• olsner (unregistered)

    Clearly you have never configured sendmail...

    (Captcha: Sanitarium ;-)

  • (cs)

    I'm pretty sure the Real WTF is actually G.R.G. for being involved in so many WTFs. Does it seem like too much of a coincidence that they seem to follow him around?

  • (cs)

    As an IT manager, it absolutely astounds me how many stories abound where the manager's ego completely impedes forward progress! A good manager should be one who would say, presented with this information "Great Job, thanks for the help, this will save me so much time. I just wish we had you working on this earlier!".

    Of course, that would never make it on to this site, other than maybe because it would be so outside the norm, that would be a WTF in an of itself.

  • Anonymous Purple (unregistered)

    Nice cliffhanger... The WTF is we'll never know why?

  • Josh (unregistered)

    $IDENT$ $YOUDENT$ $WEALLDENTFORIDENT$

    Captcha: smile - $TRIDENT$

  • dkf (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Purple
    Anonymous Purple:
    Nice cliffhanger... The WTF is we'll never know why?
    Maybe G.R.G. has bad interpersonal skills?
  • Sgt. Preston (unregistered)

    I give. Why was G.R.G. chase out of the boss's office?

  • Matthew (unregistered)

    Uh. Token Ring and Ethernet aren't topologies. They aren't even logical topologies. They're network specifications. Token Ring specifies a ring-style logical topology, but Token Ring itself... oh fuck it, it's not worth it. Criticizing the writing on this site is like critizing the way a kid with Downe Syndrome talks.

  • Kristopher (unregistered)
    Criticizing the writing on this site is like critizing the way a kid with Downe Syndrome talks.

    Who is more retarded? A retarded writer, or a person who makes a point of reading said writer's work, and then complains that it is retarded?

  • whicker (unregistered) in reply to jgreen
    jgreen:
    As an IT manager, it absolutely astounds me how many stories abound where the manager's ego completely impedes forward progress! A good manager should be one who would say, presented with this information "Great Job, thanks for the help, this will save me so much time. I just wish we had you working on this earlier!".

    Of course, that would never make it on to this site, other than maybe because it would be so outside the norm, that would be a WTF in an of itself.

    All I ever get for this kind of stuff, is lukewarm sarcasm... "That's still too complicated." Or, "Can you make it even faster?"

    Kind of takes the wind out of my sails, so to speak.

  • jtl (unregistered) in reply to Sgt. Preston

    Because when a proud man slaves over something, he wants to know his suffering wasn't in vain.

    The script, which not only did he not invent, showed the fact that all his hard work and suffering was a result of his own stupidity.

    It's like someone spending a year manually copying papers by hand, and then being shown the xerox machine down the hall.

  • Sgt. Preston (unregistered) in reply to Matthew
    Matthew:
    Uh. Token Ring and Ethernet aren't topologies. They aren't even logical topologies. They're network specifications. Token Ring specifies a ring-style logical topology, but Token Ring itself... oh fuck it, it's not worth it. Criticizing the writing on this site is like critizing the way a kid with Downe Syndrome talks.
    That would be Down's Syndrome.
  • whicker (unregistered) in reply to jtl
    jtl:
    Because when a proud man slaves over something, he wants to know his suffering wasn't in vain.

    The script, which not only did he not invent, showed the fact that all his hard work and suffering was a result of his own stupidity.

    It's like someone spending a year manually copying papers by hand, and then being shown the xerox machine down the hall.

    Oh my god, you're right. I never noticed!

    It even does color! Time to put the crayons away I guess.

  • (cs)

    Token Rings? Don't you mean Tolkien Rings? What has it got in its pockets, my precious?

  • Al (unregistered) in reply to whicker
    whicker:
    It even does color! Time to put the crayons away I guess.

    Ahh ... reminds me of one of my many student jobs. I worked for a firm of lawyers and they had obviously decided at some point in time that they needed colour photocopies ... but unfortunately these did not exist (it was only 2002 after all). It was my job to colour in the architectural plans that they made copies of (it kinda spurred me on to do well in my comp sci degree).

    There was nothing complex to it ... the originals were mostly black and white, though things like power lines, water pipes and gas pipes were in a different colour. So, I'd sit there for 7 hours a day making sure each water pipe had been gone over with a blue coloured pencil. It'd take me one or two hours for each photocopy.

