The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2011-05-27 Reply Admin

Siva:
boog:
frits:
boog:
Nagesh:
bull is very dosile creature. the trick is to touch bull with both hands and then push...
That's disgusting.
Yes. Cow tipping is not very nice.
Even if the bull does a good job? Nagesh says he's an expert; maybe he can tell us if it's proper to tip afterward.
mufflehord! STOP try to being deface my cusin Nagesh's good name. Everyone who is only Indian knows that innercorsing with holie catle is forbiden!

Joe Biden?

2011-05-27 Reply Admin

Meep:
... I bring this up as a WTF as it can't be *that* hard to design the Finder to not try to bite off more than it can chew, to the point of rendering the whole system unusable.

No, not hard, but MS also got it wrong on Win 2k.

Probably no-one ever imagined you'd store 10,000s of files on the desktop... I can't imagine that's in many companies' test sets!

2011-05-27 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
boog:
"My neighbor's bull," he responded, "he keeps getting 'romantic' with your satellite dish."
When I dispatched a local tech, I told him to make sure to bring some gloves.
Should have told him to take some mace. I doubt those gloves will help much if the neighbor's bull gets romantic with the dispatched tech.

That's next weeks TDWTF featured article... That and whether or not the techs fault-finder was both water and bull semen-proof.

That's what the glove's for, silly!

captcha: "persto". "The bull was very persto and eventually ripped the glove. Thankfully they come in pairs, so I could put the other one on it."

2011-05-27 Reply Admin

Probably because the dish might be covered in...well i doubt i need to say more :p

2011-05-27 Reply Admin

foo:
Meep:
... I bring this up as a WTF as it can't be *that* hard to design the Finder to not try to bite off more than it can chew, to the point of rendering the whole system unusable.

No, not hard, but MS also got it wrong on Win 2k.

Probably no-one ever imagined you'd store 10,000s of files on the desktop... I can't imagine that's in many companies' test sets!

I don't know why not. Since MS Windows 95 I've seen desktops littered with shortcuts, folders, documents and images and music, installed program files, extracted zip files, AOL backups, etc. I always wretched when I sat down to help someone and discovered the trail of random Sierra* game installed to the desktop.

Sierra used randomly, it could have been any software installed on the desktop.

Hatshepsut · 2011-05-27 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
anon:
boog:
"My neighbor's bull," he responded, "he keeps getting 'romantic' with your satellite dish."
When I dispatched a local tech, I told him to make sure to bring some gloves.
Should have told him to take some mace. I doubt those gloves will help much if the neighbor's bull gets romantic with the dispatched tech.

Yes, spraying a fucking bull in the face with mace is a great idea that definitely will not get you killed.

bull is very dosile creature. the trick is to touch bull with both hands on the side of back and then push it away. itwill leave. do not spray bull with any water or you will make it mad and it can injur you with both horns.

Here in Spain they find that the best way to deal with a bull is to dress up in a tight sequinned leotard and silly hat, and to repeatedly wave a red cape in its face. Calms it right down. (But it helps to have sharp weapons and cavalry support standing by just in case.)

[For a giggle, they convince foreigners that another way to deal with bulls is to dress up in white pyjamas, get horrendously pissed, and run down a cobblestone street in front of a pack of terrified specimens of said bovine. They then kill most of them, presumably to keep the secret safe. (The bulls not the runners.)]

Hatshepsut · 2011-05-27 Reply Admin

Mick Dundee:
Nagesh:
anon:
boog:
"My neighbor's bull," he responded, "he keeps getting 'romantic' with your satellite dish."
When I dispatched a local tech, I told him to make sure to bring some gloves.
Should have told him to take some mace. I doubt those gloves will help much if the neighbor's bull gets romantic with the dispatched tech.

Yes, spraying a fucking bull in the face with mace is a great idea that definitely will not get you killed.

bull is very dosile creature. the trick is to touch bull with both hands on the side of back and then push it away. itwill leave. do not spray bull with any water or you will make it mad and it can injur you with both horns.

Haven't you watched Crocodile Dundee? You just need to have a fist (with pinky and thumb sticking out) at him, and he will go to sleep...

You have to make the noise too.

2011-05-27 Reply Admin

Steve H.:
Mark:
Plus, the pictures are copyrighted and you're setting yourself up for possible legal trouble. The job just doesn't pay enough to take on that kind of risk.
Doesn't the fair use doctrine allow for copyrighted works in nonprofit educational use?

Not in the US. Fair use does not give any special consideration to nonprofit or educational users. Fair use is the same for everybody.

EvanED · 2011-05-27 Reply Admin

A different Mark:
Steve H.:
Mark:
Plus, the pictures are copyrighted and you're setting yourself up for possible legal trouble. The job just doesn't pay enough to take on that kind of risk.
Doesn't the fair use doctrine allow for copyrighted works in nonprofit educational use?

Not in the US. Fair use does not give any special consideration to nonprofit or educational users. Fair use is the same for everybody.

That's only half true. The nature of your use matters, and educational uses is one of the things that will help your fair use argument.

