βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD
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@RaceProUK "Boiling coffee"? Please tell me that that is either some sort of self-heating instant coffee mix (on second thought, don't tell me that, ugh), or else Turkish coffee (which is the only type I know of that is actually meant to be boiled - I think some of the ancient Ethiopian preparations boil it too, since that was where the Turks got the idea, but I'm not sure).
Well, maybe it is a coarsely-ground coffee meant to be used with a French press or something like that, I guess, though you don't actually boil the coffee, just maybe the water (for French Press, you usually want the water just below boiling - which is still a good deal higher than it should be with most other preparations - but since it will cool when you pour it into the carafe and doesn't get reheated, letting it get to boiling isn't the disaster it would be otherwise). Or conversely, finely-ground Espresso coffee, which is meant to be used with forced steam. But boiling the coffee grounds, or worse, the extracted coffee itself after it has been prepared, is not usually the best idea.
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@RaceProUK Well I know what instant coffee is. That's the stuff where you get your water hot in your cup, then you put in the instant coffee stuff, and stir it around a bit. Bam, coffee!
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@Mikael_Svahnberg said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
@RaceProUK said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
@Mikael_Svahnberg That one labelled 'Kaviar'β¦ that's actually toothpaste, isn't it? Or tomato purΓ©e. Something like that, anyway.
Kaviar is something which the EU forbade us calling caviar. Don't know what the 4:25 is about.
Doing a search on "Kaviar 425" on DuckDuckGo? DON'T DO THAT.
As for the the pictured squeeze tube, that's actually a common packaging for low-end caviar, or at least it used to be. I am assuming that 'kaviar' in this case was either fish roe from something other than beluga sturgeon, or else some sort of mock-caviar.
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@Erufael said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
@RaceProUK Well I know what instant coffee is. That's the stuff where you get your water hot in your cup, then you put in the instant coffee stuff, and stir it around a bit. Bam, advanced coffee substitute!
FTFY
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@ScholRLEA said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
"Boiling coffee"? Please tell me that that is either some sort of self-heating instant coffee mix (on second thought, don't tell me that, ugh), or else Turkish coffee (which is the only type I know of that is actually meant to be boiled - I think some of the ancient Ethiopian preparations boil it too, since that was where the Turks got the idea, but I'm not sure).
It's formulated for being made in a kettle without filtering capabilities. Instead, it's heated (though not necessarily to boiling point) for a while, then some isinglass added to make the grounds settle out before serving. It's quite different to how you're used to preparing coffee.
@ScholRLEA said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
I am assuming that 'kaviar' in this case was either fish roe from something other than beluga sturgeon, or else some sort of mock-caviar.
It's almost certainly cod roe. Never liked it.
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By the powers usurped by me I hereby declare @dkf an honorary Swede!
isinglass
Or a dried fish skin, for national flavour.
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Bad Idea: arresting someone for DUI, and when the drug screening comes back with only caffeine, prosecuting them anyway.
Tobey Faire, they could probably still stick him with reckless driving (though proving it would be a bear even with dashcam evidence), but it sounds like they are pushing on with the DUI charge.
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Last Monday, 29-year-old Jose Vaca was pulled over while driving with a friend. He got out of the car holding a rifle, which heβd purchased at a flea market and was not legally allowed to have.
"I exit my vehicle, I come to the front of the police vehicle, I put my butt of the rifle on the floor and I just put my hand up,β Vaca said.
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@ScholRLEA said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
Bad Idea: arresting someone for DUI, and when the drug screening comes back with only caffeine, prosecuting them anyway.
Charges were dropped.
The DA's office said forensic lab experts claim it was "highly likely the defendant was under the influence of a drug," but since they have no way to prove it beyond reasonable doubt, Schwab's off the hook.
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@PJH So the DA is saying that even though the only drug that the blood and urine tests found was caffeine; there's no reason to think he was on anything that the tests wouldn't detect; his behavior was consistent with a severe case of java jitters with no other behavioral tells; and we already dropped the case due to lack of evidence, he was totally on something else even if we can't prove it. Brillant!
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@ScholRLEA said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
he was totally on something else even if we can't prove it
Indeed.
Though if Quantico is to believed, they could simply have got the CIA to falsify the requisite evidence anyway.
