And I'd have done the same via a google search, but probably neither of us is an old and possibly vulnerable person who might, in our anxiety, lack a calm perspective. I'm not arguing against punishing those who abuse the system, just suggesting that grey areas might extend farther than is immediately apparent.
It makes me sick when people waste the Emergency service's time like this and I genuinely believe they should all be harshly punished for it - people's lives are at stake, there's no excuse.
I agree with the sentiment, but I think the difficulty lies in punishing the offenders without deterring people from reporting genuine emergencies, in the fear that they'll be punished if their problem isn't sufficiently severe.
I wouldn't classify any of the youtube clips as 'correct' emergency calls, but I can sympathise with at least a couple of them. One clip involves a woman whose house has been invaded by wasps, and I can imagine some people finding that sufficiently scary to panic and mistakenly classify it as an emergency. Another is superfically silly - an elderly woman who can't peel potatoes because she can't find her glasses - but, again, if you're old and confused and can't see well enough to eat, it could (in muddled sort of way) be a significant problem. And who do you call do deal with significant problems?
Again, I'm all for punishing people who take the piss, but I don't think it's a trivial line to draw.
Completely mental, even disregarding the obvious point that they're already getting paid at both ends for their fucking bandwidth.
Imagine that you're selling product X. The lovely BBC comes with an application that encourages lots of people to use lots of X. Fantastic! Coke and hookers all round!
Unless you've come up with some sort of freakish business model which relies on people paying for lots of X without actually using it. In which case, well, you're probably fucked.
Perhaps it's a reference to the Matrix (you could consider a neural interface to be an input device). Not that that's any less rubbish, but I think that this is one of those questions where you have to start at the bottom of the barrel and work your way down.
If you need to have the behaviour of a four-year-old boy in Second Life, the obvious solution is to get a four-year-old boy to play Second Life. If cost is a factor you can get a cheap one from Africa (or, indeed, from many places around the world) for far less than the price of a supercomputer. You could even get several to provide redundancy.
That's the trouble with programmers: no common sense. Sometimes a technological solution just isn't necessary.
That would be a reasonable position if their content wasn't already being 'redistributed' all over the place. Back in reality, they're pissing off Linux users in exchange for a piracy reduction of zero per cent.
On the plus side, they can at least claim to be preventing 'redistribution' and people who don't understand the technology will believe them.
Two mathematicians, let's call them Bob and Tarquin, were in a café discussing the woeful state of mathematical ignorance amongst the general public. Bob excused himself to visit the restroom and Tarquin beckoned over the waitress.
"Would you mind helping me with a small bet?" he asked. "When my friend returns I'm going to ask you a question, and I'd like you to reply 'X cubed'. OK?"
The waitress looked mystified but agreed to do as requested. A few minutes later, Dave returned and the two men resumed their earlier conversation.
"It's not all that bad," said Tarquin. "I bet you $10 that even this slack-jawed troll of a waitress can do basic calculus".
"You're on!" scoffed Dave.
So they beckoned the waitress over. Tarquin gave her a surreptitious wink and said "I wonder if you could help my friend and I settle an argument - can you tell me the integral of three X squared?"
The waitress pondered for a moment and replied "Easy: X cubed".
Tarquin grinned smugly at Dave as the waitress walked away. And then, over her shoulder, she added: "Oh yes: plus a constant".
I think you've hit on something with the snake idea.
Anyway, it's a little-known fact that 'absolute hot' is 39.6 degrees celsius (about 103.3 degrees fahrenheit). Any observation indicating a higher temperature is simply due to malfunctioning apparatus or experimental error.
If you're anything like me, you'll regularly encounter opposing viewpoints and have a mental reaction that lies somewhere between "I disagree but see your point" and "that's a bit stupid". Now and again, though, something crops up which is so breath-takingly demented that I'm torn between horror, hilarity and utter bewilderment. This gem falls squarely into the latter category.
Why are all 17-year-olds targeted for the actions of a minority?
Why is the age group least able to afford a tax being targeted?
Somewhat contrary to the above, who thinks that the average gamer is 17?
Which part of wider society fails to benefit from a better judicial system?
More generally, in what universe can this proposal possibly make any sense?
"The idea being that this is kind of a kids-kids thing, in other words, if we're going to do this for kids maybe this would be a good way to go about it. And if it's not the best way, I'm open to any other way"
Yes, I think it's pretty damn clear that "any other way" is likely to be rather less moronic than this.
This isn't really related to your point, but I'm reminded of a visit to my grandparents when I was about four years old. My grandfather wandered off to take a phone call, and came back into the room to announce the unexpected death of my uncle.
I collapsed into an irresistible fit of laughter. It was just a child's nervous reaction to a sudden and bewildering change of atmosphere, but some rather surprised looks were cast in the direction of the devil-child cackling away at this joyous news of death. Which, of course, just made it even worse.
