History SchmuckBait / RealLife

* A lot of [=CPUs=] these days have an instruction to disable interrupts, which is useful when you need the CPU to modify data without being interrupted by something else, which could potentially modify that data too. They also have an instruction to go to sleep until interrupted. You can see that running one, then the other, is can lead to the CPU locking up. Such instruction though likely won't execute on modern processors until interrupts are enabled again.

** The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant#Warning_messages_for_future_humans current plan]] is largely utilitarian, with a combination of straightforward basic warnings and more detailed factual information, with the priority being to ensure the nature of the danger is conveyed accurately (something that many of the more fanciful proposals seem to forget).

* Spoilers. In particular, browsing wikis (including Wiki/ThisVeryWiki) and discussions on a work you're going through or plan to go through. You might be tempted to learn a little bit more about, say, a character you like, and if it's this wiki you may be curious about tropes that apply to them, but then oops! Turns out they undergo a HeelFaceTurn, they die, or [[WalkingSpoiler everything about the character is a spoiler]]. Yes, there may be spoiler warnings, but surely browsing the first few tropes examples won't hurt...[[TemptingFate right?]]

* Spoilers. In particular, browsing wikis (including Wiki/ThisVeryWiki) and discussions on a work you're going through or plan to go through. You might be tempted to learn a little bit more about, say, a character you like, and if it's this wiki you may be curious about tropes that apply to them, but then oops! Turns out they undergo a HeelFaceTurn, they die, or [[WalkingSpoiler everything about the character is a spoiler]].

* The Voltage Switch on the back of computer [=PSUs=]. Flicking it causes a loud bang, a lot of smoke, and a broken PSU.

*** This message has the tendency to appear when a distro switch out one important package for an alternative (say, dumping [=SysV initscripts=] for [=SystemD=]) during a major distro upgrade under certain conditions. However, in this case, the admin doing the upgrade most likely is already prepared for this and knows what s/he is doing.

** A more recent attempt in 2012 by Steve Cohen led to him being hospitalized for bruising due to a piece of glass that the bullet was shot through. He's not only lucky to have [[CompletelyMissingThePoint caught the bullet]]; he's lucky to have survived the trick at all!

** What happened instead was, [[InsultBackfire some youtubers posting to get blocked on purpose]], [[BileFascination just so they can say Hideki Kamiya blocked them]].

* An unintentional example comes in the form of the cartridges for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch. Since the cartridges are about the size of a US quarter, Nintendo had them coated with a bitter-tasting non-toxic additive (denatonium benzoate, to be exact) during the manufacturing process to discourage small children from trying to eat them. Naturally, a trend arose during the system's launch period in which an overwhelming number of ''grown adults'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjQefYbFFYo started licking the cartridges to see if it really was as bitter as others claimed]].

** Unfortunately, doing this on some machines with the new UEFI firmware '''can permanently brick the machine'''. As for some unknown reason, the Linux kernel exposes the entire settings NVRAM and firmware EEPROM as ''erasable'' folders on the machine. Running ''rm -rf /'' with the right privileges will also zero the firmware EEPROM chip and settings NVRAM, rendering the entire system a very expensive paperweight, unless the motherboard has a dual-bios feature to fall-back on and/or ASIC-level firmware recovery like Asus' and Asrock's BIOS FlashBack or Gigabyte's Q-Flash plus, which lets you re-flash the firmware while the machine is in an unbootable state.

** Unfortunately, doing this on some machines with the new UEFI firmware '''can permanently brick the machine'''. As for some unknown reason, the Linux kernel exposes the entire settings NVRAM and firmware EEPROM as ''erasable'' folders on the machine. Running ''rm -rf /'' with the right privileges will also zero the firmware EEPROM chip and settings NVRAM, rendering the entire system a very expensive paperweight, unless the motherboard has a dual-bios feature to fall-back on and/or ASIC-level firmware recovery like Asus' and Asrock's BIOS FlashBack or Gigabyte's Q-Flash plus.

** Unfortunately, doing this on some machines with the new UEFI firmware '''can permanently brick the machine'''. As for some unknown reason, the Linux kernel exposes the entire settings NVRAM and firmware EEPROM as ''erasable'' folders on the machine. Running ''rm -rf /'' with the right privileges will also zero the firmware EEPROM chip and settings NVRAM, rendering the entire system a very expensive paperweight, unless the motherboard has a dual-bios feature to fall-back on and/or ASIC-level firmware recovery like Asus' and Asrock's BIOS flashback or Gigabyte Q-Flash plus.

