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back to article Guardian pratfall swaps homepage for US insurance firm

The Guardian accidentally directed readers of its site to an American life insurance website this morning for about an hour - a mistake first spotted at about 10am. guardianlife website The US insurance site that surprised Graun readers were redirected to The URL slip-up affected the logo link at the top left of all …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Echo

    I knew the Grauniad's casual approach to spelling, punctuation, and grammar reminded me of something funny. Finally it came back to me:

    "And so you have thirteen tens,

    And you take away seven,

    And that leaves five...

    Well, six actually.

    But the idea is the important thing".

    - Tom Lehrer, "New Math"

    See the "common factor" here? Like the adherents of "New Math" whom Lehrer was sending up, Grauniad people believe "the idea is the important thing". It doesn't matter whether the details are right, if the sums add up, or whether it will actually work - just as long as your heart is in the right place. That's what a humanities education will do for you...

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    1. Anomalous Cowherd Silver badge
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      To be fair, these days I see more typos on the BBC website in a day than in a month of Grauniads. I think their subs were a lot worse before it moved to London.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Any chance we can stop with the whole "I have a BSc and am therefore vastly more intelligent in comparison to anyone with a puny BA" thing? It's pretty tired, not true and reeks of tribalism. There are plenty of intelligent people with BA's just as there are plenty of people with science degrees that are as thick as two short planks.

      With the UK's current university system everything has been dumbed down to such a level that there's little difference in the size and complexity of the workload for a science or arts bachelors. You might also want to consider whilst you mock those who studied an arts or humanities course that theirs is a sector of the UK economy that has seen large amounts of growth whilst tech sector wages continue to fall and science funding has been cut again and again. Maybe they weren't so dumb after all?

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      1. Anomalous Cowherd Silver badge
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        Pint

        Liberal Arts student huh?

        Of course there are lots of intelligent people with BA's, and I'd be happy to discuss this further once you've served me my drink.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          re: Liberal Arts student huh?

          Of course I was an arts student. It's pretty unlikely anyone who studied for a science degree (ie, most of the reg's readership) is going to argue with a post that implies people with science degrees are superior to everyone else.

          As a bit of background; I started a BSc in computer games programming before dropping out of uni in my second year due to family issues. I came back a couple of years later and did a BA in graphic design / illustration as it had become a lot more relevant to my interest by then.

          Having been an arts student makes my original point no less valid.

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        2. Vincent Ballard
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          FAIL

          BA doesn't necessarily mean what you think

          There are a substantial number of highly intelligent people with BAs in science subjects. Many of them also have MAs. Oxbridge isn't rushing to rename its degrees in line with those other upstarts.

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        3. Anonymous Coward 15
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          Joke

          I pity the foo'

          who gets a BA.

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      2. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        downvoted not because you're a LA grad,

        but because you have no sense of humor.

        -another Liberal Arts grad

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    3. AdamWill
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      yeah...

      ...after all, the Guardian Media Group has only been profitably in business since 1907. Fiddlesticks compared to all those other broadsheet newspaper media businesses that are doing so we- oh wait. Yes, obviously the Guardian is run by airy-fairy liberal arts types who can't do their sums.

      comments on the irony of the above are welcome, but it's still *true*.

      (this comment brought to you by someone with a humanities education who QAs software for a living.)

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  2. Mark 65

    So the typo added four letters and a different TLD that resolved to a real address? Fuckup, employee pissing about, hack etc? All possible. Typo? Not so likely.

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    1. Pete 2 Silver badge
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      At a guess

      some webby-edity-thingy had an autocomplete set, which said gopher (Q: does anyone still use that?) just accepted by default and didn't bother to check.

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    2. Steve Evans
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      @Mark 66

      Typo not so likely? You obviously don't read the Gradian very much! Half a dozen letters messed up is a normal service for them!

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  3. Jon Double Nice

    Guardian for Life

    They certainly must certainly win something for use of stock photography.

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  4. theBatman

    Also...

    Has anyone else noticed grauniad.co.uk redirects the The Guardian website but .com doesn't? They own both...

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  5. kain preacher

    Liquid lunch

    I'm wondering if the chap that made this typo drank his lunch. Even drunk co.uk does not look like .com to me.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ETAOIN SHRDLU

    ETAOIN SHRDLU

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  7. Old Handle
    WTF?

    wat?

    How does ".co.uk" turn into "life.com"? That's certainly an unusual typo. Was the page designed from an iPhone (with Auto Correct) or something?

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    The Guardian has decided....

    that since they can't beat the "banksters", they should join them! Tomorrow, they are publishing an interview with Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs that starts--"So Lloyd tell us what its like to be leading the world's most innovative financial company and how do you sell your latest tranche of mortgage-backed securites at such insanely low prices!!"

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  9. AdamWill

    This...

    ...from an organization whose front page was redirected to a Turkish hacker site last week?

    (yes, I know that 'wasn't your fault'. But hey, you choose who provides your DNS records.)

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