The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Steve The Cynic · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Tim Rowe:
Steve The Cynic:
Actually, it's commonly cited as a Roman Catholic euphemism for masturbation. The British euphemism is "wanking".
That's hardly a euphemism. Euphemisms for it include bashing the bishop, shaking hands with the wife's best friend, and DIY.

One word for you, mate: "Whoosh!"

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Anon:
It is supposedly self abuse as in the strict word of the bible it is a sin.

I'm not sure the bible even mentions it.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

The whole comment thread is a must-read for anyone who wants to one-up that big ugly biker that keeps calling you a "fucking wanker" at the local pub.

frits · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

//These fucking wankers wanted it unfucked 
   private bool un-fuck(int fuck-v) {
   if (fuck-v == 1)
   {
    return true;
   }
   else
   {
    return false;
   }
}

Huhuhuh. Private. Huhuhuh.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

No swear filter on the system?:
ours specifically removes the word 'felching' (If you need to google it - DON'T!). Assuming that all the words were added to the list because they turned up in the code at some point then someone must've been having a really bad day...

When you say "Don't type _____ into Google" - do you know how badly that makes me want to Google it?! Fuck it, I'll do it anyway...

...oh, come on! That's not that bad!

frits · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Dear Britain,

In case you can’t tell, this is a grown-up place. The fact that you insist that words like bollocks, bloody, arse, and wanker are profane shows you’re too old and too stupid to be using English.

Go away and fuck off.

Sincerely, America

frits · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Tim Rowe:
shaking hands with the wife's best friend

You may think he's the wife's best friend, but he thinks his best friend is an asshole.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

anony:
Gen 38:8-10
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+38%3A8-10&version=NIV

While condoning sleeping with your brothers wife admonishes spilling seman on the ground. The term onanism is used to refer to the sin of masturbating with direct reference to this verse.

I guess it could be argued the true sin here was Onan not fulfilling his "brotherly duties" of getting his sister in law knocked up.

it could be argued the true sin here was Onan not fulfilling his "brotherly duties" of getting his sister in law knocked up

Well, that's the only way anyone understands it outside of the Catholic church, who take it out of context and make it a proof-text against contraception.

redundantman · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

+1 for the use of the word "wanker". The author is a cosmopolitan individual; embiguning their horizons.

-1 for the use of the f-word. There simply is no upside when using this word. It is the literary equivalent of Marilyn Manson - shocking at one time in the no-so-distant future; but sad and "quaint" in a modern context.

I am sure you will all agree that as artists, we simply much dig deeper.

PiisAWheeL · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Is that a suppository up my ass or are you just happy to see me?:
No swear filter on the system?:
ours specifically removes the word 'felching' (If you need to google it - DON'T!). Assuming that all the words were added to the list because they turned up in the code at some point then someone must've been having a really bad day...
When you say "Don't type _____ into Google" - do you know how badly that makes me want to Google it?! Fuck it, I'll do it anyway...
...oh, come on! That's not that bad!

WRONG! I didn't look it up yesterday. I decided I was better not knowing. I looked it up after your comment tho... And I threw up in my mouth a little bit...

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

redundantman:
-1 for the use of the f-word. There simply is no upside when using this word. It is the literary equivalent of Marilyn Manson - shocking at one time in the no-so-distant future; but sad and "quaint" in a modern context.

It's shocking in the future? How do you know?

C-Octothorpe · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

frits:
Tim Rowe:
shaking hands with the wife's best friend
You may think he's the wife's best friend, but he thinks his best friend is an asshole.

You should meet his neighbours... They're fucking NUTS!!!

frits · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
frits:
Tim Rowe:
shaking hands with the wife's best friend
You may think he's the wife's best friend, but he thinks his best friend is an asshole.
You should meet his neighbours... They're fucking NUTS!!!

They're always hanging around.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

When is a dash not a minus? For example when it's a number dash, an en-dash or an em-dash (there are some more). There are languages that allow them in identifiers, and then some where the specification doesn't but some implementations do. Guess how I discovered this.

C-Octothorpe · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Shinobu:
When is a dash not a minus? For example when it's a number dash, an en-dash or an em-dash (there are some more). There are languages that allow them in identifiers, and then some where the specification doesn't but some implementations do. Guess how I discovered this.

Oh, oh! I know! The hard way?

