The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Fritz:
This is brilliant, just brilliant. An article written by someone who can't write and doesn't undestand the technical side of things!
Just bring back Mandatory Fun Day already so that us users can create actually funny and/or witty content based on it.

I was going to say something similar. Is Hanzo the new MFD? Are they going to start posting version of the Hanzo stories with blanks in it so we can fill in a much funnier story ourselves?

Is the author of these stories going to get all butt hurt and run away like the "artist" behind MFD?

Also bring back MFD!

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Fill in the blanks and make a funnier story:

Like a ____ in the night, Hanz M., AKA Hanzo, stalks across ____ _________’s _______ campus. The go-to man in the IT department, he fixes the messes that others leave behind. This is one of his stories.
"You absolutely must read this," Hanzo’s boss Gertrude said. "This is beyond hilarious."

Hanzo took the __________ _________that Gertrude was reading. In the Opinion Editorials section, a whole page was dedicated to a rant by __________ ______, a ________ ________ __________.
It has come to my attention that the entire IT staff of _____ are ____________. 
How could they be otherwise, when they completely forbid the use of _____ over the ______ ____ ________?
"Oh, that," Hanzo said. Gertrude herself had made the decision to shut down ____ ____ ________ when it was discovered that ________ ________ used the same __ _______, an uncommon _________ ____________. It made perfect sense to Hanzo and the others at __, but apparently not to _________ _____.

"You look a little _____, Hanzo," Gertrude said.

"I try not to take it ," Hanzo replied. "Still, it could cause trouble for __ down the ____ if the ____________ decides to cut our _______ because they all think we’re ‘.’ I’d like to talk to him personally and convince him to ______ a __________."

"You are taking it _________," Gertrude said. "But I’ll _____ your ____. I’ll ____ him an __________."

Authorities and Authentication

Hanzo recalled a passage from The ____ of ____ _____. "‘When in a ____, you must _________ the _____ and ______ when you have first ___________ his ______ of ________, perceived his _______ and his _______ and ____ ______. _______ in an unsuspecting manner, knowing his _____ and __________ and the appropriate _______.’"

Hanzo had discovered that _____ had _______ weeks of __________ lambasting _____’s entire __ department, as well as some in the ______________, for what he considers their "general _______." The _________ would first attack some ______ __ had taken, ignore the rationale behind the _, then _______ the entire department as ‘.’ Hanzo wondered if ______ was that _________ or just _______.

The appointed ________ arrived. Gertrude showed in __ ______ to the __ office. He scoffed at the _______ on their ___. "______? You use ________? Do you know how _________it is?"

"All of our _________ has been hardened by the ________’s best ________," Gertrude said, changing the subject. "____, this is Hans M. He’d like to ____ to you about our ________ regarding ______ ____ ____."

"Does he always ______ like that?" ______ muttered as Hanzo, dressed in _____, offered his hand. "My ___, I doubt there is any ____ ______ why ____ should not ____ ___ ___ ____ ________."

"Of course there is," Hanzo said, dropping his . He explained the /__ vulnerability.

"Why that’s _____, you ignoramus! Just require authentication for ____!"

"We do already," Hanzo replied. "The ___ ______________ with _____ or the _______ ____ ____."

"No, no," ______ said, looking a bit _________. "I meant ____!"

"The ___ already does that. It’s part of the ____ specification."

"No, no, I meant the ________!"

"Which uses ______, as I said, or the _____ ____."

"No, you still don’t understand," _____ said, his ____ ________. "I meant. . ." He checked his _____. "I’m afraid I can’t ____ longer to continue this _____ _____________. I have an _____________." He gathered his ______ and left the __ _____________.

"I don’t think that ______________ much," Gertrude said. "I think you just made him more ___________ than he started."

"Well," Hanzo said, "if it gets him to stop _______ his _____________. . ."

The Duel Never Ends
____________, all of them! Just this week I ___ with some of the _____ in the __ __________. 
When I confronted them about the ________ with ______ ___, they gave me the __________! Then 
they threw __________ in my face to hide the fact that they don’t ____ ____ ______ _______! 
It is a shame that we continue to ___ a ___________of _____!
"He’s in a _____ now," Gertrude said.

