h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This, apparently, is the front page of The Sun today http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BtsZoMlCAAAASED.jpg



This, apparently, is someone's response
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bts_iYNIMAAHr0-.jpg

HAH!

What the hell is wrong with people these days?
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-28741287

Firstly, the bloke doesn't put the brake on the pushchair (and leaving it alone like that in a tube station is questionable too). Then the mother jumps down onto the tracks, inches from a 630 volt live rail and, apparently, with another train approaching

Perhaps it was the approaching train that made her do that. Perhaps an overwhelming maternal instinct. I don't know. But one hears so many stories now of people who seem to have lost touch with both common knowledge and common sense that it's all to easy to simply blame ignorance and stupidity, sometimes wilful.

There was the case some months ago, for instance, of a worker at an old folks home, in California I think, who thought it would be a good idea to pick some mushers from the back garden and make soup with them. Some people died, naturally.

How can anyone old enough and (supposedly) intelligent enough to be a carer of old people not know that you don't pick mushrooms for cooking unless you're a mycologist, a specialist chef or a trained forager BECAUSE A SOME OF THEM ARE POISONOUS!!!

Yeah... I can understand her jumping down to retrieve the child, but when she reached UNDER that rail to grab a shopping bag I was a bit shocked (pun intended). The other fellow on the platform was oblivious the whole time. I can understand him not reacting to the child falling on the tracks as he had his back turned and his earphones on. But when you see someone on the rails trying to retrieve a stroller you should at least help her get back up on the platform. Nope, Durp-de durr!


As for random shroom soup... yikes! As a friend once told me, "there are old shroomers and bold shroomers, but there are no old, bold shroomers." Of course I don't think the was thinking of making soup.

Just this weekend I was at my parents and my dad enjoys watching a reality survival show called, I you not, "Naked and Afraid". It features two opposite sex strangers, stripped of their clothes and dumped in the wilderness (with a full camera crew) for 20 days. The episode I caught had the pair on Borneo during the rainy season. They ate pretty much nothing as they couldn't find any food in the rain. The male seemed just a bit better at scrounging up a few bugs here and there occasionally but then he decided that some white mushrooms would be quite tasty. Yep, he wasn't feeling too good later and had to be treated by the medics.


Too bad Steve wasn't there.

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000700.php

Naked and afraid? Hmm, perhaps I should look into reinstating my cable link

It's not appealing to see bug bitten, dirty, hungry and miserable Americans try to pretend that they have survival skills. It's just dumb.

99% of reality shows are. The only one I ever git into and watched regularly was Ground Force on BBC America, but there was a good... no, two good reasons for that - Charlie Dimmock

By Jove, I do like a redhead http://www.bapwatch.com/Misc/charlie_dimmock_4.jpg

Yeah, that was a good show. There were some other BBC reality shows that I liked, Airport and Driving School were nice and scripted drama free.

As for survival shows, there's only one worth watching and that's Survivorman. Les Stroud by himself (or recently with his inexperienced son), no interpersonal drama or backstabbing typical of most reality shows.

Getting back to the disconnect between folk and common sense - http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-28828612

People are throwing wartimes grenades washed up on the beach... for their dog to fetch? I can understand kids doing something like that. Maybe not so much these days because don't play outside like they used and probably don't see so many war films or play war games like we did when I was a kid. I'd like to think that I'd have been smart enough, or frightened enough of the stories in the news about kids having fingers blown off in the weeks leading up to bonfire night, to leave it alone rather than think 'Hey, we can use this in our game', or 'Let's pull the pin out and throw it and see what happens'

But throwing it for your dog to run after, like a stick? Is it something in the water that's making people so stupid these days? Something in the food? Radio waves? Chemtrails? Where's my tinfoil hat?

Right, so now it's "'Panic' as dog *nearly* thrown grenade to chase" Come on BBC, make your mind up

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-28838020

So let me see if I've got this straight. Famous people have been uploading pictures of themselves, in the nip, to online storage services.

That's stupidity on a par with Gary Glitter sending a laptop containing child porn images to the PC repair shop

Zaphod...

Every geek on the internet two days ago:

"WE DEMAND OUR PRIVACY"

Today: "Nekkid Pictures of Jennifer Lawrence!?, AWESOME!!! "

Jennifer Lawrence? Oh hell, I thought it was DH Lawrence!

That would have been interesting

So let me see if I've got this straight. Famous people have been uploading pictures of themselves, in the nip, to online storage services...

And with weak passwords

Not necessarily. The hackers likely could have gone around the passwords. They could have worked through the "I forgot my password" security questions which are often publicly discoverable information, especially for celebrities whose bios are well published.

Or, they could have used some powerful hacker tools, including some designed for law enforcement that exploits iCloud security weaknesses that should have been fixed.

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/eppb-icloud/

Passwords, security questions - either way, don't put photos of yourself in the altogether behind them, especially if you're a film star, unless they're uber secure.

Much mention has been made in the wake of this story of two-stage security, where you get a message on your mobile if someone (including you) tries to access your account, with a second password which you have to then enter. A hacker won't be able to complete the second part of the deal, unless they've nicked your phone too, although they'll probably figure a way round that too, eventually.

I remember, several years ago, waiting in the supermarket checkout queue, and the woman in front of me ran her card through the machine, then got her mobile out (this was in Austin but before the advent of smartphones - hard to believe those have only been around for seven or eight years) and waited a few seconds until she got a text message, which she replied to. Then her payment was allowed.

At the time I thought that was a bit of a faff, overkill even, until my card was cloned and money spent on it for an hour or so until the bank shut it down.

On the other hand, that could be nipped in the bud (and there's another credit card story today - Home Depot - that could dwarf that of Target's last year) if US credit card companies would only start issuing chip and pin cards

"What do we want?" "Face-sitting!" "When do want it?" "Now!"
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/dec/12/face-sitting-protest-outside-parliament-against-new-porn-rules

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-30773297
Apology for 'Muslim-only Birmingham'

There are no words to describe this. None. Sadly, though, there will have been people watching it who believe every word and won't be dissuaded otherwise

It's a shining example of how supposedly intelligent people can allow their emotions, their passion, their prejudice, their judgementalism and their vanity ("Look at me, I'm on the television!") to overcome their rationality and common sense.