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nreimers

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reddit_question_best_answers

like 15

[ { "body": "95% of the music you are listening to today will be forgotten in 20 years time. The cutting edge and risque songs of today will become the easy-listening stations of tomorrow. The multitude of genres and styles we have today will be boiled down to a few signature songs, which will then be conglomerated together into one station. The pop icons of today will be forgotten, their music played without recognition and their songs sold in \"best of\" collections for $2-3 at the local dollar store. The movement of physical media to online data and streaming will only expedite the process as older or lesser known artists are eventually deleted to free up server space. Countless hours of human emotion and storytelling will be removed from existance.\r\n\r\nBut on the bright side, my children will not have to suffer at the hands of Soulja Boy, so I guess I can accept the compromise.", "score": 24 }, { "body": "You know, I've thought a lot about this. It seems to me that the stuff they called \"classic rock\" when I started listening to classic rock in about 1985 is the same stuff they call \"classic rock\" today. And most \"oldies\" stations remain stuck in the 1950s and 1960s, just like they were 25 years ago.", "score": 11 }, { "body": "I'll be dancing to \"Bad Romance\" and my grandkids will put me in a nursing home...of the future... with hoverchairs... *worth it*", "score": 10 }, { "body": "I think [Nick Swardson](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSTZBjvEpc4#t=4m20s) explained this very well.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I was born in 1981. The music I listened to as a kid is already considered \"classic rock\" according to my local radio stations. When they play songs like 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' or 'Closer' and then 'Hotel California', as if they are from the same era, it makes me sad. ", "score": 6 }, { "body": "I hear stuff from the early 90's, when I was young, being played as muzak in stores sometimes. It's very strange.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "One day my grandkids will not want to hang around me because I still listen to 'old fogey poets' like Del the Funky Homosapien, Kool Kieth, and the ever popular group poetry club, Wu-Tang Clan.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I realized I was old when they started selling compilation CDs on late night TV filled with music I love.", "score": 3 }, { "body": ".. well since there hasn't been any decent music whatsoever for the last 20 years... oh wait... FUCK.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I pay $25 a month for 12 Mbps from Comcast. Granted, I do pay a lot for the TV service. I just recently called them up to see if I could get my rate reduced again. \r\n\r\nYou see, I was paying $70 a month (first six months) for Internet, HDTV, DVR, and Starz, now it's around $100 with no Starz. Just by calling them, I learned I could start saving $20 a month in about 2 months and I got 6 months of HBO for free!\r\n\r\nComcast and other companies are always running promotions. The only catch is that you need to call up and ask for these deals. I wasn't aggressive or deceitful (lying about canceling service) when I called. All I did was state that I was trying to reduce my bill and the rep helped me out as much as she could. Maybe had I been more aggressive, I would have gotten more.\r\n\r\ntl:dr Call your provider and ask for a better deal.\r\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "* How does the nightlife compare to major/medium U.S. cities? \n\n* What type of music is popular?\n\n* Do you speak Russian? If so, did you teach yourself before going, learn through immersion, or learn in school?", "score": 5 }, { "body": "What are the gun laws and gun culture like in Russia? Are they relatively positive like they are in the USA or are they more restrictive/negative?", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Is it hard to find peanut butter in the shops?\n\nFollow-up: does the peanut butter stay soft, or harden in the cold?", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Assuming everything else equal apart from the acceleration due to gravity (atmospheric density, etc)\n\n vt_vulcan = vt_earth * sqrt(g_vulcan/g_earth)", "score": 10 }, { "body": "We don't know the atmospheric density on Vulcan (maybe it's been established in some long lost Star Trek episode but I'm not geeky enough to know it off hand) so we can't calculate it.", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "As a loyal Western Australian, the best advice I can give you about being in Melbourne is to get out of it.\n\nActually, joking aside, I really mean that. The city's not a bad place, but there's a lot to see in the region as well - the Yarra valley's beautiful and has some very nice wines. Almost as good as our Margaret River varieties. \n\nTake a drive along the Great Ocean road, the goldfields are worth a visit, and the Grampians are beautiful too, though if you get to any forested areas, be very careful about the [local wildlife](http://imgur.com/41B6f).", "score": 6 }, { "body": "* Firstly, sorry, you will be mistaken for an American all the time.\n* St Kilda is sweet, I used to live there, lots of tourists but still great.\n* From Caulfield back to St Kilda aren't the cheapest of suburbs, so rent will be a little bit more if you were out in Monash Clayton.\n* Public Transport or PT is good around those areas, you will need to get a concession pass to get cheaper travel - a student card wont cut it, you have to get another pass from the Gov. Concession travel is about 1/2 the cost, otherwise you should be fine with about AU$6 (full fare) for unlimited travel on trains, trams and busses. If you go further out (Zone 2) then it get a little more expensive.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Public transport is great in Melbourne, save your money for beer. St Kilda is ok, I like the sea baths, but you get a huge influx of tourists/wannabee yuppies on the weekend.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Go Monash! I'm starting an engineering course there next year.\r\n\r\nI ride a bike or take public transport most places I go, and it seems to work out fine for me. Public transport in Melbourne is pretty excellent. \r\nI couldn't tell you about youth hostels or renting though.\r\n\r\nAs far as living in Melbourne goes, PrincessLozza is right, you can't be uptight or take yourself too seriously. As long as you are open and friendly, you should do fine. Best of luck!", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Obligatory Melbourne-bars-to-visit thread. I'll start:\n\n[Rooftop Bar](http://www.melbournepubs.com/venue/1972/)\n\n[Sister Bella](http://www.theage.com.au/news/bar-reviews/sister-bella/2007/09/13/1189276876772.html)\n\n[Red Hummingbird](http://www.thatsmelbourne.com.au/DiningandNightlife/BarsandPubs/AllBars/Pages/3012.aspx)\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "This would be fun. I bet if we do Long Beach or something we could potentially get both LA and OC people.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I'm right next to Long Beach, but dont mind driving a bit if that's what it comes down to. Viva Reddit!", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I have never walked out of a movie. I force myself to watch to the very end just to teach myself a lesson so that maybe next time, I'll know better.", "score": 124 }, { "body": "Beauty and the Beast.\n\nOnly because I was 6 at the time and the first time the Beast appeared I peed my pants.", "score": 73 }, { "body": "I walked out of 'Apocalypto' around the middle, and into another screening room just as 'The Departed' was starting. \n\nIt was like turning shit into gold. ", "score": 32 }, { "body": "my dad and i walked out of Pulp Fiction because i was in 8th grade and he didnt realize what kind of movie it was", "score": 31 }, { "body": "I should have walked out of The Happening, but I stayed in hopes that there would be some awesome plot twist...there wasn't. Worst movie ever.", "score": 25 }, { "body": "I walked out of The Dark Knight. Before you all get mad at me though, it had nothing to do with the movie. It had to do with the group of people behind me that wouldn't shut up and were speaking over top of the dialogue.", "score": 21 }, { "body": "Halfway through Lady in the Water we decided the movie was too funny to leave, and it was like a comedy.", "score": 20 }, { "body": "I worked in the movie theatre industry for almost 4 years, and the movies that I best remember people walking out of were The Fountain (Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz), Gigli (Bennifer) Running with Scissors (Annette Benning, Brian Cox) and Wicker Man (Nic Cage). I hadn't seen The Fountain in its first few weeks, so I didn't understand what the problem was...finally went with my bf, and as the credits began to roll I said \"Well, that's the last time you get to pick the movie!\" and got some appreciation from 90+ people. Any guests that emerged from that auditorium thereafter didn't get much resistance from me on the refund - they just had \"that look\" and I knew what they wanted.\nOh, and there was a little old lady that got super offended by Team America (I gave her fair warning).", "score": 18 }, { "body": "Pearl Harbor. That movie just kept going on and on! And the people I saw it with wouldn't leave so I had to wait outside. I mean, once Alec Baldwin came on the screen screaming I thought I was in some parallel universe where this was supposed to be a comedy/WTF scene.", "score": 16 }, { "body": "My wife watched the first Twilight at our house with her friend. When he turned around and glittered on the mountain I quietly got up, grabbed my keys and wallet and left for four hours.", "score": 14 }, { "body": "*Master and Commander*\n\nNot because the movie was bad (I would later find out it was pretty good) but because I had just eaten a whole container of movie theater fried chicken and by the time I got to the \"on-deck brain surgery\" scene something didn't feel right. \n\nLet's just say that the chicken became Master and Commander...of my intestinal track.", "score": 14 }, { "body": "Not exactly \"walking out\", but my brother, my dad, and myself all fell asleep during the first hulk. It was just so boring.\n\nI loved the new one with Edward Norton though.", "score": 13 }, { "body": "Dude Where's My Car? was one movie I still regret not walking out of. Even now I am cautious around people who claim to like that movie", "score": 12 }, { "body": "**The Simpsons Movie**\n\nI'm normally such a cheapass that I won't leave because I paid money. But I was such a fan of the show growing up that I just couldn't take this. It was a movie that was bad and should have been made 10 years earlier. It just made me realize how far the show had sunk. There's a reason I think it was the best show ever made. And there's a reason why I generally won't watch any episode after season 10 without double-checking which one it is.\n\nDon't get me wrong, the 8 year olds next to me in the theater thought the movie was a laugh riot. They also thought a yellow penis on screen was hilarious to the point of jumping up and down though.", "score": 11 }, { "body": "I wish I'd have walked out of Dumb & Dumber 2. My missus picked it when we got to the cinema and to this day it's still a dark moment in our relationship which we've never spoken about. \r\nIt was on tv the other day when I was flicking through the chanels when the + button on the remote stuck for a second longer than normal, I panicked and tried to turn over as quick as I could. There was a frosty silence for a while. ", "score": 11 }, { "body": "I actually walked out of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. About 30 minutes in.\n\nNot because it was a bad movie but my gf and I looked at each other, and just figured that we weren't in the mood for that type of film, and that we could get our $18 back and do other things.\n\nSo we got into the car, she had an orgasm, and we got ice cream.\n\n", "score": 9 }, { "body": "After about 10 minutes of Transformers 2, I got up to leave... but my friend made me stay. I watched TED on my iPod instead.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "The Soloist.\n\nHorrible movie. Preview looked amazing. But the Christian propaganda and ignorant portrayal of Atheists made my friends and I get up and leave.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "The Village. Worst. movie. ever. Another reason I hate M. Night. This movie was shit from the beginning... As soon as the elders mentioned dead bodies in \"dumpsters,\" I told my gf it was time to leave-this movie takes place in present day and is really fucking stupid. ", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones\n\nTo be fair, I did get through my first viewing of it with no probs. I had my walkout when I watched it for the second time, when my brother wanted me to take him to see it a couple of days later. \n\nAround about the time they start getting freaky on naboo, and lucas blesses us with dialogue worse than what is normally seen in porn (and I would have stayed around if their was any hope of Anakin being balls deep in Amidala), I had to get up and leave. I picked up my brother after the movie was over.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Jurassic Park, out of fear. I returned when my mum ensured me the T Rex had concluded his rampage, she lied to me.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "My mom dragged me out of Babe when I was 13 and my sister was 10 because she had taken us there thinking it was a Disney-like movie. lulz", "score": 6 }, { "body": "**88 Minutes**. I think everyone's thought going through their minds was \"Al Pacino, it's gotta be awesome, right?\", only to have their hopes and dreams carelessly smashed like the shamble that is that film.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "The movie A.I. was handdown the worst movie I have ever seen, my friend wanted to walk out but I told him to give it a chance. When the movie ended with aliens landing my friend actually yelled god damn it! This was seriously the worst movie I have ever seen and I will carry the burden of having watched it for the rest of my life.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "The Avengers. \n\nSomeone drove me to that movie, and planned to run errands for two hours and pick me up by the time the movie ended. I walked out and waited in front of the theater for a good hour.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "The Twilight movies, I was forced to go to them, I left 10 minutes into the movie (both Twilight and New Moon). I'm surprised I lasted that long. ", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Inglourious Basterds. Because there were these teenagers behind us who just wouldn't stfu after several warnings, forcing me to drag them outside for a can of whoop-ass.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Enchanted\n\nI was high as hell and the title sounded like bliss. Then my friends and I realized that it was that princess bullshit. We walked out, but not before I ran into a wall and distracted most of the theater.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Napoleon Dynamite is the closest I've come to walking out. I would have left if I had been seeing it alone.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Very nearly walked out of Batman & Robin... we tried to blot out the memory by coming out and seeing Beavis & Butthead straight after... it worked mostly... ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Sweeny Todd,\nI know alot of people think that its SOO ARTSY AND GREAT AND THEY COULD JUST WATCH IT OVER AND OVER. That movie hella blows and the songs are also goddamn terrible.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Bug(2006)\r\nI went with a girl who managed to keep me in my seat until the end... It was aweful. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bug/ I have no idea how its rating isn't lower. Worst movie I've ever seen.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "The Secret.\n\nOK, it's supposed to be a \"documentary\". But seriously, anyone over the age of ten who managed to sit through the whole thing either has a seriously advanced sense of humour, or needs to go back to their school and sue it.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Harry Potter, the first one. I've enjoyed the book so much, the movie didn't bring anything new, at all.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Read [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiquette_in_Canada_and_the_United_States). It's polite not to wear it because we, as a society, have arbitrarily determined that wearing a hat is rude. Why do we say please, or thank you? They are just arbitrary words, but they convey a meaning we have all agreed upon, and are therefore part of accepted etiquette.\n\nIt shows that you have class and that you have respect for others, and unless you're playing baseball, take the stupid hat off.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Religious Jews are supposed to keep their heads covered at all times- so I've always thought it was stupid to assume it was rude if I saw someone wearing one indoors.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "First of all, as a former delivery driver myself, who had to pay his own gas and use his own car, I tipped using this formula: $5 + 20% I'd usually tip $8 to $10. It was tough and I worked in a college town which meant getting the door slammed in my face a lot so I empathized.\n\nSo questions,\n\n* Ever get stoned, take an offered drink, or sleep with a customer?\n\n* Where there any residences you refused to deliver to?\n\n* Largest tip ever received? \n\nThanks", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "If Netflix has it, The Wire.\n\nIf you haven't seen it already, I have probably just become your new god. Thank me later.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I like bacon so long as it's.... I dunno... 'soft'? I find most restaurants have this drop-it-and-it-shatters shit. ", "score": 9 }, { "body": "As a meme? Undoubtedly. Much like PBR and horn rims, it reeks of hipsterism. As a food, however, bacon is a tasty accent when used in moderation.\n\nIt's possible you're cooking it wrong. It's also possible that you're not buying a decent cut. Get the stuff from the deli counter, not Oscar Meyer. The thin, mass-packaged stuff fills a certain hankering for me from time to time, but it often coincides with my hankering for spray pancakes so we can be pretty sure it isn't related to quality.\n\nThick-cut bacon, pan-fried until just this side of crunchy is tasty, tasty stuff. We probably make bacon around here once a month or so. As to the fat content, much of it cooks out and stays in the pan... at which point it goes into a jar and is kept for making *other* things tasty. Cornbread can not be made properly without bacon grease, for example. It goes great in pinto beans, particularly if you use the peppered bacon. And an omelet fried in bacon grease? Ahh yeah.\n\nAlso ham. Avoid the mass-packaged stuff. Alton Brown has a pretty good run-down on ham; the good stuff is well-cured and actually a piece of pig, rather than a reconstituted slurry of pork bits and water. The black forest ham that comes in chunks at Trader Joe's is a pretty good place to start if you don't have access to any other decent ham. In every case, a trip to the local butcher shop (NOT the one at the grocery store) will deliver bacon and ham that will likely change your tune.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Your ability to render figures is most impressive and convincing. I think, however, your work suffers from a lack of any real \"figure/ground\" relationship or context beyond the sheer virtuosity of craft. This shortcoming can be difficult to overcome, but I would suggest that you immerse yourself seriously into art history in order to further understand the conceits of other artists as to how they solved problems visually and made content decisions. \n\nYou have obvious chops though, and will surely have a leg up once you discover what it is you want to say with your work. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "hum with nothing plugged in = amp (might be as simple as a loose input jack). Hum only with guitar plugged in though, obviously guitar or cord based. They are antennas by unfortunate coincidence. If it's not your table saw/neon lights/welder there's not much you can do. Obviously humbuckers are less susceptible than single coils but honestly this is an apartment issue. Never seen a show defeated by some noise.", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Could you please detail precisely what you did immediately after law school, and how you ended up in each of the positions you've had? Most specifically, in a law firm?\n\nI'm currently an undergraduate hoping to become a lawyer for a firm. Any advice you can give me? Anything would be helpful! :)", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "[Here is your highlighter.](http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=203531636&listingid=57271479)", "score": 4 }, { "body": "A silent hair clipper for use by vets. I've found the noise the clipper makes tends to make the animals uncomfortable, and IMO a silent clipper would save them a lot of stress.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "My best friend and I were discussing, in light of the recent cold weather, how awesome it would be to have pants that look like jeans but are really really warm. Like lined with something insulating, but look like normal jeans. There really aren't any cold weather pants that are remotely flattering, and if you're going out during the winter months you still want to look good. And wearing long johns or tights under jeans makes you look bulky. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "General relativity works very well with \"classical regime\" physics, really gravity and electrodynamics. Quantum mechanics treats matter using the wave/particle duality. Under a first quantization treatment, individual particles are treated as waves in a classical background field (e.g. an electron in an imposed surrounding electric field). First quantization treatments can be made compatible with general relativity (e.g. the Dirac equation) but are not, themselves, complete theories.\n\nUnder second quantization, the fields themselves are treated via quantum mechanics. These theories are phenomenally complicated and many basic problems have no known closed-form analytic solution. Richard Feynman's big breakthrough was the development -- supported only by intuition, not by a mathematically rigorous treatment! -- of a technique for treating such problems using perturbation theory. This is the method of \"Feynman diagrams\", which represent particular (easily written-down) approximation terms in the (unknown, complex) formulae for describing matter-field interactions. Put simply, each diagram represents a particular mode of interaction -- single-collision, three-particle collision, etc. If you want to know the probability of a particular interaction happening (like, say, an atom absorbing a passing photon of a particular energy and phase), you draw a bunch of Feynman diagrams that represent different ways for that interaction to happen, then write down some analytic expressions based on each diagram. The square of the sum of all the terms is the probability that the interaction will happen.\n\nThere are an infinite number of Feynman diagrams that represent any given interaction -- mostly because the vacuum can produce virtual particles (say, electron/positron pairs) that re-annihilate before they are detected. These cause some trouble when they are included in the calculation, because you can't write down an infinite number of terms -- but for three of the four basic forces (electrodynamics, weak nuclear, and chromodynamics), people have discovered clever tricks to get around having to explicitly calculate the infinite sums.\n\nWe know the clever tricks work, because (for example) quantum electrodynamics works phenomenally well -- its predictions (for example) of certain spectral characteristics of atoms match experiments to more than ten significant figures.\n\nThe problem with gravity is that nobody has figured out a compelling way to do an end-run around the infinite sum. That is because the symmetry properties of gravity are different than for the other three forces.\n\nIf we were sufficiently clever, we could sidestep the crutch of \"particles\" altogether. Then we wouldn't have to do perturbation theory based on different combinations of particles interacting, but could rather dive into the fundamental field equations directly -- but humans, so far, have not proved sufficiently clever to do so.\n\nFrom a philosophy of science perspective, concepts like \"electron\" are not true natural types at the deepest level of physics. Imagine someone who wanted to describe color in terms of unnatural categories like \"grue\" (\"green on odd days, blue on even days\") and \"bleen\" (\"blue on odd days, green on even days\"). Your description of the sky's color would be quite complex -- instead of saying \"the sky is blue\" you'd have to say \"the sky is bleen on odd days, grue on even days\". Current techniques for uniting quantum mechanics and general relativity have the same problem -- we use words like \"photon\" and \"electron\" and \"graviton\", but those are as unnatural as \"grue\" and \"bleen\". We pay the price by evaluating very difficult infinite sums of perturbation terms.\n\n[Edited: typo]\n\n[Another edit: the problem with the infinite sums might need some clarification. The amplitude contribution from each \"loop diagram\" (with a created-and-annihilated pair in it) contains a divergent integral -- it gives an *infinite* contribution to the total chance of a particular interaction happening. \n\nThe insight that enables \"renormalization\" is that all those different loop diagram contributions can be made to cancel, by combining the integrands in a clever way and *then* carrying out the integral. (If you're used to computer science, just think about interchanging loop order to avoid breaking cache. It's the same thing, except the game is not to avoid breaking cache, it's to avoid having any of your intermediate sums add up to infinity as you accumulate a large sum). \n\nThis is a classic kind of problem with a non-natural type. Even in classical electrostatics, you find things like this happening: the electric field energy associated with a point electron is infinite, so if you describe a continuous distribution of electric charges in space as a collection of microscopic point charges, you have to be careful about how you do it. The quantum field case is hairier but fundamentally the same -- the simplifying concept of several discrete particles interacting in a particular way is analogous to the simplifying concept of a point particle in classical mechanics. \n\nI suspect that the reason gravitons can't be renormalized the way that photons can is that the gravity field has different symmetry than does the photon field -- but the jury is still out about whether the semiclassical \"exchange particle\" concept can be salvaged, perhaps by smoothing on small scales, or whether a different conceptual approach is needed. At some level, the Feynman approach is just a kludge: one must be very careful when reordering the evaluation order of divergent integrals, and any college math professor would scoff at the arguments Feynman used to justify his perturbative expansion of the \"path integrals\". But in physics, there's an independent test of whether you're on the right track: your theory doesn't have to be mathematically rigorous in its derivation, it only has to predict the results of experiment.]\n", "score": 26 }, { "body": "The easiest way to say it is that on the smallest of scales of our universe the two theories have a conflict on how the \"fabric\" of spacetime is. Due to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics (the uncertainty principle) space is, i guess you could say boiling. According to general relativity space is flat. It is in this conflict that these two theories can't work. String theory is on its way to fixing this problem, since it deals with strings that take up space, instead of point particles that don't. Once you get to sizes below that of the strings, space isn't really accounted for, since the formulas can only be as accurate as the string. So the strings smooth out space just enough, so that it can start to involve general relativity. If you want it explained extremely well you should read either \"The Fabric of the Cosmos\" or \"The Elegant Universe.\" Both are by Brian Greene. They are excellent.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "that was really great - not wanting to take from your glory, try this one, it is one of my favs\r\n\r\nChili Tester \r\n\r\n\"Recently I was honored to be selected as an Outstanding \r\nFamous Celebrity in Texas, to be a judge at a chili \r\ncook-off because no one else wanted to do it. Also the \r\noriginal person called in sick at the last moment and I \r\nhappened to be standing there at the judge's table asking \r\ndirections to the beer wagon when the call came. I was \r\nassured by the other two judges that the chili wouldn't be \r\nall that spicy, and besides they told me I could have free \r\nbeer during the tasting, so I accepted this as being one \r\nof those burdens you endure when you're an internet writer \r\nand therefore know and adored by all.\" \r\n\r\nHere are the scorecards from the event: \r\n\r\nChili # 1: Mike's Maniac Mobster Monster Chili \r\n\r\nJUDGE ONE: \r\nA little too heavy on tomato. Amusing kick. \r\n\r\nJUDGE TWO: \r\nNice, smooth tomato flavor. Very mild. \r\n\r\nCAMERON: \r\nHoly smokes, what is this stuff? You could remove dried \r\npaint from your driveway with it. Took me two beers to \r\nput the flames out. Hope that's the worst one. These \r\npeople are crazy. \r\n\r\n\r\nChili # 2: Arthur's Afterburner Chili \r\n\r\nJUDGE ONE: \r\nSmoky (barbecue?) with a hint of pork. Slight Jalapeno tang. \r\n\r\nJUDGE TWO: \r\nExciting BBQ flavor, needs more peppers to be taken seriously. \r\n\r\nCAMERON \r\nKeep this out of reach of children! I'm not sure what I am \r\nsupposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people \r\nwho wanted to give me the Heimlich maneuver. Shoved my way \r\nto the front of the beer line. The barmaid looks like a \r\nprofessional wrestler after a bad night. She was so irritated \r\nover my gagging sounds that the snake tattoo under her eye \r\nstarted to twitch. She has arms like Popeye and a face like \r\nWinston Churchill. I will NOT pick a fight with her. \r\n\r\n\r\nChili # 3: Fred's Famous Burn Down the Barn Chili \r\n\r\nJUDGE ONE: \r\nExcellent firehouse chili! Great kick. Needs more beans. \r\n\r\nJUDGE TWO: \r\nA beanless chili, a bit salty, good use of red peppers. \r\n\r\nCAMERON: \r\nThis has got to be a joke. Call the EPA, I've located a \r\nuranium spill. My nose feels like I have been sneezing \r\nDrano. Everyone knows the routine by now and got out of my \r\nway so I could make it to the beer wagon. Barmaid pounded \r\nme on the back; now my backbone is in the front part of my \r\nchest. She said her friends call her \"Sally.\" Probably \r\nbehind her back they call her \"Forklift.\" \r\n\r\n\r\nChili # 4: Bubba's Black Magic \r\n\r\nJUDGE ONE: \r\nBlack bean chili with almost no spice. Disappointing. \r\n\r\nJUDGE TWO: \r\nHint of lime in the black beans Good side dish for fish or \r\nother mild foods, not much of a chili. \r\n\r\nCAMERON: \r\nI felt something scraping across my tongue but was unable to \r\ntaste it. Sally was standing behind me with fresh refills so \r\nI wouldn't have to dash over to see her. When she winked at \r\nme her snake sort of coiled and uncoiled... it's kinda cute. \r\n\r\n\r\nChili # 5: Linda's Legal Lip Remover \r\n\r\nJUDGE ONE: \r\nMeaty, strong chili. Cayenne peppers freshly ground adding \r\nconsiderable kick. Very impressive. \r\n\r\nJUDGE TWO: \r\nChili using shredded beef; could use more tomato. Must admit \r\nthe cayenne peppers make a strong statement. \r\n\r\nCAMERON: \r\nMy ears are ringing and I can no longer focus my eyes. I \r\nbelched and four people in front of me needed paramedics. \r\nThe contestant seemed hurt when I told her that her chili \r\nhad given me brain damage. Sally saved my tongue by pouring \r\nbeer directly on it from a pitcher. Sort of irritates me \r\nthat one of the other judges asked me to stop screaming. \r\n\r\n\r\nChili # 6: Vera's Very Vegetarian Variety \r\n\r\nJUDGE ONE: \r\nThin yet bold vegetarian variety chili. Good balance of spice \r\nand peppers. \r\n\r\nJUDGE TWO: \r\nThe best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, and garlic. \r\nSuperb. \r\n\r\nCAMERON: \r\nMy intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous \r\nflames. No one seems inclined to stand behind me except \r\nSally. I asked if she wants to go dancing later. \r\n\r\n\r\nChili # 7: Susan's Screaming Sensation Chili \r\n\r\nJUDGE ONE; \r\nA mediocre chili with too much reliance on canned peppers. \r\n\r\nJUDGE TWO: \r\nHo Hum, tastes as if the chef threw in canned peppers at the \r\nlast moment. I should note that I am worried about Judge \r\nnumber 3, he appears to be in a bit of distress. \r\n\r\nCAMERON: \r\nYou could put a hand grenade in my mouth and pull the pin \r\nand I wouldn't feel it. I've lost the sight in one eye and \r\nthe world sounds like it is made of rushing water. My \r\nclothes are covered with chili which slid unnoticed out of \r\nmy mouth at some point. Good! At autopsy they'll know what \r\nkilled me. \r\n\r\n\r\nChili # 8: Helen's Mount Saint Chili \r\n\r\nJUDGE ONE: \r\nThis final entry is a good, balanced chili, neither mild nor \r\nhot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when Judge Number \r\n3 fell and pulled the chili pot on top of himself. \r\n\r\nJUDGE TWO: \r\nA perfect ending, this is a nice blend chili, safe for all, \r\nnot too bold but spicy enough to declare its existence. \r\n\r\nCAMERON: \r\nMomma... \r\n\r\n", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Ok, analysis. Ooh, smells like carrots in throw-up! Oh that could gag a maggot! It smells like hot sick ass in a dead carcass! Even stink would say that stinks! You know when you go into an apartment building and you smell the other people's cooking on each floor and you go \"What are they cookin'?\" That, plus crap!\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "For the love of god, don't go overboard with the skin tone. I can't offer advice on makeup specifics (what to buy, how to apply, etc), but I know it's incredibly lame to see people who are covered in bite marks and huge wounds with green skin.\n\nIf a zombie bit you in all likelihood you would get the shit out of there. So go with a single, or at the most two wounds on an intelligent spot. The neck, shoulder or forearm. You'd also try to dress the wound if you got away. So bandages are a must.\n\nThey're also dead, not from Sesame Street. If applying skin tone make up, make it vaguely pale if you're not African flavored. Don't be tempted to go super pale or for the love of god, green.\n\nAs far as Hollywood goes, stay away from Monroe. It's too obvious. Become your own starlet. Mimic an era hair style and dress, but don't go for the lip mole or anything too obvious. ", "score": 8 }, { "body": "I think it would be funny if you applied full body makeup and wore a dress that made you appear in greyscale.", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "The Doctor is like a cosmic prophylactic sponge, keeping the universe from being impregnated with hate and terror.", "score": 14 }, { "body": "How else to you kill someone without:\r\n\r\n* Using guns (this is British TV, not American)\r\n* Showing a lot of blood (this is British TV, not American)\r\n\r\nDouble heart attack from eating too many chips? I think not.", "score": 7 } ]

