• Down Again, WTF? (unregistered)
    Network Timeout

    The server at thedailywtf.com is taking too long to respond.

    The requested site did not respond to a connection request and the browser has stopped waiting for a reply.

    Could the server be experiencing high demand or a temporary outage? Try again later.

  • Me (unregistered)

    I don't believe that message is from Notes. If it was from Notes the OK button would say "Send Again" and there would be no way to shorten the mail or cancel the send.

  • Bim Job (unregistered) in reply to NameNotFoundException
    NameNotFoundException:
    Bim Job:
    Sir Twist:
    Bim Job:
    What is an "Expected Error," anyway?
    One that you've put in code to handle. E.g. when opening a file, you might expect ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND to be possible; if you get ERROR_OUT_OF_PAPER, that's an unexpected error.
    Why is ERROR_OUT_OF_PAPER an unexpected error? It's certainly meaningless in context, but it's hardly unexpected.

    You should not forget that programmers work with APIs. Suppose a function is defined to return (int)0 for success and (int)1 for ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND. Other return values are not defined but surely indicate an error. Then, if the function screws up for some reason, returning 2, the 2 would signify an unexpected error condition.

    Showing "Unexpected error" is quite acceptable in this situation. It is a situation which neither user nor programmer knows how to handle because it hasn't been encountered yet. It hasn't been speced either, so what should the programmer do about it? Do you expect them to have prophetic gifts?

    No, I just expect them to be responsible members of society.

    After twenty-five years, I expect programmers to be responsible members of society.

    I accept a plea of guilty, but whilst temporarily out of my mind. Society, and Linus Torvalds, is to blame.

  • (cs) in reply to Observer
    Observer:
    Indrora:
    As for the Purple Monkey Dishwasher, it sounds like someone was writing their dialogs in Pig Latin so that they'd be sure to translate all of the localizable strings. Its a trick Microsoft uses, and there are occasionally strings in MS products that still have flakes of Pig Latin.

    Do you have any idea what Pig Latin is? Or is this a troll that I didn't get?

    My guess is he meant Lorem Ipsum text, which might be referred to as "Greeking," but certainly is not pig latin.

  • Anne (unregistered) in reply to shadowman
    shadowman:
    Crosby Stills & Nash, perhaps? But there's only a select few who can create that.

    Thanks for beating me to that one. I think they already exist, is the problem.

  • justsomedude (unregistered) in reply to Me
    Me:
    I don't believe that message is from Notes. If it was from Notes the OK button would say "Send Again" and there would be no way to shorten the mail or cancel the send.

    LOL - but that could easily be from Notes. Especially if the domino god just added their own LotusSript or @Formulas to the mail template for the size checking.

  • Bim Job (unregistered) in reply to shadowman
    shadowman:
    Observer:
    Indrora:
    As for the Purple Monkey Dishwasher, it sounds like someone was writing their dialogs in Pig Latin so that they'd be sure to translate all of the localizable strings. Its a trick Microsoft uses, and there are occasionally strings in MS products that still have flakes of Pig Latin.

    Do you have any idea what Pig Latin is? Or is this a troll that I didn't get?

    My guess is he meant Lorem Ipsum text, which might be referred to as "Greeking," but certainly is not pig latin.

    Failure to Grook.

    Captcha: "populus," or οἱ πολλοί.

  • (cs) in reply to IronMensan
    IronMensan:
    When did 2000 become the distant past? <...>

    Be patient. It will be. Maybe not soon, but some day...

  • Shredder (unregistered)

    TRWTF is iced grande nonfat splenda coffee.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to IronMensan
    IronMensan:
    When did 2000 become the distant past? Last time I checked it was still less than a decade ago. Have been in hypersleep?

    "Distant past" is a relative term.

    We had a new employee who was in her twenties. I was trying to give her a quick history of what our department has been doing, and to put some tidbit in context, I commented, that we did such-and-such "when Reagan was president". She looked blank for a moment, then said, "Oh, yes, Reagan, we learned about him in history class." I then did some quick math in my head and realized that Reagan was elected before she was born.

