🙅 THE BAD IDEAS THREAD
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Why would they put a list of names in order by the first letter and nothing else?
All but one of the names are properly alphabetized by first+last. I'd assume either it was alphabetized manually and somebody made a mistake, or somebody originally entered Byron as Brian, then fixed the spelling but didn't re-sort the list.
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Makes sense. Modern lifestyles are all about sponging off of others.
And this differs from previous eras how? That's the entire basis of all organized societies; the only thing that has changed is that the poor can get in on the act as well as the hereditary upper classes, now. Oh, wait, that's not new, either, its just the social theories by which it is being done are had to be resurrected once it was seen that trying to get the unproductive to be productive wasn't working out. Remember the 'Granary' building in every Civilization game ever made? Yeah, say hello to the Welfare State, 2500 BC style.
Seriously, this isn't a new thing. Most societies in history have relied on the labor of a surprisingly small productive force - about 30% for traditional societies, but now as little as 5% in industrial ones - for basic necessities. Most people got what they needed through either trade of luxuries, deception, theft, or for the 1% who happen to be descendants of earlier successful thieves, hereditary prerogatives. The real change, if any, is that most of the theft is out in the open now, rather than hidden in some form of shakedown - unless you count taxation, of course, which is both.
People have forgotten just how radical capitalism was in 1776, because it has become routine to assume that we live in a society that practices it, but Adam Smith's work was descriptive, not prescriptive - he never said it should be this way, just that this was how it was working out in actual practice. He wasn't actually too enthusiastic about the prospects of actually building a society based on mutual competition, and didn't even really think it was possible (it isn't), but rather was pointing out that it was where things were headed at the time as the perks of the nobles got nibbled away. His main beef with the society at the time was that the laws of the time were freezing the system in a certain set of assumptions that no longer held true.
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And this differs from previous eras how? That's the entire basis of all organized societies; the only thing that has changed is that the poor can get in on the act as well as the hereditary upper classes, now. Oh, wait, that's not new, either, its just the social theories by which it is being done are had to be resurrected once it was seen that trying to get the unproductive to be productive wasn't working out. Remember the 'Granary' building in every Civilization game ever made? Yeah, say hello to the Welfare State, 2500 BC style.
Seriously, this isn't a new thing. Most societies in history have relied on the labor of a surprisingly small productive force - about 30% for traditional societies, but now as little as 5% in industrial ones - for basic necessities. Most people got what they needed through either trade of luxuries, deception, theft, or for the 1% who happen to be descendants of earlier successful thieves, hereditary prerogatives. The real change, if any, is that most of the theft is out in the open now, rather than hidden in some form of shakedown - unless you count taxation, of course, which is both.
People have forgotten just how radical capitalism was in 1776, because it has become routine to assume that we live in a society that practices it, but Adam Smith's work was descriptive, not prescriptive - he never said it should be this way, just that this was how it was working out in actual practice. He wasn't actually too enthusiastic about the prospects of actually building a society based on mutual competition, and didn't even really think it was possible (it isn't), but rather was pointing out that it was where things were headed at the time as the perks of the nobles got nibbled away. His main beef with the society at the time was that the laws of the time were freezing the system in a certain set of assumptions that no longer held true.
And there's nothing we can learn prescriptively from "The Magic Hand of Laissez Faire."
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And this differs from previous eras how?
Teh Grauniad, "created as a result of customer insight and is the first newspaper designed for people’s modern lifestyles.”
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Bad idea:
World’s First Male Stress Relief Booth in NYC ‘GuyFi Booth’
Hot Octopuss has launched the world’s first ‘GuyFi’ male stress relief booth in Manhattan, bring much-needed self relief to the stressed males in NYC.
A booth setup on the streets of NYC (as a marketing/publicity stunt) for men to go in to and masturbate.
Worse idea: Taking the job of being the person that has to clean that thing.
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Seattle used to have these combination public bathrooms/dishwashers. You put in a quarter or whatever and do your business, then when you left it'd lock the door and spray water and soap on literally every surface, then dry it with compressed air.
