• Bob (unregistered)

    Firs... ah forget it, I've gone to get a Crunchie!

  • (cs)

    I couldn't recycle my previous comments as somebody emptied the bin yesterday!

  • (cs)

    Email filters - gotta wonder about a woman who'd dump a guy (b/c he didn't respond to an email) without first picking up the phone...

    Maybe Steve is better off...

  • Diet Cookies (unregistered)

    Please return the drawing as soon as possible.

  • timias (unregistered)

    Maybe Steve is unhappy because Kathy gave him a virus.

  • (cs)

    I remember the "I Love You" virus. It hit the company I was working for. My office was next door to that of a technologically challenged marketing type. About 8:30 AM he came to my office and asked me if I could help him with something. He showed me an email with the subject "I Love You" and said, "It's got an attachment on it, but I can't get it to open." I asked, "Do you know the sender?" and he said, "No, that's why I'm so curious to see what it is."

    I cautioned him not to open it or try anything further with it, just wait and let's see what develops over the next hour. Sure enough, about 15 minutes later came the warning that the company was experiencing a virus infection, and not to open any emails with the subject "I Love You".

  • Jeff (unregistered)

    Ah, regular expressions. Cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

    Captcha: transverbero - an action word having undergone sex change surgery. How this is appropriate, I do not know...

  • 50% Opacity (unregistered)

    I always thought "Recycle Bin" was a horrible and misleading name for the pre-stage of /dev/null. What's it s'posed to be recycling anyway? Make a fresh handful of bits out of your old files?

  • (cs) in reply to 50% Opacity
    50% Opacity:
    I always thought "Recycle Bin" was a horrible and misleading name for the pre-stage of /dev/null. What's it s'posed to be recycling anyway? Make a fresh handful of bits out of your old files?
    Well, they couldn't give you a Trash can, because Apple had a monopoly on those. ;)
  • (cs) in reply to 50% Opacity
    50% Opacity:
    I always thought "Recycle Bin" was a horrible and misleading name for the pre-stage of /dev/null. What's it s'posed to be recycling anyway? Make a fresh handful of bits out of your old files?
    In case you're not trolling, it recovers space on your filing system. Yeah, not obvious, but logic trumps obviousness in this industry.
  • (cs) in reply to 50% Opacity
    50% Opacity:
    I always thought "Recycle Bin" was a horrible and misleading name for the pre-stage of /dev/null. What's it s'posed to be recycling anyway? Make a fresh handful of bits out of your old files?
    How about "Purgatory" instead?
  • Nick (unregistered)

    This is thedailyWTF that I've been missing…great stories!

  • (cs)

    The one about returning the csv reminds me of a time I was working on a problem and my boss made me call Microsoft support. During the process, there was some agreements to be signed. The MS guy couldn't email it as an attachment for some reason, he had to fax it. When he faxed it, he faxed two copies of it. When I asked him about it, figuring it had showed as not going through the first time or something, he said, "Yes, one is for you to keep and the other is for you to sign and fax back."

  • (cs) in reply to ATimson
    ATimson:
    50% Opacity:
    I always thought "Recycle Bin" was a horrible and misleading name for the pre-stage of /dev/null. What's it s'posed to be recycling anyway? Make a fresh handful of bits out of your old files?
    Well, they couldn't give you a Trash can, because Apple had a monopoly on those. ;)

    I've always been irritated by the politically correct "recycle bin".

    Are you saying that Apple had some sort of trademark on Trash can?

    GeOS had a Trash can.

  • doconnor (unregistered)

    During the I Love You virus I emailed a letter to the editor to of my local paper pointing out how it was Microsoft's fault. Unfortunately the email was rejected because it mentioned the name of the virus.

  • (cs)

    For virtual return, maybe she wanted you to send it to her so she knew exactly which numbers to cancel?

  • (cs) in reply to Jeff
    Jeff:
    Ah, regular expressions. Cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

    Captcha: transverbero - an action word having undergone sex change surgery. How this is appropriate, I do not know...

    It isn't. And no one cares about your captcha.

