A place to describe times when things might not have turned out quite as well as one might have wished.
Continued from the original FAIL Thread.
Patience, Please
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So this one time, it’s almost 11pm on a thursday night and I’m sitting in bed trying to shove through my English homework. Dickens is hard and I forgot book II of TOTC was supposed to be read tomorrow, so I’m on -insert well known summary website for those not proficient in English-. I’ll read it over the weekend because I am NOT the kid who uses internet crutches. But yeah, so I’m supposed to be writing a page on how satire is used in book II but then I can’t remember exactly what satire is because there’s this weird high pitched Tinnitus-esque ringing and I can’t tell where it’s coming from but I’m tired and disoriented. It’s actually kind of scary.
FIRST POST!
Please?!?
There is a student in taekwondo who thinks that “be great!” is a good explanation for every Lesson of the Week. Lessons of the Week include such topics as: Goals, Education, Courage, Confidence, Manners…etc. None of which have the definition of “be great”. It’s kind of cute when he says it, but I wish he would have a new answer. We’ve already told him that “be great” isn’t an example! :] Kids are silly.
while playing my game online, I was blue team and the others were red team. i walked in a room by myself and discovered 4 reds inside. 30-40 bullets and a grenade later I walked out of a room suddenly devoid of reds.
No, no, that’s a win.
Weird- you said the exact same thing to me on the last thread.
That’s a win, too.
It’s a true statement. Both of them are wins rather than fails.
I’m sure I’ve said “That’s so cool!” on several other threads, but I don’t think anybody’s pointed that out.
It was a fail for them
I don’t have any fails to post. Grrr.
you failed at posting fails! lol.
and I fail too because i am replying to a post that was made last year -.-
Not sure if this one is a fail or a win.
Camp counselor: Who owns the stars?
Me: *raises hand* Well, a bunch of countries signed a pledge in the 70s that countries couldn’t own space land. But there was a loophole, it never said individual people couldn’t own space land. So this guy from California publicly claimed ownership of the whole moon and has been selling off pieces of it ever since. You can buy acres of the moon on his website for $27 per acre. But he doesn’t legally own the moon, he just claims to, so that’s sort of in debate. Also you can buy stars on the official registry, but you don’t own them, you just name them.
Camp counselor: … I meant that in a metaphorical sense.
And that supposedly official star registry isn’t actually official, as I’m sure KaiYves will confirm. Astronomers have their own systems for naming stars, and you can’t buy your way into them.
Yes, my aunt fell for one of the scams once.
You win.
Anyway, I call this a win.
For my History Day project, my group member and I got excited when we found a psychiatrist to call that could give us some primary info about the [place boring history rant here]. We called and left a message at the office, but then we ent back online to discover that he was dead and we had left a message at his very alive wife’s office. We called back to apologize, still in message form, but I fear that we don’t look like the most intelligent young people now.
Once Keiffer and I spent half an hour trying to find contact information for a dead person for History Day.
Today a substitute teacher told me that my handwriting looked emo and that I was feeling a very strong emotion because I write slantedly.
They’re everywhere.
According to Wikipedia, 17,32% of Moroccans and 2,86 percent of Brazilians speak Spanish.
How is that a fail?
Percentages only go up to 100.
The comma here is used to mean a decimal, though, as Tess said – that’s how they do it in Europe.
That’s still a fail, because OUR way is better!Really?Yup. Don’t hate on the Europeans
Yep. We also use the decimals instead of commas.
I’m a little confused as to why that’s a fail, unless those are figures that are obviously wildly incorrect and I’m just not seeing why… If you’re commenting on the comma usage, that’s European comma usage in numbers.
…Oh. I didn’t know they did that in Europe… Well, then I failed, not them.
I stupidly stabbed myself with a baton while running a relay today.
And didn’t realize that I had a bloody bruise until nine hours later.
Aww, Cskia! I hope it’s not too bad. Get better!
I totally read that as “stabbing myself with a bacon”
and was going to say that you’re doing it wrong.
….mm, bacon.
Well, the good thing is, I made a quite delicious apple-blackberry crisp. It was a surprise for dinner; my dad and I were on our own yet again and he was tired of cooking, so I thought that it would be nice.
Trouble is, my dad can’t eat blackberries. This I remembered…uh…five seconds after it was out of the oven. *headdesk* Idiot, idiot Mika…
I’m not sure if this one’s a Win or a Fail, but:
Friend: My mom should stop nagging me about me summer! All I want is some R&R!
Me: ROMANCE AND RELATIONSHIPS???
Friend: NO IT MEANS REST AND RELAXATION
Me: …I totally knew that. I’ve just been MuseBlogging, that’s all…
But honestly, how was I to know?
It’s both a win AND a fail!
I was just reading the Wikipedia article about Will Grayson, Will Grayson. At the first mention of Tiny Cooper, I immediately thought, “Is he Alice Cooper’s son?!”
And my mind started thinking up Beka Cooper/Tiny Tim Crossovers. I:m a bit worried…
…. Wow. You haave a very strange mind (though I probably would have thought of the same thing XD )
I just took a sorting hat quiz that called Hufflepuff lazy.
