Dungeon Master Forum

I seem to be in a particularly bad mood tonight, so I thought I would vent my spleen at mobile phone mast construction. Now, I am not one of these berks who seem to think they emit lethal radiation: quite the opposite; but I cannot believe the stupidity of some of the designers.

For example: Close to where I live where there are already quite a number of (slightly) visible phone masts. So a mobile company decided to disguise one, which I think is a good idea, as it appeases the visual pollution people and looks on the whole more natural. But they decided to make it look like a lamp post. OK, not bad, but not when you plonk it next to an existing lamp post. And not when it is a completely different design to existing lamp post. What looks more stupid than two adjacent lamp posts? To me it screams, 'Duh, mobile phone mast'. But get this. When it gets DARK, the adjacent lampost ILLUMINATES the false one brightly, (which has no bulb of course), showing it to all the world that is in line of sight. I have yet to see other brightly lit masts. Ridiculous.

But not as bad as this. They have started disguising them as trees as well. When I first heard this I thought it was a really good idea. So here you are driving merrily through the country... and up looms a 60 foot palm tree. Hmmm. England? Oak trees, beech trees... palm trees? I think not. You have probably seen dozens of masts already on your journey and not even batted an eyelid, but the first coconut tree that you see sure is going to arouse suspicion. Especially when it has an aerial sticking out of it and a nearby powerbox saying 'vodafone'. Also they have put transmitters in the top of phoneboxes! So the only place you can use your mobile in some places is where there is a phone already which is probably cheaper!

I hate bad design! Anybody else know of any similar stupidity?

i get very mad when i see such openly demonstrated dumbness. so i ignore it as good as possible...

If I ignored everything that I thought was dumb, I would have to move to Pluto.

that's why i said "as good as possible". i will look out for an example, shouldn't take too long

This is a particularly bad one haha!

The fact that it's dangling in midair doesn't help much.

That's one of the worse website designs I've seen !!!

Maybe it's ironic? Then again, having looked at some of the things cited as bad design, I can only conclude that the guy has little common sense. Sure, a lot of the things he complains about are badly designed, but he seems to be suggesting that's an excuse for not having to use one's brain.

PaulH wrote:Now, I am not one of these berks who seem to think they emit lethal radiation: quite the opposite;

I am not even going to argue with you about that one, but don't come whining to this "berk" when you start growing antennae out of your head.

I already have

Oh right... is that why you have those horns on your head, to keep them a secret?

I think working in the nuclear physics lab at uni was a bad idea...

Oooh... that will not only add a few extras to your already amply equiped body but probably also delete one or two other vital functions.

All I can say is never, ever collect/eat/touch/look at sea weed from the coasts around Sellafield. I had to test the stuff in a gamma detector. A few low powered microwaves from a phone mast is much less of a threat!

Frankly, I don't want to eat anything anymore that comes from anywhere near the coastlines, let alone Sellafield...

In fact, every time you think you are safe to eat something, bang... there goes the myth and it's on the "eat at your own risk" list.
It truly is a sad world we live in.

And you have my heartfelt sympathy, PaulH. Having to test stuff from around Sellafield must have been one of your highlights in life...

The highlight of that particular episode was finding radioactive caesium 137 on the lab floor. We traced it back to Chernobyl as fallout in rain. Maybe its safer on Saturn.

So this is why you have such beautiful orange red hair !

PaulH wrote:Maybe its safer on Saturn.

Oh... it's definitely safer on Saturn. We don't have anything polluting lying around - we ship it off to Earth. muahahahahahaha

is it just me or is this board gettign weirder...

*looks left*
*looks right*

no, nevermind, its just me...carry on : )

i dunno beowuuf, im thinking its getting wierder...

*eyes at everyone then hides*

Maybe the weirdness is coming from an increase in the female dungeon crawler population, not to mention the alien population from faraway planets...

Increase? Oi have you noticed how old DM is...a lot of us were there at the start! Gah...grumble grumble...bet we females solved loads of puzzles and stuff faster than you anyway .

hehehe... you can thank me for some too, as i am quite good with puzzles =P

I LOVE puzzles but am pretty useless at them.
And Flo... you are just jealous because you are from Earth and I am not.

You're all Off Topic freaks! I don't mind it here and there -- diversifying conversation is natural after all -- but we have lots of threads all going awry -- please try and stick to the subject in hand or keep general chit chat to another thread -- you can even start one if you like!

How could you tell ? Those damn telepaths again...