  • (cs) in reply to jonnyq
    jonnyq:
    ATimson:
    50% Opacity:
    I always thought "Recycle Bin" was a horrible and misleading name for the pre-stage of /dev/null. What's it s'posed to be recycling anyway? Make a fresh handful of bits out of your old files?
    Well, they couldn't give you a Trash can, because Apple had a monopoly on those. ;)

    I've always been irritated by the politically correct "recycle bin".

    Are you saying that Apple had some sort of trademark on Trash can?

    GeOS had a Trash can.

    "When Microsoft made Windows 1.0, they copied as much of the look-and-feel of the Mac OS as they legally could. This did not, however, include the Trash Can: the concept was new enough that a direct analogue would probably have led to a copyright infringement lawsuit." from http://everything2.com/title/trash%2520can

    Would you believe it, even by the time of windows 95, Microsoft feared apple (or at least their lawyers)?

  • BB (unregistered) in reply to jonnyq

    According to Wikipedia, Apple indeed have a monopoly on Trash can:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycle_bin_(computing)

  • (cs) in reply to doconnor
    Unfortunately the email was rejected because it mentioned the name of the virus.

    Well, that's what they told you.

  • Misel (unregistered)

    The latest story reminds me on userfriendly:

    http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20000511

    sigh

  • Dave Rolsky (unregistered)

    I think several of these WTFs highlight failures in the software, not the people.

    For "Host is Busy", a company making restaurant management software should know what a restaurant means by host, and regardless, using "host" is way too techie.

    Better to say something like "master computer" with some explanatory text like "many restaurants keep this computer in the back office".

    Same goes for the recycle bin. I saw the comments about the look'n'feel issue, but recycle is clearly wrong. The user's assumption was not unreasonable in that case.

  • Joe (unregistered)

    I remember ILoveYou... I was driving in to the office, and got an email on my pager from a very nice young lady in our accounting office who was near the end of her two-weeks notice that said "I love you." The rest of my drive in I spent thinking that either there was something exceedingly odd going on, or that this was going to be an exceedingly awkward day.

    Fortunately, it was just a computer virus.

  • 50% Opacity (unregistered) in reply to jonnyq
    jonnyq:
    I've always been irritated by the politically correct "recycle bin".

    They should provide several Recycle Bins at least to be perfectly correct.

    [ Words Files Recycle Bin ] [ PDF Recycle Bin ] [ JPG/JPEG/PNG Recycle Bin (no JPEG 2000) ] [ GIF/Flammable Material ] [ mostly green (>50%) RAW files ] [ .xlsx, .docx - please call for special pickup ]

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to 50% Opacity
    50% Opacity:
    I always thought "Recycle Bin" was a horrible and misleading name for the pre-stage of /dev/null. What's it s'posed to be recycling anyway? Make a fresh handful of bits out of your old files?
    The thing is, if they named it 'trash', they'd probably get complaints that the computer was throwing away their space and would ask if they needed to buy a new hdd.
  • 50% Opacity (unregistered) in reply to Bellinghman
    Bellinghman:
    50% Opacity:
    I always thought "Recycle Bin" was a horrible and misleading name for the pre-stage of /dev/null. What's it s'posed to be recycling anyway? Make a fresh handful of bits out of your old files?
    In case you're not trolling, it recovers space on your filing system. Yeah, not obvious, but logic trumps obviousness in this industry.

    That seems neither logical nor intuitive to me. Erasing != Recycling

  • (cs)

    The Director of IT where I once worked had set down a rule that Outlook was not to automatically clear out the Deleted folder at any time.

    He was rather fond of being able to file his important stuff with one click. Yes, he clicked Delete to save his important messages.

    In a very odd way I can see his point but that's only after repeatedly hitting my head on my desk for about half a hour.

  • (cs) in reply to Code Dependent

    Excellent.

    Or we call call it "waste basket"...

  • 50% Opacity (unregistered) in reply to Bellinghman
    Bellinghman:
    In case you're not trolling, it recovers space on your filing system.
    Peter:
    ...if they named it 'trash', they'd probably get complaints that the computer was throwing away their space...

