Completely off-topic, but...have you heard the The Naked Mole Rap? This is a dreadful earworm, almost as bad as its close cousin, the Hamster Dance.
I'm waiting for some desperate author to start mining his or her inbox. I want to know what happens when Gritting P. Nutmeg meets Amanda Longoria. Will they or won't they? What will happen when Eugenia Sneed finds out? And most crucially: Will John Kerry get there in time?
S. Dawson, many of Joan Aiken's books (YA and otherwise) are set in an AU Britain. There are similarities between her universe's atmosphere and the atmosphere in HDM, IIRC.
Paula, you will be horrified to hear that the University of Pennsylvania has systematically devastated the food truck ecosystem. Their preferred method involves destruction of habitat by lobbying for "quality of life" improvements. In the past ten years, all the food trucks have been removed from Walnut street by Penn-backed legislation. Initially, there was some notion of a food truck court, in which all the trucks would be sequestered. The food truck courts were located far from anyplace with substantial foot traffic, with predictable results.
Most of the trucks are gone now, including Penn's only Thai truck. (I miss Jow's Thai truck something terrible— he used to serve a dish called Crying Tiger that was so hot that he had to add a note to the menu saying, "No refund if too spicy.") My "quality of life" has not been improved.
Pellegrina, the last time someone asked for book recommendations we ended up with this list. If you can find that old open thread, you'll find more there. Good times...
Aconite, I suspect such people might value their wallet more than their life, although they'd deny it if you asked. I don't think they would understand why they screwed up, but a big fine might stop them from doing it again.
Aconite, the approach you're describing seems a lot like using the D.A.s as analogous to a sex-offender registry. That's too extreme for my sensibilities. You could achieve the same goals by charging those who endanger others. If they have to pay for the cost of rescue and face prison, it might deter them from doing it again.
I meant to post this yesterday.
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Some people will cheerfully describe their impending idiocy in public. Those people forfeit sympathy in advance. Take, for example, the case of this young woman on the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume and oils message board:
I wanted a comforting scent today, though, since I had to do marking, which always makes me dispair for humanity, so I daubed some on. It is so heavenly.... but again, I really want to eat it!So... I'm gonna. I'm gonna do it. Tonight, I am going to bake some chocolate shortbread. And I'm going to put some Velvet in it. I'll keep you updated as to how it tastes, if it makes me ill, etc... ;)
The mission control crew used this software and trusted the results.
It was their responsibility— it's always the responsibility of any engineer— to ask about the limits of the software/equations/models/correlations being used. The testers should have told them, but that doesn't remove their obligation to ask.
in knowing the names of the participants in (say) D.A. situations.
Make that: "in knowing the names of the participants in most D.A. situations." There might be D.A. situations where knowing the names of the participants is publicly important— what if the pilot had been shot down?
NelC, Teresa, and Charlie:
The only constraint I'd put on the telling of these stories is to withhold or change the names of the participants in published versions. The BBC did that, so, on reconsideration, I guess I don't have a problem in this case. Thing is, I really enjoy the Darwin Awards, but I feel guilty when I read them. I wish they'd change the names of the participants once the stories have been verified. All the lessons of the story remain intact with different names. The participants in the story will, if they're still alive (you only have to lose your ability to reproduce to achieve a Darwin Honorable Mention), be mocked by their friends and their friends' friends.
I don't understand how sufficiently egregious stupidity by itself is enough to make a blunder public. The experienced pilot who flies into White House airspace, freezes up, and has his plane landed by a student has done something both egregiously stupid and newsworthy. There's a legitimate public interest in knowing how the government responds to the incursion and in knowing who the pilot is. I don't see the same public interest in knowing the names of the participants in (say) D.A. situations.
Mitch: Ruined the whole thing for me. After that, whenever I saw one of her videos, all I could think of was that left, right, down, up.
The same thing happened to me with Kirsten Dunst. I thought she was sexy in Spider-man, but in Spider-man 2, I realized she was simply closing her eyes part-way. Then I got mad at her for misleading me, and then I just felt silly.
Pop vs. Soda vs. Coke vs. Other: The Maps
Do I even need to say how cool this is?
Jeremy, first comment, first comment!
I don't think anyone should be publicly mocked for stupidities that weren't public to begin with. For example, I think the stupidity of politicians would be fair game because they're already in the public sphere, but this Star Wars thing would be off-bounds (by etiquette) because it's specific to the participants and doesn't really affect anyone else. Education (by parents, school or by hard knocks and derision by friends) would be the preferred solution. If you've done something equally stupid, it's much easier to be sympathetic.
I was thirteen when I decided it would be really neat to make superheated water in the microwave. I think thirteen is an especially vulnerable age for this kind of thing, since you're old enough to know some physics, but not old enough to believe you can get hurt. The plan was to heat it in a closed container, take it outdoors and throw the container on the ground, where it would flash into steam. (This was the most graphic possible way to learn how unstable superheated fluids are. Someone with less superficial knowledge would have known better.) I used a large plastic bottle. Had it been glass I'd be eligible for a Darwin, because when I took it out of the microwave, it exploded in my hands. Did I mention that my younger sister was watching me? She asked me if the bottle was going to explode, and I told her that I hoped it would, so she watched from a safe distance. The plastic cap blew first, and most of the steam went away from my face, but enough scalding water splashed on me to give me first and second degree burns on most of my abdomen.
My parent's response was to care for me and make me promise to take safety precautions in future or (and this was a deadly weapon) they'd tell my science teacher what happened. I was painfully aware of how stupid I'd been, and I've never had the urge to do anything similarly dangerous since. I went into my Edgerton phase after that, trying to video water balloons as they popped— just as interesting, but much safer.
a Google plebescite
I says it as shouldn't, but is that like a Google plebiscite?
The Electrolite archives from February 2002 and before are broken. Plis to forgive if this is a known bug.
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