• greg (unregistered) 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.

    And OS/2 had a SHREDDER! :-)

  • UncleDavid (unregistered)

    Returning the CSV file, with a set of mail headers that indicate who the file is from and who it is to, makes perfect sense if you think Audit Trail. Especially if there is an explanation in the body.

    It's not waterproof legally, but woild probably make auditors happier than having just one side claiming the transaction.

  • (cs) in reply to Code Dependent
    Code Dependent:
    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."

    Translation: "I just opened the attachment, but since the virus writer intentionally didn't include a GUI, I mistook the lack of anything visible happening for a subtle attachment handling problem, rather than the invisible and malicious self-propagating behavior intended by the virus's author."

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

    Erasing = (Freeing Up For Reuse) = Reuse = Recycling.

    Having logic difficulties?

  • JdFalcon04 (unregistered) in reply to Erzengel
    Erzengel:
    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.

    Unless of course the host happens to have a computer, like lots of restaurant host stands have, in which case he probably wouldn't find anything wrong with it. You can never underestimate the technical knowledge of an average non-technical person.

  • Pine Scented (unregistered)

    Good ol' ILOVEYOU virus!

    The firm I worked for at the time this virus came out decided to be proactive in handling the issue by sending an email to all users informing them about the virus. Included in the email was a link so users could see what an infected email looked like. Unfortunately, the linked email still contained the virus. Nice job!

  • (cs)

    The recycle bin and trash cans are conventions of unimaginative minds.

    Better to use a toilet. When you want to delete the files, flush 'em.

  • Charles Manson (unregistered) in reply to Charles400
    Charles400:
    The recycle bin and trash cans are conventions of unimaginative minds.

    Better to use a toilet. When you want to delete the files, flush 'em.

    But I can recover items from the recycle bin.

  • (cs) in reply to Charles Manson
    Charles Manson:
    But I can recover items from the recycle bin.

    So just add a plunger icon...

  • (cs) 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.

    I want one of those!

  • My Name (unregistered)

    I'm not sure, but I think Workbench (Amiga) had a trash can as well

  • drach (unregistered) in reply to jonnyq
    jonnyq:
    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?
    I've always been irritated by the politically correct "recycle bin".
    Well, I'm certainly not throwing my banana peels, apple cores or leftovers from the greasy place down the street in a Recycling Bin, although I would put paper documents in there. Once a week or so in most offices, recycling bins get emptied, so I think that is what message they were trying to imply. Sure, it's possible that you might could salvage it in good from from the recycle bin within a couple of days, but after so many days they're going to be gone, and there's nothing you can do about it... Most corporate users should grok that right away. They don't, and more's the pity, but that was the concept, I believe. Nothing PC about it. If we're going for PC, I would say that my apple cores and banana peels, while being usefully nutritious in some regard, probably should go in a recycling bin of their own, for composting. You'll notice I also left out of my list things like soda cans, water bottles, coffee cups, etc, that often get tossed in "trash cans" that end up ruining whatever you put in there in the first place. So "trash can" is not the best synonymous word to use to describe a place where documents can be salvaged for a brief duration without damage.

    Or at least, so says Captain Obvious.

    Captcha: dignissim - hmmm, I'll leave that one alone, too many others around here can come up with much funnier variations.

  • (cs) in reply to Charles Manson
    Charles Manson:
    Charles400:
    The recycle bin and trash cans are conventions of unimaginative minds.

    Better to use a toilet. When you want to delete the files, flush 'em.

    But I can recover items from the recycle bin.

    They had a theme on Windows 95 for this a long while back. The recycle bin was a toilet and it made a flushing sound when you emptied it.

    I don't think that MS was worried about infringement, I think they just wanted it to be named something different than apple.

  • DMala (unregistered) in reply to Charles400
    Charles400:
    The recycle bin and trash cans are conventions of unimaginative minds.

    Better to use a toilet. When you want to delete the files, flush 'em.

    Back when I still bothered to customize Windows, I always replaced the Recycle Bin icon with a toilet icon and renamed it "The Can," complete with flushing sound effect when you emptied it.

    I'm slightly less of a dork these days.

  • (cs) in reply to nocturnal
    nocturnal:
    Or we call call it "waste basket"...
    I call mine "El Deleto Grande!"...

    np: Tim Buckley - I Never Tried To Be Your Mountain (A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Vol. 1 (Disc 2))

  • darkmage0707077 (unregistered)

    Amazing how that ILOVEYOU virus WTF happens to come up the day before Valentine'S Day, eh?

