• (cs) in reply to Brad
    Brad:
    I don't see a "WTF" in the "I didn't ask" story.

    Unless it's that our sexually repressed culture is so afraid of erotica we can't stand the thought of anyone admitting they appriciate it.

    I pick my nose in private, but not in public.

  • ludus (unregistered) in reply to ljj116

    "The guy at the store says I need a computer for one of these things." "That's correct, sir. I'm sorry — I was under the impression you had one. May I ask, sir, how is it you were hoping to view pornography?" "I thought there would be some nice undergraduate female students stripping for me."

  • (cs) in reply to webhamster
    webhamster:
    Before I left my old job at an ISP in 2003 I had saved a few memorable excerpts from our issue ticketing system. These all came from the same user account:

    <snip>Long and disturbing list</snip>

    So, you used to do support for Swampy?

  • laoreet (unregistered) in reply to blah

    which is why they all want open source software so they don't have to pay the person who wrote it, thus becoming like them (no money, no girl, and no pay) and spread like a plague/virus that will promote OSS.

  • Tyler (unregistered) in reply to Bappi
    Bappi:
    Tyler:
    I'm a 26 year old geek on slashdot with no girlfriend, and I make tons of money
    Sure you do.

    I guess "a lot" of money is technically relative. I do automated trading for a hedge fund in NY. I'd be willing to bet most people here would consider my salary to be quite a lot.

    // Captcha = "deceit". read into it what you will

  • Timmayyy (unregistered) in reply to Tyler
    Tyler:
    blah:
    Geeks on slashdot with no girlfriends have no money. QED

    I'm a 26 year old geek on slashdot with no girlfriend, and I make tons of money

    I don't have a girlfriend either. My wife always gets pissed when I bring them home.

  • blah (unregistered) in reply to Timmayyy

    That's v... very interesting. Please tell me more.

    Then we can go to the ho-tel!

  • (cs) in reply to Tyler
    Tyler:
    Bappi:
    Tyler:
    I'm a 26 year old geek on slashdot with no girlfriend, and I make tons of money
    Sure you do.

    I guess "a lot" of money is technically relative. I do automated trading for a hedge fund in NY. I'd be willing to bet most people here would consider my salary to be quite a lot.

    // Captcha = "deceit". read into it what you will

    I have a 12 foot penis.

  • (cs)

    The tech support guy reminds me of one of my favorite Dilberts, when Dilbert says to the PHB, "Here's your problem. The network cable broke and the token fell out of the ring. It must be on the floor somewhere."

  • (cs)
    double delete the TCP stack
    Huh. All I could think of when I read that was "Double the killer delete select all". But that's just me.
  • WC (unregistered)

    I see someone's never printed an image poster-size before. From a good distance, it's no longer 'ugly', but looks pretty good. I had kind of thought that was common sense by now, but I guess not. That's the real WTF.

  • (cs) in reply to shenanigans

    re: story #3

    rasterbator.com (yes, it IS safe for work)

  • (cs)

    When I was about 8 or so, we got a box of floppies from my uncle with tons of games on them. Things like "bouncing babies" etc. We ran these on our 80/88 without problem.

    There was one, though, called Sharon.exe We'd run that it would ask us for a year and it would produce a full calendar for that year. We never understood why that was called sharon. Until, one day, I don't remember if we got a new printer or something, but we ran it, it printed out the calendar like normal, but this time it dot-matrixed a naked woman on the top. We only assumed her name was sharon, shorlty after, that program was deleted :)

  • BlueCollarAstronaut (unregistered) in reply to Tyler
    Tyler:
    blah:
    Geeks on slashdot with no girlfriends have no money. QED

    I'm a 26 year old geek on slashdot with no girlfriend, and I make tons of money

    Right after I graduated from college, I chose my first job mainly because they promised me I would make "tons of money" my first year.

    I should have read the fine print though, because they paid me in pennies...