    I once read a joke that said, You know you're getting old when the schools are now teaching as "ancient history" what you learned as "current events". I didn't expect it to actually happen to me.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Observer
    Observer:
    Indrora:
    As for the Purple Monkey Dishwasher, it sounds like someone was writing their dialogs in Pig Latin so that they'd be sure to translate all of the localizable strings. Its a trick Microsoft uses, and there are occasionally strings in MS products that still have flakes of Pig Latin.

    Do you have any idea what Pig Latin is? Or is this a troll that I didn't get?

    Do you mean that you don't understand the relevance of Pig Latin, or that you never heard of it? Perhaps Pig Latin, too, is something from ancient history.

    If that's the case, the short explanation is: Pig Latin is one of many "code languages" invented a generation or so ago, intended to be used by children to share secret messages with their friends without fear of being overheard. You translate English to Pig Latin by moving the first letter to the end of the word, and then adding "ay" if that letter was a consonant or "way" if the letter was a vowel. So "This is the secret message" becomes "Histay siway hetay ecretsay essagemay". I'm sure it's described on Wikipedia or something. Of course it has almost as much to do with Latin as it has to do with pigs.

    I've been thinking of using it to encrypt passwords rather than that old-fashioned MD5 stuff.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Observer:
    Indrora:
    As for the Purple Monkey Dishwasher, it sounds like someone was writing their dialogs in Pig Latin so that they'd be sure to translate all of the localizable strings. Its a trick Microsoft uses, and there are occasionally strings in MS products that still have flakes of Pig Latin.

    Do you have any idea what Pig Latin is? Or is this a troll that I didn't get?

    Do you mean that you don't understand the relevance of Pig Latin, or that you never heard of it? Perhaps Pig Latin, too, is something from ancient history.

    If that's the case, the short explanation is: Pig Latin is one of many "code languages" invented a generation or so ago, intended to be used by children to share secret messages with their friends without fear of being overheard. You translate English to Pig Latin by moving the first letter to the end of the word, and then adding "ay" if that letter was a consonant or "way" if the letter was a vowel. So "This is the secret message" becomes "Histay siway hetay ecretsay essagemay". I'm sure it's described on Wikipedia or something. Of course it has almost as much to do with Latin as it has to do with pigs.

    I've been thinking of using it to encrypt passwords rather than that old-fashioned MD5 stuff.

    I think the point Observer was trying to make was how do you get from pig latin to Purple Monkey Dishwasher? If it has been urplepay onkeyay ishwasherday then it might have made sense.

  • (cs)

    I'm pretty sure you don't have to install Vista SP1 to upgrade Vista base to SP2, just install SP2.

  • (cs) in reply to Bim Job

    An "expected error" is like "not enough digits entered for SSN field".

  • Willie Makeit (unregistered) in reply to Bim Job
    Bim Job:
    After twenty-five years, I expect programmers to be responsible members of society.

    Good luck with that

    And, no, this is not friggin' spam

  • (cs) in reply to Bim Job
    Bim Job:
    Banana seems to be quite popular.

    Back in the days of supporting a client application on Win 3.1, a colleague used to search for "Unexpected Error" in various DLLs -- I think it was "Unexpected Error;" there were so many to choose from -- and replace it with "Unexploded Banana." Oh, how we laughed.

    Right up to the point where the banana exploded.

    "Of course! You don't think I'd threaten you with an unloaded banana, do you?"

