Comment On Leaning Towards 'A'

The problem with this is that it usually *IS* the programmer's fault.

dextron:

The problem with this is that it usually *IS* the programmer's fault.

Well, since the error message didn't actually say which one was 'A'...

Some dev skrewed up royally by writing a message like that. Letting users have even a slightest hint you might be wrong somewhere should be unthinkable for every self-respecting developer :)
PS Wow, someone else but me still plays "Space Rangers 2", Do you have collectors edition? :)

I think I'll panic about the unknown bug anyway.

The system needs to reboot. Press 'OK' to reboot now, 'Cancel' to reboot later.

[OK] [OK]

dkf:

I think I'll panic about the unknown bug anyway.

I'm kinda surprised to see a code date in that one. I'd much rather see a line number so the manager knows who to yell at.

"Unbelievable. You, [subject name here] must be the pride of [subject hometown name here]."

I've seen a good one similar to the news screen one. A big screen on the side of an estate agents that usually displayed a slideshow of different properties, instead had an MSN messenger conversation running on it. Methinks someone forgot to turn the screen off...

Pyro:

Some dev skrewed up royally by writing a message like that. Letting users have even a slightest hint you might be wrong somewhere should be unthinkable for every self-respecting developer :)
PS Wow, someone else but me still plays "Space Rangers 2", Do you have collectors edition? :)

How is that, by the way? I got Space Rangers 1, and it was pretty fun, but kind of maddening in the "no matter what you do, you're getting screwed so hard" way. Even when things worked out really well, and I had a great ship, I managed to kill myself (from greed) in a warp point. I heard that the RTS part (which was the big selling point) wasn't all that great, either.

Claxon:

I've seen a good one similar to the news screen one. A big screen on the side of an estate agents that usually displayed a slideshow of different properties, instead had an MSN messenger conversation running on it. Methinks someone forgot to turn the screen off...

That's quite funny. Probably interesting also...

Two comments:

1: The lousy error message is a good reason to lean towards "A. The developer for this screwed up royally."

2: Another possibility is Both Of The Above: A bug or a horrible UI design prevented the user from entering the data properly. This is of course a subcategory of A.

As a developer (10+ years) I'm totally leaning towards 'B' too!

Got it right here. ;)

Pyro:

Some dev skrewed up royally by writing a message like that. Letting users have even a slightest hint you might be wrong somewhere should be unthinkable for every self-respecting developer :)
PS Wow, someone else but me still plays "Space Rangers 2", Do you have collectors edition? :)

Pyro:

PS Wow, someone else but me still plays "Space Rangers 2"

I do too! It's a wonderful game. :D (if only for it's embarrassingly hilarious intro XD)

Wish I could put the first one on all my error messages.

Last one reminds me of Portal. Maybe GLaDOS got a job at the Holiday Inn after the Aperture Science Lab incident?

The best part about the Holiday Inn Express letter is that I pointed this error to them three times over the course of four months last year, it continued occurring.

Given the number of issues we've had at that hotel, I can't say I'm shocked. Unfortunately, location, location, location.

FWIW, that screen with the windows message is pretty damn big.
Having been there...
It's 25 m2 (or 75 square feet, as it's 15x15 ft)

[[funny_smileys]]

captcha: [[current_captcha]]

i worked in a small web agency in the mid-90's (who didn't?) that had a lot of staff turnover. One long-departed programmer had a penchant for clever names for database user accounts...

One day, our hosting partner's db server was down. The programming staff were greeted by an unhappy boss informing us that a client had called, a little upset at seeing - instead of the usual home page for his business - a message saying "user 'dumbass' couldn't connect to database."

I like how the ReportManager error message gives you no ideas or clues as to which piece of data you may have entered incorrectly. While there is a very good likelihood that the user entered something invalid, the WTF lies on the developer for not checking and providing useful feedback.

of course the context sensitive ads are bringing up resort ads for this page

Of course, the REAL WTF is [[incorrect_real_wtf]].

A few years ago I was at a certain station (also in The Netherlands btw). They have there a nice screen which shows the departures of trains.
However a that time I could see it was running Windows NT 4, because it showed a nice BSOD...

