The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
The title of the article made me think of something else entirely. Back in the day, around 1989 I think it was, in my first real job I had a 20 MHz 386 machine to work on. Not exactly blazingly fast, even by the standards of the day, but it did the job. It had an interesting feature - when the floppy drive was working (more specifically, any time the light was on and the spindle motor was running) some doodad on the motherboard would slow the system clock from 20 MHz to just 6 MHz. It was some sort of compatibility mode to avoid a particular category of timing-related problems with copy-protected software that used fingerprinted disks. (This was during an era when parallel port dongles existed, of course, but there was still software that wouldn't work properly if the floppy drive timing was off, and the 20 MHz full speed was sufficiently fast to do that.)
So you started to load something from a floppy disk, and the machine slowed down for compatibility purposes, then that stage of the load completed, and the machine would go idle waiting for you to insert the next disk. After a few seconds, the timers would shut off the spindle motor, and the compatibility mode with it, so now that the machine was just twiddling its thumbs, it would do it quickly.

Hurry up and wait, indeed.

And the line to fix this is "If you don't want me sitting in your office all day every day, get me the requirements. I have nothing else to do, because I am at 100% on your project. If you don't get me the requirements, I'll be here every day, billing you for sitting in your office." Or at least you ask your boss for permission to do it.

And the numbers seem off. It was something like 18 months from when the project supposedly began to when the SBU somehow didn't have any code written to do the testing, and yet all and sundry between them had only billed 1200 hours. For a typical US firm, you'd normally count on being able to bill 2000 hours a year per person. OK, not all of that time goes to projects (e.g. performance appraisals, company meetings, and so on), but Nate's end of things racked up only 600 hours in that >12 month period. Nate's "velocity" therefore averaged only 30% (assuming 12 months exactly) down to 20% (18 months) or 15% (24 months).

Sigh. I'd guess it's an anonymization failure.

You had a 386 20MHz in 1989 and consider that slow? My first PC (well aside from a Commodore 64 as a teen) was a 486 66MHz in 1993, 386 20MHz was probably a super-computer by 1989 standards :O

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

Nagesh - that would be OK, but these systems need to be redundant. And everyone knows there is only one Rajinikanth.

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

So, did they outsource the guy with a gun to Serbia? :)

da Doctah · 2013-08-06 Reply Admin

hank:
Ronald:
TRWTF is that SBU isn't defined and a Google search doesn't help at all in its definition.
Here, let me actually Google that for you: strategic business unit. That was what, something like the 3rd link of the results?

It's the twenty-ninth hit out of thirty-six total at the page I use to look up unfamiliar acronyms. Number one is "Saint Bonaventure University". My "third link" is "Scottish Bridge Union".

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

I don't see a WTF here. Every person at the company was doing exactly what their role demanded of them. The developer was patiently waiting for requirements and trying to be helpful in the meantime, as developers do. The entire management team chased each other around in circles, wasted resources, broke promises, and collected bonuses, as managers do. Where's the WTF?

(CAPTCHA: "sino" – I sino WTF here.)

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

Kevin:
You had a 386 20MHz in 1989 and consider that slow? My first PC (well aside from a Commodore 64 as a teen) was a 486 66MHz in 1993, 386 20MHz was probably a super-computer by 1989 standards :O

An Amiga was a supercomputer 1989, running circles around any of the x86. To bad that Commodore was such a lousy marketeer.

chubertdev · 2013-08-06 Reply Admin

Here's to Wax, he's a damn fine guy.

It doesn't matter that none of you will understand this. It's an inside joke about really, really bad stories, and needed to be said.

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

da Doctah:
hank:
Ronald:
TRWTF is that SBU isn't defined and a Google search doesn't help at all in its definition.
Here, let me actually Google that for you: strategic business unit. That was what, something like the 3rd link of the results?
It's the twenty-ninth hit out of thirty-six total at the page I use to look up unfamiliar acronyms. Number one is "Saint Bonaventure University". My "third link" is "Scottish Bridge Union".

Fair enough. TRWTF is filter bubbles.

