• (cs) in reply to Spoe
    Spoe:
    RP2008:
    As a taxpayer I don't want experiments like this one done.

    And, as another taxpayer, I want this sort of research done.

    CAPTCHA: dubya

    And as a citizen, I don't like being referred to as a taxpayer because I'm more than a source of mammon for greedy politicians.

  • (cs) in reply to etr
    etr:
    These researchers are intentionally harming living creatures, not just killing but what would amount to torture if it was a human. That is unethical, especially considering that animal experiments only approximate conditions in humans. Why not just pick up a hundred or so folks from the slums in latin america or India. No one would miss them, either, and the experiments would actually have more value.
    Because they're not animals? And other people would miss them (like friends and family)? And you just made a total straw-man argument?
  • (cs) in reply to Steve
    Steve:
    A chinchilla with no legs is deef.
    Old frog jokes for the win!
  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered)

    The real WTF:

    The typical attitude of developers that consider themselves better than everyone else.

    In short, the guy says: Look at this crappy code. It might be working but it's crap. I'll fix it with some nice code that doesn't work!!

    If arrogance was a disease, there'd be no WTF readers/submitters left.

    Sure, blame the testing, blame NASA.. Whatever.. It's never the "uber-coder".

  • by (unregistered) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    Jamie McCarthy:
    This bug resulted in, not a passel of hard-of-hearing chinchillas (awww, how cute!), but a pile of dead ones.

    Animal experiments end in the slaughter of the animals. They can't be used again for scientific purposes. Nobody's going to adopt a hundred chinchillas. And even if there were a hundred people out there looking to adopt chinchillas, this batch of 100 would just mean there's 100 more at various animal shelters that have to be euthanized (there's never a shortage of unwanted animals).

    I guess making jokes about PETA helps some people avoid thinking about how animals actually do suffer for our thoughtlessness.

    I am, by the way, a tinnitus sufferer -- my every waking moment, probably until the day I die, will be spent with loud, high-pitched whines and squeals in both ears -- and I don't want experiments like this one done.

    I understand your point, but I take a much different stance. I look at it from the standpoint of "the greater good", what is better, 100 deaf (or even dead) rodents or 100 deaf people? They are doing these experiments to try to prevent exactly the problem you have.

    Now before you call me heartless, take this to note, I would feel bad harming a monkey or even a dolphin, but killing a fish or a rat I have no problem with. Ask me to define the morality line where this is crossed and I can't do it, I simply know myself what I would care about and what I won't. You yourself do this very thing but your line is drawn elsewhere. How many roaches would you kill to keep them out of your home? The question is no different, it just depends on where you, personally draw your line, just don't hold me to your choice.

    I draw my line at anything that is extremely annoying (mosquitoes buzzing around my head when I'm trying to sleep) or anything that is a health risk (poisonous spiders in my bedroom). </rant>

  • IMil (unregistered)
    Nearly 700 scientists representing 27 countries convened at the University of Zurich Monday to formally announce that their experimentation on mice has been motivated not by a desire to advance human knowledge, but out of sheer distaste for the furry little rodents.
    http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30800 And I thought this was a joke...
  • Nero (unregistered)

    Poor chinchillas. He should have used the ChinchillaUnit framework...

  • Sven (unregistered)

    How many Chinchillas does it take before it becomes wrong? A thousand? A hundred thousand? A million? How many people does it take, Admiral?

    :P

  • m03 (unregistered) in reply to Sven
    Sven:
    How many Chinchillas does it take before it becomes wrong? A thousand? A hundred thousand? A million? How many people does it take, Admiral?

    :P

    How many millions of micro-organisms does your body have to destroy before it becomes wrong?

  • Suomipoika (unregistered) in reply to roe

    Worked fine for me Using Viagra

  • Canumbler (unregistered)

    Oh good lord, newsflash people, life is cruel, get the hell over it. We make laws against hurting our own because they're our own, and frown upon hurting animals with no benefit, that's it. I respect vegans in that they stand up for their principal, but their principal is still batshit insane. Those who eat meat and preach? All you're doing is hiring a contractor to do your killing for you.

