Thursday, June 26, 2014

Eve and the apple

Some things just never change:
If this isn’t a metaphor for the current Democratic Party, I don’t know what is. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) was supposed to ride in a cool new driverless car today, for a demo. There is video at the link. It’s hilarious and depressing at the same time.

As soon as Holmes gets into the car, she spots a big, red button. That button is clearly labeled “EMERGENCY STOP.”

She pushed it.

It killed the car.
It's an apt metaphor, to be sure, but I'm not certain a Republican woman would have been able to resist the temptation to push the big red button either. After all, we have no reason to believe that Eve was a Democrat.

59 comments:

Anonymous said...

Women are really like 5 years olds....

Unknown said...

I think it's best to consider Adam and Eve four years old.

A Traveller said...

I can only say that there has never been a button (labeled or not) that I have refrained from pushing. It's just to damned intriguing to see what each one does.

WS said...

I love this. Hate to burst your bubble though, but nowhere in the Bible is it suggested that the forbidden fruit was an apple.

WS

Doom said...

Ah, Eve wasn't a Democrat. She was created to perfection. She didn't become a Democrat until she abided the serpent. What you are saying is that you saw a reenactment? No serpent present, you say?

Bike Bubba said...

Somebody needs to walk through Carnegie Mellon's engineering department and explain to them what an E stop is for, and why it is entirely out of place in any vehicle that moves 70 miles per hour. In a manufacturing environment, it's entirely appropriate to have a button that will shut the machine down immediately when something is going very wrong--it's been designed to simply stop working with some brakes and such so it stops destroying the place or chewing up someone's arm.

In a car, however, the closest analogy I can think of is the ignition switches that have gotten GM in such trouble lately--you cut power to a vehicle while it is moving, you have just eliminated its ability to brake and steer as well. You have just turned a vehicle into a 3000 pound missile with a ten gallon warhead below the back seat called the "gas tank."

Thank GOD that this woman showed the Carnegie Mellon folks how bad their design was before it got out on the road!

JDC said...

They should do a remake of "The Box," and cast Eleanor Holmes Norton as the recipient of the kill button. I can just see her pushing the button even before Frank Langella tells her what it is for.

I agree that she did the engineers a favor - maybe they should require the driver to solve a simple math problem before they can push the button - that should stop impatient female button pushing.

swiftfoxmark2 said...

JDC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHvDS-MlIBU

Not a woman though. That might have been funnier.

Feather Blade said...

Can you honestly say that if a man had been in the car that the button would have remained unpressed?

The printed label doesn't matter; that it was a big red button is the only significant factor in whether is was pushed or not.

Anonymous said...

They should have put the button on the rear-view mirror. That way women will never see it.

Anonymous said...

They should have put the button on the rear-view mirror. That way women will never see it.

I dunno about that. She might need to reapply her makeup.

Anonymous said...

Can you honestly say that if a man had been in the car that the button would have remained unpressed?

Yes, yes I think I can.

She was in the passenger seat. Men in the passenger seat ask before pushing any buttons, even the ones they know only change the radio station. She has the impulse control of a 2 year old.

As far as Eve goes, I guess she must've been the first Churchian.

Markku said...

Can you honestly say that if a man had been in the car that the button would have remained unpressed?

The idea that a man would have pressed a button that very clearly says "emergency stop" is absolutely preposterous.

Markku said...

I mean, there was nothing exotic about that button. It's is just your standard emergency stop button, found in any heavy machinery, gas station, train and so forth. That's what they look like, so that you'd recognize it as an emergency stop button.

Markku said...

Also, those buttons are designed to bring the machinery to a halt in the crudest way possible, with no regard to how much damage it might cause to the device. For example in cranes, a single press of that button will typically result in damage worth a five figure sum.

I remember this, because I've recently heard of such a case.

Anonymous said...

One other piece of this is the resentment women so often express at being told not to do something. We would have never heard the end of it had the engineer explained to her upfront that she shouldn't press the big red emergency stop button the moment she got in the car. She would have been furious, that a man would assume she was stupid like that. A man however would have simply laughed at the advice, because the fact that we need to warn people of the obvious is both true and funny.

Feather Blade said...

She was in the passenger seat.

It'a a self-driving car. All the seats are the passenger seat.

Anonymous said...

It'a a self-driving car. All the seats are the passenger seat.

Yet one of them still had a steering wheel and instrument cluster, while the other had a glove box.

Anonymous said...

Delegate Stimpy.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NITBfc1EOBo&t=27s

liberranter said...

