2005 Foot In Mouth Awards 322
jollyroger1210 writes "Wired is running a story on the 2005 Foot In Mouth Awards." From the article: "Tech execs say the darndest things. And so do shuffling presidents, and disgraced scientists, and Wikipedia fakers. It's time to relive 2005's biggest spoken gaffes."
Save you the trouble: (Score:5, Funny)
"I know what I don't know, and to this day I don't know technology and I don't know accounting and finance."
-- Bernie Ebbers, ex-CEO of WorldCom
Re:Save you the trouble: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Save you the trouble: (Score:2, Insightful)
Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I bet that the internet bills for Yahoo and Google are quite high. They already pay enough. It's like saying that tele-marketers use phone lines for free, so they should pay a special "tax" to the kind phone companies.
Re:Save you the trouble: (Score:2)
Bad example. If phone companies would pay half to the customer receiving the call and keep half for themselves, both customers, phone companies and the society in general would benefit (in the form of increased tax profits and less stress for people leading to less illnesses).
In general, if you want to argue against some proposal, it is best to avoid any analogies where the pro
Not tech but the top spoken gaffe of 2005 (Score:5, Funny)
ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
"Baboon" or "Hitler"? I'm confused... (Score:3, Interesting)
The two are mutually exclusive, so which is it?
Both (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes me giggle (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Makes me giggle (Score:2)
they sounded
Some comments that now sound ludicrous probably sounded quite reasonable where and when they were made. The memory one that is attributed to Bill Gates and that IBM one about how many computers the world would need, were quite sensible in the light of knowledge at the time.
I don't think GWB and other dodgy executives have the same excuse though...
The forgot (Score:5, Insightful)
Fear Not, Slashdotters! (Score:5, Funny)
"'I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google.'"
-Steve Ballmer
Excellent.
Re:Fear Not, Slashdotters! (Score:2)
This was funny... (Score:4, Funny)
-- Intel chairman Craig Barrett
The most embarrassing executive antics of the year came early in 2005, as a tone-deaf, stiff white guy stepped up to the stage at the Consumer Electronics Show and joined Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler in a duet.
Watching the video [silicon.com], I was amused trying to determine who was actually the older white guy...
The whole demo with the crazy kids is pretty awkward too. Tyler gives a little speech to the audience... *shudder*
Pay Again For Telecoms? (Score:3, Informative)
Sure! Let's pay for the same stuff twice! Because we're stupid!
$100 laptop (Score:4, Interesting)
-- Intel chairman Craig Barrett
Who is getting the foot in the mouth here? Mr. Negroponte?
Here's a really good foot in mouth story... (Score:5, Interesting)
Agents' visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior
http://www.southcoasttoday.com.nyud.net:8090/dail
There's just one little thing the student didn't count on...
Sometimes professors do not take things at face value, sometimes they actually do some research and they check things, they ask questions, and sometimes they notice inconsistencies.
They're smart like that. They really are. That's why professors are professors and why students are students, and why small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri are small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. But I digress...
Anyhow, to make a long story short, this student's professor asked some questions. This student's professor noticed some inconsistencies in the student's story. This student's professor asked the student's parents some questions. This student's professor found more inconsistencies in the student's story. This student's professor did even more checking.
In the end this student's professor found that not a single thing that the student had told him could be verified. The professor confronted his student who tearfully admitted that the story of being visited by agents of Homeland Security was a complete fabrication.
Federal agent's visit was a hoax
http://www.southcoasttoday.com.nyud.net:8090/dail
This student's cobbled up story which had caused news articles and editorials to be written, which had caused much heated discussion on the Internet, in the end was unravelled and shot to pieces because the student's professor had not taken it at face value and had asked questions until he got at the truth of the matter.
Now, you may ask, who put their foot in their mouth in this story? Well, I'll tell you. Many people on the discussion board where you now read this very post put their feet in their mouths by spewing intemperate comments as a result of uncritically accepting the statements of a liar as the truth. I'd say that's a pretty good foot in the mouth story and a pretty good cautionary tale as well.
