Comment On Where Does the Line End?

Guys, I don't mind having one fewer Error'd a day if it means there are no repeats. I'm looking at you, $0.00 bill photo.

Having in my time there worked on several generations of the MSN systems, (MSNBC have their own system as well) The content synchronisation bug seems to be ever prevalent. I remember when we put a new news site live for MSN international and we managed to get a picture of Vladimir Putin, along with the title 'Paedophile caught' then a completely innocent story about some teachers in the bullet point section. We weren't sure who we should have been apologising to.



What intrigues me, is that MSNBC, and MSN (both the most recent incarnation of the CMS system, and the older international system decommissioned a couple of years back), despite all three having completely different feed management systems, totally new databases, and a completely different architectures the same design flaw still occurs.



Anybody here who works there who can spread some light on this? ... or is it still 'f'ing shuttle'

Grovesy:

Anybody here who works there who can spread some light on this? ... or is it still 'f'ing shuttle'

I'd assume it's the "MS" thingy in the name....

The price that looks like $10.95 crossed out is actually $18.95 crossed out. IE puts the crossbar in exactly the right spot so that one can't distinguish between a crossed-out 0 and a crossed-out 8.

This has caused confusion for our customers on our web site as well.

I was wondering if anyone other than me had caught that it wasn't a WTF.

InvalidOperationException

Don't know what to comment.

So, a negative golf score... is that when you trick your opponent to hit your ball for you? Sixty-nine times?
--Rank

The Visual Studio one is as easy as:

throw new InvalidOperationException("Don't know what to do");

No, its when you drive all the courses backwards, you start at the hole, and have to land on the tee.

Rank Amateur:

So, a negative golf score... is that when you trick your opponent to hit your ball for you? Sixty-nine times?
--Rank

Isnt a negative score under par? 69 under par is pretty ridiulous though

Rank Amateur:

So, a negative golf score... is that when you trick your opponent to hit your ball for you? Sixty-nine times?
--Rank

A negative golf score means you hit below par. The way golf is scored is, for each hole on the course there's a standard number of strokes set in which you should be able to get the ball in. This is known as "par". Succeeding in fewer strokes thus computes your score as a negative (i.e., a hole is par 5 and you succeed in 3 strokes = -2), and consequently the best scores in golf are negative.

I think he cheated a bit...
Like by tee-ing off from the hole or something.
That'd make an excelent hole-in-none...

I wonder what he does with all the cars he won that game?

Sigh:

Wow... Now THAT would be useful! A version of Visual Studio that points out the WTFs in our code (and the world in general), leaving no room for ambiguity... and of course the option for us to completely ignore it, and continue regardless! :)

We have to buy drivers now? How can this "motorsport" company justify charging poor David for drivers when others still have them for free download on their support sites?

Speaking of the Visual Studio exception, I once saw this while working with this application...

Rank Amateur:

So, a negative golf score... is that when you trick your opponent to hit your ball for you? Sixty-nine times?
--Rank

His score is 2 under par, with 70 strokes. I don't see what the problem is...

"Get used or rare from $6.66"

sounds like Father Joe has dealings with the dark side :-|

TRWTF is that Montoya hasn't been a Formula 1 driver for years. Even the news article in the background is about NASCAR...

A Nonny Mouse:

"Get used or rare from $6.66"

sounds like Father Joe has dealings with the dark side :-|

And I'm wondering what "Get it rare" means. When you're talking about steaks, ok, but about books? Does it mean they're only slightly burnt?

Coming in .NET 4.0

class WtfException : Exception
{
public WtfException(string message) : base(message)
{
EmailToDailyWtf();
}
}

Finally someone realized; Jacob S. is not a number; he is a free man!

Rank Amateur:

So, a negative golf score... is that when you trick your opponent to hit your ball for you? Sixty-nine times?
--Rank

I don't see the real WTF in this. It's obvious that it's wrong, but it's also obvious what it's doing. It's computing the overall score by (strokes taken - par for the whole tournament), and he hadn't done his 4th round yet.

A Nonny Mouse:

"Get used or rare from $6.66"

sounds like Father Joe has dealings with the dark side :-|

Ah, but the number of the beast is 616. A common misconception:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/616_(number)

I caught that it was 18 crossed out as well. Oh well, it's really a IE WTF then and not the webpage. Doesn't surprise me the least bit!

Pez:

A Nonny Mouse:

"Get used or rare from $6.66"

sounds like Father Joe has dealings with the dark side :-|

Ah, but the number of the beast is 616. A common misconception:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/616_(number)

don't get all hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic on me :P

TGV:

A Nonny Mouse:

"Get used or rare from $6.66"

sounds like Father Joe has dealings with the dark side :-|

And I'm wondering what "Get it rare" means. When you're talking about steaks, ok, but about books? Does it mean they're only slightly burnt?

Not sure about "rare" (perhaps a misspelling of "raw"?), but to understand "get used" just google "catholic pedophile".

The RWTF is that Juan-Pablo Montoya is a former F1 driver; he's now racing in the NASCAR.
And I don't think he gets paid with $0.00 bills.

The real WTF are those double unlined ad links that pop up when you inadvertently hover the mouse over them. First off, they are always stupid (like the one where you can buy the driver) and second... they hide the article you were trying to read.

Whoever invented those should be beaten to death.

