On psychological trauma via a content filtering job

There is a rather serious article on Slashdot about unprepared minds being traumatized when working as a content moderator.  There are a lot of sick people around, when they fancy their fancies, any sane person should be as far as possible.  But that understanding is always easy coming.  As it is often said: “Some things cannot be unseen”, and you should think carefully before agreeing to see such things.

On a lighter note, with a subject like this, Slashdot is pretty much guaranteed to have some funny comments.  Here is one that made me smile:

The problem is that most 20 year old kids don’t really know how sensitive they are to things like this until they’re repeatedly exposed to them, by which point much of the damage has already been done. Luckily for me, I was exposed to the Internet and all of the nastiness on it when I was only 13, and I’ve managed to get by with no ill effects at all except for the occasional extended blackout followed by a dead hooker in my bed. Some more sensitive people might really lose their minds, though.

One or three?

While reading through Matt Damon Wikipedia entry on the subject of Jimmy Kimmel, I scrolled further down to his Matt’s personal life, where I found the following sentence:

From 2001 to 2003, he dated Odessa Whitmire, a former personal assistant of Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Affleck.

I know, I know all those jokes about Matt and Ben are getting pretty old now.  But still, the question popped up in my head: is it a single person, as in Odessa Whitmire, who used to work as personal assistant for Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Affleck, or are these three different people, as in Odessa Whitmire, Billy Bob Thornton’s personal assistant, and Ben Affleck?

Before anyone assumes anything, I have to say that:

  1. I don’t care who dates who – that’s their own business.
  2. I have great respect for Matt Daemon, based on many of his movies (I am re-watching the Bourne trilogy at least once a month) and many of his appearances on TV (live shows, talk shows, YouTube interviews, etc).
  3. I have great respect for all those people who made the Wikipedia what it is today.

The above quote looked funny to me probably only because I am not a native English speaker.  That’s all.  Enough with disclaimers – you can now tare me apart and flame me into oblivion.

Day in brief

  • I am back online. I don't what happened, but suddenly it started to work. I doubt that CYTA fixed the cable on Sunday. Magic happened. #
  • Seriously considering a one-day trip to Athens, Greece on September 25th. Ozzy Osbourne concert. #
  • Slashdot comments are scrollable with keyboard navigation (j/k). I never knew that until now. #

What’s wrong with airlines today?

I think there is something wrong with airlines, their policies, and their price making.  Here is one example.  I was looking for the cheapest way to get from Larnaca, Cyprus to Athens, Greece on Saturday, September 25th, 2010.  One of the lowest prices was offered by Aegean Airlines – 42 EUR for a one-way ticket.  That sounds awesome, doesn’t it?  Well, apparently that’s not the final price.  The final price with all the taxes and such came up to 156.16 EUR.

What’s the point of listing the price, on top of which you’ll have to pay the “tax” and “fee”, and which will be almost doubled by those extras?