Dumb (Jokes) Thread

[retina]

Originally Posted by xilman

Is it the practice of astronomy which offends you?

Nope. It is the practice of asking to blindly register for something. I have no idea what to expect. Good stuff? Bad stuff? Boring stuff? "Socialised" stuff? For a single purpose, to read a single post, with no clue as to what it is about, that is just too much friction.

Hmmm. Perhaps xilman is really just trying to harvest email sign-up address? Can we be sure it isn't a honeypot run by the NSA/GCHQ/KGB/MiB?

Edit: I tried to register. See the next post to find out what happened next.

[retina]

Just for a laugh, although not the type usually given by this thread. I went the the register page.

Ii turns out that I can't sign up because of the "Please enable JavaScript to get a reCAPTCHA challenge." LOL, nope nope nope.

[S485122]

Originally Posted by retina

Nope. It is the practice of asking to blindly register for something. I have no idea what to expect. Good stuff? Bad stuff? Boring stuff? "Socialised" stuff? For a single purpose, to read a single post, with no clue as to what it is about, that is just too much friction.
...

I recently signed a petition organised under the supervision of the regional parliament (using my e-id card) . I promptly received a mail asking me to confirm my account. What account ? What is its purpose ? What are the conditions and implications of being a member ? Member of what ? Of course the different responses to my subsequent inquiry where off-topic and clearly showed that the responses where written whithout even try to understand the questions.

Each time you are asked to sign in and create a new account somewhere, you have to add a new identity to your ID database. And that just to read a text that you might find interesting or not ?

The trend to data harvesting also brings newsletter senders to use tracking links for everything. The sales force of the kind of software to implement that do their job well, but how many organisations have the resources to analyse all that data ? How many do analyse the data ?

I didn't even try to register just to come to something that "You need to be British to understand this one in its full glory, but everyone else should manage without difficulty."
(That statement contains a contradiction : if you need to be British (I suppose it means to be at home with British culture and not having the nationality), how can everyone manage ? :-P)

I created an account for that forum (I had to create a mail account first). I read the joke. Then I wanted to delete my account ... One has to ask the administrators to do it ! Seriously ... all that just to read a joke ? Or was it to entice us to subscribe to that forum ?

[xilman]

Originally Posted by retina

Just for a laugh, although not the type usually given by this thread. I went the the register page.

Ii turns out that I can't sign up because of the "Please enable JavaScript to get a reCAPTCHA challenge." LOL, nope nope nope.

Fairy Nuff: I just visited SGL with Javascript turned off. Essentially everything works perfectly.

I will register a user named "retina" and PM you the password when I receive it.

SGL contains lots of good stuff if you are interested in astronomy (primarily "amateur" but some science does get done there) and almost everything commercial is restricted to a clearly defined area.

I am prepared to deal with any fallout from my harvested email address, not that I expect to get any.

Same offer made to any other squeamish forumite.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by PhilF

No permission...

Same here.
Skip. I am with retina.

Edit: No need password, thanks Paul . Even if no spam will be sent by this site (albeit you can not guarantee that, they can distribute your address to other sites to which you can't make any logical connection, when you get spam you don't know where they got your address from), I dislike the idea that you have to waste your time to create an user, solve a captcha, etc, just to read a silly joke... The internet is full of such, just click another site...

[xilman]

Originally Posted by LaurV

Same here.
Skip. I am with retina.

Edit: No need password, thanks Paul . Even if no spam will be sent by this site (albeit you can not guarantee that, they can distribute your address to other sites to which you can't make any logical connection, when you get spam you don't know where they got your address from), I dislike the idea that you have to waste your time to create an user, solve a captcha, etc, just to read a silly joke... The internet is full of such, just click another site...

Not just a silly joke. An excellent astronomy website, which is why I go there.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by xilman

Not just a silly joke. An excellent astronomy website, which is why I go there.

Mea culpa, I love astronomy too, and I am subscribed to few related channels of youtube, but you posting it in the "dumb jokes" thread confused me. I may try it later, if you say so.

[xilman]

Rankinephile; someone, typically from the US but a small contingent still exists in the UK, who likes using Fahrenheit degrees to express an absolute temperature.

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by xilman

Rankinephile

what we were taught to be when I was among the US engineering thermodynamics student rank and file. Along with Carnot cycle, Otto, Diesel, Brayton, and Rankine. Most of our usable utility electrons and transportation joules are supplied by those latter 4 cycles.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by xilman

Rankinephile; someone, typically from the US but a small contingent still exists in the UK, who likes using Fahrenheit degrees to express an absolute temperature.

Is this at all in relationship to a recent launch attempt by a rocket that shall not be named?

[xilman]

She asked for a dict pick, so I suggested the OED.