  • Dark (unregistered)

    The most amusing part of this was the comment about the grad student. After all, it was pretty important that the code would work right, so they got a grad student to write code that worked right. If it had been very important, they would have hired a contractor to screw it up right away!

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:
    The real WTF:

    The typical attitude of developers that consider themselves better than everyone else.

    In short, the guy says: Look at this crappy code. It might be working but it's crap. I'll fix it with some nice code that doesn't work!!

    If arrogance was a disease, there'd be no WTF readers/submitters left.

    Sure, blame the testing, blame NASA.. Whatever.. It's never the "uber-coder".

    I don't know if you read the article, but he was "tasked" with rewriting it. He didn't do it just because he didn't like the code, he did it because he was told to.

  • AC (unregistered) in reply to Ben
    Ben:
    Why not just pick up a hundred or so folks from the slums in Latin America or India. No one would miss them, either, and the experiments would actually have more value.

    You are an idiot and you totally fit the stereotype of an arrogant American.

    You want to repair your sarcasm detector.

  • (cs) in reply to operagost
    operagost:
    etr:
    Why not just pick up a hundred or so folks from the slums in latin america or India.
    Because they're not animals? And other people would miss them (like friends and family)?
    Except that they are animals, just like you and I. And what makes you think that only humans can miss friends and family? Not that etr's argument was any good either.

    There are a lot of pointless arguments for both sides, and I've heard them all before. I could even think of a few myself (something about how incredibly valuable a human life is and "little boy"). Me, I don't believe in this "greater good", and I think anyone who does should get down off their high horse of humanity. But arguing about it serves little purpose, and even less in a place like this.

  • Wibble (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that you think American is a language! LOL!

  • div (unregistered) in reply to RobbieAreBest
    RobbieAreBest:
    Maybe they should use PETA members for these experiments, they are easier to train than rodents.
    But it's harder to extrapolate the results to humanity.
  • (cs) in reply to Spastic Weasel
    Spastic Weasel:
    The high pitched whining is caused by pompous self importance and a missing sense of humor. You should get that checked.
    hehe, that one went straight into my quote file :)
  • PC Paul (unregistered) in reply to Joe
    Joe:
    Full Article is off dy default because most people come to the comments page from the full article (without comments) page and don't really need to read it again.

    captcha: craaazy

    Wrong. I (and many others, judging by the comments when it was first changed) take the more efficient route:

    front page -> comments -> expand full article.

    That way you only need one web page to load, with all the info on it, instead of two with a lot of redundancy.

  • (cs) in reply to IMil
    IMil:
    Nearly 700 scientists representing 27 countries convened at the University of Zurich Monday to formally announce that their experimentation on mice has been motivated not by a desire to advance human knowledge, but out of sheer distaste for the furry little rodents.
    http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30800 And I thought this was a joke...

    You don't know much about The Onion, do you? For those not in the knowing, it drools satire. Therefore it is a joke.

  • Telimaktar (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that little rodents had to suffer for this stupid experiment, a sound is too loud when you start bleeding from your ears. And too soft is when you look at the researcher and wonder when the idiot is gonna play the sound. I'd like to put these fools in a Club and feed a steady deluge of LOUD sound upon their eardrums for a year.

  • (cs) in reply to Ben
    Ben:
    Why not just pick up a hundred or so folks from the slums in Latin America or India. No one would miss them, either, and the experiments would actually have more value.

    You are an idiot and you totally fit the stereotype of an arrogant American.

    Why would no one miss the people from the third world?

    Do they have no families just because they don't speak American?

    "Thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-English speaking countries as to those that occur in English speaking countries." Scroobious Pip. http://www.myspace.com/lesacvspip

    How fast was that comment going when it flew right over your head?

  • (cs)
    etr:
    Why not just pick up a hundred or so folks from the slums in latin america or India. No one would miss them, either, and the experiments would actually have more value.

    And they would be able to answer the "Which is louder?" question.

