The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

ZPedro · 2011-01-29 Reply Admin

I got the Twitterrific error as well, it amused me on the moment, but I'm 100% sure that was because it was a pre-oauth version that hadn't been used in some time, and in the meantime Twitter had switched to oauth entirely, so I quickly figured that Twitter had disabled the previous method by rate-limiting it to 0. Sure it's funny, but also remember it wasn't a condition the developer could possibly test for at the time that version was released (since, again, that version predated the oauth switch); the versions made after the switch, well, simply supported oauth.

(full disclosure: I have known about the Iconfactory since 1996, I've bought Craig Hockenberry's iPhone dev book, I follow him on Twitter, using Twiterrific, and met him once)

To a few of you: remember Alex loves to "censor" information that has already been anonymised…

2011-01-29 Reply Admin

Re. the lange rosen - obviously, they use some generic webshop app, so it doesn't support selecting how many roses are in the bouquet. For each product, you can select quantity (but that would be a number of bouquets, not roses in one bouquet), and you can select one of the SKUs. So in order to circumvent that limitation, they've put all bunch sizes as SKUs. The only WTF is that they could put numbers like, say, 1-10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, etc. But what if someone's getting a bouquet for her 63rd birthday?

So the only way to correct the WTF is to change the software.

dr spock · 2011-01-29 Reply Admin

ConE:
My Name:
caper:
Last week I had to use a system that needed a password of 6 to 8 chars, must be of mixed case and must contain a digit or special char.
Come-on this is 2011, what's the deal with 8 chars maximum.

The password text field in the DB was once configured to take eight characters at maximum, maybe to keep the size of the DB small, or maybe they didn't want the passwords to be too long in case they had to look it up and give it to the user. Be thankful you can use special characters!

TFWTF is that they probably are recording your password. That's a huge no-no. You don't give people their passwords, you shouldn't be able to get it yourself. Should be hashed and salted with a side of green eggs and ham... uh, well, without the green eggs and ham. Either way, if they are storing the password in plain text, limiting you to 8 chars, and/or not letting you use special chars... well, you should be using different passwords on every site anyway, but not everyone does... saepius for the captcha

TRWTF is that the University of Auckland upgraded its student records/enrolment site to Oracle Peoplesoft mid-2010. (Proof)

I guess its an improvement from the previous system which looked like was designed in 1995 (and probably was), which made heavy use of Iframes. However, you still need to do a huge amount of clicks and pageloads to get anything done in this peoplesoft thing. For example, clicking one of the green arrows on the left hand side on this screen reloads the entire page just to expand out the contents beneath it. I guess just providing all the subitems and showing/hiding them with JS, or loading them with AJAX just isn't 'enterprisey' enough. As a bonus, page loads seem to take ~3 seconds each...

This is just one of many wtf's in the University of Auckland's IT systems.

Matt Westwood · 2011-01-29 Reply Admin

TK:
frits:
Ralph:
Sven:
whenever I get a robo-call that asks me to press 1 to talk to a person, I *always* press 1 -- the purpose is not to annoy the poor schmuck who has to talk to me, but to deprive the boss of some of the benefit of robo-calling.
That's why I always send in those prepaid reply envelopes -- empty. You waste my time, I waste your money.
Who hasn't done something like this?
It was a somewhat common practice many decades ago in the US for companies to ship you some merchandise you never asked for. With this unwanted merchandise, they included a letter which informed you that you must either send them a check for the goods, or return the item with a pre-paid shipping label.
Of course this was a major nuisance. If you didn't pay or return the item, these companies would send you nasty letters threatening to turn you over to a collection agency. For something you never needed, wanted, or asked for.

One of my high school teachers received a watch in the mail this way. He didn't want the crappy watch, so he decided to return it. But he also figured if they were going to inconvenience him, he'd return the favor.

He did return the watch, but this is how he did it. First, he went down to the local hardware store and purchased two cinder blocks and some twine. He then placed the watch between the two cinder blocks, tied them together, stuck the return shipping label on the outside and shipped it back to the vendor.

He never heard from that company again!

I believe that in this country (UK) if you receive such unsolicited merchandise you are perfectly entitled to keep it and not pay for it. Therefore we don't get such things happening.

You sometimes get free samples, which can be nice. Junk mail is just one of those things that people tend to get overly het up about. (Means no nothing to me to routinely recycle or shred the junk. I don't get much anyway, being careful to select the "no junk mail" options when ordering stuff.)

But we don't get stuff which we have to respond to or else, that is just plain illegal here.

