A quote that should be true 13 Aug 2010 … even if it probably isn’t At a television news station, one of the employees put up a sign in the elevator: “The ‘7’ button is broken. Please press ‘4’ and ‘3’.” Then he stood back and watched the behavior of those people who are supposed to tell us what is true and important. [Hat-tip Mark Isaak] Humor Journalism Media
Cognition Eww, I stepped in some evolutionary psychology and other crap 4 Dec 201218 Sep 2017 *Sigh* I try and try to stay out of the muck, but they keep pulling me back in! I saw what I thought was a careful and rather overly-documented critique by Edward Clint of a talk by Rebecca Watson against evolutionary psychology (EP). It was full of references and arguments, devoid… Read More
Accommodationism Science outreach: A conversation 2 Feb 201420 Feb 2014 From the Freethinkers Blog Con: With PZ Myzer and Aron Ra. Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity Trashcan: hobs and goblins 10 Dec 2008 I’ve been travelling a little to organise my move to Sydney. Love the building, the department, the people and the project. Not sure about Sydney… so anyway, nothing of substance from me for a while. Here’s a lovely little essay about Newton pissing off most of the European intellectual giants… Read More
I’d just love to do that! But it’s possibly less convincing in a building with only four floors. “The 2 button is broken. Please press 1 twice”. Well, maybe… It could be plausible, because the lift is notorious for breaking down all the time.
Nearly as stupid is pressing the “down” button when you’re on the ground floor and want to go up. Apparently some people (including a former NYC mayor who I watched doing exactly this) think it’s a way to summon the elevator located at one of the upper floors.
Nearly as stupid is pressing the “down” button when you’re on the ground floor and want to go up. For HHGTTG nerds: “Down’s nice”
That reminds me of a supposedly true story from one of the Dilbert books. An office installed a new photocopier which came with a wall-mounted control panel. Some wag posted an official-looking notice by the panel announcing that it was a new voice-operated machine and that all users had to do was speak their orders to it and the machine would do the rest. No doubt much sniggering ensued as frustrated users shouted orders at the uncomprehending machine. The best story, though, was of an office where the fax machine and copier were nearly out of paper. The boss asks the secretary to get some more. The secretary phones the stationery store and orders some fresh boxes of paper. When told that they won’t be delivered until the following day she asks if they could fax over a few extra sheets to keep them going until the new supply arrives.