The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Eternal Density · 2013-09-25 Reply Admin

QJo:
ratchet freak:
Peter:
Yup -- DCF77 would be the answer. Sadly, WWVB does not have good coverage in the Northeast US, so our facility has different times in different conference rooms.
I have never heard of "radio-synced" clocks that are synced to a master clock, but perhaps there is something available at 915MHz which wouldn't require a license.

Perhaps I should start a company to build WiFi NTP clocks? I guess the challenge would be getting the cost down to something reasonable...

Captcha: tristique...sadly, there's no good, cheap and fast solution to Hanzo's problem.
cut costs by using bluetooth, then sync by accessing the campus wifi through the students' smartphones

You know when Jesus was up on the cross, yeah? Why didn't he just use the voice-activated headset on his Samsung Galaxy to call the lcoal contingent of the UN peacekeeping forces? Honestly, how silly can you get?

He had more important things to do, like die. (Yes I know that misses the point, but it's a more important point.)

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

Eternal Density:
QJo:
ratchet freak:
Peter:
Yup -- DCF77 would be the answer. Sadly, WWVB does not have good coverage in the Northeast US, so our facility has different times in different conference rooms.
I have never heard of "radio-synced" clocks that are synced to a master clock, but perhaps there is something available at 915MHz which wouldn't require a license.

Perhaps I should start a company to build WiFi NTP clocks? I guess the challenge would be getting the cost down to something reasonable...

Captcha: tristique...sadly, there's no good, cheap and fast solution to Hanzo's problem.
cut costs by using bluetooth, then sync by accessing the campus wifi through the students' smartphones

You know when Jesus was up on the cross, yeah? Why didn't he just use the voice-activated headset on his Samsung Galaxy to call the lcoal contingent of the UN peacekeeping forces? Honestly, how silly can you get?
He had more important things to do, like die. (Yes I know that misses the point, but it's a more important point.)

Not as important as Frodo having to make sure the ring was dropped into Mount Doom. Except he didn't have the strength of will to do it, so one of the thieves who had been crucified alongside him had to do it for him.

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

Hanz isn't German, he's Hanzo which is Japanese.

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_(name) and see that there are no alternate spellings of Hans that are Hanz. Add this to the fact that in Germany you have to give your child a "real name" and not just make stuff up. So unless there is a real person or well known fictional character called Hanz, you can not name your child Hanz. So the chances of German and Hanz are quire slim.

xorsyst · 2013-09-25 Reply Admin

OldPeter:
re radio-controlled: There is some misconception and localization issue. American radio clocks receive signals in the Ultra Short Wave range, and thus are highly sensitive to walls etc., thus losing sync rather easily. German/european radio clocks receive the 77.5 kHz (yes, kHz, not MHz) signal of DCF77, that's extreme Long Wave, thus penetrating easily normal walls and everything and not being very sensitive to locality. So most clocks in Germany, which need high-precision syncing, just use DCF77 and rather not internet.

DCF77 may be pretty strong in Germany (where the signal originates), but by the time you get out to England, being on the wrong side of the building is enough to stop it.

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

Chewbacca:
Chewbacca:
Nagesh:
Don:
I don't know any Germans named Klaus or Wolfgang. Does that make them non-German names?
You aren't into politics. The current german minister of finance's name is Wolfgang Schäuble...
Hanz Solo was a German (and they got his name wrong on the Star Wars series).
actually, I think it's uneducated people trying to spell Heinz (and getting it confused with Hans). As for the earlier bit about Germans not even using Hans, I think that's a big statement.....

I didn't say that. I said that I currently don't know anybody who'd consider naming their kid "Hans". Still, "Hans" (as opposed to "Hanz") is a common name in Germany and I know a few!

To the others complaining I said that just because I don't know a "Hanz" there can't be any German called "Hanz": What kind of experts are you!? Have you never heard of "computer scientist's induction"? As in: The statement is true for the first test and for the second test, too, so it is alsways true? I applied this here: I don't know a Hanz, my wife doesn't either, so there can't be a Hanz. Noobs...

