The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2011-09-02 Reply Admin

method1:
how can you be that dumb & be a programmer?

You're new here?

2011-09-02 Reply Admin

Wonk:
Why is it that the world never remembered the name of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern- schplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- weimache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönedanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?

That's a made up name. Real Germans have names like Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg (the former minister of defence of Germany who had to step down because large parts of his dissertation were plagiarized; investigations are still ongoing whether parts of his name were also plagiarized).

2011-09-02 Reply Admin

Anonymous Guy:
i don't see any issue with showing all statuses but they should probably highlight the current one. Perhaps its to cut down on emails but then again its likely they just got lazy

Sure. I mean, why implement a switch statement on your server when you can do it on your customers?

vidar712 · 2011-09-02 Reply Admin

method1:
The_Assimilator:
Also I wish the idiots who program front-end validation on these sites would learn about regexes and \b instead of using string.Contains() for eveything.
Yeah, its amazing that they're still doing it, even after its become a huge joke & a mark of incompetent programming/website design. How stupid do you have to be to not realise that many longer words contain "offensive" words & how can you be that dumb & be a programmer?

VB

D-Coder · 2011-09-02 Reply Admin

gobes:
Zecc:
Tuxie:
Yes AUF, it was.
Short for "Yes, AUF CAURSE they have been phAUned"
FTFY. Btw, YMMD.

"Yes, All Ucked Fup."

Is this not obvious???

2011-09-02 Reply Admin

The real WTF of the IBM page is that those three check boxes start out showing "Do not contact me by ..." and then on some pages the "Do not contact me" disappears after the pages load completely as can be seen in that screenshot. And for some reason, the IBM pages ask you those questions over and over.

2011-09-03 Reply Admin

One of my favorite stories about the $0.00 problem was from a guy who got an overdue notice for $0.00, sent them a check for $0.00, and then got a complain from his bank saying that his check had crashed their computer.

2011-09-03 Reply Admin

jc:
One of my favorite stories about the $0.00 problem was from a guy who got an overdue notice for $0.00, sent them a check for $0.00, and then got a complain from his bank saying that his check had crashed their computer.

Hum, if this happen with me, i will try to send some injection in the value.

2011-09-03 Reply Admin

The real WTF is American Express.

2011-09-03 Reply Admin

airdrik:
dtobias:
progree:
sqrt(frist)

sqrt(-frist), to make it imaginary.

Except that frist already is imaginary, which means that both sqrt(frist) and sqrt(-frist) are both frivolous attempts to say nothing at all.

It doesn't matter if it's true or not: This is not a porn site!

2011-09-03 Reply Admin

AerieC:
Roger:
Abraham, did you try paying a negative number toward your American Express bill? They probably would have sent you as much money as you requested.
(I know. I used to do QA for a company with a remarkably similar name. Their first online banking site ended up being called "online bonking" by the QA team because of the massive money-evaporating WTFs.)

The question is, would the bank credit me $100 for cashing a -$100 check?

..or would they ask you to immediately transfer some 4 billion bucks on your checking account?

2011-09-03 Reply Admin

Roger:
Abraham, did you try paying a negative number toward your American Express bill? They probably would have sent you as much money as you requested.

I will most certainly try this next time.

2011-09-03 Reply Admin

Kiss me I'm Polish:
Am I the only one concerned by translucent buttons on the iPhone?

The phone was jailbroken, with I don’t remember what Winterboard theme. Seeing the theme again actually reminded me of just how long ago I submitted that.

2011-09-03 Reply Admin

Luiz Felipe:
jc:
One of my favorite stories about the $0.00 problem was from a guy who got an overdue notice for $0.00, sent them a check for $0.00, and then got a complain from his bank saying that his check had crashed their computer.
Hum, if this happen with me, i will try to send some injection in the value.

Wait until Bobby Tables is old enough to have checks (provided the US will still use checks by then, but that should be a safe bet).

2011-09-04 Reply Admin

The folders Z_Trash gibberish is a warning from QC that old/orphaned data is going to be deleted.

2011-09-04 Reply Admin

Am I the only person who looked at the name Transcash on that bill and noticed that is an anagram of trash cans?

2011-09-04 Reply Admin

I once worked at a major international firm with a colleague named Richard A. Peacock.

