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Prevent Gmail From Emailing Under the Influence
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:29 PM
from the chili-meter-with-brains dept.
from the chili-meter-with-brains dept.
mikesd81 writes "Google has developed 'Mail Goggles,' a Gmail add-on that makes sending email from Gmail more difficult during certain times (which you can set). If you have Mail Goggles installed, it will force you to answer a series of math questions before sending out any new messages. You can adjust the math difficulty and times this option is in effect. If you get any of the questions wrong, Mail Goggles will say, 'Water and bed for you. Or try again.' Of course, if you set the math settings too high, you may have a tough time solving some of those problems in under 60 seconds, even when sober. Then again, if you're sober, you could just turn Mail Goggles off and hit send on that impassioned letter to your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend or that flame to your boss."
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snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Martin Heller takes a first look at Microsoft's Exchange Server 2010 Beta, noting several usability, reliability, and compliance improvements over Exchange 2007. Top among Exchange 2010's new features are OWA support for Firefox 3 and Safari 3; improved storage reliability; conversation views; mail federation between trusted companies; and MailTips, a sort of Google Mail Goggles for the corporate environment. 'Database availability groups give you redundant mail stores with continuous replication; database-level failover gives you automatic recovery. I/O optimizations make Exchange less "bursty" and better suited to desktop-class SATA drives; JBOD support lets you concatenate disks rather than stripe them into a redundant array.' Exchange 2010 will, however, require shops to upgrade to Windows Server 2008, as support for Windows Server 2003 has been dropped. Microsoft will release technical previews of other products in the suite, including Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010, in the third calendar quarter."
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Insensitive! (Score:5, Funny)
I can't do math unless I'd drunk, you insensitive clod!
Re:Insensitive! (Score:5, Funny)
Can't type unless you'd drunk either, eh?
Parent
Re:Insensitive! (Score:5, Funny)
All that drinking in high school. You should have known. Didn't you ever hear that you can teach goldfish tricks when they're drunk, but they can only remember them when drunk?
Parent
Re:Insensitive! (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me about one exam in Uni, which, interestingly, ended up sort of like that...some heavy math exam next day, heavy drinking party developed in front of my room (it was in a good place for such things, end of the corridor with sofa/etc.). Though they realised I'm learning when trying to get me out of the room, so kept quiet. Nonetheless, somebody managed to get me out "just one shot" (of vodka, might I add). And we all know how such things end...
Interestingly, even though I was basically late few minutes, no math exam before and after was passed by me so flawlessly...
Parent
Re:Insensitive! (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of a Maple mid term I had way back when as an undergraduate.
10 minutes after the start, one of the class arrives late and proceeds to sit down in front of his PC. The examiner hands him the question sheet. He settles in. He was obviously a bit tipsy, and there was a not so faint smell of alcohol, particularly as he spoke. After a few minutes, we had something similar to the following exchange:
Him: (whisper) Hey man. How'd you turn on Maple again?
Me: Start. Programs. Math Software. Maple.
Him: Cheers man.
A few minutes later....
Him: Hey man. Sorry, but, are we supposed to answer ALL the questions on this sheet?
Me: Just four out of five.(or whatever the requirements were)
Him: Aww right! Cheers man.
A few minutes after that....
Him: Hey man. Sorry, again, but... Is this a test?
If I remember correctly, he got an A. Great guy.
Parent
Re:Insensitive! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not funny, don't drink and derive.
Parent
Re:Not just a funny (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps getting drunk helped shut down the C side of my brain or something....
.. or perhaps your hands just happened to fall on the parentheses.
Parent
slashdot needs this (Score:5, Funny)
im so wasted right now
If Only Slashdot had it... (Score:5, Funny)
mods would have more free time. Oh, wait...
Re:If Only Slashdot had it... (Score:5, Funny)
Informative?? I think the mods need it too....
Parent
Just tried it. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just tried it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Just tried it. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Just tried it. (Score:5, Funny)
Uhh...9x4=36, not 46.
Apparently, it does work, assuming you're telling the truth about being drunk, and aren't just bad at math.
Parent
Re:Just tried it. (Score:5, Funny)
Check your font server. I believe its busted.
Parent
If only (Score:5, Interesting)
They had this for mobile phones :/
*me waits for google android*
Very useful .... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd probably be in contact with more people from college and a few exes if I'd had that 10 years ago. ;-)
Cheers
Re:Very useful .... (Score:5, Funny)
Why did you have to drag Windows into this discussion? Is this some corollary of Godwin's law that I am unaware of?
Parent
and google helps you solve them (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're not sober enough to do the math, perhaps you're sober enough to copy/paste them into google so it can give you the answers ;)
Re:and google helps you solve them (Score:5, Funny)
Aside from the inherent unreliability with internet connections
Good point! With this method, if your internet goes down you wouldn't be able to finish the math problem required to send an email message via your web-based email service.
Wait for it...
Parent
If you make owning a gun a crime... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm reminded of the old saying, "If you make owning a gun a crime, only criminals will own guns."
If you hide drunk mailing behind math problems, only Engineers will drunk mail.
*shudders*
stop the discrimination! (Score:5, Funny)
But what if you're a mathematician? There really should be some option to replace it with sports questions.
Re:stop the discrimination! (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:stop the discrimination! (Score:4, Insightful)
I am a mathematician and you sir are insulting the abilities of drunk lemurs. I personally worry that I would never send any e-mail if I had to answer arithmetic or sports questions.