    I wouldn't mind if they took our "piqueteros" and our "ocupas" for research's sake, it would make my life a lot richer in so many levels(not in the monetary way). But they would have to waste a lot of time teaching them English, or the staff should speak spanish.

    Ben:
    Do they have no families just because they don't speak American?
    Do you even know what is the definition of American?(general def: FROM AMERICA)... Just so you know, Latin America IS AMERICA too.

    BTW, If you feel touched from sarcasm... you should really try killing yourself and sparing the rest of the world the pain of having you around.-

  • (cs) in reply to Jamie McCarthy
    Jamie McCarthy:
    This bug resulted in, not a passel of hard-of-hearing chinchillas (awww, how cute!), but a pile of dead ones.

    Animal experiments end in the slaughter of the animals. They can't be used again for scientific purposes. Nobody's going to adopt a hundred chinchillas. And even if there were a hundred people out there looking to adopt chinchillas, this batch of 100 would just mean there's 100 more at various animal shelters that have to be euthanized (there's never a shortage of unwanted animals).

    I guess making jokes about PETA helps some people avoid thinking about how animals actually do suffer for our thoughtlessness.

    I am, by the way, a tinnitus sufferer -- my every waking moment, probably until the day I die, will be spent with loud, high-pitched whines and squeals in both ears -- and I don't want experiments like this one done.

    Yes, there are downsides to animal testing. No question about that. Personally, I think a few animal tests for actual medical reasons are a good thing. Animal cosmetic testing is pain and death for the sake of vanity, animal tests for medical purposes save millions of lives. Do I value human lives more than chinchilla lives? Yes.

    You state you don't want animal testing to prevent deafness or hearing damage. How would you feel if your child were dying of lukemia and the doctors told you, "we have no medicine for this because we have no way to test medicines without killing children"? Tinitus, I hate to say this, is a very, very mild disease compared to many which are affected by animal testing. How would you feel if your neighbor's child were dying, and the doctors told your neighbor that their child would die in horrible pain because of you, because you were responsible for banning animal testing?

    Ethics is a complex subject, and very subjective. And it's not always about how much you personally are willing to suffer. It's also about how much suffering you are willing to cause to others, in order to salve your conscience about related subjects.

    Importantly, one has to keep in mind: the only way to eliminate all suffering would be to eliminate life itself.

  • (cs) in reply to Gsquared
    Gsquared:
    Importantly, one has to keep in mind: the only way to eliminate all suffering would be to eliminate life itself.

    And even then the suffering may not end... "It is not the box that calls us. It is desire." "We offer such sweet suffering."

  • Bobloblaw (unregistered) in reply to Grant
    Grant:
    No, not that NASA. This NASA:

    <url: http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.html />

    I'm sure you enjoy telling your story at parties and getting a good laugh at the loss of a multi-million dollar spacecraft. But maybe you should try to remember that no US astronaut has ever died because of a software error. And that's because of people like those described in the article. People that make sure their software is correct because lives depend on it.

    The best line from that article: "12 of the 22 people in the room are women". Now that's incentive!

  • etr (unregistered) in reply to Rafael Larios
    Rafael Larios:
    etr:
    Why not just pick up a hundred or so folks from the slums in latin america or India. No one would miss them, either, and the experiments would actually have more value.

    You sir are a douchebag.... (and i know you are being sarcastic).

    We choose to harm animals for research when the outcome could provide solution for the problems of millions... so if hurting 150 chinchillas could help the millions of unborn children with hearing problems so be it.

    off course I disagree completely with hurting animals for pleasure or more mundane things, (killing a shark just for their fins)... but for scientiffic research is completelly plausible.

    Sorry for my english and bad grammar.

    I smell a conservative. They are willing to whip out one million unborn children at the drop of a hat.

    Why are you so arrogant that you assume that the torture of 150 animals can be justified by the slim possibility that it might do some human some good some day? What makes you think you have more of a right to life than they do? Because you're human? Because your "god" told you you were special? Because you believe you have a "soul" that will live forever and they don't?

    You're nothing more than a slightly intelligent monkey, and I'm still holding out on the intelligent part.

    You sir are the real douchebag.