[ { "body": "I think you answered your own question... stop being a pussy and step up to be the one who will firmly pop the question. Don't be afraid of rejection, just move on.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "If you're wondering how you got in the friend zone, it might have been like [this.](http://pixelatedgeek.com/2009/03/the-friend-zone-dilemma-how-did-you-get-stuck-there/) Now I'm going to try to give you the best advice I've got: \n As soon as you know her name, say something witty. Try to get to know her in a calm way, ask questions like, \"So where are you from?\" or \"What school did you go to?\" and try to relate in some way. When you think you know enough to be friends (this may be that day or within the week), ask her finally, \"So what's your favorite restaurant?\" Whatever that restaurant is, mention that you (like it/haven't tried it), and then ask to take her there sometime. Don't wait longer than two months of getting to know her to ask her out, because she'll begin to put you in the friend zone because she thinks you aren't going to make a move. If you do wait that long, you should at least be flirting with her online or *something*. If you're trying to get a girl that you've been friends with for a long time, then my best advice is to do something new with her, like maybe go on a trip together somewhere she hasn't been, whether its to a place like Dave & Buster's, or a road trip to the beach. After the trip, you should immediately make a move, like asking her out to dinner with you, but you have to make sure she knows it's a date. Maybe say something like, \"So I was thinking we could try something new again because this was so much fun, will you go on a date with me? I was thinking at [restaurant]?\" If she says yes, YAY! If she says no, move on to a new girl :) \nI hope that helps. good luck :D \n \nEDIT: I removed the corny joke: only do a corny if you have a joking personality and can naturally get people to laugh. \nEDIT 2: Also, I'm sorry, I should have specified, my advice for the \"Don't wait longer than 2 months to ask her out\" was meant for high school and early college life. Once you've turned 20, things speed up a lot and I think it's true you should probably try to ask her *at least* within a month, if not within the week.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I learnt this the hard way - I was like you - had so many female friends but none were progressing into the romance / banging buddies zone.\n\nI realised that these girls who I was being friends with would not be my friends for long - they would meet someone else.\nSo with that in mind - namely that I have nothing to lose - I would tell them.\nObviously build interest, comfort etc but just tell them", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Yea, when you get a little older you'll learn to just smirk at someone that shouts something stupid like that and walk along and enjoy your music.\n\n\nThe **only** thing that matters is if you are happy with your hardware/software/OS.\n\n\nPeriod.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Mismatch of motivation? Utah should never be able to \"hang\" with the likes of Alabama. When Boise State beat OK St in 2007, the OK band had a larger budget than the entire Boise State football program. Bob Stoops had a salary that was more that 7X the salary of Chris Petersen.\n\nUtah and Boise State have nothing compared to Bama or OK when it comes to recruiting power. They should be able to overcome any advantage Boise or Utah may have in the injury column.\n\nThese are lame excuses for the real truth. The BCS is not designed to give us a national champion. It is designed to keep the big schools in the big games. Boise State may be the best team this year. We'll never know. Utah may have been the best team last year. We'll never know. ", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I don't think think that anyone is arguing that TCU/BSU/UT/BYU don't belong with the big boys (at least no one with a good argument), but people do argue that they come from conferences that lack depth compared to the SEC/Pac10/Big10/Big12 (I could put the ACC and the Big East, but I think the Mountain West is better than both of those conferences.). I think this argument has credence, but the only way to know for sure is to have a full playoff with members from every conference just like every other college and professional sport, including three other NCAA divisions of college football!", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I just read the wikipedia article on Doug Wilson, and [holy shit has he drunk the kool-aid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Wilson_(theologian\\)#Conservative_social_views).\n\nEDIT: to clarify, seeing as I'm being downvoted; I'm talking about the justification of slavery and the support of exiling gays and lesbians, execution for adulterers, not simply ripping on him for being a \"conservative\".", "score": 8 }, { "body": "Here's more information about [Collision](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_(film\\)), the documentary about their series of debates.", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I volunteer at a doc's clinic and I often get to shadow her. We had a lady in her mid 50's, I want to say, that had swollen feet (and part of her ankles) as well. The patient expressed concern over it, but did not experience pain. There was nothing wrong with this patient as far as I can remember, except the swelling. My doctor concluded it to be edema due to increased sodium consumption. If you had blood tests done already, this might not be the case for you, though it doesn't hurt to ask your doc about the possibility.\n\nDisclaimer: I am not a doctor, I am not qualified to give medical advise, it's just an observation. Consult with your doctor(s) before making any changes to your lifestyle.\n\nGood luck and I hope you get well soon!", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Edema seems to be fairly baffling to doctors. Try going to the [opposite hemisphere](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect) and see if it switches to your right foot ;-)", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "The fact that he is reading them to you so nonchalantly indicates to me that he finds it more amusing than anything. If there was something that would threaten your relationship, I doubt he would openly broadcast it like this.", "score": 22 }, { "body": "I can't speak to your boyfriend's motivation, but by acting the way he has he is definitely causing her unnecessary pain. He needs to inform her that he's not interested. If what you're feeling is just the territorial instinct that'd be understandable, though not necessary. Personally, I'd be somewhat disturbed that he either hasn't noticed or hasn't cared that this other gal is pining away after him and suffering.", "score": 18 }, { "body": "My so gets emails and texts for his ex like this every few months and always reads them to me. The fact that he is being so open with you is a positive thing. You shouldn't worry about it. Instead, pity the girl for being so fixated on someone who is clearly not returning the interest. \n\n\n", "score": 9 }, { "body": "One vital piece of info is needed before I can volunteer some opinion - d**o**es this other woman **know** he's now involved with you?", "score": 5 }, { "body": "You feel uncomfortable because another girl loves your bf and he's not doing anything to stop it and in fact encouraging it because he likes the attention he is getting. Plain and simple to me.\n\nHe's also 'stringing' her a long which you (at least I) think is a bit mean or out of character for him. He's also sharing something that is likely private and personal meant just for him, with you. Have you ever seen him reply? Does he say anything about you?\n\nIf she lived in the same city as you two, would you find her more of a threat?", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "\"God\" is still referred to as a legitimate (capitalized) being. Not 100% atheist.\n\nTry this:\n\nNO evidence; NO god.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "Here's a similar quote, a little more abstract, from Umberto Eco's _The Name of the Rose_:\n\n> \"It's hard to accept the idea that there cannot be an order in the universe because it would offend the free will of God and His omnipotence. So the freedom of God is our condemnation, or at least the condemnation of our pride.\"\n\n> I dared, for the first and last time in my life, to express a theological conclusion: \"But how can a necessary being exist totally polluted with the possible? What difference is there, then, between God and primigenial chaos? Isn't affirming God's absolute omnipotence and His absolute freedom with regard to His own choices tantamount to demonstrating that God does not exist?\"\n\n> William looked at me without betraying any feeling in his features, and he said, \"How could a learned man go on communicating his learning if he answered yes to your question?\"", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "That is me as well. I work 12 hour shifts in an ER and the crazy shit I see and deal with everyday puts me in a negative mood. I do not smoke before or during work like I did when I worked at a bank so putting up with people is much more difficult. So after a another crappy shift I rush home to smoke a bowl and I can then reenter society not hating on everyone. Or I just lay on my couch and watch Jersey Shore and laugh.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Mostly i smoke when i'm bored, going to bed, eating, going to the movies, showering, listening to music, playing guitar, doing homework, playing video games, pickup a fresh bag, scrape the bowl, anytime someone offers to smoke me up.\n\n\nYep, all day", "score": 3 }, { "body": "It makes life more colorful.\r\n\r\n It makes you appreciate things you take for granted everyday. It makes the arts more beautiful. It expands your mind. It makes sex amazing and eating is orgasmic. And it's relatively cheap to have such a +5 life experience drug all the time. \r\n\r\nHell; why wouldn't you smoke?", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Call her. Ask her how her Christmas, or Kwanza, or Hanukkah, or whatever was. Talk about friends, and movies, and random shit until you get a feel for the situation. If she seems better, ask her how she feels and invite her to hang out sometime. If not, back off and wait for her to call you. Or try it again in another month, if you still like her. ", "score": 6 }, { "body": "This is probably going to end badly. It did for me when I got back together with a fling. I wouldn't recommend it. Use your energy on someone who is ready and willing to be with you. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Start any meeting mostly as friends. Coffee/lunch or even dinner can all be friendly events, two people catching up and all. That's the only way to begin to gauge the situation. There isn't a single solution to your problem, just a couple different paths. \n\nYou sound like the two of you are probably young right? I mean, like young adults/college type? Just curious. \n\nThe extra month on her own (i.e. not transferring emotions/attachments to you from her ex) could have been exactly what she needed and she may very well be interested in restarting your relationship. She may not even be actively thinking about it, but could be quite receptive to the idea of you two hanging out again. Or she could be actively wanting as much, but is too nervous to approach you. \n\nAlternatively, she may have come to find that she isn't interested in a relationship either with you specifically or with anyone at all for now. But that doesn't mean you can't reconnect with her as friends and try and find out where she stands. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "My grandmother sends me those kinds of things. I have a strict answer-Grandma's-mail policy of rebutting each and every one, and cc'ing everyone named in the entire chain. \n\nIt may be wasted breath. Utah Philips used to compare Republicans to refrigerators -- you open the door and the light turns on, you close the door and the light turns off, but there's no way to change their behavior.\n", "score": 8 }, { "body": "me too. I received some rant chain email about Pelosi using the Air Force jet. here was my response: \n\nThe Speaker of the House has been provided a security detail and a US Air Force jet since 9/11/01, at the request of the Sergeant at Arms - not Pelosi. The same detail was provided to the Republican House Speaker before her, and the same will be provided to whatever Speaker succeeds her. http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_nancy_pelosi_order_up_a_200-seat.html\n \nWith regards to 'un-american' - There's nothing more American than free speech. Michelle Bachmann used 'Un-American' to describe congressional democrats back in 2008 and it's been a buzz word ever since. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_pN2IPAw6E To suggest that free speech doesn't apply to Pelosi is simply idiotic - a desperate shot by someone who couldn't formulate a coherent argument about what's going on in Congress - or what they don't like about what's going on in Congress.\n\nI share your frustration with wasteful government spending, but forwarding a poorly written, unsubstantiated letter that attacks an individual - and not policy - does little to support your plight.\n\nAny asshole can write a scathing letter to Congress; I do it every week, if not daily. I want to hear from YOU. What's YOUR position and WHY?\n\nIf you have your own, please feel free to forward your messages (BCC please to stop spam bots), otherwise, please do not forward these meaningless political chain rants. \n\n", "score": 8 }, { "body": "I have a friend whose family acquaintances put him on some crazy con wingnut list and he lets them have it. They are outraged and insist that he has no right to reply-all. They demanded that he stop. His reply, \"make me\". \n\nThe shit that's in these emails. Racism, death panels, comparing Obama to hitler, etc. The whole loonytoon show. It's just so depressing so that many people think this shit is even OK let alone true.\n\n", "score": 7 }, { "body": "my sister sends me these kind of emails. This is the message I usually send back:\r\n\r\nThis receipt verifies that the message has been deleted from the \r\nrecipient's computer without being read at 1/5/2010 5:41 PM ", "score": 6 }, { "body": "It could be worse. My uncle posted [THIS](http://fromgrandmaskitchen.com/boilingpoint/2009/02/03/drunken-nigger-cookies/) on my facebook wall in response to a photo of an eric cartman christmas cookie I made.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "All you need to do to find a copy of all the right-wing hate mail chains is search on www.snopes.com for Obama and most of the information on the \"False\" has made the rounds of the right wing", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "[Infected Mushroom - Heavyweight](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnlAArE-OM4)\n\nIn fact, the whole album is one awesome psy-trance ride. This may not be their most popular track, but I like it because it's sheer instrumental genius.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "[i m a f o o l f o r d e p e c h e m o d e](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xops0E-ThDA&feature=related)", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "I am a woman and every time I have slowed/stopped having sex with a boyfriend, it was because I was losing interest in the relationship. I can't speak for your girlfriend, but when my high sex drive disappears, it is because I am no longer feeling attracted to the guy, or I have come to view him more as a buddy. It took me years to understand this about myself. I had to be dumped a few times to become cognizant of the situation.\r\n\r\nHowever, this might not be the case for you. She may just be really stressed out with all her responsibilities. I would talk to her about it, but if you don't notice improvement, it might be time to move on.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "The only way to regain the balance of power in this relationship (which is clearly on her side right now) is to be truly willing to leave. Right now, you want the relationship more than she does and so she can walk all over your concerns, knowing you're going to stick with the relationship anyway. There is no reason for her to try.\n\nForget what she says, and look at what she does. People use platitudes all the time. I do not think she really loves you anymore, or she would want to try to make you happy. She's not even making an attempt.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "Welcome to the average relationship through a woman's eyes. She just isn't that into you.\n\nTry to sweep her off her feet by being unpredictable and forward rather than begging for her time, or walk away.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "It sounds like you guys really need to make an effort to talk this over and see if you can come to some sort of compromise.\n\nStress is probably one of the most common things to dry up a libido for a girl. However, if she can make the time for it, she may find that the release helps her relax. I can completely understand her not being in the mood from being stressed out, that's usually the big reason why I wouldn't be in the mood either.\n\nNot sure whether your female friend is saying that your girlfriend should still find other ways to please you if she's not in the mood or if she should still put out if she's not in the mood to make you happy. If the latter, this is up to the individual, putting pressure on her will make it worse if she's just not in the mood. It will probably just make her even more stressed.\n\nAs for the sacrifice of sleep thing, some people cope better with lack of sleep than others. I'm very protective of my sleep and would get pretty annoyed if my partner was constantly wanting attention when I just needed some rest.\n\nUltimatums rarely help. Don't resort to giving an ultimatum unless it really is a dealbreaker for you. Try to talk to her and help her understand how much you miss the physical intimacy and see if it helps.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "So she has her priorities straight. At this point in her life, her priorities should be school and anything that keeps her in school (work, sleep). I know it sucks for you, but if she can't time find in there for you, you can't really begrudge her for that. Honestly, if I had spent less time in college doting over my girlfriend and more time worried about my future after school, I'd probably be in a much better place right now.", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "I have received blow jobs from women with and without a tongue ring and in my experience it is more the skill of the woman than the ring. I have noticed that women that have a tongue ring can sometimes think that is all they need and they are worse than most women without. But then if you meet a woman that can give an awesome bj and has a tongue ring then you my friend are in luck. ", "score": 15 }, { "body": "Hi, I have a tongue ring. It makes absolutely no difference. I'm convinced my man can't even tell it's there. It doesn't get in the way, though.\n\nHe says that kissing is a definite novelty with it in, however, but judging from this post, that's probably personal preference. ", "score": 6 }, { "body": "No difference receiving blowjobs (what is there to \"improve\" anyways?), but kissing was definitely way worse with the piercing than without.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "i cant really tell the difference. getting my dick sucked always feels teriffic (save the snaggle tooth).", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I reckon it just makes for the best level in scavenge; It's relatively small, but with three floors all looking down on the central point that everyone's trying to get back to. The survivors can throw the gas down from the top levels and work that way, and there are plenty of places for the infected to hide. The other levels are mostly flat with wide open spaces, which is fine in the campaign mode, but not as much fun in scavenge IMO. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Did he suddenly stop in the middle of the meal, get \"inspired\" and start making things out of his spaghetti, like Richard Dreyfus making the Devil's Tower out of his mashed potatoes?", "score": 13 }, { "body": "I just looked this guy up on Wikipedia and his picture [scared the shit out of me](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:H._R._Giger.jpg).", "score": 6 }, { "body": "* Is your documentary available anywhere?\n\n* What's his wife like? And I gotta ask... is she hot? Were any of the commonly occurring female bits that crop up in his artwork modelled off of her?\n\n* And to generalise the above question a bit, a lot of his artwork to me seems to be inspired by his intimate relationships, how would you describe his attitude towards these kinds of relationships in his life?\n\n* Who were his influences?\n\n* What's was he working on at the time you had contact with him? What does he generally spend his time doing?", "score": 3 }, { "body": "How does he feel about being widely known as \"the Alien guy\" despite being a highly acclaimed artist for decades? \n\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "From [TPB](http://thepiratebay.org/blog/175):\n\n\" You might have noticed all the new magnet icons everywhere?\n\nThese are \"magnet links\", *a link that lets you download a torrent directly in your BitTorrent client, instead of your browser*. Most clients supports this (uTorrent, Vuze, rtorrent, whatever) and will get the relevant torrent data over the DHT network. \"\n\nFor a more detailed explanation, check out the [Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_URI_scheme).", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Brokeback Mountain. \n\nI'm straight, masculine and thought I was in for a torturing experience when my group of friends (male & female) went to see it. I squirmed a bit during the tent scene, but in the end, I saw one of the most beautiful films about unattainable love ever. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My experience of finally watching Twilight was awesome. Well, laughing at it with a like minded friend made it awesome. If you're in the right mood and around the right people it's comedy gold. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you ladies and gentlemen! Thank you! \n\nWell, that was a tremendous welcome. You know, I've been campaigning all over this great nation of ours, but I do believe it is here in this very town that I've received the warmest and most wonderful welcome.\n\nMayor Smith, Councilman Peters, and my fellow Citizens, it is truly an honor and a privilege to come here and speak to you today.\n\nNow, times are tough. And tough times mean that you all have a lot of tough questions for people like me, and for my distinguished opponent from Tennessee. I'm ready to answer those tough questions, but I'm going to ask you to hold them until after I've outlined my plan for a new and better American Society.\n\nIt's no secret that our economy has seen better days. I know that fine folks like you are out there struggling. Some of you can't find work, and some of you are only scraping by on half the salary you used to make.\n\nNow, I could throw a lot of hooey at you, and the same tired mumbo-jumbo that you've been hearing from Washington Insiders for years. But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to tell you the truth. \n\nAnd the truth is, that things are bad right now, and they're going to stay bad, unless we start injecting some common sense back into Washington. \n\nOther politicians, and especially my Tennessee opponent, are fond of telling you that the economic recovery bill is working. I don't know about you, but I don't think that giving your hard earned money to failing banks is the answer!\n\nNo, ladies and gentleman, we need to address our financial crisis at it's source: the government-created mutant squirrel-people that are eating our crops, and impregnating our women.\n\nToo long, have the fat-cats in Washington ignored this rampant problem that you know all too well in your tiny battle-weary town. Every night, after you lock the iron bars on your windows and sit huddled inside with your shotguns at the ready, you watch the nightly news, and you see what I see: story after story of squirrel-person massacres.\n\nNow, my opponent doesn't want to talk about this issue. And do you know why? It's because the Republicans don't have a solution to the mutant squirrel-person menace. Oh sure, they talk about a poison-pellet system- but that's just another name for the same failed strategy they've been using for years. Who do they think they're fooling? Certainly not the mutant squirrel-people, and certainly not you!\n\nFolks, I've traveled all around this beautiful nation, and I've given this speech more times than I can count. I've seen the scarred and pale faces of men, who have tried in vain to defend their crops, and I've seen the swollen bellies of the good women of this country who have been seduced and bedded by the mutant squirrel-people. And I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.\n\nThat's why I'm here asking for your vote! We need to get to Washington and pass this piece of legislation right here. In my left hand is the very bill that I intend to push through the tired old bureaucracy, and sign within my first 100 days as your President.\n\nThis bill, which I keep with me in my pocket- is step 1 of a three step plan. When you and I push this bill through the Congress, it will finally give the United States the authority it needs to force Canada to lift its acorn embargo once and for all. Too long have our Canadian neighbors watched us suffer while they have turned the once warm hand of friendship into the cold shoulder of indifference.\n\nNo more! Canada will stop hording their strategic acorn reserves, while hungry mutant squirrel-people continue to destroy our corn fields, and occasionally really hold up the line at McDonalds. \n\nStage 2 of my plan has received a great deal of media attention lately. You've heard a lot a lies, and a lot of half-truths- because my opponent doesn't want this to be a debate about facts. But I'm going to talk to you about facts anyway.\n\nFact: Squirrel-people are afraid of cats.\n\nFact: Genetically altered cats, twice the size, with metal claws and acid-spit are indisputably scarier than regular cats.\n\nFact: Genetic engineers can safely produce these cats, while maintaining their docile nature with regard to non-squirrel people.\n\nFact: Unlike some nasty campaign ads you may have seen, there is no indication that our genetically altered super cats will develop human-like consciousness and a thirst for baby-blood.\n\nMy fellow citizens, when Republicans worked to ban genetic modification projects *after* the mutant squirrel-people escaped, they were closing the barn door after the horse had bolted and impregnated our women.\n\nIt is time to reopen that door of science, and use what we've learned from this tragedy to help solve the problem.\n\nIf we get those mutant cats on the streets, we have estimates from the Department of Agriculture that in as little as 2 months, we could implement stage 3 of my plan: Turning around our food crisis by consuming the meat of the captured mutant squirrel-people.\n\nNow I know there are a lot of other issues out there like healthcare, same-sex marriage rights, and small-business tax cuts, but I'd like to open the floor at this time for anyone who has questions about the squirrel-people problem.\n\n----\n\ntl;dr: Fact: Genetically altered cats, twice the size, with metal claws and acid-spit are indisputably scarier than regular cats.\n", "score": 39 }, { "body": ">Conversely, what's the best thing you've seen posted to Reddit that's been downvoted?\n\nNot the best, but sometimes I get fucking confused when people down vote my opinions on movies and music. Im sorry I don't like District 9 or the XX, but I never thought that taste in media was supposed to be objective, and it's okay to punish people for not liking what you like.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "just pet your dog for me, give it a hot dog, and make its passing comfortable. More than a dog could ask for. ", "score": 13 }, { "body": "So sad, but so real. I've lived through the lives and deaths of several wonderful loving animals. You go through it, you cry a bit and you go on.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "We put both of our dogs to sleep this year, both at different times. It's been hard. I grew up with them. One was a yellow lab, the other a chocolate lab, and they are both massive, fat, lazy, and incredibly spoiled. You have to think about the positive times, about how they enriched your life as a child. They did. They are dogs. Dogs are awesome. You didn't mistreat them; think about how good they've had it, how a dog couldn't ask for anything better. \n\nIt's sad. If they will let you be in the room as they do it, and you are able to be there, I recommend being there. I held Winston and petted him as he was dying. It's sad, but at least you'll be there for them as much as possible.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "I totally plugged it yesterday, but *Where The Red Fern Grows* is an excellent illustration of a boy saving up to buy his two dogs and growing up with them ;-)\n\nGoing off to college, I come back and my dog has less energy. He's aged extraordinarily well and been in great health (knock on wood); he was born in 1998 - damn! His 12 birthday is around the corner (late March). He looks younger than he is, but it always hurts me inside to see him with some (treated) arthritis.\n\nHe's still got a lot of energy left in him, though, and he's a great dog, so I don't get caught up on his aging for long. And after our first dog died in 1998, I never take him for granted.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "My childhood friend Sheba passed a year ago as well. I knew she was dying, so I went to my mom's house, scooped her up and put her on the couch where I slept by her that night. I awoke about five in the morning to her labored breathing. I pet her and kissed her and told her it was ok to go. She died in my arms that night at 5:40 in the morning. I woke my mom up and told her and we both cried. We buried her in the backyard the next day. Rest in peace little Sheebs. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Some folks have resurrected [my old CGI course](http://jdporter.perlmonk.org/cgi_course/) (which got pretty good reviews in its time), but honestly, CGI.pm is archaic. Today you want to look at things like:\n\n* [Dancer](http://search.cpan.org/dist/Dancer/)\n* [Mojo](http://search.cpan.org/~kraih/Mojo-0.999914/)\n* [Catalyst](http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-Runtime/)\n* [Maypole](http://search.cpan.org/dist/Maypole/) (not sure if this one is still active)", "score": 9 }, { "body": "Adding to Ovid's list I would also consider:\n\n* [Squatting](http://search.cpan.org/dist/Squatting/) : Bit more mature than Dancer.\n* [Web::Simple](http://search.cpan.org/dist/Web-Simple/) : Bit less mature than Dancer!\n* [Continuity](http://search.cpan.org/dist/Continuity/) : And now for something completely different!", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I'm going to take a look at Catalyst and CGI::Application and see which one works out best. Thanks for the advice! :D", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "The creepy thing about Boise is that there is none of that sprawl that dominates so many American cities. You have the city (town, whatever) then, BAM, you have a shitload of nothingness. Take time to appreciate this abrupt transition. It is especially creepy at night. If I had to go there again I would just head for the boonies and try to see some stars. There's lots of good dark sky if the weather obliges. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Bad idea, really. Half the comments people who come here looking to put on muscle get are \"do 200 situps\" or \"bike riding builds mass, man.\" People looking to lose weight are told to just cut x and y things from their diet, instead of counting calories.\n\nWithout a moderation system, this kind of silly rises to the top. Having a wiki would just allow people to write entire articles filled with crap, and it's really just easier for the sane people here to deal with it bluntly and with downmods, than to carry on discussions in the comment section of a wiki and see any progress undone by the next random nutter that comes along blabbering about whole proteins and the horror that is GOMAD.\n\nIf people want to put together some really long FAQ or something, get the most common questions hashed out, and condense it into one post, I'll permalink it in the sidebar, but I see no reason to do that for a wiki that right on the front page tells out of shape people to start working toward 100 pushups.", "score": 22 } ]

[ { "body": "King's Quest 6. \n\nA shape-shifting henchman of the Big Bad likes to try to lure you into killing yourself. He's always recognizable by his golden eyes and transparently bad advice, so it's fun to save the game and then act on his suggestions.", "score": 10 }, { "body": "The first Tomb Raider. You'd get through a difficult patch, save it, and then jump off the cliff just to get it out of your system. Also it was fun hearing her scream when you jumped off the Sphinx head.\n\nN+ There's an instant-death button for crying out loud. \n\nGTA4. Do the swingset glitch and then hop out mid-flight. Fun times.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "RE4. The first time I got my head chainsawed off I was so awestruck that I played the sequence over and over so I could watch it happen again and again. It was my first seriously gory game.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Trials HD. When I played the demo, I spent at least an hour just killing myself because it was so awesome.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "[Paranoia](http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpg/series.php?qsSeries=19). A good GM will kill your character often, so stay alert, trust no one, and keep your laser handy!", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Playing Mashed on PS2 with 3 friends. When you die, you assume the control of the Apache helicopter flying over the race track and try locking homing missiles on other race cars.\n\nPlaying Goblin Techies in DoTa.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Banjo-kazooie has a neat little cut-scene showing the witch becoming a hot witch. As a ten year old that was pretty rewarding despite having just died.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Dead Space. Every Xenomorph usually killed you a different way. My favorite was having Issac's head torn off, then the tentacle thing writhing its way down his neck hole and taking control of his body, stumbling off like a zombie.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Caveman Games on the NES - nothing like missing your pole vault to be swallowed by a t-rex, or failing to run fast enough and being eaten by a sabertooth tiger!", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Send him a very stern letter telling him how you are not pleased with his pricing and this will be the absolute **last** time you spend $2.9 billion on a CDROM.", "score": 1204 }, { "body": "Related story:\n\nOne night my friend and I were bored at his house. We were watching vids on some site that did not censor ads (not a porn site). One ad happened to be for a sex toy. I then got an idea. I went to a website which sold said toys and added one to my cart. I then found the edit quantity box click on it and mashed my finger on the number 9 just letting it fill up. After a good probably 30 seconds to a min I clicked update.\n\n\"Your total is $6,300,000,000\" (obviously not exactly 6.3billion , but somewhere near there)\n\nWe went a step farther and clicked calculate shipping. The most affordable option was *1.5 billion dollars*. We then joked around about how if we had somehow sent through the offer, somewhere, in some dildo factory, sirens and lights would start going off and a supervisor would shout \"START MAKING MORE!!\"", "score": 527 }, { "body": "Hell yeah,get over to Berzerkely and grab that multi-billion dollar disk. It will be a nice wall mount for your story. The write up, the record high Amazon transaction and the CDROM that you wound up \"old school transaction\" buying by DRIVING to the seller and handing him a \"fin\" ($5)\n\nA great end to a great story. Make a nice display the take a picture and show us. :D", "score": 103 }, { "body": "Kidding aside, Amazon's customer service is pretty awesome for a big, soulless corporation. I filled out the request to be contacted by a rep a while back and WITHIN MINUTES ( 3 or 4 of them like) my phone rang, and a lovely person was on the other end of it.\n\nBravo.\n\nPayPal should learn. Fuck you, PayPal. ", "score": 55 }, { "body": ">The best part: He explained that Amazon would be implementing such limits ASAP -- and therefore my transaction would be the largest Amazon purchase ever!\n\n...until hyperinflation hits USA.", "score": 43 }, { "body": "Absolutely drive to Berkeley and get it. Let's see what all the fuss was about.\n\nEdit: Absolute lack of spelling ability.", "score": 32 }, { "body": "Amazon is great. I recently purchased an espresso machine and it came completely destroyed. I mean everything that could be broken on this machine was - bent metal, cracked alloy top, every thing that was plastic was cracked, etc. Strangely enough, neither its original box or the amazon shipping box was damaged. So far the return process is easy.", "score": 19 }, { "body": "The order was accepted mate, they are **contractually obliged** to sell it to you for $2.9 billion as they agreed to.\n\nDon't take this crap! Demand your product!", "score": 17 }, { "body": "Amazon's customer service may seem fantastic, but really, they crap all over some of their biggest customers. If you set up a store (much like the guy selling the $2.9B CD) then you are expected to treat \"Amazon's\" customers even better than they do. If someone has a problem with something they purchased from you, for instance, they didn't bother to read the description that the seller posted of the item, and they complain to Amazon, Amazon will credit the customer back and take the money back out of the sellers account. If the customer doesn't send the item back, then the seller could be out both the money and product. \n\nHave you ever seen someone leave a comment about a product that gave it a low rating and said \"good product, but shipping was slow\" they are giving the product a negative rating, but saying they like it. They should really be giving the rating to the seller, not the product. The reverse of that happens a lot too. Where someone will buy something, they buy something like a slap chop and when they get it and realize it's a piece of junk, they'll give the seller a negative because they don't like the item. Not the sellers fault. But the seller has no course of action. Amazon won't reverse the negative rating. And if a seller gets too many negatives, Amazon will shut them down and make them write an essay on how they're going to improve their customer service so they can re-open their store. All the while, Amazon seems to forget that the people they should be kissing ass to is the seller, not the customer. The customer isn't the one paying the fees that line Amazon's pockets. Yes, the customer should have a good experience, but so should the seller. \n", "score": 16 }, { "body": "I've had similar positive encounters with Amazon when one of my books was scratched. They said: keep it, throw it away or give it away, we'll send you a new book for free no shipping costs.\r\n\r\nTook me a single email.\r\n\r\nSince then I've been an Amazon fanboy.", "score": 15 }, { "body": "Aww, I thought with that kind of money to throw around you could have at least bought the east coast and made it *rollercoaster land.* Shit.", "score": 10 }, { "body": "You should totally ask for a certificate or something that verify's you made the largest amazon transaction ever. Something framed and signed by the ceo would be a fantastic souvenir. ", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I fucking love Amazon. That is pretty much the only place I shop other than Newegg. And I've been seeing a lot of positive threads about them lately on Reddit. Good job Amazon for your great service!", "score": 6 }, { "body": "> I mentioned I was an engineer\n\nThe eye rolling on the other end of the phone must have been near fatal.", "score": 6 }, { "body": ">The best part: He explained that Amazon would be implementing such limits ASAP -- and therefore my transaction would be the largest Amazon purchase ever!\n\nSweet, go you! It's really hard to get internet business companies to listen, it's great to hear they're taking such action!", "score": 4 }, { "body": ">I received a very polite call from Amazon today. They wanted to make sure I had received the order cancellation e-mail, and confirm that everything was OK on my end.\n\n>I mentioned I was an engineer, so we talked for a few minutes about e-commerce validation routines and such.\n\nWhat was the position of the rep who called you, do you know? Were they a high-level rep, ie public relations, or an engineer (doubtful) just regular customer service, or..?\n\n\nJust curious how closely they were paying attention, considering the small amount of media buzz that surrounded this story.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I live in Berkeley, California. If you want I can drive over and see if this gem is actually worth $2.9 billion.", "score": 3 }, { "body": ">therefore my transaction would be the largest Amazon purchase ever!\n\nAt least until we get hyperinflation!", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Even though your chance of getting out of this thing was pretty good, I still think it was pretty bold of you to buy that CDROM. After all, a deal still is a deal…", "score": 3 }, { "body": "What payment method did you use when making the original $2.9 billion purchase from Amazon?\n\nWouldn't they attempt to validate the purchase with your financial institution?\n\nJust curious how it was that none of their validation managed to catch it at the time of sale.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "the few times i've dealt with amazon customer service i've been very pleased. i'm not surprised to hear they handled it so well.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "What sort of credit limit must you have to complete a $2.9B order? Did your credit card company call you at all?", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I would have liked if they called to confirm your purchase, and then sent goons after you when you tried to worm out. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I dream about my teeth falling out or cracking up and falling out dont know why. Also about alien or zombie invasions.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Trying to run or sprint, but not being able to do it well, like I'm running extremely slow or I'm stuck in one spot running in place.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I have what I call the 'tippy toilet' nightmare. I need to use a bathroom, but the ones in the building I am in all have crooked floors, and/or the toilets are unstable, and are often overflowing. usually just water, no crap. it's the crooked floor part that really bugs me, though.\n", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Don't know why, but this is the most vivid nightmare I can recall, and I haven't had it really since I was a kid. \n\nBut I'm standing on the banks of a swamp with a soccer ball juggling it between feet, when all of a sudden out of no where comes a pirate ship that slowly creeps up on me. Then fucking peg leg Red Rackhem walks down the gang way and steals my ball. Instead of turning around to walk back up, the asshole just stares me down and back steps his way up on deck, and the ship follows in similar style by just slowly reversing somehow off into the horizon. No u-turn or anything, just beep beep reverse. \n\nStupid pirates. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "The most amazing thing was when I had sex being high for the first time. I envisioned and almost saw \"particles of happiness\" - shiny yellow dust slowly flowing from my wife's body to mine, filling me with a sense of satisfaction. \n\nI thought of it almost as a nutrition, like protein and carbohydrates. If you don't get enough nutritions from food - you become weak. If you don't get enough particles of happiness - you become depressed. To maintain your body mass you need relatively small amount of protein. To maintain your life without being suicidal you need relatively small amount of happiness, which you can get from simple fun things like movies, tasty food, comfortable bed. To increase your body mass like bodybuilders do you need much more protein. To let your spirit grow you need much more happiness that you can get only from great things like sex. I thought that receiving and giving that shiny dust was one more fundamental process of life, like breathing. You can not only inhale, you have to exhale. You can not only receive happiness - you have to give it.\n\nP.S. Don't ask me what it means \"let your spirit grow\", I have no idea.\n\nP.P.S. I also had thoughts about beginning of universe, but they are not so cool and most likely mathematically incorrect.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "The other day I was thinking about if considering planets, galaxies and whatnot orbit/rotate/turn whatever around each other, what if space itself is rotating around something bigger, or if considering space is an infinite existence imagine what is out there way past what we know is the edge of space. And then kept thinking of how vastly huge space is and how it goes on forever and ever and ever...or does it? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN!", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Back when I was single, a beautiful but drunk girl at a party grabbed me and whispered in my ear \"I'm a very sexual person.\"\n\nI was so out of it, that I didn't think, and just merely replied \"I'm not\" and carried on drinking. A year later, I get a flashback from that drunken, drunken night and thought \"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!\"", "score": 41 }, { "body": "I once had a girl I was dating ask me to describe my perfect, ideal girl. Unfortunately, I was drunk and was in post sex bliss so all of my defenses were down and I was completely honest. Nearly everything I said was opposite of what she was (ie I like brunettes, she was blond. I like dark eyes, she had blue eyes, and on and on and on). She focused in on every possible physical attribute and I did not connect all of the dots until the aggression in her voice became blaring and it was far too late for me to change any of my story. ", "score": 31 }, { "body": "My girlfriend: Will you take my sister out drinking while I'm out of town? She's been feeling pretty lonely lately and needs to get out of the house.\n\nMe: Sure.", "score": 25 }, { "body": "Me: You know those slutty tattoos called tramp stamps?\nGirl: Umm...no\nMe: They're tattoo's on the lower back. You can tell if a chick is easy if they have one.\nGirl: ...I have one.\nMe: ...ah.\nCamp got really awkward after that.", "score": 21 }, { "body": "One time I was out with a girl I had been dating for a couple of months. I had had a couple margaritas and she mentioned something about *when* we get married. I started laughing uncontrollably and she asked me what was so funny. Gasping, with tears in my eyes, I replied \"I'm never going to marry you!\" and continued to laugh. The relationship ended pretty quickly after that.\n\ntl;dr Tequila = liquid honesty", "score": 18 }, { "body": "I was on my first date with this hot girl and we had an awful silence wich i ended with the question \"How much do you weigh?\"", "score": 16 }, { "body": "\"You look just like a Cow when you bend over\" - She was wearing Black and White Spandex running pants at the time. I was referring to the pants, but she took it a completely different way. ", "score": 16 }, { "body": "She'd asked advice on her appearance. She's good looking, dresses well, only one thing sprang to mind, so that's when I learned that no matter what they say, no matter how they ask, no matter how well you know them, you **never** say \"you've got a 'tache like a german teenager\".", "score": 15 }, { "body": "I told my girlfriend when I first met her that she looked just like a girl I had really, really liked in secondary school, but who had sadly been impregnated and had left before our last year :-(. That didn't go down too well.