"But we’ve ___," Hanzo said. "All he can do now is use __ ________ ________ against the ___________. Most people who ____ the _____________ are ______ enough to tell he’s got no real __________."

"You could ____ your own ___________," Gertrude suggested. " our ___ __ ___ _______."

"I’d rather not," Hanzo said. "Being _________ next to him would be _____________. Far too undignified for __ ____________ like myself."

There you go. It's already much funnier than the original! Less is more.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Thanks for deleting my comment. I'll repost the sentiment for you.

I hardly ever comment, but I feel like I should post that I do not like these Hanzo stories just in case you think the complaints are only from a vocal minority.

CAPTCHA: haero. Whoever puts a stop to Hanzo stories will be a haero in my book.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

AN AMAZING CODER:
Guys:
The "same ip" issue is probably just Exchange server being on the same network as the Wifi, which sits behind the same NAT. The issue being that any host on that network that's sending spam causes the same public IP address as the Exchange server to get blacklisted -- not that internal email is being spoofed.

TRWTF is being an IT department not being able to figure out how to solve that networking 101 problem, yet dismissing a computer science professor that calls out their incompetence.

I'll second this diagnosis. I'm sure it would be a lot of work for the industry's leading experts (like 10 minutes) to assign wifi to another outgoing IP address at the firewall.

JimM · 2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Sadly, TRWTF in this is heavily disguised by the fact that there is clearly an issue with Exchange and the WiFi network that is never properly explained.

TRWTF is relatively small, and it's the professor insisting that "authentication" is the answer, despite that fact that IT have told him that both services involved already use authentication. Yes, both the network and SMTP are authenticated, but the professor can't let go of that bone.

Sadly, it's so hard to pick that out of the completely unexplained "uncommon security vulnerability" because "Microsoft Exchange used the same IP address", that I can easily understand why so many people are willing to jump to the professor's defense.

But ultimately, the professor is a massive tool. He chooses to character-assassinate the IT department through an editorial page without even attempting to understand the problems they face; when they offer to explain the reasons behind the policy, he tries to tell them how to solve the problem; and when they tell him they're already doing that and it doesn't solve the problem, he runs out on them then has another pop at them for not explaining the problem.

But no, no, the professor is obviously right, because we don't like Hanzo stories. Hurrah for teh internets....

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Your Name:
Jo:
Just enumerating: - Hanz is not a German forename. (They used to be regulated.)
Not entirely true. Generally speaking, the German law requires that a name identifies the person's gender and it has to be not harmful to the child.

There are exceptions. For example "Kim" is a name that is ok for males and females.

-Dresden is in Saxony, which is a different state than Hesse, and (public) universities are state business. Thus a 'Hesse university' with a campus in Dresden is quite unlikely.

I guess the "Hesse University" would be named after Hermann Hesse (or some other famous person with the name "Hesse"). It's just the same with a "Humboldt University", which would be named after Alexander or Wilhelm von Humboldt (or both).

Also, a "Hesse" is the inhabitant of the state "Hessen", not the state itself. ;)

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

gnasher729:
Quartz clock + tiny built-in computer that keeps track of how the time was adjusted and then compensates for it in the future, plus temperature measurement to adjust for the change of quartz frequency depending on temperature. (So if you set the clock initially, then set it forward 3 minutes 5 months later, it assumes that it was running a bit slow and increases its speed by 3 minutes over the next five months. A year later you make another, smaller, correction and it takes that into consideration as well. No radio needed).

What about Daylight Saving Time? Radio Controlled clocks do that automatically, while every other clock has to be changed manually. And it would really suck if those clocks suddendly ran slower if you set the time one hour back.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

JimM:
But ultimately, the professor is a massive tool. He chooses to character-assassinate the IT department through an editorial page without even attempting to understand the problems they face; when they offer to explain the reasons behind the policy, he tries to tell them how to solve the problem; and when they tell him they're already doing that and it doesn't solve the problem, he runs out on them then has another pop at them for not explaining the problem.
But no, no, the professor is obviously right, because we don't like Hanzo stories. Hurrah for teh internets....

