• Anon (unregistered) in reply to da Doctah
    da Doctah:
    Anon:
    Scott:
    How about: IBM, BP, AT&T, Ford, LG, Sony, BMW, Dell, MSI, Palm, RCA, NEC , GE, NBC, CBS, CNN,3M, Acer, Asus, HP, SGI, Sun, AMD, ATI, AOL, eBay, Lego, CSX?

    I'm going to guess that not one of them is an actual legal name of their respective corporations. They could probably all be entered as:

    xxx corporation

    or something similar.

    In that case, I give you IHOP. Used to stand for International House Of Pancakes, but not any more. I got into a long discussion of this at the place earlier this year and we discovered that the company name is now four letters long and doesn't stand for anything.

    (TRWTF is I don't even like pancakes.)

    According to the text at the bottom of their website's homepage, they are IHOP Corp. In other words > 5 characters.

    Not defending a stupid web form validation rule, but I can't think of any company that has an unabbreviated name <= 5 characters.

    Of course, the validation rule is only helpful to catch people that forgot to put anything in, so it ought to be set to > 0 characters. If somebody is determined to not put a real company name, they will just mash their keyboard to get > 5 characters anyway.

  • Rob (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Not defending a stupid web form validation rule, but I can't think of any company that has an unabbreviated name <= 5 characters

    Atari Ford Apple

    So there's some big names there.

  • (cs) in reply to Rob
    Rob:
    Not defending a stupid web form validation rule, but I can't think of any company that has an unabbreviated name <= 5 characters

    Atari Ford Apple

    So there's some big names there.

    Atari's out of business; Ford is Ford Motor Company...

    I do think Apple officially went to just Apple instead of Apple Computer when they realized that they were mostly just selling phones and music players.

  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to Rob
    Rob:
    Not defending a stupid web form validation rule, but I can't think of any company that has an unabbreviated name <= 5 characters

    Atari Inc. Ford Motor Company Apple Inc.

    So there's some big names there.

    FTFY

    Except that now your examples don't fit the criteria. Oh well.

  • (cs) in reply to Rob
    Rob:
    Not defending a stupid web form validation rule, but I can't think of any company that has an unabbreviated name <= 5 characters

    Atari Incorporated Ford Motor Company Apple Incorporated

    So there's some big names there.

    Yup, and none of them have less than 5 characters in their unabbreviated name.

  • Monica Lewinsky (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    The Judge:
    Bruce W:
    Soylent Fritos!!!
    I DEMAND THIS THIS IMMEDIATELY BE MADE A FEATURED COMMENT!!!!
    If the admins did that, it would be a clear violation of whatever ethereal policies they have put in place. In case you haven't noticed, Bert Glandstorm and Darth comments are deleted, along with references to wooden tables, Irish Girl, etc. Therefore, references to Soylent Green would be equally meme-ish.

    That's right, ladies and gentlemen: we are not allowed to refer to anything else when we write our comments. Doing so bring the damnum of the admins for some tristiquerious reason.

    Say it isn't so! Not our precious Irish Girl!

    [image]
  • (cs) in reply to Dan
    Dan:
    Rob:
    Not defending a stupid web form validation rule, but I can't think of any company that has an unabbreviated name <= 5 characters

    Atari Inc. Ford Motor Company Apple Inc.

    So there's some big names there.

    FTFY

    Except that now your examples don't fit the criteria. Oh well.

    Wow, it's almost like there's a pattern. One person posts what they think is an obvious company names that's less than 5 letters, and eventually someone much smarter goes to the company's website to find the company's real name, which is more than 5 letters.

    Yep, there's definitely a pattern.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Rob
    Rob:
    Not defending a stupid web form validation rule, but I can't think of any company that has an unabbreviated name <= 5 characters

    Atari Ford Apple

    So there's some big names there.

    There was a reason why I italicized the unabbreviated part. But thanks for playing.

  • Anon (unregistered)

    So maybe the five character thing is supposed to encourage users to enter the whole company name instead of one of many abbreviations which can be a pain to link together. For example, one guy puts in "IBM", another guy puts "IBM Corporation" and another guy puts "International Business Machines", are they the same company? Can you teach your web app to recognize that? Of course, it won't work, but there you go. I'd suggest using an XML file to populate a giant pull down list of every company known. Avoids all this messiness.

  • boog (unregistered) in reply to Dan
    Dan:
    Rob:
    Not defending a stupid web form validation rule, but I can't think of any company that has an unabbreviated name <= 5 characters

    Atari Inc. Ford Motor Company Apple Inc.

    So there's some big names there.

    FTFY

    Except that now your examples don't fit the criteria. Oh well.

    The ball's hit...it's deep...oh! And the umpire calls it foal! Adding "inc" onto the name doesn't make it the legal name. That that, boys and girls, is called irony.

