• Warren (unregistered)

    I would suggest that 100% of the datacentre is physical, it may just have some virtual servers on top of it....

  • Joakim (unregistered)

    I like how the datacenter one is WTFy on several levels: even if you guess what the question should be, there's still one missing option and one fuzzy limit.

    I would need someone to explain the Dunkin' Donuts one, though. Maybe there's some reference I'm not getting for not being an American? Otherwise it seems like a reasonable (if probably not optimal) way of weeding out people who don't actually read the questions.

  • hugo (unregistered)

    Someone noticed the first letters of the virtual/physical ratios spell LMAO? Guess they just wanted to mess with your head.

  • Anonymous Survey (unregistered)

    I must be missing why the survey question is a WTF? Those types of questions are a way to make sure that a person is actually reading the survey questions. So what's the real WTF?

  • Quality Porpoise (unregistered)

    For data quality purposes, please avoid reading this comment.

  • JakeyC (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Survey

    Yeah, the only WTF in the "data quality" question is how it's been worded. Other checks to see if people are actually reading the questions include comparing the time it takes between loading the question and submitting an answer. Too quick and the results get ditched.

  • (cs)

    Any decent data center is at least 50% ethereal.

  • George Fitch (unregistered)

    3

  • (cs)

    As for the complaint form, it is clearly the fault of Shaun Forsyth, who has obviously entered a non-supported character in his responses to the questions. Now go through the process again, you slacker, and this time do it properly.

  • (cs) in reply to Callin
    Callin:
    Any decent data center is at least 50% ethereal.
    These days, of course, it's actually wireshark, not ethereal...
  • (cs)

    I recommend this page.

  • Dave (unregistered)

    Wait, whose wife's student loans was Chris Deehan trying to pay anyway?

    I suspect her husband would like to know about this.

  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered)

    I would also like to know the source of web pages on the daily wyf.

    What? You fool!

  • F (unregistered) in reply to Dave
    Dave:
    Wait, whose wife's student loans was Chris Deehan trying to pay anyway?

    I suspect her husband would like to know about this.

    I suspect his wife would, too.

  • Dunkin Donuts (unregistered)

    Here at Dunkin Donuts we are using the latest technology, known as the anti-captcha. We've observed that computers are now getting smart enough to answer the simple questions. However if you tell a human "click 3 for no apparent stupid reason" they'll go "screw that, I'm clicking 2 just to mess with you" and thus we know we've got a human.

  • (cs)

    I assume that means the date you start paying the loan back?

    You can enter a date on or after the date, so the fact you only have 4 digits in which to enter the date is fine, you just have to enter 12/31/9999 as the date.

    But why not wait that long? You don't have to pay it back for 7987 years. Is it interest free up to that point?

    What is the 7987-year spot rate?

  • Stu Smith (unregistered)

    &quotSomething has gone wrong with your encoding of quotes&quot

  • (cs)

    How do you rate this information/service?

    }:-(

  • StupidTheKid (unregistered) in reply to JakeyC

    Yeah, these "quality" questions are pretty standard in the survey business. It is a cheap way to ensure that the answers were not filled randomly. I'd say we reject about 5% of the responses we receive based on questions like this.

  • Rodnas (unregistered)

    Aah yes i remember MySQL as a poorly copied MSSQL interface from a long time in the past. So they have not disappointed me now :)

    CAPTCHA: eros (self explanatory)

  • Ralph (unregistered) in reply to Rodnas
    Rodnas:
    MySQL as a poorly copied MSSQL interface
    Which would you rather have: a poorly copied turd or the real thing?
  • Jim (unregistered)

    Alex, Mark, I'm really wanting to read today's article but when I load it in my browser I keep getting the TITLE tag "Page Not Found". Can someone pls do the needful?

  • AGray (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    I assume that means the date you start paying the loan back?

    You can enter a date on or after the date, so the fact you only have 4 digits in which to enter the date is fine, you just have to enter 12/31/9999 as the date.

    But why not wait that long? You don't have to pay it back for 7987 years. Is it interest free up to that point?