Wrong, the professor shouldn't have to understand the problem, it isn't his problem, it's the IT departments problem and the professor is absolutely right to call them out of the stupidity of their policy. Could he have done it more diplomatically? Certainly. But that doesn't mean the professor is wrong or that IT haven't dropped the ball.

That Hanzo stories are crap is neither here nor there.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Hannes:
gnasher729:
Quartz clock + tiny built-in computer that keeps track of how the time was adjusted and then compensates for it in the future, plus temperature measurement to adjust for the change of quartz frequency depending on temperature. (So if you set the clock initially, then set it forward 3 minutes 5 months later, it assumes that it was running a bit slow and increases its speed by 3 minutes over the next five months. A year later you make another, smaller, correction and it takes that into consideration as well. No radio needed).

What about Daylight Saving Time? Radio Controlled clocks do that automatically, while every other clock has to be changed manually. And it would really suck if those clocks suddendly ran slower if you set the time one hour back.

The tiny built-in computer would have to figure that if someone adjusted the time by an exact number of hours, it's probably either the beginning or end of daylight savings time, or they've changed time zones. In neither case should it adjust its timekeeping to compensate.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

chubertdev:
Calli Arcale:
It's a bit like addressing an oil leak by draining the fuel tank.

I don't think that you're familiar with how cars work.

You missed the point; if you have an oil leak, you need to stop the leak, or at the very least add more oil to compensate until you can fix the leak. If you don't, you're going to do damage to your engine if you try to operate it.

If you drain the fuel tank, though, the engine can't be run, and so it won't be damaged, which is about as insane as dealing with a security vulnerability by turning off SMTP altogether. It doesn't correct the problem, it just keeps it from happening by preventing people from using the system.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Hannes:
There are exceptions. For example "Kim" is a name that is ok for males and females.

Yes, which is why that name would probably not be accepted as a single first name. It's alright in combination, so "Kim Thomas Schmidt" or "Kim Maria Meier" should be alright. I did not want to go too deeply into details of German naming conventions, as I felt this would be just a tiny bit off-topic here. ;)

I guess the "Hesse University" would be named after Hermann Hesse (or some other famous person with the name "Hesse"). It's just the same with a "Humboldt University", which would be named after Alexander or Wilhelm von Humboldt (or both).
Also, a "Hesse" is the inhabitant of the state "Hessen", not the state itself. ;)

In German this is correct, but we are of course talking about an English text and the English term for "Hessen" is indeed "Hesse" as well. Of course a fictional university named after Hermann Hesse would at least make some sense, and maybe this is indeed a reference to the Humboldt university (which is in Berlin). (As a German citizen myself I can at least state with confidence that there is neither a "Hessische Universität" nor a "Hesse-Universität" situated anywhere in Germany, let alone Saxony, so it really is fictitious, that's for sure. Not that this insight improves the quality of the Hanzo stories much.)

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Jellineck:
chubertdev:
Calli Arcale:
It's a bit like addressing an oil leak by draining the fuel tank.

I don't think that you're familiar with how cars work.

He is. If you can't start the car, you won't risk damaging the engine by running it without oil.

Heh; I should have read further down before explaining myself. Others got it. ;-)

BTW, not that it's terribly important or anything, but in the interests of full disclosure I am a she. ;-)

chubertdev · 2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Calli Arcale:
chubertdev:
Calli Arcale:
It's a bit like addressing an oil leak by draining the fuel tank.

I don't think that you're familiar with how cars work.

You missed the point; if you have an oil leak, you need to stop the leak, or at the very least add more oil to compensate until you can fix the leak. If you don't, you're going to do damage to your engine if you try to operate it.

If you drain the fuel tank, though, the engine can't be run, and so it won't be damaged, which is about as insane as dealing with a security vulnerability by turning off SMTP altogether. It doesn't correct the problem, it just keeps it from happening by preventing people from using the system.

Being pedantic more than anything, it would still run until the half gallon or so of gas in the fuel line is consumed.

I guess a better analogy may be removing the starter.

chubertdev · 2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Calli Arcale:
Jellineck:
chubertdev:
Calli Arcale:
It's a bit like addressing an oil leak by draining the fuel tank.

I don't think that you're familiar with how cars work.

He is. If you can't start the car, you won't risk damaging the engine by running it without oil.

