The "l can't believe they had to say that" thread


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Just saw this at lunch time.


  • Java Dev

    Don't dry your cat in the microwave.



  • Don't quick-charge your iPhone in there either.



  • "Careful. The food you're taking out of the oven will be hot."

    I sure hope so; that's why I put it in the oven.




  • BINNED

    I dunno. That's a possible Darwin award right there.


  • Java Dev

    How about all the cleaning agents that you should keep out of reach of kids, don't swallow, don't drop into your eyes?

    Particularly with the child-safe caps only children manage to successfully open.


  • FoxDev

    All the warnings on packets of nuts that say 'Contains nuts'


  • Java Dev

    How many of those primarily contain peanuts (which aren't nuts)?


  • FoxDev

    Quite a few. There's also Brazil nuts, which aren't nuts, but seeds.

    Also, they can be sexually transmitted.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @PleegWat said:

    How about all the cleaning agents that you should keep out of reach of kids, don't swallow, don't drop into your eyes?

    I would consider that an entirely different category of warning than "the diaper-changing table is not a babysitter".



  • @FrostCat said:

    I would consider that an entirely different category of warning than "the diaper-changing table is not a babysitter".

    CLR,

    This stuff dissolves rocks, don't drink it.

    Or generally any kind of acid.

    Test this on a surface before drinking it. No, not a skin surface.

    Or motor oil.

    Oil and water don't mix, therefore there is no water in this oil product. Do not drink.

    Or a microwave.

    This stuff cooks stuff. Do not put baby inside.

    Or ziplocking plastic bag

    This bag is capable of sealing out air. Do not insert into windpipe.

    This device in your car ignites a cigarette. Do not insert finger.

    This device can crush cars, do not stand under device.

    This device cuts through bushes, do not stick fingers underneath during operation.

    This device chews up trees, do not insert human.



  • @RaceProUK said:

    'Contains nuts'

    How about...

    WTDWTF Warning: Contains pendantic dickweeds

  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @PleegWat said:

    How many of those primarily contain peanuts (which aren't nuts)?

    http://alwayssick.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/may-contain-milk.jpg



  • Apparently this was a problem somewhere?



  • Yes, they do:


  • 🚽 Regular

    Oh, you thought they meant you?

    Nah, they help them deliver their services to their advertisers.



  • Husqvarna. We had a Husky and I read the manual out of boredom. No graphic, but it had the warning text.



  • Seen yesterday, while loading a U-Haul (sorry no pics, and paraphrased):

    "Do not manipulate ramp while vehicle is moving."


  • BINNED

    @mott555 said:

    Husqvarna. We had a Husky and I read the manual out of boredom. No graphic, but it had the warning text.

    Someone was taking Duke way too seriously?



  • @RaceProUK said:

    All the warnings on packets of nuts that say 'Contains nuts'

    I guess if you're going to make it a rule that food that contains nuts has to say so, adding 'unless it's bl**dy obvious that it contains nuts' as an exception is probably more trouble that it's worth.

    No, the stupid ones are the packets of nuts that state that they May Contain Nuts. Or even worse: 'May Contain Traces of Nuts'.



  • Or "Your food may have come into contact with our nuts".

    I'm hoping that one lost a little bit in translation.


  • BINNED

    @CarrieVS said:

    No, the stupid ones are the packets of nuts that state that they May Contain Nuts. Or even worse: 'May Contain Traces of Nuts'.

    I also saw something to effect of "made in factory that also handles nuts".

    Great, good. Same production line? Same floor? Same galaxy? How does that matter? How did nuts get in it? Do I even want to know? If shit is getting flung between production lines, what kind of factory is it? Is it ran by monkeys?

    WHY WOULD I CARE? HOW THE FUCK WOULD THEY MIX?

    Semi- :hanzo:'d



  • @Onyx said:

    I also saw something to effect of "made in factory that also handles nuts".

    Yes that's common. It means that anyone with such a severe allergy (or such paranoia about their allergy or their child's) that they can't risk even a molecule of nut-essence in their food can avoid it, and anyone who only needs to avoid a detectable amount of nut can not worry.

    Stuff could potentially get on people's hands who then go to the other production line or into the air and drift around the building. I don't think anyone's suggesting lumps of peanut butter are getting into the strawberry jam pot, we're talking particles. If the factory handles nuts without special 'nut fee area' precautions, they can't guarantee that not a trace of one product will ever get into a different one, so they can't completely guarantee that no nut traces are in anything.