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

WTF is an SBU? Stupid Business Unit? Serious Business Unit? Some Bastard Unicorn? Strange Big Umbrella? Stupid Bloody User? Shade Back Umbra? South Bagota Uncles? Salvage Buyers, Uganda? Small Bicycle Utility?

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

Jimbo:
WTF is an SBU? Stupid Business Unit? Serious Business Unit? Some Bastard Unicorn? Strange Big Umbrella? Stupid Bloody User? Shade Back Umbra? South Bagota Uncles? Salvage Buyers, Uganda? Small Bicycle Utility?

Special Bictims Unit

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

Jazz:
I don't see a WTF here. Every person at the company was doing exactly what their role demanded of them. The developer was patiently waiting for requirements and trying to be helpful in the meantime, as developers do. The entire management team chased each other around in circles, wasted resources, broke promises, and collected bonuses, as managers do. Where's the WTF?
(CAPTCHA: "sino" – I sino WTF here.)

Just because it's the norm, doesn't mean it's not a WTF.

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

A flatus was just released.:
Jimbo:
WTF is an SBU? Stupid Business Unit? Serious Business Unit? Some Bastard Unicorn? Strange Big Umbrella? Stupid Bloody User? Shade Back Umbra? South Bagota Uncles? Salvage Buyers, Uganda? Small Bicycle Utility?

Special Bictims Unit

PMSL

2013-08-06 Reply Admin

[image]

2013-08-07 Reply Admin

These words are well-known ...

[image]

2013-08-07 Reply Admin

Drenrab:
Hopefully I'm not going to start an Agile flame war, but this sort of thing is why I prefer Agile development...if they had spent 2-3 months roughing out some requirements, then got the development team involved and maybe in 6 months, or even sooner, had something working they could demo.

Except that in most agile development environments I've seen, the product owner would come up with some pie-in-the-sky abstract idea, it would be planned in a half hour planning session and you would be expected to start coding straight away. All because analysis and documentation takes too long and costs too much money.

Are you telling me that there are agile teams who strike a reasonable balance between iteration and analysis?

Steve The Cynic · 2013-08-07 Reply Admin

Ronald:
TRWTF is that SBU isn't defined and a Google search doesn't help at all in its definition. Define your acronyms!

I looked it up on the pseudo-encyclopaedia:

SBU From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

The three-letter acronym SBU may refer to:

Military and defense

Security Service of Ukraine or Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrayiny (SBU).
Sensitive but unclassified, a U.S. designation of information
SBU Corsair, an aircraft
Special Boarding Unit

Universities

Stony Brook University, a public, coeducational research university in Stony Brook, New York, USA
St. Bonaventure University
Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
South Bank University, now London South Bank University
Southwest Baptist University, in Missouri, USA

Business

Strategic business unit, a business unit within the overall corporate identity
Sequential build-up, a printed circuit board manufacturing technology
Stanbic Bank (Uganda) Limited, a commercial bank in Uganda
Siberian Business Union, a Russian holding company

Technologies

Standard Build Unit, a term coined by the Linux From Scratch book
Self-balancing unicycle

Others

Sinfonisches Blasorchester Ulm, Sinfonic Wind Orchestra Ulm, a German orchestra

Steve The Cynic · 2013-08-07 Reply Admin

Kevin:
You had a 386 20MHz in 1989 and consider that slow? My first PC (well aside from a Commodore 64 as a teen) was a 486 66MHz in 1993, 386 20MHz was probably a super-computer by 1989 standards :O

The very first (20 MHz) 486 machines had just come out at that time, and IDE ("parallel ATA") was also brand new. The Video Graphics Array (the "A" in VGA does not stand for "Adapter") was only a couple of years old.

The 386 I had was hampered somewhat by non-large memory and a questionable choice of hard disk system. (For complicated and marginally valid reasons, it was decided to have only removable hard disks, specifically the late and definitely not lamented "Plus Passport", so each project's development could be done on its own disk.)

And of course the company (I was the first employee, unless you count the owner as an employee of himself) was cheap enough to, when a maths coprocessor was required, buy an 80287 rather than an 80387, because the machine had both kinds of slots.