Unfortunately his username was made up of his initials and surname. As one word.

2011-09-04 Reply Admin

This is not my real name:
Twitter asks for my real name, then doesn't accept it because it is too long. What do these websites think, that I'm going to change names to fit into their database?

The recent UK census forms had the same problem.

Quite why they thought a ~30 character fixed length field would be suitable is beyond me.

Matt Westwood · 2011-09-04 Reply Admin

Limousines:
I once worked at a major international firm with a colleague named Richard A. Peacock.
Unfortunately his username was made up of his initials and surname. As one word.

There's a company that sells pens, called "Pen Island". The main section of its website address consists of the two words in the company name concatenated.

GIYF, go look, see I'm not kidding.

2011-09-04 Reply Admin

BentFranklin:
This is not my real name:
Twitter asks for my real name, then doesn't accept it because it is too long. What do these websites think, that I'm going to change names to fit into their database?

Your name must be less than 140 characters, Mr. Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff.

Nice link. I see they have Featherstonehaugh which is a laugh in itself - it's pronounced Fanshaw, not the longest of names. :-)

da Doctah · 2011-09-04 Reply Admin

Triple-barrelled de surname:
This is not my real name:
Twitter asks for my real name, then doesn't accept it because it is too long. What do these websites think, that I'm going to change names to fit into their database?
The recent UK census forms had the same problem.
Quite why they thought a ~30 character fixed length field would be suitable is beyond me.

Probably the same people who decided twenty characters for a city name was enough for the US Postal Service.

And then along came 33.13N,107.25W.

Severity One · 2011-09-05 Reply Admin

F:
"Norm" needn't worry - the 31st of April isn't going to happen.

I have written code with in-line comments stating things along the lines of 'this code will stop working if the number of months in a year changes'...

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

The one in the bill seems to have said 'Assembly' before it was overwritten by junk characters...

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

da Doctah:
Triple-barrelled de surname:
This is not my real name:
Twitter asks for my real name, then doesn't accept it because it is too long. What do these websites think, that I'm going to change names to fit into their database?
The recent UK census forms had the same problem.
Quite why they thought a ~30 character fixed length field would be suitable is beyond me.

Probably the same people who decided twenty characters for a city name was enough for the US Postal Service.

And then along came 33.13N,107.25W.

Truth and Consequences are both shorter than 20 characters. You can use either one.

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
Good job you don't live in Wyre Piddle or some such variant.

That sounds painful.

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

grumpy:
BentFranklin:
This is not my real name:
Twitter asks for my real name, then doesn't accept it because it is too long. What do these websites think, that I'm going to change names to fit into their database?

Your name must be less than 140 characters, Mr. Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff.
Nice link. I see they have Featherstonehaugh which is a laugh in itself - it's pronounced Fanshaw, not the longest of names. :-)

Some Featherstonehaughs insist on their name being pronounced Festonhog.

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Ole-Biscuitbarrel.

Or Malcolm Peter Brian Telescope Adrian Umbrella Stand Jasper Wednesday (pops mouth twice) Stoatgobbler John Raw Vegetable (whinnying) Arthur Norman Michael (blows squeaker) Featherstone Smith (whistle) Northgot Edwards Harris (fires pistol, then 'whoop') Mason (chuff-chuff-chuff-chuff) Frampton Jones Fruitbat (laughs) (squeaker) Gilbert (sings) 'We'll keep a welcome in the' (three shots) Williams If I Could Walk That Way Jenkin (squeaker) Tiger-drawers Pratt Thompson (sings) 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head' Darcy Carter (horn) Pussycat (sings) 'Don't Sleep In The Subway' Barton Mainwaring (hoot, 'whoop') Smith

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

Severity One:
F:
"Norm" needn't worry - the 31st of April isn't going to happen.
I have written code with in-line comments stating things along the lines of 'this code will stop working if the number of months in a year changes'...

I'm reporting this from memory so the details may be inaccurate. However, the gist is accurate enough.

Deep in the depths of the FORTRAN documentation as issued by DEC VAX there exists an admonition warning against the practice of using "magic numbers" in your code. This is accompanied by an example of the use of a DATA statement to store pi:

DATA PI /3.1415926536 /

with suggesting that "If the value of pi changes, then it will be easy to amend the data statement."

