The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

pooh bear · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

Can we see Lounge-girl Jello-wrestle Cambrian House girl? (any bets?)

VeXocide · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

Well, so much for good old times..

2006-08-01 Reply Admin

John Bigboote:
It's not immediately apparent from the photo, but beanbag girl has a scorching case of herpes.

Which she got from a long-time boyfriend who cheated on her. How's that her fault? How narrowminded of you.

2006-08-01 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
The 80s was a bad decade. Bad hair, bad clothing, some good music. Except for Poison.

NAK NAK NAK.

Poison Rocked! They still do. They did an awesom concert in West Bend, WI on saturday. Over 40,000 people attended.

Are you doing the European thingy were you use a ',' instead of a decimal point?

John Bigboote · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
John Bigboote:
It's not immediately apparent from the photo, but beanbag girl has a scorching case of herpes.

Which she got from a long-time boyfriend who cheated on her. How's that her fault? How narrowminded of you.

Hey, I'm willing to play "dodge the flare-up."

smbell · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

The real WTF is that in firefox I don't see any of the advertisment images, and when I click the little firefox icon in the bottom right to switch to IE (IE Tab) the text in the message boxes overflows the right line and gets hidden.

I'm going to have to take images over text.

snoofle · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

smbell:
The real WTF is that in firefox I don't see any of the advertisment images, and when I click the little firefox icon in the bottom right to switch to IE (IE Tab) the text in the message boxes overflows the right line and gets hidden.

I'm going to have to take images over text.

I used to be a die-hard Netscape guy. After a *lot* of fighting with the registry because IE would keep trying to take-over, I finally gave up, removed all traces of IE & Netscape from my PC (including a deep registry sweep), reinstalled IE, and, interestingly enough, stopped having problems after that.

Yes, it's wrong that I chose to succumb to MS's tactics, or even that I had to make the choice, but the subsequent stability of the system more than made up for it for me (MS-tactics, inferior browser, etc). I haven't used Firefox or Opera; but at least a few folks seem to be having problems viewing this or other pages (at least as reported in this blog). Is it just that they don't have it configured properly, or is it MS vs everything-else circa 2006?

For the record, I have IE 6.?, and haven't had any problems viewing anything anywhere (ironic though that may be).

GoatCheez · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

snoofle:

I used to be a die-hard Netscape guy. After a *lot* of fighting with the registry because IE would keep trying to take-over, I finally gave up, removed all traces of IE & Netscape from my PC (including a deep registry sweep), reinstalled IE, and, interestingly enough, stopped having problems after that.

Yes, it's wrong that I chose to succumb to MS's tactics, or even that I had to make the choice, but the subsequent stability of the system more than made up for it for me (MS-tactics, inferior browser, etc). I haven't used Firefox or Opera; but at least a few folks seem to be having problems viewing this or other pages (at least as reported in this blog). Is it just that they don't have it configured properly, or is it MS vs everything-else circa 2006?

For the record, I have IE 6.?, and haven't had any problems viewing anything anywhere (ironic though that may be).

That's probably because all of the adware, virii, malware and such that have made their way onto your system THROUGH IE want to keep you thinking your computer is fine so they can use it as a zombie... lol...

kmerkle · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

kmerkle · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Digitalbath:
Bus Raker:
Digitalbath:

TankerJoe:
Anonymous:
The real WTF is that nobody has noticed that we now have a competition between Foosball Girl and Beanbag Girl!

CAPTCHA : jiggles (again, I always seem to get this one when commenting on the girls in the ads)

The bean bag girl is at least one or two orders of magnitude hotter than the foosball girl.

Well said. It is not even close.

I whole-heartedly disagree. Foosball girl is obviously a real girl, whereas Beanbag girl has makeup, photoshop, hair dye, etc. written all over her. Let's not forget about 'high maintence'. If you think today's WTF would require high maintenace, just start dating 'beanbag girl'.

Ah, you are failing to see the whole picture. You have to look past the airbrushing and make up of beanbag girl and see the real person. She is sitting there in jeans and no shoes. She's definitely laid back. The type where she isn't going to get upset if you don't take her out to a $100 dinner. She would rather go to the local karoake dive bar and laugh at the drunken singers with you than put on a dress and sit at a restaurant with $30 appetizers. She looks good because that's her job, but she doesn't put too much stock in it. She will go out with you and your buddies to sports bars for Monday night football and won't drink a lot so you always have a designated driver. Life is good.

Whereas, foosball girl on the other hand, while being sporty and laid back as well, doesn't shower very often. Ha.

Does it really matter? I mean, as long as one is on top of the other I'm happy.

CAT FIGHT!!!! (Followed by erotic reconciliation)

2006-08-01 Reply Admin

The funny thing is nobody realises that the bean bag girl and the foosball girl is the same girl. Just different cloths, makeup/photoshop, and lighting.

captcha: bedtime (yippee)

2006-08-01 Reply Admin

80's?!?! Good music?!?!?! WTF???