Re:Here's a really good foot in mouth story... (Score:2, Insightful)
No. The professors had their foots firmly in their mouths because the story as told them by the student very conviently fit into their "gov is bad" paradigm. The student played them like fish.
Very good point (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Very good point (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Very good point (Score:2)
Re:Very good point (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Very good point (Score:3, Interesting)
But it didn't look in person like it did on TV. San Francisco didn't end up in ruins, though a few blocks were demolished by the earthquake. Actually the fire the next year was much more destructive (though it killed fewer people). I was out of the area w
Re:Very good point (Score:5, Insightful)
They didn't start to give crappy, over-hyped reports on Katrina -- they actually somewhat improved reporting for a brief moment. But News Reporters follow "stories" not truth, not justice, not anything but what makes the best "story."
And don't feel left out that they didn't report White Misery -- yes, In know there are other place besides New Orleans -- but you are talking about a media that spent about 3 months in Aruba chasing down one white girl. If you had wanted coverage, you would have had to run around in large, naked groups with funny hats. Just getting killed doesn't count.
So, insipid, useless infotainment driven by PR flacks is the norm in News today. Screaming about the travails of a minority occasionally does nothing to upset the status quo.
And it is pretty obvious to me that the Weathermen over hype any bad weather. That's why it's so hard for people to decide whether to evacuate or not -- because any Hurricane will admonishments about the last group who didn't heed the weathermen. Nothing makes a weather persons day than to interrupt regularly scheduled programming with a weather alert. The only News here is that the News Service has been dead for some time.
Re:Here's a really good foot in mouth story... (Score:2)
Let's not paint the professor as a saint in all this. His role was to run to the media right away, and only after others started pointing out inconsistencies and asking for more details did he start to question the student's story. At this point he still refuses to name the student and I wouldn't be surprised to learn it was all made up by the professor.
Re:Here's a really good foot in mouth story... (Score:3, Informative)
So, a story was debunked and we can all rest our little heads -- nothing to see. I don't even know if this student existe
Bullshit. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, they could. Assuming, of course, the student was being investigated for terrorism or other national security offenses.
The idea that random students will be monitored for their reading habits is purest fear mongering.
transferred to world health... (Score:3, Insightful)
-- Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG's global digital business division
sounds like:
"Most people don't even know what AIDS is, so why should they care about it?"
My ABSOLUTE favorite (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:My ABSOLUTE favorite (Score:2)
My favorite (Score:4, Insightful)
A personal favorite (Score:5, Funny)
His "I'm there with you" speech to workers who were lucky to take a single thousand a month didn't exactly have the intended affect, and he resigned a month later.
2 standards (Score:3, Informative)
hey! (Score:4, Funny)
Let's be nice, some of us like Steven Tyler...
Recognize excellence (Score:3, Funny)
Re:-5, Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, who cares if Slashdot posts it a little late?
Honestly, Some of us do not visit 'digg' or any of that crap. Why? Becasue it's full of little children who have no idea what they're talking about.
So if it was posted there first, who cares? No one, except for you and the other 'anti-slashdot' kids. If you're so enthralled in the fact that 'digg' posts it first then, guess what? Go there and read digg.
I, personally, am going to stay here at slashdot. Why? Because I can actually get smarter by reading some posts. I just got more ignorant trying to decrypt the aol-leet-speek-kid posts at Digg.
Slashdot may have it's share of problems, but it also has some great minds that read it and contribute.
Re:-5, Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)
The one time I visited Digg, I found the comments worthless.
Re:-5, Redundant (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, Digg's comments are pretty worthless, but I think it has to do more with how it's commenting system is set up more than the reader base. Slashcode, for all its flaws, has a really nice system to sort, write, and moderate comments. Meanwhile, Digg doesn't even have threads, making each comment more of an island than part of a discussion. And anyone who knows who the koolaidguy is knows that Digg's moderation needs some work.
In any case, its nice to see Slashdot finally have some competition.
Re:-5, Redundant (Score:2, Offtopic)
Ah, it's not just me then. Good. Most of them seemed to be "Cool! I love this! Digg!!"
