• the amazing null (unregistered)

    this is nothing. i once saw an installer log that, right after announcing that it had gained "full system access" cryptically spit "cloaking enabled." there were a few blank lines in the log and then "cloaking disabled".

    this was from a major vendor most all of us use a toy or two from.

    it kind of scares me that it needed to "cloak" at all and that it was polite enough to tell me that i did not want to see what it was doing.

  • (cs)

    I agree, dummy text should not be used...

    When I first started as a web dev I was debugging some Javascript and added a pop up to the end of a function so that I would know when it was finished... The popup code was alert('Its monkey time'); I dont know why I chose that when a simple "Complete" would have done the trick...

    Anyway fixed the bug, moved on to another one then deployed... cut to one hour later when I recieve an email from a friend in support, subject: "What time is it?" Cold sweats followed as I realised that I deployed "the monkey code" and it had been seen by our clients and their customers. Luckily the client saw the funny side and I learned my lesson, but I still worry that the monkey code has worked its way back some how when Im asked the time!

  • AC (unregistered)

    Tommy is out with Lyle, playing a game of know-it-all.

  • Anigel (unregistered)

    Well I don't know if Tommy could code the hell out of some C++ but he sure played a mean pinball.

  • SomeCoder (unregistered) in reply to AC
    AC:
    Tommy is out with Lyle, playing a game of know-it-all.

    No, they are seeing who can rappel down the side of a skyscraper faster :)

  • A German (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    JamesCurran:
    I think I'm missing the the complete joke with the BSoD one. Where exactly is that?

    It's an emergency phone. Not the type of thing you want to be broken when you need it.

    If it's a german emergency phone (I guess it is), then the Display is just for ads and has nothing to do with the telephone.

    Still a WTF.

  • SeaDrive (unregistered)

    Given what a really, really awful piece of software the HP Solution Center is, it's not surprising that it should have bug (or is that an Easter Egg).

  • (cs)

    At least the newspaper used safe dummy text. I saw an article a couple of years ago where for some reason, the person making the placeholder text decided they'd type a story insulting the subjects of the photograph until it filled the text area. The editor probably did a spot check and, seeing that it wasn't "PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER" and the first sentence was pretty tame, let it pass. In fact, I'm willing to bet several other similar things have happened since I read that article.

    I will never understand why people don't use something "safe" for placeholder text.

  • (cs) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    JamesCurran:
    I think I'm missing the the complete joke with the BSoD one. Where exactly is that?

    It's an emergency phone. Not the type of thing you want to be broken when you need it.

    I've been not thinking about this for a very, very long time. (That's what TDWTF does to you -- the surreally incompetent morphs into an everyday norm.)

    However. On a more analytical level:

    Exactly how difficult is it to re-enable AutoReboot for a Windows console application? Why do we ever, ever, ever see a BSOD on a console?

    Not that I've ever seen a BSOD on a console application myself. But I've seen shedloads of W2K update dialogs.

    Exactly how difficult is it to stop the Automatic Updates Service, and remove it from start-up?

    I must be missing something here.

    I had always assumed that people who write console applications do so for a living, and only spend their leisure time having sex with dying members of endangered species so that they can brag about it on YouTube.

    Perhaps it's the other way around?

  • DMala (unregistered) in reply to danixdefcon5
    danixdefcon5:
    Kind of like the message errors I set up for "impossible" cases, when catching Exceptions that might be thrown, but due to checking, they shouldn't be thrown. Except when they do get thrown, which then would generate messages like "Your server is stoned, dude!!!"

    The proper message to use for those cases is "Shut 'er down, Clancy, she's pumpin' mud!"

  • Tim (unregistered) in reply to Tommy
    Tommy:
    FDF:
    I can't access the internet right now. Should I call Tommy?

    The whole Internet is down! Everybody's calling me! You'll never get thru, so send me an email instead.

    I can't remember my password to access my email. Can you reset it and send me an email with my new password? Thanks!

  • A German (unregistered)

    More german WTF, from Yahoo!

    Some text about an interactive music museum ("Experience Music Project") in Seattle/USA.

    Translated the text reads something like this: "The masterminds behind it think that stars like Beck, Eminem, Alanis Morrisette please check how to spell that tart correctly, [...] Kid Rock belong in a museum."

    http://data.lustich.de/bilder/l/787-die-schnalle.jpg

  • austin (unregistered)

    I think they are implying the question "Can you access the internet from the machine you are trying to download SlingPlayer on?" you know, for people who are reading the FAQ in one location in operating in another. Not really a WTF, imo.

  • Kaitlin Duck Sherwood (unregistered) in reply to Isuwen

    I put an email guide on the Web in 1994 which was pretty popular.

