Smart machines, dumb people

While Thinking Machine 4 nicely reveals the computer's - and presumably, the experienced player's - thought processes during a game of chess, the second site is dedicated to the consequences of businesses that put thinking on hold while creating some fairly important documents. Winners in the Technical Standards 2004 Worst Manual Contest (and its predecessors) range from the comical to the potentially dangerous, and while largely comprised of the work of translators who apparently didn't know either of the languages they were dealing with, nominees also include examples of; Stupid Instructions, Made-up Words, Left-Out Steps, Spelling Errors, and Bad Grammar.

The 2004 grand prize winner earned its title on the weight of a mere two pages taken from an air conditioner manual which, despite its linguistic and visual shortcomings, still had the lofty goal, "to have the observance without fail to prevent the damage to harm and the property beforehand to the person who use this product and other persons." With helpful advisories that include, "Please note whether the installed stand hurt or not," and the truly baffling, "Please do not put the one embarrassed because it gets wet under the air conditioner," one is left thinking that putting the manual through AltaVista's Babel Fish might have netted a better result. Or, to quote the online translator, "One is left to think what it puts the handbook through the fish of AltaVista's Confusion might have covered a better result with nets." (Come to think of it, perhaps that's what they did do.)

PDFs or photographs of the winning publications are included for documentary evidence, and there are three pages of previous years' winners archived for posterity. Historic examples include a nine-page installation manual for a car alarm (five pages of which are written ENTIRELY IN CAPITAL LETTERS) - which boasts 14 appearances of "READ THIS FIRST BEFORE YOU INSTALL" (probably all ignored), and such common sense warnings as, "DO NOT OPEN THE BRAIN OTHERWISE YOU CAN SCREW IT UP AND YOU WILL VOID THE WARRANTY." (If I had a dime for every time I heard that...)

Not entirely limited to appliance handbooks, the contest also honors an employee manual which welcomes new staff with the surprising fact that a worker's seniority "terminates" if they quit or are fired. (Actionable offenses include, "Possession of firearms or illegal knives or explosive materials on Company property.") But perhaps the manual's high point is this nicely ironic safety reminder; "Remember workmen compensation insurance was not provided to cover stupidity or incompetents." Good to know.

Thinking Machine 4 can be found at http://turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/index.html, with the Technical Standards Worst Manual Contest at http://www.techstandards.com/2004winner.htm.

Page: 1 | 2