    What is the 7987-year spot rate?

    It's a moot point; your student loans are forgiven if you die before they are repaid.

  • foo (unregistered) in reply to Dave
    Dave:
    Wait, whose wife's student loans was Chris Deehan trying to pay anyway?

    I suspect her husband would like to know about this.

    You misread it: A guy called &quotl (probably Aztec) wanted to pay his wife's loans. Chris (probably his friend) told us about it. It's perfectly cromulent.

  • (cs)

    You should have titled this one, "Nyah nyah!" Because there seems to be a theme here:

    "Page not found. Nyah nyah!"

    "Your loan enters repayment on 12/31/9999. The deferment begin date that you are selecting cannot be prior to that date. Please enter a date that is on or after 12/31/9999. Which means you just can't have a deferment! Nyah nyah!"

    System: "For data quality purposes, please select 3." User: "Just to be contrary, I will click 2. Nyah nyah!"

    Should corresponding database objects be deleted with the figures? Guess which button keeps them: Nyah nyah!"

    "Congratulations!! You are the 999,999 visitor in...I'm not telling you where...Nyah nyah!"

    "What percentage of your data center is virtual, physical, both? You'll never give the correct answer here. Nyah nyah!"

    "Synchronizing with server, and I'm not ever finishing! Nyah nyah!"

    "We're just not taking complaints, so there! Nyah nyah!"

  • Minos (unregistered)

    I was hoping the weather.com one would turn out to be a user WTF. Sadly, there is no "Recommend" button on their "Page Not Found" page.

  • gallier2 (unregistered) in reply to Minos

    My WAG. It's probably the sum of the recommends from deleted pages.

  • Weaselator (unregistered) in reply to StupidTheKid

    The real WTF with the Dunkin survey page is that it was included here as a WTF

  • Doug (unregistered) in reply to Dunkin Donuts

    Yeah this will stop someone that will just vote 1 or 5 for everything without reading what they are rating... Doesn't really seem like a WTF to me.

  • (cs) in reply to Weaselator

    If it wasn't included, what would everyone complain about?

  • (cs)

    RE the Page Not Found issue: If there was a function with return type string, most developers would consider the return value of "YOU JUST DESTROYED THE EARTH WITH THIS CODE" as a successful execution.

    Not everyone tests for syntax, logical, and common sense errors.

  • Evan (unregistered)

    I've seen a few times where some test page shows up on a link aggregator (probably Fark) and enough people follow it from there that some page named "S" or something makes it to the website's "popular stories" bar.

    It's possible that TWC is failing to get the name of the page that should be #1, but without knowing what happens if you clicked on it, it's also theoretically possible they actually have a page with the title "Page not found", someone found it, and then they made it popular.

  • Garrison Fiord (unregistered) in reply to F
    F:
    Dave:
    Wait, whose wife's student loans was Chris Deehan trying to pay anyway?

    I suspect her husband would like to know about this.

    I suspect his wife would, too.

    Typical article quality.

  • posedge clock (unregistered)

    Seems to me that if my loan does not enter repayment until 9999 then I will likely die before having to repay anything.

    Sounds like a great deal to me!

  • (cs) in reply to JakeyC
    JakeyC:
    Yeah, the only WTF in the "data quality" question is how it's been worded. Other checks to see if people are actually reading the questions include comparing the time it takes between loading the question and submitting an answer. Too quick and the results get ditched.

    Seconded. There's no WTF here beyond the fact it's written in statistics-speak.

    As for the page not found--this could also be a case of link rot.

  • Rotterdam (unregistered) in reply to Loren Pechtel
    Loren Pechtel:
    As for the page not found--this could also be a case of link rot.
    Which is still a WTF. "Link rot" means you published a URL without realizing that this thing is called a Web because other sites will link to you and that is a good thing until you get the assbrained idea to delete your page so you can save .000000000001 cent on disk space.
  • (cs) in reply to Garrison Fiord
    Garrison Fiord:
    F:
    Dave:
    Wait, whose wife's student loans was Chris Deehan trying to pay anyway?