Slashdot comments are not by any stretch of the imagination uniformly good, but I have picked up an awful lot of information (or some combination of those words, at least) from comments over the years.
(Plus, I'm still not entirely sure how Digg's revolutionary system for readers voting on stories is different/better to kuro5hin's.)
(I'm not asking.)
Re:-5, Redundant (Score:3, Insightful)
Who the hell bloody cares? Slashdot is one place where it will eventually show up, and one place where the discussions aren't full of crap.
Seriously, a message to the posters like the OP - get the hell off Slashdot. If you don't like this place, then what the hell are you doing here? At least, let those of us who like this place hang out and actually discuss stuff, rather than whining l
Re:-5, Redundant (Score:5, Funny)
LOL, awwwww...THANK YOU!
Re:-5, Redundant (Score:3, Funny)
Re:-5, Redundant (Score:2, Interesting)
You should also realise that digg posts links to slashdot stories as stories too.
Don't. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My Fav (Score:2)
Old news (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Old news (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Don't forget Gunga Dan (Score:2)
Since this story was 2004 and you brought it up, (as I'm guessing to beat this very dead, rotting horse one more time) you seem to be wanting to make this an annual tradition!
Check the link you provided btw. Thursday, September 16, 2004.
When she posts here. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: or how about this one from President Taft! (Score:4, Insightful)
It was more about PR cleanup than fact checking. The question is not "is this legit?", but "how can we manipulate belief"? They had people discussing how to tear it down within 10 or 15 minutes of its first airing. The qualifications of the people discussing the matter? Well, it's a memo. You could ask people in print manufacturing, or forensics. You could ask an army desk jockey. You could even ask any secretary old enough to have used one of those typewriters. Instead, it was freepers, marketing people, PR, politicians, newscasters, paid political operatives(bloggers!), and the like. Oh, and a few computer guys. Most weren't even born yet in the era of that typewriter or Bush's service.
Me? I work in printing. The family business is printing, and my father was in computer repair for decades. My childhood was spent with inky fingers, learning programming or fixing hardware. So, I know both areas pretty well, and I didn't buy it. The really clever thing is that the real point of the matter was "did Bush fulfill obligations?" not the placement of a fucking letter or apostrophe. Kudos on making sure the voting public avoided that question and discussed decades old typewriters instead.
It's an exercise in the efficiency of the conservative political machine. You're not even discussing the topic at hand. You're discussing 2004 in a "let's remember 2005" comments section. We should both be modded for being offtopic. And you should learn that you can't reuse calenders.
Dude, they were fakes. (Score:3, Interesting)
Look, there was a story there. A valid story, about Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. A story that we won't get to hear or see now, because it's all been tarred with the fake-memo brush. Because Mapes and Rather thought the story wasn't quite good enough, they sexed it up... with faked evidence. How responsible were they? Well, they clearly didn't show the diligence that they were paid for.
And somehow you're saying it's
Re:MODERATORS READ THIS!!! (Score:5, Funny)
I have mod points, but there's no option for +3 Guilt Trip. Really - it's fine. The World forgives you.
Re:did you see (Score:3, Informative)
1. bill gates denies ever saying this
2. even if he did say it, it was probably true at the time, if i say today '2gb ought to be enough for anyone' , you're not gonna think i'm crazy, you're probably gonna agree with me, this quote doesn't say 640k will ALWAYS be enough
Re:did you see (Score:5, Informative)
It has nothing to do with Microsoft. MS-DOS would use up to 768 K without problems if you didn't have an EGA or VGA card.
Re:did you see (Score:2)
Re:did you see (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I'll get right on that.
Re:did you see (Score:2)
Re:did you see (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah. 768K should be enough for anyone.
Re:did you see (Score:3, Interesting)
"Internet is just a passing fancy"?
BTW, if you today make a statement of "2gb ought to be enough for anyone" that doesn't mean the right approach is to design the system in such a way that developers will have to go through countless hoops to address anything above 2gb.
