Friday 30 September 2011

The Crap You Get on Facebook Sometimes.

I saw the below posted on my brother-in-law's Facebook status this afternoon.
"GOOD LUCK EVERYONE !!~~This year October has 5 Mondays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This Happens once every 823 years. This is called money bags. So copy this to your status and money will arrive within 4 days. Based on Chinese Feng Shui. The one who does not copy, will be without money. Copy within 11 mins of reading. Can't hurt so I did it :) IT CAN'T HURT"

I really hate these things. They’re like those awful, awful chain e-mails and texts you get sometimes. My response (as posted on MY status, is this:

OK, let's be clear here. Humans appeared on Earth at an arbitrary point in its lifetime. Some arbitrary point after this, we started giving names to the days, months, seasons and whatnot. That there are 5 Mondays, Saturdays and Sundays (or anything else) in an arbitrarily-named time period - no matter how rarely it occurs, means nothing. Zip, Zilch. Nada.


The universe does not go by what we say - or by what we post on Facebook.


Even if every single FB user pasted the above tripe into their status, the ONLY thing that would happen is that FB's DBAs (database administrators) would probably have to consider adding disk space to accommodate such an extra load of meaningless twaddle. I daresay they're used to it - they've probably got auto-grow on the database files set up anyway.

But I digress.


The universe runs on Physics, not people's wishes.


Money will arrive in 4 days? Why 4 days? Why not tomorrow?


Based on Chinese Feng-shui? Ah yes, that well-known and scientifically proven set of principles that has more to do with where best to put your pot-pourri than with the calendar, last time I looked.


The one who does not copy will be without money. Really? I rely on having a job to give me money - not mumbo-jumbo.


And 11 minutes to re-post? Again, purely random. Eight I would have understood, as I believe it's deemed lucky in Chinese numerology (as we seem to be taking a taxi the hell OUT of Rationality City, I thought I'd mention it).


No it can't hurt anything - except YOUR BRAIN!


Let's take responsibility for our actions. Work hard.  Pay your dues.  Give one another a helping hand occasionally, and I can pretty much GUARANTEE the world WILL be a better place.


Not bollocks, just common sense.


Have a great weekend!

15 comments:

  1. These things... Cobblers all. The worrying thing is, they bring out a new version of Windows every year. The human brain's been around what, 2.6 million years? All that time new versions have been coming out on a regular basis, and this is the best we can do...

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  2. I do have a weakness for a good urban myth, though!

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  3. Common sense appears to be an ever decreasing commodity, these day. Bollocks wraps up everything else! LOL

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  4. Dominic - we seem to be more or less hard-wired to believe all kinds of nonsense, possibly because we find it more appealing than the reality. I do love a good urban myth myself.

    Jinksy - ain't that the truth!

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  5. Since when did common sense have a hand in important matters?
    Argent, you really need to re-align your wotsits and your thingummies, otherwise there'll be no biscuit with your tea for you!

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  6. Friko - you're completely right! I think I accidentally left the wastepaper basket in my wealth corner the other day. I'm sure it's bad luck. Maybe I should phone a Feng Shui practitioner to come and Mr Sheen my aura or something.

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  7. Hear, hear, clap, clap. You are so right!

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  8. amen - a solitary voice of sanity, albiet a stressed voice, in an insane world

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  9. Leaving aside the Feng Shui nonsense, if October 1st is a Saturday, October will have 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays.
    I couldn't be arsed to check it out but I suspect there have been a number of Saturday October 1sts since 1188AD...

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  10. Human and DFTP - I am heartened by the number of people on here and FB who are in agreement.

    Peter - you're right, I must write a routime to calculate it sometime.

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  11. Sometimes I'm really snarky & do a Facebook status with this exact rant. Well, shorter obviously since they don't let you talk THAT much in your statuses :)

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  12. oh - and i think the calendar repeats every 8 years, which makes the hundred year thing look outright silly

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  13. Bug - I had to use comments to finish the ran, FB seems to let comments be longer than status updates.

    DFTP - I've just checked and the next time October has 5 Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays is 2016!

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  14. "like".... (well, someone had to do it!)

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  15. Someone did indeed have to do it. Most amusing!

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