\n\nAlso, my girlfriend used to be really uncomfortable with me going down on her, which frustrated me because god damn eating pussy is awesome. So, moronically I toyed with the idea of telling her that I really wanted to eat her out so I could become a better lover... in future relationships. Thankfully, I came to my senses and realised that would be a completely fucking stupid thing to say to someone.", "score": 13 }, { "body": "I was tried saying \"I like my women like I like my coffee... drrrrrrrrrruunnnkkk!\" (said like Tony the Tiger).\r\n\r\nIt was such a bad pickup line that I got lectured by a stranger for five minutes.", "score": 12 }, { "body": "A friend of mine's wife asked him \"Is there anything I can do to make myself more attractive to you?\" (she's already very attractive).\n\nHis response: \"Well, if you magically turned Asian that would help a lot.\"", "score": 11 }, { "body": "\"You're way too young to be in here\" said in jest to a very cute ginger girl. Set of a chain of events which led to me dating said ginger girl and her then breaking my heart.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "I once ran into a former coworker and asked her when her baby was due. \"Six months ago!\" was the answer. Don't assume ever.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "\"do you like me or do you just like what I can do for you?\"\n\n\"uh, what you can do for me\"\n\nwrong answer. ", "score": 7 }, { "body": "A few years ago, my wife asked 'What's that green dot on the back of some of those (NFL [American Football, for you non-Americans) players helmets?'.\n\n\n\nI told her that those players have Diabetes and require special attention if they get injured and that's how the trainers know. She thought this to be the case until about 3 games into this season.\n\n\nFor the uninitiated, it actually signifies the (single allowed) player on the field with wireless communications to the sideline in their helmet. I guess it's more of a LONG joke on her than something stupid, but I still get a kick out of it.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "i once told a fuck-buddy \"i love you\" which ended the relationship. the funny part is that it was really just a slip of the tongue. i didn't mean to say it. i was just really enjoying spending time with her and meant to say something like \"i love this\" or \"i love spending time with you\". but it came out as \"i love you\" and...well, once you've said it, you can't really take it back saying \"ooh. sorry. i didn't really mean that.\" \n\nbut, that evening was the last time we spent any time together.\n\nlife lesson: speak when spoken to. otherwise, just shut up.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "\"You know what I just realized? I've paid for absolutely everything over the past year, since we started dating, and here you go out with your friends last night and spend your money with them, but have never offered to help pay for anything with me! It's like I'm dating a prostitute!\"\n\nShortly thereafter, she started helping to pay for stuff. Eventually we got married, 8 years ago, and are now expecting our 3rd child. Yet that was the coldest thing I've ever said to anyone in my life. I certainly could have gotten my point across in a less attacking manner, but I was angry and I hadn't learned how to better filter my thoughts before they spewed forth from my mouth.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "With me (as a guy) to a girl:\n\n>We're not working out, We have nothing in common, for starters, you're not a man\n\nIt wasn't what I meant, but the words came out completely wrong - I was trying to say how she seemed to get on best with extremely effeminate guys and perhaps that's why we weren't working out...", "score": 3 }, { "body": "\"I love you\" \n\nThe look of shock on her face was incredible. As it turned out, that wasn't such a great relationship to get into, but it's by the by now.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "First date:\n\n\"Wow, this restaurant is really great. How did you find this place?\"\n\n\"Oh...\"\n\n*cue brain in slow motion: NOOOOOOOOO!*\n\n\"...my ex and I used to go here all the time!\"", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Choking is amazing...you don't even have to do it hard unless you get some encouragement, but just your hands wrapped around her throat will be thrilling. \n\nBreast play is great, too...pulling on nipples, slapping her tits, etc. \n\nMostly it's an attitude. If you feel like you're in charge and let go, it'll happen. If you're fucking her from behind and grab her hair to yank her head back and whisper in her ear about how this ass is yours and no one else's? She'll be with you forever. ", "score": 28 }, { "body": "Learn to use a \"Safe Word\". You both agree what it is before you start, and make sure to stop when it is used. \n\nEverything else you will have to figure out for yourselves. But what an experience it will be.", "score": 14 }, { "body": "I'm rather surprised nobody has told you that this should be a conversation you have with your girlfriend, not the internet. Though there's a lot of good ideas in this thread (Socrates1, I do that to my gf all the time), really you should be talking to your girlfriend about what she likes and what gets her off. Plenty of guys have trouble with this, but really, talking to your girlfriend about what she likes will only improve your sex life. Here are some good sample questions, based on my conversations with lovers past and current:\n\nDo you like to be verbally abused? How? What themes do you prefer in your verbal abuse? These can include devaluing you as a human in general, all women are whores, you're my slut and you love it, etc. Should I say you're stupid, or leave that one alone? Are you my slave, my fucktoy, or just whatever I want?\n\nHow do you feel about anal play? Do you want to be helpless while I have my way with you? Do you prefer physical torture, sexual torture, or a mix of both? Can I slap you harder as I observe your level of arousal increasing? (many girls who like it rough will like to start out slow, and you can start piling it on when they get into it.)\n\nAsk how she feels about being tied up or cuffed. Padded velcro cuffs are very cheap and can be undone with her teeth if her hands are in front of her. Bathrobe belts are also great. For example, have her kneel and put her forehead on the floor/bed, and her forearms along her calves. Tie her wrists to the corresponding ankle, and maybe the ankles together as well if you're only using the one belt. Ask if she would prefer the discomfort of a regular belt to a soft one, or regular ropes or whatever. In any case, in this position you can finger whatever hole you desire, spank her, lick her, move around the front to jerk her head up by the hair and stick your cock in her throat, whatever. Some girls might also prefer to not be restrained, but still submit to your every whim. \n\nI'm starting to ramble, but the point is, \"rough\" is a huge category with lots of subcategories, each with a wide spectrum of intensity. Everyone is different and the more talking you do on the subject, the better it gets. If you're met with \"I'm down for pretty much everything, just as long as you're in control of me\", ask what they will absolutely not do. Standard responses to this include ass to mouth, ass to pussy, urine, feces, and blood. Don't be shocked if some of these are left out.\n\nLastly, don't be afraid to break character for a little while at a time to ask her things like harder, softer, left or up or whatever. This is not just for her benefit, but yours as well. When I first started getting into domination, I was often worried I was being too forceful. Only occasionally was I right. But generally, if you do something she doesn't like, she'll let you know about it.", "score": 13 }, { "body": "Oh that's really really vanilla roughness. Get your spank down.. Don't hit bony areas. You can also rub her ass in a circular motion to draw blood to the surface and then spank lightly with great effect. Don't forget to talk dirty. Tell her what you're doing, what you're gonna do and what you just did. \n\nAnd remember hit that shit hard and deep, but build to it.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "\"rough\" means different things to different people. I used to think I liked it rough...then I learned that spanking, nibbling and hairpulling is pretty mainlined sex technique...hm...maybe I'm fairly vanilla after all...", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Going slowly and staying within your comfort level is the best thing to do. Remember, if you're not into what's going on, then it's not good for the both of you. Additionally, I'm not a huge fan of the 'safe word'. We still use stop. My girlfriend just doesn't say it unless she wants me to stop. Why confuse it?", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Pain is good, but don't injure her. If you cause lasting damage you have gone to far.\n\nGive her a barely \"to much\" slap to the face.\n\nSlap her ass really hard.\n\nChoking can be cool, but keep in mind people die this way.\n\nPull her arms back behind her, bend her over and tell her what a fucking whore she is.\n\nJust roll with it dude. Remember, don't hurt her. It's like wrestling with a guy friend, yes you want to win, but you're not going to hurt a friend.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Whatchamacallit, Bottle Caps, Razzles, fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls, and, I know I'm gonna catch shit for this, but I have to say it... circus peanuts.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Personally, I am a big fan of [Mamba](http://www.nexternal.com/vegane/images/MambaFinalLG.jpg). Its a fruit chew that is softer than starburst, with a nice set of flavors. One thing that I think is cool is that they package flavors together in individual packets inside the outer wrapper. Makes it easier to grab just a few :)", "score": 3 }, { "body": "[Maynards Wine Gums](http://imgur.com/YKzGB.jpg)\n\nMy sweet-tooth disappeared long ago, but I can still plow through a bag of these from the bulk section a night. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "[Redskins](http://www.bananablue.com.au/images/product/9300605245204_1.jpg). Raspberry deliciousness combined with folksy racism.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Zero bar, they are so DELICIOUS. They're extremely hard to find, but thankfully a gas station near me has them so I always get one when I stop by.\n\nEdit: I also recently bought a box of them from Amazon. :O I'm gonna get so fat.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Why the fuck are they all so *terrified* of dying if they are about to spend eternity in paradise?\n\nBecause deep deep down, they all know it's a lie.", "score": 27 }, { "body": "Faith, by definition, is simply wishful thinking. Do not underestimate the power of wishful thinking...it rules nearly all personal, social, and governmental policy; just have a look around. Science, with all of its boring facts, measurements, and data, stands little chance against the power of human wishes-upon-a-star to transmutate fantasy into reality. Faith stems from a primordial misunderstanding of causes that we've only very recently understood to be based in nature, and this convenient mechanism has tens of thousands of years of momentum sustaining it through this new Valley of the Shadow of Science. Faith will be the safehouse of hopeful ignorance for many centuries to come. Don't fret over those that cast their pennies into the magical Fountain of eternal life, enjoy your present life for what it is: temporary, beautiful, precious, and not to be squandered as rehearsal for the next. If your friend can't get it, then don't waste a second of your gift trying in vain to show him just how amazing his is. You both lose that way.", "score": 10 }, { "body": "Because most people can't accept that we are here to reproduce and that is it. Other than that, we have no \"purpose,\" but for some reason that I can't really fathom, that scares the shit out of people. So they will cling to anything, even if their reason would tell them that it is wrong, in order to soothe or lessen that fear. It's neurosis.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Faith offers comfort where science offers doubt. Doubt is dangerous, hard coded into our very genes to be a flight or fight stimulus. Forgive your friend, if he does not possess your courage. Help him over this hindrance, as he allows. Be patient.\n\nThat said, be wary in placing *your* faith in science. Science is, like all systems of belief, a product of man. As such, science is subject to error and mistake. Truth is not subject to error. Truth is only found within yourself, not in science. The only absolute truth I have thus far discovered[1], is \"I am now seeking truth.\" This truth requires constant focus, else I begin thinking instead of bikini clad tits. Observation of thought and sensory stream is also a kind of truth, but again requires constant attention, else I find myself in delusion. Truth is slippery, friend. Faith provides some traction in truth's pursuit, for some. As I said, the pursuit is all we have, I think.\n\n1.There is also, [this.](http://xkcd.com/263/)\n\nEdit: link formatting.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Yeah, everyone varies. That being said, buy some toys. A little whip, a riding crop, see if she's into bondage, get her some cuffs. Go as a couple to porn shop and look at what they have on display. Watch where her eyes linger. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Thanks for reminding me how much I hate Navi from OOT. Yeah, I get it. What IF we told Saria we were saving Hyrule? You don't have to ask me fucking 8000 times!", "score": 11 }, { "body": "Daisy from the Mario games. Especially her voice in Mario Kart Wii. I just want to punch her in the face. \n", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Slippy from Lylat Wars (Starfox 64 for you Americans). Most annoying high-pitched whining for help pre-Xbox Live.\n\nAnd wouldn't this be better suited to /r/gaming?", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Every single Final Fantasy girl. I guess it's a plus they can fight back a little more than the princess in Zelda you've described, but they've got terrible costumes, stereotypical personalities, and poor moves.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "All of the sidekicks in Fable. It's been a while since I played, but I remember a lot of yelling at them, \"I'm dying here, can you at least face the enemy and *pretend* to help?\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Peach. I always get annoyed that she can't save herself. Bowser always steals her...would it be too hard to have some basic security, or maybe even leave some clues as to which castle shes in?!?", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "At least Men's Rights and 2XChromosomes subreddits have something in common. They're both about women. ", "score": 79 }, { "body": "Yeah, I'm kind of embarrassed by my fellow XY's in r/mensrights and elsewhere on reddit who act like every step forward for women is a step backward for men, like it's some bizarre zero-sum game. Drawing attention to the fact that men are victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse is important and noble. So too is trying to ensure that men are able to do things that traditionally women do. The problem is that this kind of work towards equality is overshadowed by misogynistic fear-mongering that only serves to drive a wedge between the sexes and make true equality for everyone a more difficult goal to reach.", "score": 64 }, { "body": ">Has anyone tried to have a constructive conversation with mensrights in a way that can discuss the issue from both perspectives.\n\nMany have tried. Not many have succeeded in doing anything but starting a flamewar. It's probably best to leave that subreddit alone. \n\nTry r/equality. It was started with the goal of being a place for both \"sides\" to talk. You might find it a bit more productive, and enjoyable. ", "score": 35 }, { "body": ">Has anyone tried to have a constructive conversation with mensrights in a way that can discuss the issue from both perspectives. Maybe gain some insight that might further both interests in the way of gender equality, recognizing the problems men and women face and try to collectively come up with some progress? Would it be a big waste of my time to try?\n\nI did with one particularly eloquent poster but didn't pursue the conversation largely because it was clear we were miles apart on some very basic things. It's just not going to be easy with that particular group, even the smart ones and there are some great intellects lurking there.\n\nWhat follows is my take on the movement at large, which may perhaps explain the 'deal' with the subreddit:\n\nThe problem is that most come from a perspective of denying injustice to all but themselves. This is part and parcel of a post 1960s backlash against liberal activism for minorities and women. Now that blacks have civil rights, whites must be oppressed. Now that women have their rights, men are being emasculated, etc. etc. You saw this on display during the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings where you had the bizarre scenario of elderly white Senators claiming now-Justice Sotomayor was a reverse racist (while saying tonnes of racist things to her).\n\nThis is where we are. This is the world in the wake of the 1960s, a decade we're condemned to relive over and over again, it appears.\n\nBut in a Western world that presumably values equality now, where racism and sexism are bad and where bigotry is verboten, those who oppose such things had to find a new tactic. Thus they became the standard bearers of \"real equality\" against \"reverse racism\" and \"reverse sexism.\" Oblivious to how even the term 'reverse' centralised themselves and demonstrated their true goals.\n\nIn the case of Men's Rights in particular... It's a sad case.\n\nIt isn't that men don't have issues, it's that many MRAs don't seem to give a crap about them in any great detail unless feminists can somehow be blamed, and even then nothing gets done. Like many of these post-60s movements they are reactive; their raison d'etre is not really to fight injustice, but to fight those who are fighting injustice. Thus MRAs attack feminism mercilessly.\n\nWe're the enemy, the big pink Death Star ominously threatening to superlaser \"real equality.\"\n\nNote something rather important: Excluding this thread you started, Sallis, the last major mention of MRAs here was a thread I made *months ago* that linked to a Double X article about that movement. In between there was the occasional odd comment but nothing more. Now in r/MensRights at any given time there are usually at least five stories with 'feminist' in the title, all negative usually, and many more comments going to great pains to lambast feminism at every turn.\n\nFeminists try to fight sexism, MRAs want to fight feminism, mostly.\n\nIt's not that feminists never criticise, attack (fairly or otherwise) or discuss MRAs, it's just that it's not overly common. The Men's Right's movement as a whole, meanwhile, is singularly dedicated to the destruction of feminism. That difference in focus tells you all you need to know.\n\nThe real tragedy in this are, of course, the armies of men who need an advocate. Male victims of rape and abuse, for starters. Yet do you see MRAs aggressively challenging the odd prison rape joke the way a feminist challenges objectification on TV? Nope. Much less starting campaigns to raise awareness about conditions in prisons or letter writing campaigns to news and TV networks to do a better job of representing the issue.\n\nThis is but one example.\n\nThere is a lot of intersectionality between feminism and men's rights, of course. A lot of the restrictions men face are holdovers from more patriarchal days. The burdens and stereotypes placed on men are usually the result of blowback from misogyny. If women can't work, then men *must.* If women are weak, men *must* be strong. Who else would be, after all?\n\nYet too often, they're not really interested in that.\n\nTellingly, a recent comment by a troll whose MO is hysterically over the top misogyny was actually upvoted by 10 when I last left it in r/MensRights. It was a comment filled with many a gem about how women destroyed the world with equality and needed to learn their place before they were violently shown it. It also asserted that the emasculation of men was at the root of the downfall of every major civilisation.\n\nIt was so obviously a troll. That it got upvoted and responded to seriously with approval is alarming, however.\n\nAt any rate, men do face some pernicious things because they're men but MRAs don't seem too interested in challenging the ideas of traditional masculinity that often undergird those very problems. As I pointed out in the past, many a time, the trials of men existed long before feminism.\n\nWhat I find particularly comical, however, is that very often they're shadowboxing with a caricature of a parody of feminism, which they then emulate in the belief that it is they, and not women, who need rights and representation. Much like Fox News emulates its caricature of the nonexistent \"liberal media\" MRAs react to a largely exaggerated version of hyper radical feminism.\n\nAs Big80sMullet said, men certainly do deserve a hangout and a safe space. It'd just be nice if it was about more than evil feminists and whores trying to take their money. One thing I note in particular, a true male version of 2XC, where men could discuss health and sexual problems freely and productively, would be awesome. That's the kind of thing MRAs should strive to build. Yet how many discussions about such now would be shot down as \"gay, we're talking about penises\"?", "score": 29 }, { "body": "In some ways I think that MRAs are very similar to the radical feminist movement that I experienced in the late 60s-early 70s (my aunt was studying Women's Theory, and regularly held meetings at our house)- it was still a pretty new movement then (at least in the area where I grew up), and it was at least as preoccupied with hating men as it was with creating equality for women. I think that is pretty typical of most (not all) new movements- they almost always start off as a rebellion (with a great deal of anger) against something that they consider unfair, and it takes a while before the emotions calm down a bit and people become rational. You can see it as well in the early Black Power movement, in the early suffragette movement, and certainly in most of the 'new\" religious/political movements over the last 30 years. It's almost like there needs to be a period of venting hatred before anything positive is accomplished, at least from what I've seen. \n\nI'm not saying that it's a good thing, but hopefully over time the Men's Rights movement will become less strident. I do think that there are men's rights issues that need to be addressed, but it's pretty much impossible to hold a dialogue (at least in my experience), with many of the advocates today. Too many men are in it because they are bitter (sometimes rightfully so), and until the movement can rid itself of that kind of negativity I'm not sure that there will be too much productive discussion. ", "score": 27 }, { "body": "The thing with Men's rights subreddit is that a lot of the men posting there have had their kids/homes/savings taken away by a woman they were married to. They have experienced injustices first hand. They're paying thousands a month for kids they don't get to see. They have to pay alimony to an ex wife who lives with her boyfriend but wont marry him because then she'd stop receiving the alimony cheques (Extreme examples but valid nonetheless). This is the main difference between Men's Rights and feminism. Men don't care about rights until they get fucked, thats why they seem militant. You would be too if you went through what some of them have been through.\n\nHaving said all that, yes there are some people who post there who are of the \"women are all whores hurr durr\" school of thought. I do not agree with that at all, but, men need a place to talk about their rights and injustices just as much as women do. It would be sexist to deny them that. And you shouldn't let a few bad apples spoil the whole thing. There are usually some great and informative articles posted there. I would recommend reading them even if you skip the comments section.", "score": 17 }, { "body": "A lot of what I'd say here has been said, but I think I can give another perspective on this as a moderator and creator of r/Equality, which is intended to provide a common ground for the moderate feminists and men's rights activists on Reddit to discuss gender issues. It doesn't always work like that--often it's more like Reddit's take on Battle of the Sexes--but there have been a lot of heartening moments as well.\n\nThe men's rights subreddit is a very bizarre place at times. It's tempting to write them off as a bunch of bitter divorcees and grumpy frat boys upset that they have to listen to umpteen rape awareness lectures. I've even seen one of the most vitriolic men's rights posters do an Epic Flounce and leave the subreddit because it wasn't misogynist *enough* for his tastes!\n\nBut there are a lot of posters there who are actually very intellectual people with genuine, important concerns that line up very well with third wave feminist concerns. In many cases they've heard so much feminist-bashing that they believe the definition of \"feminist\" is \"one who believes women are superior to men.\" I've seen several of them open up to the idea of feminist allies to their movement and become allies themselves to the feminist movement. There are also posters there who are already aware that feminism and women aren't evil, but who value having a place to discuss issues like male rape victims, even if it comes at the price of putting up with some irritating misogynists who think it's the \"I hate women, how about you?\" subreddit.\n\nIf you look at the comments sections of some of the nastier posts, there will be a lot of people calling the poster out and trying to get him (or occasionally her) back on track to discuss relevant issues instead of bashing women. There's one in particular which was really repulsive, a poster bragging about slamming a door in a woman's face instead of holding it open for her, where the entire comments section was people saying, \"How does just being outright rude to a woman in any way help anyone?\"\n\nMnbvcx in particular is a men's rights poster (and Equality mod) who is extremely intelligent and in no way a misogynist. He posts from a men's rights perspective and I often disagree with him on his exact interpretation of the issues, but he's consistent, thoughtful, rational and courteous even when arguing with others.\n\nI can't post in r/MensRights myself without steam coming out my ears, but I think it's a mistake to write the whole subreddit (or the activists it intends to attract) off as kooky misogynists. Some of them are exactly that, but I think those are the loudmouths who give the whole group a bad reputation when really the majority are less visible but much more moderate and thoughtful. Many of them are a type of feminists themselves in my book, even if they'd rather commit seppuku than identify as such, since the definition of feminist is \"one who believes that women are equal to men.\"", "score": 15 }, { "body": "I subscribe to men's rights because there are legitimate areas where men have gotten a raw deal, like child custody, which I have felt firsthand.\r\n\r\nBut that doesn't blind me to the fact that in the big picture, as a white American male, I am a part of probably the most entitled demographic in the world, and my problems are far less than what women and almost every minority experience on a regular basis. Reddit men's rights tends to forget this, and a lot of their complaints come off sounding petty and impotent.\r\n\r\nr/men's rights is fine when it deals with very specific issues. When it gets carried away and just starts whiny bitching about women, it is the absolute worst of Reddit.\r\n\r\n", "score": 15 }, { "body": "They are a bunch of psychotic militants...well..many of them are. Some of them are pretty decent guys, but they enable the radical members and pretty much support what they say without question. If you disagree with the radical voices of /r/mensrights, they make sure you get the message that alternate opinions are not welcome. I am a neutral party when it comes to gender rights, and they have it in their heads that I am some kind of feminazi. If any of you ladies have paid attention to my posts here, you'd know that that is a load of crock. I'v generally been supportive of some men's issues, and some women's issues, but I don't really put an emphasis on either gender. \n\n\nHere is an interesting exchange between me and the entire mens rights community. I actually won a reddit award for it, and lost a good few hundred karma because someone felt the need to submit my comment to /r/men's rights. \n\n\nhttp://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/afzt7/the_comprehensive_worst_of_2009_thread/c0hdzli?context=5#c0hdzli\n\n\nBasically, you either think women are evil and men are oppressed completely, or you are a feminazi whore who HATES MEN. If you speak ill of /r/mensrights, you hate the idea of men's rights and men's issues. If you speak out against them in any subreddit, one of them will post a call to action on /r/men's rights, so every member of the community can come in and down vote you and tell you what a cunt you are. \n\n\nIm really glad that most of them stay out of XX/or don't know it exists. It's nice to have one place that isn't trolled by angry MRAs like the other female subreddits. ", "score": 14 }, { "body": "I've had debates in the office about whether men's rights are necessary and what the issues are if it is. My take is that the flag of men's rights is waved by people who have a nebulous gripe about their position in society without really taking into account the larger picture of equality. There are some issues that exist, in many societies at least, around how fathers are treated when families with children break down, but I was saddened when I wandered into the mensrights subreddit to see a lot of misogynist male bitching, basically, with very few legitimate issues that I felt I could be passionate about.", "score": 13 }, { "body": "I've actually posted articles to Men's Rights and there are a few posters who are very insightful and enjoy a good debate. Key Men's Rights issues-- the archaic system of family in this country and the disparity of sentencing for female sex offenders vs. male sex offenders--really needs to be addressed.\r\n\r\nBut there a few things that really bother me about that subreddit:\r\n*General statements about all feminists\r\n*The fact that nearly every story posted lately is about \"false rape.\" It's not that I think there aren't men who are falsely accused of rape-- it's the fact that so many just presume that all rapes are false, when rape is the most under-reported crime out there!\r\n*The \"all-women-are-out-to-get-us mentality\"\r\n*The complete absence of gay men in the discussion", "score": 11 }, { "body": "I used to subscribe to Men's Rights and found that it opened my eyes to a lot of problems that some men face, particularly in the areas of divorce and children. I unsubscribed a few months ago because it stopped being so much about when men are treated unfairly and starting being pretty much all about treating women unfairly. ", "score": 11 }, { "body": "From what I gather, their main goal is to create the biggest monster that they possibly can out of loose stereotypes of feminism.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "I agree that often misogyny is posted to /r/mensrights, but you have to agree that the hot stories right now are mostly pretty solid stuff.\n\nFrom the top 10:\n\n*You are not a princess! 25 points for women and men to consider\n\nI think that 2X would upvote a similar article about men. It's by Savoy, the pickup artist. Even if you have an issue with pickup artists, they make men who feel disenfranchised feel better about themselves, and able to interact with women who they honestly feel would treat them like crap if they didn't take his advice.\n\n*5 years in prison for any man who turn's down his wife's demands for sex \n\nIt's kind of an unreliable source, but you'd hope that this sort of thing would be cause for divorce proceedings, not prison.\n\n*Illegally copying a DVD can get you a five year prison term; lying about rape -- one year maximum\n\n*This is sickening - India's Supreme Court says women will never falsely accuse a man of raping her!\n\nFalse rape accusations are a big concern on the mensrights subreddit. They view it as a weapon that has been set up so women can harass men that they dislike.\n\n*Please sign this petition calling for increased support for male victims of domestic violence in Scotland (even if you live outside of Britain, you're still allowed to sign it). The petition will be discussed and considered by Members of the Scottish Parliament next month.\n\nI think that most people can agree that this is a good thing.\n\n*Obit anus, abit onus\n\n*Feministing mourn the death of a misandrist bigot who called for a 'drastic reduction of the population of males' \n\nThe first is incoherent and immature, but the second is an accurate portrayal of the situation. The woman who died definitely hated men in a very concrete way.\n\n*My husband is refusing to re-enlist in the Army in March. I think he has lost his mind. He claims that he is tired of all the deployments.\n\nThe advice columnist was good enough to point out that her husband isn't a money tree and she shouldn't treat him like that.\n\n*Men have emotions. Women need only adjust how they listen.When a woman says, “men need to be more sensitive and in touch with their emotions,” I hear, “men need to be more like women.” Bad idea.\n\nThere is significant backlash against this sort of thing in /r/mensrights. They feel, probably not inaccurately, that there is systematic prejudice against stereotypically male behavior in many institutions.\n\n*Almost every female and male college student has engaged in consensual but unwanted sex - why is it 'rape' only when it happens to her?\n\nThis sort of falls under the \"false rape accusations to destroy a guy's life\" umbrella, but it's a little different in that it's loosening the definition of \"rape\" to encompass \"regret.\" \n\nSome of the ones expressing less popular ideas have low scores. Most of these are ideas that I think that anybody who is really for gender equality can agree with.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "You're new to reddit, so welcome. Please unsubscribe from r/atheism and r/mensrights. You're not missing much.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Mens rights deals with domestic issues primarily. Women want equality in the workplace, men want it at home. It's pretty fucked up when there are billboards around that have a picture of a man holding a child's hand that says, 'If this doesn't look right to you, call the police.' For fucks sake, that could be a guy and his daughter or an uncle and his niece or something. Who knows? Society in general automatically assumes that if there is a male and he's anywhere close to a child then he's a pedophile or a child molester. \n", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "The \"geometry of the universe\" is irrelevant. The Euclidean plane is an ideal. There is no way that pi could have come out to any other value.", "score": 26 }, { "body": "If the geometry of the universe were different, the number of congruent circles you could fit around a circle would depend on the radius of the circles. As long as the universe were smooth, you could still say that as the radius tends to zero, exactly 6 circles become a better and better fit.\n\nThis doesn't exactly answer your question, it's just something to keep in mind when using curved universes as an argument.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "1. **Gravity**: Gravity is a very strong force at large distances, but very weak at smaller distances. To compare the two, hold an egg up in your hand. Gravity of the earth is attracting the egg, as well as your hand. Your hand is held together by molecular bonds (which is electromagnetic attraction), the egg is held together by molecular bonds, while the egg is held in your hand by the tension of your muscles (molecular electromagnetic force) and friction (also molecular electromagnetic force). Gravity is obviously the weaker force, otherwise the molecules of your hand and the egg would just drip away (like it may happen near a black hole, for example).\n\nNow drop the egg. Gravitational force is strong enough to impart such a momentum to the egg, that on contact with ground, its own molecular bonds are overcome (at some places). The egg breaks.\n\n2. **Protons**: While electromagnetic force is stronger at smaller distances, when we make the distance even smaller, it's the nuclear forces which are stronger. Protons are held together by the strong nuclear forces within the same nucleus, but if you try to bring two nuclei together, the electromagnetic repulsion between them dominates. This is the reason why everything has volume, instead of collapsing to a point.\n\n3. **Electrons**: Ah, the difficult one. We'll have to bring quantum theory into this now.\n\nAgain, at large distances, electromagnetic (well, electrostatic actually) attraction is perfectly explained by Coulomb's law. This is what you are thinking of, positive charges attract negative. If this were the only effect, all atoms would collapse onto themselves.\n\nBut the fact is at lower distances (think atomic scale here) a lot more factors come into play. An electron is affected by electrostatic attraction, magnetic forces, momentum, spin, bunch of others which I don't remember. The net effect of all these is, there are only certain arrangements of electrons which are stable. If electrons are kept in any other arrangements, they are unstable and decay into one of the stable arrangements.\n\nThese arrangements are what are called as quantum states. Think of them as wells, or valleys. These are states with lower potential energy.\n\nAround these arrangements, are possible arrangements which are unstable. These arrangements have higher potential energy. Think of them as hills.\n\nTo go from one 'valley' to another, an electron has to climb a 'hill'. i.e., energy has to be applied. We may eventually recover more then the energy we applied (i.e. if the electron goes from a higher valley to a lower valley), so we may see the entire reaction as exothermic.\n\nNow, just so we are clear, an arrangement of an electron collapsed into a proton is mostly stable. It's called a neutron (*yes, I know it's more complicated, antineutrinos are involved, etc. but let's keep this simple here*). \n\nBut the key point here is, between the 'valley' of the innermost orbit, and the 'valley' of being a neutron, there exists a huge 'mountain'. So huge in fact, it's huger than all the little mountains between the other valleys put together (disclaimer: value is approximate). So to collapse into the nucleus, an electron has to 'climb' this huge 'mountain'. Which it doesn't under most natural circumstances. That's why an electron does not collapse into the nucleus.\n\n__________________________________________________\n\nIn the interest of simplicity, I've left out several concepts. Start from [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom#Electron_cloud) and click on every link to get a really complete picture.", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "You shouldn't have any problems, but make sure you wrap your camera in a plastic bag and close it when you come back in. This will prevent condensation when the camera heats back up. Allow a few hours to make sure the camera is back to room temperature.\n\nWhile outside, you could get some heating pads and wrap the camera in a scarf or something, but you should be okay. I used my old 20D in -15C. My 5D saw use in -18C. Both worked flawlessly.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "The biggest problem in cold weather is that batteries get very weak. Even a fully charged battery may only let you take tens of pictures instead of hundreds.\nThere are techniques to deal with this. The one I use is to have a spare battery in an inside pocket as close to my body as possible. When the one in the camera gets too weak I switch them.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "I did some shots with a 450D last winter when it was about -35C here in Calgary. Like other people already mentioned let your camera gradually cool down and reheat, I find leaving it *in the bag* on the balcony for an hour or so and then taking it with me outside works best. Never tried the nylon bag trick, but I didn't have any trouble even with the differential of +21C to -35C.\n\nAlso, if you accidentally touch the lens you're screwed, there's no way to clean it in that weather and forget about blowing your breath on it (I tried, the crystals forming on the lens looked real pretty). Put a hood or a filter on it just in case.\n\nLastly, if you want to take more than a dozen pictures keep the/a battery in an inner pocket and put it in the camera right before taking some photos.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I've used a 40D in -15F and my 5D in -10F with no problems. Pull the memory card before going inside so you don't have to expose the camera to the warm air. Putting the camera in a plastic bag works but you can also just leave it in your camera bag (you do have a camera bag, don't you?)\n\nHere are some other tips:\n\nhttp://www.my-photo-blog.com/winter-photography-8-great-tips\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Love you for doing this, and I wouldn't really care if any of you knew my name, but I'd rather keep my \"web\" identity a bit separate from my real life. That, and no one in real life knows I play WoW and I'd probably keep it that way, haha.", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "For the benefit of my city I would make sure I got murdered in way that would be horribly scarring for my child. That's how superheroes are made right?", "score": 12 }, { "body": "Take out a loan, dig a super secret basement-headquarters-batcave, and hire advanced trainers in every fighting discipline possible. As for feelings, extreme jealousy and respect. Everything would be kept a secret, and I would teach him carefully to develop a moral code on how to use his powers and the proper use of a secret identity.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I call lies. There is no one who is \"way hotter\" than [Nicky](http://s2d1.turboimagehost.com/sp/cc27e5995e5277b88865532708ac8a6d/nicky-whelan-080421-01.jpg) [Whelan](http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u16/ecuador365/Chicas%20de%20la%20Semana%20003/Nicky_Whelan02.jpg)", "score": 5 }, { "body": "She was amazing. We made a dinosaur cake together once. We shaped it like a stegosaurus and used red velvet cake. Then we ate it together with three-fingered bare hands like raptors(yes we realized they came in different time periods, let us have our little fantasy here). It looked like the stego guts were everywhere.\n\nWe were just a summer fling, then decided to not try the long distance thing, but I will always wonder what could have been :(", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I worked massive hours while going to uni. As a result I was a ghost. I have friends who made all their adult friends at uni and they have all these close relationships. I wouldn't recognise a single person from any of my classes.\n\nIn retrospect I should have worked for a year to save up money and then gone to uni. I may have still had to work but I wouldn't have had to work so much. \n\nI missed so much - girls, social stuff, new friends, going to coffee with classmates ...", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "> \"we're a nation of thugs\"\n\nYeah, sure, that's why you've let your corporate lords and masters walk all over you, disassembling your labour unions, your ability to protest, and any chance of launching a successful strike action.\n\nGood luck, suckers!\n\n", "score": 8 }, { "body": "Would *you* say \"mister\", \"ma'am\", \"sir\" or \"thank you\" to the motherfuckers who ran the country -nay- the fucking world into the ground and continue to pillage the coffers?\r\n\r\nFuck no.\r\n\r\nI think TPTB (the *real* ones) behind the scenes are scrambling to quicly implement the plans they were initially waiting to spread out for decades (the boiling frog) before the whole shit comes crashing down (I can hope).", "score": 7 }, { "body": "From 2008:\n\nhttp://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aImBVle3OMyo&refer=home\n\n>(Bloomberg) Barton Biggs has some offbeat advice for the rich: Insure yourself against war and disaster by buying a remote farm or ranch and stocking it with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc.\n\n>The \"etc.'' must mean guns.\n\n>A few rounds over the approaching brigands' heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there are easier farms to pillage,'' he writes in his new book, Wealth, War and Wisdom.\n\n>Biggs is no paranoid survivalist. He was **chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley** before leaving in 2003 to form hedge fund Traxis Partners. He doesn't lock and load until the last page of this smart look at how World War II warped share prices, gutted wealth and remains a warning to investors. His message: Listen to markets, learn from history and prepare for the worst. ", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "Was the 747 thing his idea? Because that shit was priceless.\n\nMy question is--was it at cruising altitude? Did that shark *really* jump 36,000 feet?", "score": 8 } ]