    I suspect her husband would like to know about this.

    I suspect his wife would, too.
    Typical article quality.
    Typical Garrison Fiord comment quality.

  • Sean (unregistered)

    On the deferment, looks like someone hosed their SQL Server logic.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered)
    Shaun Forsyth:
    After spending 30 minutes politely filling in the complaint form to see this result, I'm left wondering how I complain the complaint form isn't working?
    Sometimes it can be done by nslookup and/or whois and sending e-mail to their administrator. But sometimes that fails too because of fake registrations.

    It's sort of like reporting spam to administrators of a spam server and getting bounced because they recognize that their spam is spam so they refuse to receive reports of their spam.

    It's sort of like Yahoo's web pages for reporting spam (if you can find it any more after they display old links that no longer work) or reporting problems with their problem report pages. You type everything in and they reply that there's a problem on their end, try again later and there's a problem on their end, try again later and there's a problem on their end, where should you report their failures to and there's a problem on their end. Who needs Google's joke about "recursion: did you mean recursion" when Yahoo does it for real.

    This reminds me of the old sign "complaints department one flight up" and a fist with one finger pointing upwards.

  • anon (unregistered)

    The real WTF is all the &quot's in the RSS feed.

  • (cs)

    Okay, but what does Ϩ do?

  • Top Ϩecret (unregistered) in reply to Watson
    Watson:
    Okay, but what does Ϩ do?
    It doesn't delete your data, but it protects it with a one-way encryption function that turns everything into ϨϨϨϨϨϨϨϨϨϨϨϨϨϨϨϨ.
  • BushIdo (unregistered)

    So Mike was at one of THOSE sites where you punch a grizzly bear in the ass to win an Ipad. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

  • Ryan V (unregistered)

    TRWTF is the horrific spelling and grammar in this post...

  • Pinky Fjord (unregistered) in reply to Joakim
    Joakim:
    I like how the datacenter one is WTFy on several levels: even if you guess what the question should be, there's still one missing option and one fuzzy limit.

    I would need someone to explain the Dunkin' Donuts one, though. Maybe there's some reference I'm not getting for not being an American? Otherwise it seems like a reasonable (if probably not optimal) way of weeding out people who don't actually read the questions.

    Not really...3 would likely be the option someone who is fairly apathetic would select - so unless they have several of these type of questions it doesn't weed anyone out at all.

    <boring tangent> For small(ish) scales like this, the apathetic person tends toward the middle. Studies suggest, however that if we were to to 1-10 scales apathy tends toward 7....(I think it's a sort of "They're not awesome, but they're not mediocre" attitude). </boring tangent>
  • Jiminy (unregistered) in reply to ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    I would also like to know the source of web pages on the daily wyf.

    What? You fool!

    Right Click->"View Source". It's simple really.

  • Henrietta (unregistered) in reply to Jim
    Jim:
    Alex, Mark, I'm really wanting to read today's article but when I load it in my browser I keep getting the TITLE tag "Page Not Found". Can someone pls do the needful?
    It's funny because with multiple windows open I got fooled by the same thing
  • (cs) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    Rodnas:
    MySQL as a poorly copied MSSQL interface
    Which would you rather have: a poorly copied turd or the real thing?

    Depends, was the turd producer eating corn?

  • heh (unregistered) in reply to StupidTheKid

    That's not how you remove the strange answers...

    There are various koeficients and such to do that.

  • (cs) in reply to AGray
    AGray:
    Cbuttius:
    I assume that means the date you start paying the loan back?

    You can enter a date on or after the date, so the fact you only have 4 digits in which to enter the date is fine, you just have to enter 12/31/9999 as the date.

    But why not wait that long? You don't have to pay it back for 7987 years. Is it interest free up to that point?

    What is the 7987-year spot rate?

    It's a moot point; your student loans are forgiven if you die before they are repaid.

    Clearly someone's future-proofing against the invention of the immortality serum.

Leave a comment on “Page Not Found”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article