reason to use technical filters and blocks to prevent the transmission of ill-advised e-mail. This link describes a case against the Chicago Police Department: http://legal-beagle.typepad.com/wrights_legal_beagle/2008/10/filter-and-block-pornography-from-workplace-e-mail.html --Ben
Benjamin Wright, Dallas, Texas, benjaminwright.us
fdisk will remove any operating system I know of.
Even drunk, I can get around any safeguard I set up for myself. I know because I have. I also know to empower someone else (preferably mostly sober)to safeguard my keys when I need to. I need tests of concentration and dexterity without a trivial work around to have some effect when I am drunk. On the other hand, I haven't been truly "drunk" since college, and I plan to not get drunk anytime soon. It's a waste of money and delicious booze.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
I work 3rd shift, you insensitive clod!
Before commenting on the Bible, please read it first
At least that's what my barbie says to me ...
Why do they hate sorority sisters so very very much!
(mind you, i'll get less myspace invites ...)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"It looks like you're installing Firefox. Please write a program which solves the halting problem."
Some of my best enmails are wtiiten whrn im tottttly trshed.
Even drunk, I can get around any safeguard I set up for myself. I know because I have.
Obviously, you're not drinking enough. One of my past roommates was stumped by the screen on his bedroom window when we confined him there after drinking too much on Halloween.
BTW, I think google captcha is the best sobriety test. I usually need a cup of strong coffee to pass it, even when sober.
you must not be using the right script :)
I once chopped up my neighbor with an axe because it seemed like a fun thing to do.
He didn't seem to care for it very much, and chopped me up with an axe because he was pissed at me for chopping him up with an axe because it seemed like a fun thing to do.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
But I don't do drugs.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Dear Google,
Please please please port this over to the G1 for text messages.
Thanks,
Drunky McBoozington
I added it, and I will see then next time... unfortunately, I stopped drinking. But who knows what will happen?
But I really do not think it would work. The hardest levels are still doable quickly. And as Randall Munroe (the guy of XKCD) showed during a presentation at Google actually, to resolve a rubix cube (for example) drunk, it takes just 15% more of time. Take your time at the last level and add 15% more, it is still fitting. I think one may pass out before not being able to solve the problems in time.
You must be really popular at parties.
I've come on in the morning and seen what I posted. I've seen what other people have posted.
I live in Europe, you insensitive clod!
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
No excuses for some of the gibbrish to come out of our keyboards. ;)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Do you want to install windows? y/n (y) Are you sure you want to install windows? y/n (y) Are you really sure you want to install windows? y/n (@%&*@ Y!) Are you absolutely positive you want to install windows? y/n (F*** it, where's the Linux livecd?)
My neighbor? Never! BTW, whats your home address?
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
now if only it will force me to attach the attachment that i've claimed, in the body of the message, to have attached
Bertrand Russell, possibly paraphrasing Yeats (possibly unintentionally):
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
(From his 1933 essay "The Triumph of Stupidity".)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I've gotten drunk and used drugs plenty of times, and I have never experienced nausea, headaches or a generally crappy existence.
Then you're not doing it right. In order to know your limits, you have to exceed them once in a while.
You call this a sig?