I've always thought the 'setting the clock on your VCR' thing was a particularly invalid test of technical competence. If there was ever a stupider activity in this history of man's development, I can't imagine what it was. In order to set the clock on my current VCR, you have to:
a) turn the VCR off. The clock can't be set while the thing is actually "on", never mind running. b) Push the Stop button. Obviously that's why it has to be off, because if it was on and you pressed stop, well, it would actually stop something. c) Use the pause button to switch between minutes, hours and AM/PM d) Use the fast forward and rewind keys to change the numbers.
My answering machine is similar, but stupider yet, because you have to press two keys at the same time to get it into time setting mode.
My microwave uses pressing the time button twice. Followed by the numbers, followed by the time button again. That's not bad, I suppose.
My car radio, also dumb. You use the preset buttons. If you press the button, you go to your radio station. If you press the button and hold it down, you set the station to the current station. If you press it and hold it down while hitting another button, you change the time on the clock.
Would having a whole independent set of buttons just for setting the clock really be such a terrible hardship? Maybe it's overkill on my $99 VCR, but my microwave has a separate button for defrosting fish, and another one for heating breakfast pastries, two things I've never done in my life, while I reset the clock 5 or 6 times a year. And as for my 20K dollar car? Somewhere in there must be the budget for one or two extra buttons.
The thing is, it's not just SPAM that's the problem. I've never received a single piece of SPAM at work, yet I have trouble managing my inbasket. It's entirely possible to have too much mail, with all of it still being business appropriate. Some of it is crap, and I wish my co-workers hadn't sent it to me; that's what is hard to filter out. Spam is easy, it can mostly be automatically filtered off, and what can't be is easily recognized as spam. I'm never going to mistake penis enlargement for something I need to read. But deciding - and then remembering - whether I need to read or respond to that note from Joe down the hall is a lot harder.
I have similar results with Mozilla's filtering. When I first started using it, it filtered nothing. Then, for awhile, it filtered everything and I was constantly having to retrieve my mail from the Spam box. Now, it moves most spam and a few things that aren't. Better, but not great, as I still have to review the spam box to be sure.
To my mind, an ideal candidate quality for spam filtering would be spelling and grammar checks. My actual friends are a remarkably literate bunch. My mailing list acquaintances are somewhat less so, but I'm just going to delete the LOLers and the anti-capitalization protestors, anyway, so if they get filtered off as spam, so be it.
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I've always thought the 'setting the clock on your VCR' thing was a particularly invalid test of technical competence. If there was ever a stupider activity in this history of man's development, I can't imagine what it was. In order to set the clock on my current VCR, you have to:
a) turn the VCR off. The clock can't be set while the thing is actually "on", never mind running.
b) Push the Stop button. Obviously that's why it has to be off, because if it was on and you pressed stop, well, it would actually stop something.
c) Use the pause button to switch between minutes, hours and AM/PM
d) Use the fast forward and rewind keys to change the numbers.
My answering machine is similar, but stupider yet, because you have to press two keys at the same time to get it into time setting mode.
My microwave uses pressing the time button twice. Followed by the numbers, followed by the time button again. That's not bad, I suppose.
My car radio, also dumb. You use the preset buttons. If you press the button, you go to your radio station. If you press the button and hold it down, you set the station to the current station. If you press it and hold it down while hitting another button, you change the time on the clock.
Would having a whole independent set of buttons just for setting the clock really be such a terrible hardship? Maybe it's overkill on my $99 VCR, but my microwave has a separate button for defrosting fish, and another one for heating breakfast pastries, two things I've never done in my life, while I reset the clock 5 or 6 times a year. And as for my 20K dollar car? Somewhere in there must be the budget for one or two extra buttons.
The creativity is in figuring out how to attach the frigging laser beams to their heads, of course.
The thing is, it's not just SPAM that's the problem. I've never received a single piece of SPAM at work, yet I have trouble managing my inbasket. It's entirely possible to have too much mail, with all of it still being business appropriate. Some of it is crap, and I wish my co-workers hadn't sent it to me; that's what is hard to filter out. Spam is easy, it can mostly be automatically filtered off, and what can't be is easily recognized as spam. I'm never going to mistake penis enlargement for something I need to read. But deciding - and then remembering - whether I need to read or respond to that note from Joe down the hall is a lot harder.
I have similar results with Mozilla's filtering. When I first started using it, it filtered nothing. Then, for awhile, it filtered everything and I was constantly having to retrieve my mail from the Spam box. Now, it moves most spam and a few things that aren't. Better, but not great, as I still have to review the spam box to be sure.
To my mind, an ideal candidate quality for spam filtering would be spelling and grammar checks. My actual friends are a remarkably literate bunch. My mailing list acquaintances are somewhat less so, but I'm just going to delete the LOLers and the anti-capitalization protestors, anyway, so if they get filtered off as spam, so be it.