We got rid of them because the maintenance was too expensive. But I think you've found a brand new use for the technology.
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bad idea: Dwarf Fortress 2: Helmet Fortress!
worse idea: .. now available on TempleOS!
Filed Under: The FUCKER ABOUT TO MAKE A LAME LISP JOKE AT SCHOL-R-LEA'S EXPENSE is a spy!
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dicks.com did not help me find fishing gear
NOREPRO
They must have bought the domain since your post in September.
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Bad idea: electric kazoo. Amplified electric kazoo
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Anyone who knows anything about the history of American involvement in World War One has heard of the Chauchat. I recently saw a video that explained just why such a piece of shit was foisted on the American Expeditionary Force when the US already had the Browning Automatic Rifle in sufficient quantities to equip all of the units that needed one.
Bad idea: having the best light machine gun in the world in your arsenal and then insisting that your soldiers use a vastly inferior one because you're afraid that it will fall into enemy hands. Worse Idea: refusing to use the second best light machine gun in the world (the Lewis, which the BEF had been using since the beginning of the war) because you're ally pissed you off over your joint command structure.
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The primary variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge and designed by John Browning in 1917 for the U.S. Expeditionary Corps in Europe as a replacement for the French-made Chauchat and M1909 Benét–Mercié machine guns that US forces had previously been issued.
Sounds like you have your cause and effect wrong.
The Chauchat (the 30.06 version at least) was indeed one of the worst light machine guns ever made. But the M1918 was designed in response to that, it wasn't available first. (The very model number of the weapon should have been a hint there.)
Another quote:
When the declaration of war on Imperial Germany was announced on 6 April 1917, the military high command was made aware that to fight this trench war, dominated by machine-guns, they had on hand a mere 670 M1909 Benét–Merciés, 282 M1904 Maxims and 158 Colts, M1895.[6] After much debate, it was finally agreed that a rapid rearmament with domestic weapons would be required, but until that time, U.S. troops would be issued whatever the French and British had to offer.
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We have our SVN installed on an old tilt display laptop running 24/7. Bad idea?
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Hmmn, you're right. The documentary gave the impression that the BAR was already around in sufficient numbers to be used, but according to this that simply wasn't the case.
Also, looking at what Wicked-Pedo says about the Chauchat, while it was a terrible (in the sense of really badly unusable) weapon, a lot of its bad rep came from the way the AEF misused it. Like the Lewis and the BAR, it was designed for walking fire as a SAW (e.g., fire support for assault troops on the offensive, or covering fire during a withdrawal), but it was being used mostly for point defense as if it were a GPMG (i.e., a semi-stationary, crew-served heavy machine gun such as the Maxim or Vickers). This meant that its worst flaw, the open-sided underslung magazine, was exacerbated by having it down right on the muddy ground. No wonder it sucked so badly to try and fire it full-auto.
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As long as the data is sitting on independent powered harddisk case, it should be okay.
SVN servers seldom need strong processing power (unless if you have pretty big team, or if there will be nightly build task running on the server), so if the CPU/memory/motherboard/NIC all in good condition, why not?
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As long as the data is sitting on independent powered harddisk case, it should be okay.
It is not.
SVN servers seldom need strong processing power (unless if you have pretty big team, or if there will be nightly build task running on the server), so if the CPU/memory/motherboard/NIC all in good condition, why not?
I agree.
I'm still getting
"sqlite[S11] :database disk image is malformed" error though.
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Convince your boss to buy one then. You can get pretty decent one like this for less than USD80 (Listed as 78.49 for now ). This is very cheap investment for ensure the safety of source code that the company paid possibly a few thousand times the amount to create.
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Yeah I know. But then again, they aren't my bosses.
The first day I started working here, I reported this right away to the senior dev here.
The rest is all well known among you, I think.
He just ignored.And this is my last day here! Hooray!!
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From the Apple Swift thread:
It was bound to happen:
Emojicode’s aim is to become the first high-level programming language which uses Emojis to structure the program and its flow.
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Most of those symbol associations make little sense.