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

Severity One:
F:
"Norm" needn't worry - the 31st of April isn't going to happen.
I have written code with in-line comments stating things along the lines of 'this code will stop working if the number of months in a year changes'...

I hope you sanity-checked the parameters to guard against anyone calling your code with the wrong number of days.

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
Limousines:
I once worked at a major international firm with a colleague named Richard A. Peacock.
Unfortunately his username was made up of his initials and surname. As one word.

There's a company that sells pens, called "Pen Island". The main section of its website address consists of the two words in the company name concatenated.

GIYF, go look, see I'm not kidding.

This is the old chestnut.

Arancaytar · 2011-09-05 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
Dan:
Sam:
Apparently he's required to rename himself Nick Larooster.
Nah, Laporksword will do.
This reminds me of an argument I had with some so-called Constitutional Conservatives on Townhall. They insisted that the Constitution doesn't give the federal government the power to own land in a state. I attempted to post the following rejoinder from Article I:
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;
And of course Townhall blocked it because of the word "Erection". So I replaced it with "Boner" and it went right on through.

What, and they had no problem with "arsenals"?

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

Gary:
EvilSpudBoy:
I think the reason for listing all the possible statuses with explanations is so that you can not only know what your current status means, but where you are in the workflow. If they just told you what your current status is, you wouldn't know how many stages there are and how how far you are from getting paid.

The easier explanation is that no one could figure out how to conditionally include text.

Heisenburg says that you can know your status or your place in the workflow, but not both....

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

linepro:
Gary:
EvilSpudBoy:
I think the reason for listing all the possible statuses with explanations is so that you can not only know what your current status means, but where you are in the workflow. If they just told you what your current status is, you wouldn't know how many stages there are and how how far you are from getting paid.

The easier explanation is that no one could figure out how to conditionally include text.

Heisenburg says that you can know your status or your place in the workflow, but not both....

Heisenburg also said: "Mommy, I'm done! Come wipe my tushy!"

da Doctah · 2011-09-05 Reply Admin

The Addressor:
da Doctah:
And then along came 33.13N,107.25W.

Truth and Consequences are both shorter than 20 characters. You can use either one.

Remind me not to let you near any Boolean expressions.

Actually, most of the locals just call it "T or C", and the local post office accepts this.

Matt Westwood · 2011-09-05 Reply Admin

The Poop... of DOOM:
linepro:
Gary:
EvilSpudBoy:
I think the reason for listing all the possible statuses with explanations is so that you can not only know what your current status means, but where you are in the workflow. If they just told you what your current status is, you wouldn't know how many stages there are and how how far you are from getting paid.

The easier explanation is that no one could figure out how to conditionally include text.

Heisenburg says that you can know your status or your place in the workflow, but not both....
Heisenburg also said: "Mommy, I'm done! Come wipe my tushy!"

For a start the man you are thinking of spelt his name Heisenberg, and for a second point he probably said something similar to "Es ist fertig gestellt. Wischen meine Arsch."

Matt Westwood · 2011-09-05 Reply Admin

The Poop... of DOOM:
linepro:
Gary:
EvilSpudBoy:
I think the reason for listing all the possible statuses with explanations is so that you can not only know what your current status means, but where you are in the workflow. If they just told you what your current status is, you wouldn't know how many stages there are and how how far you are from getting paid.

The easier explanation is that no one could figure out how to conditionally include text.

Heisenburg says that you can know your status or your place in the workflow, but not both....
Heisenburg also said: "Mommy, I'm done! Come wipe my tushy!"

Oh yeah, and the real WTF is that Americans need their mothers to wipe their arses for them after they've done a shit.

Coyne · 2011-09-05 Reply Admin

EvilSpudBoy:
I think the reason for listing all the possible statuses with explanations is so that you can not only know what your current status means, but where you are in the workflow. If they just told you what your current status is, you wouldn't know how many stages there are and how how far you are from getting paid.

I thought that not knowing where you were in the workflow is one of the holy canons of rebate processing. I'm tempted to call "bogus" on this story, because it's hard to believe any rebate processor would give a claimant this much information.

I sense a firing in some programmer's future...

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

That warning box about about all the folders of ZTrash.* being deleted on 31/4/11 is straightforward enough, even if the engrish is bad. The .* is a wildcard, I suspect that you will find the each of the module folders contain folders called ZTrash.[something].