Anyone who has lived in the D.C. area for any length of time knows that Holmes-Norton is a unique example of "stupid bitch." But yeah, typical.

Random said...

"NOT THE RED ONE! DON'T EVER PUSH THE RED ONE!"

Stg58/Animal Mother said...

Yes, Feather Blade, that's why gas stations are always shutting down, because men are pushing the emergency pump shut off button whenever they see them.

Akulkis said...

"Thank GOD that this woman showed the Carnegie Mellon folks how bad their design was before it got out on the road! "

Considering the EXTREMELY low energy/volume and energy/weight ratios of batteries, EVERYBODY involved in the electric car business is either a scammer or an idiot.

Battery powered golf-carts are fine. Battery-powered, oversized golf-carts on our nation's roads and highways are just tragedy looking for a place to happen (especially in placess where the weather routinely gets below freezing for weeks and months at a time during the winter).

Akulkis said...

"The printed label doesn't matter; that it was a big red button is the only significant factor in whether is was pushed or not. "

Only if you're the type of person who says to themselves, "I don't need to read the label for this button... it's BIG.... AND RED!!!11!!!!eleventy!!!!"

Akulkis said...

Anyone who has lived in the D.C. area for any length of time knows that Holmes-Norton is a unique example of "stupid bitch." But yeah, typical.

Stupid bitch... yes.

Unique? No.

Nancy Pelosi. Diane Feinstein. Barbara Boxer. Carol Mosely Braun. Cynthia McKinney.....

And those are just a few of the ones who are narcisstic enough to think that their stupid asses are smart enough to make laws that the rest of us should live by...

Akulkis said...

s/narcisstic/narcissistic

Gastguma said...

Eve wasn't as stupid as this woman. She didn't eat of the tree immediately after she was dumped in the garden and told not to. It happened only after she was deceived by the serpent. Eve was a dupe, this woman is a dope.

Anonymous said...

Poorly designed car. Designed by men. Just like the Milwaukee Deep Tunnel Sewer System was designed by men. It was supposed to prevent sewage from overflowing into Lake Michigan. Yet sewage has repeatedly overflowed into the lake, many times since the Deep Tunnel system was built, and the only thing the men who built it have to say was that if only it wouldn't rain 'so much', then the sewage wouldn't overflow into the lake.

Umm, no. When building a sewer system, you need to keep in mind that sometimes it IS going to rain 'so much'. If your sewer system is not built to accomodate that fact, then it has not been built properly. Just like if a car is not built to accomodate the fact that sometimes drivers will push various buttons in it, it has not been built properly. Blaming women (including mother nature) for revealing the design flaw in the machine men made does not change the fact that the men made the design flaw.

Brad Andrews said...

And that proves what? That women can change the subject to something totally irrelevant?

S. Thermite said...

Reminds me of an exchange I had with a woman in her early 30's who'd just bought a new foreign car:
"Nice! And I really like the color."
"Hahahaha. That sounds like something a girl would say."
"Well I am talking to a girl. How many liters is the engine?"
"Ummm...I don't know."

Markku said...

Just like if a car is not built to accomodate the fact that sometimes drivers will push various buttons in it, it has not been built properly.

An emergency stop button is that shape precisely so that it would never be pressed by accident, since pressing it practically always damages the equipment. It requires a very large amount of force to press it. Which is exactly why she hit it with her fist. That's the only way it's going to go down.

So, if you mean by "sometimes will push" that sometimes there is either a very strong child, a brain-damaged person, or a woman on board, then yes, I suppose it will be pushed, and the repairmen will get money. But if you mean pushed by accident, then no.

Markku said...

Please note, everyone who doesn't regularly read VP, that Ann Morgan is an actual woman. Even though you might be tempted to think that message was parody by one of us, I can assure you it wasn't.

SQT said...

I'm almost certain I would have waited until the ride was over to push the button. Almost.

S. Thermite said...

Yes, Anne More-troll-again is an actual woman. And as Teddy Roosevelt poetically stated "It is not the critic who counts; not the [wo]man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena...who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming."

But when we want an opinion about a female invention (typically one with less than three moving parts, or requiring less than 20 men to build), then Anne's might suffice...

Markku said...

You see what's going to happen if we allow this development of women entering the field of engineering to continue? When something goes catastrophically, life-threateningly wrong, there is either going to be no emergency stop button to save you and your child, or you won't be able to find it. Just because otherwise some woman would have pressed it, and caused material damage.

THAT'S why your child had to die.

Markku said...