Heh; I should have read further down before explaining myself. Others got it. ;-)

BTW, not that it's terribly important or anything, but in the interests of full disclosure I am a she. ;-)

I still understood it, and have no big problem with what you were aiming for, I was just irked a small bit since I'm a car guy and the analogy was a bit off.

accident · 2013-10-22 Reply Admin

OK reading the article I am glad I was not the only one confused by that IP sentence, I thought maybe cause I am just a lowly programmer instead of an IT admin that was why I didn't understand.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

chubertdev:
Calli Arcale:
chubertdev:
Calli Arcale:
It's a bit like addressing an oil leak by draining the fuel tank.

I don't think that you're familiar with how cars work.

You missed the point; if you have an oil leak, you need to stop the leak, or at the very least add more oil to compensate until you can fix the leak. If you don't, you're going to do damage to your engine if you try to operate it.

If you drain the fuel tank, though, the engine can't be run, and so it won't be damaged, which is about as insane as dealing with a security vulnerability by turning off SMTP altogether. It doesn't correct the problem, it just keeps it from happening by preventing people from using the system.

Being pedantic more than anything, it would still run until the half gallon or so of gas in the fuel line is consumed.

I guess a better analogy may be removing the starter.

::huge eye roll::

Being pedantic, if the car is a manual you can still start it without a starter with a good push and pop of the clutch.

However, the "fuel tank" analogy still works fine because if there's no fuel in the tank, the pump can't generate the pressure needed for the injectors (or carburetor) to work correctly.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Your Name:
Hannes:
There are exceptions. For example "Kim" is a name that is ok for males and females.
Yes, which is why that name would probably not be accepted as a single first name. It's alright in combination, so "Kim Thomas Schmidt" or "Kim Maria Meier" should be alright. I did not want to go too deeply into details of German naming conventions, as I felt this would be just a tiny bit off-topic here. ;)

If the story is bad, it's ok to go off topic. :P

"Kim" as a single first name is possible, though. AFAIK the infamous "Kim Schmitz" doesn't have a second name. Also, I went to school with one "Kim", but she didn't have a second name. At least, she never told anyone if she had.

In German this is correct, but we are of course talking about an English text and the English term for "Hessen" is indeed "Hesse" as well.

Well, I learned something new today. :)

chubertdev · 2013-10-22 Reply Admin

AN AMAZING CODER:
::huge eye roll::
Being pedantic, if the car is a manual you can still start it without a starter with a good push and pop of the clutch.

However, the "fuel tank" analogy still works fine because if there's no fuel in the tank, the pump can't generate the pressure needed for the injectors (or carburetor) to work correctly.

Ahhh, true. I'm lazy, and I don't like tugging on sticks like most people, so I drive an auto. Especially nice, since the DCT changes so quickly.

Anyways, the car will run until the pump can generate enough pressure, which isn't immediate.

How about we just say that this is like rolling the car off a cliff into the ocean?

chubertdev · 2013-10-22 Reply Admin

AN AMAZING CODER:
::huge eye roll::
Being pedantic, if the car is a manual you can still start it without a starter with a good push and pop of the clutch.

However, the "fuel tank" analogy still works fine because if there's no fuel in the tank, the pump can't generate the pressure needed for the injectors (or carburetor) to work correctly.

Also, do you consider having to have a specific transmission and a pop start every time less of an impediment than walking to a gas station and filling a container with gas once?

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

AN AMAZING CODER:
chubertdev:
Calli Arcale:
chubertdev:
Calli Arcale:
It's a bit like addressing an oil leak by draining the fuel tank.

I don't think that you're familiar with how cars work.

You missed the point; if you have an oil leak, you need to stop the leak, or at the very least add more oil to compensate until you can fix the leak. If you don't, you're going to do damage to your engine if you try to operate it.

If you drain the fuel tank, though, the engine can't be run, and so it won't be damaged, which is about as insane as dealing with a security vulnerability by turning off SMTP altogether. It doesn't correct the problem, it just keeps it from happening by preventing people from using the system.

Being pedantic more than anything, it would still run until the half gallon or so of gas in the fuel line is consumed.

I guess a better analogy may be removing the starter.