Opposite day?
I think they were going by reputation among Gryffindors, not actual House traits, which is ridiclous, so they just assumed Hufflepuff was for people with no real skills or something. It was also called the second-worst House, as if you could just rank them all together. It did that with the other Houses, too. Just because Gryffindors think something doesn’t mean it’s true!
Here’s my rating and opinion on the houses:
1. Ravenclaw. Should be willing to give up many things in pursuit of knowledge. It doesn’t matter what kind, simply… knowledge. C’est moi.
2 (tied). Hufflepuff. Honest and trustworthy. Essentially, the house with the most common sense. They won’t do stupid stuff.
2 (tied). Slytherin. Wily and interesting, they are generally able to do what they want to do through plotting and planning, though has a history of racial discrimanation.
4. Gryffindor. Stupid bastards who don’t think before rushing into situations, and care about “loyalty” and “honor” before anything else.
Here’s mine:
I think the main difference between the houses is what they want and how they go about getting it.
1. Hufflepuff. Loyal, honest, trustworthy, fair, kindhearted (Jo called them that in an interview), hard-working, determined. They will do anything to get what they want EXCEPT compromise their principles, break rules, be unfair, do harm to others. They usually get what they want in the end, but it takes them ages and much more effort than the other houses.
2. Ravenclaw. You put it very well.
3. Gryffindor. Very brave and willing to risk their life for something they care about, but unlike the other houses, which certainly contain individuals who would do the same, they sometimes don’t consider the easier but less obvious options. Still, they’re usually rather selfless.
4. Slytherin. unlike Gryffindor, they do quite a lot of plotting and planning. Their goals generally involve benefits for themselves of some kind. Like Hufflepuff, they always think about things before doing them and always get what they want, but very unlike Hufflepuff, they take sometimesm deceitful shortcuts. They are usually very clever and understand people very well. I do think this is a great house; it’s’ just that one has to be last and I happen to prefer the overall qualities of the others.
I’m Ravenpuff. I could really go either way. I prefer Hufflepuff, but personally, I’d rather be in Ravenclaw because I want to be with people whose interests are similar to mine, because I’ve only ever met one who was my age, and Ravenclaw seems like the best place to look. Besides, I want their library! Also, I prefer their common room. Hufflepuff’s is cozy, but Ravenclaw’s is… amazing.
I would probably be Ravenclaw, I think. I’m not brave enough to be in Gryffindor and not social enough to be in Hufflepuff.
It would be interesting to write up how each of the Houses views the other three. We’ve got Gryffindor’s perspective pretty well from the books.
Slytherin seems to hate Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Gryffindor seems to hate Slytherin and look down on Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff didn’t want Slytherin to win the House cup again, but that might have been because they didn’t consider it fair to succeed so many times in a row, and Ravenclaw didn’t want Slytherin to win, either, but that might be because the Slytherins kept gloating about their cleverness, and thier pride was injured.
The interesting thing is that Ravenclaw seems to be the only House with no negative stereotypes–no stereotypes at all, really. Some fanfics portray it as overly studious, but I think that’s just annoying; I hate the stereotype that smart people always spend all their time studying. Maybe it’s arrogance? Luna’s certainly not arrogant, but Helena was. Cho isn’t. Roger is… I don’t know what the others are like (well, I know some things about Terry, but not whether he’s arrogant), but if half the people we know about in the house are, that might be it. They probably get overshadowed by Slytherin, though, because I can’t think of a single Slytherin who wasn’t arrogant. Oh, wait, Crabbe and Goyle. But they don’t count; they were probably just put there because they begged for it and weren’t good enough for any of the houses, really, so why not put them in one that they at least liked?
Hufflepuff probably finds Slytherin pushy and unpleasant; Gryffindor pushy but pleasant; and Ravenclaw basically okay but prone to tedious hair-splitting and strange obsessions.
Haha, yes! This exactly.
I just read the House welcome emails on websites. Gryffindor is actually the one that thinks Ravenclaw is “okay but prone to tedious hair-splitting and strange obsessions.” I’m not too surprised, though, because Harry didn’t even really think about it much. We saw few Ravenclaw interactions, except with Luna and Cho.
Anyway, Ravenclaw finds Slytherin fierce competition, Gryffindor intolerant and xenophobic, and Hufflepuff kind but incompetent and foolish (just like Gryffindors think).
Hufflepuffs find Slytherins unfair and deceitful (I KNEW that was one of the core differences between those 2 houses), Gryffindors pleasant (It didn’t mention pushiness, but you may be right), and I don’t think it mentioned Ravenclaw.
I didn’t find the Slytherin message, but I’ll post its perspective when I do!
I can’t find them, gah.
Oh, well. *fingers crossed for Ravenclaw* (Interestingly, their POV on Gryffindor is quite similar to mine on Gryffindor. I don’t think of Slytherin as competition simply because I don’t need to compete with them, and I don’t know how I think about Hufflepuff.)