    Sounds like Steve probably didn't have a very happy V-day, himself. Here's hoping nothing like that happens to other people this year...

  • BobNFreely (unregistered)

    I've always hated the idea of a "recycle" or "trash" bin for deleting files. It's very simple. If you think you might need the file again someday, don't delete it. If you want to delete a file, why the hell would you want the system to hang keep it, using up valuable disk space? "Oh, you want to delete a file? Okay, well, I'll hang on to it until you're really sure you want to delete it. Just let me know." That's why I never use the damn thing. When I want to delete something, I highlight it and press SHIFT-DELETE. It's a habit I got into back in the days when hard disks were small and expensive.

  • Goldie (unregistered)

    Ah, I remember ILOVEYOU virus well. I was talking to a girl from my old job (a dotcom startup), and she told me they'd got infected. Got to give them credit, out of the 25 people in the office, only one guy opened the email and the attachment. Surprisingly, he was also the only one that was recently and happily married, and very vocal about it.

  • Maarten (unregistered)

    Another wtf on ILOVEYOU. One coworker (a developer I might add) received the ILOVEYOU email, but it failed to execute due to a non-compatible version of visual basic installed on her machine. So, naturally, she downloaded and installed the correct version of VB in order to execute the attachment. Luckily, that also failed, so she printed out the code to figure out who loved her.

  • Ohako (unregistered)

    During ILOVEYOU we got hit with it, because one of our co-workers was just so excited to get an email from someone who thought fondly of her.

    There wasn't anything really wrong with this person...she was just...rather chipper?

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to Bobblehead Troll
    Bobblehead Troll:
    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.

    Basically, if he manages to mess up a sendmail filter and goes trough other people's email, he deserves to get fired and to never get hired again.

  • CAR912 (unregistered) in reply to Berto

    Same here, can't find where I read it before though.

  • G Money (unregistered) 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.

    ...

    Yeah ... they probably should have called it something like a "server".

  • CAR912 (unregistered) in reply to Berto
    Berto:
    The Virtual Return story sounds very familiar. Was it recycled from another WTF post?

    Same here, can't find where I read it before though.

    Gah, "quote", not "reply".

  • G Money (unregistered) in reply to G Money
    G Money:
    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.

    ...

    Yeah ... they probably should have called it something like a "server".

    Damn ... should have read in first.

  • (cs) in reply to G Money
    G Money:
    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.

    ...

    Yeah ... they probably should have called it something like a "server".

    But a "server" can also describe people who work in a restaurant (waiters and waitresses).

  • (cs)

    Much more serious version of the "host" mix-up: I heard a story once about a company hired to go through every line of Unix source code and rewrite any mention of "aborting" processes, on account of it was going to be used in a hospital...

  • Layman (unregistered)

    That story about the recycle bin is interesting, I heard it before. Another thing that strikes me as interesting is the fact that it is a naming problem and that it would be much less likely to happen in my country (Brazil).

    Let me explain. In the english version of Windows, the bin is called "Recycle Bin", so it gives the idea that you might want to "recycle" previous files and use them again. In the portuguese version, however, it is called, literally, "Trash Can". It gives the idea that if a file is in there then you shouldn't touch it because if it dirty or something. So people here very, very rarely pull something out of the trash because it sounds gross :)

  • lanmind (unregistered)

    I was on tanks in the Army... Crunchies are what we called the Infantry :P

  • (cs) in reply to Charles400
    Charles400:
    The recycle bin and trash cans are conventions of unimaginative minds.

    Better to use a toilet. When you want to delete the files, flush 'em.

    Already been done.

    [image]
  • monkeyPushButton (unregistered) in reply to Charles Manson
    Charles Manson:
    Charles400:
    The recycle bin and trash cans are conventions of unimaginative minds.

    Better to use a toilet. When you want to delete the files, flush 'em.

    But I can recover items from the recycle bin.
    You obviously don't have kids if you've never had to retrieve something from the toilet.

    CAPTCHA: causa - causa, I told you to!

