Random non sequitur posts catch-all thread

Gremlin wrote:

I think I've said it before, but what I think self-driving cars really need to do is to explain what they're trying to do, so their passenger/drivers can anticipate it. (And, ideally, those around them can too).

"I can't let you do that, Dave."

[quote="Jonman"]

Gravey wrote:
Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

Which reminds me of the ethics of self-driving cars. These systems (individual checkout lines, standing on the escalator) are better for everyone, even if any one given person might be worse off (for not being able to cheat the system) at one particular moment. Self-driving cars will be safer for everyone and surely we're all on board with that—unless it's the car I'm in that has to crash into a wall and kill me to save a crowd a schoolchildren. Then self-driving cars (and individual checkout lines and standing on the escalator) can f*ck off.

All self-driving cars will come with only one cockpit control: a big red f*ck OFF button.

I don't remember ever saying that... :confused:

If they don't do a Black Sails: Treasure Island season after they wrap up Black Sails, I'm gonna scream. I've never seen a show leap from meh to great to good to fantastic like this show. It's really something.

If you ever have been interested in say, Treasure Island, Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, or Pirates of the Caribbean, check it out.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

If they don't do a Black Sails: Treasure Island season after they wrap up Black Sails, I'm gonna scream. I've never seen a show leap from meh to great to good to fantastic like this show. It's really something.

If you ever have been interested in say, Treasure Island, Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, or Pirates of the Caribbean, check it out.

I do want to, and will if it ever shows up on Netflix Canada. Spartacus: Blood & Sand just did, so hopefully that bodes well. I've heard a lot of good things about the production values of Black Sails, and we all need more Golden Age of Piracy.

Right now for historical fiction The Last Kingdom keeps getting better and better, and has supplanted Rome as my favourite historical fiction TV series. Wolf Hall was excellent. The Borgias was awful. Shogun remains a classic. Borgia and Marco Polo are on my Netflix list. I should look for Sharpe. And that's all the historical fiction TV I'm confident talking about.

Gravey wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

If they don't do a Black Sails: Treasure Island season after they wrap up Black Sails, I'm gonna scream. I've never seen a show leap from meh to great to good to fantastic like this show. It's really something.

If you ever have been interested in say, Treasure Island, Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, or Pirates of the Caribbean, check it out.

I do want to, and will if it ever shows up on Netflix Canada. Spartacus: Blood & Sand just did, so hopefully that bodes well. I've heard a lot of good things about production values of Black Sails, and we all need more Golden Age of Piracy.

Right now for historical fiction The Last Kingdom keeps getting better and better, and has supplanted Rome as my favourite historical fiction TV series. Wolf Hall was excellent. The Borgias was awful. Shogun remains a classic. Borgia and Marco Polo are on my Netflix list. And that's all the historical fiction TV I'm confident talking about.

I'm reading all that and Black Sails is absolutely in that wheelhouse, especially if you like Treasure Island. Just be aware that they really focus on the sex and violence stuff in the first season fairly similarly to the Spartacus stuff. If that's a problem, just skip to the second season where they start to focus on some absolutely wonderful character development. They went for the Spartacus thing initially but ultimately took it in a completely and more intelligent direction.

I always thought Long John Silver was an asshole since I read Treasure Island. I don't think that's the case anymore.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

If they don't do a Black Sails: Treasure Island season after they wrap up Black Sails, I'm gonna scream. I've never seen a show leap from meh to great to good to fantastic like this show. It's really something.

If you ever have been interested in say, Treasure Island, Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, or Pirates of the Caribbean, check it out.

It's such an amazing show. And it is literally the only show I can think of that manages to stick to me despite not having a single "good" character to root for. That is an incredibly hard tightrope to walk without messing it up.

My mom: "Have you heard of this website, store dot steampowered dot com?"

Gravey wrote:

My mom: "Have you heard of this website, store dot steampowered dot com?"

*quietly shoves credit card receipts deeper into the back of the drawer*

Nope, never heard of it.

Gravey wrote:

My mom: "Have you heard of this website, store dot steampowered dot com?"

Possible explanations:

1: Gravey has stolen his mom's credit card to go on a spending spree (in my fictional version of events, entirely on eroge games), and now she's checking her statement and wondering why $800 got spent on this weird website.
2: Gravey's mom has discovered (eroge) games herself, and, because she's a morally upstanding lady (newly discovered addiction to eroge games notwithstanding), is concerned about potentially using grey-market resellers to pad out her collection, so she's checking to see if Steam is legit.
3: Gravey's mom is super into steampunk, and is about to be disappointed at the lack of hats with cogs glued to them on Steam. But also pleasantly surprised at the deluge of anime boobs, so you know, you win some, you lose some.