Ah, the qualitatively ambiguous old days!

da Doctah · 2013-08-07 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
Ronald:
TRWTF is that SBU isn't defined and a Google search doesn't help at all in its definition. Define your acronyms!
I looked it up on the pseudo-encyclopaedia:
SBU From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

The three-letter acronym SBU may refer to:

But why would you look it up on a general-purpose reference site when you have a bookmark to a site specifically designed to look up and expand acronyms?

On second thought, scratch that. Due to a certain chain of health-food stores recently discontinuing one product I routinely bought there, I have in fact ordered two cases of bottled water through Amazon.

Gurth · 2013-08-07 Reply Admin

Trimble:
An Amiga was a supercomputer 1989, running circles around any of the x86. To bad that Commodore was such a lousy marketeer.

They should never have gotten rid of Jack Tramiel?

Hmmmm · 2013-08-07 Reply Admin

Anonymous Coward:
Hmmmm:
Cool effect on the front page with the float:right image. Very proffesionnal...

Proffesionnal, indeed.

Congratulations, you have achieved a pass in "Elementary irony blindness"...

Steve The Cynic · 2013-08-07 Reply Admin

da Doctah:
But why would you look it up on a general-purpose reference site when you have a bookmark to a site specifically designed to look up and expand acronyms?

Because I don't have such a bookmark?

And besides, "SBU" isn't (in the pedantic sense) an acronym. It's a (three letter) initialism (although it's very common these days to refer to initialisms as acronyms, hell, even I do it sometimes, so OK, I'll let you off). (Key point: acronyms, in the original sense, are able to be pronounced as if they are words. I challenge you to pronounce "SBU" as if it were a word.)

Languages evolve, sure, but when the evolution of language is driven by the ignorance of its users (that is, they don't know what words mean, but (mis)use them anyway), there's a bit of a problem. An example: it is becoming increasingly difficult to find evidence that the verb "lose" (whether in the sense of "misplace" or "be defeated") is supposed to be spelled with only one "o". Spell it with two "o"s, and it becomes "loose", which is a real verb, meaning "release" or "let slip", but not meaning "misplace" or "be defeated". ("Loose" is also an adjective, more or less an antonym for "tight", but in slang use it can describe women of "easy virtue", as they say.) And let's not get into its/it's, their/there/they're, your/you're, accept/except, affect/effect, and so on.

da Doctah:
On second thought, scratch that. Due to a certain chain of health-food stores recently discontinuing one product I routinely bought there, I have in fact ordered two cases of bottled water through Amazon.

Bottled water is TRWTF. In small quantities it is more expensive than petrol.(*) If you are buying large quantities of it (sparkling exempted), you should examine closely your choice of (a) lifestyle and/or (b) living environment.

(*) Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to 2000 or 2001, at the edge of Reading, England. Your correspondent stops his car at a petrol station to buy some petrol (duh), and while he is there, he picks up a bottle of water. The price of the petrol? About £1 a litre. The water? About £1 for half a litre. So water is twice the price of petrol. WTF? (It could be worse, of course. In a country with a less farked petrol tax policy, the difference would be more pronounced. Last time I looked, 80% of the at-pump price of petrol in the UK was taxes.)

2013-08-07 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
I challenge you to pronounce "SBU" as if it were a word

I would pronounce it like "spew", maybe with a softer "p".

English Man · 2013-08-07 Reply Admin

Keyboard Goop:
So is this it? Is this how it's going to be? If you can't come up with any sort of punchline you just put something at the end of the story that sort of looks like a punchline without actually being one and call it a day?

Real life doesn't always have a punchline.

2013-08-07 Reply Admin

In WTFistan, theft deters YOU

2013-08-07 Reply Admin

Ronald:
TRWTF is that SBU isn't defined and a Google search doesn't help at all in its definition. Define your acronyms!

Best Acronym Finder ever: http://www.acronymfinder.com/

(BTW - what does TDPHB stand for?)

Gurth · 2013-08-07 Reply Admin

tjbl:
(BTW - what does TDPHB stand for?)

The Daily Player's Handbook, the site for D&D players everywhere.