  • Nodody (unregistered)

    The "Virtual Return" story reminds me of an incident I had on a project I was working on. We were working with our parent company to implement the ability to accept their private label credit card at our retail stores. The processing is handled through web services. Before we established connectivity, we were testing by sending the SOAP requests we generated to them via email for them to try to process. When I sent the first batch of .xml files to the tester, I got an email back asking me to please resend the files as text files, because when she opened my files, the lines had little "+" and "-" signs in front of them. After a little head scratching, I concluded that she was double-clicking on the .xml files, resulting in tem being opened in Internet Explorer. When IE opens a .xml file with no style information, it displays it with "+" and "-" buttons on the left hand side to expand and contract elements. I considered trying to explain this concept, but opted to just rename the files as .txt and re-send.

  • (cs) in reply to pitchingchris
    pitchingchris:
    Charles Manson:
    Charles400:
    The recycle bin and trash cans are conventions of unimaginative minds.

    Better to use a toilet. When you want to delete the files, flush 'em.

    But I can recover items from the recycle bin.

    They had a theme on Windows 95 for this a long while back. The recycle bin was a toilet and it made a flushing sound when you emptied it.

    I don't think that MS was worried about infringement, I think they just wanted it to be named something different than apple.

    Are we done with this restaurant host/server business yet? Apparently not. More to the point, the system as described is nothing like a client-server system, nor is it a host-anything system. Back when dumb terminals were the norm, and not so long ago, we called it "a computer." With remote terminals on a bisync link, you could conceivably call it a "master-slave" system.

    I've known restaurants where the message "Problem with the master!" would cause severe ructions.

    Are we done with that one? Now to this one.

    My understanding, and I'm developing hives any time I go near Walesypedia so I'm not going to follow that link, is that the issue was not "calling something a trash can/recycle bin." ("Yo' mommas so full of shit, she look like ...") That would be absurd, even by the standards of American Law. Can you imagine teams of lawyers running down the street after refuse collectors with writs for copyright infringement? I mean, I've heard of ambulance chasers, but this is ridiculous.

    No (as I understand it), the problem was the icon. Apple's lawyers hit hard and often on anybody who produced similar functionality with an icon that resembled the Mac trash can. Given 24x24 pixels, or whatever the standard was at the time, this was difficult to get around. Essentially, it comes down to the wretched state of "look and feel" law in the 1980s, as applied to IT.

    Are we done with this one yet? Probably not. It's Friday afternoon. Let Loose the Dogs of Aaargh, Not Again.

    Actually, I sympathise with the guy in the original story. I mean, when I first saw the Windows "recycling bin," I thought: "WTF is that?" Then I made a guess, which was probably wrong. Even today, when I go to retrieve something from the thing, I get peeved that I can't redirect it to somewhere other than where it came from. That is not recycling.

    As Queen Elizabeth I once said about the boomerang, "Well, that's no good, is it? When I throw something away, I jolly well want it to stay thrown away."

  • That's pretty common for young folk. (unregistered) in reply to Bobblehead Troll

    Peek at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=iloveyou - ILOVEYOU all strung together is pretty common.

  • (cs) in reply to pink_fairy
    pink_fairy:
    Are we done with this restaurant host/server business yet? Apparently not.

    I was the one who made the first "server" comment as trollbait. You may also notice that when someone else suggested "server" I was the one who took the trollbait.

  • Todd (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.

    Hence the statement, "I must have messed up the regex". As the body of the message shows, she did put "I love you" but it was caught anyways. I'm guessing it was the only one caught like this because this was a business so there were probably not many real love letters flying around.

  • Todd (unregistered) in reply to anon
    Anonymous:
    Basically, if he manages to mess up a sendmail filter *and* goes trough other people's email, he deserves to get fired and to never get hired again.

    Well, I wasn't really randomly reading people's email. I was looking through the mail caught by the filter using "more" because I was trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

    You're right about the filter part. I hate sendmail.

  • (cs)
    Blake H.:
    Years ago, I worked for a company that sold and supported a restaurant Point of Sale (POS) system named after a furry creature that eats and hides and is nuts.
    FTFY. You were clearly talking about Swampy PoS.
  • (cs) in reply to kastein
    kastein:
    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.
    I guess some people can't be satisified with just passing the Turing test... they think it's something to show off about.

    Well, it is, but only if you're a bot.

  • (cs) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    pink_fairy:
    Are we done with this restaurant host/server business yet? Apparently not.