I preferred @onyx's emoji code example thing:
https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/the-bad-ideas-thread/254/101?u=aliceif
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Most of those symbol associations make little sense.
Yeah, they really dropped the ball on that.But at least you can say declaring variables is a piece of cake.
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Most of those symbol associations make little sense.
That surprises me about as much as I can pinch my fingers together.
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I told this in another blog and decided it needed to be told here as well (it deserves to be told).
The setting is Salt Lake City International Airport. I am watching the baggage handlers outside the window. There is a baggage cart that kind of looks like a bin on wheels, and they are loading it by throwing in bags. Underhand. From a distance of about twenty feet. Seriously.
The handler takes each bag by the handle, swings it back and then forward, underhand, releasing it at the point on the swing where the resulting trajectory will carry it into the cart. Wheee...crash!!!
Which pretty much proved every rumor I ever heard about baggage handling--I was amazed.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
edit: They don't seem to have learned a bit - from the comments, here's a post barely 4 months old:
And the funny (but not really funny) thing is when they destroyed my wheelchair, I was literally sitting in my seat, looking out my window, screaming to my mom "Holy shit, they just launched my wheelchair down the tarmac!" No joke.... I knew airlines damaged stuff a lot... But United seems to have quite the passion for literally throwing their items. -_-
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baggage handling
This is why any checked bag I give them is capable of surviving a 10 foot drop (well, maybe not the container itself, but the contents within).
When I traveled with five laptops, yeah that was my carry-on...
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Glaciers, gender, and science
A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change researchhttp://m.phg.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/01/08/0309132515623368.full
I post this knowing full well that this collision of Progressivism may cause @boomzilla to have an aneurysm.
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> Glaciers, gender, and science
A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research
http://m.phg.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/01/08/0309132515623368.full
I post this knowing full well that this collision of Progressivism may cause @boomzilla to have an aneurysm.
'd you 3 days ago.https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/fire-yet-another-climate-control-topic/52326/402?u=boomzilla
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Is it just me, or were those first two taken in the same shoot? They have the same cracked spinner , same soldering iron, and (apparently) the same mo-bo. The only real change (aside from the orientation of items in the photo) is the person.
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The only real change (aside from the orientation of items in the photo) is the person.
And the amount of 3rd degree burns they'd get if those things were actually on :)
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I present to you the enemy no1 for this car: The curbside!
Also, we still have some streets paved like this:
Seriously, concept cars are nice and all. But let's keep it at least somewhat grounded in reality, shall we?
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And the amount of 3rd degree burns they'd get if those things were actually on
Yeah, the blonde is probably going to end up better off. You can almost forgive the first two, they have what looks to be a brand new iron, no signs of wear. But the brunette? There is severe heat oxidation where she's holding it. What does she think that is, bling?
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How's that thing steer?
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You get a forklift, lift it up and set it down in the desired direction.
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@abarker said:
The only real change (aside from the orientation of items in the photo) is the person.
And the amount of 3rd degree burns they'd get if those things were actually on :)
Exactly.
"...and what-do-you-get? Burning fingers! Burning fingers!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MBaGjVdaIk&feature=youtu.be&t=47
Yeah, the blonde is probably going to end up better off. You can almost forgive the first two, they have what looks to be a brand new iron, no signs of wear. But the brunette? There is severe heat oxidation where she's holding it. What does she think that is, bling?
There's not a single person involved who has the faintest idea what is going on. Not the advertiser, not the photographer, not the models. I've never seen proof of so many clueless people in one place.
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This post is deleted!
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Maybe like the future-cars in I, Robot where the wheels were spherical and powered by electromagnets which could apply torque at any angle.
That was really cool. And doesn't seem incredibly far from current technology.
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I present to you the enemy no1 for this car: The curbside!
Plenty[1] of people lower their cars so the bodywork is already that low.
[1] I have no numbers but I see enough of them to know they're out there, driving around on streets like that.
Speed bumps would be a much worse problem because you can't hardly go through a parking lot without going over a bunch of them, whereas curbs you generally don't ride over.
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How's that thing steer?