2011-01-29 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
TK:
frits:
Ralph:
Sven:
whenever I get a robo-call that asks me to press 1 to talk to a person, I *always* press 1 -- the purpose is not to annoy the poor schmuck who has to talk to me, but to deprive the boss of some of the benefit of robo-calling.
That's why I always send in those prepaid reply envelopes -- empty. You waste my time, I waste your money.
Who hasn't done something like this?
It was a somewhat common practice many decades ago in the US for companies to ship you some merchandise you never asked for. With this unwanted merchandise, they included a letter which informed you that you must either send them a check for the goods, or return the item with a pre-paid shipping label.
Of course this was a major nuisance. If you didn't pay or return the item, these companies would send you nasty letters threatening to turn you over to a collection agency. For something you never needed, wanted, or asked for.

One of my high school teachers received a watch in the mail this way. He didn't want the crappy watch, so he decided to return it. But he also figured if they were going to inconvenience him, he'd return the favor.

He did return the watch, but this is how he did it. First, he went down to the local hardware store and purchased two cinder blocks and some twine. He then placed the watch between the two cinder blocks, tied them together, stuck the return shipping label on the outside and shipped it back to the vendor.

He never heard from that company again!

I believe that in this country (UK) if you receive such unsolicited merchandise you are perfectly entitled to keep it and not pay for it. Therefore we don't get such things happening.

You sometimes get free samples, which can be nice. Junk mail is just one of those things that people tend to get overly het up about. (Means no nothing to me to routinely recycle or shred the junk. I don't get much anyway, being careful to select the "no junk mail" options when ordering stuff.)

But we don't get stuff which we have to respond to or else, that is just plain illegal here.

Fortunately, US courts agreed with you that such business practices are absurd. Now days we also are entitled to keep and merchandise shipped to us that we didn't ask for.

Definitely less of a headache this way, but I still love my teacher's solution.

2011-01-29 Reply Admin

What a sign of the times... people are just plain impatient these days. Ask someone to wait inf minutes, and they act like you're asking them to wait until the end of time...

2011-01-30 Reply Admin

Sudo:
What a sign of the times... people are just plain impatient these days. Ask someone to wait inf minutes, and they act like you're asking them to wait until the end of time...

Why don't you go to Canada, since inf US minutes = minus zero CAN minutes ... or something like that.

2011-01-30 Reply Admin

dr spock:
TRWTF is that the University of Auckland upgraded its student records/enrolment site to Oracle Peoplesoft mid-2010. *snip* This is just one of many wtf's in the University of Auckland's IT systems.

I'm *really* not surprised about the Auckland uni one. My mother works there, and has been entertaining me about first the (delayed, of course) development of the system and then the issues she's had with it once it was introduced. And that's coming from someone who's far from a power user - she can do what she needs to but only very reluctantly ventures outside that.

2011-01-30 Reply Admin

Just adding my $0.00 to the comments.

2011-01-30 Reply Admin

piskvorr:
"smartie.on.computer at the G e-mail provider"? The way you redacted it, my brain actually filled in the shapes (I was wondering about the weird font). 's what I get from too much work with faulty printers, I guess.

Your job with printers has little to do with this, my brain was completely able to fill in the blanks too.

I'm dreaming of a day when there is an OCR tool capable of doing the same thing, at at least the same speed. A nice-to-have feature would be medical doctors' writing recognition.

Scarlet Manuka · 2011-01-30 Reply Admin

shimon:
A nice-to-have feature would be medical doctors' writing recognition.

What, your doctor still writes stuff out? Mine just types everything into the computer. Slowly and painfully, but at least when he prints it out it's legible.

2011-01-31 Reply Admin

An unfortunately common way to use a cheque for 0 dollars is to add a 1 and several zeros.

This is particularly ammusing if zero-dollar ammounts don't show up on your audit reports.

Or perhaps I should have let you all discover that on your employers dime.

GalacticCowboy · 2011-01-31 Reply Admin

My first thought on the Amazon one was trying to figure out why, if he was searching for a backpack, there were two mice included in the results?

2011-01-31 Reply Admin

swschrad:
habst hier der Deutsche sich gewerden.

Wann ist das Nunstuck Git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beierhund ist mein gespurt!

2011-01-31 Reply Admin

GalacticCowboy:
My first thought on the Amazon one was trying to figure out why, if he was searching for a backpack, there were two mice included in the results?

Ever heard of rat pack? The same applies to mice or any other rodents.

bjolling · 2011-01-31 Reply Admin

A german *gasp*:
swschrad:
habst hier der Deutsche sich gewerden.
Wann ist das Nunstuck Git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beierhund ist mein gespurt!

ahahahaha *urgl*

2011-01-31 Reply Admin

Delicious pie is delicious.:
gramie:
I called the number and left a voicemail asking several questions very slowly, reading large sections from the letter in a slow, mentally-handicapped voice. The voicemail stopped recording after 5 minutes, but I felt good knowing that someone would have to listen all the way through!

What do we know about that "someone?" He or she works in a call-center, probably living check to check, and has no decision making authority whatsoever, and was concerned enough about doing his or her job to listen to your voicemail all the way through.