2006-08-01 Reply Admin

snoofle:

smbell:
The real WTF is that in firefox I don't see any of the advertisment images, and when I click the little firefox icon in the bottom right to switch to IE (IE Tab) the text in the message boxes overflows the right line and gets hidden.

I'm going to have to take images over text.

I used to be a die-hard Netscape guy. After a *lot* of fighting with the registry because IE would keep trying to take-over, I finally gave up, removed all traces of IE & Netscape from my PC (including a deep registry sweep), reinstalled IE, and, interestingly enough, stopped having problems after that.

Yes, it's wrong that I chose to succumb to MS's tactics, or even that I had to make the choice, but the subsequent stability of the system more than made up for it for me (MS-tactics, inferior browser, etc). I haven't used Firefox or Opera; but at least a few folks seem to be having problems viewing this or other pages (at least as reported in this blog). Is it just that they don't have it configured properly, or is it MS vs everything-else circa 2006?

For the record, I have IE 6.?, and haven't had any problems viewing anything anywhere (ironic though that may be).

I think my problem is the IE I have installed (here at work) is 5.5 which has a flawed CSS box layout implemintation

captcha: billgates (figures)

Hector McCarthy · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

The real WTF is that you guys will make fun of any code Alex posts.

There may have been no "good" comments or "worthwhile" documentation, but did Martin D. bother to look at the definition of TYP_R133ENVPROJ?

It's probably something like:

<font face="Courier New">typedef struct {
    const char *var;
    struct {
        const char *defaultvalue;
        void (*handler)(const char *, char *);
        const char *handler_arg;
    } d;
} TYP_R133ENVPROJ;</font>

Of course, the code to process the array probably looks something like this:

<font face="Courier New">const TYP_R133ENVPROJ *p;
for (p = astProjEnvVar; p->var != NULL; p++) {
    if (p->d.handler_arg == "") {
        p->d.handler(p->d.handler_arg, p->d.var);
    }
    setenv(p->var, p->d.var);
}</font>

Ford351-4V · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Digitalbath:
TankerJoe:
Anonymous:
The real WTF is that nobody has noticed that we now have a competition between Foosball Girl and Beanbag Girl!

CAPTCHA : jiggles (again, I always seem to get this one when commenting on the girls in the ads)

The bean bag girl is at least one or two orders of magnitude hotter than the foosball girl.

Well said. It is not even close.

I dunno, I think foosball girl is more fun. Second, it's probably not a fair comparison because beanbag girl has probably had a makeup artist for the shoot, etc., while foosball girl was just caught having a friendly game during lunch break. Besides, which do you think codes better? I'm going with foosball girl.

I vote for Foosball Girl. You're concerned with how well she codes?

Insert comment about golf ball and garden hose here.

2006-08-01 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
80's?!?! Good music?!?!?! WTF???

Ok, so this is offtopic but....

Rush. Moving Pictures. </story>

Digitalbath · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

John Bigboote:
Anonymous:
John Bigboote:
It's not immediately apparent from the photo, but beanbag girl has a scorching case of herpes.

Which she got from a long-time boyfriend who cheated on her. How's that her fault? How narrowminded of you.

Hey, I'm willing to play "dodge the flare-up."

Hahahahaha. As they say...you owe me a new keyboard. Awesome.

sao · 2006-08-01 Reply Admin

now THAT was well said.

and since we want to find out, ill take one for the team, and ask her out ;)

2006-08-01 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
John Bigboote:
It's not immediately apparent from the photo, but beanbag girl has a scorching case of herpes.

Which she got from a long-time boyfriend who cheated on her. How's that her fault?

Ergo, she has bad taste in men and I'd rather not be the next ex-boyfriend in her long string of jerks and losers.

That said, I've got a PR background and I can tell you that the angle on Ms. Bag is designed to make her look like a princess. You're not supposed to think about what she's actually doing because she's not doing anything (let alone you). The supplicant position of the camera is designed to arouse your eager-to-please servitude without directly sexualizing the subject -- note that she's showing less relevant skin than Ms. Fooz. What is particularly unusual about that ad is that it instills no actual desire to own the chair itself (since the girl is not included) because anybody who thinks that the girl is modelling the use of the furniture has never spent hours leaning forward over a laptop for an extended coding or gaming session -- her current position is wildly uncomfortable and un-ergonomic in under an hour. But it does serve to survey the masses (note: non-monogamous) that are coming to worship her. If she is in any kind of relationship, it will come up quite frequently in conversation to remind you just how far away she wants to keep you and your drooling worshipfulness. Hopefully you won't have to work with this sort of person for longer than it takes you to realize that you're working with them.