    Bim Job:
    What is an "Expected Error," anyway?
    It goes something like this:
    Hey Bill, Windows just crashed on me again!
    Oh, yeh. That's expected.
  • noone (unregistered) in reply to ThomsonsPier
    ThomsonsPier:
    The first company that figures out how to make deliveries into the distant past will make an absolute fortune. I'd use them, at least if they continued trading rather than just sending their past selves this week's winning lottery numbers.
    What makes you think this hasn't already happened?
  • Zack Jones (unregistered)

    I love the 2nd one. There's even a typo in the pop-up "plesae" instead of "please" :)

  • John Hardin (unregistered) in reply to ThomsonsPier
    ThomsonsPier:
    The first company that figures out how to make deliveries into the distant past will make an absolute fortune. I'd use them, at least if they continued trading rather than just sending their past selves this week's winning lottery numbers.
    Unfortunately that dialog is not asking for the delivery date, it's asking for the pickup (collection) date. So basically your only choice is "come pick up the package nine years ago".
  • Herohtar (unregistered) in reply to P. Edant
    P. Edant:
    Not only is CSN not an acronym he's heard of, it's not an acronym at all. lrn2acronym

    Wikipedia disagrees.

  • Bim Job (unregistered) in reply to DaveK
    DaveK:
    Bim Job:
    Banana seems to be quite popular.

    Back in the days of supporting a client application on Win 3.1, a colleague used to search for "Unexpected Error" in various DLLs -- I think it was "Unexpected Error;" there were so many to choose from -- and replace it with "Unexploded Banana." Oh, how we laughed.

    Right up to the point where the banana exploded.

    "Of course! You don't think I'd threaten you with an unloaded banana, do you?"
    Aw, c'mon. Literally dozens (a third of a dozen, anyway) of respondents can quote The Simpsons by heart, and you can't even manage a simple attribution to Neddie Seagoon?

    DaveK:
    Bim Job:
    What is an "Expected Error," anyway?
    It goes something like this:
    Hey Bill, Windows just crashed on me again!
    Oh, yeh. That's expected.
    Things must be quiet this weekend. Whatever happened to "you can have an exploding banana in any operating system?" Or "Some people, when they see a purple monkey dishwasher, think 'I know! I'll use an exploding banana!.'

    "Now they have two purple monkey dishwashers..."

    Captcha: "There is a curse on the House of Moriarty..."

  • distracted (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Jay:
    Observer:
    Indrora:
    As for the Purple Monkey Dishwasher, it sounds like someone was writing their dialogs in Pig Latin so that they'd be sure to translate all of the localizable strings. Its a trick Microsoft uses, and there are occasionally strings in MS products that still have flakes of Pig Latin.

    Do you have any idea what Pig Latin is? Or is this a troll that I didn't get?

    Do you mean that you don't understand the relevance of Pig Latin, or that you never heard of it? Perhaps Pig Latin, too, is something from ancient history.

    If that's the case, the short explanation is: Pig Latin is one of many "code languages" invented a generation or so ago, intended to be used by children to share secret messages with their friends without fear of being overheard. You translate English to Pig Latin by moving the first letter to the end of the word, and then adding "ay" if that letter was a consonant or "way" if the letter was a vowel. So "This is the secret message" becomes "Histay siway hetay ecretsay essagemay". I'm sure it's described on Wikipedia or something. Of course it has almost as much to do with Latin as it has to do with pigs.

    I've been thinking of using it to encrypt passwords rather than that old-fashioned MD5 stuff.

    I think the point Observer was trying to make was how do you get from pig latin to Purple Monkey Dishwasher? If it has been urplepay onkeyay ishwasherday then it might have made sense.

    I think what Indrora was getting at was that it could be this company's practice to have programmers write strings that are obviously wrong (pig latin, purple monkey dishwasher, swearing... whatever), and then scrub them later all at once (possibly just before localisation).

    The obvious benefit being that it's easier to pick up that a string was missed, but it could lead to customers seing messages like CPAY OADLAY ETTERLAY

  • My Name? (unregistered) in reply to Pol
    Pol:
    Keep comments nice plesae...

    ...and, plesae, definitely no pointing out obvious typos!

    You dit it all worg! It must bee:

    ...and, plees, definitelie no poynting out obwiuos taipos!

  • Bim Job (unregistered) in reply to blakeyrat
    blakeyrat:
    An "expected error" is like "not enough digits entered for SSN field".
    Or maybe "There are not enough angels dancing on this pin." There I was, thinking that Carl Linnaeus was a taxonomically-obsessed loon, and I totally missed the big picture.