I suppose Gryffindor is rather intolerant of strangeness, but I had to read MoR to realize it, probably because I’m used to it. Hermione would have made friends much mroe quickly if she’d been in Ravenclaw.
Hufflepuff’s views on Slytherin are one of the main reasons that I put Slytherin last, because they can be deceitful. I think that’s mainly a side-effect, though, a problem with the individual members, not the House. I probably would compete with them a lot with grades and the House Cup (I’d never be allowed onto a Quidditch team; I love the idea of flying, but I’m sure I’d be horrid at it; I generally am at athletics, but at least it’s a sport I could enjoy!) if I was at Hogwarts. I’ve stated my views on Hufflepuff.
Actually, I remembered that Hufflepuff did mention Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff considers it pushy and arrogant, if not as bad as Slytherin.
What I don’t understand is how Luna’s things keep getting stolen if Ravenclaw is so xenophilious.
Re: Luna and the Ravenclaws: Mmm. That is a bit of an odd inconsistency.
I think the house that’s most… well, not xenophilious, but most accepting, is probably Hufflepuff. “Said Hufflepuff, ‘I’ll take them all, and teach them just the same.'” I do love Hufflepuff, and think that they’re far too maligned. They’re by far the NICEST house. And while I don’t think Slytherin is EVIL, I think they’re the nastiest house.
Also, I agree that Hermione would have been a happier Ravenclaw than she was a Gryffindor – maybe Ravenclaw is more accepting of pedantic and studious people like her, and less accepting of people who are just odd?
Perhaps her things aren’t getting stolen by Ravenclaws?
Maybe the formula for how Hufflepuffs consider Ravenclaws should be “basically okay but incomprehensible.”
Hm, I’ve always thought of Ravenclaw as Hufflepuff’s rival, just as Gryffindor and Slytherin are rivals.
Although it would probably be more of a friendly rivalry than true enmity.
There is a little bit of that; they argue a lot. But for the most part, it seems to me that it’s more like Hufflepuff keeps trying to convince Ravenclaw that they’re good enough to be proper rivals, and that it doesn’t need to steal Gryffindor’s, because that’s not fair–and Ravenclaw responds with a condescending smirk, saying, “Having Hufflepuff as a rival is just embarrassing. I’m just not sure that you’ll be able to put forth enough of a showing to make it not look pathetic that you’re my rival. I’ll completely upstage you at every turn, of course, but there’s such a thing as going too far, and if you do then no one can take your choice seriously,” and goes back to its argument with Slytherin. Which is… not nice, but it’s just the impression I got. Of course not everyone needs to participate; no matter what House I get Sorted into, I refuse to participate in their rivalry. But Hufflepuff will try anyway, so those conversations will still occur. When Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw interact, I expect the conversations would go like this:
Ravenclaw: “…and I definitely don’t want to be forced into a rivalry against my will.”
“No, I can imagine that you wouldn’t,” Hufflepuff said thoughtfully. “In fact, that must make you pretty angry, right?”
“I suppose so,” Ravenclaw said cautiously, wondering where it was going with this.
“In fact, it must make you so angry that you’d resent me, right?” Hufflepuff pressed eagerly. “So much so that a rivalry could, in fact, spring up from this?”
Ravenclaw stared at him. “You think that we should have a rivalry over the fact that I don’t want to be your rival? That’s kind of messed up.”
“Yeah, well so is having a rival who wants nothing to do with you,” Hufflepuff complained. “It’s embarrassing!”
Ravenclaw thought about pointing out that since Hufflepuff was the one being Hufflepuff, it didn’t really have room to talk but realized that that would just make Hufflepuff’s insane plan to make them rivals all the closer to coming true.
“I’m sorry you feel that way and for inconveniencing you,” Ravenclaw finally said diplomatically. “It was not my intention.”
As it walked away, he could hear Hufflepuff screaming in frustration behind him. Ravenclaw then went to show Slytherin its exam scores.
Hm, maybe. I would have said that while Hufflepuff wants to be taken seriously, it isn’t really seeking a rivalry. Loyalty can extend beyond houses, you know.
Though your sketch was pretty funny.
Also I think Ravenclaw is a bit more focused on individuals. They’ve got that in common with Slytherin.
I can’t see Hufflepuff looking for a rivalry. They (we? as a Ravenpuff) are kindhearted people and I don’t imagine them being particularly conflict-seeking. I imagine they mostly just wish they got more respect from the rest of the school. I can picture there being a conflict between a wish to prove themselves and a feeling that they don’t need to bother with that.
I think I should be worried that you’d rather be in the evil house than the stupid house. Although it does sound more fun…
Presumably, he doesn’t think of Slytherin as the evil house. I don’t see why he has to; there are good Slytherins. Snape and Slughorn, for example, were good people overall, and Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis were never seen doing anything wrong… Then again, they were never seen doing anything right, either.
It should also be noted that he was talking about which Houses he objectively thought were best, which might not necessarily be the order in which he’d hope to be in. Hufflepuff is my favorite house, and I could probably get in if I asked, but I’d much rather be in Ravenclaw.