    As for how much of a problem near-homeopathic levels of nut contamination are for allergy sufferers and whether such warnings have any point, I don't know: you would have to ask a person with a very severe nut allergy.

    You also see 'made in a nut free area, but nuts are used in other parts of the factory', or 'recipe: no nuts; factory: no nuts; ingredients: cannot guarantee nut free'.



  • @Onyx said:

    I also saw something to effect of "made in factory that also handles nuts".

    Great, good. Same production line? Same floor? Same galaxy? How does that matter?

    This actually can matter to people depending on just how sensitive they are, some can be set off by a spec of dust drifting in the air over to thing they are eating. This isn't something that you can really measure due to how small scale it is and what it takes to actually prevent the small chance of it generally makes it too expensive to deal with. Thus the "in same building" warning to tell those that are sensitive enough that such levels are possible are warned off.

    EDIT: hanzo by @CarrieVS with more filled out explanation.



  • @locallunatic said:

    hanzo by @CarrieVS

    Ah but I didn't know if people with such sensitive allergies that they can die from homeopathic peanuts actually existed, so you confirmed that it's actually a helpful warning (other than to the paranoid)

    I wonder. If I take something bland and uninteresting that's 'made in a factory that handles peanuts', whether I could sell it as homeopathic peanuts, and if anyone would buy it because 'homeopathic, must be good'.


  • BINNED

    @locallunatic said:

    This actually can matter to people depending on just how sensitive they are, some can be set off by a spec of dust drifting in the air over to thing they are eating.

    Is that a thing? I mean, if you have an allergy that severe, can you even go to a restaurant? To a cinema where someone might be eating peanuts or something?

    I'm not denying the possibility, but it seems highly unlikely. Almost ...

    @CarrieVS said:

    near-homeopathic levels

    Yup. That's about the amount I was thinking of.


  • BINNED

    @CarrieVS said:

    I wonder. If I take something bland and uninteresting that's 'made in a factory that handles peanuts', whether I could sell it as homeopathic peanuts, and if anyone would buy it because 'homeopathic, must be good'.

    But... then it should cure peanut allergies, surely? It's diluted peanuts, after all.



  • @Onyx said:

    I mean, if you have an allergy that severe, can you even go to a restaurant?

    Work in, maybe. Eat at, keep an epipen on you (but you are probably doing that anyway).



  • But an overprotective warning, even to the point of pointlessness, isn't the same level of :wtf: as saying that something may contain traces of nuts when it definitely does contain whole nuts.

    @Onyx said:

    But... then it should cure peanut allergies, surely? It's diluted peanuts, after all.

    Well small amounts of peanut given in a controlled manner over a period of time may actually cure allergies, though the treatment is often not well tolerated. Of course homeopathic peanuts is probably far too low a dose for the effect, so it would be very wrong to market it in such a way as to suggest it would.



  • @CarrieVS said:

    can die from homeopathic peanuts

    Part of it is that once you reach a certain level of sensitivity determining if it was "someone didn't wash hands thoroughly enough" vs "floating dust" isn't really a safe thing to test and see.

    @CarrieVS said:

    Of course homeopathic peanuts is probably far too low a dose for the effect, so it would be very wrong to market it in such a way as to suggest it would.

    But probably profitable.


  • BINNED

    @CarrieVS said:

    far too low a dose

    0 tends to have that property, yes.



  • @Onyx said:

    0

    No, it's 'probably a few of these portions contain a molecule or two'. Even in genuine homeopathic medicines, the actual original 'active' ingredient has to be somewhere spread out over the batch (and any waste down the drain), so a fraction of homeopathic medicine doses must contain a molecule of whatever they're supposed to contain.


  • BINNED

    You do know that dilution levels in "genuine" stuff are far, far below the Avogadro's limit? The chance of finding a single molecule of the stuff is lower than winning the lottery without even buying the ticket.



  • @Onyx said:

    You do know that dilution levels in "genuine" stuff are far, far below the Avogadro's limit?

    I'm not completely ignorant.

    Let me try again. The stuff they originally put in has to be somewhere. Most of it will be down the drain, as even if you put a tiny drop in then you couldn't do the dilution by just adding water to the whole amount but there's nothing to actually prevent one of the molecules ending up in the stuff that wasn't. Of course the vast, vast majority has nothing in and even if once in your lifetime you do get a molecule it's not going to have any effect.