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@ScholRLEA said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
Turkish coffee (which is the only type I know of that is actually meant to be boiled
As far as I know, it still isn't - it's supposed to be brought close to a boiling point, but not actually boiled.
Then again, in Poland the usual coffee preparation technique is to just pour hot water over the grounds in a glass and drink, so we're not exactly sophisticated in that matter.
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@dcon said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
tl;dr: False.
Oh, I understand that the basis of the DUI charge wasn't that he was intoxicated due to caffeine; the issue is that they insisted - and continue to insist even after dropping the case - that he was intoxicated with something else, when the only thing found was caffeine, and that they spent eighteen months going forward with the case against him despite a lack of evidence. They could have just charged him with reckless driving - one doesn't need to be intoxicated to drive like an idiot - despite the difficulties with such a case, but instead the DA and the police department continued to argue that this phantom drug was to blame and that he needed to be prosecuted under the DUI statute.
Now, it is possible that they were right; some intoxicating drugs don't show up in even specialized drug screens, either due to there not being an assay for it or because the drug metabolizes very rapidly. But proving that in a court of law isn't usually going to be possible, and it is really absurd that the DA proceeded anyway, at least until this equally ridiculous "DUI for caffeine" report started circulating. A district attorney has to pick cases they can win, and they must have known from the start that they couldn't have won this one.
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@ScholRLEA I don't disagree. I'm just doing the CLICKBAIT-TITLE-IS-FAKE thing. OMG!!! There's something wrong on the Internet! :wack-a-mole:
edit: So many of my FB friends just blindly pass on the obviously-false-click-bait stuff (reaches thru monitor and slaps them). One of them is just gushing about the Phillips Hue smart bulbs. So I pointed her at a yeah-and-it's-been-hacked article.
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@dcon Fair enough. It isn't like I have done the same before myself.
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@ScholRLEA Don't drive like my brother!
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@RaceProUK said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
See Apple? People still use it for things!
Yeah: jackin' it.
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@JazzyJosh I won't, even if I ever get behind the wheel again. I had my own Bad Example to learn from, namely my father.
I've mentioned some of his other less-than-sterling qualities already, but I'm not sure if I have mentioned this here before. Let's just say that there is a certain class of terrible drivers who are terrible drivers primarily because they think they are excellent drivers, and no amount of traffic tickets, fender-benders, stratospheric insurance rates (or dropped policies), or personal injuries will ever convince them otherwise.
My father was all that, and was the sort of person to double down on every bet, meaning that he became even more convinced that his driving was world-class every time something happened because he was going 90 MPH in a 30 MPH zone, with one hand on the wheel and his eyes on some woman he was passing by.
He had a particularly obnoxious habit of keeping a very light (one-handed) grip on the wheel, or even driving with his knees (!), and letting the car drift over to whichever side it drifted to (because only suckers pay to have their car maintained, of course) for maybe a mile before jerking it hard in the other direction.
As I was saying about maintenance, he wa all thumbs himself, but was convinced he was an experyt mechanic along with everything else. The result was that he had a way of ruining cars he was trying to fix, or else he would unlicensed mechanics who were even worse than he was. I think he totalled almost as many cars in his driveway as he did on the highway, and that's saying something.
Mind you, all of this was before he lost sight in his left eye. Not that it made any difference in his mind; lack of parallax and peripheral vision wasn't going to stop him!
It was so bad that most people who knew him refused to get in the car if he was behind the wheel, at least after the first time. He made Yukari in Azumanga Diaoh look like an overly-cautious 90-year-old driving instructor. It was one of the reasons my brother kept him at arms length, too - there was no way in hell that he or my sister-in-law were going to let my nieces get in the car with that maniac.
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@JazzyJosh said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
@ScholRLEA Don't drive like my brother!
Don't drive like my brother!
Β
(Actually, all my brothers are good drivers - the ones old enough to have licenses, anyways.)
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@djls45 My brother's 12. Only drive like him if the alternative is driving like @ScholRLEA 's dad.
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I'm not convinced this is true but I'm gonna leave it here anyway.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1imdv4/parents_of_reddit_in_what_ways_have_you_almost/cb62xpl/
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@anotherusername said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
@ben_lubar said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
Bad Idea: pretzels made with non-GMO gluten-free low-fat salt
So.... regular ones?
Many of the bakeries here sell both ones with salt and ones without.