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

no laughing matter:
So my assumption is that Balu actually is Edward Snowden. ;-)

I won't say that I am Edward Snowden, and I won't say I am not. All I can say is: Edward Snowden and I have never been seen in the same room together...

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

Casey:
Hanz isn't German, he's Hanzo which is Japanese.

Oh! And I thought "AKA" denoted his nickname (which he maybe got for quoting "Gorin no Sho" all the time)...

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

xorsyst:
OldPeter:
re radio-controlled: There is some misconception and localization issue. American radio clocks receive signals in the Ultra Short Wave range, and thus are highly sensitive to walls etc., thus losing sync rather easily. German/european radio clocks receive the 77.5 kHz (yes, kHz, not MHz) signal of DCF77, that's extreme Long Wave, thus penetrating easily normal walls and everything and not being very sensitive to locality. So most clocks in Germany, which need high-precision syncing, just use DCF77 and rather not internet.

DCF77 may be pretty strong in Germany (where the signal originates), but by the time you get out to England, being on the wrong side of the building is enough to stop it.

Nope...most American "atomic" clocks work the same way German ones do...and use the very same VLF receiver chip, tuned to 60KHz for WWVB instead of 77.5KHz for DCF77. Problem is that the WWVB reception is poor at the corners of the US. So the clocks don't work all that well (like German clocks in England).

There exist 915MHz synchronized clocks and 2.4GHz NTP clocks, but they are very expensive (and the NTP ones are almost always digital). These will have issues with walls and metal.

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

This inspired me to get one of these :) http://www.cafepress.co.uk/+whatever_wall_clock_02_white,109211239

P.S. No, I'm not selling or advertising them.

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

Oh dear. One of the earlier installments noted that "Hanzo" is just a nickname and his real first name is "Hans".

Not that the story is very credible in all, it would have to be a deeply buried cellar clock to not receive the DCF signal, but whatever - ordering A and getting almost-useless B isn't exactly unheard of for large organisations.

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

I found two people with the first name "Hanz" in our production database which consist mostly of people living in a German metropole region.

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

Fred:
anonymous:
I initially thought that the WTF was why they wanted clocks that synced to each other rather than to the atomic clock's radio signal. But as I recall, those used to be quite expensive, so I assume that networked clocks were a cheaper alternative.
That said, moving the master clock from location to location is actually not a bad hack to solve this problem. I wouldn't think it needed to visit each and every classroom, however - surely they could rotate it through a series of locations so that every clock on campus would be ensured to ping it once every couple weeks? (Or, for that matter, discreetly order a new master clock every few months until you have enough to cover the entire campus.)
how do you keep the master clocks in sync?

That question was answered in TFA.

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

German law restricts "absurd or degrading" names, and prohibits using uncommon names, uncommon spellings, product names, surnames, or gender-ambiguous names for children. "Hanz" is not the common spelling, and may be illegal.

no laughing matter · 2013-09-25 Reply Admin

Jo:
Oh dear. One of the earlier installments noted that "Hanzo" is just a nickname and his real first name is "Hans".

Wrong! All of the Hanzo stoleminds start with: Like a ninja in the night, Hanz M., AKA Hanzo, stalks across Hesse University’s Dresden campus. The go-to man in the IT department, he fixes the messes that others leave behind. Which makes it clear immediately that the following text is a WTF in itself.

chubertdev · 2013-09-25 Reply Admin

Balu:
no laughing matter:
So my assumption is that Balu actually is Edward Snowden. ;-)
I won't say that I am Edward Snowden, and I won't say I am not. All I can say is: Edward Snowden and I have never been seen in the Moscow airport together...

FTFY

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

Can we stop the Hanzo made-up stories already?

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

On German first names: have fun

(I love Akismet)

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

I still don't understand one thing: what were they syncing about?