  • (cs) in reply to The Corrector
    The Corrector:
    Frits is always followed by posts from Bert GlandsTroll. I assume this is some sort of pathetic self-advertising for his comments or something like that
    Right, because that is the most creative use of a sock puppet I could think of.
  • Vladimir Poutines (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    The Corrector:
    Frits is always followed by posts from Bert GlandsTroll. I assume this is some sort of pathetic self-advertising for his comments or something like that
    Right, because that is the most creative use of a sock puppet I could think of.
    Bert Glandstron can't even come up with a new joke even though he posts like 20-30 times a day. What a loser.
  • Little Coffee Foot (unregistered) in reply to Vladimir Poutines
    Vladimir Poutines:
    frits:
    The Corrector:
    Frits is always followed by posts from Bert GlandsTroll. I assume this is some sort of pathetic self-advertising for his comments or something like that
    Right, because that is the most creative use of a sock puppet I could think of.
    Bert Glandstron can't even come up with a new joke even though he posts like 20-30 times a day. What a loser.

    Plus, he hangs out all day waiting to flame regular posters. I wonder if his parents had any kids that lived.

  • Signature Guy (unregistered) in reply to Little Coffee Foot
    Little Coffee Foot:
    Vladimir Poutines:
    frits:
    The Corrector:
    Frits is always followed by posts from Bert GlandsTroll. I assume this is some sort of pathetic self-advertising for his comments or something like that
    Right, because that is the most creative use of a sock puppet I could think of.
    Bert Glandstron can't even come up with a new joke even though he posts like 20-30 times a day. What a loser.

    I agree with whatever frits said.

    Plus, he hangs out all day waiting to flame regular posters. I wonder if his parents had any kids that lived.

  • Wow (unregistered) in reply to Monica Lewinsky
    Monica Lewinsky:
    boog:
    The Judge:
    Bruce W:
    Soylent Fritos!!!
    I DEMAND THIS THIS IMMEDIATELY BE MADE A FEATURED COMMENT!!!!
    If the admins did that, it would be a clear violation of whatever ethereal policies they have put in place. In case you haven't noticed, Bert Glandstorm and Darth comments are deleted, along with references to wooden tables, Irish Girl, etc. Therefore, references to Soylent Green would be equally meme-ish.

    That's right, ladies and gentlemen: we are not allowed to refer to anything else when we write our comments. Doing so bring the damnum of the admins for some tristiquerious reason.

    Say it isn't so! Not our precious Irish Girl!

    [image]

    So that's the infamous Irish Girl, huh? Not bad, not bad..

  • twunt (unregistered) in reply to Sean Cheshire
    Sean Cheshire:
    You think I register software with real details? I have enough calls asking if I would like to buy stuff already.

    email comments to [email protected]

    I like [email protected]. Just in cassum.
  • twunt (unregistered) in reply to EngleBart
    EngleBart:
    Attribution required for Soylent Frito comment.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/quotes?qt0380964

    (how do I defeat the spam filter?)

    Easy. Be spam.

  • (cs) in reply to Fred
    Fred:
    I don't care how bad you wanted to be a real computer company, NCR, I for one am never going to forget that your initials formerly stood for "National Cash Register".

    And what in flick do post-it notes have to do with "mining and manufacturing"?

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    So maybe the five character thing is supposed to encourage users to enter the whole company name instead of one of many abbreviations which can be a pain to link together. For example, one guy puts in "IBM", another guy puts "IBM Corporation" and another guy puts "International Business Machines", are they the same company? Can you teach your web app to recognize that? Of course, it won't work, but there you go. I'd suggest using an XML file to populate a giant pull down list of every company known. Avoids all this messiness.

    If it works anything like the corporate giant I used to work for, nobody's going to give their "organization" as just "IBM". It'll be "IBM Corporation Onshore Small-to-Midsize Company Post-Sales Contract Support, Northeastern Division".

  • Herby (unregistered)

    Yes, air conditioners DO have remotes. I have one (it is a room air conditioner) and it works very nicely. It is especially nice since the window the air conditioner is located in is on the other side of the room and has a desk in front of it. I can easily pick up the remote and turn it on, and set the time for 1 (or 2) hours. The other nice feature is what they call "auto swing" which rotates the louvers back and forth to spread the nice cold(er) air around. I put this in over 7 years ago, so they might be more common now.

    As for companies with less than 5 letters, I look back on the company called "NBI" (they made dedicated word processors in the era before PC's). The rumor was that it stood for "Nothing but Initials", but it was never confirmed.

  • B. Mould (unregistered) in reply to da Doctah
    da Doctah:
    Fred:
    I don't care how bad you wanted to be a real computer company, NCR, I for one am never going to forget that your initials formerly stood for "National Cash Register".