I never understood why anyone would buy the latter.
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@aliceif Maybe you want to put something else on it instead. Something that's incompatible with great honking lashings of salt.
Like cinnamon sugar, f'rinstance. I've seen that.
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@da-Doctah or people on limited-sodium diets.
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@CarrieVS said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
I'm not convinced this is true but I'm gonna leave it here anyway.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1imdv4/parents_of_reddit_in_what_ways_have_you_almost/cb62xpl/That is an awesome story. I don't care if it isn't true.
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BAD IDEA: Payday advance loans for entertainment.
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@djls45 said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
BAD IDEA: Payday advance loans for entertainment.
Even dumber, they're advertising the loans to people who've already been to the fair; they won't see the ads until they're leaving. "Borrow money to go to the thing you've just been to."
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@HardwareGeek said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
@djls45 said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
BAD IDEA: Payday advance loans for entertainment.
Even dumber, they're advertising the loans to people who've already been to the fair; they won't see the ads until they're leaving. "Borrow money to go to the thing you're just been to."
I think the idea there is to get people to return, which makes me wonder if the fair organizers and the payday lenders are in cahoots.
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@djls45 said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
which makes me wonder if the fair organizers and the payday lenders are in cahoots.
Nope, Tennessee.
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Throwing your keys into the bushes for demonstration purposes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgqMLZ-jv6U
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I guess the title is probably not lying.
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Apparently you can run "100+" virtual servers on this one tiny box:
http://go.antsle.com/privatecloudserver17
I'm assuming they mean PHP hosted sites?
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We can overcommit RAM & CPU.
It doesn't say how well they'll work.
Many questionable things on there.
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@loopback0 said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
We can overcommit RAM & CPU.
It doesn't say how well they'll work.
Many questionable things on there.
At least they're being relatively upfront.
Then again, I'm "running" 15 "servers" just fine on my comparable box:
Wouldn't want to bump that up to hundreds though. My VMs are almost always 100% idle...
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Tired of your boring old caffeine pills, vitamin pills, and sleeping pills? Want to make your life more interesting? Try our Surprise Pillsβ’! Just take once a day. What's in them? You never know! Each contains one or more of the following:
- Vitamins
- Placebo
- Caffeine
- Sedatives
- Estrogens
- Androgens
- Assorted psychedelics
- Antidepressants
- Depressants
- Pure capsaicin (1 in 10,000 chance)
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@anonymous234 For even more fun, add
- Extra strong laxatives
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I see, the more interesting version of Harry Potter's Bertie Bott'sΒ Every Flavour Beans.
hp1 dumbledore eats ear wax every flavor bean – 00:38
— Jordan Rapp
For Chinese proverb "May you live in interesting times" values of interesting, of course.
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Today on "fucking stupid kickstarted products": Vinci headphones
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vinci-first-smart-headphones-with-ai-music-audio/
Let's take a look at those features:
- A built in music player. OK, that makes sense, but who doesn't carry their smartphone nowadays? And I'm sure you can find headphones with built in music players for like $10.
- A screen that lets everyone else see what you're listening to. I don't even.
- A fitness tracker. Because running with those big things on your head is such a good idea.
- "Looks Like a Headphone, Acts Like a Computer". Well, yeah, it is a computer. And in 1997 that would have been very impressive, but nowadays people carry an average of 23.9 computers in their pocket already.
- Their killer feature: a voice AI assistant.
Oh for the love of god. STOP BUILDING VOICE ASSISTANTS. We don't need 45 of them. And most importantly, you're not good at this. You're directly competing with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and
AppleAmazon (hey, the big combo), who by the way have all spent millions on their respective ones and still just barely managed to pass the "not pure shit" line.
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@anonymous234 said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Apple
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@anonymous234 Also, if you ever ask your headphones to tell you a joke, you have essentially failed at life.
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Bad idea: Trying to commit suicide by wrong-way driving.
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@RaceProUK said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
@anonymous234 said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Apple
Apple invented voice assistants twice, obviously
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@TimeBandit And they were the first each time!
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@JBert said in βπ THE BAD IDEAS THREAD:
@TimeBandit And they were the first each time!
Every time I see their commercials where they show some really mundane technology that every smartphone supports and then flash the text "PRACTICALLY MAGIC" I cry a little.