::huge eye roll::

Being pedantic, if the car is a manual you can still start it without a starter with a good push and pop of the clutch.

However, the "fuel tank" analogy still works fine because if there's no fuel in the tank, the pump can't generate the pressure needed for the injectors (or carburetor) to work correctly.

Oh FFS. Ok then, it's a bit like fixing an oil leak by shooting yourself in the fucking head. Happy now?

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

I'd feel much more sympathy towards the IT team if this wasn't an issue caused by the uni's network's core services being run by windows machines.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

JimM:
But ultimately, the professor is a massive tool. He chooses to character-assassinate the IT department through an editorial page

Well, he would have sent them an e-mail calmly discussing it, but it wasn't working over WIFI...

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

I don't think that you're familiar with how analogies work.

OT: I feel like the Hanzo stories are meant as a mirror for the readers own failures, a cautionary tale about pride and bullshit. Had Hanzo been able to bullshit the professor a bit better, and maybe offered a single fucking idea to fix the problem, then the professor may have been appeased.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

chubertdev:
Being pedantic more than anything, it would still run until the half gallon or so of gas in the fuel line is consumed.
I guess a better analogy may be removing the starter.

1/2 gallon of fuel? 2 liters? 8 pints? In the fuel line? Maybe if you're driving a 2-ton truck with a massive in-line fuel filter. Even then, the fuel will only flow until air gets into the lines and IF you have a fuel filter that big, have fun re-priming the system.

I don't think that you're familiar with how cars work.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

TRWTF is The Daily WTF.

chubertdev · 2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Paul Neumann:
chubertdev:
Being pedantic more than anything, it would still run until the half gallon or so of gas in the fuel line is consumed.
I guess a better analogy may be removing the starter.
1/2 gallon of fuel? 2 liters? 8 pints? In the fuel line? Maybe if you're driving a 2-ton truck with a massive in-line fuel filter. Even then, the fuel will only flow until air gets into the lines and IF you have a fuel filter that big, have fun re-priming the system.

I don't think that you're familiar with how cars work.

Yes, I drive a 2-ton truck.

chubertdev · 2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Anon:
Oh FFS. Ok then, it's a bit like fixing an oil leak by shooting yourself in the fucking head. Happy now?

Pics or it didn't happen.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Hannes:
What about Daylight Saving Time? Radio Controlled clocks do that automatically, while every other clock has to be changed manually.

Wrong.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

Your Name:
-A security problem should not depend on the type of network technology used. Having no wireless access at all to email is not acceptable, especially in the age of smartphones and tablets: sorry, but the professor is the customer here, and he is right.

No wireless access at all to email ???

No access to email would be no HTTP, HTTPS, MAPI, POP, IMAP. Read the article again and see if any of those were mentioned.

Your Name:
... Please, just stop.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

foo:
- An EBCDIC table, hand-written on it "New, correct one"
Did I miss anything?

Hanzo's sign "No entry except with authorization from Hanzo or Getrude (we get blamed for everything that goes wrong here, so keep out)" or Gertrudes's sign: ACHTUNG! ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS! DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKSEN. IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS. ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

Dzov:
AN AMAZING CODER:
Guys:
The "same ip" issue is probably just Exchange server being on the same network as the Wifi, which sits behind the same NAT. The issue being that any host on that network that's sending spam causes the same public IP address as the Exchange server to get blacklisted -- not that internal email is being spoofed.

TRWTF is being an IT department not being able to figure out how to solve that networking 101 problem, yet dismissing a computer science professor that calls out their incompetence.

I'll second this diagnosis. I'm sure it would be a lot of work for the industry's leading experts (like 10 minutes) to assign wifi to another outgoing IP address at the firewall.

Maybe they had only a single outgoing IP? Kind of weird for Uni, but we don't really know when or where exactly did this happen, if it did.

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

anonymous:
Hannes:
gnasher729:
Quartz clock + tiny built-in computer that keeps track of how the time was adjusted and then compensates for it in the future, plus temperature measurement to adjust for the change of quartz frequency depending on temperature. (So if you set the clock initially, then set it forward 3 minutes 5 months later, it assumes that it was running a bit slow and increases its speed by 3 minutes over the next five months. A year later you make another, smaller, correction and it takes that into consideration as well. No radio needed).