    And what in flick do post-it notes have to do with "mining and manufacturing"?

    Um... manufacturing? Or maybe Minnesota.

  • H (unregistered)

    Incident: #26012 Summary: Complaint from Adobe user Detail: System requires entry of a 6-character organization name, but the user's company has a name ("Adobe") that is only 5 characters long. Status: Resolved.

    Incident: #26834 Summary: Complaint from eBay user Detail: System requires entry of a 5-character organization name, but the user's company has a name ("eBay") that is only 4 characters long. Status: Resolved.

    Incident: #29012 Summary: Complaint from IBM user Detail: System requires entry of a 4-character organization name, but the user's company has a name ("IBM") that is only 3 characters long. Status: Resolved.

    Incident: #30412 Summary: Complaint from LG user Detail: System requires entry of a 3-character organization name, but the user's company has a name ("LG") that is only 2 characters long. Status: sigh

  • Joe (unregistered)

    69.699 repeated is mathematically equivalent to 69.70 anyway. No WTF there

  • ÃÆâ€â„ (unregistered) in reply to Joe
    Joe:
    69.699 repeated is mathematically equivalent to 69.70 anyway. No WTF there
    Really? Thanks Joe, you're so smart. Nobody messes with Joe.
  • Joe (unregistered) in reply to ÃÆâ€â„
    ÃÆâ€â„:
    Joe:
    69.699 repeated is mathematically equivalent to 69.70 anyway. No WTF there
    Really? Thanks Joe, you're so smart. Nobody messes with Joe.

    Its true. Thanks for the support.

  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    Dan:
    Rob:
    Not defending a stupid web form validation rule, but I can't think of any company that has an unabbreviated name <= 5 characters

    Atari Inc. Ford Motor Company Apple Inc.

    So there's some big names there.

    FTFY

    Except that now your examples don't fit the criteria. Oh well.

    The ball's hit...it's deep...oh! And the umpire calls it foal! Adding "inc" onto the name doesn't make it the legal name. That that, boys and girls, is called irony.

    At least not unless the legal name happens to end in "inc" or more fully, "Incorporated" (as those examples do). But adding the legal name to that form is far more likely pass their stupid requirement though.

  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    Dan:
    Rob:
    Not defending a stupid web form validation rule, but I can't think of any company that has an unabbreviated name <= 5 characters

    Atari Inc. Ford Motor Company Apple Inc.

    So there's some big names there.

    FTFY

    Except that now your examples don't fit the criteria. Oh well.

    Wow, it's almost like there's a pattern. One person posts what they think is an obvious company names that's less than 5 letters, and eventually someone much smarter goes to the company's website to find the company's real name, which is more than 5 letters.

    Yep, there's definitely a pattern.

    Wow, you noticed! You win a popsicle!*

    *Popsicle must be bought by winner at winner's expense

  • Sean (unregistered) in reply to Dan

    B&Q fits the criteria.

  • moz (unregistered) in reply to PeriSoft
    PeriSoft:
    I do think Apple officially went to just Apple instead of Apple Computer when they realized that they were mostly just selling phones and music players.
    Given the timing, I suspect it was actually related to their trademark dispute with Apple Corps.
  • (cs)

    Hey, Java agrees with Best Buy:

    System.out.println(64.99+4.71);
    >>69.69999999999999

    Lesson of the day for those of you who don't know better (and those of you who do know better but don't bother with it), never ever use floating point arithmetic to store currency amounts.

    And for the Lotus Notes one, I use it all the time and I'm still waiting for a screen that can't be regarded as a WTF.

  • Shinobu (unregistered)

    More like never pretend you have more precision than you actually have. In the course of my studies I have actually done a class on how to prevent floating point rounding errors from falling outside acceptable bounds. All it amounts to is basically that you have enough bits to cover the necessary precision plus error and then round at strategic locations. Whether you actually want to do this is a second question. There are cheap parallel integer processing machines out there too. Plus, your country may have unreasonable laws that require you to store financial data in a certain way even if you can supply a mathematically rigorous proof that your way will always arrive at the exact same answer. Where I live there's a law like that (or at least there was at some point, I haven't really followed the business news lately), supposedly invented to prevent banks from cheating their customers out of half a cent interest. That half a cent is of course dwarfed by the bank's account tariff, which I'm sure includes compensation for the bank having to use odd hard and software.

  • Brendan (unregistered) in reply to Joe
    Joe:
    ÃÆâ€â„:
    Joe:
    69.699 repeated is mathematically equivalent to 69.70 anyway. No WTF there
    Really? Thanks Joe, you're so smart. Nobody messes with Joe.

    Its true. Thanks for the support.