    When I said genuine, I meant 'genuinely homeopathic "medicine,"' by the way: I thought that was obvious, but apparently you're interpreting it as me believing in homeopathy.


  • BINNED

    @CarrieVS said:

    I'm not completely ignorant.

    Never said you were.

    @CarrieVS said:

    When I said genuine, I meant 'genuinely homeopathic "medicine,"' by the way: I thought that was obvious, but apparently you're interpreting it as me believing in homeopathy.

    No no, sorry, I just wanted to point out how low the chances are. See, most people don't go digging through this stuff far enough to know the actual numbers involved so they think that getting a bit of active ingredient is likely, no matter if they believe it will do anything or not.

    Now, I'm stupid enough to cause myself actual harm by reading about this stuff (it makes my head hurt, it genuinely does) so I just wanted to correct you on the probabilities.

    BTW, if I remember the analogy correctly, 100c dilution is an equivalent to something like the volume of a grain of rice in a water bowl the volume of the Solar system. So yeah, good luck with that molecule :P

    So I didn't misunderstand you, just worded my reply in a wrong tone, apparently.


    Filed under: If Discourse had signatures mine would be: Text-only communication is awesome



  • If we are given less time, the product will be of a lower quality.

    I didn't read all 36 comments, so I don't know if it's been mentioned. This basically covers the thing I shouldn't have to say in every single company I've worked, usually to some oik with an over-inflated evaluation of their ignorance.

    Add to that the fact that every company I've worked with a protocol, the protocol meant I should have enough time to do the work. Then some twat breaks protocol or demands that I break it to include their special snowflake of a feature because they're important and nothing else matters, and every request they send is an 'important' feature.

    Always the technical debt is increased because of this stupidity. Every single time.

    Is there a movement of some kind? I feel like I need to start a movement, or one of those new-fangled hashed-tags that the kids use. This isn't an 80s cop show. Ignoring protocol is always bad for product quality.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @CarrieVS said:

    whether I could sell it as homeopathic peanuts

    Homeopathic peanuts is an absolutely first-class, brillant idea, and someone could make a killing off...no, wait, that came out wrong.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @CarrieVS said:

    I'm not completely ignorant.

    Unlike people who believe in homeopathy, who are howl-at-the-moon crazy, if able to mostly behave in public.

    @CarrieVS said:

    The stuff they originally put in has to be somewhere. Most of it will be down the drain

    No, pretty much all of it is. Homeopathy believes that the act of multiple dilution imbues a magic aura to the water.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    "Made a change, try it now."

    "Should I run an svn update first?"

    No, the change will magic itself onto your box. Srsly?



  • @Yamikuronue said:

    "Should I run an svn update first?"

    No, the change will magic itself onto your box. Srsly?

    Don't know what kind of thing you work on, but for me that can be a valid question (change in what you are pulling data from vs. in the client).



  • @CarrieVS said:

    made in a nut free area

    This TDWTF post is not nut-free.



  • 🔩


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @CarrieVS said:

    No, the stupid ones are the packets of nuts that state that they May Contain Nuts.

    I hate those. Especially when you see it on something like a packet of flaked almonds. May? You mean there's a better than even chance that it won't, despite that being the sole reason why you'd buy the product in the first place?

    I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm all rant-y this evening…



  • @CarrieVS said:

    As for how much of a problem near-homeopathic levels of nut contamination are for allergy sufferers and whether such warnings have any point, I don't know

    I always thought the point was to CYA if, for whatever reason, someone's allergy was triggered by your product.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    It was a code change. They're just very new to version control.



  • Those of us old enough to remember the Beagle Bros software of the early '80s recall the sheet of warnings of things not to do to your floppy disk. Reading one version left-to-right, top-to-bottom apparently says:

    • Do not walk on disk
    • Do not set disk on fire
    • Do not cut disk with scissors
    • Do not feed disk to alligator
    • Do not make toast from disk
    • Do not play ring-toss with disk
    • Do not fold disk into paper airplane
    • Do not use disk as holder for toilet paper roll
    • Do not make disk into kite



  • BINNED

    Why is the :wtf: logo floating around her all the time?

    It's a bit creepy...



  • We should make her the forum's mascot, maybe ...


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