[ { "body": "I liked the way a friend of mine proposed to his gf: He bought a diamond on its own and proposed to her with that. He then took her shopping so she could pick out how she wanted the stone to be set and the style of ring etc. I thought it was a real nifty idea. The diamond in the box alone actually looked more impressive than a ring.", "score": 11 }, { "body": "Hi, first post here.\n\nIf you're looking for a genuine diamond, $600-$1,000 will buy you 1/3 carat high-quality diamond or 1/2 carat mid-to-poor quality diamond in 14K gold. To get an idea of size, a round 1/3 carat diamond will measure about 4.5 mm across. 1/2 carat measures 5 mm. \n\nI personally think diamonds are a giant money hole, and really regret having one for my engagement ring. I've also developed more of a social conscience since I got married. \n\nI'm looking to replace my 1/3 carat diamond with a moissanite or lab-created gemstone. Google moissanite, because I'm too lazy to write much about it, but it's a beautiful stone. It looks a lot like a diamond (most untrained eyes can't tell the difference), but with a warmer color and is doubly refractive rather than singly. It costs about 1/10 of what a diamond does. You can get a beautiful 1.5 carat moissanite stone set in gold with sidestones for $1,000. \n\nShe probably already has a preference for white jewelry (white gold, platinum, silver) or yellow gold, so go by what she's already wearing for that.\n\nFor the sake of her work, she would probably do well with a low setting, such as a bezel set,where the stone is completely surrounded by metal close to the band. \"Tiffany\" settings would not be appropriate. Some of the multi-stone rings have lower settings, and these tend to cost less as the smaller individual stones are not as valuable as a single large stone.\n\nIf you have the opportunity to buy 18K gold rather than 14K, go ahead and do it. The difference in cost is not that big, and if you have a good solid setting, you can change the stone out later as you please. \n\nCongratulations and best wishes!", "score": 5 }, { "body": "If she really cares about you and this is a good match, she won't care about the ring, just that you want her to be your partner for life. Also, if she is still with you after 2 years and you make 300$ a month, she's not going to be expecting a 2 carat stunner.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "women are all different, maybe she would prefer to choose it for herself, then you can be sure she likes it :)", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I hear that the programmers in the video games industry are some of the most talented you'll ever find but are also the most underpaid that you'll ever find. Is it true?", "score": 9 }, { "body": "Fellow code monkey here. From hearing stories about launch cycles from friends who work at video game companies, it seems like you're the worst-treated kind of software engineer. One reason could be the cliche of every single programmer coming into the business with the ultimate goal of programming video games. What are your thoughts about this?", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Coming out of college, did you have any personal projects? What did the company look at in order to come to the decision of hiring you?", "score": 3 }, { "body": "What specifically do you use in your programming? the STL, threads, Maps/Hashes, Data Structures, Pointers or Auto-Pointers, recursion, etc. \n\nIf you had to make a guess, how much of actual coding is involved compared to debugging, looking things up on the internet and referencing old textbooks?\n\nWhat are some of the most difficult things you've had to program, either at your work or at your University?\n\nWhat was in your resume or your portfolio that got you hired?\n\nWhat was the process of gaining employment like? Was it difficult? Long (4 months? 2 months?)?\n\nHow much time off do you get after a project is completed? Is it paid off time?", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "What is the system built on? Is it wired, wireless, etc. Is it possible to view the cameras from any computer? \n\n", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Are [these](http://www.fl511.com/Cameras.aspx?regionFilter=Central&roadwayFilter=&directionFilter=) the cameras that you're watching/operating?", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Yep, I do.\r\n\r\nI started freelancing about 3 years ago after being made redundant and it was the best career decision I have made in my life.\r\n\r\nYou need public liability insurance, yes. Getting personal liability insurance is a pretty good idea too in case you screw up badly and someone goes after you personally.\r\n\r\nThe simplest route is to use a billing company to take care of NI, Tax and insurance. They'll fill in all the forms for HRMC (Tax) and Customs and Excise (NI) and advise you on what can and can not be claimed as expenses. Your number 1 priority is getting your paper work straight and your number two is the yeild that you'll be getting from each pound billed. I get about 78% but with a car allowance, pension contributions and so on you can push that up to mid-80s.\r\n\r\nWhen you get the work you call your billing company and get the to set up a billing relationship with your client. They'll provide you with timesheet and expenses templates. ALWAYS BILL WEEKLY! You'll probably be on 30 days invoicing terms so you don't want to be billing monthly and therefore waiting 60 days for payment. Also, don't expect to actually be paid on time without chasing the client's accountants (and do not be embarrassed about being a hard-arse with the client's accountant - it's expected and does not reflect badly on you)\r\n\r\nKeep good records and you MUST retain all bank statements, receipts, paperwork related to any other income (no matter how trivial) because you'll need it for your personal tax return at the end of 2011 (as you file one year in arrears)\r\n\r\nExiting freelancing is easy. But be warned that it's emotionally tough to go from a world where you pick and choose your work and get very well paid for it to a world where you have to do what you're told and get paid a lot less.\r\n\r\nOther random bits of advice:\r\n\r\n* Claim every little thing you can on expenses. Your PC, stationary, travel, petrol, wear-and-tear on home office area furnishings. You can also claim £5/day without receipts for coffee-and-muffin.\r\n\r\n* Don't be embarrassed about your day rate. Get used to saying it and seeing a slight wince on the face of your prospective client. The justification is that YOU are paying the employers national insurance so, while the number may look big (I charge close to 1K/day) it is perfectly justified.\r\n\r\n* Understand, and be sympathetic to, your client's internal budgeting process. I had a customer who had no budget for contractors left for the year so we agreed fixed prices for jobs so they could treat me as a capital expense (which did have budget left) and let them know that if they do do it that way they can capitalise the expense (put it on the balance sheet) which flatters their accounting process.\r\n\r\n* On completion of a job, always ask if you can use the the customer as a reference. You may not need it but it's good to have a list of people you can give to a prospect to allow them to check you out.\r\n\r\nFinally, I'll say good luck, I hope it goes well for you.\r\n\r\n\r\nLinks: \r\n\r\n* http://www.contractoruk.com/\r\n\r\n* www.fsb.org.uk/ \r\n\r\nEdit: formatting", "score": 9 }, { "body": "If you register as self-employed, NICs (National Insurance Contributions) are currently about £31.20 a quarter, fixed rate. So, you don't have to work that much. HMRC will send you letters 28 days before your NI is due, and you can pay at a post office, via a cheque and the post, or of course with internet banking / bank transfer.\n\nhttp://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/Taxes/BeginnersGuideToTax/DG_4015904 - see \"If you're self-employed\"\n\nLiability coverage isn't required unless you have employees, but some clients will demand it. You should be able to pick up an excellent package from a reputable insurer for around £250/year.\n\nIt's easy to exit - you just stop taking on new work!\n\nTaxes may be a problem if you're not comfortable with basic accounting, but the chances are, you will simply sit down with Excel for around 12 hours a year and work everything out. The UK financial year runs from around 4 April until the next April, and your tax return is due at the end of the following January. For example, for financial year 4 April 2008 - 3 April 2009, the tax return (a form that you send to the tax office, listing your income/outgoings etc) is due 31 January 2010. The rate depends on your earnings; have a look at listentotaxman.com to get a feel for it. Generally, the first £5 000 or so are untaxed, the next £35 000 taxed at around 22%, and the rest taxed at around 40%.\n\nhttp://www.hmrc.gov and http://www.direct.gov have plenty of other information. If you register as self-employed (a simple 2-page form) they will send you all the information you need whenever they want money from you.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Fully recommend your other half go for it.\n\nSome form of liability coverage might be useful, but is certainly not required. It all depends on the type of work he is planning to do, really, and possible costs if he fucks things up. ;)\n\nHe will have to fill out a tax return every year, and work out his own tax, but this is relatively easy, and the chances are he will pay quite a lot less tax than if he earned the same from a 'proper' job. I would advise having an accountant look at his first years return, to maximise the benefits. National Insurance is a bit different, but you can pay a 'voluntary' minimum, not linked to income. Once he tells the tax office he is going self-employed, they will send the relevant paperwork for all this.\n\nAs for exiting, in the IT world, it is not a problem. Some employers will not take on someone who has been self-employed, but in this field, he should not have any problems. Chances are, though, he would be best to continue freelance, and will probably prefer it. Being in charge of your own life is much better than working for someone else.\n\nAlso, he can probably keep on some form of work while doing his PhD, and have some useful contacts and references already set for once he finishes, so it's a win-win situation all round.\n\nGo for it, and good luck!", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Strawberries :D I wish they were available year round-- the good ones anyway. Not the giant, flavorless ones.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I saw a plane in the sky, and my first thought was 'get the stinger out', before I hung my head in shame. I need to get out more.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "I live near an air force base and it's not too uncommon to hear a jet go by. I have an instinct to run for a building every time now.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Back in the day when i was playing Ghost Recon (PC) religiously I had a dream that someone threw a grenade into my foxhole. So I did what anyone would do; Screamed \"Grenade\" at three in the morning, and proceeded to sprint down the hallway of my apartment before diving over my couch in a duck and cover maneuver. I \"woke up\" in mid-flight to realize what I had done. The neighbor filled me in on the rest the next morning.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I once had a dream where I was playing MW2 and there was a gecko (the MGS4 kind) kill streak. The enemy called it in. That gave me an amazing idea: A gecko kill streak!", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I'm near an airport and saw a plane at the perfect height and angle of an AC130. In my mind, a Russian announcer was screaming at me.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "will have to check this out. The DCAU is far better than the Marvel counterpart. Marvel seems to aim solely at kids and teens, while DC puts stuff in there for the fanboys.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Adobe Browserlab is pretty amazing. Before that I was using IE NetRenderer\n\n* http://browserlab.adobe.com/\n* http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/\n", "score": 8 }, { "body": "You can install the Windows that came with your broken laptop in a VM such as Virtualbox. You can even make 3 snapshots so you can test in IE6-7-8 if the old laptop came with XP.\n\nYou can also use a service such as browsershots.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I use ie4osx, installed via winebottler: http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/\nEDIT: also available for Linux: http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page\n\nNo need for winxp installations :)\nHowever, in my experience it's not stable on all mac configurations and only IE6 is decent. IE7 and IE8 tend to crash a lot.\n\nThere's also the possibility of running free IE6, IE7 and IE8 Virtual Machine images (found on Microsoft website I think, or google it) on Sun’s VirtualBox, which is a free, open-source product for virtualization that runs on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows. However, I have no experience with that, so I cannot provide more details and I may be incorrect.\n\nEDIT2: Winebottler site is offline, so I made a mirror: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1494371/WineBottlerCombo_1.1.32.dmg", "score": 4 }, { "body": "VMWare Fusion. I have an XP vm (will install a windows 7 one soon), and use Multiple IEs for Windows to keep multiple versions of IE on there. No need to worry about virii, or the system bogging down. Just revert to a clean snapshot.\n\nUnity mode is fantastic. You get a dock icon, copy/paste between windows and OS X, and a start menu that sits in your menubar. Boots (well, returns from a suspended state) really fast too. It's well worth the cost, the best way to run windows on a mac imo.\n\nAnother option is that VMWare can run apple Boot Camp partitions, if you really need to boot into windows as well.\n\nI used to run ie4osx, but I could never get that to run IE7 or IE8 - and honestly, I find VMWare to be a better experience. WINE is great stuff, but when you're doing something professionally, you have to be absolutely sure, and it's good to test on the actual operating system.\n\nAlso, it's nice to keep a Centos VM I can muck around with, along with any other linux/unix I might want to play on.", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "At the risk of downvotes I'll go against the grain here and say that yes, I plan on telling my kids about Santa Clause. Hell, it's just something fun and sweet that'll keep them entertained. Of course I expect them to find out as they grow up that it wasn't quite true, but as long as they understand what it's meant to be there's no harm to it.\n\nTruth be told it's only as much as a trust issue as you make it to be. Some people tend to over analyze things a wee-bit much, so maybe in their case it's best not to teach their children about that magical dude that flies around the snowy sky bringing smiles to children's faces :)", "score": 9 }, { "body": "I will tell this lie. I look forward to them discovering the lie, then carefully evaluating and analyzing the pro's (extra presents) and con's (the chance one of your friends seeing you on a trip to santas grotto in the mall) of continuing the charade. I think I was still trying to scam extra gifts when i was 9 or 10 :p.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "lighten up people. i can only speculate that most of the \"SANTA IS A LIE\" crowd doesn't actually have kids. you'll turn out to be worse than a liar if you're a parent. some days your kids will hate you for no reason. trust me.\n\nyou really think i'm going to tell my 2.5 year old son that santa is a sham? it's not as if i am pumping him full of \"santa lies,\" everywhere he goes and everything he sees for 2 months is santa 24/7.\n\ni also don't tell him thomas the train is animated and that i think his grandmother is a raging manipulative bitch.\n\nguess what, he'll figure it all out in the end. you want to raise good kids? keep them away from the fucking t.v. \n\n\nps - mmmm choclate chip pancakes\n\n", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Studies have shown that your kids will be mentally retarded if you teach them that Santa Claus is real. I've personally raised two retards who believe in Santa at the ages of 37 and 19 and one ivy league graduate (at the age of 14) who never believed in Santa at all. Conclusive.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "And I used to know the manager of a 4 screen cineplex so I got to see tons of movies for free. I think I like your set-up better.", "score": 18 }, { "body": "The simplest solution would be this: have her pay YOU for sex from now on. If she complains, call her a hypocrite. Problem solved.\n\n\nMy job here is done.", "score": 12 }, { "body": "Get a friend she hasn't met to try and buy sex from her.\nIf she sleeps with him, she's a prostitute.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Take her out on the town, like to a sporting event, a fancy restaurant, an opera... something like that.\n\nThen after things inevitably fall apart because of your disparate lifestyles, take your limo to her apartment, climb up a fire escape with a dozen roses in your mouth and confess your true feelings for her.", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Last year my 70 year old mom switched, on her own, from an old Dell with Win98 on it to a brand new shiny iMac. Hooked up her own DSL connection to it, read some docs to get her printer/scanner/copier working correctly and started transferring files to it. She bought a couple of manuals to learn more about her new OS. Her support calls to me have always started with \"I think I know this already but...\"\n\nYeah, my mom rocks. ", "score": 104 }, { "body": "You should make a custom icon to replace the hourglass/circle that shows a pic of you thinking or pondering. What a sweet loving son you'll be!", "score": 38 }, { "body": "Know the feeling. My mom overheard somebody talking about the windows 7 shift. Then promptly proceded to scold me for installing 7 on her PC without her knowing (seasonally switching desktop backgrounds was the true culprit) ", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I gave my mother, whom I love dearly, an old eMac of mine three years ago; it was her first computer and had to force it upon her to perplexing objection. After explaining the wonders of email she eventually relented.\n\n\nThree years later she uses \"the Camino\" to browse and check her gmail account but that's about it (thank you gmail notifier!). The Finder, in her mind, is a really complex concept she cares not to understand. She is a wonderful portrait artist; over Christmas, I attempted to create an iPhoto workflow in conjunction with a digital camera in hopes that it would \"free\" her from having to take a roll of film to be developed and miserably failed.\n\n\nAll told, it's actually kind of cute.\n\n\nOh - after about a day or two after my setting the computer up for her, she called me to ask how she could make a paragraph... \n\n\nMoms... gotta love 'em. ", "score": 5 }, { "body": "The real question here is, What will out kids say about us when we reach that age about the systems of the future ?", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I had exactly the same discussion once ... and changed the cursor when she wasn't at home. She ist lucky with 7 now :)", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My mother frequently calls me over to fix her computer because she doesn't know the difference between a single click and a double click. Then she yells at me for being impatient with her and declares, \"you asshole, you are a horrible teacher.\" She then calls me over the next week and we repeat this process. I wouldn't normally put up with this kind of abuse, but my parents' washing machine doesn't require quarters.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Me and my mom had a giant fight about what to call the wireless network I set up for her and her new laptop. I wanted to make it something so obvious to her that she wouldn't miss it. She complained that she didn't want the whole neighborhood to know she has wireless. \n\nIf she wasn't so serious about it I would have died laughing.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "To some extent that's how they see themselves. Biology and journalism are professions, atheism is often a means of self-identification. I'm a paralegal in real life, but I've also been a retail clerk, a camp counselor and a programmer. The common theme throughout my professions is that I *am* an atheist no matter what else I do in life.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I think it's horrible that it's even a subject that you can talk about casually with friends. Would you talk about female genital mutilation like that?\n\nIn Finland, infant genital mutilation is illegal, as it should be the world over.", "score": 38 }, { "body": "> How do you stand on the issue of (male) circumcision?\n\nSlightly bent forward, with your hands protectively covering your crotch.", "score": 35 }, { "body": "i don't think it is morally right to mutilate the genitals of a child unless there is a damn good medical reason, the child should be allowed to grow up intact and decide for themselves when they are an adult if they want this done ... and i'm pleased to see a new generation of jewish parents are starting a new tradition, to take their baby boys to the synagogue and enjoy a harmless ceremony of prayers and blessings to welcome him to the world", "score": 34 }, { "body": "It's a barbaric custom that should be illegal. \n\nPeople have a right to their bodies and that means not having body parts cut off when you are a child. If someone who is 18 wants to cut their earlobes off or their foreskin - go right ahead. But to do so when they are a child in some deluded covenant with an imaginary god is madness.", "score": 21 }, { "body": "Parents:\n\n> A child's circumcision is *not your decision*.\n\nYou'll have plenty of other chances to fuck up your kid's life, okay?", "score": 16 }, { "body": "My son is circumcised and I regret it. His penis was a raw, painful wound for the first several weeks of his life. I also realize the risk that the procedure could have been botched and he could have lost a lot of normal male function.\n\nI did it because I was worried he would not \"fit in\" at school if he wasn't circumcised and because his father wanted him to \"look like him.\" I now realize that was insane. If boys spend that much time looking at and making fun of each others penises then there is something very strange going on in the world.\n\nIf I ever have another son, he will not be circumcised. ", "score": 15 }, { "body": "A bunch of childless people sitting around an IHOP probably don't know much about the subject. I never did before I got pregnant with my son. Background was a Jewish father, my husband is circ'd, just figured my child would be circ'd.\n\nHowever then I *educated* myself on the issue. I came to the conclusion that it is medically unnecessary so there was no way I could consciously now do that to my son, just for \"looks\" since that is akin to plastic surgery. Not only that, RIC is done on a board where the baby is strapped down and none of the drugs/anesthetics given to someone, like an adult, is given to a baby. How can that be argued as anything but barbaric?\n\nOnce we KNOW better, we can DO better. I hope people educate themselves on this subject before they just allow this to be done to their children for sake of it being a societal norm. Fuck societal norms. They are wrong all the time.", "score": 12 }, { "body": "It makes no sense whichever way you look at it. From a spiritual viewpoint, god made it that way, who are you to change it? From an atheistic point of view, it evolved that way. Who are you to decide you know better than millions of years of evolution. From a medical viewpoint it is safer to not circumcise due to the risk of infection versus the benefits (none). From a sexual viewpoint, potential loss of sensation means sex doesn't feel good. Masturbation is also harder.", "score": 11 }, { "body": "Circumcision is like cutting off your lips so you can easier brush your teeth,\nbut it looks much better.\n\n\n\n\n", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I don't think circumcision should be performed unless it is out of medical necessity.\nI don't see why removing any part of your baby's body should be something any parent does unless it is absolutely necessary.\n\nLots of people argue that it is more hygienic and I refute this point totally... Sure with foreskin it would be easier for it to be unhygienic... but if you are a person who looks after their personal hygiene then you should be washing that area very regularly anyway!", "score": 6 }, { "body": "It's a troubling testament to the power of culture that people ar so comfortable with the idea of cutting pieces of their children off with no medical necessity. For Redditors who wonder why others are stuck in old ways of thinking, really consider why you find this behavior acceptable. It's a really fucked up thing to do that you are okay with only because it's familiar.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Dood, what’s with all the hating? Don't get me wrong, I’m 29 and if I wasn't cut, I wouldn't do it. But thankfully it was done when I was baby and have not one clue on what it felt like. I don't think a parent should wait for age 13 or wait for the kid to be able to make their own decision, that just wrong. Doing it at birth isn't that harmful or rememberable.\nYES, there are medical reasons for it, [hygiene](http://www.medicinenet.com/circumcision_the_medical_pros_and_cons/page3.htm#care) and [STDs](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/health/27std.html).\n[sciencenews.org](http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/42142/title/Male__circumcision_fends_off_the_most_common_STDs)\n\n++Chicks like it better and it looks better", "score": 6 }, { "body": "I'm cut but my boys aren't. I just don't see the point and haven't heard any good arguments to do so.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "I agree with you cowmin, it appears you share the majority opinion here. I am assuming you were looking for some sort of armor-peircing argument for your friends.\n\nWhen my friend had a son, I talked her out of circumsision by citing my psych textbooks. On issues of gender identity, they will often cite exceptional case-studies of kids who were raised as the wrong gender. And they all start like this: There was an accident during the circumsision.\n\nFWIW, said friend later became a nurse, and after witnessing the procedure, she's very glad she didn't do it. Also interesting: some doctors are very bad at it, even though they do it all the time. The nurses knew that boys who got cut by a certain doctor often got infections afterwards.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "a friend of mine had to get circumcised when he was 19. I dont know what the fuck, but his foreskin ended up not opening enough so his dick could get out. what the fuck. Anyway, he said it was the worst 3 weeks of his life, every time he got an erection he was in terrible pain. He has since said he has many more return visits from girls he hooks up with and doesn't cum in 45 seconds anymore. ", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I think people should stop discussing it, its up to the parent whether or not they do it. Also there is sometime medical reasons for circumcision.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Seriously...I can't begin to even fathom how I would fap without my foreskin.\r\n\r\nWrapping a slice of buttered baloney.......Huzzah!!!!?????? ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Here's the deal. The only people that tend to post about it are the ardent haters, the ones that talk about it being mutilation and urrything. Check out Yahoo answers for proof.\n\nMy wife and I recently had to make the decision about whether or not to have our son circumcised.. Based on the fact that I have absolutely no problem that it was done to me, and the fact that around 90% of the guys in our area are circumcised, we had it done. \n\nIf you don't like it, eat a dick.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Not sure about the legalities behind that one, however I can tell you this. I am in the Navy, and have been part of several maritime drug intervention ops. You would be surprised how much we know about who carries what out there on the big blue ocean. You might be able to get away with it for a while, but the purpose of the tanker is to move \"cargo\" from point \"a\" to point \"b\". just hanging out would draw much suspicion about you activities and intent especially with the increase in piracy in open waters. Even if you were to operate the Tanker in a \"legitimate\" way you would still have to deal with customs whenever you approached a port... I serve in Submarines and here is an example of what could happen... We may have been sitting just outside of territorial waters of another country (12 knotical miles) monitoring a suspect cargo ship. We observed that ship load several hundred kilos of cocaine using our periscopes and high power optics. Once the ship got underway we contacted the Coast Guard and one of our Frigates to intercept. As soon as the ship entered U.S. Waters It was game over. The Coast Guard boarded the vessel and seized the drugs. Now let's say you were suspect of piracy based on unusual activity.. The Navy can and will perform search and seizure ops if it deems necessary in conjunction with it's mission to maintain and protect merchant vessels from piracy in open waters. \n\nTLDR; The Navy is watching you and would figure it out eventually and stop it.\n\n*Edited for grammatical errors*", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "The main power they have is the ability to keep you from getting on the plane you paid hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to get on. Because of that, most people are willing to give them all sorts of other powers if they to facilitate the flight. I'll let them search my bags, or answer their questions, or look at my penis if that's what they're into, because I don't want a $1600 ticket to go down the drain.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "I don't know if they have the authority to arrest you.\n\nBut I guarantee that they can't compel you to answer any questions. If they detain you, ask for a lawyer. They aren't allowed to ask you anything else after that. If they do, just keep saying you won't talk to them until you see a lawyer.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Isn't that the movie Homer Simpson pitched to Ron Howard?\n\nEdit: Changed Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin to Ron Howard. Right episode, wrong pitchee.", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "I like Tolkien elves as they are. There's something kind of badass about a race of crotchety old men who are sick of everything.", "score": 12 }, { "body": "I think the Dark Sun campaign gave a great spin on all the old Tolkienesque races. Kinda cool to have elves as taller than human savage nomads. Of course the halflings were savage and canibalistic too. ", "score": 10 }, { "body": "I'd just like to take a moment to be an insufferable pedant and point out that Tolkien stole everything wholesale from the Norse pagan literature. ", "score": 8 }, { "body": "I like the idea of the \"perfect\" society you described. Nice and sick and original. It would make for good folklore and myth in-game, and a nice shocking discovery for the PCs.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "One of my favorite books for non-Tolkein races is China Miéville's Perdido Street Station. I can't remember if it was Dungeon or Dragon magazine (the good ones, when Paizo was publishing them) that ran an issue that introduced base races for Miéville's world. Definitely worth looking into if you want something out there, borderline sci-fi.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "You could have some blue elves that tame the creatures of the forest and use them to fight off dwarves in powered suits who want to steal the metal under their tree. Also their frosted lucky charms.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Well.. Traditionally, elves/fairies stole human children, so you could have something similar where they have no children of their own, just steal 'perfect' human children and use some sort of magic to turn them into elves.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I rather like the Dragonlance take on it - Koganesti and Silvanesti representing the wood/savage and high/perfectionist elf varieties, especially considering that half-elfs are often enslaved. The gnomes are nutty inventors (their homeland runs on geothermal power) and the kender/halflings *are exempt from time paradox* because they're insane and a kleptomaniac race (seriously, there are dice tables for stealing unconsciously).\r\n\r\n", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I really like the idea of the Perfectionist Elves you have described. I'd like to add to it that they'd have a greater than normal knowledge of magic aiding birth success. I would think this would be likely, given that the Elves are culturally adept at magic through their upbringing and centuries of practice as a race.\n\nSuch an explanation would provide the higher birthrate necessary to allow the killing/slaving of their own people. This would provide for some excellent adventures.\n\nI might have to use this in my game tonight.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Their new names: since 4e renamed elves 'eladrin', I'm thinking we should complete it by renaming dwarves 'dorbobbins' and gnomes 'numa-numas.' Half-orcs will be 'horks', and halflings will be 'hobbobeques.'\n\nSeriously, what is with that dumb name?", "score": 4 }, { "body": "> I also like the idea of Forest Elves that are more like beautiful forest savages. They trick and torment humans and often times have them for meals. The only time they wonder from their forest is specifically to do this.\n\nIf you haven't yet, go read the old ElfQuest comics. Aside from the man-eating, that's pretty much the concept. They're an especially good read if you enjoy low fantasy settings.\n\n[Plus, they've all been released for free online.](http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics3.html)", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Orkworld, an early one from John Wick. Out of print, but cheap on Amazon. A totally unique, coherent and sympathetic take on orc society and philosophy. Poor bastards. I'd say more but I don't want to ruin it - just pick it up for five bucks already.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I am perpetually gassy, maybe because I eat an immensely varied diet. I've managed to train my ass muscles to keep it quiet (usually). \n\nI used to think they didn't stink, but this year we got an Xmas tree (first time in my life), and my gf remarked that it smelled like Xmas. I couldn't smell it at all (I have a very smelly job), so now I'm worried that I just can't smell, and everyone else can, and all the ass muscle training to keep them quiet was for not. ", "score": 17 }, { "body": "I wake myself up with my own farts - when single it was funny...with girlfriend I get punched.\n\nI eat a ton of greens and lean meat as well, so perhaps certain people just react that way? No solutions here, but you're not alone!", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I am perpetually gassy no matter what. You just gotta learn how to slyly let it seep out, then side step to allow the smell to dissipate. If you walk forward, the smell follows you because it creates a vortex.\n\nBut yeah, sometimes I fart so much while at the computer that the smell builds up and becomes trapped in my computer chair. Febreeze to the rescue!", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Yeah, creatine and coffee don't help either. I find it goes away almost completely if I eat some yogurt or something with ginger in it once every couple of days though.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Photo: [HERE](http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2009/09/24/1225779/163649-damian-godson-tales-from-australian-tragic.jpg)\n\nStory (From Article [HERE](http://www.news.com.au/national/australian-tragic-our-top-ten-darkest-tales/story-e6frfkvr-1225779163663))\n>While waiting at Circular Quay for a ferry to take them to Sydney's Luna Park on June 9, 1979, the Godson family are approached by a Satanic-looking figure dressed in a loincloth and wearing a mask with horns. The creature voicelessly places his hand on young Damian Godson's shoulder. Somebody snaps a photograph. It is the last photograph of the boy ever taken - hours later, Damian, his brother, Craig, and his father, John, will burn in the fire that sweeps through The Ghost Train. Nobody will ever see the horned man again.\n\nThe story obviously takes a bit of creative licence... But that is definitely the last picture or Damien Godson, who died hours after it in the ghost train fire. (More [INFO](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Sydney_Ghost_Train_fire))", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "\"Recent polls have shown that 1/5th of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?\"\n\n\"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps...and, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, the Iraq, everywhere, like, such as, and...I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa, it should help The Iraq and the Asian countries...so we will be able to build up our future... for us.\"\n\n\"Thank you very much, South Carolina\"", "score": 229 }, { "body": "Can you tell me about the state flag of Oklahoma? Go ahead, describe it. Oh wait, you can't? Maybe that's because detailed knowledge of flags is damn near worthless. I guarantee that there's a least one other country (besides England) that you're equally ignorant about.\n\nYour second example is that a **five year old girl** didn't know the national religion of Sweden?