  • etr (unregistered) in reply to Stirrer
    Stirrer:
    Ben:
    Why not just pick up a hundred or so folks from the slums in Latin America or India. No one would miss them, either, and the experiments would actually have more value.

    You are an idiot and you totally fit the stereotype of an arrogant American.

    Why would no one miss the people from the third world?

    Do they have no families just because they don't speak American?

    "Thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-English speaking countries as to those that occur in English speaking countries." Scroobious Pip. http://www.myspace.com/lesacvspip

    Not only that, but if they can't speak American, how would you collect the results of the test?

    You sir are an idiot and totally fit the stereotype of an uneducated third-worlder.

    Not to mention the fact that you missed about three layers of sarcasm in that post. That most egregious part is that, yes these folks may have family and friends that care about them, but their fellow countrymen (even you perhaps?) care very little, as does the rest of the world. How do I know? Because they are still living in what could only be described as inhumane conditions while quite a number of the rest of the world are doing very well indeed. Sometimes even at their expense.

    Thus they are held in no more regard by the PETA-hating retards, or most anyone else, than the animals some would so willingly torture for the presumed good of humanity.

    No, I'm not a PETA member, or a vegan, or even a vegetarian, but I do believe that we have a responsibility to treat the other living creatures on this earth in an ethical (the E in PETA) and "humane" manner. After all, we're supposed to be better than them, right?

    Killing a cow for food? I've got no problem with that. Torturing the cow before you kill it is wrong. It's not the death that is the problem, it's the life.

  • (cs)

    Chinchillas are so cute. I can picture them getting pissed off when they don't get their treat for jumping at the sound.

  • (cs) in reply to etr
    etr:
    Thus they are held in no more regard by the PETA-hating retards, or most anyone else, than the animals some would so willingly torture for the presumed good of humanity.

    No, I'm not a PETA member, or a vegan, or even a vegetarian, but I do believe that we have a responsibility to treat the other living creatures on this earth in an ethical (the E in PETA) and "humane" manner. After all, we're supposed to be better than them, right?

    Umm...I'm wondering if you realize that PETA kills a large number of the animals it "liberates", because they have been tainted by humanity. I agree that there is a difference between killing an animal for food and torturing it, but I'd hesitate to use PETA as a model for how to treat animals.

    I personally believe that animal testing is occasionally necessary and beneficial (as has been previously mentioned: think insulin). Does this make me blind and human-centric? Possibly. Ya know what? I don't care. I believe in the idea of bettering the human race and possibly curing life-threatening diseases. In the right circumstances, I would put MYSELF up for use as a lab animal, so I don't really see a reason not to put a chinchilla up as one.

  • Calli Arcale (unregistered) in reply to Grant
    Grant:
    I'm sure you enjoy telling your story at parties and getting a good laugh at the loss of a multi-million dollar spacecraft. But maybe you should try to remember that no US astronaut has ever died because of a software error. And that's because of people like those described in the article. People that make sure their software is correct because lives depend on it.

    That's not entirely true. One contributing factor to the Columbia loss was misinterpretation of results (performed using an Excel spreadsheet by a new hire who couldn't possibly have been expected to fully understand the program) from a software package called Crater. The data seemed to indicate that the observed foam loss could not have harmed Columbia significantly, and so calls for extra imaging were rebuffed. (Granted, really knowing the full extent of the damage wouldn't have made any difference. The crew's fates were already sealed, as there would have been no way to save them.) So arguably there has been a software problem associated with the loss of human life in manned spaceflight.

    Why was Crater taken so casually? Because it wasn't "mission critical". It wasn't the software that runs the vehicle. It was "just" a number-crunching program used to estimate possible damage to heat shields. Most people will make the mistake of saying that that's not mission critical, because a bug doesn't directly make the vehicle explode or do anything dramatic like that. But if you rely upon it to make life-or-death decisions, then it most certainly is mission critical. Honestly, I'm not sure there is anything which doesn't have the potential to be mission critical, and I think it's dangerous to think otherwise.

    I even met a fellow once who was convinced his software was not safety-critical and didn't need a high degree of quality control, despite the fact that it was military software to command a system specifically designed to kill people....