The more I think about Hufflepuffs, the more I like them. They’re like the neutrons in an atomic nucleus: they don’t add to its charge, but the nucleus would fly apart without them.
Everybody makes fun of Hufflepuffs. Have you seen the Second City video “Which Hogwarts House Are You?” Cruel but funny.
It really annoys how much flak Slytherin and Hufflepuff get. Slytherin isn’t evil, they’re ambitious! It just happens that evil people are usually also ambitious. And as for Hufflepuffs (Hufflepi?), Gryffindor takes all the brave ones, Slytherin takes all the ambitious ones (although I suppose you could argue that Hufflepuff gets some as well, ambition kind of goes with the hard work aspect), and Ravenclaw gets all the smart ones, leaving Hufflepuff to pick up the scraps. Then again, I’m a Hufflepuff, so that may be personal bias.
It seems to me that Neville should be a Hufflepuff.
When I was 2, I would talk to my parents for hours without stopping to avoid going to bed. My mom started taking notes to pass the time, so I know a bit of what I said. “I want to go camping in the garden sometime. My tummy is… is hurting. I want those shoes that are in a shape; they are blue and red. There’s one good thing grownups get to do, and that is stay up late.” And so on. For hours. I would mention every. Single. Thought. That ever. Got. Into. My. Head! I feel sorry for my parents…
My brother said Las Vegas was in New Mexico earlier today. My other brother thought “I Love Lucy” was called “Hello Lucy”.
I have so many fail moments in my life that I need to list them now …
1. Today I had to tell my sister that Denmark isn’t in the UK. (At least we were talking about David Tennant and his various accents when the topic came up. There’s still hope for her.)
2. Last year, at summer camp: I heard some girls talking about how cool anthropology was. I tried to join the conversation by agreeing that anthropology was awesome, and asking if they’d heard about (current archeological discovery … can’tremembercan’tremember). Apparently, Anthropologie is a clothing store. >_<
3. This year, at different summer camp: I was trying to make friends with another girl, and tried to make a joke that I was like the Socially Awkward Penguin meme personified. She didn't know what a meme was. It was awkward.
(SFTDP)
Also, the other day I was hit in the head by an errant dodgeball and apologized. To the dodgeball. It seems that “Sorry” is my instinctive response when hit by things.
That’s my response when I bump into department store mannequins. (Season 1, Episode 1… not very scary, but still.)
The second one is totally something I would do. (Can I make a comic of it?)
Sure. Could you send the comic in to MuseBlog when you’re done?
We played handball in PE today. I offered to be goalie, taking over from my friend who says she’s bad at it but is pretty average. After all, I’d done fine when we practiced at the start of class. I failed to stop either of the first two throws, and since the game was out of 3, we lost in about a minute. *facepalm*
Today I mentioned to my science table that 42 is the meaning of life. They thought I meant 4/20. Just … no.
What, the date?
I once got really hopeful because my English teacher was doing something that represented herself, and she had to choose a number, and she chose 42. It turned out that was just the page she was on in her book–which is still good, but it’s sort of a given that an English teacher will be reading something, and it would be much better if it was HG2G. She was glad to discover it was the answer to life, the universe, and everything, though;she realized it meant that her life was complete.
By the way, the anthropology is something I’d have done as well. It’s really a pity she turned out to be talking about something else…
FAIL.
Does it count if it’s something somebody ELSE pointed out was a fail? From a reading we did for our Anthropology class:
(In a survey from the 80s) “when 500 people were asked what they feared most in the world, 190 replied ‘getting fat’. In an age when our children regularly have nightmares of nuclear holocaust, that as adults we should give THIS answer…”
And a few from my own experience, what I like to call, “Overheard at ‘A Day in Pompeii’: Bad Parenting”…
Mom (whispering in daughter’s ear next to jumble of skeletons, reading sign): “… including nine children.”
Daughter (about seven or eight, looking scared): “There are nine children in there?”
Mom (very calmly): “Yes.”
Same Mom as before (in the last room of the exhibit, in front of the display about volcanoes around the world, whispering again): “Where is the nearest volcano to our house?”
Dad (to son, next to display about Soufriere Hills volcano in Montserrat, cheerfully): “You see, it could happen to a modern city, too!”
I was watching trailers for Portal 2 on YouTube, and found a news report of a “controversy” where a parent complained that Portal is offensive to adopted kids. Wut.
Because the opinions of a psychotic, half-broken artificial intelligence OBVIOUSLY reflect those of the game designers.
Obviously, they were also intentionally trying to offend lemon farmers, camera aperture manufacturers, and opera singers.
And they say “The cake is a lie”, which is CLEARLY poking fun at pople with gluten allergies who can’t eat cake. Valve, you monsters.
What the cake?
You know you’re a MuseBlogger when you’re scandalized at seeing in the RC bar that Lady Bunniful said “What the cake?” and immediately click it to find out why such language has been used by one of the GAPAs themselves.
Same here.
I third that.
A few fails:
1. Apparently you can bring a completely frozen ice pack through airport security without any problems. However, if said ice pack is partially or completely melted, then you can’t bring it through, because it contains a liquid.