\n\nEDIT: To address the concerns of big80smullet", "score": 224 }, { "body": "I knew a girl that thought north was whichever direction a person was facing. She was 17 at the time.", "score": 176 }, { "body": "While playing a trivia game against a team of two girls, the question was \"What country is the Leaning Tower of Pisa in?\"\n\nOne replied, \"Paris.\"\nTo which the other responded, \"Paris isn't a country. The answer is Europe.\"", "score": 137 }, { "body": "I overheard a female american tourist in Edinburgh commenting that it was really great the way that they'd built the castle so close to the train station.\n\nNot sure if that more geographically or historically inaccurate though", "score": 118 }, { "body": "Worked with a guy who sincerely asked me once: \"Who did we fight in Vietnam?...Korea?\".\r\n\r\nWhere to begin with this one.", "score": 108 }, { "body": "A person I know, a real down to earth gal, thought Africa was a country. \n\nbtw, I think she was once a Vice Presidential candidate. Don’t quite recall how it turned out. ", "score": 97 }, { "body": "I worked with a girl who once asked me where Hawaii and Alaska actually were, since on the map they always show up in that box in the corner. (She also thought that Mary Lou Retton made the first American Flag)\r\n\r\nWhen I worked for a cell phone company one of my employees came to me in a panic because she couldn't find the country code for calling Hawaii.\r\n\r\nAnother co-worker came in after the 2004 tsunami and said \"Did you guys hear about the earthquake that hit Tsunami?!?!\"\r\n", "score": 95 }, { "body": "I went on a date with an Australian girl who had lived in London for a few years. After the date she complimented me on how well I spoke English. I was a little surprised by this because I'm Scottish.", "score": 83 }, { "body": "Well, one time in high school my cousin had gotten so fed up with her parents forgetting she existed that -she was trying to get their attention. She left a fake plane ticket to Portugal on the kitchen counter and packed a bag hoping someone would notice. Funnything is, both she and Uncle Gob thought Portugal was in South America.", "score": 76 }, { "body": "While getting ready to fly home from Paris after a tour, I learned that a girl from the tour was flying from the same terminal, so we went looking for it together.\n\nHer: I'm flying American Airlines, what about you?\n\nMe: Air Canada\n\nHer: But that's an international flight, those are usually in a different terminal.\n\nMe: You do realize we're in France, right?", "score": 65 }, { "body": "I think its kinda retarded when Americans are expected to know every little shitty country in Europe (some are quite small in size and population) in connection to every little shitty language, and get laughed at or called stupid when they dont know or mix up each individual customs. And on the other hand, Europeans usually haven't got the slightest idea about states or customs in the US but we are never expected to and we never get laughed at because of that. Even though they are about as equally big, and the states in US almost equal EU countries. That is geographically retarded imo, double standards.\n\nAnd yes, I am european. Swedish actually and yes, I know all the countries in Europe and every state in the US.\n\nEdit: Funny how I get downvoted for saying the truth, must be the eurofag rage. Should have waited a couple of hours until its US time.", "score": 56 }, { "body": "It wasn't said to me, but I overheard this on a train to NYC:\n\n20-something girl to her mom: \"The Eiffel Tower isn't in London. It's in England.\"\n\nI immediately thought, \"If it weren't for my horse...\"", "score": 56 }, { "body": "back in 1998, my wife was in California and she convinced a Victoria's Secret saleswoman that she didn't know her underwear size in American sizing because in New Zealand we didn't wear underwear under our grass skirts. ", "score": 55 }, { "body": "We were on this field trip in high school. The field trip involved visiting Delorme's [Eartha](http://www.delorme.com/about/eartha.aspx), which is a huge, scale model earth. It was given \"World's Largest Revolving/Rotating Globe\" in 1999, and really is an awesome thing to check out.\n\nWe are all gathered around the balcony looking at it, when one of girls in our class (one of the ditziest girls I've ever met) asked the teacher \"Is this globe actual size?\"\n\nThe funniest part was that she was totally serious. I don't think anyone ever let her forget that moment.", "score": 54 }, { "body": "I vividly remember a girl sitting beside me in 11th grade who told me the Mongolians spoke Spanish because it was beside Portugal. i didn't know how to respond, it was like three geographical errors in one statement.", "score": 48 }, { "body": "I swear this is true, my 7th grade Geography SUB listed the (then) 9 planets leaving out Earth and adding \"Volcano\" to the end: Mercury, venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Volcano.\n\nWhen I attempted to add Earth, she said that The earth was not a planet,silly, We live on the earth! Duh!\n\nand when I said that Volcano was not a Planet, and she may have confused it with the fictional home plane of Spock, from StarTrek, she sent me to detention. ", "score": 42 }, { "body": "mom: Obama is the Antichrist because he has \"the Hussein\" and comes from the middle east\n\nme: He's from Hawaii and part of his family is from Kenya\n\nmom: yes, the middle east.\n\nme: but Kenya is in Africa... ", "score": 36 }, { "body": "I'm Irish. when i was in Leeds last year for the music festival we got talking to some girl late one night. One of them thought Belgium was the capital of Ireland and also Cardiff was in Ireland too. Even her friends were embarrassed. And for the record she was from Newcastle.", "score": 33 }, { "body": "A girl I knew in high school didn't know there were other countries. She thought the whole world was the United States. ", "score": 33 }, { "body": "I was a student in France for a while and was chatting with a nice fellow at a sort of department store (in French) and he asked about my accent. I told him that I was from the USA, and after complimenting me on my French, he asked where in the USA I was from. I told him I came from Boston, Massachusetts (the closest city I thought he'd know) and he told me that his brother was working in Phoenix, Arizona. Then he asked \"is that very close?\"\n\nThat's the first of many times I've bumped into folks in other countries not appreciating matters of scale of the US (I pointed out to a Danish nephew that there's more than twice as many people in New York City than the whole of his country combined, and he kept thinking that there must be some misunderstanding).\n\nI explained to the French gentleman that Paris was closer to Senegal than Phoenix was to Boston. I think that he was a little incredulous.", "score": 30 }, { "body": "I'm from South Africa. Some people are amazed to hear that a place like that exists, but what tok the cake was this 17 year old girl in England who looked me straight in the eye and said \"So where exactly is South Africa?\"", "score": 28 }, { "body": "A real and true exchange -\n\nA strange stranger and me - On vacation in Maine\n\nWe stood on a high porch overlooking the rocky coast of Maine - \n\nHim: What ocean is that?\n\nMe: Today - it is scheduled to be - \"The Atlantic\".\n\nHim: Umm - What about tomorrow?\n\nMe: Same. They don't change all that often.\n\nHim: Why do they change it at all?\n\nMe: It's a tidal thing. - The moon.\n\nHim: 'kay- That makes sense. \n\nHim: What about next week? I'm still here.\n\nMe: Not sure. Um- I'll have to check.\n\nThat is all.", "score": 27 }, { "body": "I was working at a parcel place in Texas during Christmas time rush. After packaging a woman's items I placed the box on the scale and asked where she was sending it. \"Hawaii. Here's the address...\" I got that all entered and proceeded to tell her the shipping options: \n\nMe- \"Ok mam, UPS Air will take 3 days, or you can select 2nd day or next day service.\"\n\nHer- \"It's no hurry, just ship it the cheapest option.\"\n\nMe- \"Well that would be standard UPS Air, $64\" (It was a big box)\n\nHer- (becoming frustrated) \"NO NO, just send it Ground, there has to be a cheaper way.\"\n\nMe- I stared for a couple seconds to see if she would realize her mistake on her own... nope. \"Uhm, mam.... there's no ground service to Hawaii\"\n\nHer- (Now irate and embarrassed) \"This is ridiculous! You're trying to cheat me!\"\n\nSince the whole store could hear our conversation, a male customer in line spoke up \"Listen lady, Hawaii is an island in the middle of the fucking Pacific ocean. If you want it to go ground, try driving it there yourself!\"\n\nShe grabbed her box and stormed out. I still don't think she understood. ", "score": 27 }, { "body": "From a [New York Times story](http://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/21/us/olympic-diary-added-game-for-atlanta-define-find-a-redneck.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2)\n\nIn February [1996], Wade Miller, a computer systems analyst from Santa Fe, called the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games to order tickets.\n\nThe operator told him that she could not sell tickets to those who live outside the United States. Mr. Miller tried to explain that New Mexico is a part of the United States. It has been for 84 years.\n\nHe was passed on to a supervisor, who informed him that while she understood that New Mexico was a \"territory,\" she still could not send any tickets outside the United States. Then she offered to give him the phone number for the Puerto Rican Olympic Committee. \n", "score": 23 }, { "body": "This one was intentional, and funny to me.\n\nMy husband ran a marathon in France 2 years ago. While there, he attended the pre-race pasta dinner and was seated next to a family. The little boy was trying to learn English, and asked my husband where he was from. When hubby answered, \"Texas\", the boy got really enthusiastic, cocked his little fingers into guns, and shouted, \"Oui, oui, le bang bang!\" He then asked if we were cowboys.\n\nHappily, my son's kindergarten class had just finished a unit on Texas, and had all taken [pictures like this](http://imgur.com/T8kpn.jpg) for funny wanted posters, so my husband did his part to perpetuate stereotypes by showing the boy the picture. He was quite pleased with himself.", "score": 21 }, { "body": "A lady once told me that she loves Europe and that i speak English very well. I'm Australian. \n\nMy friend thinks Africa is a country. ", "score": 20 }, { "body": "I didn't realize that the Union Jack wasn't the English flag until I was well into my teens, and I've got a British passport. Fuck geography.", "score": 18 }, { "body": "I met this girl in a youth hostal one afternoon in Barcelona, Spain.\nLater that evening I run into her again and she told me she had been walking around all day trying to figure out where the good burritos were and was now starving.", "score": 18 }, { "body": "While drinking in a beer garden surrounded by the beautiful Bavarian Alps, an American tourist once turned around to me and asked \"Were those mountains there before the war?\"!!?!?", "score": 18 }, { "body": "Historically retarded in germany:\n\nI overslept for work, so I took a taxi.\n\nThe lady driving the Taxi got upset about something in the radio where they were talking about climate change.\n\nShe said: \"I don't get why everyone is making such a fuzz about it, it hasn't been a problem until now, so what changed to make it so important?\"\n\nI said: \"Maybe it's because there are so many cars now and all this industrial production and stuff.\"\n\nShe didn't seem to get it, so I asked her \"For how long do you think cars exist?\".\n\nShe shrugged and said something like \"Mmh, a thousand years? Two thousand?\".\n\n...\n\nI followed up with how long she thought since Jesus was born, but she wouldn't answer.\n\n\n----------------\n\nBonus Geography(?) one: In a class i once visited:\n\nThe teacher asks: \"What do you guys think how many people there are in Germany\" (at the time about 85 million);\n\nAfter much ho hum some people agreed on an initial guess: 500 000?\n\n(The WTF is: that's how much people lived in the city the school was in; In germany there are many cities with a million+)\n", "score": 17 }, { "body": "For anyone interested, [these](http://qntm.org/index.php?uk) two [links](http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/gb-vs-uk-vs-england.html) do a decent job of sorting out the terminology of the British Isles and constituents.\n\nEngland, Scotland and Wales are *countries* located on the *island* known as Great Britain. Together with Northern Ireland, these countries form the United Kingdom, a *sovereign state*. The Republic of Ireland isn't part of the UK, but is its own sovereign state. Everything mentioned so far, along with many more small islands, falls under the general geographical term The British Isles.\n\nPeople from the UK (including Northern Ireland) are British. People from the Republic of Ireland are Irish.", "score": 14 }, { "body": "At work we were playing this flash game at lunch where there's a map, and it says a location, and you have to click it, and you get more points the closer you are. It starts off easy (e.g. London, Paris) and gets hard (cities in Russia you've never heard of, Pacific islands) as you move further along. Most of us start getting tripped up around the later levels.\n\nI showed it to this one woman, and the first one was Cairo, Egypt. She clicked Australia. The second one was London, UK. She clicked Greenland.\n\nAfter that she stopped. ", "score": 14 }, { "body": "Every year when people are getting off the cruise ships in Alaska a surprisingly high percentage of people while standing on the **dock** looking up at the mountains will ask, \"What is the altitude here?\" ", "score": 12 }, { "body": "Americans are famous in Australia, for having no idea where Australia is.\n\nAn example is \n\"Hey, I'm from Australia\"\n\n\"Oh, they have lots of castles there right? Bit too snowy for my taste\"\n\n\"No, thats Austria, I'm from Australia\"\n\n\"What, Where?\"", "score": 11 }, { "body": ">Then I realized that he thought that the union jack was the flag of england and had no idea that the UK even existed.\n\nHim and most of the rest of the world's population.\n\nBy the way, before you smugly congratulate yourself for knowing that the Union Jack is the flag of the UK, it's not. The Union Flag is the flag of the UK. The Union Jack is the name given to the flag when it flies from the \"jack mast\" of a ship and the name has no official status even though it's commonly used in ignorance.", "score": 11 }, { "body": "Not sure this is specifically geographical, but this seems like a good place to tell this story. \n\nOne of my buddies has a cabin in Eastern Washington that sits right on a river. A group of friends heads up there every summer for some camping, drinking, and generally having a good time. We also take an excursion down the river in innertubes/river rafts. \n\nSo we are all getting ready for our little drift down the river. Coolers are packed with beer, rafts/tubes are filled with air. \n\nOne of my friends, we will call him \"Brian\", decides to cross the river to the other bank while we are getting ready. Once we started to get into the river, Brian gets in to the river from the other bank.\n\nAll of a sudden another friend, we will call him \"Miller\", starts yelling at Brian that he is getting in on the wrong side of the river. Miller says that if he gets into the river over there, he will get lost because it's going the wrong way. \n\nYes, that's correct, Miller thought that getting into the river from the other bank would result in Brian going the wrong direction in the river. \n\nMiller argued with everyone in the group for a solid 3-5 minutes about this before he realized what he was saying. But for those 5 minutes, he was convinced we were all wrong and almost violently defended his position. \n\nThis started what has become known as a \"Millerism\" within my group of fiends. Whenever someone says something so astoundingly stupid we name this little phenomenon after Miller.\n\nThe problem is, Miller is the only one who has done anything that has hit the level of Millerism. \n\n**tl;dr** - My friend thought that getting in on the opposite side of a river would result in drifting the opposite direction. Thus, the Millerism was born. ", "score": 11 }, { "body": "A few days after 9/11 I was driving home to London from Glasgow, we had a talk radio show playing and an American woman had phoned in to tell the DJ...\n\n*\"Well, as we all know, American(sic) is the most important planet on the nation...\"*\n\nThe facepalm is strong with this one.", "score": 11 }, { "body": "I'm Scottish and when I attended a US school they wouldn't believe me that Scotland wasn't part of England; so they asked me to point to it on a map. Unfortunately the map had \"England\" written across the whole of Britain. They thought I was retarded.", "score": 11 }, { "body": "I'm a librarian who once had someone ask me, where \"specifically, geographically\" man was created. I actually paused and entertained the idea thinking whether he believed in evolution or creationism and then realized either way I couldn't pinpoint specifically where man was created. And before I could answer, he says to me very seriously \"I can probably just google that, huh?\"", "score": 10 }, { "body": "My sister, who is a college graduate, refused to believe me that Egypt is in Africa. I think she described it as being \"in Asia, but the middle east part.\"", "score": 10 }, { "body": "Everytime I go to America I get comments about how great us \"English\" are, or how they like England, or how great my English accent is. I'm Welsh. My response is always along the lines of \"yes, I love you \"Canadians too\".", "score": 10 }, { "body": "our maid found out that there are a lot of job openings for domestic helpers in Japan, so she asked me and my wife if Japan was still within Earth. i think she's not ready to board any spaceships just for a job.", "score": 10 }, { "body": "My dad told me when he was studying in Israel in the 70's (He's from somewhere in africa) his israeli girlfriend commented on how lovely the moon was, and asked him if there was a moon in his home country as well. He told her yes, two of them in fact, husband and wife :)", "score": 10 }, { "body": "I'm spanish... (live in Spain), and when I was 14 or so I joined the school international interchange program and had to provide accommodation to a guy from Pennsylvania which was my same age. Once he came to my place, he took a map from his luggage and asked \"Where are we?\"... and I freaked out when I saw was a map from Mexico... he crossed the fucking Atlantic and didn't even notice. ", "score": 10 }, { "body": "I'm originally from Oklahoma. About 5 yrs ago, I once had someone from California ask, \"Don't you guys still drive horse and buggies?\" He was completely serious. ", "score": 9 }, { "body": "During a discussion of how bad Americans are at Geography a young English woman actually thought there was a \"chunnel\" being built between England and the US. I told her, no, that it was between Ireland and the US and left it at that. ", "score": 9 }, { "body": "During winter: \"Yeah you have trees alright, but they're ugly. In my country trees have leaves! So you see, my country is superior to yours in *every way*. \"", "score": 9 }, { "body": "Marge: It took the children forty minutes to locate Canada on the map.\n\nHomer: Marge, anyone can miss Canada, all tucked away down there.\n", "score": 9 }, { "body": "My HS graduation gift was a trip to Hawaii. We went to visit Pearl Harbor and in the parking lot I noticed that every car had a Hawaii license plate. Being the genius that I am, I said \"Why are all these people from Hawaii coming to see Pearl Harbor today when they can see it any day because they live here?\". My parents stopped, looked at me, face-palmed, and continued walking. Then it hit me...", "score": 9 }, { "body": "My uncle (52 now, I believe) was talking about the \"Great Rides\" of the US. These are four different roads/trails/what have you that are supposedly the best places to ride your motorcycle. He mentioned that he couldn't do them all because one was in Alaska. I respond with \"So? Just ride up there.\" \n\nHe gave me a strange look. \"But how do I cross the ocean?\" \n\nI give a similar look, \"You don't have to. Drive up north and cross the border and then go into Alaska.\"\n\nHe goes: \"First of all, Alaska is south. Secondly, I can't cross the ocean on my motorcycle.\"\n\nAnyway, after much debate I realized that he only knew Alaska as it is depicted on the US map which is down below with Hawaii. I laughed.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "From my Geography class in 9th grade:\n\n\"Ms. McGrath, I think there is an error in this textbook. They spelled it 'Afghanista'.\"\n\n[She looks at textbook]\n\n\"Thats Argentina.\"", "score": 8 }, { "body": "I've got some family in America, maybe my mum's cousins or something, I've seen them maybe twice. The first time I met them when they came over to England to visit, they asked, in all seriousness, if Stonehenge was built by giants.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "I was once talking to a bunch of American tourists in a beer hall in Munich, when one of them asked me for some travel advice. He said he was stuck for something to do the following day and said he would love to go to Sweden for lunch and asked me if he would also have time to squeeze in Moscow on the way back 'cos he had to be back in Munich for 6pm that very same day as he had a date with some Austrian chick!", "score": 8 }, { "body": "Me:\"I've got a car now.\"\n\nFriend:\"Oh wow! How'd you get a car?\"\n\nMe:\"Oh my folks drove it up here from the Bahamas.\"\n\nFriend:\"You're kidding!\"\n\nMe:\"I must be, the Bahamas are islands.\"\n\n\nBut in all seriousness back in high school my GF at the time and i were at a park at night during a full moon. She proceeded to ask me,\"Is that the sun or the moon?\"\n\nWe broke up the next day.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "I was late for a teleconference with some of our business partners down in Nevada.\n\n\nBeing from Western Canada, I apologized and as an alibi I joked, \"One of my sled dogs was sick this morning and the rest of them had to carry the extra weight. They couldn't mush as fast as they regularly do.\"\n\n\nMost of the people on the other end laughed (they always joke about me being Canadian), but one of the ladies on the other end replied, \"That's not funny! Of course that dog is sick if they have to haul you around everywhere. You Canadians should be ashamed of yourselves.\"", "score": 8 }, { "body": "it was middle school and I had just moved from Oregon to Texas. During a \"lets get to know people\" first day \"game\" I say I just moved down. A little later a guy walks up to me and asks me where I moved from.\n\n\"I just moved down from Oregon\" I say\n\n\"Yeah but what state?\"\n\nI looked at him dumbfounded for a second\n\"Oregon . . . is. . a state.\"\n\n\"Oh ok, cool\"", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I worked with a guy from New York who asked where I was from. He didn't know that Minnesota was a state.\nAlso, when I visit the US and tell people I live in Turkey, they're like \"What's that? Where's that?\" They also tend to think Turkey is a desert country with lots of camels. For the record, any camels you see in Turkey are just for dumb tourists to take pictures with. ", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Back in school in Ireland when I was about 11 the teacher asked the class what Brussels was most famous for (we had been discussing the EU earlier that day). One of the guys stuck up his hand and announced 'Brussel sprouts!'", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Her: \"I just spent the day on the island\"\n\nMe: \"What island are you talking about?\"\n\nHer: \"Over there\"\n\nMe: \"That's just the other side of the river, it's not an island\"\n\nHer: \"Yes it is because we had to take a boat to get to it\"", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Since year 1921 Finlands cars wore letters \"SF\" for indicating it was from \"Suomi Finland\" (Suomi = finnish word for Finland). I heard number of people thought it meant **Soviet Finland**\n\nIt was changed to more democratic \"FIN\" acronym in 1992.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Not to me directly, but to the whole country, a Family Feud gem:\n\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_aPGI5dUeo\n\n", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I was studying for a Canadian citizenship exam and mentioned that some questions are very easy , like : What is the capital city of Canada ?\n\nGirl: Oh I know that, ... pause\n\nMe: It start with the letter 'O' .\n\nGirl: Oh, Oklahoma !\n\nFacepalm.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "When I was in the US (exchange student) people constantly mixed Prussia and Russia. They also spelled \"sweden\" as \"sweeden\" most of the time.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "\"What language do they speak in England?\"\n\"Do they have roads in Scotland?\"\n\nThese questions made possible by sophmores in an American school. ", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Friend: If we go we should learn to speak Mexican.\n\nMe: Mexican isn't a language. They speak Spanish in Mexico.\n\nFriend: haha are you kidding me? You're retarded.\n\nMe: *speechless* ", "score": 6 }, { "body": "To be fair, the whole United Kingdom/Great Britain/England thing is complicated for the average person that doesn't really give a crap about learning more than a \"quick glance\" of knowledge about many various countries.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "A girl in my class held a presentation about the greenhouse effect in early high school. in the middle of it, she mentioned that the greenhouse effect increases the average temperature, making the poles melt and raising the sea level. She then mentioned that this might become a big problem for cities such as Venice. \r\nOur teacher then asked: \"Why will Venice get more trouble than other places?\" \r\nShe replied: \"Uhm, I don't know. Because it is so close to the north pole?\" ", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Being asked \"Do y'all have beaches in Australia?\"\n\nWe're the largest Island in the world. \n\nAs in surrounded by water.\n\nYes, we have a few fucking beaches.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "We had a tv set turned on the olympics last year here at work and when Usain Bolt won the 100 meters gold medal I was fortunate enought to hear a co-worker saying \"Dude, those africans are wicked!\".\r\n\r\n", "score": 5 }, { "body": "At Uni during the early stages of a drinking game each player had to name an African country, and the first player unable to name a country would have to drink, so my friend is second in the circle and names \"the Himalayas\". It took us a second or two before we burst out laughing. ", "score": 5 }, { "body": "My step grandparent recently told me that her son was life flighted to Mexico for emergency heart surgery.\n\nShocked and taken aback that a California hospital would send a critical patient to MEXICO for heart surgery, I followed up asking for more information. Turns out, he was flown to NEW Mexico.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "This is actually pretty funny but I doubt anyone will read it, oh well.\n\nOver the summer I was working on the beach on Cape Cod when a woman comes up to me and asks while pointing South to Martha's Vineyard, which is about two miles away and on a clear day you can literally see the cars on it, 'Is that England?'. She was dead serious and I just said \"No, that is not England\". \n\n[pic of area for reference, its on east coast us](http://wikitravel.org/upload/en/thumb/2/2c/CapeCodTowns.jpg/400px-CapeCodTowns.jpg)", "score": 5 }, { "body": "This is a story my mom told me about one of the students she tutors in an inner city school in the US.\n\nmy mom: \"How many states are there in the US?\"\nstudent: \"Washington, DC\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "when I moved to the US from Argentina at the ripe age of 14.. I was appalled at some of the questions my new American highschool classmates would ask... for example... \"Do you guys have fire-works in Argentina? (No we don't douche-bag, the Chinese invented them 4k years ago, and they havent made their way yet). \"Do you guys have soda and cable television over there?\" (No you retard, international companies do NOT like to make money), but by far, the best was.. \"Are there lions and monkeys running wild in the streets of Buenos Aires?\" (Yes Billy.. yes there are).", "score": 4 }, { "body": "When Peter Jennings died it was all over the news he was Canadian. A young girl at work was surprised by this as he looked like an American. She was also stunned to learn that Canada was the country above America and stretched from Coast to Coast.\r\n\r\nAnother time in the USA a friend and I were waiting to be seated in a restaurant. We were chatting with the couple (both Dentists) and they asked about our accents. When we said we were from Scotland they looked stunned and remarked that it can't be so as we had accents? Not really sure what they expected.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I work at a datacenter, and for awhile I worked in the NOC. I'm on the east coast, for reference. One day we had something come up for a customer in Portugal, and a couple of people were debating whether or not to call the customer. My boss at the time says, \"It's no big deal. They're in the same time zone as us.\" The conversation kept going as if nothing had happened until finally someone spoke up and said, \"Uh...dude, Portugal is in Europe.\" My boss: \"Haha, no it's not, it's in South America.\" \"No...it's really in Europe. Look it up.\" <pause> My boss: \"...Oh.\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "\"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"Looking for a picture of the Spanish Flag.\"\n\n*finds picture*\n\n\"That's not the Mexican flag!\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I'm an American living in the North of England. A young woman at work (who, I might add, is a mental health nurse with a university degree) asked me where I was from. 'Tennessee, specifically a small town about halfway between Memphis and Nashville', I told her. \r\n'Oh, is that near Miami?' she asked. \r\n'Well, not really, It would be a full day's drive at least.'\r\n'Oh. Is Miami near New York?'\r\n'No, not close at all.'\r\n'What about Los Angeles?'\r\n'What about it?' \r\n'Is it near Miami?'\r\n\r\nAt this point, I pulled up a map on the internet and showed her where these three cities were. She was amazed. I asked her to draw me a diagram of how she imagined it. She drew a (very) rough outline of the US with NYC located somewhere around Washington DC, Miami about an inch below it, and Los Angeles somewhere around the New Orleans area.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I've lived out west for 6 years, in Las Vegas, and I've met a lot of people who don't realize that New York is a state. I tell them I'm from upstate NY, and they ask me if I miss all the excitement. They're pretty amazed when I explain that I lived 5 hours from the city. Even more surprising, people from NY city seem to not realize that there's a state appended to the city.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "In upstate NY, looking north from the shore of Lake Ontario, we could see the Toronto skyline. A tourist asked me if that was Long Island. I said \"No, it's a ship.\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Every time I hear a woman talk about a place that is not in line of sight, she points in the wrong direction -- usually the opposite direction. ", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I worked with a guy that once asked me why Hawaii was always warm and Alaska was always cold when according to many U.S. maps, they were right next to each other.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "My freshman year of college I asked a couple of girls who we fought in World War II, her response was \"China and.....Europe?\" I had no words. By \"I had no words\" I meant, I couldn't stop laughing long enough to respond.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "People mixing up Slovenia with Slovakia on a general basis. Some don't even know there is a country named Slovenia. I rarelly bother correcting them anymore, my faith in education is all gone by now. A few years ago, when our president went to visit some country or other (I can't recall the specifics), they even went as far as playing the Slovakian anthem for him. Sad.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "okay, i still can't get this one out of my head.\nso it was junior year at my high school. I had to take American history that year. Its a fairly small school, and there were about 12 people in that class. One day we were working on geography, and my teacher asks this one girl, \"Samantha, what two countries surround the great lakes?\" My friend quickly blurtrs out canada before realizing that someone else was asked. after a few more seconds, i hear \"uhh, i don't know.\" i don't think i, nor anybody else in that room have ever been as shocked before. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "A friend of a friend travelled to Spain, first time out of the US. Calls my friend back: \"hey dude, this place is super cool, everybody speaks Spanish here, but what's up with all of these white people?\"", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Almost off topic, but in the general tone: I was flying to Paris, and two american couples were discussing their trips.\n\nOne couple goes: we're so glad we are finally visiting Europe ! We're going to see Eurodisney, *and if we have time*, we'll visit Paris...", "score": 3 }, { "body": "A girl on my college volleyball team wrote a speech paper called \"Paris: The Country or the Celebrity\".\nI wish I was joking", "score": 3 }, { "body": "While playing some sort of a trivia game, the answer to a particular question was Buenos Aires, and this guy just couldn't get it. After he was told the answer, he said \"Really? I always used that as a phrase, you know, like 'Buenos Aires, Monsieur'\".", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I guess this is a geographical thing, maybe. \n\nI went to see an exhibit on the Moon at the local art museum and due in large part to the apparent lack of interesting Moon-centric art, they had a picture of the Hubble Deep Field up on the wall. I asked my girlfriend what she thought it was, and she said \"A bunch of stars.\" I said that yes, they were, but what you're actually looking at are galaxies so far away they look like stars. This seemed to impress her quite a bit. She then asked, \"Have we been to any of them?\" Utterly perplexed, I said no, we haven't even been out of our solar system yet. Her turn to be dumbfounded. In mounting horror, I clarified that the farthest a human has ever been from the Earth is the Moon. \"But what about Mars? We've sent people there. I've seen the pictures they took!\" At this point in the conversation I lost all grip on reality. For a moment, I was deeply confused. She seemed so sure! And there were those pictures. My viscous thoughts couldn't parse why there would pictures with no people, even though I knew there were no people. Finally my roommate saved me by explaining that we had sent robots to Mars and they took the pictures for us. Defeated but utterly uncaring, my girlfriend said \"Huh.\" and moved on while I tried to put my brain back into my ears.\n\nShe's a highly intelligent, wonderful woman who knows way more about 18th and 19th century American folk art than any college kid ought to, but when she doesn't care about a subject, she ignores it with a vengeance.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "A girl at my high school apparently needed clarification when she asked, \"is Germany like..Germany?\"", "score": 3 }, { "body": "A buddy of mine said something geographically retarded once and when I gave him shit about it he was like shut up man I didn’t do geology in school did I. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My cousin told me that she was taking a trip to South America, but when I looked at the ticket, it said Portugal. I swear, if she weren't so cute I probably wouldn't waste my time with her.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Having spent a lot of time overseas (mainly in Brazil) I got my fair share of really stupid questions. \n\nI met a man, who upon learning I was from New Zealand, got confused as to why I was not black. \nHim: \"New Zealand is located on the northern coast of Africa, is it not?\"\n\nAnother gentleman, was surprised to find that I spoke English very well. He had an argument with me because he thought New Zealand was located in very close proximity to Brazil. When I explained that almost 12,000 km separated us, he got angry and told me to go look at a map.\n\nA German girl, asked me how often I visited Australia, because \"when the tide goes out, someone explained to me how you can drive over for a visit\"\n\nA Brazilian, whom I met at a pub one evening, asked me how I could possibly live in a country with no electricity and running water - he then proceeded to continue the conversation with \"I heard that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of child mortality\" ---- When asked where he got the info from, he promptly replied \"I read it somewhere\"\n\n\n \n\n ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Not to me, to my brother in law...\n\nAussie buys something at a 7/11 in Columbus, Ohio.\n\nStore clerk notices unusual accent and asks where it's from\n\nAussie replies \"Oh, about 10,000 miles from here\"\n\nStore clerk: **\"Really? I had no idea America was so big!\"**\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I met him a year and a half ago. At first I thought he was a queeny dickwad, and I avoided him like the plague. Then one day, six months later, we randomly went out for tea together and the rest is history. We've been dating for a year and we're considering becoming engaged, despite the \"You're too young!\" and \"You haven't been together long enough!\" naysayers. But we're both serious about the commitment, so he may put a ring on it pretty soon even if we don't get *married* married until a few years down the road. Social commitment now, legal commitment later.\n\nAlso, sorry to hear about your bad experience. Hugs", "score": 10 }, { "body": "I was playing my guitar and a good looking boy passed by and recognized my friend. They said a quick hello, and then he turned to me and said \"that song is beautiful,\" and took off without an introduction. Two months later we crossed paths at a party, where he was successfully hitting on someone (female) that I had a huge crush on. He was drunk and oblivious to my discomfort, but was also extremely friendly and gave me his number and said we should hang out. \n\nI feel like the first time I really met HIM was after an argument. He's crazy smart and was a junior in college at 16, but also arrogant and abrasive and emotionally incompetant. His condescension towards a mutual friend got to me once and I told him off. We didn't talk for a a couple weeks and I felt guilty. I actually went to his house to apologize, and was surprised when his dad answered the door (I had no idea he was living at home). When I went to his room the door was open and he was studying. I saw all of his astronomy trinkets and maps and pictures and it hit me that he wasn't a bad person at all, just a kid with problems, and also that I was incredibly fond of him to the point of that I was probably falling for him.\n\nMan, do I know what it's like to lose out on love like that. It's an ache unrivaled by any other.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "We met at the YMCA (yeah, I know) when we were kids and were best friends. When she came out in college, her mom refused to give me her new number after disowning her and I lost touch for years. We ran into each other 5 years later when I was interviewing where she worked then. After a few breakup with others, we finally got together and have been together ever since.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Well, I can't say that we're significant others yet, but it sure would be awesome to work out that way. We actually met through another gay geeks site and so far we've been talking for months. I've never been so excited in my life. I think just the fact we're separated physically and it doesn't matter is why we're getting to know each other very differently than with other people. Not to jinx anything, but just today we spoke about the future, both of us excited at the prospects. If nothing else he goes on my significant friend list. I can't think of a day going by without him, but I want to take it slow -- if its for real, its going to happen. I've waited a long time to love someone completely. Just the idea of spending my life with him causes me to tear.\n\nDon't be heartbroken. There are people out there if you recover and reach out. I'm so smitten over him that I'd resist a romantic relationship if it ever meant there was a possibility of us not being friends. I know, odd, but he's just that awesome. So, I may not have him in my arms, but he's in my heart, and he's my SO.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "I met my future husband at \"Easter In the Park\". I was there with my roommate and some friends of his, he was there with his friends and (unknown to me at the time) his current boyfriend (who couldn't accept that the relationship was over). \n\nHe cruised me, I cruised him, we did a couple of shots and made out a little (yes, with the boyfriend watching) and I was hooked. Later that night when he showed up at my house barefoot, shirtless and a little drunk, I knew I was in love.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "I met my partner through a common friend. It is kinda weird though. I met the common friend through Yahoo Personals and we both decided that we wasn't each other's type. I had come over for a movie night, and that is when Devon showed up. He ask about me, and I asked about him after the movie.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "2004, we were both on XY.com. I was a senior in high school, he was a freshman in college. Been inseparable ever since, been a couple since 2005. ", "score": 5 }, { "body": "My husband and I met at the sleaziest bar in Denver. I was playing pool, and he was meeting a date that stood him up. We started chatting, and 15 years later, we're still together. Just goes to show that love can find you when you least expect it. [monogamous, married in CA, may-sept relationship/I'm the junior]", "score": 4 }, { "body": "On IR. About 18 months ago, so IRC is still active. There's a great channel on FreeNode called #gaygeeks", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I moved into the apartment nextdoor. I had lived in the complex for a while and knew how everything work but I pretended no to know when they picked up the garbage and used that as an excuse to say hi. That was back in 2002", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I met my boyfriend in grad school. He was assisting the professor in one of the classes I was taking and I thought he was so cute. Towards the end of the year we were at the same party and flirted a bit. Everyone at the party ended up going out to the only gay bar in town. After dancing a bit, and quite drunk, I told him I thought he was terribly attractive and asked if he wanted to grab a drink sometime. Turns out he did. We went out for middle-eastern food a few days later and have been together ever since.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Pretty big ask... You'd probably find people playing [Raven Shield](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy's_Rainbow_Six_3) though.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "That brings back some memories! Although I played more Rogue Spear online. Played it a lot in college, good times. I wonder if I have an install disk laying around somewhere. I think I used gamespy arcade to find servers... is that still around?", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Rogue Spear probably has about 50 hardcore fans still playing on gamespy and all competing still on ladder and with an anti cheat patch. Mostly 2v2/3v3 matches.\n\nAtleast it did a few months ago before I quit. ", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Still one of the best shooters I have ever played. I remember buying this game on a whim. I'm so glad I did. There are only a few games I think are in the same level as the original r6.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Tiger Balm. They should have it at 7-11. Also, dude, health care is like almost free here. Go to a government hospital in the nearest town. Or for really low-budget, go to the neighborhood \"anamai\". They are only open on certain days, but will likely cost you less than 10 USD.", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "I just moved out to Cambridge a week ago as well from the west coast and haven't found any good metal stores / venues, but if you hit up The Toad by Porter Sq. you can catch a live band every night, no cover. PM me if you want more info.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "If it is a mutually agreed to activity and both parties are of the mental capacity to make decisions for themselves, why not?", "score": 27 }, { "body": "OP, you make it sound like one has to accept the challenge to a duel. I certainly don't think that should be legal.\n\nI could not support something as useless/barbaric as dueling. However, if two idiots think that's the way to solve a dispute, I would not advocate violence to stop them. \n\nI think the abhorrent, senseless, idiotic practice should be legal.", "score": 13 }, { "body": "Something to throw into the mix:\n\nDueling hurts the family of the loser. Kids left orphans, people the loser is indebted to, etc. Imagine spending $80,000 on a college education for your kid, and he suddenly decides to accept a duel because someone told him his car wasn't all that.\n\nHowever, now that I think of it, this might encourage better parenting...\n", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I don't see that being challenged to duels repeatedly would be any more annoying than having people shout \"FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!\" at me all the time. As long as I have the right to decline any duel challenge, the idea doesn't bother me one bit.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "You couldn't make someone duel by challenging them. But if two adults want to combat each other to the death, they should legally be allowed to do so.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "> The biggest disadvantage, of course, is that nobody wants to be walking the streets or running their company, and then someone suddenly runs and up and says I challenge you, sir. Can you imagine the daily duel requests for, say, a CEO at Walmart, or for that guy who runs Whole Foods? And Ted Kennedy would never have survived long enough to die of a brain tumor.\n\nI don't necessarily support dueling... but it's not a duel unless both parties agree to it. Otherwise, it's just aggravated assault and attempted murder.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "> I don't mean to pick on these books in particular. I'm working on this post in Borderlands Books' spiffy new cafe, on my word processor, and they just happened to jump out at me. Nevertheless, these are some great examples of adverbs that add nothing to the writing — or actively detract from it.\n\n*EDIT* \"These books were picked at random from Borderlands Books to demonstrate ineffective adverb usage.\"\n\nHomeboy needs to practice what he preaches, IMHO.", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "A) the first is a bass roll off, in the second position it will apply a high pass filter, usually around 75-150hz depending on the mic. ( 150Hz on the MXL 770 ) \n\nB) The second is a -10db output cut or pad = less signal to the mixing desk. ", "score": 6 } ]