    It's not true, unless the 9's are repeated indefinitely. Obviously in this case it was rounded down from something like 69.699999994 to suit the width of the paper.

  • Old Smith (unregistered)

    TWTF is every word in popular questions section starts with upper-case

  • (cs) in reply to Sean
    Sean:
    B&Q fits the criteria.

    Their Companies House registration lists them as "B & Q PLC".

  • change (unregistered)

    with the change from bestbuy i can now accurately set the value of my contribution:

    just my 0.000000000001 cents

  • (cs)

    For the organization name, just enter "International Business Machines". Or try adding spaces after "IBM".

    About the Lotus Notes password, contact your system administrator like it says. Maybe someone added a prompt to the file you were working on, that says "Please type your Lotus Notes password." even though you are already logged in?? (I don't know much about Lotus Notes, so I just guess)

  • Joe (unregistered) in reply to Brendan
    Brendan:
    Joe:
    ÃÆâ€â„:
    Joe:
    69.699 repeated is mathematically equivalent to 69.70 anyway. No WTF there
    Really? Thanks Joe, you're so smart. Nobody messes with Joe.

    Its true. Thanks for the support.

    It's not true, unless the 9's are repeated indefinitely. Obviously in this case it was rounded down from something like 69.699999994 to suit the width of the paper.

    I stand corrected, thanks Brendan.

  • (cs) in reply to Comic Book Store Phishing Guy
    Comic Book Store Phishing Guy:
    Worst. Phish attempt. Evar.

    Actually, it wasn't. It was a legitimate password request from some Notes "application." Too bad I don't remember what it was but it was confusing.

  • (cs) in reply to zzo38
    zzo38:
    For the organization name, just enter "International Business Machines". Or try adding spaces after "IBM".

    About the Lotus Notes password, contact your system administrator like it says. Maybe someone added a prompt to the file you were working on, that says "Please type your Lotus Notes password." even though you are already logged in?? (I don't know much about Lotus Notes, so I just guess)

    Get a long straw, stick one end into a septic system, and take a big ol' drink. That will be pretty close to the experience of using Notes.

  • Roger Garrett (unregistered) in reply to Speaking of passwords...
    Speaking of passwords...:
    Did you know that if you type in your password in the comments, it will only be visible to you? Everyone else will just see stars. See?

    *******

    Maybe that's what happened when Dave Boman touched the monolith in "2001 A Space Odyssey" and said "It's filled with stars". He was just trying to type in his password.

  • Roger Garrett (unregistered) in reply to boog
    boog:
    Wait, how many say "remote not working"? It is a popular question!

    It's amazing how many people don't understand the difference between popular and common. No doubt the questions posed on that web site are common for the site. But I rather doubt that anyone thinks of them as popular.

  • (cs)

    The real problem is is that people are too stupid to figure out how to turn on their own TV without a remote.

    I mean... wow... there is a reason televisions have the power button placed where it is on every single other electronic appliance.

  • Dirge (unregistered) in reply to nwbrown
    nwbrown:
    Lesson of the day for those of you who don't know better (and those of you who do know better but don't bother with it), never ever use floating point arithmetic to store currency amounts.

    Or, you could, you know, use a modern programming language that supports formatting floating-point values as fixed-point values when displaying them as strings.

    But feel free to keep using some arcane internal fixed-point representation, or storing dollars and cents as separate values and handling the math yourself, or whatever else it is you're recommending doing.

  • (cs)

    If you scroll the list to the bottom, after all the "consultants" there's an HPC

  • (cs) in reply to Dirge
    Dirge:
    nwbrown:
    Lesson of the day for those of you who don't know better (and those of you who do know better but don't bother with it), never ever use floating point arithmetic to store currency amounts.

    Or, you could, you know, use a modern programming language that supports formatting floating-point values as fixed-point values when displaying them as strings.

    But feel free to keep using some arcane internal fixed-point representation, or storing dollars and cents as separate values and handling the math yourself, or whatever else it is you're recommending doing.

    I'm not sure what languages you use, but every language I work with has either an explicit type for currency, or the data type page in the documentation tells you what type to use. None of them recommend floating point types. Here is one example of many.

  • XPat (unregistered)

    About airconditioners and remotes: Welcome to Japan.

  • The 2-Belo (unregistered) in reply to XPat
    XPat:
    About airconditioners and remotes: Welcome to Japan.

    The real WTF is that American air conditioners don't have them. If any nation needed remote controls for their air conditioners....

  • D47 (unregistered)

    I love the daily wtf. the DAILY wtf DAILY!

  • (cs)
    Why is this a 'popular' question?
    Morbid curiosity.

    I'd click it.

  • (cs)

    The Bikesure logo looks like a CAPTCHA. This comment is not for my air conditioner.

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