"What did you just say?"

[rakkoon]

"Isn't Brussels a conference centre in Belgium?"
"No... it's the capital city."
"But I thought Belgium was the capital city of Germany!"

Must be contagious, I heard someone say

"But Belgium is the capital of Amsterdam, isn't it?"

[Amiel]

I can't see anything wrong with the first one...

Have you ever donated blood? A blood bank really shouldn't be the first port of call if someone's hungry; blood banks operate on the premise that the person donating blood would have eaten something substantial beforehand, otherwise the adverse effects are maximised.

"Eat something substantial before your appointment. This might be cereal and toast for breakfast, or a sandwich at lunchtime. Please don't come in on an empty stomach."

Without eating anything and going in to donate blood really isn't such a good idea; you need to keep blood sugar levels up (hence the food), and even then "donors are usually kept at the donation site for 10–15 minutes after donating since most adverse reactions take place during or immediately after the donation."

[Eldan]

Must be contagious, I heard someone say

"But Belgium is the capital of Amsterdam, isn't it?"

Similarly, from the father of a friend of my little brother (yay, three corners!):

"Japan is the capitol city of Beijing".

[Lillith]

Must be contagious, I heard someone say

"But Belgium is the capital of Amsterdam, isn't it?"

*twitches* Now that's just *twitch twitch* ridiculous. Then again, I know people who think Africa is a country.

[Dogmantra]

I had someone think that Africa worked like the USA - it was a single country, and Egypt et cetera were all the states in it.

[Helanna]

My friend told me after an assembly once that she had heard someone loudly claim that Washington wasn't a state. I realize that the United States has 50 states and that they can be difficult to remember, but if you have lived here your entire life, you should really be able to recognize the names of the states.

Really, this thread convinces me that every school, everywhere, needs to start teaching world geography at an early age and, more importantly, keep it up throughout their education. This is ridiculous.

[monomer]

Okay, so when I was in High School there was one notoriously dumb uninformed girl. The most memorable quote I remember her saying in Grade 12 History was:

Girl 1: Who won World War 2 again?

Anyways, later at lunch a group of us were discussing it:

Guy 1: Can you believe she doesn't even know who won WWII?
Guy 2: Wait...who did win?
Guy 1: ...
Guy 2: Oh yeah, we did! Otherwise, we'd all be communists.

[Pyrian]

...loudly claim that Washington wasn't a state.

Could've been a reference to Washington D.C., which is not a state.

[Kzickas]

Early morning lecture:

Me: *something really stupid*
girl: *points out how stupid what I just said was*
Me: It's monday moring, you're allowed to be stupid
her: Tuesday
Me: huh?
her: It's tuesday
Me: It's morning, you're allowed to be stupid

[Cealocanth]

Early morning lecture:

Me: *something really stupid*
girl: *points out how stupid what I just said was*
Me: It's monday moring, you're allowed to be stupid
her: Tuesday
Me: huh?
her: It's tuesday
Me: It's morning, you're allowed to be stupid

Good job making fun of yourself. He world needs a couple more people like you out there.

Person 1: It's really cold out here!
Person 2: Nuh uh! It can't be that cold out here! I'm not feeling cold.
Me: (looks at back of my hand) It's cold.

[Maximum Zersk]

Okay, so when I was in High School there was one notoriously dumb uninformed girl. The most memorable quote I remember her saying in Grade 12 History was:

Girl 1: Who won World War 2 again?

Anyways, later at lunch a group of us were discussing it:

Guy 1: Can you believe she doesn't even know who won WWII?
Guy 2: Wait...who did win?
Guy 1: ...
Guy 2: Oh yeah, we did! Otherwise, we'd all be communists.

...So yeah.

[Runestar]

Okay, so when I was in High School there was one notoriously dumb uninformed girl. The most memorable quote I remember her saying in Grade 12 History was:

Girl 1: Who won World War 2 again?

Anyways, later at lunch a group of us were discussing it:

Guy 1: Can you believe she doesn't even know who won WWII?
Guy 2: Wait...who did win?
Guy 1: ...
Guy 2: Oh yeah, we did! Otherwise, we'd all be communists.

To be fair, one can just as easily argue that nobody really wins in a war; its simply a matter of who loses less.

[Sliver]

War doesn't determine who is right, but who is left!