    NASA does do a very good job, and many of the "oopsies" that have occurred have tended to be misreported. (The metric/imperial conversion gaff, for instance, was a problem equally shared between NASA and their supplier, Lockheed Martin. LM provided data without units and NASA failed to question that.) But this is not to say that they do not need to learn these basic lessons about software quality. Bottom line: every software project, big and small, needs to pay attention to quality and control. The ramifications for failure may be much bigger than you realize.

    And that's the lesson that this WTF teaches us.

  • Calli Arcale (unregistered) in reply to Calli Arcale

    Addendum: and the MPL problem was a bit bigger than a software problem. I'd consider it more of a systems-level issue, because all the components worked the way they were supposed to. The problem is that nobody had considered the violent vibration that the pyrotechnic jettison of the backshell would cause. Software was relying on there being only one violent jolt (touchdown), but in reality there would've been two. A software fix could've saved MPL, but the problem should've been detected at a systems integration level.

  • Thomas (unregistered) in reply to Zemyla
    Zemyla:
    It doesn't work for me. However, I have found it works if I go to http://forums.www.worsethanfailure.com/. Which is the oddest thing in the world, I would imagine.

    Firefox 2.0.0.3.

    I updated my "non script" plugin and now its working fine again. Even when I allowed javascript globably it didn`t worked. Now its fine. :-)

  • Abscissa (unregistered) in reply to Joe

    That was the first thing I checked. It is enabled. Still doesn't work.

  • Abscissa (unregistered) in reply to Joe
    Joe:
    Abscissa:
    Your "Display: Full Article" link isn't working.

    "The Real WTF": Not using "Full Article" as default.

    Enable JavaScript for worsethanfailure.com.

    Full Article is off dy default because most people come to the comments page from the full article (without comments) page and don't really need to read it again.

    captcha: craaazy

    That was the first thing I checked. It is enabled. Still doesn't work.

  • Abscissa (unregistered) in reply to Thomas
    Thomas:
    Zemyla:
    It doesn't work for me. However, I have found it works if I go to http://forums.www.worsethanfailure.com/. Which is the oddest thing in the world, I would imagine.

    Firefox 2.0.0.3.

    I updated my "non script" plugin and now its working fine again. Even when I allowed javascript globably it didn`t worked. Now its fine. :-)

    I don't even have that plugin installed. The closest thing I have is QuickJava, but I have the newest version of that.

    Firefox 2.0.0.3

  • (cs) in reply to Taz
    Taz:
    IMil:
    Nearly 700 scientists representing 27 countries convened at the University of Zurich Monday to formally announce that their experimentation on mice has been motivated not by a desire to advance human knowledge, but out of sheer distaste for the furry little rodents.
    http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30800 And I thought this was a joke...

    You don't know much about The Onion, do you? For those not in the knowing, it drools satire. Therefore it is a joke.

    You don't know much about Worse Than Failure Comments, do you? For those not in the knowing, it drools satire. Therefore it is a joke.

  • mcv (unregistered) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    Jamie McCarthy:
    This bug resulted in, not a passel of hard-of-hearing chinchillas (awww, how cute!), but a pile of dead ones. ... I am, by the way, a tinnitus sufferer -- my every waking moment, probably until the day I die, will be spent with loud, high-pitched whines and squeals in both ears -- and I don't want experiments like this one done.

    I understand your point, but I take a much different stance. I look at it from the standpoint of "the greater good", what is better, 100 deaf (or even dead) rodents or 100 deaf people? They are doing these experiments to try to prevent exactly the problem you have.

    Even so, can we at least agree that wasting 100 chinchillas on badly tested software like this is very irresponsible?

  • (cs) in reply to Pap
    Pap:
    You don't know much about Worse Than Failure Comments, do you? For those not in the knowing, it drools satire. Therefore it *is* a joke.

    Having mostly lurked here for about one year, I know enough about comments on this site to tell that sometimes they are meant dead serious while they appear to be sarcastic. Can't tell the same about The Onion, where you have to take everything with a bag of salt. :)

  • Rob (unregistered) in reply to Wibble
    Wibble:
    The real WTF is that you think American is a language! LOL!