It's like the cartoon I saw (dated roughly 1939) in which some rich guy is showing off his new car when someone asks him how he turns it around to go back home. His response: "I abandon it and place an order for another car facing the other way."
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future-cars in I, Robot
That thing was sexy
http://de.autoviva.com/img/photos/309/audi_rsq_large_34309.jpg
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I've never seen proof of so many clueless people in one place.
insert joke about W3C
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BTW, the term that the researchers used for this was 'tickling the dragon's tail' because it was so dangerous.
The main character in a web serial I read, The Saga of Tuck, used this term to herself the first time she kissed one dude, because she was afraid he'd go all @Polygeekery on her later when he found out she was Guacamole. Turns out [spoiler]that he already knew (sort of)[/spoiler], but she still realized she was playing a seriously dangerous game and that she was being foolish. Not sure what that says about either the author or me, but...
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Come to think of it, a lot of the things Tuck/Valerie does over the series counts as seriously bad ideas, many of which s/he knew were bad ideas but did anyway. Teenagers... oh, wait, I'm 47 and still act like that, never mind.
To elaborate further (behind spoiler tags, of course):
[spoiler]Tuck never actually set out to become Valerie; the series starts as high school sophomore Eugene Tucker, AKA Tuck, was dating Debbie, who was a major prankster among other things. Her great idea for Halloween costumes? Take a guess. When she realized that Tuck was a real natural at drag and that absolutely no one had guessed who 'Valerie' really was, she decides that this is the funniest shit ever, and if it means she can have her boyfriend over for sleepovers without her mom knowing who Valerie really is, even better.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]So now Tuck is spending more and more time as Valerie, and is getting into the role... a little too well, in fact... when this guy Travis, a junior from a different high school, starts showing interest in her. Now, Travis is literally a big Boy Scout - thoughtful, attentive, well-mannered, the real deal - and this scares the fuck out of Val as she realizes she's getting hot for him, too. Thing is, Debbie keeps pushing Val in front of him, but then getting crazy jealous when Tuck starts actually playing along. Meanwhile, Tuck is playing the Cleopatra game of sailing along on Denial.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Somewhere along the line, Valerie gets a regular gig as a babysitter, for a couple who have no idea that she is actually a he. Val loves the job, and it pays well, so...[/spoiler]
[spoiler]This is pretty screwy already, but then Debbie notices that Tuck is growing real breasts under the falsies she bought him - which triggers a major breakdown on Tuck's part. Then just as they are getting a grip on Tuck's bizarre biological issues (well, pretending they don't exist, mostly), the loving couple have a fight while on a trip alone to LA (while it is never said directly, the rest of the series seems to be set in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, and the fact that two high school kids are allowed to fly across country without adult supervision is a significant plot point) at the beginning of summer break and go nukular on each other. Big nasty mess, especially since Val's job was arranged through Debbie, but they manage to simply avoid each other and Val gets to keep her job.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Ratchet up the teen drama a bit more as Travis re-enters the picture, and this time Val jumps in with both feet despite being afraid to tell him the truth about herself. Turns out that Lisa, Debbie's best friend and sometime lover, already told him - but he seems to think that Valerie has officially transitioned, and Valerie can't seem to bring herself to talk about the subject long enough to disabuse him of this notion.[/spoiler]
This is only about half of the story as it is today, and I skipped over plenty of details about Tuck's friendship with Mike, the way The Pack (Debbie's female friends) act towards Val, Tuck's endless nightmares and problems with insomnia, the Tucker family's peculiarities, the business with his cousin Amy, and lots more. Unfortunately, the series has been stalled for a few years now, and it looks like Ellen may never get back to it.
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It's like the cartoon I saw (dated roughly 1939) in which some rich guy is showing off his new car when someone asks him how he turns it around to go back home. His response: "I abandon it and place an order for another car facing the other way."
Back in the '70's, my social studies teacher told us a presumed-to-be-true story of an Arab sheikh who came to the U.S. He bought a Rolls Royce with cash. He crashed it less than a mile from the dealership. He walked back and bought another one with cash.
M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle - Wikipedia
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