    Once more: The user doesn't care whether or not the error was unexpected. Why burden them with the Fear?

    Fix it, or show some useful information, or if necessary crash and burn. At least, in the last case, the user will go and find some software that is actually helpful. It will hurt at first, but the knowledge that you've paid your debt to society will give you warm fuzzies in the long term.

  • (cs) in reply to Bim Job
    Bim Job:
    DaveK:
    Bim Job:
    Banana seems to be quite popular.

    Back in the days of supporting a client application on Win 3.1, a colleague used to search for "Unexpected Error" in various DLLs -- I think it was "Unexpected Error;" there were so many to choose from -- and replace it with "Unexploded Banana." Oh, how we laughed.

    Right up to the point where the banana exploded.

    "Of course! You don't think I'd threaten you with an unloaded banana, do you?"
    Aw, c'mon. Literally dozens (a third of a dozen, anyway) of respondents can quote The Simpsons by heart, and you can't even manage a simple attribution to Neddie Seagoon?
    Not at all not at all notatall! I could have attributed that quote, but it was in plain clothes!

    Moriarty:
    Very plain clothes indeed.
    Bim Job:
    DaveK:
    Bim Job:
    What is an "Expected Error," anyway?
    It goes something like this:
    Hey Bill, Windows just crashed on me again!
    Oh, yeh. That's expected.
    Things must be quiet this weekend. Whatever happened to "you can have an exploding banana in any operating system?" Or "Some people, when they see a purple monkey dishwasher, think 'I know! I'll use an exploding banana!.'

    "Now they have two purple monkey dishwashers..."

    Captcha: "There is a curse on the House of Moriarty..."

    And his name is Grytpype-Thinne!

  • (cs) in reply to Bim Job
    Bim Job:
    blakeyrat:
    An "expected error" is like "not enough digits entered for SSN field".
    Or maybe "There are not enough angels dancing on this pin."
    Bruce Schneier is always telling people not to use their SSN as a PIN. Now you know why.
  • Bim Job (unregistered) in reply to DaveK
    DaveK:
    Bim Job:
    Captcha: "There is a curse on the House of Moriarty..."
    And his name is Grytpype-Thinne!
    Nice rewrite, but it's actually The Hampstead Building Society.

    Don't point that moot at me.

  • (cs) in reply to evilspoons
    evilspoons:
    I'm pretty sure you don't have to install Vista SP1 to upgrade Vista base to SP2, just install SP2.
    Or just go straight to Vista SP3 (which most of us just call "Windows XP")
  • lesle (unregistered) 
     IronMensan:
When did 2000 become the distant past? Last time I checked it was still less than a decade ago. Have been in hypersleep?

    Actually, 2000-2009 is a decennary, not a decade. Look it up. 1991-2000, 2001-2010, 2011-2020, and so on, are decades.

  • Indrora (unregistered) in reply to distracted

    Exactly what I was trying to get at. For instance, there's strings in a few resource sets of "You broke it you moron! See what you did NOW? Thanks to you, the universe is going to END! This is worse than dividing by zero! Its like dividing by negative zero! Thanks, y'know for ending the human race as we know it, asshole." for errors like "couldnt_load_file_bad_hash" which later gets 'translated' to "Couldnt load file, bad hash. Check file hash and try again."

    CAPTCHA: Eros (Someone's going for blood, apparently.)

  • (cs) in reply to Ha
    Ha:
    "cancled and tryied"
    Typos. Not agian!
  • Bim Job (unregistered) in reply to lesle
    lesle:
    IronMensan: When did 2000 become the distant past? Last time I checked it was still less than a decade ago. Have been in hypersleep? --- Actually, 2000-2009 is a decennary, not a decade. Look it up. 1991-2000, 2001-2010, 2011-2020, and so on, are decades.
    I'd recommend decimation, but nine out of ten cats say their owners object.