    Not once, not twice, but THREE times, I have gotten messages that said (with no additional information) something along the lines of:

    "Help!! I can send email but I can't receive it! What do I do???"

  • Jonathan (unregistered)

    I don't know about that last one; I have personally been in the situation where I was installing software on a computer not connected to the internet, and encountered a problem. Since no one ships manuals, or even creates decent documentation, I had to go online to find some support -- which, naturally, meant I was using a completely different computer.

    When I found some support documentation online, it just assumed that the computer installing the software was online (after all, I was reading the support, right?) and the little program it downloaded that was supposed to fix the problem needed to connect to the internet before I could run it. It was one of those little installers which stream content instead of forcing you to download it all at once -- a good idea, in some situations, but one which was completely useless in mine.

    I eventually found a version of the support application on a third-party site that had been saved AFTER it connected to the internet, and thus could be run on an offline machine -- and it worked perfectly.

    A lot of hassle for the customer which could have been completely avoided by asking the customer if they were online or not; and then provided the appropriate application. Worse, I'm reasonably computer literate -- I don't think, say, my grandfather could have ever got it working. I don't know if there's a lesson here, but perhaps it's "there is often a reason for things that is not apparent until you can't do them."

  • Malhar (unregistered) in reply to Tommy

    Come on .. give the slingshot a break. It's perfectly a legit question for someone trying to troubleshoot the darn thing by accessing internet from another network / computer.

  • Joe Peacock (unregistered)

    Haha, great to see this one finally made it up (the Slingbox clip) :)

    Thanks for posting, guys!

  • notme (unregistered)
    "We've all heard of the housing crisis," noted Scott Kovatch, "but this is just getting ridiculous."

    I'm wondering - shouldn't the housing crisis make houses ridiculously cheap instead of ridiculously expensive? I'd think that because of all those foreclosures, there would be a lot of houses on the market and at the same time fewer people than normal with the necessary credit rating to afford buying one.

  • jorge_sur (unregistered) in reply to vereor
    vereor:
    JW:
    How long before someone adds a "Dummy comment goes here"?
    But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?

    dummy text was here

  • Chango (unregistered)

    I like the "just one answer questions" thing:

    Can you read? Are you completely blind? Is your IQ over 20? Are you awake? Are you alive? Have you recently been a victim of a nuclear attack? Are you an unicorn? Do you think MFD should continue?

    Captcha: "similis": damn computers... think they're smart because they know latin

  • phexitol (unregistered)

    We'd like to apologise sincerely to any readers who were pissed off by the error which allowed an example of bad language to appear on the Paint Pot demo instructions on page 7 of the last issue, and also to Prisma Software, whose program it is and who had fuck all to do with the fuck-up. We would like to make it clear that the use of such language in the magazine was in no way intentional and will not be repeated. We are acutely aware of our responsibilities as a family magazine. Indeed, we normally take pride in the fact that this magazine is far more anal about bad language than most other computer magazines. We particularly regret that this fuck-up should nave occurred on a page specifically aimed at younger readers. Briefly, to explain, the problem was that a designer typed an instruction to the writer to fill in a heading which had been omitted. Unfortunately, this instruction was phrased somewhat carelessly. By a series of coincidences, and under pressure of time, the incorrect heading was missed at the normal proof-checking and final re-checking steps. When the fuck-up was realised, it was unfortunately too late to correct it. We would like to assure all readers, and particularly parents of younger children, that a rigorous code of practice has them established that will prevent this sort of thing from happening in future. We have also printed, at the suggestion of several readers, a version of the heading as it should have appeared which can be used to mask the error so that the magazine can be given to children and they can be allowed to follow the program at their own pace, as was intended. Our apologies once more.

  • genit (unregistered) in reply to Andy Goth
    Andy Goth:
    I don't know how, but my disk got duplicated, passed around, DEL *.*'ed, and reused until my message managed to wind up on the same disk as his data, and one day he forgot and left it in the drive while booting the computer.
    It's called virus. Brain(c) used a pretty similar system. Now, you're luck you weren't jailed for doign that...
  • genit (unregistered)

    It was a telephone Q&A, so it was logical to ask if they had an internet connection. Then someone at the company realises that if they put it online they could fire the support operators. Obviously nobody checks if the questions still make sense.

  • Martin (unregistered) in reply to A German
    A German:
    akatherder:
    JamesCurran:
    I think I'm missing the the complete joke with the BSoD one. Where exactly is that?

    It's an emergency phone. Not the type of thing you want to be broken when you need it.

    If it's a german emergency phone (I guess it is), then the Display is just for ads and has nothing to do with the telephone.

    Still a WTF.

    It's a public "multimedia-terminal" by Telekom Austria.