    I'd consider American a language too -- well, American English. Ever go from London to NYC? Not really the same language...

    (* sarcasm is off today, so if it was, whoops..)

  • Marcelo (unregistered) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    Jamie McCarthy:
    This bug resulted in, not a passel of hard-of-hearing chinchillas (awww, how cute!), but a pile of dead ones.

    Animal experiments end in the slaughter of the animals. They can't be used again for scientific purposes. Nobody's going to adopt a hundred chinchillas. And even if there were a hundred people out there looking to adopt chinchillas, this batch of 100 would just mean there's 100 more at various animal shelters that have to be euthanized (there's never a shortage of unwanted animals).

    I guess making jokes about PETA helps some people avoid thinking about how animals actually do suffer for our thoughtlessness.

    I am, by the way, a tinnitus sufferer -- my every waking moment, probably until the day I die, will be spent with loud, high-pitched whines and squeals in both ears -- and I don't want experiments like this one done.

    I understand your point, but I take a much different stance. I look at it from the standpoint of "the greater good", what is better, 100 deaf (or even dead) rodents or 100 deaf people? They are doing these experiments to try to prevent exactly the problem you have.

    Now before you call me heartless, take this to note, I would feel bad harming a monkey or even a dolphin, but killing a fish or a rat I have no problem with. Ask me to define the morality line where this is crossed and I can't do it, I simply know myself what I would care about and what I won't. You yourself do this very thing but your line is drawn elsewhere. How many roaches would you kill to keep them out of your home? The question is no different, it just depends on where you, personally draw your line, just don't hold me to your choice.

    Ok, but what makes you think you have more right to live than a chinchilla? Or more right to hearing than a chinchilla? Man tends to put himself as a more important being than any other.

  • xolox (unregistered) in reply to Marcelo
    Marcelo:
    Ok, but what makes you think you have more right to live than a chinchilla? Or more right to hearing than a chinchilla? Man tends to put himself as a more important being than any other.

    (He's|They've) never really been told otherwise.

    PS. I'm still not sure if all the replies that misinterpret sarcasm are for real. If so, whoah :x

  • MadMonk (unregistered) in reply to Jamie McCarthy

    Don't feel too bad Jamie, I'm sure someone got a nice coat out of it, and a few pythons had a nice meal as well.

    Putz!

  • meat eater (unregistered) in reply to RobbieAreBest
    RobbieAreBest:
    unklegwar:
    How long before some PETA freak gets on your case? Taking bets now....

    Nah, they don't read this site. Probably because no one told them to.

    Maybe they should use PETA members for these experiments, they are easier to train than rodents.

    But smellier.

  • (cs) in reply to Marcelo
    Marcelo:
    Ok, but what makes you think you have more right to live than a chinchilla?
    What makes you think chinchillas would live forever sans human interference?

    Everything dies. Everything. And every species puts itself above every other.

    Lemme flip the question around so it's ridiculousness becomes even more apparent. What makes you think a chinchilla has more right to live than a human?

  • rxf (unregistered)

    Why do we use animals for scientific research?

    Because we can.

    Ethics is a sham. It is simply too subjective and too prone to emotionalism from any side of the issue, and the side which gets its way is almost invariably the one that cries and sobs the loudest.

    I support animal testing, as well as gasp human testing for those experiments which animals cannot approximate well. Moralizing for "the greater good" is a cop-out and excuse as well - the only reason you need is because you need RESULTS.

    When weighing issues comes down to only their ethical, humanistic traits, the best solution is to only weigh the importance of the outcome. Take the easily-skewed human emotions away from logic-based processes.

  • Amazing (unregistered)

    How about I conduct chinchilla research because I can.

    Who is going to stop me? Chinchillas? No. The only being capable of stopping me, and thus I must consider whether I want to face repercussions of my actions from them, have a demonstrated history of being toothless. So, if there are no repercussions, most people I care about don't care, why would I not do it?

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