So it's not the fact that they're a university that would help them, it's the fact that they're using it in an educational context. In that case they're somewhat one-and-the-same, but it does mean that you could be some Joe off the street and get the same protections if you could successfully argue you were using something in an educational context.

2011-05-27 Reply Admin

Steve H.:
Mark:
Plus, the pictures are copyrighted and you're setting yourself up for possible legal trouble. The job just doesn't pay enough to take on that kind of risk.
Doesn't the fair use doctrine allow for copyrighted works in nonprofit educational use?

No. Educational institutions can't just ignore copyright. If they could, why would you have to pay for textbooks? The school could just xerox all the books it wanted. Why pay for software? They could borrow an install disk from a local business and make copies. Etc.

There is a clause in US copyright law that says that, when judging if something qualifies as "fair use", one factor to be considered is whether the copying was done for commercial or educational purposes. Usual "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer, but I understand this to mean something like: If a teacher copies an article from a magazine and passes it out in class to discuss as part of a lesson, that would probably be considered fair use. If a business copies an article from a magazine and sells the copies, that would surely be considered copyright violation.

2011-05-27 Reply Admin

ted:
These stories remind me of how utterly stupid and self-entitled people are when it comes to IT. People treat IT technicians like shit.
A lawyer called me a "computer guy" once. I asked her if she'd be okay with me calling her "law girl". She was so offended she complained to my company.

This is what happens when two people who are both trying hard to be offended have a conversation.

I've been referred to as a "computer guy" many times. It never occured to me that this was an offensive term. What, is it like the N-word or something?

I'm reminded of the time that I was working on a book on HTML and, for an example of the use of the table tag, I grabbed some statistics off a government web site. The statistics were broken down by race: "Native American", "Hispanic", "African-American", and "White (non-Hispanic)". The publisher apparently thought that I had invented these terms, and told me that "White (non-Hispanic)" was "inappropriate humor". To this day I don't get what possible humor there is in this term.

I have this pleasant fantasy of someday living in a world where, if a person using a descriptive word to address or describe another person, the other person is not offended unless there was a clear intent to insult.

Silly idea.

2011-05-27 Reply Admin

Hatshepsut:
[For a giggle, they convince foreigners that another way to deal with bulls is to dress up in white pyjamas, get horrendously pissed, and run down a cobblestone street in front of a pack of terrified specimens of said bovine. They then kill most of them, presumably to keep the secret safe.

They kill most of the runners? Yeah, I always figured that was how it worked.

Matt Westwood · 2011-05-27 Reply Admin

Jay:
ted:
These stories remind me of how utterly stupid and self-entitled people are when it comes to IT. People treat IT technicians like shit.
A lawyer called me a "computer guy" once. I asked her if she'd be okay with me calling her "law girl". She was so offended she complained to my company.

This is what happens when two people who are both trying hard to be offended have a conversation.

I've been referred to as a "computer guy" many times. It never occured to me that this was an offensive term. What, is it like the N-word or something?

I'm reminded of the time that I was working on a book on HTML and, for an example of the use of the table tag, I grabbed some statistics off a government web site. The statistics were broken down by race: "Native American", "Hispanic", "African-American", and "White (non-Hispanic)". The publisher apparently thought that I had invented these terms, and told me that "White (non-Hispanic)" was "inappropriate humor". To this day I don't get what possible humor there is in this term.

I have this pleasant fantasy of someday living in a world where, if a person using a descriptive word to address or describe another person, the other person is not offended unless there was a clear intent to insult.

Silly idea.

(What are you, some kinda pooter-boy?)

Guess: is it because "Hispanic" is considered "non-white" by your typical arsehole rednecks, and so the suggestion that Hispanics are in fact white (Spain being Europe, and by-and-large Caucasian, although Mediterranean-Caucasian, suggests this to be true) is a laughably anti-white satirical anti-racist attempt at edgey humour.

TheRider · 2011-05-27 Reply Admin

[quote user="Jibble"][quote user="boog"][quote]I doubt those gloves will help much if the neighbor's bull gets romantic with the dispatched tech.[/quote]

You're supposed to relieve the bull before you start working on the dish. Hence the gloves.

[/quote]Slow clap

TheRider · 2011-05-27 Reply Admin

[quote user="Jibble"][quote user="boog"][quote]I doubt those gloves will help much if the neighbor's bull gets romantic with the dispatched tech.[/quote]

You're supposed to relieve the bull before you start working on the dish. Hence the gloves.

[/quote] Slow clap

2011-05-28 Reply Admin

hahahahahahhaaaaaa awesome story!!

2011-05-28 Reply Admin

anon:
boog:
"My neighbor's bull," he responded, "he keeps getting 'romantic' with your satellite dish."
When I dispatched a local tech, I told him to make sure to bring some gloves.
Should have told him to take some mace. I doubt those gloves will help much if the neighbor's bull gets romantic with the dispatched tech.

Yes, spraying a fucking bull in the face with mace is a great idea that definitely will not get you killed.

No offense, but I still prefer that to the alternative.

2011-05-28 Reply Admin

Yes, but his hands won't get all icky.

SQLDave · 2011-05-28 Reply Admin

So the bull was trying to find the satellite dish's G spot but couldn't because the power was out?