What about Daylight Saving Time? Radio Controlled clocks do that automatically, while every other clock has to be changed manually. And it would really suck if those clocks suddendly ran slower if you set the time one hour back.
The tiny built-in computer would have to figure that if someone adjusted the time by an exact number of hours, it's probably either the beginning or end of daylight savings time, or they've changed time zones. In neither case should it adjust its timekeeping to compensate.

Some clocks have a DST Enable/Disable function, so the internal timekeeping wouldn't need be affected, just the display. Also if it had a microcontroller, it could be programmed to automatically enable/disable DST at a predefined date.

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

FFS people, get over yourselves. If you don't like the Katzenjammer IT squad, you can stop reading after you see "Like a ninja in the night".

The world's proven reserves of WTF are starting to dwindle. It's no longer news when a web shop doesn't understand SQL injection or encryption/hashing, or when any business promotes an idiot (or worse, the idiot's technical rivals), or you find a programmer who couldn't raise an exception even if you gave them a full bottle of Viagra. Until we start discovering alternative sources of WTF, Hanzo is at least exploring new ground.

Complaints about the article's English are misguided. The grammar was readable; What fell flat was the technical wind-up and the reaction of the Katzenjammers. There could be a dozen bureaucratic/logistical/budgetary/regulatory reasons why Hanzo+Gertrude could not directly address the email problem. For all we know the real problem was not email, but a similar win/lose that compelled Gertrude to block the professor's favorite non-email "services". How quick we are to assume the protagonists are idiots, when they are just the lowest ranking pee-ons in a larger bureaucracy.

Your Name:
Most other problems of the Hanzo stories have already been mentioned, and I entirely concur: -'Hanz' is a quite unlikely spelling. -'Gertrude' has either had really cruel parents
/more redundant pile-ons abbreviated/

-Dresden is in Saxony, which is a different state than Hesse , and (public) universities are state business.

Why do you repeat these useless observations, Gertrude? We accept Michael Bolton working at Initrode, but set a story in Germany and every detail must be internally consistent?

Since these have been mentioned a dozen times already as "fatal flaws" in the Hanzo stories, I cannot wonder if you are not TRTWF or TRTROLL or operator new(WTFMeme).

Anon:
Oh FFS. Ok then, it's a bit like fixing an oil leak by shooting yourself in the fucking head. Happy now?

+1

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

Normally I'd read a bad DWTF and move on quietly. You get what you paid for and not every story or photo tickles every funny bone.

The biggest issue that I have with these 'Hanzo' stories are as follows:

The fact that these are the same old stories just 'repackaged' into exceedingly long and boring formats. Janitor unplugs network cable. Management doesn't listen. Smarty-pants know-it-all isn't as smart as he thinks he is...these are standard tropes, not new ground.
Most of these stories focus far more on 5 Rings and Sun Tzu and ninjas rather then adequately explaining the ACTUAL technology problems. I come to this site to read about technology, not ninjas.
The smug-as-sin Hanzo/writer trying to sound mysterious and foreign, which I would normally give a nod to for again trying to re-package the same-old in a new format except the author clearly has no idea what he's talking about. Reads more like he wiki'd 5 Rings and just cherry picked random quotes then actually understanding what these quotes mean. And come on... I am ninjitsu? How ignorant can you be?

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

foo:
Hannes:
What about Daylight Saving Time? Radio Controlled clocks do that automatically, while every other clock has to be changed manually.
Wrong.

Well, it's hard to argue against such an elaborate statement.

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

The Crunger:
For all we know the real problem was not email,

...but the IT staff just being incompetent. This is the problem with this story: The WTF is not explained at all. There SEEMS to be a problem with the e-mail, or maybe the professor is just stupid. Problem is: We don't know, because it isn't explained. All we know is that the professor is complaining and that the IT doesn't help him with the problem, nor do they really explain to the professor what the problem is. Instead, they talk in "buzzwords" (something every IT staff complains about when talking to someone from accounting, right?) and think, they've "won" the argument now because the professor doesn't understand them.

Hanzo could've just made the appointment with the professor, saying: "Look, this and that is the problem. And because of that, we can't enable mailing services over WiFi for the time being."