[ { "body": "I've noticed this, too, and I wonder if the people who do this are new to reddit. I've never thought to check.\n\nWhat bothers me more is when you take a few minutes to offer some suggestions in an attempt to be helpful, and some other redditor downvotes you. ", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I don't get it. Unless your dad is a full-on fundie creationist, I don't see how this should be a major source for conflict. Greatest Show on Earth isn't an atheist manifesto, it simply a book on evolution.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "I like that idea, not letting you two start arguing...sounds like you have a nice family.\n\nMy last big gift to myself was a really expensive Bible too...Bibles are fun for Atheists..", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "I like the music the most.\n\nDUN dadadada DUN dadadada DUN dadadada DUN-DUNDUNDUNDUN\n\nDUN dadadada DUN dadadada DUN dadadada DUN-DUN-DUN\n\nDA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DA-DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA\n\nDA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA\n\nDA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DA-DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA\n\nDA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA\n\nDA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DAAA\n\nDA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DAAA\n\nDA DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA DA DA DAAA\n\nDA DA DA DUN dadadada DUN dadadada DUN dadadada DUN-DUN-DUN\n\nDUN dadadada DUN dadadada DUN dadadada DUN-DUN-DUN\n\nDUN dadadada DUN dadadada DUN dadadada DUN-DUN-DUN DUN\n\nDA\n\nDA\n\nDA\n\nDA\n\nDA\n\nDA\n\nDA\n\nDUN DADADADA DUN DADADADA DUN DADADADA DUN-DUN-DUN\n\nDUN DADADADA DUN DADADADA [DUN](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GqEVh0tYSk)!", "score": 48 }, { "body": "I recommend the \"America's Game\" episodes. They're recaps of Super Bowl winning seasons and feature interviews with players of the winning teams. They also have a version called \"Missing Rings\" which recap the seasons of teams that either lost the Super Bowl or lost in the playoffs. \n \nAlso, any and all blooper videos!", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I hate it when female actors are nude and cover themselves with a towel or blanket even though they are supposed to be alone. If you were really alone you wouldn't be concerned with modesty.", "score": 5 } ]

[ { "body": "http://www.studybass.com/\nIt has much theory that will do you well. It will learn you the fingers, the holding of the guitar and similar, the scales, tones and other things.\n\nhttp://www.ultimate-guitar.com\nThis place has basically tabs for everything (including drums). It's the biggest resource on the net, as far as I know.\n\nAlso, don't worry about slapping and popping, they'll eventually come all by themselves as you progress with the playing style. Seriously.", "score": 4 } ]

[ { "body": "Defend my country: enlist and fight.\n\nInvade another country: I'd stay away.\n\nOf course we are talking incredibly complex hypothetical situations so it's always hard to tell what I would do. ", "score": 17 } ]

[ { "body": "You should bring that sucker to the local women's shelter. There's usually kids in there with the women that got shit-all for christmas and can expect more of the same for next year too.", "score": 23 }, { "body": "My holidays sucked this year. \n \nI worked Christmas day as well as New Year's (with no holiday pay). My 2 biggest presents were Left 4 Dead 2 and a change counter. \n \nI would love to have a DS again sometime. I previously had one stolen out of my car, and very soon after that my second DS was stolen as well. \n \nIf you don't find a kid who would absolutely love a DS, I would love to take it off your hands :)", "score": 5 }, { "body": "i;ve got three half brothers would love this gift! They live in ATL, while I'm in Philly... Send it to them, or send it to me and I will forward this to them :) \n\nThis is mighty nice of you, Black Mesa\n\nedit: ages 2, 5, and 12\nthe 2 year old and 12 year old play xbox, the only system they have\n", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I know you didn't want any upvotes, but I felt so warm and happy that I went through and clicked on every up arrow on the page.\r\n\r\n\r\n...sorry", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I'm sure your motives are noble but I do not think a present giveaway (or any sort of giveaway for that matter) warrants a misery competition.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I'm pretty sure you're describing Dane Cook's first special on Comedy Central presents. He definitely does the glitter joke in there before finishing with the impression of a raptor.", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "The budtenders at one of my local dispensaries refuse to light weed with a butane lighter. They have three main methods of lighting you up, depending on what you're smoking out of:\r\n\r\n- [BeeLine](http://www.beelinehawaii.com/): This is a stiff organic string made from hemp and infused with beeswax. They light the BeeLine first, then use the BeeLine to light the pipe.\r\n\r\n- Hot Metal Rod: They use a propane torch to heat a metal rod until the ball on the end of it is glowing red hot (similar to your soldering iron). \r\n\r\n- Hot Plate & Dome: Hard to describe, but it's basically a flat metal disc that they heat up with a propane torch until red hot. Then they swing a glass dome over it and quickly smear hash oil on the hot metal plate. There is a glass tube that lets you suck the extremely hot smoke through a water-filled bong to cool it before you inhale it.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "I *do* care. See, when I get naked at the gym--that's my choice. If I need to show a doctor or nurse my junk--that's for my benefit. If I'm stripped naked EMT, half-dead on the asphalt--that's for my lifesaving. But for my security? As an innocent man, being searched this thoroughly for security? That's a violation of my constitutional rights. (I'm American.) ", "score": 11 }, { "body": "i find it funny that some dude (or lady) will have to check out my cock outline. I will probably get stopped everytime as they check out what is bouncing off of my knees. They will be disappointed (or relieved) to find that it is just a sock full of heated quarters that I enjoy wearing on my cock. Regardless, it will lead to someone fondling my cock, and that's all you can really ask for in life.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "First time I go through one of those screener I will make sure that I have a boner just to freak them out a little.\r\n\r\nOh My God, that man has dynamite in his pants!", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "That I know everything about them and can fix any problem that will ever arise with them....for free.", "score": 802 }, { "body": "When I worked evenings as a tech at an electronics retailer, a *furious* woman brought back her laptop, angry that it wouldn't turn on. I immediately noted that it indeed would not power on...so I plugged it in and it fired right up. She demanded to know what I had done, so I told her I had plugged it in. \"THAT IS A *WIRELESS* LAPTOP,\" she practically screamed at me...", "score": 751 }, { "body": "EVERYTHING is downloaded.\n\n* I downloaded (installed) that program\n* I downloaded (unzipped) those files\n* I downloaded (opened) that PDF\n* I need to download (copy and paste) the files from that CD\n* Actual question - Where can I download memory?", "score": 600 }, { "body": "this old man that i work with thinks that the computer doesnt want to \"cooperate\" with him. he honestly thinks that the computer can have moods and likes to fuck with him. Also, he likes to turn it off during lunch to let it rest or sometimes if he is mad at it he turns it off to punish it. I really wish I were joking.", "score": 551 }, { "body": "I used to do freelance web design, here are my top 3:\n\n**1.)** Some people honestly believe that monitors use ink, and that they can \"save money\" by doing a website in 1 or 2 colors.\n\n**2.)** I once had a client who couldn't comprehend that his e-mail address wasn't a website.\n\n**3.)** The most grating: that my job isn't a \"real\" job because the computer does everything. Okay jackass carpenter, your job isn't a real job because the hammer does everything.", "score": 506 }, { "body": "Background: I am a Computer Science major and I worked retail in a store with an electronics department.\n\n\nOne day, like any other, I'm working and a guy approaches me.\n\nGuy: \"Megahertz.\"\n\n...I stare at him, not saying anything, trying to figure out where he is going with this. In hindsight I was overthinking it and this was probably a case where had I known less about computers I would have been able to decipher the meaning behind this cryptic statement. Eventually, perhaps thirty seconds had passed at this point, I responded...\n\nMe: \"What?\"\n\nGuy (agitated):\"M-e-g-a-h-e-r-t-z. Do you sell them?\"\n\nI didn't know where to begin and after thinking about for a second realized the only logical response.\n\nMe: \"No, no we don't.\"\n\nAt this point he left and I never saw him again. I like to think that he did eventually find someone who would sell him some megahertz, but I guess I'll never know for sure.\n\n", "score": 479 }, { "body": "I used to work in a retail electronics store and had an older lady come in looking for something we didn't carry. I informed her that it was available on the website and if she ordered it she could have it sent to the store and pick it up without paying shipping.\n\nShe then tells me that she refuses to order anything from the internet because her next door neighbor ordered an exercise bike from amazon and the next day her car was stolen. Completely blaming this on her use of the internet.", "score": 476 }, { "body": "I installed free AVG for my dad's friend.\nTwo months later he calls me and says: \"The antivirus software that you installed in my CPU, reported that it found a virus, so I entered my credit card number, but the virus still there.\"", "score": 417 }, { "body": "I remember a teacher in elementary school complaining that the computer in our class wasn't working properly. She thought it was infected by a virus so she made the kids sitting near the computer move their desks over a few feet away from the computer so that they wouldn't catch anything.", "score": 302 }, { "body": "My father thinks that having a webcam on the computer means that EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD can spy on us. ", "score": 285 }, { "body": "A friend worked in a call center for this crap.\n\nBest/worst one: He took an hour trying to figure out why the internet wasn't working for some old lady. He spent the next hour trying to explain to the lady that buying a modem does not make the internet magically appear, especially if you don't take it out of the box, or own a computer.", "score": 271 }, { "body": "When I was in 5th or 6th grade, I'd taught myself very basic HTML. All proud of myself, I went to show my aunt by opening a website's source code, making some changes, and saving it to show her the changes. She immediately flipped out on me, going on about how I just hacked and ruined someone's websites and I'm going to jail, she was almost ready to call her lawyer.\n\nAnd thus, I never pursued my dream of being a web designer..", "score": 250 }, { "body": "My dad recently got broadband, but still wants to connect to his old dial up account when he goes online becuase \"he can't get to MSN\" if he doesn't.", "score": 220 }, { "body": "\"My new computer has a 500GB memory, so yeah its pretty fast\"\r\n\r\nIt never ceases to amaze me the numbers people throw out about computers that are completely unrelated to the performance they are talking about\r\n\r\nIE:\r\nProcessor speed = download speed\r\n\r\nHard drive space = processing speed\r\n\r\nblue tooth = better... even if you never use it or have any other bluetooth enabled things in your house.\r\n\r\nEDIT: for all the people that keep saying but more ram is better, this statement was made with the person calling storage space \"memory\" so they had 500GB of hard drive space, and only 2GB of ram. So there are two things wrong with the statement, both a misuse of a technical term and the use of a statistic that has little to do with speed for a measurement of speed. ", "score": 209 }, { "body": "My dad swore that if you jiggle the mouse just a little as you shot the snood it could squeeze in the tight places better.", "score": 197 }, { "body": "Used to do contract computer work for small businesses/individuals. Couple things:\r\n\r\n-An older woman delivered her computer to the shop because it was making a grinding noise. I open up the case and about 200 CDs fall out. The computer had two CD-ROM drives and she had been \"loading\" her CDs by shoving them between the two drives. The grinding noise was the processor fan contacting a CD. \r\n\r\n-I got a call from a lady saying that her laptop wouldn't turn on. She would hit the power button and the green light would simply flash. I explained that what she was describing was a dead battery and asked if she had the laptop plugged in. She took offense to my question, exclaiming that the power cord was plugged into the power strip under the desk. So naturally, I ask if the power strip was plugged in. At this point she hung up on me. I show up on site to find the power strip plugged in...into itself. She wasn't in her office at the time and had she not been so rude on the phone, I wouldn't have waiting untill she returned to fix the problem. So I left for a few minutes to address a few other problems and returned when she was back. She starts laying into me about how her problem should have took priority. Very politely, I deflect and sit down, attempt to turn on the computer, then check under the desk. \"Ah, here's your problem.\" I raised the power strip with it plugged into itself. She turned red in embarassement and accused me of doing it. I would have said something but the contract was a large one and this charmer was pretty high up there.\r\ntl;dr: Woman had her power strip plugged into itself", "score": 175 }, { "body": "my ex-gf and her mother brought their family computer to a computer repair place. only thing is they brought just the monitor thinking that was the actual computer. \n\nalso, she has a master's degree from harvard. ::shrug::", "score": 174 }, { "body": "That when you fix your families computer and something else goes wrong it's your fault because you used it last.", "score": 174 }, { "body": "A plethora of users (PC AND MAC) seem to think Wi-Fi means they get free internet everywhere. Then it takes 30 minutes to explain that their iPod touches are NOT iPhones and that every laptop with Wi-Fi is NOT a netbook with free wireless service anywhere.", "score": 162 }, { "body": "If a PC has Windows Vista on it, then anything that goes wrong with it is because of Vista. I've even seen some relatively tech-savvy people blame hardware failures which would have nothing to do with the operating system on it.", "score": 139 }, { "body": "Once I heard a guy complaining about the weight of his laptop increasing as he created more documents and downloaded more files... he even got a bigger backpack because he actually felt back problems", "score": 132 }, { "body": "My favorite story about technology misconceptions is one that happened to my friend while he was working at a call center during college. I swear I am not making this up (but almost wish I were due to the utter stupidity).\n\nThis pissed off woman called him complaining that her VCR was watching her. He calmly asked her to clarify. She explained that the VCR had a flashing red light like a video camera and that she knew it was recording her so they could spy on her. My buddy explained that the light was just the power light flicking, indicating the VCR was turned off. The woman insisted that he was in on it and that she was being filmed and that he was a pervert (so now she's saying that *he* specifically is recording her). She goes on about how she's going to call the police and my buddy is trying is best to remain calm and not die laughing. Anyway, he keeps trying to assure her that the light is just the power indicator and she is screaming at him that it is not. So he gets his manager to dial in from another line and talk as a team to try to get the lady to calm down. At first the lady says the same stuff she said to my friend, but now to the manager, who in turn is trying is absolute best not to lose it and roll on the floor laughing. Finally, after about 10 minutes of both of them reassuring her that she was not in any way, shape, or form being watched by the VCR she calms down and decides that maybe they're right and it's just the power light. The manager gets off the phone and my friend prepares to finish up the conversation. He asked , \"Is there anything else I can help you with today?\" to which she responded no. His next line was \"Well thank you and have a nice evening \\**pause*\\* nice red shirt\" and hung up. I kid you not, the woman apparently had just happened to be wearing a red shirt that day and called back immediately and went straight to the manager. My friend was fired right then and there.", "score": 132 }, { "body": "That computers in the classroom are some kind of magic bullet that will solve all our education system woes.", "score": 129 }, { "body": "My mother, sitting with us at lunch at a restaurant that has free Wi-Fi, asks me, \"You know how there's like wireless everywhere now with Wi-Fi and cellphones? Aren't people worried that all that information is going to hit someone?\"\n\n\"Hit someone? Like, what do you mean?\"\n\n\"Hit someone, like knock them over.\"\n\n\"Are you serious? You think wireless information is going to hit you in the face?\"\n\n\"Well, there's just so much information flying around I figured it would get to be too much and, you know... just hit someone!\"\n\nShe wasn't even kidding. I have no idea where this idea came from.\n\nEdit: My sister reminded me that one of my responses after this was, \"Are you a time traveler from the 15th century??\"", "score": 128 }, { "body": "Some things my mom has called Facebook.\n\nMyBook \nMyFace \nFaceSpace \nSpacebook \n \nEDIT: She was cracking up as I read her your comments :)", "score": 127 }, { "body": "I've had multiple people call my support line in college assuming that the internet explorer icon was the internet. One of two things would happen. \n\n* They assumed they could use it anywhere\n* They assumed that if they deleted the icon they couldn't use the internet anymore.\n\nAlso my dad thought the only way he could access his email for the longest time was to open IE and then click on the mail button to open outlook. When I convinced him to switch to firefox, his chief concern is that he'd never be able to read email again. I then used that to convince him to use thunderbird as well. Now he loves both and uses icons :).", "score": 121 }, { "body": "A couple of years back I was told by a computer technician at a computer store that deleting desktop icons completely removes a program from one's computer.", "score": 111 }, { "body": "I knew a girl in college who thought that files didn't take up space when they were in her Recycling Bin, and she moved everything important into her Recycling Bin for \"safekeeping.\" She asked one of my friends to help her with a computer problem, and when he saw that she had items in her Recycling Bin he emptied it without giving it a second thought.\n\nThe entire dorm floor got to listen to her screaming at him for the next hour for deleting all of her stuff.", "score": 110 }, { "body": "In high school I somehow got into a conversation where the other guy thought Ethernet cable was optical. I showed him that it is copper wiring so he told me \"light can travel though copper.\" ", "score": 107 }, { "body": "I looked at the search history in google of my friend's dad's computer, and found that he had asked google, \"Where are my keys\"", "score": 106 }, { "body": "My mother thinks the internet is a series of skills that must be taught and can only be learned one at a time. It's not unusual for her to call me and brag about how she learned how to \"make a mapquest\", \"do google\" or \"visit that shoe site.\" ", "score": 102 }, { "body": "In high school we had a basic computer class where you were taught how to use Office and such. One day someone printed out something with a really big font size. The teacher rebuked the student, saying that printing something with such a big font size could break the printer.", "score": 88 }, { "body": "My gran would hold the joystick and physically thrust it in whichever direction she wanted to go, convinced it made things move faster than simple moving the stick around in the normal fashion.\n\nSame with control pads.", "score": 77 }, { "body": "A lady that I work with wanted my advice on a computer purchase. Like most non-tech oriented people, she couldn't decide on a price range or what features she really wanted. I finally settled on recommending a Dell Studio because they were on sale and I was tired of arguing. \r\n\r\nShe looked bewildered. \r\n\r\n\"What? A Dell? Isn't that a PC?\" \r\n\r\nI responded yes. \r\n\r\n\"But I thought you were a computer person?\"\r\n\r\n I am. \r\n\r\n\"Well that's weird!\" \r\n\r\nHow so? \r\n\r\n\"Because anybody that's good with computers uses an Apple! My friends say that nobody uses a PC anymore if they know anything about computers!\".\r\n\r\nW. T. F.\r\n\r\nEdit: I haven't talked to her since.", "score": 76 }, { "body": "I was helping my 7th grade English teacher - in 7th grade - save his gradebook to a floppy disk. I asked him to give me a blank diskete, so he grabbed one from his desk.\n\nI put it in and tried to save the gradebook data. It complained that the disk was full, and sure enough nearly the entire disk was full with the previous quarter's gradebook.\n\nIt took me a good 15 minutes to explain to him that just because he erased the pencil label on the front of the disk that it did not erase the files actually on the disk. ", "score": 75 }, { "body": "My father thinks that he should be able to plug a brand new printer into a 12 year old computer and it should just \"work.\" He also has held on to every computer he has ever bought stating that he's put \"thousands of dollars into this shit and its never worked the way its supposed to\" yet he refuses to throw any of it away thinking he can sale them and get money back. He cussed a guy out at a flea market because the guy told him his 1993 Tandy wasn't worth the $150 my father wanted for it. There is literally a mountain of computers/parts in my old bedroom. :( ", "score": 74 }, { "body": "My old auntie wouldn't allow computers in her house. She had heard about \"computer viruses\" and seriously thought it was a virus that a human could catch from a computer. Oddly, she lived to age 95. *Maybe she was right....*", "score": 73 }, { "body": "I was listening to Dan Savage's podcast and heard that once he was consulted by **a young boy who thought he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant via cybersex!**\n", "score": 73 }, { "body": "I worked in tech support for a DSL provider for two years. I cannot count or even remember most of the myriad silly misconceptions people had about their computers and the Internet. I had the usual people thinking the tower was called the \"modem,\" the monitor itself was the \"computer,\" believing MSN was the entire internet, and so forth.\n\nOne fellow had recently ordered DSL service, and he believed we were going to \"send [him] the Internet.\" Like, in a package via UPS. Also, he was under the impression that we'd send him a free computer as part of the deal.", "score": 69 }, { "body": "I'm not clear on whether or not this is just a satisfying thing for him to say, but my Dad LOVES to exclaim, \"We're in!\" upon opening any program, successfully loading any page, turning on the computer, etc. It is awesome, he must feel as though he's just hacked into something top secret.", "score": 65 }, { "body": "one time my mom sent me an email where the entirety of the message was in the subject line. she also signed it \"cyber mom\". ", "score": 62 }, { "body": "\"Don't leave the browser window open when you're not using it because that's how the hackers get in\".", "score": 62 }, { "body": "I had a former boss (my first job as a software engineer) who would refer to every component in a piece of software as a file. For instance, he'd refer to the GUI components as files when drawing out what he'd like the GUI to look like. It was extremely confusing to my young brain.\n\nHe also believed that it should be a law that people with AIDS should be cremated so the disease didn't seep into the water supply. I, being a smartass, pointed out that burning the disease probably only made it stronger and that we should shoot them into space to be safe. He was a gem of a man, let me tell you.", "score": 57 }, { "body": "That the computer just started doing this funny thing on its own, and the user is sure he didn't change anything. ", "score": 55 }, { "body": "1) that computer text, when highly interesting, will project onto your face\r\n\r\n2) that a computer searches faces in four separate horizontal tiers, so that the suspects face comes together like the spinners on a slot machine\r\n\r\n3) that computer text appears character by character, each with a little techy chirp, and that the faster the computer, the faster the text appears", "score": 43 }, { "body": "The misconception that Macs are somehow better because they cost nearly 50% more for comparable specs.", "score": 40 }, { "body": "\"Huh, that's weird, I can't connect to the internet...\"\n\n\"I never have that problem on my Mac. It's probably your Winders.\"\n\n\"Oh, there it is, the Ethernet cable came unplugged.\"\n\n\"The Ethernet cable never comes unplugged on my Mac.\"", "score": 39 }, { "body": "That computers are magical. The most pervasive myth amongst older people seems to be that computers somehow do something other than what they are programmed to do and that they're exempted from cause-and-effect, naturalistic-deterministic analysis.\n\nMy dad will frequently project out doomsday scenarios from his day-to-day (see: highly mundane) computing (\"that file will just disappear!\"), and when asked to explain why that could possibly happen, will respond with, \"BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT COMPUTERS DO!\"", "score": 37 }, { "body": "This isnt really a misconception but more of a mind boggling fuck up. One that i realized suddenly one day years after it happened and to be honest i have a hard time explaining it because it defies physics.\r\n\r\nMy dad was around 47 and a rather old fashioned person when we got our first PC. He insisted on managing it as he paid for it and blah blah blah. Anyway as is bound to happen, me the 12 year old learned everything in a few months but had my knowledge basically disregarded by him when we had problems, as of course, no 12 year old can grasp the advanced technology of windows and \"Getting the fucking epson printer to print\". \r\n\r\nAnyway father animosity aiside, one day our CD drive was acting up. It was spinning so loud and fast and it sounded as if it was hitting something. Anyway i ended up replacing the CD drive, because i was 15 and had gotten a job and my own PC by then because i was sick of dad yelling at me; \"Where the fuck is Encarta?\". A few years later i decided to take apart that old CD drive for fun. What i found was 1) where the fuck encarta was and 2) absolutely fucking incredible. About 5 CD roms were jammed UNDER the CD tray inside the drive. Now still being relatively young i just kind of went \"Hmm\" i wonder how that happened.\r\n\r\nFlash forward, a bit i'm 23 and something hit me, i start thinking about the situation. I think; there's no way that a CD can go from in the tray to under the tray. It simply cant happen. Then suddenly i remember a CD drive on a computer at my dad's work, it's one of those slide-in drives, without a tray. So i put mild dementia and force of habit together and realized that one day he must have been sliding the CD's UNDER the drive tray as if it were a slide in drive then doing it again and again as the CD's werent working. Now it wasnt a regular CD Drive you may be thinking about, it was one of those ones with the flip door and the door had broken so there was a bit of space there under the drive tray. After solving that i just laughed so hard...\r\n\r\n\r\nTLDR:\r\n\r\n- Dad shoved CD's into the drive UNDER the CD tray as if it were a slide in drive, then wondering why they werent working and later, asking ME where they went.\r\n\r\n- Years later, I discovered 5 lost CD's in the drive, under the CD Tray\r\n\r\n- I laughed \r\n", "score": 37 }, { "body": "One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that people think that any computing problem or task can be completed from a list of step-by-step instructions. I don't know how many times I've helped someone with a computer and had that person start writing down steps like, \"Open browser,\" \"Left-click once in address text box,\" etc. Most of the step-by-step writers don't understand anything later and call me back again anyway.\r\n\r\nThere is a very real need for basic classes on how a GUI works, how to edit and delete text, when to single or double click, and things like that. Most older-generation users have never been in such a class, or have been in a sucky class taught by volunteers on aging or broken equipment, rendering the training useless. ", "score": 36 }, { "body": "A friend of mine just recently got his first computer (he's 52). He got roadrunner and refuses to change from the rr homepage because he thinks it will mess his computer up. He freaked out when I deleted four of his five internet explorer shortcuts. He refuses to let me download firefox, again because he is afraid it will mess it up. The first time I went on reddit, he was hovering over my shoulder asking me if the links I clicked were going to download viruses on his computer. Basically, I can't touch the thing without him saying, \"don't fuck it up\". Aside from sneaking in the occasional defrag when he isn't paying attention, I don't mess with it any more. ", "score": 34 }, { "body": "My grandma thinks there are millions of rapists around the world just waiting for her 85 year old self to hop online. ", "score": 34 }, { "body": "I worked at a financial planning office and one year we decided to send our clients their investment statements on CD-ROM. We received a call from one client who furiously demanded to know how we got a hold of her personal files. (I don't remember what they were, let's say they were recipes.) We told her to bring the CD into our office and we would try to figure out what happened.\n\nThe next day she brings us her CD, and we load it on one of our PCs and verify that it contains only her investment statements from us.\n\nNot satisfied, she puts the CD into the laptop she brought with her. A dialogue box pops up indicating that there are files waiting to be written to the CD. \"I don't know what this is, it won't go away,\" she explains, and quickly clicks \"OK\" without even reading it. She then goes to the CD drive, and next to our statement folder there is a folder named \"Recipes\" waiting to be written to the CD.\n\nShe had obviously tried to burn a CD of recipes some time ago, and never finished the task, and now every time she puts in a CD windows asks her if she still wants to burn those files. She was convinced that those files were already on the disc--that we had hacked into her home computer and stolen her personal files, and then gave ourselves away when we inadvertently included some of those files on a CD we mailed to her. She was demanding to know what other files of hers we had stolen.", "score": 33 }, { "body": "My co-worker's church buddy has an upstairs email account and a downstairs email account because he didn't realize he could use the same account from multiple PCs. \n\n\"Hey, make sure you send that to my downstairs email account, I think I'll be online from the basement tonight\"", "score": 32 }, { "body": "There are a couple, and they've all been form my mother.\n\n* She thought when you asked Google something there was someone on the other end responding. It didn't make sense to her that a computer could be doing all this \"thinking.\" She explained to me, \"I asked the Google, 'hi, my name is Carmen and I would like to find a flower store near my house' and it said, 'did you mean *Carmax*'.\"\n\n* She asked why I wasn't responding to her emails. I told her I hadn't received any, and I was pretty sure she didn't have my email address so I asked her where she sent them. She sent them to \"my [email protected]\"\n\n* She thought everyone just \"had\" a Facebook profile automatically. She wasn't aware that you had to create it yourself.\n\n* About a year ago her computer (Mac Mini) was having problems and she wanted me to fix it. I was very busy at the time so I told her to please drop it off at my apartment and I'll take a look at it when I get home. Normally that would be enough, but knowing how my mother is likely to just bring the monitor I made it clear to her that I wanted her to bring \"the little block thingy with the wires. That's the computer.\" I get home to find the monitor and the Mac Mini's power adapter, a block. Along was a little note that said \"I know you said just the computer, but I thought I would play it safe and bring the rest of the computer too!\"", "score": 32 }, { "body": "My grandfather put together his own IBM compatible from parts back when they were still called IBM compatibles; my father volunteered to operate the unix minicomputer his office got in the 70's; my next-door neighbor growing up was an architect who was familiar with ray-tracers in the late 80's, and the carpenter who helped my dad remodel the house showed me his fractal-generating program around 1990. \r\n\r\nI'd have to say the strangest misconception I've seen someone else have about computers is that I'm extraordinarily competent with them.", "score": 31 }, { "body": "I've seen some old fuck physically put his mouse on the screen, then ask the poor sap next to him, how you see the cursor, if the mouse covers it up. Good question.", "score": 31 }, { "body": "This isn't really a misconception, but my sister kept complaining emotionally to me that everyone on facebook was \"really wide.\" \n \nThe computer was running at a non-native resolution because it didn't have video drivers.", "score": 29 }, { "body": "I used to fix the computer of a client of mine. She did way too many drugs, and was insanely paranoid. She believed that her ex husband was spying on her through the internet, and was watching her every move. She put a band aid over her Windows license sticker to stop the hackers from stealing it. One night when she had some error messages pop up on her computer, she stabbed the motherboard with a screwdriver until the machine died.", "score": 28 }, { "body": "So I get a call from a secretary saying that her screen is black and no matter what she does she can't get her computer to work. So, I go to her desk to troubleshoot the problem. When I get there, she is on the phone (with her back to the computer), so I wait patiently to talk with her when she's done. I notice her computer is turned off so I think, I'll just turn it on while I'm waiting for her to get off the phone. \nShe finishes her call, turns around, and by this time the PC has booted up, which she notices, and she says to me \"OH MY GOD, HOW DID YOU GET IT TO WORK?!\"\n*face palm*\n", "score": 28 }, { "body": "A woman who bought a computer from my old boss at Circuit City came back a couple days later to say that the pedal didn't work correctly. She was referring to the mouse.", "score": 27 }, { "body": "My stepdad yells at my mom for leaving the computer on. He thinks it is why their computer runs like crap. The computer itself is probably 8-9 years old, and had a few upgrades maybe 5 years ago.", "score": 25 }, { "body": "That Google is the whole internet, and that a google search bar is their address bar.\r\n\r\nEdit: Spelling", "score": 25 }, { "body": "an old lady i was helping would click down on the mouse **extra hard** to make sure that the computer registered the click.