- Feature Articles
- CodeSOD
- Error'd
- Forums
-
Other Articles
- Random Article
- Other Series
- Alex's Soapbox
- Announcements
- Best of…
- Best of Email
- Best of the Sidebar
- Bring Your Own Code
- Coded Smorgasbord
- Mandatory Fun Day
- Off Topic
- Representative Line
- News Roundup
- Editor's Soapbox
- Software on the Rocks
- Souvenir Potpourri
- Sponsor Post
- Tales from the Interview
- The Daily WTF: Live
- Virtudyne
Admin
The problem with this is that it usually IS the programmer's fault.
Admin
You reboot now! Now!
Admin
Well, since the error message didn't actually say which one was 'A'...
Admin
[[clever_comment]]
Admin
Some dev skrewed up royally by writing a message like that. Letting users have even a slightest hint you might be wrong somewhere should be unthinkable for every self-respecting developer :) PS Wow, someone else but me still plays "Space Rangers 2", Do you have collectors edition? :)
Admin
I think I'll panic about the unknown bug anyway.
Admin
The system needs to reboot. Press 'OK' to reboot now, 'Cancel' to reboot later.
[OK] [OK]
Admin
Admin
As a software user, I tend to lean toward 'B'.
Admin
"Unbelievable. You, [subject name here] must be the pride of [subject hometown name here]."
Admin
I've seen a good one similar to the news screen one. A big screen on the side of an estate agents that usually displayed a slideshow of different properties, instead had an MSN messenger conversation running on it. Methinks someone forgot to turn the screen off...
Admin
How is that, by the way? I got Space Rangers 1, and it was pretty fun, but kind of maddening in the "no matter what you do, you're getting screwed so hard" way. Even when things worked out really well, and I had a great ship, I managed to kill myself (from greed) in a warp point. I heard that the RTS part (which was the big selling point) wasn't all that great, either.
Admin
That's quite funny. Probably interesting also...
Admin
Two comments:
1: The lousy error message is a good reason to lean towards "A. The developer for this screwed up royally."
2: Another possibility is Both Of The Above: A bug or a horrible UI design prevented the user from entering the data properly. This is of course a subcategory of A.
Admin
As a developer (10+ years) I'm totally leaning towards 'B' too!
Admin
Got it right here. ;)
Admin
I do too! It's a wonderful game. :D (if only for it's embarrassingly hilarious intro XD)
Admin
Wish I could put the first one on all my error messages.
Last one reminds me of Portal. Maybe GLaDOS got a job at the Holiday Inn after the Aperture Science Lab incident?
Admin
The best part about the Holiday Inn Express letter is that I pointed this error to them three times over the course of four months last year, it continued occurring.
Given the number of issues we've had at that hotel, I can't say I'm shocked. Unfortunately, location, location, location.
Admin
FWIW, that screen with the windows message is pretty damn big. Having been there... It's 25 m2 (or 75 square feet, as it's 15x15 ft)
Admin
[[funny_smileys]]
captcha: [[current_captcha]]
Admin
i worked in a small web agency in the mid-90's (who didn't?) that had a lot of staff turnover. One long-departed programmer had a penchant for clever names for database user accounts...
One day, our hosting partner's db server was down. The programming staff were greeted by an unhappy boss informing us that a client had called, a little upset at seeing - instead of the usual home page for his business - a message saying "user 'dumbass' couldn't connect to database."
Admin
I like how the ReportManager error message gives you no ideas or clues as to which piece of data you may have entered incorrectly. While there is a very good likelihood that the user entered something invalid, the WTF lies on the developer for not checking and providing useful feedback.
Admin
of course the context sensitive ads are bringing up resort ads for this page
Admin
Of course, the REAL WTF is [[incorrect_real_wtf]].
Admin
A few years ago I was at a certain station (also in The Netherlands btw). They have there a nice screen which shows the departures of trains. However a that time I could see it was running Windows NT 4, because it showed a nice BSOD...
Admin
Admin
My last "big screen blowup" was a Windows 2000 logon screen I spotted on the side of a building (yay unexpected reboot!) It's sad to realize that people use Windows for these things because Windows developers are a dime a dozen, not because Windows is a particularly lean, cheap and stable operating system for these purposes. Cobbling together an application for showing pretty graphics on a big screen is trivial in Windows, so people go with that. Most of the time nobody cares about the reliability of these things anyway.
That said, ATM machines showing Windows are the scariest...
Admin
You might want to review your math, friend. If it's 15 feet by 15 feet, it's 225 square feet; if it's 25 square meters, it's around 270 square feet.
Admin
It's a VB app, by the developer's own admission. 'B' seems like a foregone conclusion.
Admin
Ok. My name is David, I live in Utrecht, Netherlands. I saw this error last month (dec 27 to be precise) and I believe I've photographed it to send it in for the daily WTF. But I don't remember submitting it. Either this is the strangest co"incidence ever, either I was sleep-walking while doing it or... wait... no! stop reading my mind and hacking my computer!!!
/me never forgets anything, so that can't be the explanation.
Admin
Admin
The really classy interface designer would have had a button to that effect.
Admin
Admin
I've been known to do similarly bad stuff. I once set up someone elses computer and gave him the username "retard", because I was fairly certain he didn't know what that word means. (He doesn't speak english.) (I also set the computer to auto-login without a pw, so he wasn't exposed to it too much.)
Admin
Not much on arithmetic huh?
1 square meter is roughly 3ft x 3ft = 9 sq feet.
25 square meters = 25 x 9 = roughly 225 sq feet. Which is, oddly enough, the same as 15 x 15.
-NotAn
Admin
Admin
Well, ... did Ryan have his towel with him?
Admin
Admin
Admin
1 square meter is almost exactly 3.28 ft x 3.28 ft = 10.7584 sq ft
10.7584 sq ft x 25 = 268.96 sq ft which, oddly enough, is no where near 225 ft.
Admin
I suppose not. But I did say "roughly". :-)
-NotAn
Admin
Admin
1 meter = approx 39 inches = 3.25 ft.
25 square meters = 5 meters x 5 meters = 16.25 ft x 16.25 ft = 264 square feet, which oddly enough, is not really close to 225 square feet.
Admin
And as a software company owner, I don't give a fuck, I've got my money anyway!
Admin
Or you could all just use the metric system. Its so much easier.
1m = 100cm
not like
1ft = 12"
Means that you can deal on a base of 10.
Admin
I wonder what that VB error would look like if it was in Holiday Inn's system...
[[State the obvious]]. [[Information the user can't possibly use]].
[[Irrelevant button option]] [[Equally irrelevant button option]]
Admin
Admin
Caption used in the Space Rangers error message is great!
Admin
I'm leaning toward 'A'