[Runestar]

War doesn't determine who is right, but who is left!

I had to read it twice before I got it. I must be getting old...

[rakkoon]

It is easy to make fun of non-europeans that know nothing about the countries in Europe, to be fair though I know next to nothing about the geography of the states in America. Countries no problem. States, I suck at.

Now the Jay Leno show in which he asked people to name three continents and the six people they showed could name at the most one (usually they forgot America). That was funny!

At our own national television there was a question
"What is the most widely known bird?"
The top answer was "chicken".
This was followed by a woman arguing for two minutes that a chicken is not a bird.
So much for feeling superior

[Sliver]

Reminds me of that Family Feud bit I saw on youtube...

Name an animal with three letters in it's name.

1st contestant: "Frog"
2nd contestant... "ALLIGATOR"!

Watch!

[rakkoon]

Yup, same program...they attract that kind of people

[katans]

To be fair, these two do have three letters in their name, at least if you understand "have three letters" as "have at least three letters". It's the same logic than asking "how many months have 28 days", the answer being "all of them, and some have even more".

[Sliver]

The second one said he thought the question was 'what animal has three of the same letter in it's name?'

[rakkoon]

Ok, how about the first one's answer to summer storm?
They must have some really freaky weather up there

[Sliver]

I must say, that is one of my favorite vids.

[Kzickas]

Good job making fun of yourself. He world needs a couple more people like you out there.

Thanks!

[bluewind95]

I have a few. I know some guy as "The Philosopher". And he and his family have some.... interesting ideas, to say the least.

---
Philosopher's sister: Fish all reproduce asexually. Just like plants.
---
Philosopher's mom: The body doesn't do anything against a virus. At all. The virus just multiplies and multiplies until it reproduces so much, that it dies on its own.
---
Philosopher: The virus is the most evolved living thing.
Philosopher's mom: Yeah. I think that the scariest thing I can think of is a giant virus. Imagine that! It would kill EVERYTHING!
---
Philosopher: A virus makes you sick by turning you into a virus. You become a virus. So, in a way, it's like a zombie attack, except you're not dead and walking.
---
Philosopher: *in a programming class* Man, I'm awesome! I get ALL the errors, even errors no one else gets!

[Pyrian]

Philosopher: *in a programming class* Man, I'm awesome! I get ALL the errors, even errors no one else gets!

There's some truth in this. Beginners get compiler errors. Intermediate programmers get run-time errors. Advanced programmers crash the debugger. Experts crash the computer. Masters get the server cluster to burst into flames...

[bluewind95]

There's some truth in this. Beginners get compiler errors. Intermediate programmers get run-time errors. Advanced programmers crash the debugger. Experts crash the computer. Masters get the server cluster to burst into flames...

Yes. Except the errors in question were things like trying to handle cookies as strings and failing to recognize what was wrong...

I mean... I've done a bunch of insane errors as well, but...

There comes a point when the errors you're generating are reaaaallllyyyy not the result of your expertise.

[Mystic Muse]

There's some truth in this. Beginners get compiler errors. Intermediate programmers get run-time errors. Advanced programmers crash the debugger. Experts crash the computer. Masters get the server cluster to burst into flames...

So, no matter what expertise you have you're going to screw something up?

[Dogmantra]

So, no matter what expertise you have you're going to screw something up?

If you're not getting errors, you're clearly writing your code on an Etch-a-Sketch.

[Mystic Muse]

If you're not getting errors, you're clearly writing your code on an Etch-a-Sketch.

Lol.

What if you get errors on an Etch-a-Sketch?

[Dogmantra]

If you get errors on an Etch-a-Sketch, you are a programming GOD.

Randall Munroe, for example, once had the paper he was writing random code on burst into flame.

[Pyrian]

There comes a point when the errors you're generating are reaaaallllyyyy not the result of your expertise.

I said some truth.

So, no matter what expertise you have you're going to screw something up?

Oh, yes, definitely. The only way to completely avoid programming errors is to not program. The most hard-core validation systems focus a great deal of attention on finding errors, acting entirely on the assumption that they will happen. And they do, and mostly they're found, but I've still occasionally discovered obscure bugs in regulated systems months or years into production. Then you have to go through change-control to fix the bug and re-validate the system. Gah.