Four Random Things

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. The below has my vote as best web site disclaimer:

WARNING: FULL FRONTAL NERDITY

(Tech-challenged persons strongly cautioned)

The above appears at the bottom of each page of Jason Eckert's web site, which is worth a visit by anyone for whom the disclaimer does not apply. (HT: Irreal)

2. At Ask a Manager, we have a short tale documenting a passive-aggressive sign that actually worked:

Many moons ago I worked in a place that ran professional exams. We'd have big venues with lots of different course exams on weekends. We would post the locations and details of where to go all over the venue. Inevitably stressed exam takers would arrive in droves and walk up to our staff and say they didn't know where to go and there were no signs. The staff would patiently walk them to the signs, ask them for their course/exam details and tell them where to go. It always caused a bit of stress but we all thought this was inevitable when you're running exams

Until one day, some genius had the foresight to include a sign that said "Please read the signs." And somehow ignoring the possibility that you'd have to read the sign that directed you to read the signs, before you actually read the signs, it worked. People actually started reading the signs that directed them where to go, and not individually asking staff. Staff still helped people, but at least it was no longer all the people all at once!

There is at least one other among the collection of 15. Not all precisely fit the billing, but they're amusing.

3. I'm hearing lots lately about people experimenting -- formally or not -- with psychedelics.

I recommend anyone contemplating that mosey on over to Qword and read the author's personal account of how trying LSD (once!) turned out for him:

I'll take your word for it, ... man. (Image by Nicholas Darinzo, via Wikimedia Commons, license.)

So, enter LSD. I had a reasonable idea of what I might expect, having done psilocybin once or twice before. I went on a small retreat with a few friends, and we shared a few tabs. About 160 µg later and it was similar to psilocybin: see-sawing between euphoria and dread, heart rate turned to 11, but now with cool visual effects.

About six hours later, and it would be over. For most people.

It turns out that if you're very unlucky, you'll have strong negative side effects that may fuck you up for the rest of your life.

That's me. I was very unlucky.

Whether to experiment is up to the individual, and perhaps this very rare.

Or not? I've had precious little to do with drugs (or drug research on humans) over my decades of adulthood, yet I've heard of things like this.

At minimum, this one sounds like a job for the early adopters, and maybe only the early adopters.

4. If you're old enough to remember news coverage about -- or even ads by -- some kid running a carpet cleaning company, do I have an update for you!

Swanson ordered a standard bouquet from the closest florist she could find, a business called Floral Fantasies. The flowers plus delivery cost $23.95. Swanson used her Visa card. The boss's wife was thankful for the gift. That was that.

Or so Swanson thought.

She realized a few weeks later she had been charged $601.11 for the order -- the equivalent of ~$1.6k today.

"The bottom line is I got pissed," Swanson told The Hustle. "I turned into an investigator."

Swanson would eventually help bring down ZZZZ Best -- and the rest of the kid's Ponzi scheme.

-- CAV