Claxon:

I've seen a good one similar to the news screen one. A big screen on the side of an estate agents that usually displayed a slideshow of different properties, instead had an MSN messenger conversation running on it. Methinks someone forgot to turn the screen off...

Was he cybering?

My last "big screen blowup" was a Windows 2000 logon screen I spotted on the side of a building (yay unexpected reboot!) It's sad to realize that people use Windows for these things because Windows developers are a dime a dozen, not because Windows is a particularly lean, cheap and stable operating system for these purposes. Cobbling together an application for showing pretty graphics on a big screen is trivial in Windows, so people go with that. Most of the time nobody cares about the reliability of these things anyway.

That said, ATM machines showing Windows are the scariest...

KoosG:

FWIW, that screen with the windows message is pretty damn big.
Having been there...
It's 25 m2 (or 75 square feet, as it's 15x15 ft)

You might want to review your math, friend. If it's 15 feet by 15 feet, it's 225 square feet; if it's 25 square meters, it's around 270 square feet.

It's a VB app, by the developer's own admission. 'B' seems like a foregone conclusion.

Matti B:

"Unbelievable. You, [subject name here] must be the pride of [subject hometown name here]."

Portal!

David noticed some interesting news on the big-screen at the Utrecht Central Station in the Netherlands.

Ok. My name is David, I live in Utrecht, Netherlands. I saw this error last month (dec 27 to be precise) and I believe I've photographed it to send it in for the daily WTF. But I don't remember submitting it. Either this is the strangest co"incidence ever, either I was sleep-walking while doing it or... wait... no! stop reading my mind and hacking my computer!!!

/me never forgets anything, so that can't be the explanation.

rd:

As a software user, I tend to lean toward 'B'.

Too right, that is seriously unprofessional. They also clearly don't carry out code reviews...

rd:

As a software user, I tend to lean toward 'B'.

The really classy interface designer would have had a button to that effect.

JM:

[...] Most of the time nobody cares about the reliability of these things anyway.

That said, ATM machines showing Windows are the scariest...

Yeah, the ones made by the same major company that makes electronic voting machines!

noSelf:

i worked in a small web agency in the mid-90's (who didn't?) that had a lot of staff turnover. One long-departed programmer had a penchant for clever names for database user accounts...

One day, our hosting partner's db server was down. The programming staff were greeted by an unhappy boss informing us that a client had called, a little upset at seeing - instead of the usual home page for his business - a message saying "user 'dumbass' couldn't connect to database."

I've been known to do similarly bad stuff. I once set up someone elses computer and gave him the username "retard", because I was fairly certain he didn't know what that word means. (He doesn't speak english.) (I also set the computer to auto-login without a pw, so he wasn't exposed to it too much.)

KoosG:

FWIW, that screen with the windows message is pretty damn big.
Having been there...
It's 25 m2 (or 75 square feet, as it's 15x15 ft)

Not much on arithmetic huh?

1 square meter is roughly 3ft x 3ft = 9 sq feet.

25 square meters = 25 x 9 = roughly 225 sq feet. Which is, oddly enough, the same as 15 x 15.

-NotAn

rd:

As a software user, I tend to lean toward 'B'.

As a software developer, I'm leaning towards both!

Well, ... did Ryan have his towel with him?

dtech:

David noticed some interesting news on the big-screen at the Utrecht Central Station in the Netherlands.

Ok. My name is David, I live in Utrecht, Netherlands. I saw this error last month (dec 27 to be precise) and I believe I've photographed it to send it in for the daily WTF. But I don't remember submitting it. Either this is the strangest co"incidence ever, either I was sleep-walking while doing it or... wait... no! stop reading my mind and hacking my computer!!!

/me never forgets anything, so that can't be the explanation.

Maybe you were drunk?

Claxon:

I've seen a good one similar to the news screen one. A big screen on the side of an estate agents that usually displayed a slideshow of different properties, instead had an MSN messenger conversation running on it. Methinks someone forgot to turn the screen off...

Awesome. I'd have noted the user name and got into an amusing conversation with them.