    I was the one who made the first "server" comment as trollbait. You may also notice that when someone else suggested "server" I was the one who took the trollbait.

    Hint to all of us: assume no offence is meant.

    No offence was meant.

    Unfortunately, I had to read the thread from the top, what with being two Gin and Tonics under par and all. I don't suggest you do this, because it is extraordinarily painful. A good fifty per cent of it is comprised of nitwit comments either on client-host-server-scrubber (damn, we missed the connection between scrubbers and recycle bins) or me-too "I can look up the tedious history of the Great Garburator Controversy on Jimmipedia and regurgitate it at you" comments.

    It would be mildly depressing, except that my expectations of humanity are so incredibly low at this point.

    But who am I to whinge? Enjoy. Don't look back. Ever forwards!

  • (cs) in reply to Claxon
    Claxon:
    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?

    To be honest I have no idea. My guess would be that he just left them in his inbox, secure in the knowledge that the handy Deleted folder had all the things he needed to know about.

    I only found out about this because it was one of those odd bits of information that makes it around the department.

    Kind of summed up the way the IT was run as well. I'm so glad that's far in my past.

  • v.dog (unregistered)

    @Dmitriy: What you should have done is sent back two copies. It would have blown her mind.

  • (cs) in reply to pink_fairy
    pink_fairy:
    Hint to all of us: assume no offence is meant.

    No offence was meant.

    I wasn't offended or trying to offend. I thought it would be funny to bite on trollbait that I had basically placed out there.

  • (cs) in reply to BobNFreely
    BobNFreely:
    It's very simple. If you think you might need the file again someday, don't delete it. If you want to delete a file, why the hell would you want the system to hang keep it, using up valuable disk space?
    There's been enough times where I've been boned either by my fucking up wildcards or by a bad FTP client following symlinks it shouldn't that I'd rather have that extra buffer where I can.
  • paulains (unregistered) in reply to DMala
    DMala:
    Charles400:
    The recycle bin and trash cans are conventions of unimaginative minds.

    Better to use a toilet. When you want to delete the files, flush 'em.

    Back when I still bothered to customize Windows, I always replaced the Recycle Bin icon with a toilet icon and renamed it "The Can," complete with flushing sound effect when you emptied it.

    I'm slightly less of a dork these days.

    I was going to say, if someone is unhappy with the current metaphor they can easily change the icon and rename the Recycle Bin. I often rename My Computer as well, which makes me think twice whenever I'm helping someone over the phone and I tell them to "right-click on My Computer", but chances are that if they need help navigating Windows then they probably aren't nerdy enough to rename My Computer.

    CAPTCHA appellatio: Fellatio with a horse.

  • Anonymous Coward (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.

    You are obviously lying. No signing gorilla would ever love you.

  • (cs) in reply to akatherder
    pink_fairy:
    Hint to all of us: assume no offence is meant.

    No offence was meant.

    To (badly) paraphrase Terry Pratchett, why do people find it easier to say 'no offense meant' than not to say something offensive?
  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to JdFalcon04
    JdFalcon04:
    Erzengel:
    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.

    Unless of course the host happens to have a computer, like lots of restaurant host stands have, in which case he probably wouldn't find anything wrong with it. You can never underestimate the technical knowledge of an average non-technical person.

    It would say "host computer" not "host's computer". Anyhow, the message "Host busy, manager check Host" sucks bad.

    Something like "The main computer is busy or malfunctioning, please check it." would be a lot nicer.

  • OldTechSupport (unregistered) in reply to campkev
    campkev:
    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."

    Took me years after FAX machines caught on to stop printing two copies, one for me and one for them. I'd pick 'em up from the printer, head to the FAX machine, and find myself going "DOH"...

    I generally don't think I'm stupid, but that happened enough times that I'm no longer sure.

  • noname (unregistered) in reply to ATimson
    ATimson:
    BobNFreely:
    It's very simple. If you think you might need the file again someday, don't delete it. If you want to delete a file, why the hell would you want the system to hang keep it, using up valuable disk space?
    There's been enough times where I've been boned either by my fucking up wildcards or by a bad FTP client following symlinks it shouldn't that I'd rather have that extra buffer where I can.

    How does the recycle bin help in either of those cases? And if it's burned you that often, why don't you have a backup strategy?

Leave a comment on “Does Not Compute: Crunchies, Virtual Returns, & More”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article