  • ebenblues (unregistered) in reply to TakeASeatOverThere
    TakeASeatOverThere:
    Back when I did tech support, one of my customers was a master of BSing. Well, more an apprentice — he has all the words down, but couldn't quite string them together into anything coherent. He's told me to "double delete the TCP stack" more than once. Also, he claims to program operating systems in his spare time and to be one of the inventors of the internet.
    Al Gore? Is that you?
    Yeah yeah, ha ha. Seriously, check your facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore's_contributions_to_the_Internet_and_technology#1999_CNN_interview_controversy
  • Al Gore (unregistered) in reply to ebenblues
    ebenblues:
    TakeASeatOverThere:
    Back when I did tech support, one of my customers was a master of BSing. Well, more an apprentice — he has all the words down, but couldn't quite string them together into anything coherent. He's told me to "double delete the TCP stack" more than once. Also, he claims to program operating systems in his spare time and to be one of the inventors of the internet.
    Al Gore? Is that you?
    Yeah yeah, ha ha. Seriously, check your facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore's_contributions_to_the_Internet_and_technology#1999_CNN_interview_controversy

    Actually, I invented Wikipedia.

  • rumpelstiltskin (unregistered) in reply to danixdefcon5
    danixdefcon5:
    Ben:
    All I Hear Is Static doesn't seem like a WTF to me, clueless user stories only count if there exceptionally stupid or rude. He was neither
    Riiight.

    But expecting to read e-mail without having an actual computer doesn't look smart, does it?

    It doesn't sound like he was expecting to read it. It sounds like he expected someone else to read it, and tell him what it said. A telephone, without a modem, seems like appropriate technology for addressing that problem. Now, if he tried to use a can opener for that purpose, that would be stupid.

  • Racer X (unregistered) in reply to reboot

    Used to watch that all the time. Dot's Hot!

  • Nerf Herder (unregistered) in reply to Racer X

    I prefer to view all my porn as ASCII - it makes me relish simpler times. Like when you had to rifle through your dad's closet to find his tapes. Kids have it too easy these days what with the Google and this web version 2.

    http://asciipr0n.com/pr0n/

  • Lupicite (unregistered) in reply to ljj116
    one of the students was trying to print pornography to the dot matrix printers

    I can't imagine it was much worse than viewing porn from BBS' in the late 80's and early 90's when using cshow2000... I probably shouldn't have admitted that.

  • (cs)
    "I thought there would be some nice undergraduate student that would read it to me."
    The prof. was just ahead of his time, that's all. I'm pretty sure there are services out there now that actually do allow you to call in and have your email read to you. 'Course it's a nice text-to-speech program and not an undergraduate doing the reading.
  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Edward Royce
    Edward Royce:
    Steve:
    Back when I was a college student, in the middle 1960s, just about every computer science student had a line printer version of a Playboy "Playmate of the Month" hanging in their dorm room.

    The males, anyhow, and back then there weren't many females in the subject area, hence the need for a line printer version of a Playboy "Playmate of the Month".

    It looked awesome.

    Except we probably said something like "groovy" instead.

    Isn't the centerfold picture rather a better option?

    Especially since it didn't involve trying to create an ASCII "image"?

    The image, if memory serves, was created at UC Berkeley with an early version of an optical scanner and distributed as a deck of tab (aka IBM) cards.

    At the time, it was the perfect intersection of nerdiness and horniness.

  • (cs) in reply to Benie
    Benie:
    My uni didn't care if you browsed porn on their computers. It was actually specifically listed in the eula as 'ok' as long as it didn't offend anyone that was able to view it from where they were working.
    You actually have to sign up to an End-User License Agreement to go to college these days?

    Well, I suppose that clicking on the "I accept" button is less trouble than actually passing the SAT and stuff. (It's probably more trouble than passing A-levels in Britain at the moment, but that's a different issue.)

    How do you deal with being hauled into court for passing course-notes to a fellow student?

  • DavidTC (unregistered) in reply to Raymond Luxury-Yacht

    Futurama did the joke about 'A man who needs no introduction':

    Bender, at a speech: And now, a man who needs no introduction.

    He sits down and everyone looks around, confused as to who is supposed to go next.

