Eh?
I'm having trouble seeing the IT angle in this story - unless 'the sum of six and 15' is it.
An Indian bride left her wedding ceremony after her gormless fiance failed to answer a simple maths question, it's being reported. Local police were called in to mediate the returning of gifts, including jewellery, which had been exchanged dowry-fashion between the families before the wedding. During the ceremony in Rasulabad …
>India, a country that produces many very very bright mathematicians, physicists and coders, and hosts famed technical technical colleges... and this gentleman restores the balance.
Nah, the groom appears to be Texan ... and has certainly applied for a job at the patent office, maybe ?
A single individual's mathematical ability is hardly ive of the country as a whole. If that was the case we'd be screwed, our prime minister and education secertary both decline to try and answer questions that are only ever so slightly harder.
Not that I'm keen on outsourcing to india but the issues are not to do with the employees abilities, or if they are that's a mangement issue employing the wrong people.
"... our prime minister and education secertary both decline to try and answer questions that are only ever so slightly harder.
Not that I'm keen on outsourcing to india but the issues are not to do with the employees abilities, or if they are that's a mangement issue employing the wrong people."
Outsourcing the Prime Minister might not be such a bad idea. He doesn't speak common Joe's language, doesn't understand the world we live in, won't show for TV debates (a concept he strongly pushed forward for the last general election), and hasn't achieved anything useful in 5 years.
How much more harm could be done by outsourcing him, really? Think about the savings for the tax payer, if we do that with a number of ministers and MPs! Most of the time they don't show up in Parliament either, so can as well set up a conference call instead!
"He's already been outsourced! He's a bloody Scot, and so where the previous two! I say give Scotland their independence, make them take Cameron and Brown and Blair, and put up a fence so that no-one, and especially those three, can come south ever again!"
I didn't realise UKIP supporters read the IT press. How are you getting on with all the big words?
She's cute enough, to my eye at least.
If we are going to run this allegory into the dirt, Pennywise would certainly represent the eeevil of short-sighted manglement, er, management ("The Mangler" was another Stephen King story) that insist on going cheap cheap cheap and then wondering why the whole network seems possessed. IIRC only silver (a decent budget) could stop the beast that was Pennywise's alter ego. (Caveat: I read the book many many snows ago, and the made-for-teevee movie was entirely disappointing.)
@ skeptical i
That's the old knock on adaptations of Stephen King stories, that they are great on paper, but disappointing in other media. I think that "The Dead Zone" was pretty good, and the Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption (and those last two were definitely not horror stories) were great, but other than that it is hard to think of a Stephen King film/TV series that was really good.
When the news items said "maths" I was expecting a question somewhat more advanced than elementary arithmetic.
Last week I was fixing a download problem for a friend. I did a quick mental guesstimate that its projected completion time in about an hour meant it was using the broadband connection to near enough full capacity. She thought that was mental magic. Rather surprised I reminded her that it was basically the old school arithmetic problem of "how long to fill a bath".
Rather surprised I reminded her that it was basically the old school arithmetic problem of "how long to fill a bath".
In this day and age half the people would then ask you what a bath was, as they only have showers...
Or if they're being smart, they ask if it's quicker to fill it from the top-down or the bottom-up ;)
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I wonder why every article covering this – including the original AP article – ends with a comment about arranged marriages in India?
Was this an arranged marriage?
My colleagues in India tell me that these days "love marriages" have grown quite common and arranged marriages are less and less common.
>>"Was this an arranged marriage? My colleagues in India tell me that these days "love marriages" have grown quite common and arranged marriages are less and less common."
Given that she probably would have worked out he was an idiot long before this if they were dating, I'm thinking "Arranged Marriage" is a pretty safe bet in this case.
Priest - Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?
Groom - I do.
Priest - What is the sum of 6 and 15?
Groom - Wha? Errr...21.
Priest - Do you vow to be her faithful husband from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health?
Groom - I do.
Priest - What lightsaber crystals did Mace Windu use in his famous purple lightsaber?
Groom - Huh?
Priest - Every seventh year of their adult life, Vulcan males experience a need to return to their home planet to mate. What is this event known as?
Groom - Erm....
According to BBC: "The bride asked the groom to add 15 and six. When he replied 17, she called off the marriage ... saying the man was illiterate."
"No, dear. I'm innumerate. You're illiterate. We'll be fine."
And they left the ceremony to the strains of Sam Cooke: "Don't know much about ..."
That's what I thought when I first heard this story. For someone slagging the guy off for being (admittedly quite obviously) as thick as ****, it seemed ironic that she didn't know the difference between "illiterate" and "innumerate"...
Then again, it's quite possible- if not probable- that this is something that was lost or mangled in translation from the original language, so I probably wouldn't make too much of it.
...that she was unable to determine this personal flaw prior to the wedding. We definitely do NOT want to see these people breed.
I know that I have spoken to this man and many of his friends via "tech support" from India over the years. There is nothing more exasperating than trying to explain basic PC ops to folks who don't speak audible English language or have a clue about PC hardware.
The report on the BBC World Service was that the marriage had been arranged without the bride or groom meeting. The bride consented after being assured by her and his parents that the groom was educated. At the wedding she suspected this was not the truth and asked the sums question.
Also, on the subject of arranged marriages in modernising developing countries, there is an increasing incidence of couples who already know each other to ask their repective parents to arrange a marriage for them. So, it's an arranged marriage with a pre-vetted candidate.
And how many westerners can say they've never had an older relative say something like: that Susie you used to know at school has grown up well, why don't you get in touch with her...