The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Eldelshell · 2016-02-09 Reply Admin

First!!! Again! Two in a row. Better get some euromillions tickets

NedFodder · 2016-02-09 Reply Admin

Déjà vu again again!

Tsaukpaetra · 2016-02-09 Reply Admin

NedFodder:
again

Someone investigate @PaulaBean's rack, it seems to be under temporal distress..

JBert · 2016-02-09 Reply Admin

Here's the same code again, indented and highlighted:

void Cand_Select(int _x, int _y, int _z)
{
    arcMemoCandid[_x][_y][_z] = 1;
    arcMemoList[_x][_y] = 1;
    arcMemoScrutin[_x] = 1;
}

void Cand_Unselect(int _x, int _y, int _z)
{
    arcMemoCandid[_x][_y][_z] = 0;
    //280613 arcMemoList[_x][_y] = 0;
    //280613 arcMemoScrutin[_x] = 0;
}


static int Cand_Check_Selection(int _iX, int _iY)
{
    ...
    if((_iY>=y1) && (_iY<=y2)) /* This area */
    {
   
        if(arcMemoCandid[giCurrentScr][giCurrentList][i] == 0) /* Unselected -> Selected */
        {
            ++giNbCandidSel; /* cfr iSWDeselectC */
            Cand_Select(giCurrentScr,giCurrentList,i);
            Cand_Update(i);
            Cand_Circle(i);
            Cand_Switch(i);
            return(0);
        }
#ifdef EL2014
        else /* Selected -> Unselected */
        {
            --giNbCandidSel; /* cfr iSWDeselectC */
            if (giNbCandidSel == 0) {
                swpas = swnoir = swconf = 0;
            }
            Cand_Unselect(giCurrentScr,giCurrentList,i);
            Cand_Update(i);
            Cand_Circle(i);
            Cand_Switch(i);
            return(0);
        }
#endif
     }
 ...
}

Still as hard to read...

NedFodder · 2016-02-09 Reply Admin

Tsaukpaetra:
Someone investigate @PaulaBean's rack, it seems to be under temporal distress..

Looks to me like the article has been edited at least twice (to fix the code formatting). There are three Discourse topics for the article. Could it be that Paula creates a topic when the article is first posted, and then again every time it gets edited?

Tsaukpaetra · 2016-02-09 Reply Admin

NedFodder:
every time it ~~gets edited~~finds a new `.html` file with a modification time greater than the last check?

Maybe...

JBert · 2016-02-09 Reply Admin

NedFodder:
Could it be that Paula creates a topic when the article is first posted, and then again every time it gets edited?

That's just brillant.

DCRoss · 2016-02-09 Reply Admin

Tsaukpaetra:
Someone investigate @PaulaBean's rack

"Seriously, are we not doing phrasing any more?"

Tsaukpaetra · 2016-02-09 Reply Admin

DCRoss:
"Seriously, are we not doing phrasing any more?"

Is it something I said? Wait, I did shut down the :giggity: Engine module some time ago. Re-enabling hooks... .. Oh, well, :blush: Darn if you all have dirty minds I guess?

Steve_The_Cynic · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

Tsaukpaetra:

DCRoss:
"Seriously, are we not doing phrasing any more?"

Is it something I said? Wait, I did shut down the :giggity: Engine module some time ago. Re-enabling hooks... .. Oh, well, :blush: Darn if you all have dirty minds I guess?

"Rack" is a perfectly good word to describe a set of antlers. I mean, she's a deer, right? Oh, no, perhaps not, maybe she's just a dear. In which case, "rack" is a perfectly good word to describe, um, some other part of her. A bit old-fashioned, perhaps. Next thing we know, someone will say she's "stacked" or something...

(Showing my age, perhaps, and that I read republished pulp-magazine sci-fi when I was much younger than I am today.)

Matt_Westwood · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

Steve_The_Cynic:
"Rack" is a perfectly good word to describe a set of antlers. I mean, she's a deer, right? Oh, no, perhaps not, maybe she's just a dear. In which case, "rack" is a perfectly good word to describe, um, some other part of her. A bit old-fashioned, perhaps. Next thing we know, someone will say she's "stacked" or something...
(Showing my age, perhaps, and that I read republished pulp-magazine sci-fi when I was much younger than I am today.)