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Anketam:
FuBar:
Anon:
It is supposedly self abuse as in the strict word of the bible it is a sin.
Um, no it's not. You'll never find a chapter and verse to back your claim. Wearing blended fabrics, though, THAT is a sin! Deuteronomy 22:11.
It is safe to say that this falls under the category of 'sexual immorality' which there are plenty of verses on that topic. But if you want a short to the point chapter and verse on it: 1 Corinthian 6-18a: "Flee sexual immmorality."

So let me see if I follow the reasoning here.

A: The Bible says that masturbation is immoral.

B: No it doesn't. There is no place in the Bible that says "masturbation is immoral" or anything of that sort.

A: Yes it does! It says "flee sexual immorality". And as I just told you that the Bible says that masturbation is immoral, this verse means that masturbation is immoral!

Need I point out the elementary logic point that until you show that the Bible includes masturbation under the heading of immorality, any Bible quote warning against immorality is irrelevant?

Let's try this reasoning:

A: Einstein said that relativity theory proves that the earth is flat.

B: No he didn't! Show me one quote from Einstein's writings that say that relativity proves that the Earth is flat!

A: A flat earth is part of relativity theory. And I can give you hundreds of quotes from Einstein supporting relativity theory. Therefore, Einstein said that the Earth is flat!

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

anony:
Gen 38:8-10
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+38%3A8-10&version=NIV

While condoning sleeping with your brothers wife admonishes spilling seman on the ground. The term onanism is used to refer to the sin of masturbating with direct reference to this verse.

I guess it could be argued the true sin here was Onan not fulfilling his "brotherly duties" of getting his sister in law knocked up.

Welcome to the Daily What's The Bible Verse!

(a) Nowhere does Gen 38 say anything about masturbation. It says that Onan "spilled his seed on the ground" rather than impregnate the woman he was forced to marry. The most logical scenario here is that he withdraw during sex with his wife prior to ejaculation. He could, one presumes, have masturbated prior to having sex with her and "spilled his seed on the ground", but so what? Unless he then exhausted his supply and was not able to perform, it wouldn't help.

(b) Onan was ordered to marry Tamar and give her a son. (For reasons having to do with inheritance law that we need not get into.) He married her but then refused to impregnate her, thus putting her in a position where she had no way to have the son she was promised (without violating rules against adultery, anyway). He was not ordered to not masturbate. Therefore, the obvious conclusion is that the criticism of Onan is for deceiving Tamar, not for masturbation.

To take this verse as a condemnation of masturbation is like reading, "The Army ordered John to ship out to Europe and fight the Germans. Instead, John went AWOL." And then speculating that John might have gone fishing while he was AWOL, and concluding that the Army is opposed to fishing.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

FuBar:
Anon:
It is supposedly self abuse as in the strict word of the bible it is a sin.
Um, no it's not. You'll never find a chapter and verse to back your claim. Wearing blended fabrics, though, THAT is a sin! Deuteronomy 22:11.

Okay. So Anon can refrain from playing with himself, and I'll refrain from wearing blended fabrics. Let's see which of us misses out on the most fun.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

We used to have our own version of this problem. An employee editing large quantities of text for publication would use various NSFW words to mark his place so he could find the place later. It made sense in a way since files he was editing would not normally have anything like those words.

The problem was that sometimes he did not go back and edit them out before publication.

On another note: I had my own WTF moment of another type this morning. I was sitting at my desk when a dog came crashing through the ceiling. It managed to jump up into the area above the ceiling from a storage area behind my office and the ceiling wasn't strong enough to hold it up.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Is My Name:
The whole comment thread is a must-read for anyone who wants to one-up that big ugly biker that keeps calling you a "fucking wanker" at the local pub.

You, sir, have won today's internets.

BTW: Why does the pope wear boxer shorts in the shower? Because he doesn't want to look down on the unemployed.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Onan:
anony:
Gen 38:8-10
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+38%3A8-10&version=NIV

While condoning sleeping with your brothers wife admonishes spilling seman on the ground. The term onanism is used to refer to the sin of masturbating with direct reference to this verse.

I guess it could be argued the true sin here was Onan not fulfilling his "brotherly duties" of getting his sister in law knocked up.

it could be argued the true sin here was Onan not fulfilling his "brotherly duties" of getting his sister in law knocked up

Well, that's the only way anyone understands it outside of the Catholic church, who take it out of context and make it a proof-text against contraception.

