Microsoft has mastered the British art of extreme understatement. I downloaded their free antivirus prog, ran a scan, and came back later. The screen announced “Your PC is being scanned ... may take several minutes to complete, please wait. Time elapsed so far 4hrs 32min 51sec.”
Air Creebec was perhaps the first Native-owned airline in the world. It was founded in 1982 by Billy Diamond, by borrowing money from Native bands. It ran at a loss every year for FIFTEEN YEARS, and lost a total of $24 million! (It's now making a profit). THAT is extreme perseverance.
Manitobans apparently don't wash much? The government offers Form T4164 "Manitoba Odour-Control Tax Credit (Individuals)".
And Toronto has mastered extreme ManagementSpeak. Their “Chief Planner Round Table” recommends:
“1: EMBED RESILIENCY IN GROWTH.
A Resilient City will match infrastructure with growth and will contain embedded energy solutions, intelligent buildings, high-quality transit and dynamic mixed-use nodes. Resiliency will give us a livable city which will give us a competitive edge.”
I think they're talking about bus-stops ... what's your guess?
Some recipes are extreme, too. One woman wrote: “I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and think, well that's not going to happen!”
I met someone with a Body Mass Index of 60. (Healthy range is 20-25).
Sleeping pills are extremely potent. If you are given them in hospital, you may well take them forever. You are then 200% more likely to fall over, 500% more likely to make silly mistakes, and 500% more likely to have a car accident. Yet researchers find you actually get only a few MINUTES extra sleep per night (CMAJ, November 2013).
Money is extremely subversive. Volunteers were given 2 sheets of puzzles to do. On sheet 2 they could claim small rewards for how many solved. They marked their own work, so they could cheat. If the sheet 1 was about money, they cheated more on sheet 2. But if the first sheet was about time management, they cheated less! And if the first set had been about lawyers ...? (Psychological Science, 2013)
And someone has come up with the extreme motto for Toronto's politicians: “It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame.”
Tony
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