Turns out that she is an aficionado of certain breeds of small common garden birds, and she keeps some of them in a cage, and due to the fact that she feeds them lots of seed, more than they'd get in the wild, these birds have grown larger than normal. That's right, folks. Paula Bean has big tits.

Matt_Westwood · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

NedFodder:
Looks to me like the article has been edited at least twice (to fix the code formatting). There are three Discourse topics for the article. Could it be that Paula creates a topic when the article is first posted, and then again every time it gets edited?

Maybe just that someone commented out the code to delist it but forgot to reinitialise the count of how many times it had been edited.

Remy · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

When I post an article, there's a checkbox to "create a new thread". When that's checked (and sometimes when it's not), TDWTF's CMS calls out to Paula to tell her to post a new thread. Paula replies with the ID of the thread, and the CMS stores that with the article and locks it.

Paula error out on this. A lot. Usually, an error means no thread was created, but sometimes, the error happens between creating the thread and returning the ID, which means the thread gets created but the CMS doesn't know about it. And your editor posting the article often just assumes an error means nothing happened, because 90% of the time- at least until recently- it did.

Steve_The_Cynic · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

And of course aficionados of certain species of sea birds like ... boobies...

Yazeran · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

And this article is a prime example of why electronic voting is a Bad Idea (tm) (Apart form all the other equally bad reasons having to do with lack of transparency and the 'engineer triangle' of secret voting, proof against tampering, and proof that a person can only vote once etc)

Had the voting been performed with normal paper, the persons who wanted to change their selection before handing in the vote could just have asked for a new piece of paper and their (final) vote would still have been valid!

PWolff · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

Matt_Westwood:
Paula Bean has big tits.

And as they eat sand for their digestion, there's lots of silicon in them.

Btw, Excel says that 280613 is April 15, 1968.

Whatever. It's time that Google algorithms check the candidates and elect the one best fit for the position without bothering the population with leaving their homes for nothing more interesting than voting.

hungrier · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

TL;DR: Comments nearly B‌elgiu‌med the election.

John_Imrie · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

Those of us in the UK of a certain age have fond memories of Mrs Slocombes Pussey, and who can forget the indefatigable Samantha who managed to score with Humphrey Lyttelton so often on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

PJH · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

John_Imrie:
[ISIHAC]

I see we've received nearly two postcards this week from a Mrs. Trellis of North Wales, who sends another of her useful hints for couples setting up home together. She writes: Dear Bamber, It's never good policy to store tubes of superglue & vaseline in the same cupboard. If a young wife is in a hurry, it's all too easy to get them muddled up. I did once, and guess what happened...the broken spout fell off my teapot. Yours faithfully, Mrs. Trellis

Or one with only a single entendre:

...but first I notice from our listener focus group in-tray that we've received almost 2 cards this week, and it comes from a Mrs. Trellis of North Wales. She writes: Dear Mrs. Antrobus, Hats off to the I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue boys. Their book of limericks is a great read, and such good value at under a tenner! It inspired me to write one myself, which I would love to hear read out loud for the very first time: There was a young lady from Slough, Who last year developed a cough, She wasn't to know, It would last until now, Let's hope the poor girl will pull through.

And then there was Round the Horne and their "answers to last week's questions":

First, the 'Where Do You Find It?' question. Well, the answer came in several parts, as follows: wound round a sailor's leg; on top of the wardrobe; floating in the bath; under a prize bull; and in a lay-by on the Watford Bypass. At least, I found one there - couldn't use it - it was covered in verdigris. I gave it to the Scouts, actually, and they exhibit it proudly next to a daguerreotype of Baden-Powell's woggle.

RaceProUK · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

PJH:
we've received nearly two postcards

PJH:
we've received almost 2 cards

:wtf:

PJH · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

It's a comedy show. With memes. It's meant to be funny.