Meanwhile, Ms. Fooz actually is doing something and in such a casual fashion as to innocently show a bit more flesh to the ravening audience. That's you. Note that her clothes don't suggest that she's a programmer -- programmers of either sex rarely, if ever, have necklines of note. The folks who do have necklines are the analysts. She's wearing jeans, suggesting that she's a system -- not business -- analyst, but she's still an analyst, not an actual programmer. She can probably tell the difference between XML, SQL and C, but she's only playing Foozball as a ploy to build rapport with her programming pets. That's you. After all, that rapport is what she cashes in on every time the customers are clamoring for what qualifies as scope creep. Any time she needs to pull a miracle out of the hat, she's going to be relying on the relationship build over the top of the foozball table. She's wanting to seem fun and approachable so that when she drops in on you and begs you to get three weeks' worth of work done in three days, you won't tell her where she can go with that request. Instead, you'll blithely agree to it, thinking of how nice of a friend she is all the while. She won't do anything to remind you that she's married unless you inappropriately press the issue.

So the real WTF coming out of all of this is would be the latest feature revisions our ad-girls are going to demand that the product (that just had the RC1 drop go to QA) incorporate immediately. It probably involves emailing invoices to an account that nobody's going to check after the current project owner is laid off, resulting in $3.2M worth of late payments accruing over the next fiscal quarter.

Cheers,
::K (really did build something like that a few years ago. The analyst making the request looked rather like Ms. Fooz, only thinner with short-and-sporty brown hair. She quit shortly after our stakeholders in the Philippines declared that one of the documented features of the next release that they'd agreed to was really a showstopping bug.)

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
80's?!?! Good music?!?!?! WTF???

You betcha. Def Leppard, Guns 'N' Roses, Flock of Eagles, The Bangles. That decade had it all.

woodle · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

I want to know why there is a "Live chat" link on a site that supposedly sells furniture.

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Bus Raker:

Jake Vinson:

astProjEnvVar[] =
{
{"MED ALLG",    {"Med Allg",
                        NULL},
                        ""},

{"MEDNET",      {"Medical Net",
                        NULL},
                        "02-05-1995"},

{"MED_NO_DOC", {"RK-1/RK-2/RK-3 Canon Autorefrakto/Keratometer",
NULL},
""},

And thus, XML was born.

Because everybody knows XML is the best option for storing non-structured tables.
A simple comma (or whatever) separated file would have been better than XML in this case.
Then again, XML is more Enterprisey, so it would be easier to get budget for XML conversion.

error27 · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Beanbag chick is cold...

Fooz is warm. She laughs easily. She's pretty but her hair's a bit tossled because she's too busy having fun.

BTW. I think cambrian house might have been defaced... The front page is just a bouncing flash image that jumped off the top of the screen.

Hopefully, it doesn't stay like that for long because those dudes seem pretty cool.

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

snoofle:
Yes, it's wrong that I chose to succumb to MS's tactics, or even that I had to make the choice, but the subsequent stability of the system more than made up for it for me (MS-tactics, inferior browser, etc). I haven't used Firefox or Opera; but at least a few folks seem to be having problems viewing this or other pages (at least as reported in this blog). Is it just that they don't have it configured properly, or is it MS vs everything-else circa 2006?
For the record, I have IE 6.?, and haven't had any problems viewing anything anywhere (ironic though that may be).

Now THAT's a WTF!

If you keep using IE, virii will be all over your wooden table.

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
The real WTF is that nobody has noticed that we now have a competition between Foosball Girl and Beanbag Girl!

CAPTCHA : jiggles (again, I always seem to get this one when commenting on the girls in the ads)

This site has ADS?!?! I'd never have guessed :-D One really gets used to (and coddled by) good ole Adblock...

e.

CAPTCHA: giggity. WTF is THAT?

If I'd've originally hit Quote instead of reply, I could have had CAPTCHA: zork. What a missed opportunity!

seymore15074 · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
80's?!?! Good music?!?!?! WTF???
Ok, so this is offtopic but.... Rush. Moving Pictures. </STORY>

Good point, that IS the best drummer in the world...

Also note, Slayer was founded in 1982.

ammoQ · 2006-08-02 Reply Admin

The whole thread has become off-topic. I'm afraid that my sense of duty as a moderator requires me to delete the original posting.

j/k

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Heh, reminds me of the stuff I see every day. The copy 'n' paste development methodology whose terminal (pun intended) phase is "ditch everything, go back to the first phase, start all over".

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

If she is in any kind of relationship, it will come up quite frequently in conversation to remind you just how far away she wants to keep you and your drooling worshipfulness. Hopefully you won't have to work with this sort of person for longer than it takes you to realize that you're working with them.
She's wanting to seem fun and approachable so that when she drops in on you and begs you to get three weeks' worth of work done in three days, you won't tell her where she can go with that request. Instead, you'll blithely agree to it, thinking of how nice of a friend she is all the while. She won't do anything to remind you that she's married unless you inappropriately press the issue.

Did you really have to make such a depressing analysis!?

2006-08-02 Reply Admin

seymore15074:
Anonymous:
Anonymous:
80's?!?! Good music?!?!?! WTF???
Ok, so this is offtopic but.... Rush. Moving Pictures.

Good point, that IS the best drummer in the world...

Also note, Slayer was founded in 1982.

As if. Phil Collins is the best drummer in the world.

Man, I couldn't even keep a straight face while typing that.

No matter how bad your situation, someone has it worse.

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