    I worked out they were probably paying about $24000 a year (this is UK money really - so £12000) to get someone to colour in photocopies rather than buying one.

    Of course, they didn't care when I talked to them about this ... the clients were the ones footing the bill for me to do something that my 3 year old can do ...

    Al

  • Jack Napier (unregistered)

    The WTF was apparent only at the end. When I first saw the gibberish and the bemoaning of the Boss's wrestling with it, it never dawned on me that it was just someone who was so stupid not to come up with a way of copying a line in the configuration. Silly me, I assumed that there were values that had to be set that were dependent on each other; not that it's the same line with a different address. If it's that simple though, why even bother with a script? Did the boss just not know Copy/paste?

  • fmm (unregistered) in reply to Kristopher

    Allright guys, enough.

    [image]
  • Richard Asscock, III (unregistered)

    I love how back in the day (let's say 1997 when I was COOPin'), these badass, expensive networks were put together for pratically no reason. Oh, so the secretary could print to the fancy color printer or backup files to a file server. But then the large (let's say greater than 200 lbs) secretaries would request their own printer (don't wanna walk down the hall) and zip drive. And yes, these secretaries, like many other networked employees, never accessed the main company database. Kinda makes you question whether they needed to phase out the terminals, ya know?

    Ahwell, fixing their problems for $12.50 an hour got me through engineerin' skool with less than $30k in loans.

    Peace out, Dick Asscock, III

  • (cs)

    God I hate that "joke" about special olympics. I remember a friend who though that picture was hilarious, and sadly few years later he had a boy with downs syndrome.

  • (cs) in reply to Josh
    Josh:
    $IDENT$ $YOUDENT$ $WEALLDENTFORIDENT$
    $IDENT$ $YOUDENT$ $HEORSHEDENTS$
  • EricJ2190 (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    Token Rings? Don't you mean Tolkien Rings? What has it got in its pockets, my precious?

    No, he meant tokin' rings. It has in its pockets. :)

    CAPTHA: bling

  • Kinglink (unregistered) in reply to Pap
    Pap:
    I'm pretty sure the Real WTF is actually G.R.G. for being involved in so many WTFs. Does it seem like too much of a coincidence that they seem to follow him around?

    I think that is because GRG doesn't mind Alex rewriting his work, never complains and is actually just making stuff up to see his name published. But that's just an unproven theory.

  • (cs) in reply to EricJ2190
    EricJ2190:
    FredSaw:
    Token Rings? Don't you mean Tolkien Rings? What has it got in its pockets, my precious?

    No, he meant tokin' rings. It has in its pockets. :)

    I shoulda said packets. Can't believe I let that get by me.

  • (cs) in reply to olsner

    The Real WTF is that they didn't script a solution sooner. Or at least used copy and paste. I guess getting chased out of your office is a Real WTF too.

  • (cs)

    $BRIDGE$ 00:05:FD:34:12:99 $reboot$ $Idle$ $LW3_4$ {$UNSIGGER::CPU$,$UNSIGGER::ETHER$,$UNSIGGER::AT$} $GW$ ==> 124.84.150.001 <== $GW$ $NS$ ^124.84.155.001*3:: @@124.84.150.001@@ $IDENT$ $YOUDENT$ $ETHER$ 124.84.150.126 $MTU_AT$ 557 $TTL_AT$ 100 $AT$ 73.000 $FLOW$ $BUF$:::3 $TCP$::-ON- $ATP$::-COMP- $EXIT$ $EXIT$ $EXIT$ $BOOT$

    This reminds me of sendmail.cf. Where can I puke?

