I tend to run red traffic lights when cycling. Does that count?
Tell us your naughty stories
251–260 of 379 posts
Re: Tell us your naughty stories
#252The college library had dollar changers for use with the photocopy machines. I had a friend who made the discovery that if he copied both sides of a dollar bill and glued them together with some rubber cement that there were older machines that would give him change. So in exchange for two nickels investment he'd get back four quarters. He literally lived on this hack for an entire year. Course this was 40 years ago…
Counterfeiting is on the wrong side of the line between naughty and evil.
Re: Tell us your naughty stories
#253Re: Tell us your naughty stories
#254About ten years ago, I went to my father's work one Saturday afternoon. He worked at [big software company]. Throughout the entire building there were doors that were locked, and to open them, you'd put your badge next to the scanner and the door would open. These doors were everywhere. The doors had to be able to be opened from the other side without a badge, though. In case there was ever an emergency, people would need to be able to get out without a badge.
I noticed this when we let the building for lunch: the door was automatically opened as we walked towards it. When we got back from lunch, being the curious ten year old I was, I tried to figure out how it worked. It turns out they had a motion detector pointing in front of the door, and whenever it detected motion, the magnetic locks on the door would open.
So, I asked my father for a stack of paper, went to the elevator room on the locked side of one of these doors, and for thirty minutes made paper airplanes and threw them through the crack in the middle of the double doors until I found out how to make a plane which would expand enough to trip the motion detector. After another half hour of practice, it would only take one or two throws to trip the detector.
The next time I visited his work, and after a few emails to the building security, the cracks in all the doors were sealed.
I've been interested in security ever since then.
Re: Tell us your naughty stories
#255I used to be a researcher, so I wrote a lot of grant proposals. I started to get tired of having to speculate about what I might be able to deliver so I spent a year or two under-promising on my proposals and eventually got a year ahead of my proposals. So what I wrote up in my proposals was something that I had already done the year before but not yet published. So I'd get my grant, work on something completely new,…
That is brilliant.
Re: Tell us your naughty stories
#256I rode a motorcycle across Russia and several of the former Soviet republics eight years ago. You can't help but learn many useful hacks along the way. Here's one: How to deal with the police. Their work is boring and it's not unusual for them to go long stretches of time without being paid. They see you coming up the road-- They're curious and you look interesting. They motion for you to pull over and unless you've…
Reminds me of a friend's story.
He had just moved to New York from a Texas border town in the 70s. Being a starving grad student, he was a white guy living in Spanish Harlem, a pretty sketchy neighborhood at the time.
When walking home at night, he'd avoid the sidewalks and walk in the street so that he was less of a target and could see people coming.
One night he was walking home and saw three tough looking guys notice him and veer off the sidewalk to follow him. They were walking behind him and gaining fast.
Instead of running, he turned, and, in flawless Spanish (learned from his days growing up on the US-Mexico border) greeted them, told them he was lost, and asked them for help finding his way.
He said the guys looked slightly confused before one offered help, and the three guys ended up walking him to his door to make sure he got home safely.
Re: Tell us your naughty stories
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wasn't it obvious to them before the meeting why you hadn't filled it in?
They wouldn't be looking at it from that angle. Probationary statuses are generally considered a bad thing in big companies, and are often used as a first step in building a case for termination. As a cog who's hoping to make a career in one of those big companies, you're expected to want to get off that bad status and back into "good worker" mode as quickly as possible. It had never occurred to anybody that they mig…
"The fact that the penalty for underperformance was essentially a raise was something they had never even considered."
Just .... wow...
Given how often the bigger companies are so focused on 'bottom line numbers', it's really a bit surprising that no one ever looked at that.
"you're expected to want to get off that bad status and back into "good worker" mode as quickly as possible".
THAT I can totally understand.
Re: Tell us your naughty stories
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can have great product idea here. Ebook - how I ... etc.
I'm pretty burnt out on trying to help people. It really goes over very poorly and I get lambasted for it and, so far, there has really been no money in it. :-/ But when I start that webcomic I keep swearing I will start, it might be good material. :-D
I'm talking about showing people that it is possible and in best interest of both parties to divorce without fight and lawyers. Of course not in every case.
Showing not by talking, writing to each one of potentially interested one by one. Showing in ebook. And sell it. Not cheaply. This kind of information has its worth.
To help some people to save stress, time and money and earn money by yourself.
Hmm, poor lawyers. :)
Re: Tell us your naughty stories
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got that part, but why would you have to give bribes to African airport officials?
Right- I am confused by "avoided giving bribes" since typically bribes are something you go out of your way to provide. I am guessing corrupt officials basically request money from you for no reason- and it's expected you give it to them (for no reason as well). Then, they just call it a "bribe". But I'm guessing... pardon my cultural ignorance.
There's quite a few airports around the world where you'll run into this sort of scam. In Guadalajara, I've had to pay a "fee" to board a flight that I already had a seat on. In Bangalore I had to pay another fee so that my luggage would not go missing or be damaged.
Re: Tell us your naughty stories
#260Free airport long-term parking hack. Upon returning from your trip, walk through the long-term parking gate and grab a new ticket from the machine. As you are leaving the lot, hand the attendant the new ticket. Tada, free parking.
Doesn't work at the airports where the ticket machine only gives tickets when there's weight of the car on the sensors beneath the roadway.