\n\nunfortunately, the force her hand applied usually caused the cursor to move before the click had finished. \n\nthis lead to a cycle of more, and harder, clicks, with similar results.", "score": 24 }, { "body": "My mom is having a lot of trouble grasping the concept of the task bar. No matter how many times I explain it to her, she seems to think that whatever program is currently maximized on the screen is the only program running and she'll inevitably end up with 10 Firefox/Mahjong windows as she switches between them by running a new instance every time. Oh well. Slow and steady, once new concept at a time.", "score": 22 }, { "body": "Just look at the audiophile world. Multi-thousand dollar CD \"transports\" to \"precisely read\" the bits off the CD. Error correction, what's that?", "score": 22 }, { "body": "This sort of doesn't fit, but I'll tell it anyway:\n\nSeven or eight years ago, my friend Drew was on acid and went to the movie theater with some friends. As with many other theaters, there was a small selection of arcade games, one of them being Time Crisis.\n\nHe was so fucked up he was *actually ducking*, as opposed to just using the pedal.", "score": 21 }, { "body": "I'm using my laptop over Christmas and:\n\nMy Aunt: \"Computers are going to be the end of the world.\"\nMe: \"And why is that?\"\nMy Aunt: \"No reasons that you would be interested in hearing.\"\nMe: \"Wow, that's a good argument.\"", "score": 21 }, { "body": "My boss doesn't allow his son on his computer because he left his Facebook signed in once, and that makes the computer slow.\n\nEdit: let me clarify, he checked \"remember me\" and closed browser when done rather than signing out.", "score": 20 }, { "body": "I am a Mechanical Engineer who used to to tech support / computer repair at Circuit City. Here are few of the gems I got.\n\n* I need a new brain for my computer. Where are the brains.\n* A guy returned his Pre-N routed he NEEDED to go from his basement to his 3rd floor attic because the \"radiation gave him headaches\".\n* A guy came to me asking for a new harddrive, and when I showed them to him and asked if he needed IDE or SATA he yelled at me for those not being harddrives despite the box saying so.\n* I had a lady think that the entire tower was to house the CD drive\n* After doing 3+ hrs of diagnostics on a mans computer. I figured without a doubt his motherboard had went. He demanded I tell him what on the board was specifically broken. And when I told him I have no idea it could be a short in a capacitor to a blown north bridge, literally anything. He was pissed and tried to get his money back.\n\nAnd so many more.", "score": 20 }, { "body": "I really hate to admit this, but these are actually things that I do:\n\nWhen I am mad/frustrated, I will type really, really hard. As if I am trying to punish my keyboard keys.\nI am a chronic \"overclicker\" and will constantly click shit with my mouse, especially when I am being impatient with a program. Sometimes I just click to highlight text, over and over again.\n\nWhenever I call my grandmother (she lives a few states away), she always asks, \"Do you want me to call you back so you don't have to pay for the long distance call?\" I tried to explain that cellphone calls cost the same no matter where you call within the states. She refuses to understand.\n\nThis same grandmother is convinced that if she uses the phone while on the internet (she has DSL), the phone calls will be doubled in price.\n\nI also once caught her rapping her pen rather sharply on the monitor; she told me she was trying to beat her computer into compliance. She's always hitting things, and insists that smacking one's hand on a misbehaving appliance will bring it back to working order.", "score": 19 }, { "body": "On two occasions I have been asked, – \"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?\" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.\n\n-Charles Babbage", "score": 19 }, { "body": "Almost all non-tech related ppl have misconceptions about computers. Most of the time they try to ignore, and just use it (they just don't want to know).\n\nBut my dad.. he is different. He wants to know how everything works in order to use it. He has never used a computer, but he finds strange how people can use computers while not understanding anything. He will often ask me about it, where are the things that are on the \"internet\", how does a computer work, why moving the mouse moves a pointer (he thought somehow there was a direct analog connection between the pointer and the mouse).\n\nWhen I explain him some principles (not in a user way, because he is not interested in using it, he only wants to know), he thinks people are geniuses to know so much about computers. He cannot understand how people can use them properly without prior knowledge.\n\nDamn I love my dad. \n\nedit: engrish", "score": 19 }, { "body": "I get really frustrated with people who don't know a lot about computers (generally older folks, but not always) who are somehow proud of the fact that they don't \"get it\" and exclaim how they'll \"never get it\" and how knowing how to use a computer even on the most basic levels is either snobbish on your part, or you're just plain dumb for \"liking computers because they're just a fad anyway.\"\r\n\r\nIt's not like you see people who are proud to not know how to use a phone or a refridgerator.\r\n\r\np.s. get it = understand it\r\n\r\n", "score": 19 }, { "body": "After setting up my Grandmothers first gmail account she phoned me in a panic because she wanted to turn off her computer but was worried all her emails would disappear. I thought it was kind of sweet and explained to her that the emails stay on the internet so they never disappear. Next time I came over she had the computer all disassembled (I'm still amazed she did it herself) and sitting in the closet with a blanket over it. She begged me to get rid of it and was genuinely terrified. I asked her why and she said \"Because I don't want everyone on the internet reading my computer!!\"", "score": 19 }, { "body": "I've seen a lot of people who know what they want to ask, but don't know how to ask it.\n\n\"Can you reboot my working system?\" = \"Can you reinstall my operating system\"\n\nOnce a girl asked me \"Does Linux run under Gateway?\" She had a Gateway PC and thought \"Gateway\" was the OS and Linux was an application.\n\nIt's often not that people are stupid... just ignorant.", "score": 18 }, { "body": "My friend used to work at a Gateway computer store.\nA mother and father came in to return a computer for religious reasons...they said it had too many \"wizards\" and they didnt want their kids exposed to it. ", "score": 17 }, { "body": "At least being old doesn't automatically make you computer-stupid. My mom turns 80 today. I should get her a computer-themed birthday card. She sometimes makes it easy for viruses to get into her computer, she has fun rooting them out. Drives my sister nuts, but Mom knows what she's doing, it's like a game to her. She has the power supply for her computer sitting on top of it, she swapped out the supply one day, and when she gets around to it, she'll shove it in where the old one still sits. If Mom ever calls me up needing help with a computer problem, it'll have to be a real tough one if she didn't already figure it out on her own.\n", "score": 16 }, { "body": "Kind of the opposite but my dad said this while watching \"Macheads\" on MSNBC: \n\n>What the fuck do they mean Windows isn't stable? The only time Windows fucks up is when I fuck with it, or go to an un-trusted porn site.", "score": 16 }, { "body": "They all seem to think they know what they are talking about when they point to the \"tower\" and call the whole thing a \"hard drive.\"\n\nN00bs\n\nEdit: Removed the word \"CPU\" before \"tower\" due to popular demand.", "score": 15 }, { "body": "My new CFO insists I work on his laptop, in person, in his office, with him looking over my shoulder. I told him that if I wanted to look at company financials or other confidential stuff, I could do it from my office, from home or from China and he would never ever know.\n\nHe still doesn't get it.", "score": 14 }, { "body": "A fellow computer technician asked me why he can't delete those \".\" and \"..\" directories he sees from a windows command prompt. Guy makes $45K/year too.", "score": 14 }, { "body": "my mother had problems accessing the internet one day and somehow accidentally hit the NUM LOCK button and all of a sudden the internet started working. It started working because i was in the basement resetting the router at the same time she hit NUM LOCK. To this day she makes sure NUM LOCK is off when browsing the web because \"otherwise it won't work\"", "score": 14 }, { "body": "I once explained the whole mail client, mail server relationship to my father. It took visual aids and a lot of questions, but he finally realized why his mail could be checked from multiple computers.", "score": 13 }, { "body": "About 10 years ago, my wife had forwarded to my father-in-law a slightly off-color email about dog poop. It was cute more than anything else. \n\nSuddenly my father-in-law started calling the house once an hour looking for my wife... \"Tell her to call me as soon as she gets in.\" (I'm not sure why I was home and she wasn't.)\n\nAfter I field four phone calls from my very anxious sounding father-in-law, the wife gets home and I tell her to call her dad. \n\n\"What's up, Dad?\"\n\n\"Why did you send me that filthy email?\"\n\n\"Which one?\"\n\n\"The dog poop one.\"\n\n\"Oh, I dunno. It was funny.\"\n\n\"My customers can see that!\"\n\nNow, bear with me as I try to unpack what he thought was happening. As far as I can tell, he thought that when you send an email, it gets published on the web... somewhere. I think what was happening was he thought that AOL forums and email were more or less the same thing. \n\nMy brain hurts just trying to parse the reasoning. It would take less effort to pick up a manual and read it than it does to create a theory like that. \n\n(Edited to allow a grammar nazi get his or her totenkopf badge.)\n", "score": 13 }, { "body": "My grandmother asked for a computer so that she could type letters for a club she was a part of.\n\nOne day I went to her house and watched her open Word, type a letter, print it, then very carefully backspace until the \"page\" was clear and then start typing another letter.\n\nShe finally admitted that she did that because she didn't want Word to run out of \"paper\". ", "score": 13 }, { "body": "Copy somethig with the mouse, then unhook the mouse, hook it to another computer and try to 'paste' the copied something there.\n:)", "score": 12 }, { "body": "did not happen to me personally, but but it needs to be told.\n\nat my old workplace, a web hosting service, had a support call from one of their customers. My old boss took the call. The customer could not figure out why he could not access his mail. They where at it for some time, and then the customer said that no page worked. he's internet was broken, and he of course thought that this was a web hosting problem. so my boss, nice as he is, agrees to help him figure out whats the problem with his internet. about 30min later, a thought pops into the customers head; \"I had a blinking box in my hallway that i did not know what it did. So i sold it. Could that have something to do with it?\".\n\nWell, he had sold his modem. my boss laughed hysterically. ", "score": 12 }, { "body": "I'm posting this comment just to see if anyone sees it when there are four thousand comments already.", "score": 12 }, { "body": "One time back in highschool a librarian was yelling at someone to unplug his laptop from an electrical outlet because she was concerned that he would hack into the network.", "score": 11 }, { "body": "I used to sell computers at Best Buy and I was helping this older man one day, asking the typical questions to find out what type of computer to sell to him. I could tell he didn't know shit about computers because the first question I asked him was what he was going to be using the computer for. He said, 'well I'm not going to be taking over the world with!' Then I asked him how big of a hard drive he was looking for and he held up his hands and said 'about this big.' I wish the guy was being sarcastic about all of this but he was not.", "score": 11 }, { "body": "My mother pretends to make extra money on the side as a web designer / generic IT professional. It amazes me that she:\n \n* still double-clicks everything\n* thinks that hard drive == ram\n* that ram == processor\n* that processor == hard drive\n* that bluetooth == wifi\n* thinks cPanel is a webserver and database\n* thinks apache is an operating system\n* thinks mySQL is a virus\n* thinks that CSS is programming\n* thinks that java and javascript are the same thing\n* thinks that Dreamweaver is how people \"program\" HTML\n* thinks that Unix and OSX are the same thing\n* thinks that Flash is a Microsoft product\n\nAnd this might be more of a personal peeve, but she hunt/pecks typing and uses a laptop trackpad with 2 hands. So inefficient, argh!", "score": 11 }, { "body": "Working at Kinkos' self service area, there was a customer that wanted to fax something. \n\nThey asked, \"how soon can I get my documents back?\" and I told them, \"well.. it only takes a bit more than a minute for a page to come through. but if the person on the other side doesn't send it or has problems, it can take a while.\" I explained that Kinkos would hold onto her fax for her if it came after she left, but she was faxing her birth certificate and some other important documents, she was kind of upset and shouting at me.\n\nI talked with her for about thirty minutes before I realized she thought the fax machine was some sort of teleporter that whisked papers across the globe. I think I literally laughed in her face. Ahh, customer service!\n\nKinkos was non-stop erosion on my peace of mind and hope for humanity. So many idiots came through those doors. \n\n\n\n", "score": 11 }, { "body": "I used to work at Best Buy as a computer salesperson back in high school, so I've had quite a few confused customers:\n\n* There was a woman and her mother who came in. The mother was not aware that laptops have batteries, and thought they needed to be plugged in all the time. I then sat and watched as the daughter explained to her that laptops don't need power cords, *ever*. She actually thought it just kept on going forever without a charge.\n\n* A girl came in with a Macbook that had a fried battery. She believed it was caused by her always just closing the lid without actually clicking *shut down* on the computer.\n\n* There was a man who thought Intel Core2Quads were much slower than Core2Duos because they were a \"fad\".\n\n* I also had numerous customers who refused to use wireless connections in fear that \"anyone in the world could see onto my screen and steal my identity\". Yes, I actually had one woman say that to me.\n\n* I probably had daily customers who thought a wireless router would allow them to have wireless internet anywhere in the world.\n\n* I met numerous customers who firmly believed (when Vista first came out) that 256mb was enough RAM to run Vista, because their old computers had 128 or less.\n\n* I met one man who thought laser printers meant the printer printed in color.\n\nAnd finally, this isn't a misconception but I enjoy telling this story. There was a really old war veteran who came in once a week to look at computers, he was probably 80 or 85 years old. After about 6 months he finally decided to buy an iMac. As you probably all know, Best Buy employees are forced to sell the world-famous Performance Service Plan on computers. We were trained on how to sell it no matter what the customer's excuse for not wanting it was. I asked the man *\"do you want to get a 4 year service plan with the iMac?\"*. He replies, *\"no because I'll be dead by then\"*.\n\n...How do you respond to that Reddit?", "score": 11 }, { "body": "Using host famlie's (was an exchange student) computer. It was already screwed up. I check my email and go on facebook to check my messages. Computer crashes a few days later when I'm using it.\n\n* H: What did you do?\n* M: I just checked my email.\n* H: Are you sure you just checked your email?\n* M: Yeah, I checked my email and then checked my messages on facebok.\n* H: Facebook isn't a website! Why did you download facebook!?\n* M: Facebook is a website so I didn't download anything.\n* H: Facebook is not a website. You need a password right?\n* M: Yes you have an account on the website, so you need a password.\n* H: If you need a password it's not a website! Websites don't need passwords!!!\n* H: You can see what other people write on facebook right?\n* M: Yes.\n* H: You're supposed to know something about computers. If you knew anything you would know a virus came through facebook because you downloaded it and then you saw what the other people wrote! You can go back home!\n\n\n", "score": 11 }, { "body": "I was once showing my friends how to build a computer, and they saw the heatsink on the motherboard and exclaimed \"The Myspace tower! That controls myspace right?\"", "score": 10 }, { "body": "In my tech-support travels I've seen/heard a lot of things that made me just stop and blink...\n\nLet's see... there was the guy who was CONVINCED our encryption software was causing his outlook data data files to corrupt... even though he had a limited understanding of how a keyboard worked.\n\nI've heard computers called 'CPUs' MANY times... \n\nThere was the woman who had two very large SPEAKER MAGNETS on her laptop that she was using as paper weights cause her window was opened... wondered what could have fried her hard drive.\n\nThen there's always the people who call everything 'desktop' or 'c: drive' when they mean something completely different. \n\nthe 'power user' that thought his motherboard was fried because he couldn't access the internet, turns out he kicked out the cable... \n\nI could go on... but I think you get the gist of it ", "score": 10 }, { "body": "On the same note, in the seventh grade my (admittedly very intelligent) friend refused to fax me the rubric for a project because... she still needed it.\n\nShe later admitted that she didn't know how faxes worked, so she assumed the paper traveled through the phone lines.", "score": 10 }, { "body": "That Winzip is free software! Thankfully, after a few thousand days, my computer informed me of my misconception and I was able to pay for this wonderful program!", "score": 10 }, { "body": "my grandpa used to yell at me \"Not even God enters BIOS!!!\" when I was young and got into BIOS when his computer booted! :|", "score": 10 }, { "body": "My parents wanted to have MSN installed, so I sent them a step-by-step instructions by email. Later, they complained the MSN thingy was so complicated, and would rather call their friends by phone.\r\n\r\nTurns out they reinstalled the program every time their PC was on.", "score": 10 }, { "body": "I was in a freshman economics lecture and we were discussing Y2K, and date sensitive embedded chips. This girl raised her hand and asked if her toaster would stop working when they 2000 arrived. When asked her reasoning, she said \"Well, if the toaster thinks that it is 1900, wouldn't it realize that it hadn't been invented yet?\" \n\nTrue story, this was at SMSU, now Missouri State.", "score": 10 }, { "body": "I knew a chick who had a digital camera and *no computer*. \n\nShe was about to run out of space on her SD card so I asked what she would do. Her plan was to buy a photo album and put each SD card in a picture slot. \n\nJesus.", "score": 10 }, { "body": "Almost no one I know seems to be able to type a URL directly into the address field. They all go to Google, type the URL into the search field and then click on the resulting link. Makes me want to rip the veins out of my wrists.", "score": 10 }, { "body": "The Comcast technician went to my parent's house to fix a problem with their Internet. He looked at their computer and told my Mom, \"ah, there's the problem... You're using a Dell. Dells don't work very well with Comcast cable Internet.\"\n\nApparently he noticed that most of the house calls he made are people with Dell PCs so he made the connection that that was the problem... But never thought that it might just be because Dell is a very popular brand and a lot of people own them.", "score": 10 }, { "body": "I was explaining to my roommate in college how I could map a network drive for him so he could store his stuff on the school's server. This way he could access it from the computer lab, library, somebody else's computer, etc.\n\nMe: So, you save something on your Z:\\ drive...\n\nHim: Right\n\nMe: You understand where it stores it when you do that?\n\nHim: Yes.\n\nMe: Where?\n\nHim: The library\n\nMe: *facepalm* That's right, it goes to the library...", "score": 9 }, { "body": "My friends grandma picking up the mouse and rubbing it on the monitor??? Also the same grandma who ploughed into a wall in her new automatic car, misinterpreting the meaning 'automatic'. She's fine.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "Customer bought a wireless router, plugged it in at home, said it didn't work. She brought laptop in to prove that she didn't have any internet connection at the store, with her router at home. Told me she was going on a road trip in a week and needed her wireless router to work.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "I've worked many a traumatic years doing DSL tech support, I've... taken care... of most of those memories, but some that I just couldn't shake:\r\n\r\nA guy getting \"mouse trapped\" when he probably 15 year old ball mouse would only work half the time because of the inch of grim on all the rollers. He thought a web page was literally trapping his mouse in place.\r\n\r\nThere was a fiber cut in this guy's area so internet went down, just so happens around the same time his outlook inbox gets corrupted. I spent an hour and a half explaining to him that no, no one cut the fiber, hooked in to it, went in to your computer, took your emails (not just copied them off, but grabbed them and walked away as if they were physical pieces of mail), and stole the 'thousands' of dollars somehow contained in those emails.\r\n\r\nPeople thinking that by telling me they're losing thousands of dollars an hour while their DSL is down that I will somehow fix it faster. Of course they stfu pretty quick when i ask them why they're running a multimillion dollar a year business off their residential DSL line.\r\n\r\nPeople thinking I can always see their screen as soon as I answer the phone. \r\n\r\nPeople believing that various websites/portals ARE the internet.\r\n\r\nThat toolbars are the address line.\r\n\r\nI wish I could remember more, but if I did I'd probably wish I could remember less. ", "score": 9 }, { "body": "A salesman at my work said that every time he clicked a link, a \"switch\" inside his computer made a clicking noise. He asked if I would \"replace the switch\" to fix it. I guess it's MS's fault for making the IE link noise sound like an actual click.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "My boyfriend is a computer science grad student. One time I was at my parents' place looking for a cord of some sort when my dad found a bin full of old cd players, audio/video cables, etc. and he goes \"oh I bet [my boyfriend] would have fun going through all this stuff.\" This was at a time when pretty much the only thing my dad knew about him was that he was a computer scientist, which apparently means he likes hooking up home stereo equipment.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "Whenever I'm typing into a terminal, people who are moderately proficient with computers act shocked and ask me what I'm hacking.\n\nThank you, Hollywood.", "score": 9 }, { "body": "That kids *automatically* know everything, and that older people *automatically* are incapable of even learning. I've helped many college students who had great skill with a few applications, but whenever something went wrong at the system level, they had absolutely no clue how to troubleshoot it. \n\nA long time ago, I sold a Commie 64 to an 80 year old woman, against my advice. \"Here it comes, I thought\". A few weeks later, she came into the store wanting to buy a modem or something. I asked her how she was liking her piece-of-shit-cardboard-circuit-board computer, and she said \"fine\". Any problems? \"No, I just read the manual\". Cover to cover, before she touched the computer. \n\nAh, the discipline of her generation. ", "score": 9 }, { "body": "someone I once knew honestly thought that a hard drive got significantly heavier as more data was added to it. This was about 6 years ago.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "The fan was making a bit of a humming noise, so my mom told me to disconnect the internet and let the 'computer rest'.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "A while ago my mother wanted me to procure a song off the Internet for her. She said I was \"good at that downloading, uploading, sideloading thing\" \n\nSideloading? WTF", "score": 8 }, { "body": "I knew someone who deleted all his .dll files because he never clicked on them so he figured they were useless. I knew someone else who formatted his hard drive because he couldn't find a file and figured formatting things would clear out the clutter.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "I remember my middle school teachers would flip the master power switch to the computer lab when we were done with our typing class, powering everything in there down instantly. They'd flip the power back on later when a new class came in, and the computers would start booting back up.\n\nI can see where they'd get the idea that this was a workable solution, but still. Very bad. Of course, this was over 10 years ago, so hopefully things have changed.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "My sister poked my mother's screen and she exclaimed \"Don't! You'll make a pixel fall off!\" I haven't let her live it down.", "score": 8 }, { "body": "My mother just can't understand what's wrong with the \"wireless\" on her laptop because every few hours she has to plug the power cord back in to charge it up.\n\nBut my dad takes the cake: Years ago, after I gave him his first computer, he used it to write me a letter -- printed it out, and corrected his mistakes with White Out!", "score": 8 }, { "body": "When I first got my laptop for college some years ago, my mom (who isn't totally computer inept) was confused why I only got a screen and keyboard and not the \"rest of the computer\". I'm not sure she'd ever seen a laptop at that point, as they were just becoming more popular and affordable. ", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Just last week I overheard a guy telling a bunch of people that Bing was better than Google because the pictures looked clearer - better quality he explained. What struck me was that no-one in the group dared say anything. There was a \"hmmm.. let's change the subject\" feel. But he went on a bit. I know that if I was involved I would have challenged him- would that have been mean?", "score": 7 }, { "body": "This is how my IM conversations go with my grandmother:\n\nMe: Hey grandma\n\nGrandma: Dear <myname>,\n\nHow are you? I am fine. Are you still enjoying work? Let me know.\n\nLove you,\n\nGrandma\n\nMe: Um... I'm fine, work is good, what are you up to today?\n\nGrandma: Dear <myname>,\n\nI haven't done much today. Grandpa is being lazy. Hope to hear from you soon.\n\nLove you,\n\nGrandma\n\nMe: Um... ok, love you too.", "score": 7 }, { "body": "Not exactly computers, but I a few years ago I worked retail and a guy came in to return a printer. He was really pissed off because the person who sold him the printer never told him he would have to periodically replace the ink. It's like returning a car because the salesperson didn't explain that you'd have to refill the gas tank. WTF? ", "score": 7 }, { "body": "* When they call the tower a hard-drive\n* Thinking that having a lot of data files actually somehow weighs down the computer and makes it slow\n* Internet Explorer icon is TEH INTERNETS\n", "score": 7 }, { "body": "My dad once clicked one of those ads that say something like \"You are the 1000000th visitor!!! collect your prize money here\". So he got all exited and told me he won money...\nWhen I explained he didn't win anything, he got mad.\n", "score": 7 }, { "body": "I used to run music technology workshops for an orchestra in a converted church in London. On one occasion we had an open day for local residents. This was mainly as part of a scheme to open many buildings of historical and architectural significance, so a lot of people who had no idea about technology ended up wandering into my room full of computers.\n\nOne such person was a rather posh man who I guessed was about 75. I explained what the computers were for and asked him if he would like to try any of the software we used. His reply:\n\n\"Oh, I'm not interested in computers. I don't trust anything that has a *mind of its own*\".\n\nTo this day, I regret not freaking him out by telling him how the tube he came here on, the many electrical appliances he used every day and the air conditioning in the building we were in are all computer controlled.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Years ago, when Windows 95 came out, I was working in retail and we had a customer call us to complain because she wanted to buy a computer with Windows 3.1 so that she wouldn't have to deal with all of the subliminal messages in Windows 95.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "My mom thinks hat having Norton makes her immune to any and all viruses, malware, spyware, adware and trojans. Hence, making it OK to download any and everything then complain when her computer is slow.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Just the other day, a friend told me that Charter Communications told him that just having the computer turned on, sitting idle, makes him SUPER vulnerable to viruses and spyware. He needs *their* protection package immediately! \n\nSounds like Geek Squad got a hold of Charter now too...", "score": 6 }, { "body": "My grandmother thinks she needs to double-click all buttons and links in the web browser. Drives me insane.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "my grandmother thinks everything on the internet is evil and full of lies except for everything on jehovah's witness website.\n\ndumbass bible thumping bitch.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "When I lived with my parents, my dad assumed every problem he had with the computer must have stemmed from something that myself or one of my siblings had \"downloaded\". He would point to the icons of new programs we had installed, and without knowing what they were blame them for any problem.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "People seem to think that if something worked at any point in the past that there is no possible way it could be broken now. For example if you tell someone they can't get online because their modem is bad they will tell you that that's impossible because it was working yesterday...infuriating.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Mother in law - \"I need to go home to log on to my email.\"\n\nMe - \"You can use my computer if you like\"\n\nMIL - \"Huh? You dont have the right little pictures on your monitor\"\n\nMe - \"You mean icons. And you have yahoo mail, you can pick that up anywhere\"\n\nMIL - freaking - \"OH MY GOD ANYONE CAN SEE MY EMAIL????\"\n\netc for about a week.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "My friend made a program that would answer questions. \n eg \"Dear computer, what is Sean wearing?\"....Blue\nThe trick was to type the answer when the screen is showing you typing \"Dear Computer.\" \n\n\nOur heavily Evangelical acquaintance thought the computer literally had a demon in it, and left the house because of it. Let me repeat that for you, a 21 year old thought a computer was doing something because it was possessed by an evil spirit.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "My girlfriend's all in one solution to every computer problem is to take the battery of oh her notebook, cover it with a blanket, and let it \"rest\".", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Your story reminds me exactly of [this](http://bash.org/?104052) from bash.org:\n\n <NES> lol\n <NES> I download something from Napster\n <NES> And the same guy I downloaded it from starts downloading it from me when I'm done\n <NES> I message him and say \"What are you doing? I just got that from you\"\n <NES> \"getting my song back fucker\"", "score": 6 }, { "body": "A friend was convinced that every time you played an MP3, it would wear out a little and play more slowly the next time. I tried to argue, but he assured me that he had performed a test once to prove it. He had downloaded a \"fresh\" copy of an song and compared its play time against the worn out copy that he'd been playing for years. The fresh copy was shorter, so that settled the issue for him.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "One that really grinds my gears is when people use the word \"download\" for everything. \n\n* Can't you just download it to me?\n* Can you download the pictures from my camera onto the computer?\n* Download this onto a CD for me please.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "There is this guy who says he let a floppy sit for a while so the virus on it would reproduce and become stronger... \n\nhttp://imgbit.com/i2329", "score": 6 }, { "body": "Message someone sent me about my site, Omegle:\n> Please remove this site from my computer (unsubsribe). Thank you.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "My mother once told me not to use my (unplugged) laptop during an electrical storm because the electricity would arc across the room and kill me.", "score": 6 }, { "body": "We had 'wireless' internet installed ie: radio as opposed to DSL/cable (it is quite big here is SA where our telecoms suffer under a one company monopoly.)\n\nBasically they install a radio antenna on your roof and this connects to a modem inside that you then plug into your machine/switch/router.\n\nAaaanyway one the day the dude comes over to install I am at work, my wife works from home so she is overseeing the installation.\n\nI get a call from the install tech - he tells me: \"Mr. badmikey your wife will not allow me to leave as she believes that I have installed something other than what you ordered. There is a small length of cable coming in from the antenna to the modem and she is pretty worked up over the fact that you ordered **wireless** internet.\"\n\nAnother one:\n\nMe (on the phone): \"Ok mom, now double click on 'My Documents' to open it and look in there - read back the filenames that you see.\" \n\nMom: \"But it's not in *your* documents... it's in **MY DOCUMENTS** why don't you ever listen when someone tells you something??\"", "score": 6 }, { "body": "For a long time, my mom thought that land-line (refering to POTS house phone) and LAN line were the same thing.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Even though I tell them and explain this every time they say this.\n\nMy parents still think that if they buy a new computer, the internet will be faster. And if they are complaining about the computer being slow, it is the internet being slow. And if they complain about the computer being broken, the internet doesnt work.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "A woman once asked me if I knew how to remove 'spiders' from her comptuer. I asked if she meant 'spyware' (she had an accent, so it was hard to tell). She said no, insisting that there were spiders in her computer. I figured she was talking about dust-webs, so I told her to try pressurized air.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I work in tech support and it never ceases to amaze me how many people have lost their connection to the internet but still believe I can see them through their monitor. A lady once insist I hold while she put on a robe before booting her PC. ", "score": 5 }, { "body": "When I was in college a professor of mine thought that the only way you could get to a website was through google. She wanted to show us a video on You Tube, so she opened internet explorer, clicked on the address bar and using a single finger typed W-W-W-.-G-O-O-G-L-E-.-C-O-M. In the google search bar she typed Y-O-U-T-U-B-E-.-C-O-M and clicked on the first link it gave her. She did this for *every* website she wanted to use for her lectures. She refused to listen to the entire class when we collectively tried to educate her on the very complex workings of website access.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Definitely the most annoying, \"backslash\"\n\n\nTHERE IS NEVER A BLACKSLASH IN A URL. FUCKING NEVER EVER.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "When I first started getting into computers my dad knew more about them than I did. I asked him, \"How do people make a computer virus?\"\n\nHim: \"They just change the file extension to something else.\"\n\nI wound up screwing up the OS trying to rename all types of files to .zxy, .format, .blowup and all types of weird things.\n\n", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I am a bastard for relating this story, because it's about a really sweet Korean girl who I work with, but, whatever.\n\nRecently she asked me if she needed to back anything up before our dept IT dude updated the RAM in her computer. Not in a general, \"it's always a good idea to back up your data before you service your computer\" kind of way, but because she wondered if data loss was bound to happen in the upgrade. She explained that he told her that all her slots were full, so he was going to have to remove some memory to put bigger chips in, and she was worried about the data in her RAM.\n\nI hear what you're saying. That's not such a crazy mistake to make. But this girl has a masters degree in electrical engineering, and she's written papers about memory technology.\n", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I have two, both from some volunteer work I used to do helping old people with computers. (Horrible idea)\n\n1. An eighty year old man's daughter was moving, and he was worried that he wasn't going to have her new email address once she had moved. He thought emails changed with area, like phone numbers.\n\n2. I was helping a woman sign into her hotmail account, she'd enter her first password, hit enter, get rejected, then enter her second password and log in. She didn't realize that she was putting in the incorrect password the first time, she just thought she had two passwords for added security.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "I bought a new graphics card and it had a picture of a soldier on the cooler's plastic casing. My technologically illiterate friend inspected the card with a puzzled look on her face, and then she finally asked: \"So you really paid 300 euros to get this picture of a soldier to show on your screen? You're crazy!\" She really thought that once installed, graphics cards do nothing else than show one image on your computer's screen, and that image is the image shown in the cardboard packaging or the plastic enclosure of the card.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "My mother and father were worried about the Michaelangelo virus that was making news at the time that they would unplug the computer power cord at home to avoid having the virus destroy the computer. This was in 1991... 4 years before we had the internet hooked up.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "i work at a computer help desk, first level support. the guy who does overnights is absolutely convinced that the government scans the ENTIRE INTERNET every night around 3am, which makes things slow down. he even tells this to customers who call in", "score": 5 }, { "body": "My mom bought me my first Playstation shortly after she bought me my first Gameboy. When she went to the store to buy the Playstation, she was having trouble finding them, so she politely asked the store clerk where the \"Playboys\" where at.", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Years ago during the build up to Y2K.\nA woman I knew at the time was up in arms because \"When the dates change over, my truck wont start!\"\n\nReally? Your truck cares what year it is?...", "score": 5 }, { "body": "Yesterday I was showing a coworker of mine (an elect. engineer who is one of our better digital design guys) the thing with Google... you know, the 'Christianity is...', 'Atheism is...', 'Islam is...' thing. Well, I was showing this to him using Firefox as my browser. He says, \"Are you sure that is a google thing? Try using the NORMAL internet.\" He then grabs the mouse and clicks the IE icon to check the NORMAL internet. I repeat: this guy is an elect. engineer. wtf", "score": 5 }, { "body": "My mum once called me up when I was at Uni, panicking because she couldnt do her grocery shopping because, and I quote, 'The Internet had disappeared!!!'. The IE shortcut had been deleted from the desktop.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I have tried to explain my mother for years, that \"Microsoft Office\" and \"Microsoft Windows\" are not the same thing. I can't seem to understand, what makes it so hard to understand?!", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I like to mess with people and breed further misconceptions. \n\nIf I hear something like \"so and so are dating now\" then I'll mention it to them. When they ask how I know I'll tell them something like \"oh I did a statistical analysis of drive by frequency using license plate images from traffic cameras. I noticed that you guys were going to each other's houses a lot.\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I once tried showing my great aunt how to use a PC. She had never used one before in her life. She was 83 at the time.\r\n\r\nI started by showing her how the mouse makes the pointer move around the screen, and how to click the mouse buttons to make things happen. I then sat her down and invited her to give it a shot.\r\n\r\nShe picked the mouse up, pointed it at the screen, and began waving it around, trying to make the pointer move like the mouse was a laser-pointer. \r\n", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I was at a radio shack (I was looking for a 3.5 mm jack, etc) and my friend was talking to the employees there.\n\nSome how the employees believed that Windows XP couldn't handle a dual core CPU because there was no 64 bit version of Windows XP.