I have to disagree with your comment that the guide is foolproof. While your average/. user would have no problems, the guide is just way too long for a typical non-technical user who's already going to be in a state of trepidation. One little step missed and reality diverges from the guide, and with that many steps it's not going to be hard for my grandmother to miss one of them.
They're also committing the cardinal sin of giving users options that they're not going to understand:
Choose what you would like to do with your emails after you
download them i.e.
- Keep Sky Email's copy in the Inbox
- Archive Sky Email's copy
- Delete Sky Email's copy
What does that mean? Which option do I want? What happens if I get it wrong? Yeah, you won't have any problems and you also know that it doesn't really matter, but my grandmother is now panicking and in the optimal mind-set for fucking up the later steps.
Don't know about the GP but I'm British (probably why the bit about bomb-making popped into my head; I'm still vaguely enraged about the whole book-burning thing). I quite fancy performing a citizen's arrest on Brown, on the grounds that he must know all sorts of interesting things that would be immensely useful to a terrorist.
Won't happen - they wouldn't give users the ability to reanimate the dead without the permission of the copyright holder (presumably FSM or Odin or someone). I suppose they could get official backing by releasing something (Holy Windows?) which makes you pray for half an hour before booting but, now that I think about it, that's pretty much the current position......oh, shit.
It's not really a huge gamble that the first result will be relevant. "I feel a vague sense of mild positivity" is probably more appropriate.
In order to generate a real, winner-takes-all atmosphere of living on the edge, an element of risk should be introduced. For instance, a 60% chance of going to the first search result, a 30% chance of going to tubgirl, a 9% chance of having your identity stolen and a 1% chance of having bomb-making instructions downloaded to your machine and a tip-off email sent to the relevant authorities.
I saw some of Heston's latest BBC series. Very entertaining but perhaps not entirely practical - in one of his recipes he made ice cream using liquid nitrogen, and his suggestion for the home enthusiast was to use dry ice instead. I like ice cream as much as the next man, but not to the extent that I'm willing to live through bad 80s disco all over again.
My old employer "mandated" (poorly) the use of the corporate logo as desktop wallpaper. That's the sort of policy I'll cheerfully bypass with a great big grin on my face.
Slashdot Mirror
And I'd have done the same via a google search, but probably neither of us is an old and possibly vulnerable person who might, in our anxiety, lack a calm perspective. I'm not arguing against punishing those who abuse the system, just suggesting that grey areas might extend farther than is immediately apparent.
It makes me sick when people waste the Emergency service's time like this and I genuinely believe they should all be harshly punished for it - people's lives are at stake, there's no excuse.
I agree with the sentiment, but I think the difficulty lies in punishing the offenders without deterring people from reporting genuine emergencies, in the fear that they'll be punished if their problem isn't sufficiently severe.
I wouldn't classify any of the youtube clips as 'correct' emergency calls, but I can sympathise with at least a couple of them. One clip involves a woman whose house has been invaded by wasps, and I can imagine some people finding that sufficiently scary to panic and mistakenly classify it as an emergency. Another is superfically silly - an elderly woman who can't peel potatoes because she can't find her glasses - but, again, if you're old and confused and can't see well enough to eat, it could (in muddled sort of way) be a significant problem. And who do you call do deal with significant problems?
Again, I'm all for punishing people who take the piss, but I don't think it's a trivial line to draw.
Very informative. I can't mod you any higher so I'm just going to, ermmm, waste a few seconds of your time and a few bytes of your bandwidth instead.
Ummm. Sorry.
Just a quick observation: you've written 'Factz' where you meant to write 'Facts'. No need to thank me.
"If you aren't prepared to cough up the extra cash, he says he'll put you in the Internet 'bus lane'."
Let me see if I've got this right - if I don't pay him money, he'll put me in the subsidized lane that contains no other traffic?
Errm, OK. Much obliged!
Completely mental, even disregarding the obvious point that they're already getting paid at both ends for their fucking bandwidth.
Imagine that you're selling product X. The lovely BBC comes with an application that encourages lots of people to use lots of X. Fantastic! Coke and hookers all round!
Unless you've come up with some sort of freakish business model which relies on people paying for lots of X without actually using it. In which case, well, you're probably fucked.
Good.
Perhaps it's a reference to the Matrix (you could consider a neural interface to be an input device). Not that that's any less rubbish, but I think that this is one of those questions where you have to start at the bottom of the barrel and work your way down.
If you need to have the behaviour of a four-year-old boy in Second Life, the obvious solution is to get a four-year-old boy to play Second Life. If cost is a factor you can get a cheap one from Africa (or, indeed, from many places around the world) for far less than the price of a supercomputer. You could even get several to provide redundancy.
That's the trouble with programmers: no common sense. Sometimes a technological solution just isn't necessary.
That would be a reasonable position if their content wasn't already being 'redistributed' all over the place. Back in reality, they're pissing off Linux users in exchange for a piracy reduction of zero per cent.