RaceProUK · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

PJH:
It's a comedy show.

OK.

PJH:
With memes.

Oh dear.

PJH:
It's meant to be funny.

...it isn't.

PJH · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:
...it isn't.

:rolleyes:

dkf · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

I'm sorry you haven't a clue…

accalia · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

PJH:

RaceProUK:
...it isn't.

:rolleyes:

you know.... people have exactly the same reaction when i say the same thing about shows like South Park and American Dad....

though to be fair I have the same reaction when a certain vocal rat claims to be funny.

PWolff · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

RaceProUK:

PJH:
we've received nearly two postcards

PJH:
we've received almost 2 cards
:wtf:

Should be unambiguous. The postcards missing to a total of 2 build a null set (in the sense of measure theory).

cellocgw · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

Sorry to break up the string of not-quite-double entendres (what's the square root of a double entendre? or the <dble ent | and | dble ent> Dirac values? ), but back to the story:

Dont'cha just LOVE it when devs don't generate even a minimal set of error-input Use Case tests?

flabdablet · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

Yazeran:
this article is a prime example of why electronic voting is a Bad Idea (tm)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

tenshino · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

Guess you have to be a fan of British humor. Only the Brits can pull off telling a fart joke in a completely serious manner.

na5ch · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

Love it! In case it's not common knowledge, "Slough" rhymes with "now".

PleegWat · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

Luckily, they stopped using them here (NL). According to wikipedia, mechanical voting machines were introduced in 1966, electronic ones in 1978, and voting computers in 1991. In 2006 a batch of voting machines was disqualified by the verifying authority because votes might be detectable at a distance of tens of meters through electromagnetic radiation, leading several municipalities to be forced to switch to paper ballots. Other brands of voting computers had their approval retroactively retracted, but the elections were not redone. However, all elections since have been done with paper ballots, and it looks like a papertrail will remain a requirement in the future.

Voting 'via the internet', apart from all the hacking concerns, has a social pressure concern where others from the same house can pressure and verify whether people 'voted correctly'. This has been a concern in more recent elections as 'stemfies' (voting selfies) arose during elections several years ago. The official recommendation is to make such a selfie as you deposit the ballot in the ballot box, while the vote is not visible. A ban on cell phones in the voting booth was considered infeasible.

CRConrad · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

PWolff:
Btw, Excel says that 280613 is April 15, 1968.

As an integer, perhaps, but if the cell is formatted as a date value and the OS has the appropriate regional settings for B elgium (YTF does the country get pixelblocked when I write it correctly?), or parts thereof... I'm not sure about Flemish and Walloon date formatting standards, but DDMMYY seems quite plausible for a short-format.

spadgas · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

Matt_Westwood:
Turns out that she is an aficionado of certain breeds of small common garden birds, and she keeps some of them in a cage, and due to the fact that she feeds them lots of seed, more than they'd get in the wild, these birds have grown larger than normal. That's right, folks. Paula Bean has big tits.

But not Great Tits? Poor Paula

HardwareGeek · 2016-02-11 Reply Admin

CRConrad:
YTF does the country get pixelblocked when I write it correctly?

https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/book-teh-o-cial-discopaedia-abarker-creator-and-prophet-of-the-discopaedia/3866/729

Tsaukpaetra · 2016-02-12 Reply Admin

CRConrad:
YTF does the country get pixelblocked when I write it correctly?

Was going to post a YMBNH, but I see @HardwareGeek has sufficiently referenced a good post explaining, and in truth you actually are (apparently) new here. ;)

Flagged @HardwareGeek's post for civility.

HardwareGeek · 2016-02-12 Reply Admin

Tsaukpaetra:
Flagged @HardwareGeek's post for civility.

Civility? How dare you accuse me!

PJH · 2016-02-12 Reply Admin

CRConrad:
B elgium (YTF does the country get pixelblocked when I write it correctly?)

https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/why-cant-i-talk-about-belgium/51846

The irony that the URL gets broken because of the title is not entirely lost. Lets try that again...

https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/why-cant-i-talk-about-/51846

Quite · 2016-02-12 Reply Admin

tenshino:
Guess you have to be a fan of British humor. Only the Brits can pull off telling a fart joke in a completely serious manner.