    A decennary is a decade in English, at least since 1594. There is no difference worth noting, except that a decennary refers specifically to a number of years, whereas a decade might (conceivably) refer to ten parts of anything.

    Feh, the quality of the Grammar Nazis you get these days.

    Captcha: et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

    (Go on: guess.) Worst. Poem. Ever. And, as usual, a total rip-off:

    Ἐρέω τε δηὖτε κοὐκ ἐρέω, καὶ μαίνομαι κοὐ μαίνομαι.

    Thank you, Anacreon -- he'll be here all night.

    I've got one from Lesbos, if you're interested, guv. In a plain wrapper. Something for the weekend... Moriarty, aside: Sapristi Ruckus!"

  • Bim Job (unregistered) in reply to Indrora
    Indrora:
    Exactly what I was trying to get at. For instance, there's strings in a few resource sets of "You broke it you moron! See what you did NOW? Thanks to you, the universe is going to END! This is worse than dividing by zero! Its like dividing by negative zero! Thanks, y'know for ending the human race as we know it, asshole." for errors like "couldnt_load_file_bad_hash" which later gets 'translated' to "Couldnt load file, bad hash. Check file hash and try again."

    CAPTCHA: Eros (Someone's going for blood, apparently.)

    No, that would be Thanatos. We obviously live in different dungeons.

    The point was: it wasn't Pig Latin. It wasn't Dog Latin. It might have been Gibberish, but it wasn't Polari.

    I've spent a year of my life watching trivial translations in "resource sets" from English to French fail miserably. I do not wish to endure that experience again.

    (1) Deal with errors. Just deal with them. Do not whine and hide under a haystack. (2) If you really, really, have to complain about the language, then do not wave your hands in the air and claim that it's Pig Latin. It's not. It's an abomination before the Lord.

    Mind you, I think we're in basic agreement here. But watch out. Loose lips sink fish and chips...

  • the beholder (unregistered) in reply to Bim Job
    Bim Job:

    Captcha: et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

    Vescere bracis meis
  • Bim Job (unregistered) in reply to the beholder
    the beholder:
    Bim Job:

    Captcha: et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

    Vescere bracis meis
    Yeah, it's congenital. Mine's a pint.
  • the beholder (unregistered) in reply to Bim Job
    Bim Job:
    the beholder:
    Bim Job:

    Captcha: et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

    Vescere bracis meis
    Yeah, it's congenital. Mine's a pint.
    Too bad you did not follow up on my post. Its meaning was "Eat my shorts". But it is too late now.
  • Bim Job (unregistered) in reply to the beholder
    the beholder:
    Bim Job:
    the beholder:
    Bim Job:

    Captcha: et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

    Vescere bracis meis
    Yeah, it's congenital. Mine's a pint.
    Too bad you did not follow up on my post. Its meaning was "Eat my shorts". But it is too late now.
    Yes, you win. I've temporarily mislaid my copy of "Bart Simpson's favorite Latin apothegms."

    Go on, do tell. Is is in Virgil, Book 6? Or perhaps it's Tiberius' favourite come-on line to his little fishes?

    Either way, I'm sure it wows them down at the Podunk baths.

  • mookers (unregistered)

    Nearly 90 comments and I can't believe nobody has commented on the real WTF...

    Nonfat and Splenda in the coffee???? Say it isn't so!

  • An Onymous (unregistered)

    Have to say, these are some of the best comments I've read here for quite some time.

    Well done, sirs and madams.

  • the beholder (unregistered) in reply to Bim Job
    Bim Job:
    the beholder:
    Bim Job:
    the beholder:
    Bim Job:

    Captcha: et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

    Vescere bracis meis
    Yeah, it's congenital. Mine's a pint.
    Too bad you did not follow up on my post. Its meaning was "Eat my shorts". But it is too late now.
    Yes, you win. I've temporarily mislaid my copy of "Bart Simpson's favorite Latin apothegms."

    Go on, do tell. Is is in Virgil, Book 6? Or perhaps it's Tiberius' favourite come-on line to his little fishes?