But you sure showed those worthless fatcats!

They wouldn't get paid per call they listen to, so it shouldn't matter to them whether they listen to 5 short calls or 1 long one, they get paid whatever. In fact it probably brightens up their dull day and gives them a laugh.

On the other hand, it will waste some company time.

2011-01-31 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
TK:
frits:
Ralph:
Sven:
whenever I get a robo-call that asks me to press 1 to talk to a person, I *always* press 1 -- the purpose is not to annoy the poor schmuck who has to talk to me, but to deprive the boss of some of the benefit of robo-calling.
That's why I always send in those prepaid reply envelopes -- empty. You waste my time, I waste your money.
Who hasn't done something like this?
It was a somewhat common practice many decades ago in the US for companies to ship you some merchandise you never asked for. With this unwanted merchandise, they included a letter which informed you that you must either send them a check for the goods, or return the item with a pre-paid shipping label.
Of course this was a major nuisance. If you didn't pay or return the item, these companies would send you nasty letters threatening to turn you over to a collection agency. For something you never needed, wanted, or asked for.

One of my high school teachers received a watch in the mail this way. He didn't want the crappy watch, so he decided to return it. But he also figured if they were going to inconvenience him, he'd return the favor.

He did return the watch, but this is how he did it. First, he went down to the local hardware store and purchased two cinder blocks and some twine. He then placed the watch between the two cinder blocks, tied them together, stuck the return shipping label on the outside and shipped it back to the vendor.

He never heard from that company again!

I believe that in this country (UK) if you receive such unsolicited merchandise you are perfectly entitled to keep it and not pay for it. Therefore we don't get such things happening.

You sometimes get free samples, which can be nice. Junk mail is just one of those things that people tend to get overly het up about. (Means no nothing to me to routinely recycle or shred the junk. I don't get much anyway, being careful to select the "no junk mail" options when ordering stuff.)

But we don't get stuff which we have to respond to or else, that is just plain illegal here.

No court in the US has ever allowed someone to send you something, unsolicited, and demand it back. That's absurd. But people believe businesses can do the oddest things. For instance, if you don't have money to pay a bill at a restaurant, there's a common belief that the restaurant can detain you and force you to wash dishes.

2011-01-31 Reply Admin

My Name:
plaidfluff:
I had submitted a screenshot like this about a year ago when the problem first started occurring - Twitter had completely changed their developer API at one point, and to phase the old API out they slowly reduced the rate limit to 0, permanently. Unfortunately, the makers of Twitterrific did a terrible job of letting people know about the fact that the app had been updated for the new API when the rate limiting change went into effect, and so a lot of people were (and apparently still are) running an old, no-longer-functional version of Twitterrific.
Anyway, Twitterrific 3.2.4 fixed the problem, in August of 2010.
Thanks for sharing! Didn't know that.

Let me guess - they posted the update information via... Twitter!

2011-01-31 Reply Admin

Nagesh Kukunoor:
Empty Offer has was an old joke. [image]

For that you find some spare time, then line up at the counter and ask that you pay the bill there. Don't have anything ready, just say you're there to pay the bill and when you get to the counter look in the bag for your bill.

Then when it comes time to hand over the cash, take out your wallet and count the coins out. Just make sure the whole transaction takes a few minutes, more than 2 pennies worth of their counter time.

An alternative is to phone them up and pay via credit card... just make it cost them more money than it's actually worth.

(It's why smart businesses have a a threshold cutoff - the cost to pursue small debts isn't worth their costs...)

2011-01-31 Reply Admin

Last night I BOM'd your mother.

2011-02-01 Reply Admin

So the wtf is why would one attempt to use a bronze pressure relief valve as a camera case?

2011-02-01 Reply Admin

beret:
Last night I BOM'd your mother.

OMG! You DID! hope you didn't catch anything!

2011-02-01 Reply Admin

Perhaps you are some type of voyer then you will put some microcamera in it and install the relief in a woman bathrom. noone will notice it.

nobulate · 2011-02-03 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

frits:
Who hasn't created their own custom Exception type? I mean seriously, go away.

throw new Exception("Funny exception messages are the lamest WTF of all time.
                     It isn't smart, it isn't clever, it isn't even funny.", 
                     new Exception("Oh look, funny inner exception too! That 
                     makes me TWICE AS FUNNY!"));

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Exception up = new Exception("I beg to differ");
            throw up;
        }

2011-02-04 Reply Admin

Scarlet Manuka:
shimon:
A nice-to-have feature would be medical doctors' writing recognition.
What, your doctor still writes stuff out? Mine just types everything into the computer. Slowly and painfully, but at least when he prints it out it's legible.

Mine does too, while I am in the office. He is a touch-typist. I don't know why but there is something disturbing about him talking to me and simultaneously typing.

An Empty Offer

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