NotAnEnglishMajor:

KoosG:

FWIW, that screen with the windows message is pretty damn big.
Having been there...
It's 25 m2 (or 75 square feet, as it's 15x15 ft)

Not much on arithmetic huh?

1 square meter is roughly 3ft x 3ft = 9 sq feet.

25 square meters = 25 x 9 = roughly 225 sq feet. Which is, oddly enough, the same as 15 x 15.

-NotAn

Not much on rounding errors, are you?

1 square meter is almost exactly 3.28 ft x 3.28 ft = 10.7584 sq ft

10.7584 sq ft x 25 = 268.96 sq ft which, oddly enough, is no where near 225 ft.

Salty:

NotAnEnglishMajor:

KoosG:

FWIW, that screen with the windows message is pretty damn big.
Having been there...
It's 25 m2 (or 75 square feet, as it's 15x15 ft)

Not much on arithmetic huh?

1 square meter is roughly 3ft x 3ft = 9 sq feet.

25 square meters = 25 x 9 = roughly 225 sq feet. Which is, oddly enough, the same as 15 x 15.

-NotAn

Not much on rounding errors, are you?

1 square meter is almost exactly 3.28 ft x 3.28 ft = 10.7584 sq ft

10.7584 sq ft x 25 = 268.96 sq ft which, oddly enough, is no where near 225 ft.

I suppose not. But I did say "roughly". :-)

-NotAn

GLaDOS:

<Subject name here> has made <Subject Hometown here> very proud.

NotAnEnglishMajor:

KoosG:

FWIW, that screen with the windows message is pretty damn big.
Having been there...
It's 25 m2 (or 75 square feet, as it's 15x15 ft)

Not much on arithmetic huh?

1 square meter is roughly 3ft x 3ft = 9 sq feet.

25 square meters = 25 x 9 = roughly 225 sq feet. Which is, oddly enough, the same as 15 x 15.

-NotAn

1 meter = approx 39 inches = 3.25 ft.

25 square meters = 5 meters x 5 meters = 16.25 ft x 16.25 ft = 264 square feet, which oddly enough, is not really close to 225 square feet.

iMalc:

rd:

As a software user, I tend to lean toward 'B'.

As a software developer, I'm leaning towards both!

And as a software company owner, I don't give a fuck, I've got my money anyway!

Anon:

NotAnEnglishMajor:

KoosG:

FWIW, that screen with the windows message is pretty damn big.
Having been there...
It's 25 m2 (or 75 square feet, as it's 15x15 ft)

Not much on arithmetic huh?

1 square meter is roughly 3ft x 3ft = 9 sq feet.

25 square meters = 25 x 9 = roughly 225 sq feet. Which is, oddly enough, the same as 15 x 15.

-NotAn

1 meter = approx 39 inches = 3.25 ft.

25 square meters = 5 meters x 5 meters = 16.25 ft x 16.25 ft = 264 square feet, which oddly enough, is not really close to 225 square feet.

Or you could all just use the metric system. Its so much easier.


1m = 100cm

not like

1ft = 12"

Means that you can deal on a base of 10.

I wonder what that VB error would look like if it was in Holiday Inn's system...


[[State the obvious]]. [[Information the user can't possibly use]].

[[Irrelevant button option]] [[Equally irrelevant button option]]

rd:

As a software user, I tend to lean toward 'B'.

As a software developer, I can guarantee 'B'.

Caption used in the Space Rangers error message is great!

dtech:

Matti B:

"Unbelievable. You, [subject name here] must be the pride of [subject hometown name here]."

Portal!

David noticed some interesting news on the big-screen at the Utrecht Central Station in the Netherlands.

Ok. My name is David, I live in Utrecht, Netherlands. I saw this error last month (dec 27 to be precise) and I believe I've photographed it to send it in for the daily WTF. But I don't remember submitting it. Either this is the strangest co"incidence ever, either I was sleep-walking while doing it or... wait... no! stop reading my mind and hacking my computer!!!

/me never forgets anything, so that can't be the explanation.

I'm leaning toward 'A'