2. There is something called a Time Timer, which is a timer that has a collapsible wedge instead of a hand. The wedge shows how much time is left on the timer, although there are also numbers around the edge of the face. The fail part: The pitch for this product includes this sentence: “The disappearing red disk allows you to ‘see’ time without having to use intellectual energy to figure out what time it is.”
3. I actually studied for my Software Design test today, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I may get a lower grade on it than on my previous test for that class, which I didn’t have time to study for.
RE #2: If that’s the invention I’m thinking of, my mom has met and talked with a woman who is related (daughter, I think?) to the woman who invented it.
Life fail: Today, my mom seriously suggested I take socialising classes, after she noticed that people occasionally don’t hear me when I talk to them. Socialising classes.
That happens to me too, pretty much… always. I didn’t know they had socializing classes.
Why not? It’s a skill, like anything else you might study. At Muse Academy, the same material would be covered as part of World Domination classes.
I was seeing councilors all of elementary and middle school because I liked playing by myself.
I’m going to go ahead and shamelessly promote the book “Quiet” by Susan Cain.
I think I did awhile ago, but I’m going to do it again because it’s really, really good for introverts trying to understand themselves and extroverts trying to understand introverts.
For the record, I liked playing by myself as well and my elementary teachers were totally cool with it as long as I didn’t blow up during group projects.
She also gives a TED talk called “The power of introverts.” Well worth a look. (Wish we could come up with a more suitable term than “introvert” though.)
If we’re giving book recommendations, I’d like to recommend Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto by Anneli Rufus. It’s not about all introverts, but rather people who just can’t spend a lot of time with other people, the titular loners. It’s a bit more involved than simple introversion, so the book probably has a smaller audience. I’ve reread it several times, and it helped me accept the fact that I don’t have to try and be outgoing and make friends–the exhaustion I feel after spending time with other people is normal, and my love of solitude is something to embrace. She talks about famous loners, about loner creativity, about the portrayal of loners and pseudoloners in films and in the news, all sorts of stuff. After reading it, I no longer feel bad about turning down someone’s offer of hanging out just because I don’t feel up to being around people.
Using a microfiche viewer made me nauseous.
And people ask me why I don’t think I can be an astronaut.
I’m flipping out because your post reminded me of a book series that probably only I have read… I hate it when this happens.
Today I went on a field trip to a nearby college.
Classmate, while looking at the campus out the bus window: “I would never want to go here, the boys are all so ugly.”
That is not a very good reason to choose a school to attend.
It makes evolutionary sense, if you expect to have children with someone you expect to meet in college.
Me: You know Sunday’s going to be sixty-three degrees again?
Nym: Who’s Sunday?
when I was playing minecraft on a server, I had a fireplace next to a wool floor. the good news is that fire spread was disabled in the server due to a plugin. the FAIL is that when the server got updated yesterday, all of the plugins went away……
I now have a floor less house.
CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKEEEEEEEE!
Same thing happened to me. When I updated Bukkit to its newest devbuild (which doesn’t yet have plugin support) my WorldGuard plugin got disabled and my city (by city I mean actual city) burned down.
Apparently, you can bring any amount of liquids through french airport security if you’re male and have high heels in your bag. Sometimes, I really have to wonder…
…What? Why?
Those security guards have strange taste…
My humanities teacher just compared taking notes on the biography of Leonardo da Vinci to updating one’s information on a Facebook profile. Sad, sad world…
I am scarred. Scarred for life. What is the world coming to?
I understand that people sometimes want to make the information “approachable” or “relatable,” but sometimes… BLERGH. /rant
I think she was targeting the majority of our class with this comment, which would make it slightly more understandable. But still – they can’t be that stupid, can they?
My science teacher compared chemical bonding to posting on a dating site.
This is what bothers me about the Judy Dench narration for Spaceship Earth at EPCOT. People can appreciate the history of communication without constant computer metaphors! Really, they can!
My new cell phone says “Neuvo Contato” instead of “Nuevo Contacto”. I thought that an international company would be able to afford hiring someone to proofread their software, but I guess not.
Yeah, Explorers’ Club journal, if you say that Ernest Shackleton’s ship that was crushed by ice in 1915 was “the Endeavour”, I’m going to have a hard time taking anything else in your magazine seriously…
(It was the Endurance, the Endeavour, for which the space shuttle was named, was Captain Cook’s ship.)
I would really like to know how the dates given on an alumni list for when a person attended the college can be ten years after their death. Because I don’t see anything saying they offer classes for ghosts.
I saw that one of the restaurants in the student union had the option of “tea” as a drink, so I ordered some, expecting it to be either iced or comfortably warm. When it came, I drank from it too quickly and burned my tongue.
So then, I decided to get one of the plastic cups near the water cooler, fill it halfway with water, and pour in the tea slowly so that I could drink it without it being so hot. This worked, and I drank a whole cupful this way. Then, since there was still tea left, I poured the tea into the plastic cup, planning to add water to it…
… and it was so hot that the thin plastic cup spontaneously deformed, spilling some of the tea on the table.