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Ok Computer people, hear this - You might be superior with regards to computers but i want you to read this thread and consider the many ways computer noobs make ridiculous fools of themselves, remember that in certain subjects you are as clueless as those we mock here...\n\nNone of this, 'I was just being a nice guy and she friend zoned me....' idiocy! none of this, 'you're reading too much into it -it's just a film...' stupidity! none of this 'they hate us for our freedoms...' wilful ignorance!\n\nSubjects that you barely even understand exist actually are fully nuanced and complex ideas which some people have deep and complex understandings of, every time you make a wildly uninformed statement on a subject you don't understand thousands of people who do wince.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "When I still lived with my parents (who didn't like me having my computer on during the night because they thought it was unecesarry) I slept over at my girlfriend at the time and phoned home to tell my mom to turn the computer of. My mother had never used a computer at the time so when I told her to move the mouse to the start icon at the lover left corner, she did just that, physically putting the mouse in the lover left corner of the monitor. It took me aproxemently ten minutes to explain to her how to turn of windows 95.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "That if you put into the machine wrong figures, the right answers will come out.\r\n\r\nI am not rightly able to comprehend the confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "My friend asked why my laptop screen wasn't showing the Windows logo at boot. I explained to her that it was running Linux (and that it's a different OS), not Windows. Her response?\n\n\"So, I still don't get it. Is Linux just another internet, or something?\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Weirdest thing I've noticed in a lot of people: thinking anything they do, physically or just tinkering with software options, will break the whole computer.\n\nThat and people feeling they have to buy a new computer on the silliest of things.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "My wife works the call desk at an electronics store and has gotten many calls. Last night a man called in asking her where the A-N-Y(yes he spelled it out) key was as he couldn't find it on the keyboard. My all time favorite just happened two weeks ago though. A girl called in after receiving an 8G ipod for Christmas and was very concerned about how much it would weigh after all 8Gs were full. She also couldn't figure out why it had a red flashing light and would no longer turn on. My wife explained the she had to use the USB plug-in to charge it and ended up settling for the description of the \"pluggy thing hole in the back.\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "My dad kept complaining that he had put the CD on the computer but the files weren't loading. I walked into his office and noticed that he had simply placed the cd on the screen and was waiting for things to happen. ", "score": 4 }, { "body": "That computers do what you want them to do as opposed to what you tell them to do.\n\nEDIT: Two good stories that I remembered...\n\n1. I was putting more RAM into my room mates laptop because I wasn't going to use it anymore, figured he could use it because his laptop sucked. So about halfway through putting it in he says... \"So this is going to let me hold more songs right?\"\n\n2. I worked for my universities IT services back in the day. One time I replaced a staff members computer with the new one she had ordered. However she had not bought a new monitor, but I replaced her CRT with an LCD of the same size because we had a large surplus of them. A week later we got a call from her absolutely furious. \"Why the hell would you install an incompatible monitor with my new computer! My monitor is a Dell and my computer is an HP! Are you guys completely incompetent up there?\"... Turns out she had accidentally kicked the power cord out of the power strip for the monitor...\n\nI also had one lady get pissed off when we replaced her computer because it no longer matched her monitor. She insisted that she would rather use her 6 year old computer instead...", "score": 4 }, { "body": "A coworker of mine used to tell a story about when he worked for the school district they replaced all the monitors in the classrooms, and received many thanks and praise for making all the computers faster.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Took a credit card out of an optical drive once. Lady said she was \"online shopping.\" Still shaking my head when I think about this one.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "In the late 90s, during the windows 95 and 98 era one of my friends got the classic \"This program has performed an illegal operation\" error and totally freaked out, expecting the police to turn up any second! It took a lot of convincing for him to to realise that he hadn't fallen short of the law.\r\n\r\nhttp://www.sharewaresolutions.com/screenshots/gag_screenshot.gif\r\n\r\n", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Back in the day, when I was first setting up my dad with his email (AOL, I know....blergh) I installed Netscape Navigator on his PC to replace that POS AOL proprietary browser. I then drew a little diagram showing him that the areas of AOL he had been browsing were one tiny little slice of this ginormous network called \"the internet\" and that the new browser would allow him to see all of that and more. There was long pause, and he looked at me over his glasses and said, \"Who's in charge of this thing?\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "1) Any sort of bug reporting has to be done in Word format. Including screenshots. one screenshot per word document. Obviously a file means \"Word document\".\nI frequently get bug reports with 5+ word documents, one word document for a screenshot of \"about\" - to display the browser version, and one word document for each segment of a page with the [possible] bug that can fit in a screenshot. \n\n2) On seeing an error message, the very instant it's recognized as one, people's ability to read goes down the toilet, along with any recollection of what they've done to get there. \n\n>\"I did something and then I got an error message\"\n\n\"er, and what did the error message say?\" \n\n>\"............................................ it was an error message\"\n\n\"er, okay. what program gave the error message?\"\n\n>\"..............................................error message\"\n\n\"... what were you doing when you got the error message?\"\n\n>\"I was just doing stuff, and then error message\"\n\n3) Printers are mythical beings, and you need intricate knowledge of arcane wizardry and/or voodoo to read and understand what \"out of paper\" displayed on the printer LCD means. \nThe only solution is to stomp angrily around the printer while yelling \"why is the printer not working?!\" repeatedly. Only thus can you summon someone with the appropriate spacegod-voodoo-wizzardry required to decipher that to \"insert paper\".\n[the above behavior is especially necesarry if your title is \"Chief Senior ICT Consultant\"]\n\n4) Email is a wonderful thing.\nThe sysadmin can obviously delete emails you sent to other [unaffiliated] companies, NGO's or similar several days after you sent it. \nOfcourse, it's a well-guarded secret held by the systems administrators evil league of world domination, so you have to lure a confession out of yours by asking it as a hypothetical question. \nIf, after much baiting, the systems administrator still declines that as a possibility, it's obviously because he doesn't know his job. Besides, your newphew told you it was easy.\n[This also especially applies if your title is Chief Senior ICT Consultant] \n\n", "score": 4 }, { "body": "Father, on buying our first computer (Commodore 64): \"Ask it what the easiest way to make money is\"\n\nFather-in-law, when finding out I was a developer: \"Oh, so you know computer languages? Say something in a computer language!\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I was showing my mom how to work ebay and it got down to the final minutes of the bid. My mom sees the time left clock counting down (22:12, 22:11, 22:10) My mom looks flabbergasted and asks \"Is someone typing that?\"", "score": 4 }, { "body": "My favorite is the lady who confided in me she was seriously concerned about the people living in her computer, \"trying to steal her Microsoft Office.\" She said they even had pictures that they showed of themselves to her and tried to speak with her when she was working on documents or spreadsheets. \n\nI had a hunch and started image googling \"Microsoft Office\" and \"Microsoft Access\" while we were talking. She freaked out and pointed at the screen and look legitimately scared and said, \"oh my god! you have them too!\" I then had to explain to her that those were simply icons that come with the software and that there was nothing wrong with her machine. She was seriously afraid of the little paper clip man.\n\nA m a z i n g.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I used to do tech support for several departments at my university, including the school of Interior Design. This school always had the worst trouble tickets, as the language they used stopped at \"computer not working.\" Sometimes that meant the CD drive wasn't working, sometimes it meant the computer wouldn't turn on. I was dispatched to the interior design building on an emergency call, there were some presentations due and the computer wouldn't work. I get there and find it won't turn on, and crawl around underneath to make sure it's plugged in. The power strip it was supposed to be plugged into was completely filled with cell phone charger cords, with the plug to the computer having been yanked out to make room for these girls' phones. They said that you shouldn't be able to pull out the cord from the strip if that would make the computer stop working, that it should have been held in \"with magnets\". ", "score": 4 }, { "body": "On two occasions I have been asked, – \"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?\" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I work at a Helpdesk, and one of the stories thats been passed around was one where a woman called saying she was having issues printing screen. The Helpdesk Tech asked to her to tell him what she was doing, she said that she was taking a blank piece of paper and putting it up to the screen and pressing the Print Screen button hoping it would transfer on to the paper... I think I spit my drink all over the person who told me that.", "score": 4 }, { "body": ">> Give it some time... it's \"thinking\"\n\nAt least I've heard some of my family saying that. \n\nEdit: typo.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My grandpa thinks he needs a new computer every couple of years to browse the internet. He also thinks Dell is a company you want to buy stuff from.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "working tech support like I'm guessing a bunch of you have as well, a co-worker of mine had an old man who thought it was possible and that it was the case that someone was had sucked his computer monitor through the internet and replaced it with a different monitor which is why there is a different colored monitor than last night's on his desk.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "they couldn't get their blacktooth to work with their blueberry..\n\npeople referring to vista as The Vista.. ie \"since i've been moved to The Vista\"\n\nThat you need a program to wipe a hdd before you reinstall an OS. (yes, i know programs do exist and you CAN but the person thought you had to basically write 0's to the drive before reformatting)", "score": 3 }, { "body": "A very good fiend arrived from France and insisted on dialing AOL in France (from Chile) because that was following the steps her IT friend told her years ago.\n\nOn the other hand today I a did a BIG &%$@# at work because a have 3 PCs on my table and typed on the wrong keyboard\n \n", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I told this a while ago, but I had a user who was insistent that I fix his PC without Netmeeting. He didn't want to ship it in and he was 1000 miles away from me. He insisted that Netmeeting is a Virus and would destroy his data.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My mother won't turn the computer on if there isn't anti-virus software installed. The fact that it has to be on to install the software means that she'll only freak out for a minute.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My grandfather once asked if my mouse was beaming signals through the cd drive to make it move - simply because I had set the mouse on the cd drive of my laptop one day. Actually not too bad for an 80 year old man who survived the great depression.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I used to work in a store selling pc's and doing tech support for the idiots that bought them back. One day I got a pc back to look at, the owner said the software wouldn't install. I looked at it, seemed fine.. I heard something rattling in the case so I popped it open and low and behold about 5 or 6 cd's were inside the case, slipped through one of the gaps in the drive bays. She thought that by pushing in a cd though the gap that it would magically install her software. That was the dumbest customer i'd ever witnessed.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Once had a relative phone me up and said that his friend brought round a TV show he recorded on a [RAM disk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_disk) and his computer would not play it. To this day I have no idea what he meant by RAM disk as I really hope his friend did not take over a stick of RAM to him.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My grandmother once asked me why she couldn't click the icons on her desktop anymore. I told her to use the mice instead of pushing the LCD screen.\nSome time later, she claimed that her screen was too small, because she couldn't see the whole page sometimes when surfing. That day, grandma' learned about the concept of scrolling :-)", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Friend A complaining about her slow computer at work. Friend B (who is also a co-worker of Friend A) suggests that maybe the computer speed will improve when IT comes by to calibrate her monitor.\n\nI guess I can see how someone could think that made sense, but damn if I didn't laugh for a solid 5 minutes.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "when i was working at staples a lady tried to return an ink cartridge because it didnt last as long as it said it would. we were trying to explain that the page counts are an estimate and it depends on what you print and she said no look right here it says its good until june of 2010 and it quit printing after just a couple months!", "score": 3 }, { "body": "luckily, my father's been using computers longing then I have (I still get those, \"we had 16MB of internal memory, and he had to walk up hill both ways in 3 ft of snow to use it\" stories.)\nMy mother can use powerpoint, word, and check her email, but she doesn't get the idea of tabs in web browsers.\nMy grandmother can use a computer quite well, she can send an email etc, only time I have to help her is when the printer acts up (which is the printer just being bad, not anything she has done.)\n", "score": 3 }, { "body": "That programmers are geniuses in disguise and only have Aspergers... dude you are a homepage maker code monkey deal with it.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "is it me and or do a lot of your friends, even ones who use laptops reguarly for college etc still think internet explorer is the only way to go online? ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "*Macs != PCs*\n\nI'm sure it came about from an advertising campaign to try and make Macs seem new and special.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Try explaining to someone that the Wii sensor bar doesn't actually have sensors of any kind. Took me fifteen minutes, starting AT \"It's not actually a sensor bar. It sends no information whatsoever to the Wii. The cable is only for power. It just has 5 lights on either side of it\".\r\n\r\nFollowed by \"So if we connect it to this Wii, both Wii's we have can use it.\".\r\n\r\nWith the response immediately being, \"But wouldn't that _send the signal_ to the Wii it's attached to?\"", "score": 3 }, { "body": "> On two occasions I have been asked, – \"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?\" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "That \"the big tower thingy\" is the modem. Can't believe i got halfway down and still noone mentioned this.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My dad (who's 68) called me for tech support. He has SBC-Yahoo DSL and like all old people, just uses the default web home page they provide. So he calls and is frustrated because he \"can't get this thing off his Yahoo!\" Now, I'll cut out all the telephone troubleshooting details, but keep in mind that I can't see his machine as I live 2,000 miles away -- I have to go by what he says. There's this *thing* on his Yahoo he wants gone. Now, what do *you* picture in your head? Right. Well, you're wrong. Turns out, his *Yahoo!* was really his desktop. And he had a porn file on his desktop he wanted to throw away.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I worked in an apple retailer, and this blonde that looked like she just walked off a porn set came in, she asked me if iPods play music.....", "score": 3 }, { "body": "When I was an intern at a Law School I was assigned to the 'Informatic Team' and the students would ask to borrow laptops and video projectors from us to show videos, slides, etc, we had only 3 laptops, laptop 1 had only floopy disk unit, laptop 2 cd rom and laptop 3 both... so they had to select the laptop based on what they where going to bring whatever they were going to show in class... so one day this girl comes and says \nshe: hey i need a video projector to use a floppy\nme: do you need a video projector and a laptop with a floopy disk unit?\nshe: NO, I NEED A VIDEO PROJECTOR TO USE A FLOPPY\nme: NO, you need a video projector AND a laptop with a floppy disk unit \nshe: NO, I NEED A VIDEO PROJECTOR TO USE A FLOPPY\n\nI said to her that that thing didnt exist... she was sure that she could insert the floppy disk into the video projector and display everything from there...", "score": 3 }, { "body": "A friend's grandma thought her printer ate her husband on a day he just stepped out for a little bit. But she was old. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My girlfriend's mother was misled by the \"files and folders\" metaphor. \n\nShe thought that opening a file removed it from its folder (very logical, I suppose). So that even if you didn't change it at all then if you closed the program without saving it then it would be gone, because you hadn't put it back in the folder.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I once repaired a computer for a customer, shipped it back to her. After she plugged everything in and turned it on she called me screaming at me that I had sent her a computer that did not work. I was able to remote in to this broken computer and see that it was running the same as I had sent it. Then came the question that shut her down. Did you plug the monitor in... silence.....", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I worked at Office Max during high school and regularly had customers who would ask for help picking out a computer. I would show them the computers, and they would pick out the cheapest *monitor* and say they wanted that one. \n\nWhen I tried to explain that the monitor was just a monitor and they needed a tower to make it work, they'd often believe that I was trying to scam them into buying something \"extra\".\n\nThe worst part came after I had adapted to this behavior and started to explain the very basics of how computers worked to reasonably savvy customers, who then stared at me as though I was trying to explain the value of respiration.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I took a class in Flash in high school back in 2001. The teacher was brainwashed by flash - he was convinced that in 3 years time, HTML would no longer exist and the web would be all flash. He also argued that any worthwhile site should have a fancy flash intro. \n\nThe last day of class he said, completely serious, \"As you go, remember that the internet is a lot like the seasons. It moves quickly in the summer, and as winter comes around everything gets colder and it slows down.\" I still have no idea what he was talking about.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I used to work at a CVS photo lab. One day when closing the store, I turned off the monitor on the minilab PC (minilab is the huge machine that prints the photos) because it simply didn't need to be on...especially seeing how it was a CRT monitor.\n\nA couple of days later, one of the managers was telling me that I should never shut off the monitor again. Supposedly the photo lab supervisor (old lady who had been working at the store for years and years) thought that the machine itself was not functioning because the monitor was off, and she had never thought to try to turn the monitor on!", "score": 3 }, { "body": "After any kind of hardware\\software problem that i'm asked to fix... \"can i still get my email?\" YES YOUR EMAIL ISNT ON THE COMPUTER HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I F#)$ING SAID THAT!", "score": 3 }, { "body": "In high school, I had a friend whose parents thought that when the mouse pointer changed to an hourglass, that meant it had a virus.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I was trying to email a client, but it bounced back as an invalid email address. When I called him to get the correct email address he told me to send it again because his grandson had been talking on the phone when I sent it the first time. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I once tutored retired people in computer use. This 75-year-old woman was really bad... She wanted to click something on the left side of the screen. The cursor was in the middle of the screen, but the mouse was all the way to the left of the mouse pad. \"What do I do?\" she says. I picked up the mouse and put it on the right side of the mouse pad. \"Well, I'll be!\" she says. \n\nOn a more uplifting note, my co-teacher in that class was 80 and knew computers better than me. He got his first one in like 1978 or something. He also jogged to class.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Worked as a computer tech at BestBuy before it was GeekSquad. Had a customer roll a shopping cart up to the counter with a printer and a mouse in it. \n\nShe proceeded to explain, this printer no longer worked, and this was the mouse to operate it.\n\nThe guy working the counter with me that night nodded in agreement with her and said \"Ohhh... a printer mouse!\"", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My friend tried to teach his grandmom how to use a computer. When she went to use the mouse, her first impression was to pick it up from the desk, point it at the computer screen and try to use it like a TV remote.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I work for Best Buy so needless to say there are a million things I could post (megapixels pronounced as megapickles etc) but my fav story is about my dear late grandma.\n\nGrandma had dial-up, and you couldn't call her while she was online, naturally. One time my sister was visiting and I called to see when I could pick her up. \nMe: So what's my sister up to?\nGrandma: oh she's on the internet\nMe: *pause* oh. I see. Can I talk to her?\n...\nSister: Hey\nMe: Grandma says you're on the internet\nSister: Nope, just playin Solitare. \n\nOh Grandma.\n\nMy father flip flops between expecting me to know everything (because I work at Best Buy) or forgets I sell computers and asks me to ask the guys (aka GeekSquad) for tech help. Facepalm.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Way back when ... a student tried to copy the contents of one (floppy) disk to another by cramming both disks into the same slot. Of course, how else could you get the contents from one disk to the other without them _both_ being in the computer at the same time?", "score": 3 }, { "body": "So one day in my high school computers class our kooky english teacher came by to talk to the tech teacher. As she walks by my desk she sees that I have my textbooks piled on the mouse cord and promptly scolds me for preventing the information from getting through.\nLike the mouse cable was a hose that I was pinching with my textbooks that would soon enough burst to spew \"information\" all over the classroom.\n\nIncredible...", "score": 3 }, { "body": "One time myself and a fellow male model friend of mine broke into this guys office in an attempt to find some corroborating evidence on his computer, so ignorant were we at the time that we were unable even to turn the machine on, lol.\n\nIt wasn't until later that we realized the files were actually *in* the computer.\n\nEpic fail.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Not exactly a misconception, but in the same ball park. My sisters constantly ask for computer help. I fix the issues, but I have one condition: **THEY CLEAN THE KEYBOARDS AND MONITOR**\n\nI think they try to apply makeup via their webcams and then freak out when their keys stick. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Remember the Y2K scare? My elementary school had really old computers. The software was so old that they suffered from Y2K - I couldn't log in because it wouldn't accept a year greater than 1999 or earlier than the last login time. When I complained, the administration blamed me for breaking the computer. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My pet peeve: \"Oh, my email got hacked.\"\n\n\"You mean, someone knew the password and logged in?\"\n\n\"No, they hacked it.\"", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My mom doesn't want me using IRC because the hackers could steal all her credit card information that way. We don't even use the same computer.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "There was a chick on the Norwegian version of Beauty and the Geek who would not, no matter how meticulously and carefully it was explained, accept that the Screen was not the actual Computer, even when confronted with a stationary. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I was consulting in SC, a woman who worked for this firm tells me she tries to avoid computers during the flu season ... she makes eletronic purchase orders and invoices for a living. Initially I thought she was just joking until she showed me her emergency kit in the event her computer gets infected. I thought she was probably the only one ... until I found this recently \nhttp://imgbit.com/i2329\n", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Actual conversation:\n\nHer:\" This thing is a piece of junk, you sold me a lemon! It won't even turn on! And it's so slow!\n\n(won't turn on and slow, amazing)\n\nMe: \"Mam, did you plug everything in like I showed you?\"\n\nHer: \"Yes I'm not an idiot!\" \n\n(considered correcting her)\n\nMe: \"Are you sure you plugged in the power cord? will you please check?\"\n\nHer: \"No I didn't plug in the damn power cord, doesn't it have a battery?\"\n\n(desktop)\n\nMe: \"No mam, laptops do, but desktops don't\" (Except for cmos of course)\n\nHer: \"Well you should have sold me one!\"\n\nMe: \"A desktop with a battery?\"\n\nHer: \"YES!\"\n\nMe: \"So you can walk around your house with a keyboard, mouse, speakers, monitor, and tower.\"\n\nHer: \"Yes and surf Aol wireless.\"\n\nMe: \"You are describing a laptop, but you said you didn't want one.\"\nHer: \"RIGHT! BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO PAY VERISON!\"\n\nMe: {explained the difference between laptops and a HP (verison) netbook}\n\nHer: \"I don't care it's still to slow!\"\n\nMe: \"Thought you couldn't get it on...\"\n\nHer: \"I CANT!!!\"\n\n1. Considered telling her it ran on water, and that is was low on juice.\n\n2. Thought of telling her that she needs to let some of the magic smoke out by licking the big black cord.\n\n3. Dreamed of making an application process for buying a computer that required a minimum IQ.\n\nUltimately just hung up, took an extended lunch, did not return the bitches calls. Told the boss to return the computer if she wanted, but she was his problem now.\n\nAlso what L7Weenie said is dead on.\n\n\nAnd I have actually gotten\n\n\"Can you download my hard drive to the internet for me?\"\n\n\"I broke the internet\"\n\n\"My aol stoped screaming\"\n\n\"Where is 4chan, in europe?\"\n\n\"Mac is to difficult, how about Linux?\"\n\n\"Can I buy a blackberry that is an Iphone, or download it or something?\"\n\n-computer Tech for 4 years.....", "score": 3 }, { "body": "* That cropping out the largest things in pictures like buildings will save more memory than cropping out the same area of something small like a cat.\n* That headphones work by sound being generated in the computer and sent down the wire just like a [cup phone](http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5243530_paper-cup-phone-work_.html).\n* That tablet PCs run out of ink.\n* That when you set Windows to synchronize time it will synchronize with your wrist watch.\n* That guitar tuner software that you've downloaded will tune your electric guitar hands free when you plug it into the same power strip.\n\n...actually I just made those up on the spot but the funny part is nobody reading this will think I'm doing that until this sentence. We really expect people to be this stupid.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "That knowledge and skill in X means you have knowledge and skill in Y. \n\nI applied for a job once, and had three interviews with different people. They needed a software tester with unix skills. I impressed them with what I knew, and they hired me. \n\nThe first day on the job they showed me a closet full of components and told me to build myself a SCSI system. They never asked me if I knew how to build a computer. I'm into programming, and have very little interest in hardware. If it works, that's all I'm interested in. \n", "score": 3 }, { "body": "This girl I know said she had a computer virus so bad, she could see the bugs crawling around on the screen. She was dead serious.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I knew someone that thought that the only \"safe\" way to browse the Internet was through Yahoo (he never used the address bar). I have actually watched him want to search for something in Google by *searching* for it Yahoo to get to the Google homepage.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "alright, I've got one for you.\n\nI knew a girl who thought her laptop was getting heavier because she was running out of free space on her hard drive.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Someone (probably me) told my evil grandmother that there was a computer in her refrigerator. She spent the next ten years being very paranoid that someone would hack in, via the computer in the next room, and disable it somehow, thus causing her food to spoil.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My mother continues to not believe me when I tell her there will never be a Mirror app for her iPhone. Physics vs. Software rational doesn't go very far, unfortunately.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My turn my turn! Today I had orientation at a new job, and during the presentation, the HR rep wanted to make sure everyone could see the presentation, because the projector was aimed rather low on the wall. She then proceeded to lift her laptop about a foot off the table and said \"I can put a book under this if that helps.\" ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "This comment will get dissolved in the ocean of comments that's already in here. Anyway,\n\none of my friends' uncle was really worried about some kind of infectious diseases that may break out when kept in the house. He was referring to viruses. \n\n This was back when my friend bought a win 95 pc. We used to live in a small village in a developing country and his was the first computer in the whole neighborhood. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "that was weird, lost my commenting...\n\nthe weirdest thing I thought computers could do was create artificial intelligence. I thought all it took was the right programming, not hardware.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My older siblings think everything is a website. Say I have a video editing program open, they will ask me \"what site is that?\" Or say their microsoft word installation is corrupted or something, they will call me complaining that they can't open the \"word site\". It's pretty incredible.\n\n\n", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Ok, I got another one, also while working in previously said retail electronics store. \n\nA lady walks up to me holding one of those cheap $3 mousepads and says \"Will this thing work on a mac?\". I somehow kept a straight face until I could duck down another aisle.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "\nMy friend's PC got infected by viruses once and from then on he never leaves his modem/router on at night because he knows that's when viruses come in.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My aunt sent me an email once asking me to send her my email address and apologising for not having it. \n\nhead asploded.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "This might not quite fit what you're asking, but any time I'm trying to explain to my mom how to do something on the computer, she always asks for specification whether to left-click or right-click.\r\n\r\nShe just doesn't get it, no matter how I try and explain it.\r\n\r\nI'll be like, \"Alright mom, now open up the Recycle Bin.\"\r\nMom: \"Right-click or left-click?\"\r\nMe: *FACEPALM* \"I CAN'T DO THIS!\"", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I'll try to keep this short.\nI was working part time support back in 04 while in school when I got a urgent call from the bosses wife who was doing payroll, the monitor wouldn't turn on and they weren't going to finish in time without it. I couldn't make it since I was at the programming lab at the time. So I calmly explained where a spare could be found and that the cables only go one way so swapping monitors should be easy.\n\nAt this point she exasperatedly explains to me that this won't work because **\"I need the icons on the other moniter\"**. I had to leave the room because I couldn't figure out a way to explain it that wouldn't cause a riot in the lab.\n\n**TL;DR** Bosses wife believed icons were part of the monitor.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I had a teacher who tried keeping the plastic sleeves on 3.5\" floppy disks when she inserted them because she thought they were protection against computer viruses.\n\nNot a joke.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I used to work at Geeksquad and I beleive I had actually seem it all. I remember at the end of my shift there was an angry looking old woman holding a brand new laptop (old women are usually the worst angry customer...). She got up in line an I was expecting the usual \"how do I get online\" or \"why don't you carry aol CDs\", but boy was I in for a suprise. She immediatly said \"I don't want to talk to you, I need to see a manager\". I told her the manager was on the phone with another customer, but I would do my best to help her. She told me \"I just bought this laptop yesterday and now it won't go on! I want a refund!\". Now in order to exchange a laptop we need to test it.. So I took her box, laid down her laptop, grabbed her power cord and plugged it in the back.. And before I could even plug it in the outlet she asked \"what are you doing?\". I said \"ma'am I need to plug your laptop in so I can test it before I authorize a return\". She immedietly snatched the laptop and cord off the bench and yelled \"THE SALESMAN SAID THIS WAS \nWIRELESS!!l\" and stormed off.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My stepmother walked in while my father and I were looking at a screensaver with a lot of moving colors. Her reaction: \"Ooooh, pretty. But won't that make it run out of ink?\"\n\nMy dad and I looked at each other dumbfounded for a couple of seconds before we started laughing hysterically. \"I was kidding!\", my stepmother then insisted. Neither of us believed her.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My Mom put a credit card into the floppy drive to try to pay for something online. It broke the floppy drive obviously.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My mom hits me up on IM while I'm at work to tell me her internet is not working. So I explain to her that if the internet was is working we wouldn't be communicating via our computers right now. Turns out she just means she can't find a particular website, but in her terminology it means the internet is not working on her computer. She's so cute.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Was hired to tutor a middle-aged guy on his first PC. His attention span was worse than an infant’s and long tangents were common. (I pressed CTRL+Z once to un-type a word and he gurgled over it for a full minute.) I was routinely exasperated well before the hour was up.\n\nHe was anxious to create \"newsletters and invitations\" but didn't want to learn about \"all that technical stuff\" (like files & folders). I opened Word and set up some text & clip art. He was overjoyed. We printed it, edited it, printed again, and 6 rounds later he was happy with the result and printed 20 copies.\n\nThen he asked me to show him where it was stored, and insisted we should delete it, so it wouldn't \"load up\" the computer with too much stuff. Like a fool, I explained he had roughly 160,000 times as much space as his project took up. He was unfazed. The only good to come of this was, he asked me to write up *instructions* for deleting files.\n\ntl;dr: Old man has irrational fears of storage overflow.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "Another one I remember...\n\nI used to work at a local University's Help Desk and one day we had a lady walk in. She was concerned because her boyfriend was looking at porn on her computer and she didn't want the government coming after her.\n\nAfter we all looked at her for a moment and said \"What?\" she clarified what she meant. She thought that the government kept a database that contained all the porn that you ever watched online with your SSN and once you reached a certain level they would send people out to get you and arrest you for being a predator. ", "score": 3 }, { "body": "That pressing the \"break\" key on a computer's keyboard will break the computer. I've encountered this one a few times.", "score": 3 }, { "body": "My mother bought a brand new DELL a few years ago because the 'Dude, you're gettin a DELL' guy was...'hot'. *_shudder_*\r\n\r\nShe still (a good 6 or so years later) does not appear to understand that the mouse has to actually be *on* something for it to work properly. Totally gets the idea of eye-hand coordination-dependent mouse technology, *still waves it in the air a few inches above the surface of the desk sometimes*. If not for the cord, I suspect it may have flown through a window by now, what with the emphatic jerking (yes, I know) motions she makes...like waving it up and to the right *harder* is going to move the cursor...\r\n\r\nAnd I cant even begin to describe the stroke she had when I changed the cursor icon (at her request)...lots of WHAT DO YOU *MEAN* 'CURSOR'?! THERES JUST A FLOWER THERE! <yes, mom, thats the cursor> THERE IS NO DAMN CURSOR! THATS NOT A CURSOR...IT DELETED THE CURSOR AND TOOK ITS PLACE! <yes, mom, thats the cursor now, just mouse over the Start bu---> GREAT, NOW NOTHING WORKS! (waving the mouse in the air)\r\n\r\nThat was three weeks ago...\r\n\r\n*sob*", "score": 3 }, { "body": "I have put together a list of words that people say when they mean something totally different. If you work in computer retail, you MUST know these terms:\n\n*List of Terms*\n\nHard Drive = Tower (I had a man furious when I brought him to the hard drives and asked him the size, he proceeded to make hand gestures and say, \"no, like the whole hard drive\")\n\nUBS (or any other combination of letters) = USB Cord\n\nLin-skee, Link-skee, or Link-seez = Linksys\n\nMemory = Hard Drive, never RAM\n\nS-Video = ANY video port\n\nWireless box = Router\n\nAVG cord = VGA Cord (it's not an Anti-virus cord)\n\nTero, Tiga, TeeBee = Terabyte\n\nMegawhitz or Megawatts = Megahertz\n\nSmall Camera = Webcam\n\nThe round connector = Serial port (for keyboards or mice)\n\nThe thing with 9 pins = Other serial port\n\n(When dealing with printers) The \"big\" end = Parallel Port\n\nPeople trying to pronounce abbreviations as words (ex. Divee as in DVI)\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ { "body": "Give or take a couple months.\n\nThe island started jumping in 2004 and when the frozen donkey wheel was put back on its axis the island stopped in 1974 and John arrived in 2007.", "score": 4 }, { "body": "I am pretty sure the \"skipping\" of three years is due to the way time travel works on the island. The \"wormhole\" (or whatever is opened by the turning of the donkey wheel) allows someone to travel to a point in the future, probably determined by the current location of the island. Of course, to Locke the trip only took seconds due to the dilation of time when traveling at extreme speeds (like through a wormhole). For example, let's say there was a giant wall separating year 'X' from year 'Y'. The Oceanic 6 and the Dharma crew (Sawyer, etc.) started in year 'X', and walked around the wall to year 'Y' (and it took them three Earth years). Locke walked through the wall to meet them there. To everyone else, it took Locke three years to get there too. To him, it only took seconds. He only \"skipped\" those years in the eyes of Jack, Kate, and, well, you.", "score": 3 } ]