On the plus side, they can at least claim to be preventing 'redistribution' and people who don't understand the technology will believe them.
Fuck.
Two mathematicians, let's call them Bob and Tarquin, were in a café discussing the woeful state of mathematical ignorance amongst the general public. Bob excused himself to visit the restroom and Tarquin beckoned over the waitress.
"Would you mind helping me with a small bet?" he asked. "When my friend returns I'm going to ask you a question, and I'd like you to reply 'X cubed'. OK?"
The waitress looked mystified but agreed to do as requested. A few minutes later, Dave returned and the two men resumed their earlier conversation.
"It's not all that bad," said Tarquin. "I bet you $10 that even this slack-jawed troll of a waitress can do basic calculus".
"You're on!" scoffed Dave.
So they beckoned the waitress over. Tarquin gave her a surreptitious wink and said "I wonder if you could help my friend and I settle an argument - can you tell me the integral of three X squared?"
The waitress pondered for a moment and replied "Easy: X cubed".
Tarquin grinned smugly at Dave as the waitress walked away. And then, over her shoulder, she added: "Oh yes: plus a constant".
Good god, is there a Slashdot award for the most depressing post ever? I'm half inclined to go and kill everyone I like to spare them the possibility.
That was my reaction too - if you meet someone who's 'suspicious and a little creepy' it's possibly best not to date them.
"OK, so he's drenched in blood and carrying an axe, but he has such lovely eyes!"
I think you've hit on something with the snake idea.
Anyway, it's a little-known fact that 'absolute hot' is 39.6 degrees celsius (about 103.3 degrees fahrenheit). Any observation indicating a higher temperature is simply due to malfunctioning apparatus or experimental error.
"The idea being that this is kind of a kids-kids thing, in other words, if we're going to do this for kids maybe this would be a good way to go about it. And if it's not the best way, I'm open to any other way"
Yes, I think it's pretty damn clear that "any other way" is likely to be rather less moronic than this.
This isn't really related to your point, but I'm reminded of a visit to my grandparents when I was about four years old. My grandfather wandered off to take a phone call, and came back into the room to announce the unexpected death of my uncle.
I collapsed into an irresistible fit of laughter. It was just a child's nervous reaction to a sudden and bewildering change of atmosphere, but some rather surprised looks were cast in the direction of the devil-child cackling away at this joyous news of death. Which, of course, just made it even worse.
I doubt they need output, but perhaps the function of the sound card is to capture the input from the radio receiver.
I have to disagree with your comment that the guide is foolproof. While your average /. user would have no problems, the guide is just way too long for a typical non-technical user who's already going to be in a state of trepidation. One little step missed and reality diverges from the guide, and with that many steps it's not going to be hard for my grandmother to miss one of them.
They're also committing the cardinal sin of giving users options that they're not going to understand:
Choose what you would like to do with your emails after you download them i.e.
- Keep Sky Email's copy in the Inbox
- Archive Sky Email's copy
- Delete Sky Email's copy
What does that mean? Which option do I want? What happens if I get it wrong? Yeah, you won't have any problems and you also know that it doesn't really matter, but my grandmother is now panicking and in the optimal mind-set for fucking up the later steps.
Please remember to use MemeCode in future. Your comment should be coded as:
0567GS02("jokes", "expect");
Thank you for your time.
Don't know about the GP but I'm British (probably why the bit about bomb-making popped into my head; I'm still vaguely enraged about the whole book-burning thing). I quite fancy performing a citizen's arrest on Brown, on the grounds that he must know all sorts of interesting things that would be immensely useful to a terrorist.
Won't happen - they wouldn't give users the ability to reanimate the dead without the permission of the copyright holder (presumably FSM or Odin or someone). I suppose they could get official backing by releasing something (Holy Windows?) which makes you pray for half an hour before booting but, now that I think about it, that's pretty much the current position... ...oh, shit.
Can someone lend me a cricket bat, please?
It's not really a huge gamble that the first result will be relevant. "I feel a vague sense of mild positivity" is probably more appropriate.
In order to generate a real, winner-takes-all atmosphere of living on the edge, an element of risk should be introduced. For instance, a 60% chance of going to the first search result, a 30% chance of going to tubgirl, a 9% chance of having your identity stolen and a 1% chance of having bomb-making instructions downloaded to your machine and a tip-off email sent to the relevant authorities.
Cool! With a bit more work he'll be able to join in the chorus of Old MacDonald.
I saw some of Heston's latest BBC series. Very entertaining but perhaps not entirely practical - in one of his recipes he made ice cream using liquid nitrogen, and his suggestion for the home enthusiast was to use dry ice instead. I like ice cream as much as the next man, but not to the extent that I'm willing to live through bad 80s disco all over again.
My old employer "mandated" (poorly) the use of the corporate logo as desktop wallpaper. That's the sort of policy I'll cheerfully bypass with a great big grin on my face.