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The systray one just looks like a program that kept crashing and respawning itself. Since (on XP at least, which is not what the screenshot shows, but meh) the program crashes, it doesn't notify the system to remove the icon. Next time it starts, it displays a new icon. The system doesn't notice the dead icon until you hover it with the mouse. Repeat the crash->respawn pattern 334 times to get 335 icons. (Of course, it is a WTF that the system doesn't notice that it still has an icon for a program that it just killed. Also, it is a WTF that you're still using a program that crashes so frequently.)

It's been awhile since I took calculus, but I can't remember any problems that the answer was a single integer.

TRWTF is why DirectVobSub never terminates its tray icons when it's done. All those arrows probably came from a mix of that and all the videos in a directory getting thumbnailed.

How about what is the intergral of x from 0 to 1?

frits:

It's been awhile since I took calculus, but I can't remember any problems that the answer was a single integer.

Really? Like what's the area under y=2*x^2 from x=1 to x=4?

I saw that Iceland Air wtf back in February of this year when I visited. I took a picture and thought about sending it in, but I'm too lazy.

"I mean, it's freaking 42 of all numbers - how could it NOT be correct??."

That depends. Anyway, can you tell what the actual question to this answer was?

Ben:

frits:

It's been awhile since I took calculus, but I can't remember any problems that the answer was a single integer.

Really? Like what's the area under y=2*x^2 from x=1 to x=4?

In my day, we had to show our work, which was part of the answer. I guess lazy teachers who give online assignments may not require it.

I was going to write a witty comment here but got no response from my Brain.

shimon:

"I mean, it's freaking 42 of all numbers - how could it NOT be correct??."

That depends. Anyway, can you tell what the actual question to this answer was?

What do you get if you multiply 6 by 9.

You say brain like it's a bad thing. First thing I do when I get on a new project is create a brain class. It's revolutionary in the fact that it will replace all need for clients themselves.

On the survey one, I don't get how the answer can be anything but, "Disagree".

It's not a particularly interesting survey, but there you are.

Is it zen-like maybe?

Cbuttius:

shimon:

"I mean, it's freaking 42 of all numbers - how could it NOT be correct??."

That depends. Anyway, can you tell what the actual question to this answer was?

What do you get if you multiply 6 by 9.

How many paths can a man go down?

I think you guys have the wrong Brain. You're thinking of Pinky and "THE Brain". The error clearly states that it's simply "Brain", not "The Brain".

Therefore, the bank server is clearly trying to contact the dog from Inspector Gadget.

Math Time:

How about what is the intergral of x from 0 to 1?

It is infinate since you did not specify a lower bounding condition at y=0, therefore all of the area down to minus infinity should be included.

shimon:

"I mean, it's freaking 42 of all numbers - how could it NOT be correct??."

That depends. Anyway, can you tell what the actual question to this answer was?

No. Absolutely not. The question and the answer are mutually exclusive.

Knowing both will cause very bad things to happen.

Brain and Brain, what is Brain?

What is this, 1999?

frits:

What is this, 1999?

You are an idiot and should be banned from your mommy and daddy’s modem.

whiskeyjack:

I think you guys have the wrong Brain. You're thinking of Pinky and "THE Brain". The error clearly states that it's simply "Brain", not "The Brain".

Therefore, the bank server is clearly trying to contact the dog from Inspector Gadget.

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe the bank server is really Penny.

Heh... a bank server named Penny. Now THAT'S funny! Darth and Bert trolls, take note.

TarquinWJ:

... Repeat the crash->respawn pattern 334 times to get 335 icons...

WTF? You counted the icons?

-Harrow.

Ford Prefect:

Cbuttius:

shimon:

"I mean, it's freaking 42 of all numbers - how could it NOT be correct??."

That depends. Anyway, can you tell what the actual question to this answer was?

What do you get if you multiply 6 by 9.

How many paths can a man go down?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

JamesQMurphy:

whiskeyjack:

I think you guys have the wrong Brain. You're thinking of Pinky and "THE Brain". The error clearly states that it's simply "Brain", not "The Brain".

Therefore, the bank server is clearly trying to contact the dog from Inspector Gadget.

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe the bank server is really Penny.

Heh... a bank server named Penny. Now THAT'S funny! Darth and Bert trolls, take note.

(knock, knock, knock) Penny?

(knock, knock, knock) Penny?

