RSSMail Goggles a lot of $(@)!# fun, but safety net has holes
By Angela Gunn | Published October 7, 2008, 4:18 PM
It's not April Fools Day, but if you're online at odd hours and perhaps a bit inebriated, Google's got a plan to keep you from making a fool of yourself.
Straight from the Gmail Labs (and, one might imagine, at least one in-house episode of tipsy oversharing), Google on Tuesday unveiled Mail Goggles, an e-mail option designed to keep you from doing online what a good wingman keeps you from doing if you're wearing beer goggles after too much fun at the club. (Technically, in that case, the function should be called Mail Wingman. Not that we'd know anything about that.)
The function can be set to operate at any time of day or night, though it defaults to Friday and Saturday nights. If the user tries to send an e-mail during the questionable time period, a pop-up will present an assortment of arithmetic problems and a timer. If the sender's too far in the bag to complete the math in the time provided, there'll be no more Gmailing until the cautionary period ends -- giving the would-be correspondent time to think it over in daylight, perhaps with aspirin handy.
In our preliminary tests, we noticed that (aside from finding even the level-5 math problems pretty simple, and that was without our calculator handy) Goggles makes one critically wrong assumption: Sobriety increases as the night progresses.
Once we solved the first set of problems during our scheduled lockdown time, Goggles didn't halt us at any point after. That's fine if you're someone who gets all the bile out of her or his system with the first message, or if that first message is sent before the evening gets really rolling, but it won't stop the sort of cranky drunk who works up a head of steam as the night goes on. Not that we'd know anything about that.
Users discussing the new function on Google Groups had a welter of suggestions for improvements, including a proposed "clawback" feature that would delay e-mail transmissions for a few seconds for those with a tendency to fat-finger responses to exactly the wrong recipients. Other commenters thought that history or non-arithmetic questions might be more effective, and one wag noted it might be easier to simply to put a straight line on-screen and require the e-mail user to 'walk' along it via mouse.
Mail Goggles can be activated in Gmail by going to the Labs function and selecting the option; the configuration is then tweakable in the standard settings menu. Beer goggles can be activated later in the day. Not that we'd know anything about that.
what sucks is i been there done that, thanks google, now if they can keep me off the road, and the phone :)
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|Wouldn't it have been simplier to simply store the emails in the outbox for, say, 24 hours? Then once you sober up (and wake up) you can go re-read them before they send.
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|Mommy Google. Please keep me safe.
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|Hahahahahahahahahaha.
I repeat:
Hahahahahahahaha.
That's a fantastic idea.
/may have done such stupid things before
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|See how excited he is? This *only* can come from England...
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|I really hope it did.
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|actually, the "walk the line" suggestion was pretty good, but I can't follow a line at the best of times. So, why not make it two lines that you have to stay between, and make a time limit?
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|The application was submitted froma user.(Jon P) Not Google. Do your g** d*** homework people
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|Do yours?
Jon Perlow is a Google Engineer, nitwit.
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|ROFL - pwned, COMPLETELY.
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|This will allow a disproportionate number of e-mails from drunken mathematicians. Who would want an alcoholic diatribe from your 8th grade algebra teacher?
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|Drunk mathematicians are one of the funniest sets of people to be around.
Fact.
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|This hilarious 'fact' was independently confirmed to me today before I even read this thread (making it additionally funny.) I was just talking to someone who said they wished they had studied Statistics in school because math majors were the most ridiculous drunks.
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|Google God trying to play cop again. These arrogrant devils really think they have the right to control behavior. It is George Bush's fault.
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|I think you need to have a sense of humor in place to analyze like this... As much as I'd like to blame everything on him, I think we really can't lay this one at his feet. I'm just happy Google still has some fun left in it.
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|Ummmm. Well. You see... Oh never mind.
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|Get a sense of humor.
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|Maybe he's trying to troll you...
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|Well, he sucks at it then.
Good trolling at least spawns some discussion, however irrelevant.
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|This must originate from the London office. Been wondering what those guys are up to.
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|Because Londoners are a bunch of drunks? Does Google have an office in Ireland, perhaps?
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|Heh. Most of the Irish actually live in England now anywho.
It just so happens that the ferocity of beer googles is higher in London.
/is in fact half way through a bottle of wine as he's typing this
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|Yeah I thought of you when typing the above although not quite sure which region of Old Blighty you molest ;-)
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|Well it would be Laaaahndan, but I'm stuck in Essex at the moment.
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|I thought the mail goggles are an hilarious idea (and the first article I read about it had a good point - where's the text goggles when you need them). I did not know that it didn't stop you for each email. That's a frightening thought for this weekend...
I think the best option should be to not send at all. During those inebriated hours set by the user, emails automatically get s***ed into a separate folder. The next day when the user logs on, he or she can be asked if they would like the emails sent.
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|Not that we'd know anything about that.
x3?
Methinks the author doth protest to much... o.O
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|*cough* Taking the Fifth here on the cranky-head-of-steam part, PC_Tool, taking the Fifth. (In truth, I'm all too familiar with the wingman job -- comes from hanging out with musicians and music critics. Someone had to act like a responsible creature, and like the man said, I thought it might be up to me.)
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|put that in jour pipe and shmoke it *hic*
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|This shouldn't be an "option" - it should be mandatory. Recently, spammers have abused discussion forums by creating a landslide of multiple user accounts. Upon review of these registrations, the e-mail addresses were Gmail (although I read hotmail has been similarly used). If Google makes this math filter an option where a spammer can disable it, it will force admins of discussion forums to not accept account registrations with Gmail addresses. If indeed hotmail was similarly misused by spammers, people with flock to Yahoo mail. Google should do whatever it takes to shut these spammers out.
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