Dave:

Rank Amateur:

So, a negative golf score... is that when you trick your opponent to hit your ball for you? Sixty-nine times?
--Rank

Isnt a negative score under par? 69 under par is pretty ridiulous though

Especially when you are in 84th place, with a total of 76 (I think) total strokes.

WTFDriver:

The RWTF is that Juan-Pablo Montoya is a former F1 driver; he's now racing in the NASCAR.
And I don't think he gets paid with $0.00 bills.

But he should. He is a mediocre driver, and he thinks he is Michael Schumacher.. Belive me!, I'm Colombian!

Lukas M's deal is a 18.95 crossed out. 14.40 - 4.55 = 9.85 The strikeout just goes through the center of the 8,

Hey, has anyone seen this great Rick Astley video?

http://applytoforehead.ytmnd.com/

nope, never have and never will. This Rick doesn't Roll that way...

Rafa:

WTFDriver:

The RWTF is that Juan-Pablo Montoya is a former F1 driver; he's now racing in the NASCAR.
And I don't think he gets paid with $0.00 bills.

But he should. He is a mediocre driver, and he thinks he is Michael Schumacher.. Belive me!, I'm Colombian!

He's no Shumacher, but he is pretty good. He's not winning races yet, but that's more about his team than his ability as a driver.

Golf scores are shown both ways - as number of strokes, which is a positive number, or as the difference from par, which could be positive or negative. In either case a score of -69 is a WTF. Most courses have par 70-72, so that would be a whole day of strokes missing, which is what I bet happened. The player did not have a number of strokes in the database for one of the days of the tournament - so his total number of strokes was way under the current par for the tournament. It's a WTF, but easy to see how it could happen.

No, TRWTF is that, (I'm David W.), Montoya wasn't in my top 8 favorite drivers, even when he WAS in F1...

However, he is now my favorite NASCAR driver, such as it is. If I ever watched any NASCAR races I might even root for him.

Actually, I'm being a bit harsh on ol' JPM. He was definitely my favorite loose cannon, but that's why he wasn't really a favorite driver.

He did, however, get my unqualified thumbs-up when, after Kimi Raikkonen made a somewhat daring pass on him, the TV broadcast switched to his radio feed just as he was screaming, "FUCKING RAIKKONEN!!!"

> So, a negative golf score... is that when you trick your opponent to
> hit your ball for you? Sixty-nine times?

Golf scores are normally expressed in how well you do against par, so negative scores are perfectly possible (and expected, in championship play). The software misinterpreted the fact that it didn't have a score for him for round 4 as having a score of 0 for him for that round--which put his overall score at 69 under par. Par for the course is 72, par for four rounds would be 288, he made 219, so 69 under par. The correct score, counting only the three rounds he actually played, would be three *over* par, which explains why he was in eighty-fourth place in that tournament.

I'm amused at the bill denomination having a decimal point. I don't think the treasury is going to issue a $15.47 bill any time soon.

Back in the dark ages when I worked on mainframes, we had this shelf of books to explain all the possible error messages. These were in a strict format, with the error code, text of the message, explanation, and how to fix it. The idea of having the book tell me how to fix my bugs sounded really handy. Until I discovered that for about 90% of the possible errors, the helpful text was "Correct the problem and resubmit." Like, wow, thanks, I never would have thought of doing that!

Jay:

Back in the dark ages when I worked on mainframes, we had this shelf of books to explain all the possible error messages. These were in a strict format, with the error code, text of the message, explanation, and how to fix it. The idea of having the book tell me how to fix my bugs sounded really handy. Until I discovered that for about 90% of the possible errors, the helpful text was "Correct the problem and resubmit." Like, wow, thanks, I never would have thought of doing that!

Augh, JCL!

These are cruel and unusual memories you're bringing back here.

Scott:

I caught that it was 18 crossed out as well. Oh well, it's really a IE WTF then and not the webpage. Doesn't surprise me the least bit!

It's actually a problem with the font, not with IE. Other fonts show the rounded edges, even with a small font than on that website.

Richard O'Shay:

I'm amused at the bill denomination having a decimal point. I don't think the treasury is going to issue a $15.47 bill any time soon.

Not the U.S. Treasury, but the Canadians once had a $0.25 bill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CAD25cent_English_Front.jpg

Jay:

"Correct the problem and resubmit."

Error Code 73024: Error Manual Help Error
The Error Manual help text does not explain how to fix the reported error.
How to fix: correct the manual and republish.

The "You save -30.00" WTF is a simple one (we get similar problems with our website all the time). Their system has inputs for 2 prices (list and sale) and someone raised the sale price without raising the list price.

This is a human error WTF. But it's nice to know that other people do it too.

Someone You Know:

Guys, I don't mind having one fewer Error'd a day if it means there are no repeats. I'm looking at you, $0.00 bill photo.

Everything is a repeat if you go far enough back in history.

Richard O'Shay:

I'm amused at the bill denomination having a decimal point. I don't think the treasury is going to issue a $15.47 bill any time soon.

Chinese currency, value 0.10. Worth about 1.3 cents US. I haven't seen any in a few years.

real_aardvark:

Augh, JCL!

These are cruel and unusual memories you're bringing back here.

Bringing back? I was just pounding out some JCL this morning.

I still have days when the world is only 72 characters wide and ALWAYS IN UPPER CASE.