Couldn't IBM make page offset interval == page length and claim the 65520 unused values are "reserved for future use" (and be able to address 4GB of RAM out of the box) instead of wasting them all on ove
Re:did you see (Score:2)
No. That would create more problems than it solved. An 8086 program is composed of a set of segments, some small, some large. The segment registers make these segments addressable by the CPU. A system with 128K of RAM can have hundr
Re:did you see (Score:3, Informative)
Did you know XBox was broken thanks to a security hole dating back to 8080/8086 times and poor workarounds to the problems this horrible "feature" introduced?
Re:did you see (Score:3, Funny)
This proofs that Intel plans for the future - they were working on how to defeat DRM 20 years before it arrived, and no one realized anything !-)
Re:"640K ought to be enough for anybody" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"640K ought to be enough for anybody" (Score:2)
However, you're still limited to 4GB of addressable memory per process. If you need more than that, you have to go 64-bit.
Re:"640K ought to be enough for anybody" (Score:4, Funny)
However, you're still limited to 4GB of addressable memory per process.
I wonder if that is enough to run MS Office.
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:5, Informative)
You know, the "Apple iTunes phone" is made by Motorola, and actually was the subject of that quote. The Nano and the ROKR (like the RAZR, but with iTunes compatibility) were released around the same time, and the quote is basically saying, "Screw the Nano. Get a ROKR and you can have your iTunes songs and a phone all in the same unit." Of course, the ROKR is sucking pretty bad, and the Nano has been insanely popular. Thus, foot in mouth.
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:2)
I work for the cariier that had the razr first and we had them out of the door this past January.
Motorola and Apple had another Itunes phone in the works but apple backed out and decided to hold off, felt it would cannabalize Ipod sales I imagine.
Also, there is another version of the Razr being released with itunes and an mini SD slot within the next few months. So a roker is really not necessary.
Word on the street Moto alw
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:5, Informative)
But he was talking about the ROKR, not the RAZR.
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:2)
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:2)
For those of us that pay more attention to the phone's functionality instead of looks/form factor, the ROKR and RAZR will be very similar, whereas the RAZR compared to a Sony Ericsson would be rather different.
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think you have a clue as to what is a hot-selling phone. I work in a phone store (by all means I think we're representative of Queensland, Australia) and we struggled to get our only Motorola V300 RAZR out the door.
Motorola is complete crap and have been for years. They're just not a serious competitor against far better offerings from Nokia and other manufacturers.
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:2)
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:2)
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:2)
I've only used a Motorola phone once (the A630) and I would actually get pissed off at the UI. I dropped that phone in a few months when I couldn't stand it anymore
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, according to http://products.consumerguide.com/reviews/browse.e pub?sectionId=840 [consumerguide.com]:
Top Rated Mobile/Cell Phones
* Motorola EV-DO E815 CDMA Mobile Phone Review
* Nokia 3220 GMS Mobile Telephone Review
* LG Verizon Wireless VX7000 CDMA Mobile Phone Review
* Samsung SGH-e315 GSM Mobile Phone Review
* Motorola RAZR V3
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:2)
Motorola E680i
Motorola A780
Next please?
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:3, Insightful)
I work for the largest carrier in the US, and not in a "phone store" but actually some place where I am privy to see the popularity of phones on a national and international basis.
The Razr has been super popular since its release almost a year ago. In the US, Canada, and overseas.
We unlock them hand over fist for people to take to their come countries.
And since the price dropped drastically in the past few months it was one the hottest Xmas gifts given.
And while I agree with you that Moto has a good a
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:3, Informative)
In case people haven't realised yet: THE ITUNES PHONE IS MADE BY MOTOROLA AND THE "TWO PHONES" IN THE PARENT POST ARE THE SAME PHONE
Sorry about the CAPS, but it seems incredible that noone seems to have paid heed to the corrections posted.
And to think you're currently being rated as insightful.