And then ironically recommend the "withdrawal" method....ho-hum.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Who's Onan/Onin, and how the fuck shit cunt does it refer to the fucking article that we're fucking talking about here. Fucking Wankers, the lot of you!

PedanticCurmudgeon · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Jay:
Anketam:
FuBar:
Anon:
It is supposedly self abuse as in the strict word of the bible it is a sin.
Um, no it's not. You'll never find a chapter and verse to back your claim. Wearing blended fabrics, though, THAT is a sin! Deuteronomy 22:11.
It is safe to say that this falls under the category of 'sexual immorality' which there are plenty of verses on that topic. But if you want a short to the point chapter and verse on it: 1 Corinthian 6-18a: "Flee sexual immmorality."

So let me see if I follow the reasoning here.

A: The Bible says that masturbation is immoral.

B: No it doesn't. There is no place in the Bible that says "masturbation is immoral" or anything of that sort.

A: Yes it does! It says "flee sexual immorality". And as I just told you that the Bible says that masturbation is immoral, this verse means that masturbation is immoral!

Need I point out the elementary logic point that until you show that the Bible includes masturbation under the heading of immorality, any Bible quote warning against immorality is irrelevant?

Let's try this reasoning:

A: Einstein said that relativity theory proves that the earth is flat.

B: No he didn't! Show me one quote from Einstein's writings that say that relativity proves that the Earth is flat!

A: A flat earth is part of relativity theory. And I can give you hundreds of quotes from Einstein supporting relativity theory. Therefore, Einstein said that the Earth is flat!

You just passed up a relatively rare opportunity to use the phrase "begs the question" in the correct context. Hang your head in shame!

PedanticCurmudgeon · 2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Jim:
Onan:
>it could be argued the true sin here was Onan not fulfilling his "brotherly duties" of getting his sister in law knocked up
Well, that's the only way anyone understands it outside of the Catholic church, who take it out of context and make it a proof-text against contraception.

And then ironically recommend the "withdrawal" method....ho-hum.

...which happens to be one of the least effective, along with the rhythm method. If you wanted to be cynical, you could combine that with the fact that the vast majority of people have the same religion as their parents and draw all sorts of unwarranted conclusions, but we're not cynics so we won't do that.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

Isn't it obvious? You un-fuck the fuck-words.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

I imagine the code review that lead to this:

Why the fuck did you use fucked integers instead of booleans? Moreover, this is totally fucked idea to use 2 and -1 as replacement for true, as this constants should obviously be reserved for FILE_NOT_FOUND and DUNNO. Please unfuck it.

2012-02-07 Reply Admin

he was soon asked to peek at the "old" (ok, current) system and see how it worked. You know, the in lieu of a functional design document, he received the order "Just make it work like it does now".

I'm confused. They wanted him to "see how it worked" just to "make it work like it does now"? Is it something about past and present tenses in English which is funny for native speakers, or just a plain nonsense?

2012-02-08 Reply Admin

What language is this that allows hyphens embedded in symbol names? No ambiguity with subtraction?

2012-02-08 Reply Admin

Yeah yeah, this has been discussed to death already.

markfiend · 2012-02-08 Reply Admin

frits:
Dear Britain,
In case you can’t tell, this is a grown-up place. The fact that you insist that words like bollocks, bloody, arse, and wanker are profane shows you’re too old and too stupid to be using English.

Go away and fuck off.

Sincerely, America

Dear America,

When you stop using "ass" as a euphemism for "arse" you might have a point. Until then, you can fuck off yourself.

Sincerely, Britain.

PS. You can stop spelling our words wrong while we're at it.

2012-02-08 Reply Admin

cvk:
What language is this that allows hyphens embedded in symbol names? No ambiguity with subtraction?

Vis. C++ will let you do it. Use Alt+196 and save in unicode.

This compiles for instance:-

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[]) { bool my─cheese = true; int ─═WTF═─ = 4; char ╔═╗ = 'B'; char ║─║ = 'O'; char ╚═╝ = 'X'; return 0; }

Telling people about this may have been a mistake....

2012-02-08 Reply Admin

Anon:
Harrow:
Steve The Cynic:
Not Steve The Cynic:
Steve The Cynic:
It might well be accurate about the sexual proclivities of those who gave orders (for those who don't know: "wanker" is British slang for one who commits self-abuse)…

Curiously enough, in Aussie english, it is the term used for male masturbation. Many people don't call that self-abuse… Is self-abuse itself a British euphemism for masturbation?
Actually, it's commonly cited as a Roman Catholic euphemism for masturbation. The British euphemism is "wanking".
I don't see what's abusive about it. I think it's rather nice.