    Either way, I'm sure it wows them down at the Podunk baths.

    The fun is not in victory itself but in participating in - or at least watching - a great challenge. I liked some of your recent contributions too.

    You can enjoy yourself reading these quotations in Lucretius's book II*. I heard he was quite fond of Matt Groening's creations. Thus, here is another remarkable phrase: Ita erat quando hic adveni. Translation: It was that way when I got here.

    • Actually, that is Henry Beard's Latin for Everyday Occasions: Lingua Latina Omnibus
  • telmesrin (unregistered)

    I wouldn't be too sure it's CSN. Given the spelling in that error message it's probably CNS.

  • (cs) in reply to Bim Job
    Bim Job:
    SR:
    Re: Purple Monkey Dishwasher. In the days of writing ColdFusion webapps with just a fancy text editor (i.e. not a proper IDE) I'd leave "banana" to bookmark somewhere in a file I wanted to get back to after checking/tweaking elsewhere. I chose "banana" as I could be pretty sure it wouldn't be present as a variable name or whatever. I never had one leak out to production, though.

    If that's what the original code-monkey was doing he should know there are things such as comments. If not, WTF?

    Banana seems to be quite popular.

    Back in the days of supporting a client application on Win 3.1, a colleague used to search for "Unexpected Error" in various DLLs -- I think it was "Unexpected Error;" there were so many to choose from -- and replace it with "Unexploded Banana." Oh, how we laughed.

    Right up to the point where the banana exploded.

    What is an "Expected Error," anyway?

    One you know how to handle.

  • appellatio - when ape shit just doesn't cut it (unregistered) in reply to Shredder
    Shredder:
    TRWTF is iced grande nonfat splenda coffee.
    Yeah. What makes is so splenda? Does it have sequins?
  • appellatio - when ape shit just doesn't cut it (unregistered) in reply to mookers
    mookers:
    Nearly 90 comments and I can't believe nobody has commented on the real WTF...

    Nonfat and Splenda in the coffee???? Say it isn't so!

    I will. It isn't. You lose.
  • P. Edant (unregistered) in reply to Herohtar
    Herohtar:
    P. Edant:
    Not only is CSN not an acronym he's heard of, it's not an acronym at all. lrn2acronym

    Wikipedia disagrees.

    I don't care what Jimbo's big bag of trivia says. CSN isn't an acronym

  • noway! (unregistered)

    CSN is an important part of my life. Please create more so I can have more money. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Board_of_Student_Aid_%28Sweden%29

  • Doozerboy (unregistered)

    My particular favourite microsoft error message is "Reserved error (-1517); there is no message for this error" in access.

    Gee thanks for that. Quite how i would have fixed that without google i have no idea.

  • (cs) in reply to P. Edant
    P. Edant:
    I don't care what Jimbo's big bag of trivia says. CSN isn't an acronym
    Well, sure. Not in English. But that just marks you out as someone who is irrationally attached to vowels in their words. Not all languages are like that (we can forgive the rendering of it in latin characters) so your assertion might be massively off the mark.

    However I continue to have no idea what it might have been referring to originally.

  • chris (unregistered)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Letter_to_Russia_with_krokozyabry.jpg

    [image]

    "An image of a post envelope with address written in krakozyabry (кракозя́бры) AKA Mojibake. The envelope contained a Harry Potter book. This letter was sent to a Russian student by her French friend, who manually wrote the address that he received by e-mail. His e-mail client, unfortunately, was not set up correctly to display Cyrillic characters, so they were substituted with diacritic symbols from the Western charset (ISO-8859-1) The original message was in KOI8-R.

    The address was deciphered by the postal employees and delivered successfully. Some of the correct characters (red) were written above the wrong ones (black)."

  • Bogbrush (unregistered) in reply to An Onymous
    An Onymous:
    Have to say, these are some of the best comments I've read here for quite some time.

    Well done, sirs and madams.

    Great stuff guys! Keep it up!

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