Re:foot in mouth? or the truth? (Score:2)
I actually don't see any real 'foot in mouth' comments. Most were intended to be jokes so the humor involved in them should be expected. A few were attempts to cover up the truth, such as with the Hwang Woo-suk
Re:Please come forward (Score:5, Funny)
He actually said F-asterisk-asterisk-asterisk but when typing it out it's much easier to use *
Re:Please come forward (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm from Europe too and I think I have an explanation. We tend to learn American English primary from American popular culture - movies, song lyrics, comics, video games etc. That's why we think that the f-word is so common in everyday usage of American English - we imagine this country as populated mostly by hip handsome mobsters, private detectives in trench coats, muscular tatooed Afroamerican cocaine dealers able to rhyme everything with "mothafucka", bespectacled mad computer geniuses etc. When I set my foot for the first time on LAX, the biggest surprise for me was that actually everyone I met seemed to be nice and gentle, totally unlike what I have imagined from "Grand Theft Auto" or "Blade Runner"
Re:Please come forward (Score:2)
Re:Please come forward (Score:2)
Re:Please come forward (Score:2)
Re:Please come forward (Score:2)
I was going to point out that on that 70's show, I think Red says "put my foot up your ass" or something using "up", and not "in". I don't watch the show often, but I think that's right. Anyway, in America, there's a subtle distinction between them - "up" implies an upward motion of the foot towards the ass, while "in" sounds disturbed - as if he were to stiffen up his toes and aim for squiggling them into the anus.
I'd imagine there are all sorts of subtle distinctions like this. I watch Iron Chef, and I
Re:Please come forward (Score:4, Interesting)
To me, it's just a word. Like 'blimey'. Nobody screams bloody murder when you say 'blimey', and yet it's used in the same way.
Or let's look at replacement words... 'Frack' and 'frell' are a couple scifi replacements for 'fuck'. They are extremely obvious what they are, and yet nobody cares if they are said.
There are even other, more obvious words... Shit and crap are EXACTLY the same thing. Why is one a 'cuss word' and the other merely another word for excrement?
This bothered me for a few years and I spent those years cursing like a sailor. With reasonable people, it made no difference at all. But lately, it's gotten boring and I've decided to try to keep it to a minimum, mainly for something to do while I'm speaking. (Speech is boring and can use a lot of livening-up.)
Re:Please come forward (Score:3, Interesting)
These two people spoke different languages. Most of the ruder terms have come from the Anglo-Saxon words, while most of the more acceptable words come fr
Re:Please come forward (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Please come forward (Score:2)
Re:Please come forward (Score:2)
Did you respond to his post? Did you deny or refute any of his comments? Did you question or think about what he was saying or trying to say? No, you changed the topic by being immature, disrespectful and very childish. They very American he was talking about that can't find his own head from his ass.
way to blow it.
Re:And the winner is .... (Score:4, Interesting)
"The site won't survive without money from ads. Switch off that adblock, please."
Re:The site is slashdotted... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Anyone rember this gem from days past? (Score:2)
It was actually not 'foot' in the mouth, you see
Re:Anyone rember this gem from days past? (Score:2, Interesting)
"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." George W Bush
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." George W Bush
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Re:Anyone rember this gem from days past? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Anyone rember *these* Dem gems from days past? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:tee hee giggle... sex! talkin bout his pee pee (Score:5, Funny)
"I'm a uniter, not a divider", "yellow cake uranium", "we will catch bin laden dead or alive", "weapons of mass destruction", "I will appoint a moderate to the supreme court", etc. Or my personal favorite, although not quite as quotable to those with low attention spans, is this new one; "To say `unchecked power' basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject...". [yahoo.com]
Grow the fuck up, you loser. I couldn't give two shits where the President sticks his dick. Even if it's a fat girl. Unless he wants to put it in one of my orifices, it's none of my business. Like the OJ trials, I was one of the very few that never watched nor cared to waste my time watching something so stupid.
Also, it was four years ago, so you might as well be talking about Carter being afraid of a bunny rabbit, Nixon being a crook, JFK cheating on his wife, or George Washington and his wooden teeth. It's ancient history. But I guess talking about someone's sex life and their genitals is going to be the defining cultural event for your entire life. Maybe all of American History!
I know we're not talking about things you can giggle over anymore, but it's because they're fucking important!
Re:tee hee giggle... sex! talkin bout his pee pee (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:its a question of degrees (Score:3, Informative)
I'll come back when I find it.
Re:Aaron Broussard (Score:3, Funny)