The New England euphemism for masturbation is "enjoying oneself".

E.g. --Are you enjoying yourself here in Boston? --Well, I haven't had an opportunity to enjoy anybody else.

Or --I hope you enjoyed yourself at the party. --No, I waited until I got home.

-Harrow.

It is supposedly self abuse as in the strict word of the bible it is a sin.

I self-abuse on the bible, then.

hoodaticus · 2012-02-09 Reply Admin

markfiend:
frits:
Dear Britain,
In case you can’t tell, this is a grown-up place. The fact that you insist that words like bollocks, bloody, arse, and wanker are profane shows you’re too old and too stupid to be using English.

Go away and fuck off.

Sincerely, America
Dear America,

When you stop using "ass" as a euphemism for "arse" you might have a point. Until then, you can fuck off yourself.

Sincerely, Britain.

PS. You can stop spelling our words wrong while we're at it.

It will be difficult to convince alien visitors to this planet that England is anything but an American colony.

frits · 2012-02-09 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
It will be difficult to convince alien visitors to this planet that [insert country name here] is anything but an American colony.

FTFY

2012-02-09 Reply Admin

that is shocking, it should be:

//These fucking wankers wanted it unfucked private bool un-fuck(int fuck-v) { return (fuck-v == 1); }

2012-02-09 Reply Admin

ahh shit, wrong forum sorry!

hoodaticus · 2012-02-09 Reply Admin

Bexley:
ahh shit, wrong forum sorry!

Apologizing only shows weakness. And on this site, that is the last thing you want to do.

2012-02-10 Reply Admin

gloin:
To be honest, this could come straight from the Linux kernel tree. Don't believe me? Go to http://lxr.linux.no/#linux+v3.2.5/ and search for any of the swear words given above. My personal favorite though is "on fire"

I'm afraid that in the 90's, those un-American Linux communist terrorists must have infiltrated the God-fearing patriots at Redmond, and planted their evil there as well, as you will see if you enter this url in your browser: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/15/71552/7795

According to Wikipedia, Akismet's algorithm works by learning patterns from comments flagged as spam in on-line forums. As spammers are always changing their tactics to get around filters, doesn't this mean that eventually every post containing a link will be blocked as spam?

2012-02-10 Reply Admin

Blakeynot:
(...)doesn't this mean that eventually every post containing a link will be blocked as spam?

Would that be wrong?

Shagen · 2012-02-10 Reply Admin

TheJonB:
Blakeynot:
(...)doesn't this mean that eventually every post containing a link will be blocked as spam?
Would that be wrong?

Then why bother with BBcode tags at all? Why not only allow plain text? It seems to me a bit of a WTF to employ a learning algorithm simply to disallow links, even if the filtering system does come by default.

2012-02-10 Reply Admin

I thought WTF stands for worse than failure.

Silly me.

2012-02-10 Reply Admin

Well, this change my concept of dirty code! hahaha!

2012-02-10 Reply Admin

Falafel. The Daily What-The-Falafel.

hoodaticus · 2012-02-11 Reply Admin

mrf:
I thought WTF stands for worse than failure.
Silly me.

It doesn't - that's just a cover.

2012-02-12 Reply Admin

TheJonB:
Vis. C++ will let you do it. Use Alt+196 and save in unicode.
This compiles for instance:-

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[]) { bool my─cheese = true; int ─═WTF═─ = 4; char ╔═╗ = 'B'; char ║─║ = 'O'; char ╚═╝ = 'X'; return 0; }

Telling people about this may have been a mistake....

Nice! And I'm sure we will use it only in those (rare) cases where it would make our intention clearer :)

2012-02-13 Reply Admin

and how would this line work itself out:

grand-total = income - expenses ???

2012-02-15 Reply Admin

don't send a chav to do a coder's job

2012-02-16 Reply Admin

Now THAT's funny! I don't care who you are. (grin)

2012-03-30 Reply Admin

In what language is a hyphen a legal part of a variable name?

2012-04-20 Reply Admin

There's a bug in this implementation of

bool un-fuck(int)

Technically, 0 should be false, and anything else should be true (at least that's how I learned the convention). This produces false for integers other than 1, when it should produce true.

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