    Did I miss the memo that stated that free space works like anti-matter now? Recycling bits into anti-bits that you can throw away?

    Thoroughly confused.

  • Trash Man (unregistered) in reply to ATimson
    ATimson:
    50% Opacity:
    I always thought "Recycle Bin" was a horrible and misleading name for the pre-stage of /dev/null. What's it s'posed to be recycling anyway? Make a fresh handful of bits out of your old files?
    Well, they couldn't give you a Trash can, because Apple had a monopoly on those. ;)
    So why didn't they simply name it Garbage Collector?
  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to BB
    BB:
    According to Wikipedia, Apple indeed have a monopoly on Trash can:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycle_bin_(computing)

    hmm, I'm fairly sure it was called Trashcan on the Amiga OS in the 80s.

  • Berto (unregistered)

    The Virtual Return story sounds very familiar. Was it recycled from another WTF post?

  • (cs) in reply to Dave Rolsky
    Dave Rolsky:
    I think several of these WTFs highlight failures in the software, not the people.

    For "Host is Busy", a company making restaurant management software should know what a restaurant means by host, and regardless, using "host" is way too techie.

    Better to say something like "master computer" with some explanatory text like "many restaurants keep this computer in the back office".

    They should have just used "server".

  • Guesser (unregistered)

    I usually hold down shift when I hit delete anyway

  • (cs) in reply to MrsPost
    MrsPost:
    The Director of IT where I once worked had set down a rule that Outlook was not to automatically clear out the Deleted folder at any time.

    He was rather fond of being able to file his important stuff with one click. Yes, he clicked Delete to save his important messages.

    In a very odd way I can see his point but that's only after repeatedly hitting my head on my desk for about half a hour.

    I'm curious... What did he do with unimportant e-mails taht he didn't want anymore?

  • (cs) in reply to Bellinghman
    Bellinghman:
    50% Opacity:
    I always thought "Recycle Bin" was a horrible and misleading name for the pre-stage of /dev/null. What's it s'posed to be recycling anyway? Make a fresh handful of bits out of your old files?
    In case you're not trolling, it recovers space on your filing system. Yeah, not obvious, but logic trumps obviousness in this industry.

    It doesn't recover the space until you empty it. It's exactly like a pre-stage of /dev/null. The Win32 equivalent of "are you sure?" for deleting files.

  • 100% Opacity (unregistered) in reply to 50% Opacity
    50% Opacity:
    That seems neither logical nor intuitive to me. Erasing != Recycling

    What, is the trash can actually hauling the bits of your hard drive out to the street? Erasing a file marks the bits as able to be used by something else. Recycling. I know, big stretch, try to do it...

  • Myrmidon (unregistered) in reply to vt_mruhlin
    vt_mruhlin:
    For virtual return, maybe she wanted you to send it to her so she knew exactly which numbers to cancel?

    Which would still beg the question why wouldn't she just use the copy of the file in her 'out box' so to speak if sheed needed the numbers, and simply have him destroy the copy he recieved instead?

  • sarcy (unregistered) in reply to Guesser
    Guesser:
    I usually hold down shift when I hit delete anyway
    well aren't you the clever one
  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Crunchies: took the help-desk guy a lot longer than me to figure out what he meant. As soon as the word "internet" came up...

    ILOVEYOU: Not buying this one for a second. What kind of love letter starts with ILOVEYOU in all caps and no spaces? I'd expect that from a signing gorilla but not a human being.

  • Travis (unregistered) in reply to jonnyq
    I've always been irritated by the politically correct "recycle bin".

    Me too! On my computer it's the "Flaming Tire Pile", and every time I add something, a seagull drops out of the sky and dies on the taskbar.

  • Travis (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    ILOVEYOU: Not buying this one for a second. What kind of love letter starts with ILOVEYOU in all caps and no spaces? I'd expect that from a signing gorilla but not a human being.