Coyne · 2011-09-05 Reply Admin

Bonzodog:
That warning box about about all the folders of ZTrash.* being deleted on 31/4/11 is straightforward enough, even if the engrish is bad. The .* is a wildcard, I suspect that you will find the each of the module folders contain folders called ZTrash.[something].

Not only is the "Engrish" bad, but also the date software. Last I knew, April only had 30 days.

So, next question: Since 4/31/2011 won't ever occur, does this mean the Ztrash gets deleted never?

2011-09-05 Reply Admin

QJo:
I'm reporting this from memory so the details may be inaccurate. However, the gist is accurate enough.
Deep in the depths of the FORTRAN documentation as issued by DEC VAX there exists an admonition warning against the practice of using "magic numbers" in your code. This is accompanied by an example of the use of a DATA statement to store pi:

DATA PI /3.1415926536 /

with suggesting that "If the value of pi changes, then it will be easy to amend the data statement."

A Book on C by Kelley and Pohl has the following gem:

"For example, in physics the letter c is often used to designate the speed of light, which is approximately 299792.458 km/sec. If we write

#define C 299792.458

and then use C to represent symbolically the constant 299792.458, it will be easy to change the code when a new physical experiment produces a better value for the speed of light."

Some of the WTFs in this paragraph:

The speed of light is exactly 299792458 m/s, not "approximately".
No experiment will ever change the speed of light, as it is defined to be 299792458 m/s.
The constant doesn't fit in a floating point, it gets rounded to 299792.47. Even if they didn't know the speed of light was exact, at least they must've known it would never change that much.
If they had used a more sensible unit, like say, the SI unit of m/s, they wouldn't have needed a floating point anyway.

Matt Westwood · 2011-09-06 Reply Admin

This is not my real name:
QJo:
I'm reporting this from memory so the details may be inaccurate. However, the gist is accurate enough.
Deep in the depths of the FORTRAN documentation as issued by DEC VAX there exists an admonition warning against the practice of using "magic numbers" in your code. This is accompanied by an example of the use of a DATA statement to store pi:

DATA PI /3.1415926536 /

with suggesting that "If the value of pi changes, then it will be easy to amend the data statement."

A Book on C by Kelley and Pohl has the following gem:

"For example, in physics the letter c is often used to designate the speed of light, which is approximately 299792.458 km/sec. If we write

#define C 299792.458

and then use C to represent symbolically the constant 299792.458, it will be easy to change the code when a new physical experiment produces a better value for the speed of light."

Some of the WTFs in this paragraph:

The speed of light is exactly 299792458 m/s, not "approximately".

No experiment will ever change the speed of light, as it is defined to be 299792458 m/s.

The constant doesn't fit in a floating point, it gets rounded to 299792.47. Even if they didn't know the speed of light was exact, at least they must've known it would never change that much.

If they had used a more sensible unit, like say, the SI unit of m/s, they wouldn't have needed a floating point anyway.

To which the sane reply would be: "You know what I mean, you pedantic pillocks!" The exercise is to show how constants are used to eliminate the use of magic numbers - the fact that the examples used aren't very good is an incidental detail.

2011-09-06 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
This is not my real name:
QJo:
I'm reporting this from memory so the details may be inaccurate. However, the gist is accurate enough.
Deep in the depths of the FORTRAN documentation as issued by DEC VAX there exists an admonition warning against the practice of using "magic numbers" in your code. This is accompanied by an example of the use of a DATA statement to store pi:

DATA PI /3.1415926536 /

with suggesting that "If the value of pi changes, then it will be easy to amend the data statement."

A Book on C by Kelley and Pohl has the following gem:

"For example, in physics the letter c is often used to designate the speed of light, which is approximately 299792.458 km/sec. If we write

#define C 299792.458

and then use C to represent symbolically the constant 299792.458, it will be easy to change the code when a new physical experiment produces a better value for the speed of light."

Some of the WTFs in this paragraph:

The speed of light is exactly 299792458 m/s, not "approximately".

No experiment will ever change the speed of light, as it is defined to be 299792458 m/s.

The constant doesn't fit in a floating point, it gets rounded to 299792.47. Even if they didn't know the speed of light was exact, at least they must've known it would never change that much.