First male impulse, when something goes very wrong:

-Hit emergency stop

First female impulse, when something goes very wrong:

-Put hands up, on both sides of the head, and say "ee-ee-ee-ee-ee" and wave hands from side to side.

We COULD, of course, make THAT the emergency stop, but it would assume that a camera, a microphone, and image processing chip would still be functional. Those are too many assumptions for an emergency stop. It has to work with 100% certainty.

Anonymous said...

**"Nice! And I really like the color."
"Hahahaha. That sounds like something a girl would say."
"Well I am talking to a girl. How many liters is the engine?"
"Ummm...I don't know."**

Car. 1.9 liters.
Scooter. 49cc
Now, what's the maximum rainfall in a 24 hour period in Milwaukee, WI? What volume of sewer tunnels will be needed to accomodate that amount of water in that given area?

Anonymous said...

"It is not the critic who counts; not the [wo]man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena...who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming."

Yup. They design sewers wrong, again and again, because they can't do so simple a thing as look at the past 100 years of weather records, or do a simple math equation to calculate what volume of sewer is needed to accomodate a particular volume of water. The lake is literally, full of shit. But at least they are in the arena. Whatever that means.

Anonymous said...

**So, if you mean by "sometimes will push" that sometimes there is either a very strong child, a brain-damaged person, or a woman on board, then yes, I suppose it will be pushed, and the repairmen will get money. But if you mean pushed by accident, then no.**

So, what you are saying here is that if I am in an accident in my car, can barely move due to injuries, and want to do something like press the emergency stop button to shut off the car before it explodes or something with me in, it, I'm not going to be able to, due to it requiring a lot of strength to press it.

Poor design.

Anonymous said...

See, nobody told her NOT to put her finger on the button. Just like nobody told this man NOT to put a different body part onto a conveyor belt.

http://darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid1998-10.html

Given that buttons are meant to be pushed under at least SOME circumstances, and conveyor belts are not meant under any circumstances to be used in such a fashion, and the man was injured far worse than the woman, exactly on what grounds are women stupider than men? Because bible?

Markku said...

due to it requiring a lot of strength to press it.

A moving fist is enough, even for a woman.

Markku said...

It's very technical, but this is due to the physical concept of "impulse". You wouldn't understand.

APL said...

Anne Morgan: "the only thing the men who built it have to say was that if only it wouldn't rain 'so much', then the sewage wouldn't overflow into the lake."

Is it possible that there is a confusion between the storm water and the sewerage system. Generally speaking the two are different systems. If when it rains a lot of storm water is being discharged into the lake, that is probably by design. If when it rains sewage is overflowing into the lake, that is a different matter.

Anne Morgan: "and the man was injured far worse than the woman, exactly on what grounds are women stupider than men?"

By the sound of it the man was ... er ... preoccupied. Allowing his scrotum to be caught in the belt system probably wasn't a part of his original intent. But I expect he was quite pleased there was a big red button to press to stop the f****** thing.
He was reckless and negligent, and stupid.

On the other hand, the woman was not preoccupied - she was able to focus her entire conscious mind to the task of pressing the emergency stop button. Even where there was no emergency, she accomplished that very well.

VD said...

The amusing thing about Ann Morgan is that in her interminable attempts to demonstrate that women are every bit as good as men at everything in all circumstances, she never succeeds in proving anything but her own female solipsism.

RC said...

"Given that buttons are meant to be pushed under at least SOME circumstances, and conveyor belts are not meant under any circumstances to be used in such a fashion, and the man was injured far worse than the woman, exactly on what grounds are women stupider than men? Because bible? "

Ann, find a proxy for average intelligence by occupation, determine the percentage of women in each occupation, and then graph it. That should show you all you need to know and you don't even have to crack a Bible. Oh wait, you don't even have to go to all the work, somebody else already did:

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/25/average-iq-of-students-by-college-major-and-gender-ratio/

Retrenched said...

Sometimes you just can't resist the shiny red button.

http://youtu.be/NITBfc1EOBo?t=27s

Markku said...

Will she cruelly murder the cute little kitten? Just to get to press the red button? Stay tuned!

Anonymous said...

APL wrote: **Is it possible that there is a confusion between the storm water and the sewerage system. Generally speaking the two are different systems. If when it rains a lot of storm water is being discharged into the lake, that is probably by design. If when it rains sewage is overflowing into the lake, that is a different matter.**

Sewage is overflowing into the lake. This is not by design, because the engineers, rather than blaming themselves for not being able to design a sewer, something that has been done thousands of times before, instead whine that the deep tunnel system is 'working properly' and if it just wouldn't rain 'so much', then sewage wouldn't overflow into the lake.