  • (cs) in reply to olsner
    $BRIDGE$ 00:05:FD:34:12:99 $reboot$ $Idle$ $LW3_4$ {$UNSIGGER::CPU$,$UNSIGGER::ETHER$,$UNSIGGER::AT$} $GW$ ==> 124.84.150.001 <== $GW$ $NS$ ^124.84.155.001*3:: @@124.84.150.001@@ $IDENT$ $YOUDENT$ $ETHER$ 124.84.150.126 $MTU_AT$ 557 $TTL_AT$ 100 $AT$ 73.000 $FLOW$ $BUF$:::3 $TCP$::-ON- $ATP$::-COMP- $EXIT$ $EXIT$ $EXIT$ $BOOT$
    What's so hard to understand, it's base 128: integrate over the gaussian curve specified by the above equation, take the inverse root, convert to fractals, increment by 1 each time skipping file-not-found and voila!
  • (cs)

    At least GRG did it right. My old employer had about a 5000 line platform.ini file configuring everything. Somebody decided it was too much, and XML would be a better choice. So somebody whipped up a small perl script that could generate the 5000 line from two simple inputs: platform.xml (about 50,000 lines) and config.ini (between 2,000 and 5,000 lines, depending on which defaults you wanted to override in platform.ini). Simple!

  • AdT (unregistered) in reply to Matthew
    Matthew:
    Token Ring and Ethernet aren't topologies.

    And while Ethernet is now widely believed to imply a star topology, early Ethernet networks used a bus topology with 10BASE2 connectors terminated at both ends with a resistor or circuit. It's not so long ago, actually.

    Modern Token Ring networks use a more or less star-shaped topology just like modern Ethernet neworks.

  • Eviloverlord (unregistered) in reply to misguided

    <QUOTE>$IDENT$ $YOUDENT$ $HEORSHEDENTS$</QUOTE> Shouldn't that be $HESHEORITDENTS$?

  • EvilOverlord (unregistered) in reply to Eviloverlord
    $IDENT$ $YOUDENT$ $HEORSHEDENTS$
    Shouldn't that be $HESHEORITDENTS$?

    Damn you BBcode! Damn you to hell and back for making me look a fool... Oh wait, that was me. Next time maybe I'll use the dratted preview button

  • (cs) in reply to jtl
    jtl:
    It's like someone spending a year manually copying papers by hand, and then being shown the xerox machine down the hall.
    Yes, and the only sensible response to that is to go home, get absolutely plastered, and then laugh about it the next time you're seeing some friends and can produce it as a "look how stupid I was..." story.

    Anything else just ends up shortening your life with unnecessary stress. (Although admittedly, stress v cirrhosis - not much in it.)

  • (cs) in reply to Eviloverlord
    Eviloverlord:
    Shouldn't that be $HESHEORITDENTS$?
    Not $ARTHURDENT$ ?
  • dusoft (unregistered)

    what about $DENTALDOCTOR$ ?

  • Shial (unregistered) in reply to poopdeville
    poopdeville:
    The Real WTF is that they didn't script a solution sooner. Or at least used copy and paste. I guess getting chased out of your office is a Real WTF too.

    Scripts make things automatic and people do not like the loss of control, they are far more afraid of the computer making a mistake than they are of themselves or their people making a mistake.

  • Old Wolf (unregistered) in reply to Sgt. Preston
    Sgt. Preston:
    I give. Why was G.R.G. chase out of the boss's office?
    Failure to present a photo of the script printed out and displayed on a wooden table.
  • (cs) in reply to Shial
    Shial:
    poopdeville:
    The Real WTF is that they didn't script a solution sooner. Or at least used copy and paste. I guess getting chased out of your office is a Real WTF too.

    Scripts make things automatic and people do not like the loss of control, they are far more afraid of the computer making a mistake than they are of themselves or their people making a mistake.

    Partially justified; when a computer trips up, you can easily wake up to a full hard drive/database via logging gone mad (or worse, an empty one) because someone goofed a conditional or forgot a semicolon. Or you find out a decimal point was off when the auditors come calling. Not that we're are any less willing to make the truly spectacular cockups, but at least there's someone who pushed the button to take the fall.

    As for the story, man I'm so glad I missed the pre-dns era of hosts files.

  • (cs) in reply to Matthew
    Matthew:
    Criticizing the writing on this site is like critizing the way a kid with Downe Syndrome talks.

    TIMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

    Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

  • The Commenter (unregistered) in reply to olsner
    olsner:
    Clearly you have never configured sendmail...

    (Captcha: Sanitarium ;-)

    Captcha: Im a f*king retard who lists his Captcha.

  • The Commenter (unregistered) in reply to madchicken
    madchicken:
    God I hate that "joke" about special olympics. I remember a friend who though that picture was hilarious, and sadly few years later he had a boy with downs syndrome.

