• AJROG (unregistered)

    Didn't realise how many people take things so seriously around here... Are you guys genuinely missing the point, or are you just knob-jockeys?

    I guess that's what happens when you're an expert

    (and we all know what an expert is : ex - former, spurt - brief spout of water)

  • Jeff Dege (unregistered)

    I've never much believed in commenting code. The code itself should explain what it is doing. I generally reserve comments for explaining why the code is doing what it is doing, or to point out specific, non-obvious consequences of making changes.

    The comments quoted are great comments. They point out problems that would not be obvious from reading the code. I've nothing but good things to say about the programmer who wrote them.

    (The damned fools who wrote the system he was being forced to work with, on the other hand ...)

  • (cs)

    "<!-- Crazy egg 2009-->" is a link to a javscript file containing "//" and nothing else.

    There's a form, but "<!-- ***Absolute URL has is required for www.charlessturt.ca to be able to use it -->." It specifies action="http://www.csu.edu.au/search/search-results.htm"

    Computer Science is absent from the listing of degree programs, but you can take a degree in winemaking[sic]. There's no sign of an English program either.

  • Rezwan (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    I thought it was colored black to hide the actual email address. If you could take the trouble to change the css, should've just replaced it with xxx...

  • ILP (unregistered)

    Is it Julia Robert?

  • Jan (unregistered)

    Please people, "blacking out" his name was a joke!

  • mike5 (unregistered) in reply to Jan
    Jan:
    Please people, "blacking out" his name was a joke!
    Aw, now you went and ruined it for all of us who really enjoyed reading all those you-didn't-hide-his-name-with-CSS posts...
  • sasjaq (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    Its all enough to pull mouse over the black box

  • quissed off (unregistered) in reply to hacksaw jim duggan
    hacksaw jim duggan:
    Is the word "Univeristy" like a UUID or something?

    No, the typo is there for security purposes.

  • not quite decent (unregistered) in reply to ILP
    ILP:
    Is it Julia Robert?
    Who's she?
  • ex-vb6-dev (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.
    Mike D.:
    Marco:
    I found this in the thedailywtf.com's source: 
    jroberts
    Looks like a real WTF to me ;)
    Yeah, there should be a semicolon after "black".
    You don't even need to do something as sophisticated as 'view source'. Just select the black text. That's enough to see poor the poor guy's mail address...
  • Lee K-T (unregistered) in reply to Pierre Tramo
    Pierre Tramo:
    Mike D.:
    Marco:
    I found this in the thedailywtf.com's source: 
    jroberts
    Looks like a real WTF to me ;)
    Yeah, there should be a semicolon after "black".
    Actually, the semicolon in CSS behaves as it should with any well behaved language: a statement separator, rather than a statement terminator.

    Some people just love using semicolons and curly braces.

    sarah connor?

  • CodeCat (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    It isn't quite so useless. The idea is to make it obvious that there is text, without revealing the text itself. Often used to hide spoilers from people who don't want something to be spoiled. ;)

    And the final semicolon is optional in CSS.

  • kftt (unregistered) in reply to tOmcOlins
    tOmcOlins:
    TRWTF is that Alex just "redacted" the e-mail address by making the background black. You can still see it if you highlight it.

    captcha: imanidiot

    In other news, you can see the email adress if you highlight it. Shocking!!!

  • (cs)

    OMG OMG OMG !!!!! you can see the actual email address of the person if you click the mouse and drag over the blacked out bit.

    Ha this is so funny, i wouldn't be suprised if this is slash dotted.

  • Keith Brawner (unregistered)

    Oh man, did you notice that you can see the guy's E-mail if you highlight it, read it from an RSS read, or view the page source?

    Seriously, for all the people that claim not to read the comments, it was like the second comment.

  • Liam Bailey (unregistered)

    I think the Sorry server probably means the Sorrority Server? Maybe I am wrong, and it is just a server that is feeling sorry for itself because the public web server is newer, and/or gets all the credit.

  • me (unregistered) in reply to Lee K-T

    LOL

    Made my hour.

  • TheWalruss (unregistered)

    The first thing I did was highlight the redacted email address for no particular reason, and was rewarded with the address - fully readable!

    WTF is up with that?

  • Gerb (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    Actually, the final semicolon in a block declaration is not required for CSS. Though it's probably a better practice to add it.

  • (cs) in reply to not quite decent
    not quite decent:
    ILP:
    Is it Julia Robert?
    Who's she?
    That tall lady with the Mid-Atlantic accent that cooks on TV ;)
  • Gerb (unregistered)

    The Sorry Server is of course a backup server. The excuse for the production server being down - get it? Can't beat geek humour.

    At any rate, if you google a bit you'll find this:

    "Both the forums QA environment and the disaster recovery machine are Sun E450, 4 x 450 Mhz CPU’s and 4 Gb RAM. A sorry server and an ISDN back up network to the microwave is in place for worst case scenarios."

