Please define “other”

Posted on June 2, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I understand the need for the first “Other” option.
But not the second.

No wonder they need people to specify.

About Cath@VWXYNot?

"one of the sillier science bloggers [...] I thought I should give a warning to the more staid members of the community." - Bob O'Hara, December 2010
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26 Responses to Please define “other”

  1. Richard P. Grant says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:27 pm

    I would seriously like to see some of the ‘other’ responses.

  2. Cath Ennis says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:31 pm

    I almost ticked that option and put “what do you expect people to say here?” in the box, but there’s an excellent and valuable prize at stake 😉

  3. Eva Amsen says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:31 pm

    And they even have non-overlapping age groups! I’ve had to fill out forms where it went “25-30” and then “30-35”.

  4. Cath Ennis says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:33 pm

    Ha! That’s excellent. I’d tick the younger age group every time.

  5. Richard P. Grant says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:36 pm

    I guess you could type something like 0x28. Or in Cath’s case, 0x19.

  6. Bob O'Hara says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:36 pm

    Isn’t “Other” for the “have been 23 for N years” age group? You’ll be a member in a few years, Cath.

  7. Eva Amsen says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:46 pm

    Or you could put you age in binary in the “other” box…
    (calculates)
    OMG, I’m 11111 !!!!!

  8. Cath Ennis says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    Bob, I’m horribly offended.
    Richard, I might be horribly offended, if I knew what the hell you were talking about!
    Anyway, as I’ve said before, I’m really only 25. Oh, sorry, that’s 2 5.

  9. Jennifer Rohn says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:49 pm

    The square root of 40-something.

  10. Cath Ennis says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:49 pm

    LOL@Eva
    Maybe the box is for immortals.

  11. Cath Ennis says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    gah you guys are too fast for me.
    age divided by zero?

  12. Cath Ennis says:
    June 2, 2009 at 7:52 pm
  13. Richard P. Grant says:
    June 2, 2009 at 8:12 pm

    Hex, Cath. Get with the cool kids.

  14. Cath Ennis says:
    June 2, 2009 at 8:20 pm

    I still don’t get it… this site tells me that 0x28 = (, while 0x19 = EM.
    I still don’t know if I am insulted or not, please help 😉

  15. Richard P. Grant says:
    June 2, 2009 at 8:52 pm

    You’re not insulted. They’re numbers, not character codes.

  16. Cath Ennis says:
    June 2, 2009 at 9:22 pm

    I’ll take your word for it 😉

  17. Mike Fowler says:
    June 3, 2009 at 6:13 am

    You could go along Fermatian lines, and tell people you know how to prove your age, but there simply isn’t enough space here to show it.

  18. Matt Brown says:
    June 3, 2009 at 10:05 am

    The option is clearly to allow omnipotent, timeless beings to enter the competition. We mustn’t discriminate against gods and demiurges.

  19. steffi suhr says:
    June 3, 2009 at 11:23 am

    ‘Other’ response:
    “Dear Sir or Madam: I guess I should check ’60 or over’, but, being 99 years old and still going strong, I am horribly offended that you would differentiate between 20 and 60 in 10-year groups but lump me in with the 70-something kids.”

  20. Cath Ennis says:
    June 3, 2009 at 1:55 pm

    Do you guys want the URL so you can play?

  21. Richard P. Grant says:
    June 3, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    finally

  22. Cath Ennis says:
    June 3, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    Here ya go
    p.s. Steffi, I doubt there were many 99 year olds biking to work 😉

  23. Richard Wintle says:
    June 3, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    I thought the second “other” was for “noneofyourfreakinbusinesshowoldIam”, or a similar response.

  24. Cath Ennis says:
    June 3, 2009 at 6:21 pm

    If so, they should have just made it an optional question!

  25. Henry Gee says:
    June 4, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    My problem is that in the age-range question they don’t specify the units. Furlongs? Groats? Scovilles? Electronvolts? Nimbies? Magoolians? Brazillions? This is as dreadful as showing a picture of a specimen or geological section without a measurement stick.
    By the way, I now weigh 3937.499 ounces (troy).

  26. Cath Ennis says:
    June 4, 2009 at 8:58 pm

    Well, it’s a bicycle commuting survey, so they probably mean near-misses of the “another few inches and I’d have been in hospital if I was lucky” kind. I think I probably still ticked the right box if you include all my years (11) of bicycle commuting, rather than just the Vancouver years (7).

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