Now...how to work the stapler in there...

2011-05-29 Reply Admin

This is the relevant xkcd :)

2011-05-29 Reply Admin

"Oh," the good doctor responded, "the power has been out for a couple hours."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." - Albert Einstein

2011-05-29 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
(What are you, some kinda pooter-boy?)
Guess: is it because "Hispanic" is considered "non-white" by your typical arsehole rednecks, and so the suggestion that Hispanics are in fact white (Spain being Europe, and by-and-large Caucasian, although Mediterranean-Caucasian, suggests this to be true) is a laughably anti-white satirical anti-racist attempt at edgey humour.

No offense, but if you had the slightest knowledge of geography and ethnics, you would've known that Spain is located in Europe, but South America where most of "Hispanics" in USA are from, is half a world away. Yes, there's a percentage of Spaniards' descendants in South American countries' populations, but they also have a very high percentage of mixed races with natives (Indians) and Africans. In fact, the "white" population is usually a minority of under 20-30% through-out Mexico, Central and South America. In addition to that, the whites in those countries are usually well of and rarely migrate to US.

Therefore, no, US "Hispanics" are not usually white; they are usually native american, black, or some mixture of everything.

"White (non-Hispanic)" is a very polite way of describing Americans of European descent - British, French, Italian, German, and to a lesser extent Easter European, like Polish, Russian, etc.

jas88 · 2011-05-30 Reply Admin

SQLDave:
So the bull was trying to find the satellite dish's G spot but couldn't because the power was out?
Now...how to work the stapler in there...

Don't be silly, that would require a cow, not a bull - and I'm pretty sure trying to work the electric stapler into its G-spot will be even more dangerous than using the mace.

2011-05-30 Reply Admin

Johnny Biggg:
Matt Westwood:
(What are you, some kinda pooter-boy?)
Guess: is it because "Hispanic" is considered "non-white" by your typical arsehole rednecks, and so the suggestion that Hispanics are in fact white (Spain being Europe, and by-and-large Caucasian, although Mediterranean-Caucasian, suggests this to be true) is a laughably anti-white satirical anti-racist attempt at edgey humour.

No offense, but if you had the slightest knowledge of geography and ethnics, you would've known that Spain is located in Europe, but South America where most of "Hispanics" in USA are from, is half a world away. Yes, there's a percentage of Spaniards' descendants in South American countries' populations, but they also have a very high percentage of mixed races with natives (Indians) and Africans. In fact, the "white" population is usually a minority of under 20-30% through-out Mexico, Central and South America. In addition to that, the whites in those countries are usually well of and rarely migrate to US.

Therefore, no, US "Hispanics" are not usually white; they are usually native american, black, or some mixture of everything.

"White (non-Hispanic)" is a very polite way of describing Americans of European descent - British, French, Italian, German, and to a lesser extent Easter European, like Polish, Russian, etc.

TRWTF is US Hispanics.

2011-05-30 Reply Admin

cappeca:
Johnny Biggg:
Matt Westwood:
(What are you, some kinda pooter-boy?)
Guess: is it because "Hispanic" is considered "non-white" by your typical arsehole rednecks, and so the suggestion that Hispanics are in fact white (Spain being Europe, and by-and-large Caucasian, although Mediterranean-Caucasian, suggests this to be true) is a laughably anti-white satirical anti-racist attempt at edgey humour.

No offense, but if you had the slightest knowledge of geography and ethnics, you would've known that Spain is located in Europe, but South America where most of "Hispanics" in USA are from, is half a world away. Yes, there's a percentage of Spaniards' descendants in South American countries' populations, but they also have a very high percentage of mixed races with natives (Indians) and Africans. In fact, the "white" population is usually a minority of under 20-30% through-out Mexico, Central and South America. In addition to that, the whites in those countries are usually well of and rarely migrate to US.

Therefore, no, US "Hispanics" are not usually white; they are usually native american, black, or some mixture of everything.

"White (non-Hispanic)" is a very polite way of describing Americans of European descent - British, French, Italian, German, and to a lesser extent Easter European, like Polish, Russian, etc.

TRWTF is US Hispanics.

Oh, and passing racial profiling as knowledge of geography and ethnicity.

2011-05-30 Reply Admin

Reminds me time, when i was working for company, where the Shared disc was mapped as S: on all computers. Most used phrase sounded like: "Put it in my ass!"

2011-05-30 Reply Admin

Darn. I always called it the clit. I was wrong. Again.

Captcha: appellatio. How to put a smile on an apple

2011-05-31 Reply Admin

I've heard variations on that story since around 1995. Before I had a PhD in Computer Science...

2011-06-06 Reply Admin

Nope. She was just helpless. Same user routinely put in calls for issues with Pandora, YouTube, etc. She is no longer with us...

2017-02-07 Reply Admin

that "PHD" story reminds me of an old story: an arrogant client said, "i have a doctorate in (something) so you MUST address me as Doctor"! the tech retorted, "well, i have a master's degree in Electronics, so you should call me Master!"

Bring Some Gloves, Finding the G-spot, and More Support Stories

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