By the sound of it the man was ... er ... preoccupied ...On the other hand, the woman was not preoccupied.

Let me point out the obvious, that the man was NOT all that 'preoccupied' when he made the original decision to unzip his pants and put certain parts of his body onto the conveyor belt, rather than somewhere safer like his hand.

Anonymous said...

**The amusing thing about Ann Morgan is that in her interminable attempts to demonstrate that women are every bit as good as men at everything in all circumstances, she never succeeds in proving anything but her own female solipsism**

The amusing thing about Vox is that he thinks a logical fallacy, such as hasty generalization, can be used to prove that all women are stupid, by his providing a few examples of stupid women, but somehow can't be used to prove all men are stupid, by my providing a few examples of stupid men. Thereby succeeding in proving nothing but his own male double standard.

Anonymous said...

Doorstop: Another thing. The quote you gave: "It is not the critic who counts; not the [wo]man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena...who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming."

This probably refers to a man doing something which has not been done before. Such as, for instance, Thomas Edison trying 2000 times to make a lightbulb before he succeeded. No doubt it probably would have been easy to criticize his failures, and he was admirable for continuing to try, until he succeeded.

The same does not apply to a supposedly trained engineer who is doing a fairly simple job that has already been done successfully thousands of times. An engineer who, today, cannot properly design an incandescent lightbulb or a sewer system is not 'keeping his hat in the arena'. He is a fuckup and a poorly trained engineer. And guess what, yes, as a taxpaying citizen of the state of Wisconsin, I do happen to have a right to criticize such imbecilic fuckups that I end up paying for.

Anonymous said...

More impulsive action by men. Several years ago, the city of Pewaukee was looking into buying some farm property, on which to construct a new school. A coworker of mine, who happens to be a man, btw, of about 80 years old, told them that buying that particular property, to build a school, was a bad idea. He told me the reasons why it was a bad idea and a stupid, solipsist female like me was smart enough to see immediately that his reasons were good. But the men who ran the city of Pewaukee, being so smart, and so non-solipsist, of course, could not possibly listen to the reasons this man gave, and spend several million dollars of the taxpayer's money purchasing the property, anyways.

THEN, after it was purchased, they found out that my coworker had been right, after all, and they would not be able to build a school on the property. So now they are stuck with a multi-million dollar boat anchor. But hey, at least they are keeping their 'hat in the arena'. It's amazing how many 'deeds' men are willing to attempt, provided it is someone else's money in the arena, and not their own.

S. Thermite said...

"This probably refers to a man doing something which has not been done before."

No, it does not. It refers to a man doing something that his critics have not even attempted to do. For example, I doubt you have attempted to design a self-driving automotive system with a safety override switch, and taken it to the U.S. Capital to demonstrate its capability. But if you had, it sounds like you'd have a hard time deciding whether to award the ride-along to a female congresswoman or a man who's only famous for placing his genitals on a conveyor belt...since for the purpose of argument they're really the same class of person, right?

Anonymous said...

**No, it does not. It refers to a man doing something that his critics have not even attempted to do.**

So because people who might criticize a sewer system have not attempted to build one, engineers who fail to make a functioning sewer system, or even to ask such a basic question as what is the most rainfall they might get in a 24 hour period before designing their system, are really really smart. Even though other engineers are able to make working sewer systems.

**But if you had, it sounds like you'd have a hard time deciding whether to award the ride-along to a female congresswoman or a man who's only famous for placing his genitals on a conveyor belt...since for the purpose of argument they're really the same class of person, right?**

Unless you can explain precisely why Vox can engage in hasty generalization and claim all women are idiots because of a few examples, but that I can't engage in the same logical fallacy, then I'd say a lot of people fall into that category. Including the engineers working for the city of Milwaukee, who wasted other people's money in their 'arena' of building a flawed sewer system, and the idiot city administration in Pewaukee who spent millions of dollars buying a property despite being advised by my coworker that the city could not possibly afford the cost of bringing utilities to that property, since for among other reasons it would involve bringing in some very specialized equipment to excavate a tunnel under an interstate highway.

Let me ask you something, if you hired someone who was supposedly trained to do so to replace your roof, and after doing so, there were about 50 leaks in your roof every time it rained, would you feel you had a right to complain, tell that person they had done a crap job and demand your money back? Even if you had never built a roof yourself? Would the fact that this one man had failed to make a decent roof prove that all men were idiots, even if other men were capable of making a decent roof?

kh123 said...

