Google has implemented a new feature on Gmail that checks for an altered state of mind before letting you email. It also notifies the cops.
Google has implemented a new feature on Gmail that checks for an altered state of mind before letting you email. It simply plays some early Pink Floyd, and if you’re getting into it, it shuts down. / It simply plays Khe San, and, if you start singing along, it shuts down.
You can set the tool up to operate at times when you feel you might be under the weather, and during those times you’ll have to solve five simple maths problems in a minute for the email to send. So now there’s no excuse, if you send offensive or abusive emails you’re obviously just a prick.
Of course, it’s really just a test as to how quickly you can use a calculator.
Only problem is, if you get the 5 questions right you feel so arrogant that you fire off an even more aggressive email.
Of course having to solve five maths problems might make you even more pissed off.
You have to solve the maths problems after you’ve clicked send. So if you get one wrong you end up more pissed off than ever.
So now if you want to send an angry, pissed email, make sure you drink in the mornings.
Not only does the filter ask you several maths questions before you can send your email, but it asks you – how will you feel in the morning?
The filter has been a godsend for all demographics, except foul-mouthed mathematicians. / except alcoholic and socially-inept mathematicians… Are there any other kind?
Another version is more proactive, automatically changing your email as you type it. Instead of “you’re so hot” it will send “you’re very presentable”, instead of “you really turn me on” it will send “you really are excellent company”, and instead of “I wanna bang you all night long”, it sends “I’ve had a little too much to drink”. / “why don’t we catch up some time and discuss global politics”. / “I wouldn’t mind catching up again some time in the future”. / “I wanna bang Bill Gates all night long”. / “I love Bill Gates”.
It automatically turns that drunken email to your ex saying you should get back together, into a message that wishes they would just fuck off and die. / just drop dead.
Unfortunately, the program can’t stop you sleeping with a total troll. But it can scan you for viruses.
Finally, email will once again be the sole province of the mathematically competent!
Ah, takes me back to the early nineties, when the only people who could use email were engineering students. / maths geeks.
Because nothing takes the spontaneity out of a love letter quicker than being forced to solve equations. / than maths. / than algebra.
Unfortunately the system can’t stop you coming home after a big night and throwing your computer out the window.
Unfortunately the system can’t stop you coming home after a big night and throwing your computer out the window. It will, however, ask you a series of maths questions to try to dissuade you. / as you carry it to its doom. / as it plummets to the ground below.
They’ve also got an alternative system which, for those times when you’re too smashed to even use the computer, will compose and send a drunken rant for you.
The email filter will also stop you sending off a lovelorn email that you’ll later regret. Far better to not send that drunk email to your unrequited love – internalise it, that way you can still pretend she likes you.
The tool is called Mail Goggles, as Google Goggles was already the name of a monster in Dr Seuss.
Gmail engineer Jon Perlow said that the new feature would prevent incidents “like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her, or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together.” Whoops, sounds like Google’s employed a nerd.
Gmail engineer Jon Perlow said the tool would prevent incidents like embarrassing late-night messages he’d sent to a crush and an ex-girlfriend. Next, he’s working on a tool that stops him sounding like a dork. / working on a filter that makes people think he’s cool. / working on a piece of software that will stop him looking like such a nerd.
And that’s right, Jon, she only knocked you back because you were drunk. You keep telling yourself that.
Unfortunately, the same filter makes you answer 5 maths questions before being able to watch internet porn, which means, by the time I’m finally logged into teenage_dwarfs.com, I’m utterly flaccid.
They’re now working on a device that prevents you having drunken sex with people you might later regret. If it senses you’re about to engage in sexual intercourse, it asks you series of maths questions, before being flung across the room. / before being tossed into the bin. / before being crushed by your heaving sweaty bodies.
They’re currently working on a portable version that you can keep in your pocket with you when you’re down the pub. Not only will it beep to censor your drunken speech, but it comes with an attachment that, if you cross the line, automatically slaps you in the face. / automatically knees you in the gonads. / automatically throws your drink in your face.
They’re also working on a firewall for your groin.
If this kinda thing keeps up, you’re going to need a password to access your own groin.
It makes sense that Google would design something like this. After all, it stops you looking like a Yahoo.