Of course, I could just "stop reading" the Hanzo stories. But you could just as well "stop reading" the comments to those stories if they bother you, right? ;)

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

Hannes:
foo:
Hannes:
What about Daylight Saving Time? Radio Controlled clocks do that automatically, while every other clock has to be changed manually.
Wrong.

Well, it's hard to argue against such an elaborate statement.

I assumed you wrote that without thinking and would now realize your mistake yourself, but apparently not, so: You don't think there are other ways to control for DST except radio controlled clocks? Such as network clocks (which were mentioned in the respective Hanzo article)? Or preprogrammed DST rules (which do change occasionally, but in most countries very rarely, so they'd likely be correct for the expected lifetime of a clock)?

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

The Crunger:
The world's proven reserves of WTF are starting to dwindle. It's no longer news when a web shop doesn't understand SQL injection or encryption/hashing, or when any business promotes an idiot (or worse, the idiot's technical rivals), or you find a programmer who couldn't raise an exception even if you gave them a full bottle of Viagra. Until we start discovering alternative sources of WTF, Hanzo is at least exploring new ground.

So what you're saying is Hanzo is the fracking solution to the peak WTF problem (metaphorically speaking)?

In this case, to get rid of Hanzo I hope they'll develop nuclear fission real soon (not metaphorically speaking).

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

What language is this article written in? I'm kinda torn between "germlish" and "denglisch" ...

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

Stop posting these bloody Hans stories. They're not any good.

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

This is the worst thing I've ever read. Please don't touch a keyboard again. Or pretend you're in IT.

FYI - TRWTF is the IT department not being fired immediately.

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

jarfil:
anonymous:
Hannes:
gnasher729:
Quartz clock + tiny built-in computer that keeps track of how the time was adjusted and then compensates for it in the future, plus temperature measurement to adjust for the change of quartz frequency depending on temperature. (So if you set the clock initially, then set it forward 3 minutes 5 months later, it assumes that it was running a bit slow and increases its speed by 3 minutes over the next five months. A year later you make another, smaller, correction and it takes that into consideration as well. No radio needed).

What about Daylight Saving Time? Radio Controlled clocks do that automatically, while every other clock has to be changed manually. And it would really suck if those clocks suddendly ran slower if you set the time one hour back.
The tiny built-in computer would have to figure that if someone adjusted the time by an exact number of hours, it's probably either the beginning or end of daylight savings time, or they've changed time zones. In neither case should it adjust its timekeeping to compensate.

Some clocks have a DST Enable/Disable function, so the internal timekeeping wouldn't need be affected, just the display. Also if it had a microcontroller, it could be programmed to automatically enable/disable DST at a predefined date.

Yes, but then you've made it only work for Daylight Savings Time. What if you want to change time zones? (Actually, it should have a ± 30 minutes function too, because of half-hour timezones)

ObiWayneKenobi · 2013-10-23 Reply Admin

Sir Galahad the Pure:
Micky:
TV Tropes:
So, Hanzo is clearly this: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreatorsPet

Yup. Remember the comics we had to live with a while back? I don't think any lessons were learned from that debacle.

Bring back MFD with Hanzo as a main character.

That would actually be funny. He could be a freelancer (that's kind of like a ninja, isn't it?) that goes between whatever company Gilroy ends up with this time around and Magenta Corp so he could have clever interactions with Gilroy and Magenta/Jenkins/Vlad/Cobol Bill and the rest.

Ooooh wait a minute. Gilroy could be partnered with a guy who acts like a pirate, like a bad Jack Sparrow imitation (yes I know the second comic was on a ship too) so we have PIRATES and NINJAS.

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

Maybe this doesn't need to be the DAILY wtf. You could skip printing "Hanzo" stories and the overall quality of the content on this site would improve.

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

foo:
Hannes:
foo:
Hannes:
What about Daylight Saving Time? Radio Controlled clocks do that automatically, while every other clock has to be changed manually.
Wrong.

Well, it's hard to argue against such an elaborate statement.
I assumed you wrote that without thinking and would now realize your mistake yourself, but apparently not, so: You don't think there are other ways to control for DST except radio controlled clocks? Such as network clocks (which were mentioned in the respective Hanzo article)? Or preprogrammed DST rules (which do change occasionally, but in most countries very rarely, so they'd likely be correct for the expected lifetime of a clock)?