(knock, knock, knock) Penny?

Harrow:

TarquinWJ:

... Repeat the crash->respawn pattern 334 times to get 335 icons...

WTF? You counted the icons?

I'm pretty sure it was a simple calculus equation, and he didn't have to count them all. (It's not like Albert Hall, or anything.)

Question #1 of 1

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TheCPUWizard:

Math Time:

How about what is the intergral of x from 0 to 1?

It is infinate since you did not specify a lower bounding condition at y=0, therefore all of the area down to minus infinity should be included.

That's all negative area, though. So the answer should be -∞.

Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?

The memes...they've stopped...

Stabilize your rear deflector screens.

Ken B.:

JamesQMurphy:

whiskeyjack:

I think you guys have the wrong Brain. You're thinking of Pinky and "THE Brain". The error clearly states that it's simply "Brain", not "The Brain".

Therefore, the bank server is clearly trying to contact the dog from Inspector Gadget.

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe the bank server is really Penny.

Heh... a bank server named Penny. Now THAT'S funny! Darth and Bert trolls, take note.

(knock, knock, knock) Penny?

(knock, knock, knock) Penny?

(knock, knock, knock) Penny?

Hello Sheldon.

TarquinWJ:

the program crashes, it doesn't notify the system to remove the icon

Yeaaahhh... what idiot came up with this bright idea? We'll expect every program to tell the system what's going on, because the system doesn't know.

That's a system that needs to go in the garbage bin, now.

Looks like Pearson's MathXL online homework system. Folks here will be pleased to know that running the client requires FF3+ or IE7+, JRE, Flash, Quicktime, and for some reason their proprietary Windows only browser plugin.

Captcha: damnum

frits:

In my day, we had to show our work, which was part of the answer.

Yeah, I remember that. It was really annoying to people good at math. Of course, it made sense on really long complex equations, but my teacher wanted us to show our work for every question, even the simple ones. It was a little like being asked what 1 + 1 is, but being told that 2 isn't a good enough answer. Simple calculus equations were the same way. I'd look at the question, and the answer would be obvious. There was no work to show. Eventually, I figured out that just scribbling some random numbers and letters followed by the right answer would get me full points for the question. Apparently, my teacher wasn't actually checking the work we showed, just that there was something there and that it ended with the right answer.

TheCPUWizard:

Math Time:

How about what is the intergral of x from 0 to 1?

It is infinate since you did not specify a lower bounding condition at y=0, therefore all of the area down to minus infinity should be included.

Excellent try. Unfortunately, the question was not "what is the area under the curve", because then you would be correct (or at least, correct if you'd said -inf).

Simply asking for the integral of a function implies the axis as a lower bound. What you COULD have picked on was the fact that the variable of integration was not defined -- int(x,dy,0,1) would be x, and int(x,dx,0,1) would be 1/2.

Or just go with the english major's critique and complain about the misspelling of "intergal".

42 was the correct answer. The problem was that he didn't understand the question.

@TarquinWJ, The systray one isn't from a crashing program. It is DirectVobSub which apparently doesn't remove itself from the tray once it is done.. Play 10 videofiles through something which uses it and it displays 10 icons.

Not really a big wtf, but..

LB:

frits:

In my day, we had to show our work, which was part of the answer.

Yeah, I remember that. It was really annoying to people good at math. Of course, it made sense on really long complex equations, but my teacher wanted us to show our work for every question, even the simple ones. It was a little like being asked what 1 + 1 is, but being told that 2 isn't a good enough answer. Simple calculus equations were the same way. I'd look at the question, and the answer would be obvious. There was no work to show. Eventually, I figured out that just scribbling some random numbers and letters followed by the right answer would get me full points for the question. Apparently, my teacher wasn't actually checking the work we showed, just that there was something there and that it ended with the right answer.

The work was there in case you got it wrong. Then, depending on your work, you might get "partial credit". If the answer was right, I'm sure they didn't bother verifying the work.

I remember the same thing in calculus (actually, differential equations, IIRC). There was a long, convoluted question that basically boiled down to "after 7 half-lives, you have 1 left, how many did you start with?" I wrote "128" and wasn't given any credit for a correct answer.

Ralph:

TarquinWJ:

the program crashes, it doesn't notify the system to remove the icon

Yeaaahhh... what idiot came up with this bright idea? We'll expect every program to tell the system what's going on, because the system doesn't know.