Following Markku's lead:

Ann! You need to give Bill Burr a piece of that 166 I.Q. of yours. Preferably the lobe involved with motor skills required for punching. That is to say, button pushing.
Not so much the one that deals with memorizing basic html however, take note.

Regardless, there's no place within a civilized and functioning infrastructure for child rape advocates such as you.

APL said...

Anne Morgan: "This is not by design, because the engineers, rather than blaming themselves for not being able to design a sewer, something that has been done thousands of times before,"

Odd, that men have been able to design functioning sewer systems 'thousands of times before', perhaps we are looking at something else than male incompetence in this case - government graft and corruption, perhaps?

Anne Morgan: "Let me point out the obvious, that the man was NOT all that 'preoccupied' .. "

I think he actually was, it was the prospect of sexual gratification, that he had recklessly indulged in, in the same manner previously that was preoccupying his mind - right from the get go.

Anne Morgan: "An engineer who, today, cannot properly design an incandescent lightbulb "

Perhaps you do not realise that it having been done, there is no need to design an incandescent lightbulb, the principles are well known. It is the 'emoting rabble' who want to save us all from burning to death in 'globul warming', that have outlawed incandescent lamps, in favour of far more dangerous (containing mercury) industrial intensive ( involving several more industrial processes) fluorescent lamps which are supposedly more efficient. It is the so called 'precautionary principle' - you must avoid something at all costs in case the atmosphere is warming - allied with corporate interests.

The advent of the precautionary principle? Co-incidentally the same time frame that women have more say in the running of human affairs. Women prefer safety to risk, it furthers their fundamental aims - safety for childrearing, men will prefer risky behaviour over safety - vis the man with his scrotum. Because high risk often enough produces enough gratification to justify the risky behaviour.

Anne Morgan: "after it was purchased, they found out that my coworker had been right, "

I'd guess the common denominator in both scenarios you describe, the state. You are probably describing graft and corruption. Something men and women are susceptible to.

Anonymous said...

**Perhaps you do not realise that it having been done, there is no need to design an incandescent lightbulb, the principles are well known.**

So are the principles of making sewers. Yet the idiot engineers working for Milwaukee were not able to do so correctly.

**I think he actually was, it was the prospect of sexual gratification, that he had recklessly indulged in, in the same manner previously that was preoccupying his mind - right from the get go.**

That might very well be, but your point is what, exactly? That women get blamed for stupidity but men get a pass on any and all stupid behavior on the grounds that they might have been 'preoccupied'? If men have such a universal tendency to become 'preoccupied' then it seems to me that men should not be allowed under any circumstances to take any jobs requiring responsibility or operating potentially dangerous machinery. All such jobs should henceforth be filled by women, who have gotten a high score on IQ and safety tests.

Anonymous said...

**I'd guess the common denominator in both scenarios you describe, the state.**

Ding ding ding!! We have a winner! The common denominator of the idiots in Milwaukee, Pewaukee, and the senator who pressed the button. They all worked for the state. Vox's video demonstrates not so much female behavior, as behavior of those who work for the state. People do no end of stupid things when they are confident that the taxpayer, not themselves, will pay for it.

APL said...

Anne Morgan: "All such jobs should henceforth be filled by women, who have gotten a high score on IQ and safety tests. "

If as RC pointed out [June 27 at 5:40] the distribution of intelligence is what it is, why would you decide to exclude the more significant fraction of the population by intelligence, in order to promote a smaller fraction of the population intelligent women who are obsessed with safety?

When the benefits to women of largely male intelligence and risk taking in the cause of poon, is so apparent; dish washers, sewerage systems, boats, guns, art, cars, air transport, television, telephones, medical care including the whole discipline of gynaecology, law, electricity, street lighting etc, etc, etc.

But that's not enough for the feminist, she'd rather tear the whole lot down and introduce quotas.

APL said...

Anne Morgan: "Sewage is overflowing into the lake. This is not by design, because the engineers, rather than blaming themselves for not being able to design a sewer .."

Turns out, Miliwaukee sewerage system is a combined sewage outflow system, by its design in severe weather conditions **it is intended to overflow** into Lake Michigan.

I presume, the cost of accommodating every single but relatively infrequent instances of severe weather and flooding was considered too great and a compromise was reached, it's the way with all engineering projects. By the looks of it, the engineers did their job this time.

http://www.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/cso_reporttocongress_lakemichigan.pdf

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