    Can I just call you a lying exaggerating cock now and be done with it??

  • Jean Luc Picard (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    $BRIDGE$ 00:05:FD:34:12:99 $reboot$ $Idle$ $LW3_4$ {$UNSIGGER::CPU$,$UNSIGGER::ETHER$,$UNSIGGER::AT$} $GW$ ==> 124.84.150.001 <== $GW$ $NS$ ^124.84.155.001*3:: @@124.84.150.001@@ $IDENT$ $YOUDENT$ $ETHER$ 124.84.150.126 $MTU_AT$ 557 $TTL_AT$ 100 $AT$ 73.000 $FLOW$ $BUF$:::3 $TCP$::-ON- $ATP$::-COMP- $EXIT$ $EXIT$ $EXIT$ $BOOT$

    What's so hard to understand, it's base 128: integrate over the gaussian curve specified by the above equation, take the inverse root, convert to fractals, increment by 1 each time skipping file-not-found and voila!

    Shut up, Wesley!
  • Kuba (unregistered) in reply to Jack Napier
    Jack Napier:
    The WTF was apparent only at the end. When I first saw the gibberish and the bemoaning of the Boss's wrestling with it, it never dawned on me that it was just someone who was so stupid not to come up with a way of copying a line in the configuration. Silly me, I assumed that there were values that had to be set that were dependent on each other;

    Even so, one doubts that the configuration parser (and whatever used the damn values in the first place) had demands for something beyond what a few tens of lines of awk script would achieve.

    Cheers!

  • IP (unregistered)

    Die, Gression, die!

    "But usually though, you'd have to figure out how to make the incompatible networks and computers talk to each other."

    That's what IP was invented for! It made networks talk to each other! It was designed to be used between networks, i.e. internet, not intranet! And then people hijacked it and used it on LANS, WTF!

    /Die, Gression

  • (cs) in reply to The Commenter
    The Commenter:
    madchicken:
    God I hate that "joke" about special olympics. I remember a friend who though that picture was hilarious, and sadly few years later he had a boy with downs syndrome.

    Can I just call you a lying exaggerating cock now and be done with it??

    Well, true in the general, if not in the specific.

    (Meaning, with all the people who like to laugh at other's misfortune, it's guaranteed that at least one will have a child with that exact misfortune. The universe is a bastard.)

  • (cs)

    No good deed goes unpunished.

  • (cs) in reply to dusoft
    dusoft:
    what about $DENTALDOCTOR$ ?

    $DRMCNINJA$

  • mikko (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    Token Rings? Don't you mean Tolkien Rings? What has it got in its pockets, my precious?

    The "One True Ping", silly.

  • Zan (unregistered) in reply to AGould
    AGould:
    (Meaning, with all the people who like to laugh at other's misfortune, it's guaranteed that at least one will have a child with that exact misfortune. The universe is a bastard.)

    I laugh at the miserable children who become rich and famous at ten and then can't use their money until they reach eighteen.

    HA HA! What are you going to do about that, Universe?

  • grep (unregistered) in reply to Zan
    Zan:
    AGould:
    (Meaning, with all the people who like to laugh at other's misfortune, it's guaranteed that at least one will have a child with that exact misfortune. The universe is a bastard.)

    I laugh at the miserable children who become rich and famous at ten and then can't use their money until they reach eighteen.

    HA HA! What are you going to do about that, Universe?

    Made me smile.

  • b0x0rz (unregistered) in reply to Kristopher
    Kristopher:
    Criticizing the writing on this site is like critizing the way a kid with Downe Syndrome talks.

    Who is more retarded? A retarded writer, or a person who makes a point of reading said writer's work, and then complains that it is retarded?

    OF COURSE the writer. i'll let YOU figure out why.

    captcha: smile REPEATING huh?

  • b0x0rz (unregistered) in reply to madchicken
    madchicken:
    God I hate that "joke" about special olympics. I remember a friend who though that picture was hilarious, and sadly few years later he had a boy with downs syndrome.

    i think it's funny too. no kids, yet... but if i ever 'get some' hopefully he/she/they'll be healthy. if not, i can always BLAME GOD. but yeah i'd still love the kid and it would still be funny - in a sad kind of way...

Leave a comment on “The Big Purple Boxes”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article