    But this was Back In the Day. I didn't grow up in a tech-savvy household, and thought the entire Internet was AOL and that e-mail addresses were roughly the same as regular addresses (i.e., required a bit of legwork to get). To us uber-noobs, an e-mail was like a regular letter or a good, solid handshake, back before medical miracles and Nigerian princes began to fall into our Inboxes like rain.

  • Bobblehead Troll (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    ILOVEYOU: Not buying this one for a second. What kind of love letter starts with ILOVEYOU in all caps and no spaces? I'd expect that from a signing gorilla but not a human being.

    I don't know much about sendmail but I would guess the reject pattern ditched all mails which contained the strings 'i', 'love', and 'you' in that order, regardless of spaces or anything else.

  • (cs) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    Dave Rolsky:
    I think several of these WTFs highlight failures in the software, not the people.

    For "Host is Busy", a company making restaurant management software should know what a restaurant means by host, and regardless, using "host" is way too techie.

    Better to say something like "master computer" with some explanatory text like "many restaurants keep this computer in the back office".

    They should have just used "server".

    "Server" is also a term used to describe people who work in a restaurant. See also waiter/waitress.

  • Beavis (unregistered) in reply to Travis
    Travis:
    I've always been irritated by the politically correct "recycle bin".

    Me too! On my computer it's the "Flaming Tire Pile", and every time I add something, a seagull drops out of the sky and dies on the taskbar.

    Me three! I run with the crowd though so on my computer a little Bill Gates douses the document with gasoline then sets it afire, then the vapors flash and Bill goes up in flames too. I think my computer senses the insult though, because after he crumbles into ashes I get a stop error and I'm forced to reinstall windows upon reboot. Needless to say I only empty my recycle bin once or twice a year.

  • (cs) in reply to cparker
    cparker:
    akatherder:
    Dave Rolsky:
    I think several of these WTFs highlight failures in the software, not the people.

    For "Host is Busy", a company making restaurant management software should know what a restaurant means by host, and regardless, using "host" is way too techie.

    Better to say something like "master computer" with some explanatory text like "many restaurants keep this computer in the back office".

    They should have just used "server".

    "Server" is also a term used to describe people who work in a restaurant. See also waiter/waitress.

    Whoosh!

  • Ozz (unregistered) in reply to cparker
    cparker:
    akatherder:
    Dave Rolsky:
    I think several of these WTFs highlight failures in the software, not the people.

    For "Host is Busy", a company making restaurant management software should know what a restaurant means by host, and regardless, using "host" is way too techie.

    Better to say something like "master computer" with some explanatory text like "many restaurants keep this computer in the back office".

    They should have just used "server".

    "Server" is also a term used to describe people who work in a restaurant. See also waiter/waitress.

    Woosh!

  • (cs) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    Dave Rolsky:
    I think several of these WTFs highlight failures in the software, not the people.

    For "Host is Busy", a company making restaurant management software should know what a restaurant means by host, and regardless, using "host" is way too techie.

    Better to say something like "master computer" with some explanatory text like "many restaurants keep this computer in the back office".

    They should have just used "server".

    In case that wasn't a lame joke:

    ...that would be the person who "serves" the food. You may call them waiters, as waiters are often also servers.

    Congrats, you just replaced one person that the manager needs to check with a dozen.

    As someone mentioned, they should have used "host computer" to alleviate confusion.

  • (cs)
    dumb terminal

    Apparently it wasn't just the terminal.

  • (cs) in reply to Myrmidon
    Myrmidon:
    vt_mruhlin:
    For virtual return, maybe she wanted you to send it to her so she knew exactly which numbers to cancel?

    Which would still beg the question why wouldn't she just use the copy of the file in her 'out box' so to speak if sheed needed the numbers, and simply have him destroy the copy he recieved instead?

    Well if she's sent him multiple batches, and isn't sure which customer was supposed to have gotten the batches she got... (still, she could ask him for some kind of batch ID).

    Or maybe whatever system actually sends out the files generates them on the fly. While it may have bugged out and sent something to the wrong person, maybe it logs everything as having happened just fine. Or maybe it only sent half an order. etc.

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