If they had used a more sensible unit, like say, the SI unit of m/s, they wouldn't have needed a floating point anyway.

To which the sane reply would be: "You know what I mean, you pedantic pillocks!" The exercise is to show how constants are used to eliminate the use of magic numbers - the fact that the examples used aren't very good is an incidental detail.

Yes, but the value of pi changing? Oh, come on, Lewis!

2011-09-06 Reply Admin

What make of computer did all other other people use? I mean, obviously it's terribly important to know that the one iPhone user was using an iPhone...

2011-09-06 Reply Admin

DOS ex Machina:
The Poop... of DOOM!:
Always, always, always use a Flinstones character name for such cases. It's not just a good idea, it's the LAW!

Hanna-Barbera characters? Blasphemy! One must use Looney Tunes characters for such things.

I use characters and place names from Buffy for everything on my home network. The file server is "Sunnydale", the desktop is "Spike", the laptop is "Willow", and then I briefly flirted with naming the HTPC "Anya" just to see if doing so would cause odd behavior from that box.

2011-09-06 Reply Admin

I wanna meet the people who named their kid "Nick The Dick"! LMAO!

2011-09-06 Reply Admin

This is not my real name:
- The speed of light is exactly 299792458 m/s, not "approximately". - No experiment will ever change the speed of light, as it is defined to be 299792458 m/s.

I'm constantly amazed as how much I learn from the comments on WTF in spite of the incredibly low SNR. (Sorry trolls, the low SNR part makes this comment not TRWTF.) I did not realize that the C and the length of a meter were tied together. I guess if we do get a more precise measurement of C, then what changes is the length of the meter, not C. Thanks for the info.

2011-09-06 Reply Admin

QJo:
Matt Westwood:
This is not my real name:
QJo:
I'm reporting this from memory so the details may be inaccurate. However, the gist is accurate enough.
Deep in the depths of the FORTRAN documentation as issued by DEC VAX there exists an admonition warning against the practice of using "magic numbers" in your code. This is accompanied by an example of the use of a DATA statement to store pi:

DATA PI /3.1415926536 /

with suggesting that "If the value of pi changes, then it will be easy to amend the data statement."

A Book on C by Kelley and Pohl has the following gem:

"For example, in physics the letter c is often used to designate the speed of light, which is approximately 299792.458 km/sec. If we write

#define C 299792.458

and then use C to represent symbolically the constant 299792.458, it will be easy to change the code when a new physical experiment produces a better value for the speed of light."

Some of the WTFs in this paragraph:

The speed of light is exactly 299792458 m/s, not "approximately".

No experiment will ever change the speed of light, as it is defined to be 299792458 m/s.

The constant doesn't fit in a floating point, it gets rounded to 299792.47. Even if they didn't know the speed of light was exact, at least they must've known it would never change that much.

If they had used a more sensible unit, like say, the SI unit of m/s, they wouldn't have needed a floating point anyway.

To which the sane reply would be: "You know what I mean, you pedantic pillocks!" The exercise is to show how constants are used to eliminate the use of magic numbers - the fact that the examples used aren't very good is an incidental detail.

Yes, but the value of pi changing? Oh, come on, Lewis!

It did change it now =4!

2011-09-06 Reply Admin

I challenge you to prove that they actually sell pens.

2011-09-06 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
Limousines:
I once worked at a major international firm with a colleague named Richard A. Peacock.
Unfortunately his username was made up of his initials and surname. As one word.

There's a company that sells pens, called "Pen Island". The main section of its website address consists of the two words in the company name concatenated.

GIYF, go look, see I'm not kidding.

(Why oh why does the "Reply" button even EXIST??? We should quote automatically!)

I challenge you to prove that they actually sell pens.

2011-09-06 Reply Admin

Coyne:
Bonzodog:
That warning box about about all the folders of ZTrash.* being deleted on 31/4/11 is straightforward enough, even if the engrish is bad. The .* is a wildcard, I suspect that you will find the each of the module folders contain folders called ZTrash.[something].

Not only is the "Engrish" bad, but also the date software. Last I knew, April only had 30 days.

So, next question: Since 4/31/2011 won't ever occur, does this mean the Ztrash gets deleted never?

Duh! It's the eleventh of April in 2031, obviously. An early warning, but no WTF.

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