Takes even more skill to fart a pulling-off joke in a jocular manner.

Steve_The_Cynic · 2016-02-12 Reply Admin

John_Imrie:
Those of us in the UK of a certain age have fond memories of Mrs Slocombes Pussey, and who can forget the indefatigable Samantha who managed to score with Humphrey Lyttelton so often on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

Yeah, I remember Mrs Slocombe. I'm old enough to remember watching Tom Baker take over from Jon Pertwee the first time it was broadcast...

Quite · 2016-02-12 Reply Admin

Steve_The_Cynic:
Yeah, I remember Mrs Slocombe. I'm old enough to remember watching Tom Baker take over from Jon Pertwee the first time it was broadcast...

(sneering) big deal, I'm old enough to remember Jon Pertwee taking over from Patrick Troughton. Pertwee's still my favourite Doctor. And Jo Grant is my favourite Assistant, although Zoe comes a very close second ...

Pertwee had a tendency to be unable to concentrate when going through a difficult moment. Tough Troughton thoroughly thought through trough, though,

RaceProUK · 2016-02-12 Reply Admin

I'm a bit too young for all of that (four days from turning 31, and I can still feel young! :smile:); my first Doctor wasn't until the series was revived in 2005 with Christopher Ecclestone and Billie Piper.

David Tennant's my favourite Doctor, with Capaldi second, then Smith, then Ecclestone (I'll make a separate ranking for the older Doctors at some point I'm sure).

GettinSadda · 2016-02-12 Reply Admin

Am I the only one to be horrified that code with such an important use, where it is so vital that it be accurate, is not well commented and that it uses parameter names such as x, y and z?

BaconBits · 2016-02-12 Reply Admin

GettinSadda:
Am I the only one to be horrified that code with such an important use, where it is so vital that it be accurate, is not well commented and that it uses parameter names such as x, y and z?

Presumably, _x was in Dutch, _y was in French, and _z was in German.

semipermeable · 2016-02-14 Reply Admin

Surely, TRWTF is, storing the same information twice: one is a count of how many candidates are selected, the other is a array of which candidates are selected. Hm, it seems to me you can perhaps get both things from the array? With a function like getNbCandidSel() that counts the entries in the array?

Then again, there are a lot of classic WTFs in this, like hungarian notation (OK, it's C, maybe that's tolerable), all kinds of abbreviations that make it just a bit hard to read (Imagine the horror of spelling our Candidate instead of Candid! Those extra 3 characters can kill)...

PleegWat · 2016-02-14 Reply Admin

A C array does not include its own length. Unless it's NULL-terminated, in which case determining its length is an O(n) operation, so you may still want to store it.

another_sam · 2016-02-15 Reply Admin

PleegWat:
O(n)

I hope a public election never ever has enough candidates for this to be worth even a millisecond of thought.

swayde · 2016-02-15 Reply Admin

As with strings, you store the length because that's the only sane way to do it. The only thing null terminated strings are good for is 0L705GpkBRe7h nPqOB7kkWtY IotjOH1V1b7Cogel2s5 yu1QSrLXkbNF Vmfe3oVKikY2fIg3z6X txH5ZjkO1Z R3CB4afkwIH TMXIF0Eq 08pUZCu7 3USpMhtxo

urkerab · 2016-02-16 Reply Admin

na5ch:
Love it! In case it's not common knowledge, "Slough" rhymes with "now".

Indeed, I'm surprised they didn't use Loughborough.

PJH:
we've received nearly two postcards

PJH:
we've received almost 2 cards

They obviously used this loop to count the cards:

cards = 2;
for (i = 1; i <= cards - 1; i++)

dkf · 2016-02-16 Reply Admin

urkerab:
Loughborough.

Or Lough Erne… :D

hungrier · 2016-02-16 Reply Admin

dkf:
Lough Erne

Whoever named that should have asked for a raise.

Unselected

Leave a comment on “Unselected”