Man, I wish. Gremlin's is more likely. Instead one of her quilting friends was telling her a relative is working on For the King, so I guess gave her the Steam URL for the game.

Bear in mind my mom has heard of store dot steampowered dot com, when she asks me for birthday/Christmas wish lists and I ask for Steam gift cards. She, bless her, thought Steam mailed the games.

Gravey, your mom sounds AWESOME.

Wanna trade?

Jonman wrote:

3: Gravey's mom is super into steampunk, and is about to be disappointed at the lack of hats with cogs glued to them on Steam.

I find it hard to believe there is a lack of hats with cogs glued on them on Steam. At the very least I assume TF2 has them.

Demyx wrote:
Jonman wrote:

3: Gravey's mom is super into steampunk, and is about to be disappointed at the lack of hats with cogs glued to them on Steam.

I find it hard to believe there is a lack of hats with cogs glued on them on Steam. At the very least I assume TF2 has them.

To the true steampunk aficionado, there are never enough hats with enough cogs glued on them.

I am impressed by how useless Monster.com is.

I uploaded a resume there early this week. Since then I've been getting about one call or email a day about jobs that offer various exciting combinations of not being what I'm looking for and not being in the area I'm looking for work in.

Eleima wrote:

Gravey, your mom sounds AWESOME.

Wanna trade?

We need a thread telling Mom stories. I'll start with this one:
My mom is currently house-sitting for me while I'm on vacation with my family. We left her and my dad with our dog, our house keys, the codes to the WiFi and the garage door, and Sharks playoff tickets.

They lost the dog out the back gate, burned food on the stove, managed to reset the garage code on the keypad so that it doesn't work anymore, and then lost their keys and locked themselves out of the house. But, they did manage to go to the Sharks game last night. Note: my mom has 2 post-graduate degrees. My Dad has 3. These are some of the smartest people I know. WTF?

ThatGuy42 wrote:
Eleima wrote:

Gravey, your mom sounds AWESOME.

Wanna trade?

We need a thread telling Mom stories. I'll start with this one:
My mom is currently house-sitting for me while I'm on vacation with my family. We left her and my dad with our dog, our house keys, the codes to the WiFi and the garage door, and Sharks playoff tickets.

They lost the dog out the back gate, burned food on the stove, managed to reset the garage code on the keypad so that it doesn't work anymore, and then lost their keys and locked themselves out of the house. But, they did manage to go to the Sharks game last night. Note: my mom has 2 post-graduate degrees. My Dad has 3. These are some of the smartest people I know. WTF?

I think this story started with "Hey hun, let's have a marijuana. For old time's sake!

A few years ago, my mom (who has a PhD in psychology and a master's in statistics) decided that she wanted to learn Italian, so she bought the Rosetta Stone software that can correct your pronunciation. After three days of trying it, she called me over to figure out why the voice recognition software didn't seem to be working. I checked all of her settings on the computer, which all seemed good to go. Finally, I told her I needed to check out her microphone. She gestured at her desktop tower, saying, "It's right there." It took me a moment to realize that my brilliant mother had been spending the last few days bellowing, "BONJOURNO" at her computer without a microphone hooked up.

trichy wrote:

A few years ago, my mom (who has a PhD in psychology and a master's in statistics) decided that she wanted to learn Italian, so she bought the Rosetta Stone software that can correct your pronunciation. After three days of trying it, she called me over to figure out why the voice recognition software didn't seem to be working. I checked all of her settings on the computer, which all seemed good to go. Finally, I told her I needed to check out her microphone. She gestured at her desktop tower, saying, "It's right there." It took me a moment to realize that my brilliant mother had been spending the last few days bellowing, "BONJOURNO" at her computer without a microphone hooked up.

IMAGE(http://68.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llx0omSooR1qg7tbu.gif)

trichy wrote:

A few years ago, my mom (who has a PhD in psychology and a master's in statistics) decided that she wanted to learn Italian, so she bought the Rosetta Stone software that can correct your pronunciation. After three days of trying it, she called me over to figure out why the voice recognition software didn't seem to be working. I checked all of her settings on the computer, which all seemed good to go. Finally, I told her I needed to check out her microphone. She gestured at her desktop tower, saying, "It's right there." It took me a moment to realize that my brilliant mother had been spending the last few days bellowing, "BONJOURNO" at her computer without a microphone hooked up.

I had a graduate faculty member (with a PhD) in my department record an online lecture for her students without a microphone attached to her computer. She asked me to look into why students said they couldn't hear her.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I had a graduate faculty member (with a PhD) in my department record an online lecture for her students without a microphone attached to her computer. She asked me to look into why students said they couldn't hear her.