For whoever doesn't get it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh5xu35bAxA

2013-09-25 Reply Admin

In Germany "Klaus" and "Wolfgang" are well-known, correctly spelled Names. The Name "Hanz" is more like "Efan" instead of "Ethan", or "Antrew", "Isapella", "Viliam" etc.

So yes, it doesn't look right, it doesn't sound right, and it's not a german name for sure. Feel free to study German language.

2013-09-26 Reply Admin

Don:
Balu:
Wrexham:
Balu:
3) No German is called "Hanz".
So where did you find a list of every single German? Or do you just know them all?

OK, you want me to be precise?

I don't know any German named Hanz. I don't know any German who'd name their kid Hanz. (I don't know any German who'd name their kid Hans either). Hanz would be the most uncommon spelling you could come up with and most Germany would probably think you misspelled.

I don't know any Germans named Klaus or Wolfgang. Does that make them non-German names?

Well... I guess you just have to go with what people who actually live in Germany tell you. "Hanz" isn't a real name (just like "Bimmy" isn't a real name, you know?).

And this story is just lame. 5 minute breaks between lectures. Yeah, right.

2013-09-27 Reply Admin

So where did you find a list of every single German? Or do you just know them all?

To be fair, there are laws in Germany about which names you can give to your children. My coworker's mother had to get special approval to spell Philip with just one L and one P.

chubertdev · 2013-09-27 Reply Admin

Nobody:
So where did you find a list of every single German? Or do you just know them all?

To be fair, there are laws in Germany about which names you can give to your children. My coworker's mother had to get special approval to spell Philip with just one L and one P.

That's two Ps.

vidar712 · 2013-09-28 Reply Admin

I believe Schindler has the list.

2013-09-29 Reply Admin

This story is obviously made-up bullshit and not even funny.

2013-09-30 Reply Admin

chubertdev:
Nobody:
So where did you find a list of every single German? Or do you just know them all?

To be fair, there are laws in Germany about which names you can give to your children. My coworker's mother had to get special approval to spell Philip with just one L and one P.

That's two Ps.

May be she wanted to name him Filip.

2013-10-19 Reply Admin

I vaguely recognize this story, as the other HANZ ones. I sent something like that in, maybe a year ago. But either my memory does not serve me well, I was pissed as hell when I wrote my submission or the editing that took place was a bit above the level I'd call creative. I have the strong feeling that the editing altered some aspects that affect factual correctness...

DCF77 was what we got sent. And despite several statements disagreeing with this in here, the DCF77 signal does not penetrate walls too well. The wavelength's right, but the signal strength is not. The area was filled densely with high buildings and the building in question had very RF-unfriendly walls. Five meters insight the building only select cell phones could get any signal. The majority of the rooms was windowless with another set of walls in between. Of course we did test the DCF-77 clocks, or rather some of them - overnight. It didn't even work properly in the rooms with big windows when placed too far away from them. Broadcasting your own DCF-77 signal gets your butt forcibly spread by the German counterpart of the FCC.
I was never a friend of the idea of synced clocks, but this was a (useless) requirement. Network synced clocks would have been the easiest and cheapest solution, because Ethernet was literally everywhere. The standard approach for e.g. train stations is a master clock with slave clocks. That would have needed rewiring.
I was never involved with ordering equipment.
I do not remember any kind of syncing device .
The final solution were battery operated clocks, as in practically every university.
The thing with 5 minutes between lectures is bogus. The real reason, which would deanonymize this, was even more bogus, though.

2013-10-19 Reply Admin

To add to this: No, Hanz is not a German name. At least none I ever heard.

2013-10-22 Reply Admin

That HANZ guy:
I vaguely recognize this story, as the other HANZ ones. I sent something like that in, maybe a year ago.

Care to come and shed some light on yesterday's story, then? http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Authenticated-Authentication.aspx Unrelated text so that Akismet doesn't think this comment is spam

Syncing...Sunk

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