I threw out the rest of the tea before I could get hurt.
I thought the big screen I use for my computer had stopped working. A couple of months later, I take another look at the back, realise a cable is unplugged and get it to work perfectly.
Also, I have the urge to share this instead of keeping my mild embarrassment to myself.
Plugging in cables also gets rid of pesky faster-than-light neutrinos.
While I was looking for quotations from Mao Zedong for a history assignment, I encountered several Twitter users quoting him and tagging it as “Occupy Wall Street”.
Do you even know what he did…?
In a presentation for my Environmental Studies class, one of my fellow students referred to yeast as bacteria.
No. Just…no. Yeast are not prokaryotes. They’re eukaryotes like us.
A video we watched in science today referred to manatees as descendants of elephants.
One time we watched a video in science class, and some famous evolutionary biologist was saying something when my science teacher paused it and said “she once threw an adult beverage at me at a party.”
But I guess that belongs on the win thread.
Relatedly, does anyone else find that people confuse the words “ancestors” and “descendants” a lot, especially online?
The original edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets said that (MAJOR SPOILER BECAUSE ALTHOUGH IT’S A MISTAKE, IT’S PRETTY CLEAR WHAT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO SAY, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THE CONTEXT) Voldemort was the last living ancestor of Salazar Slytherin, although it was fixed.
I’m always hesitant to say this around Potter fans, but J. K. Rowling is a sloppy writer sometimes. She could have used me as an editor.
(Which is not to say I could do what she has done. She’s miles better as a storyteller.)
I’d have to agree. I love her books, but they certainly have some of those minor but easy to fix problems. (Also, this is hardly even related, but I half wish Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them had never been published; while it’s entertaining, it was kind of painful to read something meant as a zoology textbook written by someone who clearly just wasn’t especially knowledgeable about that sort of thing. In particular, billywigs were referred to as “insects.” I don’t buy that. They don’t even have legs in the illustration. I get that the Wizarding World might be behind in science, but you’d think that Hermione at least would say something if her textbook contained glaring inaccuracies).
It’s a different series, but what do you think of “Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You”? I like how they interpreted the creatures more in terms of real animals– the mermaids aren’t just normal people with fish tails for legs: their skin is scaled, their tails are sea-horse-like and their “hair” is gill filaments or anemone-like tentacles.
I haven’t read it, so I can’t comment. I’ve kind of been meaning to read the Spiderwick Chronicles for ages and never gotten around to it. I do know that the illustrator also wrote and illustrated the much less known WondLa books; they did some really interesting things with imaginary creatures (sci-fi, though), although it comes with spoilers.
The guide isn’t *too* connected to the series, it can be read independently as just a guide to mythical creatures.
This is exactly how I feel about J.K. Rowling.
Yes, I hear it all the time, including just the other day from someone who should have known better.
What is the difference?
Your great-great-grandmother is your ancestor. You are her descendant.
Ah. Thanks POSOC!
Your grandmother is your mother’s ancestor, while you are your mother’s descendant.
I haven’t seen the movie, but I know enough about the Titanic to know that, contrary to what I overheard a woman saying in the NG exhibition today, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character was not “Jack Thayer”.
Speaking of which, contrary to what a girl in my brother’s AP World History class thought, Leonardo DiCaprio was not a Renaissance artist or Ninja Turtle namesake.
It’s an easy typo to make, because the keys are next to each other on the keyboard, but, contrary to what I just read on a message board, Mike Mullane’s book is called “Riding Rockets”, not “Riding RICKETS”.
At the Intrepid yesterday, Erin and I overheard a six-year-old say “I saw the Challenger explode.”
Perhaps you did, but not live.
According to the book I’m reading now, World War II “virtually shut down mountaineering worldwide, not only in Alaska, but in Himalaya and EVEN the Alps.” (Capitals mine.)
You mean a giant war in Europe wouldn’t be expected to kinda put a damper on mountaineering in Europe? You don’t say!
Switzerland was neutral and stayed out of the war, and the Swiss Alps were challenging mountains that Europeans could reach without intercontinental travel. That’s probably what the book meant.
True, I just think the phrasing was a bit funny, like the author is surprised that the war had any effect on mountaineering in the Alps at all.
This conversation apparently occurred in a physics class at my school today:
Teacher: Astronauts and scientists today are working on ways to make living on Mars possible in our lifetime.
Kid in my class: Why don’t we try colonizing on the Sun?
Teacher: We’d burn up if we got anywhere near the sun.
Kid: Why don’t we just go at night?!
At least we may take solace in the fact that this is a very, very old joke and therefore there is a good chance the student intended it as such. Hopefully.
In the car on the way to church:
(we were talking about how other countries have different legal drinking ages. I’m not exactly sure why.)
Dad: There are some Islamic countries that don’t allow people to drink at all.
DL: But then how do they take communion?