2013-08-08 Reply Admin

tjbl:
Ronald:
TRWTF is that SBU isn't defined and a Google search doesn't help at all in its definition. Define your acronyms!
Best Acronym Finder ever: http://www.acronymfinder.com/
(BTW - what does TDPHB stand for?)

http://www.acronymfinder.com/PHB.html

2013-08-08 Reply Admin

Mr. Bob:

I can tell you're a "people" person.

I deal with God damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills, I am good in dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you, people?

2013-08-08 Reply Admin

Captain Oblivious:
So, why wasn't Nate building a configurable EDT framework while he was "waiting"?

Nate should've been let go for failing to follow instructions:

Nate shook his head. “So what do you need me to do right now?”
“Twiddle your thumbs? Stock up on caffeine for the last-minute code binge?” The project lead shrugged. “I’ll let you know when we have more.”

As weeks and then months slipped by, “more” turned out not to be “nothing.” His time being billable, and lacking a thumb-twiddling time bucket to fall back on...

WRONG. Bill 40 to the ETD bucket. Every week.

“You’re supposed to be 100% dedicated to ETD,” the lead declared. “What are you doing working on other projects?”

Exactly right. You're paid to do what you're paid to do. So do it! [image]

2013-08-09 Reply Admin

You had me until Nate got the patent. Then I just said "screw that guy, he's part of the problem" and read something else.

2013-08-11 Reply Admin

Hmmmm:
Cool effect on the front page with the float:right image. Very proffesionnal...

He's standing watch on the engine to the left... Aw, crap.

2013-08-12 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
da Doctah:
But why would you look it up on a general-purpose reference site when you have a bookmark to a site specifically designed to look up and expand acronyms?
Because I don't have such a bookmark?
And besides, "SBU" isn't (in the pedantic sense) an acronym. It's a (three letter) initialism (although it's very common these days to refer to initialisms as acronyms, hell, even I do it sometimes, so OK, I'll let you off). (Key point: acronyms, in the original sense, are able to be pronounced as if they are words. I challenge you to pronounce "SBU" as if it were a word.)

Languages evolve, sure, but when the evolution of language is driven by the ignorance of its users (that is, they don't know what words mean, but (mis)use them anyway), there's a bit of a problem. An example: it is becoming increasingly difficult to find evidence that the verb "lose" (whether in the sense of "misplace" or "be defeated") is supposed to be spelled with only one "o". Spell it with two "o"s, and it becomes "loose", which is a real verb, meaning "release" or "let slip", but not meaning "misplace" or "be defeated". ("Loose" is also an adjective, more or less an antonym for "tight", but in slang use it can describe women of "easy virtue", as they say.) And let's not get into its/it's, their/there/they're, your/you're, accept/except, affect/effect, and so on.

da Doctah:
On second thought, scratch that. Due to a certain chain of health-food stores recently discontinuing one product I routinely bought there, I have in fact ordered two cases of bottled water through Amazon.
Bottled water is TRWTF. In small quantities it is more expensive than petrol.(*) If you are buying large quantities of it (sparkling exempted), you should examine closely your choice of (a) lifestyle and/or (b) living environment.
(*) Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to 2000 or 2001, at the edge of Reading, England. Your correspondent stops his car at a petrol station to buy some petrol (duh), and while he is there, he picks up a bottle of water. The price of the petrol? About £1 a litre. The water? About £1 for half a litre. So water is twice the price of petrol. WTF? (It could be worse, of course. In a country with a less farked petrol tax policy, the difference would be more pronounced. Last time I looked, 80% of the at-pump price of petrol in the UK was taxes.)

Yes, we do that, to milk money from the tourists. After all, the real WTF is paying money for water when perfectly good water emerges from taps (that's "faucets") for practically free.

2013-08-16 Reply Admin

“We don’t have any engine software written yet"...

PROBLEM SOLVED via FAILURE

CASE CLOSED. No software.... engine won't run :)

2013-08-16 Reply Admin

WTF is that every time Serbs are mentioned, you see something else. Stop watching CNN, it is bad for your health.

Hurry Up and Wait

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