  • (cs) in reply to rumpelstiltskin
    rumpelstiltskin:
    danixdefcon5:
    Ben:
    All I Hear Is Static doesn't seem like a WTF to me, clueless user stories only count if there exceptionally stupid or rude. He was neither
    Riiight.

    But expecting to read e-mail without having an actual computer doesn't look smart, does it?

    It doesn't sound like he was expecting to read it. It sounds like he expected someone else to read it, and tell him what it said. A telephone, without a modem, seems like appropriate technology for addressing that problem. Now, if he tried to use a can opener for that purpose, that would be stupid.

    I actually used to work with a splendid human being named Charles M Hedren III, who passed his time by breaking into DoD systems by whistling down the phone like a modem.

    I never actually asked him what the point of it all was, partly because his whistle was peculiarly atonal and annoying, but mostly because I suspected that I already knew.

    With a name, and a Virginian pedigree, like that (think a combination of CIA operatives and obsessive dog ownership), I was pretty sure that he'd understand the whistle coming back the other way.

    I understand that the DoD has the best ascii Pr0n, by the way. I say I understand it. It's about the only think coming out of Hedren's mouth that I ever did understand.

  • notJoeKing (unregistered) in reply to rumpelstiltskin
    rumpelstiltskin:
    danixdefcon5:
    Ben:
    All I Hear Is Static doesn't seem like a WTF to me, clueless user stories only count if there exceptionally stupid or rude. He was neither
    Riiight.

    But expecting to read e-mail without having an actual computer doesn't look smart, does it?

    It doesn't sound like he was expecting to read it. It sounds like he expected someone else to read it, and tell him what it said. A telephone, without a modem, seems like appropriate technology for addressing that problem. Now, if he tried to use a can opener for that purpose, that would be stupid.

    He was still stupid. What did he think he was buying the modem was for? Did he still believe that there was an undergrad reading the email over the phone but it was "encrypted" into annoying sounds and the modem would translate it into English for him? What kind of idiot goes to buy something without knowing why they need it?

  • dude mcguy (unregistered)

    that weird printer story is what's called a "rasterbation". not kidding.

    it actually does look pretty fucking cool.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Edward Royce
    Edward Royce:
    Steve:
    Back when I was a college student, in the middle 1960s, just about every computer science student had a line printer version of a Playboy "Playmate of the Month" hanging in their dorm room.

    The males, anyhow, and back then there weren't many females in the subject area, hence the need for a line printer version of a Playboy "Playmate of the Month".

    It looked awesome.

    Except we probably said something like "groovy" instead.

    Isn't the centerfold picture rather a better option?

    Especially since it didn't involve trying to create an ASCII "image"?

    Now what's the fun of that? Anybody can look at a picture in a magazine. The fun is figuring out a way to turn an image into ASCII art. And that gives you an excuse to spend hours staring at the image as you work on it.

    You're probably the kind of person who drives a car in the bike-a-thon ...

  • (cs)

    I think the guy from the second story could use Gmail Paper.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to ebenblues
    ebenblues:
    Yeah yeah, ha ha. Seriously, check your facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore's_contributions_to_the_Internet_and_technology#1999_CNN_interview_controversy

    Uh, yeah. So Gore's response to people making fun of him for claiming to have invented the Internet is to reply that he never said that he "invented the Internet", but rather, "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." I heard another speech where he said -- not an exact quote here, from memory -- he "made the Internet possible".

    That still seems like a pretty extravagant boast to me, the kind typical of politicians of both parties. He wants to claim a chunk of credit for the creation of the Internet because he did ... what? Did he originate the concept? Did he design the protocols? Did he write the program code? Did he install cables? No, he did none of these things. Did he even contribute to it financially? No, he did not. What he did was help to write a law that took money from American taxpayers and gave it to people who would actually design and build the Internet.

    It's funny how this has become political, with liberals rushing to defend Gore for such an outrageous and egotistical statement. If George Bush said that he had "made biofuels possible" because he once voted for a bill to subsidize research, the same people would be ridiculing his pretentiousness. Personally, I find pretty much all politicians equally ridiculous in the amount of credit they claim for the work of other people. And don't even get me started on politicians who boast of how generous and compassionate they are because they were willing to vote to raise taxes on other people to be given to the poor, while carefully including loopholes so they don't have to pay any of it.