Me: *headdesk*
That’s actually a very valid question–even in a largely Muslim nation with laws based on Muslim beliefs, there may very well be a small Catholic population, and the tension between national law and Church law does cause conflict. Most of the time, that conflict definitely isn’t resolved in favor of the minority.
I would like to point out that it’s not only Catholics who take Communion. I suppose that it isn’t considered especially important in most Protestant denominations, but Disciples of Christ take Communion every Sunday–as do Eastern Orthodox Christians, who aren’t Protestant and are probably more common in Islamic countries than Catholics or Disciples of Christ.
By the way, I’m not at all offended and realize that most people don’t know this; I just thought it was worth mentioning.
But aren’t people allowed to drink grape juice instead of wine, or do Catholics just have minors not take Communion (or let them use grape juice but no one else)?
I don’t know about other churches, but in my (Catholic) church we drink the wine even if we’re underage. It’s barely even a sip, though, so it’s not enough to do anything. Also, I believe it’s mixed with a bit of water, too, but only a bit. I believe I’ve been to churches where they serve grape juice but I’ve been to plenty of churches where you drink wine regardless of your age.
I used to go to a church where we sometimes used grape juice. (And sometimes it was just whatever kind of juice was on hand. That was at was a really small house church, though.)
There is a specific allowance in American law for minors to consume minute amounts of alcohol for genuine religious purposes. In the Catholic Church, it absolutely has to be wine that is used–you cannot substitute grape juice. There’s actually quite a few specific requirements in the Code of Canon Law, the official collection of laws in the Catholic Church, about these matters. Violating any of them would nullify the sacrament and, depending on whether it was done intentionally and with full knowledge of the violation, put the people involved into legal trouble with the Church as well.
However, if there was a dispute over age, minors could simply refrain from drinking the wine, as consuming the host (i.e., the “wafer”) satisfies any requirements on its own; drinking the wine is unnecessary. At my church, in fact, none of the congregation takes the chalice–only the priest does.
Thank you for mentioning that many denominations take Communion. I used Catholicism as an example for a couple reasons. First, obviously, I’m Catholic and so that’s what I’m most familiar with. Second, the Catholic Church tends to be quite a bit more “official” than other denominations–that is to say, there is a specific hierarchy, quite like a secular government, with laws and courts and that sort of thing, and so it can’t be “flexible” about matters of doctrine in the same way that other groups can. Third, disputes between secular law and Church law have historically–and currently–been present in a lot of areas of the world, and the area stretching from northern Africa through the Middle East and as far as India and China is the current hotspot where governments and religious groups are in conflict with Catholicism.
This is quite a conversation to be having on the FAIL thread, isn’t it?
That’s interesting! I wonder if it’s the same in Eastern Orthodoxy. I’ll have to ask my brother; he’s a catechumen (How is that spelled? Spell check suggests cattleman, cattlemen, or ecumenical, depending on how I spell it, but none of those are right, of course) in an Orthodox Church and wants to be a monk, so he’d probably know. He’s at school right now, though.
I would like to add that from what I know about Orthodoxy, it definitely doesn’t seem “flexible” about doctrine, either. However, it’s certainly understandable that your wouldn’t know that; very few people know much at all about Orthodoxy, and if it wasn’t for my brother, I myself would know nothing except that it celebrated Easter on a different day from Protestants and that most Greek and Russian Christians were Orthodox. (And because of the otherwise flammy book Sophie’s World, I would also think that it didn’t like statues or pictures of Jesus, Mary, etc. because it considered them idols, which is downright false).
I suppose the location of this discussion is a bit ironic. I guess that’s a win.
I think that’s a fail on spell check’s fault.
I could tell you about Orthodoxy if you wanted to know!
Thanks, but I actually know a fair bit; it’s just that almost everything I know about it, I know through my brother. Incidentally, I asked him about communion, and he said they don’t drink wine; they eat bread dipped in wine, and minors do it, too.
Are you Orthodox, or do you just happen to know a lot about it?
I am. The soaked bread on a spoon is usual, and I definitely remember eating it when I was younger– I didn’t like the taste of the wine very much.
“Brotherhood is a symmetrical relation because if A is the brother of B, B is the brother of A.” – C.S. Lewis, Miracles
Um, no.
I was up at midnight doing homework and I spelled “rivers” as “rivars”.
Vomiting with your retainers in is not fun.
Or with braces on. I feel your pain. *hugs*
Today’s best typo: “First to fly across the ENDLESS Channel.” (It was supposed to be “English Channel”.)
How exactly can you fly across something endless?
Archeology is the study of things by scholars so they can teach students.
A character flaw both Creon and Hitler share is dictatorship.
Since the dawn of time books have been written by authors.
We should agree to disagree and leave it at that but of course everyone thinks this world is Burger King and wants to have it their way.
Composers of the 18th century were known for writing music that allowed them to stay alive and feed their families.
The protesters should not be allowed to put those messages online because it makes their dictator have to do bad things to stop them. And besides they can’t reach us with their cell phones since they’re almost a day ahead of us anyway.
The directing of the play was very good but, it just seemed like it was based upon a script. I could tell they went over it time after time.