What they should do for us is to add the option of deep philosophical questions. I would happily give a brief answer while sober, but if I were drunk I would be so distracted that I would be sober by the time I finished formulating my answer.
Parent
Re:stop the discrimination! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Imagine... (Score:5, Funny)
All that effort solving the math problems on time, just to type "You're a dick" and stagger off to bed.
frist! (Score:5, Funny)
THE LAWS OF THE NAVY (Score:5, Funny)
Dost think in a moment of anger
'Tis well with thy seniors to fight?
They prosper, who burn in the morning,
The letters they wrote overnight.
Not going to work for me. (Score:5, Funny)
SMTP - CMTP ? (Score:5, Funny)
Complex Mail Transfer Protocol - coming soon!
Typo? (Score:5, Funny)
Better suggestions (Score:5, Informative)
2. e-Bay goggles.
2. Keep your computer in a cabinet or room with a combination lock. (Ever try to open one o' those babies after too many cups of liquid courage?)
3. AOL. (Your email will probably get lost anyway.)
4. Use an email address like v1agera694Ucheap@gmail.com or r0llexxBargains@gmail.com. (Your message will be flagged as spam and never read anyway.)
5. Don't email after more than two drinks. Ever, no matter how innocuous your message may seem.
6. Don't drink more than you can handle, especially on a regular enough basis to need something like this, you moron.
I've planned on making my house do this (Score:5, Funny)
For a long time, my plan has been to build something like this into my house. When I want to adjust my thermostat, for example, I want the house to give me a quick little test to see if I'm mentally alert. Regardless of the outcome, the house would then let me adjust the thermostat.
However, it would remember the results. And if it determines over a long period (say, a couple months), that I'm suffering significant mental degradation, to the point where I'm likely to not be able to take care of myself, the house will wait until I'm sound asleep one night (which it can determine by monitoring my temperature with infrared sensors, and listening to my respiration, for example), and then do something to kill me in my sleep (gas, probably).
When the house is sure that I'm dead (no breathing for a long time, and body temperature down to ambient room temperature), it will then call the coroner's office to report my death.
Probably not a good idea (Score:4, Funny)
With the end of year approaching it's reasonably likely that the frequency and severity of alcohol consumption will steadily increase for the next few months.
Your house might interpret your state as a physical and mental decline rather than a mere seasonal variation and bump you off early on the first of January.
Of course when you wake up with that hang over you might wish it had, however it's only a short term feeling and you'll forget about it in time, certainly by the following New Years Day.
Parent
This is just google's elaborate ploy... (Score:5, Insightful)
...to gather drunkard statistics. I bet you'll see a lot more alcohol related google ads after failing a few of those tests.
A better thing would be, NOT to tell you you were wrong but to pretend to send the mail and then notify you few hours after (when you are PROBABLY sober) about your failure.
But I am a Mathemetician!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
I'll be surprised if nobody else has said this... (Score:4, Funny)
[Looks at stack of Atari 800 program cassettes that he has nothing on which to run them...]
Re:hurp (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:hurp (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe if this is popular enough, we'll see it in the next version of Windows? Can't wait!
I don't like the idea of where that might go. "It looks as if you are trying to uninstall Vista. Please prove the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis"...
Parent
Re:hurp (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe if this is popular enough, we'll see it in the next version of Windows? Can't wait!
I don't like the idea of where that might go. "It looks as if you are trying to uninstall Vista. Please prove the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis"...
Hey, it's working for the ReCAPTCHA initiative, so why not get a few unsolved mathematical problems solved in the process?
Parent
Re:hurp (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this: don't get drunk, don't use drugs. Side effects include, but are not limited to:
- sending stupid emails you will later regret
- driving right into the next tree
- chopping up your neighbor with an axe because it seems like a fun thing to do
- nausea, headaches and a general crappy existence
Don't underestimate no. 4, it's a real killer.
Parent
Re:hurp (Score:5, Funny)
HEY!
I derive better when I'm drunk!
Parent
Mod parent drunk! (Score:4, Funny)
Do Obama and the Democrats deserve a lift in the polls...
Perhaps the best use for such a measure here on Slashdot would be preventing posting from another story! [slashdot.org] ;-)
Parent
Re:No substitute for self control (Score:5, Funny)
Mod -1, Buzzkill.
Parent
Re:No substitute for self control (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never understood why Western society (and others) glorify the pissup.
Agreed. Then again many here glorify taking drugs.
Parent
Re:No substitute for self control (Score:5, Funny)
Agreed. Then again many here glorify taking drugs.
That's because taking drugs is glorious!
Parent
Re:No substitute for self control (Score:5, Interesting)
Some may, but don't misinterpret the substantial opposition here to the "War on Drugs" as glorification.
I don't glorify holocaust denial, but people have a right to say, and believe, stupid things.
Parent
Re:No substitute for self control (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. But because people have a right doesn't mean they should. I'm ambivalent about this thing because if somebody needs restraining perhaps they need another hobby.
Fortunately I have learned the hard way that self restraint is very necessary. It's a sign of the times that people need stuff like this or the other stuff that censors the free exchange of information.
As for free speech, it is unfortunate that the people who actually have something valuable to say restrain themselves to much; while those who are simply full of $#!+ have no restraint at all.
Parent
Please ignore the last post (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Perhaps they could just delay sending (Score:5, Insightful)
Would end Web 2.0????
Excellent. Please implement at once. While you're at it persuade the media and public at large to accept that 'the web' != 'the internet' ('the web' 'the internet')
Parent