I would have to stand out in the parking lot a couple times a year because the engineers and technicians in the same building as me, a building chock-full of multi-million-dollar avionics test facilities, were incapable of microwaving popcorn without making fire.

oilypenguin wrote:
trichy wrote:

A few years ago, my mom (who has a PhD in psychology and a master's in statistics) decided that she wanted to learn Italian, so she bought the Rosetta Stone software that can correct your pronunciation. After three days of trying it, she called me over to figure out why the voice recognition software didn't seem to be working. I checked all of her settings on the computer, which all seemed good to go. Finally, I told her I needed to check out her microphone. She gestured at her desktop tower, saying, "It's right there." It took me a moment to realize that my brilliant mother had been spending the last few days bellowing, "BONJOURNO" at her computer without a microphone hooked up.

IMAGE(http://68.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llx0omSooR1qg7tbu.gif)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/P9fv2CC.gif)

Jonman wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

I had a graduate faculty member (with a PhD) in my department record an online lecture for her students without a microphone attached to her computer. She asked me to look into why students said they couldn't hear her.

I would have to stand out in the parking lot a couple times a year because the engineers and technicians in the same building as me, a building chock-full of multi-million-dollar avionics test facilities, were incapable of microwaving popcorn without making fire.

Is this boeing? if it is, can I please share this story with family?

Amoebic wrote:
Jonman wrote:

I would have to stand out in the parking lot a couple times a year because the engineers and technicians in the same building as me, a building chock-full of multi-million-dollar avionics test facilities, were incapable of microwaving popcorn without making fire.

Is this boeing? if it is, can I please share this story with family? :D

Indeed it is and indeed you may. The company eventually outright banned microwave popcorn from the building. Not from the rest of the company, just that one building that for some reason contained folk who had trouble pushing the "Popcorn" button.

Jonman wrote:
Amoebic wrote:
Jonman wrote:

I would have to stand out in the parking lot a couple times a year because the engineers and technicians in the same building as me, a building chock-full of multi-million-dollar avionics test facilities, were incapable of microwaving popcorn without making fire.

Is this boeing? if it is, can I please share this story with family? :D

Indeed it is and indeed you may. The company eventually outright banned microwave popcorn from the building. Not from the rest of the company, just that one building that for some reason contained folk who had trouble pushing the "Popcorn" button.

Microwave popcorn should be banned from every office.

Jonman wrote:

The company eventually outright banned microwave popcorn from the building.

Baahahah! Oh that is priceless.

BadKen wrote:
Jonman wrote:

The company eventually outright banned microwave popcorn from the building.

Baahahah! Oh that is priceless.

It literally is.

2000 employees *not* standing in the rain for an hour is very much without a price.

Jonman wrote:
BadKen wrote:
Jonman wrote:

The company eventually outright banned microwave popcorn from the building.

Baahahah! Oh that is priceless.

It literally is.

2000 employees *not* standing in the rain for an hour is very much without a price.

Doesn't sound like that would be more than $150k.

I work at a company similar to (if much smaller than) Boeing.

A couple of years ago, some genius decided to heat up his lunch in the microwave. It was fish. I sit in a Closed Area, so the ventilation is not the best.

I posted this on the cabinet above the microwave. Unlike most of the comics I post, it's still up there.

IMAGE(http://assets.amuniversal.com/39ee8c706cc701301d50001dd8b71c47)

Yeah... for a while I worked in a room that was next to the break room and shared ventilation with it. Fish and burnt popcorn were regular occurrences.

And there there was the time someone managed to short out the toaster. Now, I'm in a room surrounded by wires and electronics (on all six sides because of the wires in racks above and under the raised floor), and I smelled an electrical fire. Yeah, that created some chaos in my department until we finally traced the smell back to the toaster...

I think everyone who has had a desk next to the lunch/commons area can share your pain. I had a cube right outside of our rather large lunch room. The daily menu was burnt popcorn, burnt toast (I'd go in and find the toaster on F#$&ING 11!), smells of food I didn't know existed and didn't want to know again, the smell of forgotten food that was thrown away near the door so it could just waft all day into our area of the office, and then there was the fire. Pretty sure some genius tossed some greasy leftovers into the toaster oven and left. A favorite move of the burnt offenders, well plumes of smoke and a fire later we were all standing on the lawn as the fire department walked out with a blackened toaster oven. Oh and everyone was always so damn loud in there. I learned signs never matter about burnt food, loudness, and no paper towels in the urinal. People are true monsters.