I would also like to add that the term illiterate is mean and hateful. People cannot help that they don’t have a father!
There is no real rule of thumb to becoming a serial killer, you just have to believe in yourself.
The Cherokees went on the Trail of Tears, which translated, means “Trail where the Native Americans cried a lot.â€
What women went through was not suffrage, it was punishment for Eve’s sin. And that is why women should not have the right to vote.
The viewpoint of the whites during manifest destiny was from a helicopter.
World War Two could have been started by anything. For all we know, it could have been because Hitler didn’t like Winston Churchill’s shoes that day.
The punishment should always be proportionate to the crime. For example, it would be proportionate to kill someone if they stole your candy.
Mary Antwinet is famous for saying “let the meat cake.†She was a leader of the French revelation. She was very popular and fashionable until she died from guilty.
What that previous statement means is that it means what it means.
One of the worst leaders in history is Joseph Stalin, who later was known as Adolf Hitler.
Scientific Racism is when someone is against your beliefs scientificaly. Including medically and scientificly.
The Korean War was a battle between North and South Vietnam. They were fighting over who would contain the other in a mad game of Dominoes.
This paper studies the use of alcohol between different American genders such as Hispanic and Cuban.
Was it the Revolutionary War or the Civil War that the Japanese dropped the atomic bomb on Pearl Harbor?
Rome went on to conquer other territories and planets.
When the Muslims and Islams went to war in India…
Michael Angelo painted the roof of the 16th Chapel.
I apologise for the sheer quantity. There are hundreds more of these gems on the site I’m currently looking at. The future of humanity…
Don’t worry too much, humanity’s past was littered with such statements as well.
Were these from SAT essays? Our guidebook contained a few examples of dumb things people had written that were similar. (My favorite was ending an essay about mechanization with “Robots eat babies!”)
Not sure, they were on [off-blog site] and I’m assuming came from various essays or assignments, posted onto the internet by the teacher.
I only just realized the meaning of the title of the xkcd comic “The Corliss Resolution”. Even though I knew the name from an Air and Space Smithsonian article, it just didn’t click until I looked at it again yesterday. I guess I assumed it was some kind of sci-fi thing.
(The comic deals with wingsuit flying and Jeb Corliss is a famous wingsuit flyer, which may be one of those “World’s deadliest golfing cyborg” type titles, but yeah…)
National Geographic misspelled the surname of the man they named Adventurer of the Year in the Tweet announcing he’d won. (It’s spelled right in the article, though.)
“Three Cheese Queso”- Seen on a Tostitos package.
It’s just an unfortunate coincidence, but TIME magazine’s latest cover is advance-dated (as is their custom) to April 1, 2013 and has “How to Cure Cancer” as the headline.
I just read about someone who apparently posted a fanfiction review telling someone to check ens homophones and got a really angry response from the writer, who apparently thought en was being accused of homophobia.
“You can’t be a doctor. All doctors wear white coats.”
I feel sorry for this person.
So, BU’s student newspaper makes typos now and again, but the mention of the 1996 Olympics in “Altlanta” in today’s issue is just very amusing to me, I guess because it’s still pronounceable and looks like it could be short for “Alternate Atlanta”.
I was talking to a friend this morning and she asked me what the actor who played Captain America’s name was. I replied, without the slightest hesitation, “Steve Rogers.”
Mmm… that’s a win, I’m pretty sure. Or at least a winfail.
A wail?
A windfall? A wallflayer? A flower? Or a fin? Or a flail…
There are innumerable options, clearly. I vote we should use all of them as our whimsies dictate, so as to create maximum confusion among the populace.
I always find that rather enjoyable.
Today’s funniest typo award goes to a book review that mentioned a climber’s “accent” of Mount Everest. I presume they meant “ascent”, but the mental image of someone being celebrated as “first to climb Mount Everest while talking in a silly accent all the way” is amusing.
“Oui, zees mountain eez verrah naaas.”
I made a small but somewhat embarrassing fail at SpaceVision by thinking I needed to explain what “fandom” meant to a senior member of the National Space Society, completely forgetting that early space advocacy and science fiction fandom were incredibly close.
I was walking down the street to get a haircut, and the following happened…
Tourist Couple, examining map: “…Und that train goes…”
Me: “Where exactly are you trying to get?”
Tourist Couple: “We are going to Times Sqvare, so we have to transfer up here.” *indicates on map*
Me: “Okay, then.”
Me, thinking: “They’re German, I should say goodbye in German to be nice. Uh, that’s…”
Me, thinking: “…uh… Better just use English.”
Me: “Have a good night!”
Tourist Couple: *Turn and walk to subway station entrance*
Me: *starts to walk away in the other direction*
Me, thinking: “Guten abend! It’s ‘Guten abend’! …well it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
Today I briefly tried to use subtraction to figure out how much older a person born on my birthday in 1900 was than me, when the answer was right there in the year–93 years. This is why you should never stay up all night writing an essay.
Today I badly mixed up French and Spanish and shouted “Non est un jugete!” at some kids who were touching something they shouldn’t in the AMNH gift shop.