    But then, I am responsible for the invention of the fuel cell car. It's true. Twenty years ago I heard two guys discussing the concept, and I said, "Hey, that sounds like a good idea," and then I walked away.

  • Mr.'; Drop Database -- (unregistered) in reply to Raymond Luxury-Yacht
    Raymond Luxury-Yacht:
    Going off on a tangent - why do people use the phrase "needless to say"? Do they enjoy redundancy in their writing?

    If it really is obvious, why say it?

    Needless to say, it isn't needed.

    Needless to say needless to say, you're right, needless to say.

  • iToad (unregistered) in reply to webhamster
    webhamster:
    Before I left my old job at an ISP in 2003 I had saved a few memorable excerpts from our issue ticketing system. These all came from the same user account:

    [lunatic calls snipped...]

    This was probably his normal behavior. What was he like on nights when the moon was full?

  • anonymous (unregistered)

    oh damn it here comes a tornado

  • (cs) in reply to davidyorke
    davidyorke:
    Zylon:
    I actually got in a minor bit of trouble at college (late 80s) for printing out ASCII nudes in the computer lab.

    Ahh, memories.

    "Thanks for the sex, early 90's printer!" -Seth MacFarlane as Glen Quagmire as C-3PO

    right, and regarding the pc in the corner, didn't Peter Griffen have a pc porn night at the library - "you're my Chinese Lois" ?

  • (cs) in reply to Brad
    Brad:
    I don't see a "WTF" in the "I didn't ask" story.

    Unless it's that our sexually repressed culture is so afraid of erotica we can't stand the thought of anyone admitting they appriciate it.

    "I appreciate erotica, but I certainly don't 'use pornography,' whatever that means." Jack Davenport as Steve, referring to the video "Lesbian Spank Inferno"

  • (cs) in reply to BlueCollarAstronaut
    BlueCollarAstronaut:
    Tyler:
    blah:
    Geeks on slashdot with no girlfriends have no money. QED

    I'm a 26 year old geek on slashdot with no girlfriend, and I make tons of money

    Right after I graduated from college, I chose my first job mainly because they promised me I would make "tons of money" my first year.

    I should have read the fine print though, because they paid me in pennies...

    I'm assuming modern US pennies, works out to about $3600 to the ton.

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    ebenblues:
    Yeah yeah, ha ha. Seriously, check your facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore's_contributions_to_the_Internet_and_technology#1999_CNN_interview_controversy

    Uh, yeah. So Gore's response to people making fun of him for claiming to have invented the Internet is to reply that he never said that he "invented the Internet", but rather, "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." I heard another speech where he said -- not an exact quote here, from memory -- he "made the Internet possible".

    That still seems like a pretty extravagant boast to me, the kind typical of politicians of both parties. . . .

    Yes, it might be a bit hyperbolic but it's also reasonably accurate.

    As one of the people who was around and directly involved in network computing back in the late 1980s (in a minor way, as a member of the San Diego Supercomputer Center staff and in other research capacities), I can state categorically that the Gore Bill, as it was called, was considered at the time to be quite important in turning the Internet from an experimental system into a viable commercial entity. Of course, this probably would have happened no matter what then-Senator Gore did in Congress but he certainly helped hasten the coming of the Internet as we know it and he deserves credit for being able to look ahead.

    (Disclosure: I voted for Gore as Vice President in 1992 and 1996 and for President in 2000, though not with much enthusiasm in any of the elections, recognizing that Gore is only a "liberal" by contrast to the alternatives presented. In fact, until Clinton picked him as running mate, I was under the impression Gore was a Republican, given some of his repressive stances.)

  • (cs)

    How will he view pornography without a pornogram?

  • AC (unregistered) in reply to Bappi
    Bappi:
    Tyler:
    Bappi:
    Tyler:
    I'm a 26 year old geek on slashdot with no girlfriend, and I make tons of money
    Sure you do.

    I guess "a lot" of money is technically relative. I do automated trading for a hedge fund in NY. I'd be willing to bet most people here would consider my salary to be quite a lot.