Ok, then change "every other clock" to "almost every other clock". Happy now?

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

foo:
Or preprogrammed DST rules (which do change occasionally, but in most countries very rarely, so they'd likely be correct for the expected lifetime of a clock)?

Clocks with built in DST rules are a wonderful WTF when the rules change: The feature that is designed to make it unnecessary to adjust the clock manually now makes it necessary to adjust the clock twice as often as without the feature (you have to adjust both when the time would have changed according to the old rules, and when the time actually changes). I remember this from my AT&T 7300 UnixPC, which didn't have a software update after congress made a change.

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

chubertdev:
AN AMAZING CODER:
::huge eye roll::
Being pedantic, if the car is a manual you can still start it without a starter with a good push and pop of the clutch.

However, the "fuel tank" analogy still works fine because if there's no fuel in the tank, the pump can't generate the pressure needed for the injectors (or carburetor) to work correctly.

Also, do you consider having to have a specific transmission and a pop start every time less of an impediment than walking to a gas station and filling a container with gas once?

You somehow merged both of the prior analogies into one. I'm pop-starting because the starter went out, not because I drained the fuel tank :-)

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

Steve Wahl:
foo:
Or preprogrammed DST rules (which do change occasionally, but in most countries very rarely, so they'd likely be correct for the expected lifetime of a clock)?
Clocks with built in DST rules are a wonderful WTF when the rules change: The feature that is designed to make it unnecessary to adjust the clock manually now makes it necessary to adjust the clock twice as often as without the feature (you have to adjust both when the time would have changed according to the old rules, and when the time actually changes). I remember this from my AT&T 7300 UnixPC, which didn't have a software update after congress made a change.

For software, that's a WTF, but for actual hardware clocks, it's a great feature. Reminds the customer to buy a new device four times a year and "we" (the manufacturer) are not to blame for it, are we?

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

anonymous:
Yes, but then you've made it only work for Daylight Savings Time. What if you want to change time zones? (Actually, it should have a ± 15 minutes function too, because of quarter-hour timezones)

FTFY. (Yes, Nepal is TRWTF.)

2013-10-23 Reply Admin

Ugh. I posted a comment about the clock thing already (http://thedailywtf.com/Comments/SyncingSunk.aspx?rnd=1191303377&pg=L#419335) and got hinted to this here. I thought the Hanzo stories would have been through.

I've submitted some stuff here a long time ago. I only vaguely remember what I wrote, but I am pretty certain that it is far off from the published stories. As a hint, I have neither heard of the "book of five rings" before. Unfortunately, the technical side also got obscured, but that might have very well been due to a bad description from my side back then, which I simply don't recall anymore. I can't actually describe all the details, as they are likely unique in their combination of "holy crap" and would deanonymize me quickly, but I'll try to shed some light on what has been lost.

The entire email and network setup was just broken. Of course there was an open relay internally and every employee could have posed as the dean. There should still be archived emails in some inboxes from the then current chancellor... Blocking SMTP, and neither POP nor IMAP, was done for various reasons I can't explicitly name, but imagine a brain-dead exec and a clueless legal department, along technical things that could have been fixed easily, but weren't within my reach. On the internal network that block was meaningless for two reasons. All internal networks were exempt, so the open relay lived on, and Outlook would have used MAPI anyways.

TRWTF is supposed to be the professor. He actually held lectures about network topics and should have known what OSI layers are. Yet, his suggestion was to add authentication to SMTP on our end for connections to foreign servers, as a solution to the various problems. His belief was, that we can put in an authentication on the SMTP-level, where a user would have to authenticate by using his university credentials, within an SMTP session with any random server on the net. It took several minutes of confused questions until I got what he meant and was sure it was as crazy. I asked him if anything like this is part of the RFC describing SMTP and the later added authentication schemes, or if he had ever seen an email client that has the option to specify credentials for the actual server and additionally for some interceptor, that might vary from network to network. At that point he was suddenly in a hurry. And this wasn't the only occasion where he proofed to be unfit in the things he was supposed to teach.

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