That's a system that needs to go in the garbage bin, now.

No, sorry, Microsoft made the correct decision in not asking every program registered in the notification area "Are you okay?" every 200 ms and/or every time a process exits.

Sir Twist:

Ralph:

TarquinWJ:

the program crashes, it doesn't notify the system to remove the icon

Yeaaahhh... what idiot came up with this bright idea? We'll expect every program to tell the system what's going on, because the system doesn't know.

That's a system that needs to go in the garbage bin, now.

No, sorry, Microsoft made the correct decision in not asking every program registered in the notification area "Are you okay?" every 200 ms and/or every time a process exits.

Well, it could keep track of process-specific resources, and release them on exit, just like it does with file handles and non-shared memory. (Though, as I recall, early versions of Windows documented the "undefined behavior" of exiting without closing a file handle.)

Sir Twist:

Ralph:

TarquinWJ:

the program crashes, it doesn't notify the system to remove the icon

Yeaaahhh... what idiot came up with this bright idea? We'll expect every program to tell the system what's going on, because the system doesn't know.

That's a system that needs to go in the garbage bin, now.

No, sorry, Microsoft made the correct decision in not asking every program registered in the notification area "Are you okay?" every 200 ms and/or every time a process exits.

Well, technically Windows could have part of the process closed cleanup some checks for things like if there was a system tray icon associated with the process (similar to how when a process with a window crashes that it knows to clean up the window and task bar icon).

Of course, it is Microsoft Windows. You can't expect them to get anything correct.

Ooo, CourseCompass/MyMathLab... *shudder*

I just finished a math class with that system. It's a bit odd sometimes.

frits:

It's been awhile since I took calculus, but I can't remember any problems that the answer was a single integer.

Deep Thought:

frits:

It's been awhile since I took calculus, but I can't remember any problems that the answer was a single integer.

Truly a memorable problem. Sniff - wipes tear from eye.

The Nerve:

Deep Thought:

frits:

It's been awhile since I took calculus, but I can't remember any problems that the answer was a single integer.

Truly a memorable problem. Sniff - wipes tear from eye.

Don't tell me, you guys used Rudin too.

The answer 42 is actually correct for small enough values of 42.

Sir Twist:

Ralph:

TarquinWJ:

the program crashes, it doesn't notify the system to remove the icon

Yeaaahhh... what idiot came up with this bright idea? We'll expect every program to tell the system what's going on, because the system doesn't know.

That's a system that needs to go in the garbage bin, now.

No, sorry, Microsoft made the correct decision in not asking every program registered in the notification area "Are you okay?" every 200 ms and/or every time a process exits.

So you're saying Windows doesn't know, and moreover no operating system can know, when a process terminates? Unless of course the process is still alive enough to say "hey daddy I'm dying down here!"

Ibi-Wan Kentobi:

Unfortunately, the question was not "what is the area under the curve", because then...

because then the answer would be funny. What is under the curve is: Irish Girl.

frits:

It's been awhile since I took calculus, but I can't remember any problems that the answer was a single integer.

Evaluate the integral 1/x dx over the range e^2 to e^84.

frits:

I can't remember calculus, but my problem is that my IQ is a single integer.

FTFY

Sir Twist:

Ralph:

TarquinWJ:

the program crashes, it doesn't notify the system to remove the icon

Yeaaahhh... what idiot came up with this bright idea? We'll expect every program to tell the system what's going on, because the system doesn't know.

That's a system that needs to go in the garbage bin, now.

No, sorry, Microsoft made the correct decision in not asking every program registered in the notification area "Are you okay?" every 200 ms and/or every time a process exits.

No, sorry, Microsoft made the incorrect decision in not hiring programmers who know how to create an event handler that cleans up resources created by programs when they stop running.

If you have a process manager, you have a pretty easy way of registering an event when the process leaves the process manager. When it does so, whatever construct that is used to contain processes should easily be able to clean up all resources, especially things like icons in the system tray. The fact that Microsoft didn't bother to deal with that means that they either have way too much trust in third party developers or are simply incompetent.

Not to mention that the system tray probably shouldn't exist in the first place. But that's a separate debate.

frits:

It's been awhile since I took calculus, but I can't remember any problems that the answer was a single integer.

Integrate f(x)=x over the interval from x=-1 to x=1.