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Comment Re:Bad News (Score 1) 234

Phone conversation overheard in a bank:

"Hello, Mr. Anderson? This is Washington First National Citi Wells Fargo Mutual. I'm afraid we are unable to process your loan request. Well, unfortunately it appears that you're dead. Yes, it is surprising. My sincerest condolences on your recent loss.

Well, according to your obituaries, you initially died on October 12, 1982, of trauma resulting from a car accident. Wow, that looked like a terrible accident. I hope you didn't suffer too much. Then on February 23, 1997, you were decapitated in an industrial accident... oh, I'm glad to hear you're feeling much better. Except for being dead, of course.

"Mr. Anderson, no, I'm sorry, we cannot approve a loan to a dead person. You may be feeling fine, but Google says you're dead. Well, killed by an IED in Iraq most recently. 2005? You don't remember being there? Well, that doesn't prove anything because you're dead; I wouldn't expect you to remember it.

"Mr. Anderson, please calm down. It's not healthy to get so agitated. I mean, it's definitely not healthy to be dead, but there's no need to make matters worse... Yes, as a matter of fact I did find an obit for myself. Died after a lingering coma. Fortunately, it's not a problem, because being brain dead is not an impediment to my line of work. Yes, I'm sorry, please feel free to re-apply when you're not dead. Goodbye."

I believe that's straight out of the movie "Hackers".

Comment As someone who has been in this situation.. (Score 1) 962

Please, PLEASE don't teach anything you couldn't hypothetically respect yourself for programming in. I beseech you this from the perspective of a once bright young student who's wasted more than several classes listening to speeches on introductory HTML. I mean really introductory. Like, you start with and end with . Twelve doesn't mean retarded. Just let your students challenge themselves, preferably not in a totally obsolete, trashy language. I'll have to admit that Visual Basic was one of the most helpful learning experiences... not from a programming point of view, but software development. I'll admit, ,v

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