    // Captcha = "deceit". read into it what you will

    I have a 12 foot penis.

    Mine's louder!

  • (cs) in reply to Someone You Know
    Someone You Know:
    Raymond Luxury-Yacht:
    Going off on a tangent - why do people use the phrase "needless to say"? Do they enjoy redundancy in their writing?

    If it really is obvious, why say it?

    Needless to say, it isn't needed.

    Usually when someone says "needless to say", he means "this is obvious to me, and if you have half a brain in your head it will be obvious to you too, but I'm going to say it anyway because I need to allow for the possibility that you do not have the aforementioned half a brain without directly insulting your intelligence."

    Haha, pwnt. Well put.

  • bramster (unregistered) in reply to Al Gore
    Al Gore:
    ebenblues:
    TakeASeatOverThere:
    Back when I did tech support, one of my customers was a master of BSing. Well, more an apprentice — he has all the words down, but couldn't quite string them together into anything coherent. He's told me to "double delete the TCP stack" more than once. Also, he claims to program operating systems in his spare time and to be one of the inventors of the internet.
    Al Gore? Is that you?
    Yeah yeah, ha ha. Seriously, check your facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore's_contributions_to_the_Internet_and_technology#1999_CNN_interview_controversy

    Actually, I invented Wikipedia.

    Lyle. . . Is that you?

  • bramster (unregistered) in reply to Puzzled
    Puzzled:
    How will he view pornography without a pornogram?
    Silently, unless he upgrades to a pornograph.
  • (cs) in reply to Al Gore
    Al Gore:
    Actually, I invented Wikipedia.
    I invented pants.
  • JoelKatz (unregistered)

    Way back when I was in college, I used to print out images of the Mandelbrot set this way. I had a friend who was a chronic procrastinator and he would color them in for me with markers. They looked awesome taped together on my dorm room wall.

    They weren't that upset about the paper, but I think the computer time was an issue. This was 1986 or so, and I was tying up their fastest floating-point computer.

  • (cs) in reply to jaykay
    jaykay:
    Brad:
    I don't see a "WTF" in the "I didn't ask" story.

    Unless it's that our sexually repressed culture is so afraid of erotica we can't stand the thought of anyone admitting they appriciate it.

    "I appreciate erotica, but I certainly don't 'use pornography,' whatever that means." Jack Davenport as Steve, referring to the video "Lesbian Spank Inferno"

    That's just what I was thinking.

    On another note, I wanted to fly to Italy for a weekend break last week, but when I arrived at the airport they told me I had to get on a plane! I was hoping some nice flight steward would go for me and tell me what it was like!

  • BLAH! (unregistered)

    This is a double comment. This is a double comment.

    Can you please double-delete the second one ? Can you please double-delete the second one ?

  • Tei (unregistered) in reply to Andy Goth
    Andy Goth:
    Al Gore:
    Actually, I invented Wikipedia.
    I invented pants.

    I created God, I mean the wikipedia article, I mean.. on the spanish version, that is. But I created god.

  • Peets (unregistered) in reply to Edward Royce

    "Isn't the centerfold picture rather a better option?"

    No, tried that, my tongue always gets stuck in the &%# staples.

    (sorry to leave you with that image but it was too nice an opportunity :-).

  • Peets (unregistered) in reply to Edward Royce

    "Isn't the centerfold picture rather a better option?"

    No, tried that, my tongue always gets stuck in the &%# staples.

    (sorry to leave you with that image but it was too nice an opportunity :-).

  • (cs) in reply to obediah
    obediah:
    As a cleverizer of anecdotes and tall tales of IT, Support, and Management I could do better recyling usenet posts from the 90s. As a webcomic...well, uh...

    Wouldn't it be great if people who weren't happy with the content of a story just decided not to read it, instead of being a-holes who have to moan and cry and waste our time instead?

    Seriously, you need to get a life, or at least learn how to read (or simply identify the colored headings at the top of the posts). Ignore the ones you don't want to read. It's really not too complicated for anyone with a shred of intellect.

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