*** Unfortunately, doing this on some machines with the new UEFI firmware '''can permanently brick the machine'''. As for some unknown reason, the Linux kernel exposes the entire settings NVRAM and firmware EEPROM as ''erasable'' folders on the machine. Running ''rm -rf /'' with the right privileges will also zero the firmware EEPROM chip and settings NVRAM, '''permanently bricking the machine''' unless the motherboard has a dual-bios feature to fall-back on and/or ASIC-level firmware recovery like Asus' and Asrock's BIOS flashback or Gigabyte Q-Flash plus.

** A much more harmless prank tech savvy people use on the non savvy is telling them to press ALT + F4 to fix a slow or troublesome program. Pressing both keys at the same time just closes the program.[[note]]Closing the program and restarting it is often actually a pretty good idea if it's being ''very'' slow or freezing up (many applications, especially poorly-written ones, contain [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak memory leaks]] which cause them to tie up more and more RAM the longer they're run; this process as a whole is termed [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_aging software aging]]), but this is generally better done through a task manager. Also note that in many cases, only a complete restart of the computer will actually free the RAM again; simply closing the program may help, but likely won't.[[/note]]

* [[http://wearscience.com/design/button/ This shirt]] neatly summarizes the phenomenon.

* An unintentional example comes in the form of the cartridges for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch. Since the cartridges are about the size of a US quarter, Nintendo had them coated with a bitter-tasting non-toxic additive (denatonium benzoate, to be exact) during the manufacturing process to discourage small children from trying to eat them. Naturally, a trend arose in which an overwhelming number of ''grown adults'' started licking the cartridges to see if it really was as bitter as others claimed.

*** Another proposed option which would make any warning stand out like a sore thumb to all other "pharoah's curse" warnings: End the warning with [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone an apology and/or plea for forgiveness]], which any "don't you dare take my gold!" warning would intentionally omit.

** Also, people who tell Windows users to delete "[=System32=]" because it'll greatly improve performance. Windows usually prevents you from doing this however. If you're on an "Administrator" account, you can access the [=System32=] files just fine, but only after seeing a message saying something like "These files are hidden, and are required for proper operation of your computer." You can "okay" the message, but it doesn't actually ''stop'' you...

* An unintentional example comes in the form of the cartridges for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch. Since the cartridges are about the size of a US quarter, Nintendo had them coated with a bitter-tasting non-toxic additive (denatonium benzoate, to be exact) during the manufacturing process to prevent small children from trying to eat them. Naturally, a trend arose in which an overwhelming number of ''grown adults'' started licking the cartridges to see if it really was as bitter as others claimed.

* In July 2018, Creator/HidekiKamiya imposed [[https://twitter.com/PG_kamiya/status/1016496741074399232 an embargo on any replies to him in non-Japanese languages]], including English. He states that this is because he's fed up with people who just reply to his posts without reading them or [[OpenMouthInsertFoot thinking before posting]], and he knows that there are people who are going to attempt to talk to him in English anyway and finds those people amusing to see (and block). In short, his Japanese-only rule serves as an filter for both [[FunnyForeigner idiot foreigners]] and excessively curious people.
-->"I'll keep stating that I block foreign language posts(of course including English) for a while. That lures lots of insects to block. Very funny to see."

* This Place is '''Not''' a Place of Honor: The U.S. Department of Energy is designing monuments that warn future visitors--including ones living tens of thousands of years in the future when the authority of the U.S. government is a distant memory and all current human languages are no longer understood--away from nuclear waste disposal sites such as Yucca Mountain and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The ideas they've come up with are [[http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=160 fascinating]]--but not one of them has managed to avert the site being Schmuck Bait of the highest caliber. To their credit, they're well aware that anything they design is potential Schmuck Bait, and they're actively working to minimize the bait factor.

*** Another proposed option which would make any warning stand out like a sore thumb to all other "pharoah's curse" warnings: End the warning with an apology and/or plea for forgiveness, which any "don't you dare take my gold!" warning would intentionally omit.