    They're using these things to replace old phone booths. It's basically a phone with a browser and some other features (digital phone book, SMS sending, video-phoning, etc.).

    Since you're dialing on the touchscreen, I really doubt you can do emergency calls on it in this state.

  • (cs)

    "Estimated Ink Levels* *actual levels may vary"? Yeah, that's why they're called estimated ink levels.

    I'm going to press the Submit button now.* *Pressing Submit button does not guarantee that this message will be posted, because thedailywtf.com server can, in an unlikely situation, be slow to respond for a variety of reasons.

  • (cs) in reply to campkev
    campkev:
    Shouldn't that be "Dummy, text goes here."
    Did someone call for me?
  • immibis (unregistered)
    "Tommy used to be the VP of IT here at my company," Z Smith wrote, "He was a self taught 'genius' who could code the hell out of some C++, or so I'm told. He 'was exited' a few months before I started here, but I keep finding things like this popping up...

    Sebastian F. wrote, "hope you have no emergency nearby..."

    Seriously? He actually tried to use "Sebastian F. wrote, "hope you have no emergency nearby..."" as code?

  • Anonymous Cow-Herd (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    Dummy user goes here:
    snoofle:
    JW:
    How long before someone adds a "Dummy comment goes here"?
    <Obligatory> Dummy comment goes here. </Obligatory>

    Dummy quote goes here. Dummy quote goes here. Dummy quote goes here. Dummy quote goes here. Dummy quote goes here. Dummy quote goes here. Dummy quote goes here. Dummy quote goes here.

    Dummy response goes here. Dummy response goes here. Dummy response goes here. Dummy response goes here. Dummy response goes here.

    Dummy quip goes here.

  • (cs) in reply to Outlaw Programmer
    Outlaw Programmer:
    ClaudeSuck.de:
    Dummy Name:
    The last one MIGHT be a WTF if it was a web page, so you couldn't even see it unless you're on the net.

    But maybe it is just one of those cutsey screens that comes up while you're installing.

    It doesn't LOOK like a web page... no pop-ups, no ads covering 80% of the badly formatted real estate, no forest of legal links at the bottom...

    A browser window is stateless. You may very well go on the web, get the page, and then disconnect from the web. The page will (as if that were a miracle) not disappear and hence the text will make sense.

    Is...is this a joke post? If your connection is down, what is submitting the form going to do?

    That being said, I searched high and low on the Slingbox site but couldn't find any screens that looked like that. I'm guessing it's just the installer/help file.

    The question on the screen only says: "Are you able to access the internet?" I also notice that the "Next" button seems to be disabled. But I agree it will be painful to submit the form once you're not connected anymore (and that apparently in the middle of an install).

  • Vaudevillain (unregistered) in reply to Tommy

    Ever thought of diagnosing the problem from another computer where the internet DOES work?

  • EPE (unregistered)

    If you still have faith in humanity, google for "dummy text goes here"; or even better, just bang your keyboard to type a couple of random words, and then google for that.

  • Some Dev (unregistered)

    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Vivamus bibendum lectus vel magna. Aliquam imperdiet pede eget sapien. Phasellus aliquet.

  • Guillaume (unregistered)

    17 M$ / Month.
    3 bed 2 bath 2 basements 1 nuclear bunker 1 home nuclear reactor 1 Helipad 1 personnal emergency evacuation subway

    Revised price since we've no pool.

  • Kinstray (unregistered)

    'ID ten T' error... ID10T

  • Silentbob (unregistered) in reply to Isuwen

    I've seen this before as well but it makes sense. If Slingbox does not connect and you use a laptop to report a problem you would say no I can't connect (with my slingbox)

    HELLO!

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Tommy

    All your dummies are belong to us.

  • anon (unregistered)

    Do a search on "ipsum dolorum" and you can find a few websites. Stock and trade of proto graphic art pieces.

    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

  • (cs)

    The HP Solution Center "very very long name" looks like a simple localization problem; to make sure the GUI looks nice in (say) Ruritanian, the pre-localized GUI is given especially long strings.

    Somehow the pre-localized GUI ended up being released. Oops.

  • TNTC (unregistered)

    I'd be curious about what the footnote that asterisk denotes has to say about that rate. Probably something like '*Estimated rate. Possible error of nAn %'

  • Geezus (unregistered)

    Wow, guys, seriously.

    The slingbox one is not a WTF. It assumes if you can't connect to the internet you're using a friends computer or something like that that does have internet.

  • nocturnal YL (unregistered)

    HP Solution's got broken images too

  • G (unregistered) in reply to Isuwen

    It appears you have an ID-10T error, please contact your local network admin, or anyone between the ages of 6-30.

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