    (source @ http://bit.ly/90bkHn)

  • Calculator Ftvb (unregistered) in reply to DOA

    Um... like, me? ;-)

    (captcha: verto)

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Here's something you may not have figured out yet: right-click, select-all, OMG it's jroberts' e-mail address! I only found it because I'm a big fan of select-all, I doubt you guys ever use it but just look at all the interesting things you can find with a good select-all. Sometimes I find whole manuscripts this way.

  • justsomedude (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Here's something you may not have figured out yet: right-click, select-all, OMG it's jroberts' e-mail address! I only found it because I'm a big fan of select-all, I doubt you guys ever use it but just look at all the interesting things you can find with a good select-all. Sometimes I find whole manuscripts this way.

    @Facepalm

  • the beholder (unregistered) in reply to mike5
    mike5:
    Jan:
    Please people, "blacking out" his name was a joke!
    Aw, now you went and ruined it for all of us who really enjoyed reading all those you-didn't-hide-his-name-with-CSS posts...
    Nah, it would only matter if those people cared to read comments at all. Which we already know they don't.
  • Andrew Crawford (unregistered)

    Cisco load balancers are commonly used to front web servers, and they refer to the emergency backup server, to be used if all other servers are down, as the "sorry server". Even the sorry server's health will be monitored though, and it's quite common to write a script which will check the delivered HTML to make sure it matches some expected string to validate that the service is working properly. All of this is quite unremarkable and not in the least WTF-ish.

  • Monkey (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    The comment was even more funny than the article.

  • Roman (unregistered)

    Today its still there!

  • Brent (unregistered)

    A sorry server is tied to a load balancer with a health check. The web page is polled, and if the specified text isn't found, the website is assumed to be down, and users are redirected to the sorry server, with a page explaining "we're sorry, but the page you requested is temporarily unavailable"

  • not quite decent (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    not quite decent:
    ILP:
    Is it Julia Robert?
    Who's she?
    That tall lady with the Mid-Atlantic accent that cooks on TV ;)
    Icelandic accent?
  • Nob (unregistered)

    Just stopping by quickly, no time to read the comments so sorry if someone has already asked this. I wa looking at the source for TFWTF an noticed at least one instance where there was a css block which was missing an end semicolon. Is that even valid? This site shouldn't criticize others until it can sort out that type of mistake itself!

    having said that, this was a pretty good wtf, I wish we could somehow find the email address of the person responsible and ask them to explain!

  • (cs) in reply to not quite decent
    not quite decent:
    frits:
    not quite decent:
    ILP:
    Is it Julia Robert?
    Who's she?
    That tall lady with the Mid-Atlantic accent that cooks on TV ;)
    Icelandic accent?
    Azores, actually.

    ...or Frasier Crane.

  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    Or that you had to look at the source code and didn't just highlight it.

  • Svavar (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    Yeah, all you need to do is highlight the black box and all is revealed :-)

  • Xenu (unregistered)

    Probably used to detect defacement of the web site. If some scriptkiddy gets in and puts up some l33t banner page, unless the title remains, the sorry server, which is downloading that page at reqular intervals, swings into action and hides that page and emails the web dudes that they have to work on Sunday at 3am.

  • Captain TickTock (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    You just have to select the text to see it in all its glory :-)

  • Captain TickTock (unregistered) in reply to Captain TickTock

    Doh! should have read all the comments first (or at least a good selection...)

  • not quite decent (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    not quite decent:
    frits:
    not quite decent:
    ILP:
    Is it Julia Robert?
    Who's she?
    That tall lady with the Mid-Atlantic accent that cooks on TV ;)
    Icelandic accent?
    Azores, actually.

    ...or Frasier Crane.

    Never heard. Of her.

    How long has she been cooking? Maybe they're using too low a temperature.

  • pflock (unregistered)

    Guys you prolly have not discovered the real WTF yet:

    If you download the article using wget --mirror, then PHP-strreplace every < and > with %, then remove anything between each pair of % using regex-search+replace in Scite, and then open up the mirrored and cracked content, you'll see that it is jroberts email address.

  • Bork (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    just mark the text, and it appears, background will be turned blue, but text is turned white. LOL

  • Michael (unregistered)

    My favorite part of that site is that its copyright year is generated by Javascript. So... if I want to make its copyright 1776, I can ;)

  • Matthew Maxwell (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    Actually, Mike, since the color declaration is the last style set in the style tag, a trailing semicolon is not required.

    Though it may be recommended, the fact that it should or should not be there is up to the developer.

    In fact, one could argue, that since it is not required, the developer of the page is actually reducing file size by omitting an unnecessary character.

    Lower file size means faster page load which gives the end user (you) a better overall experience.

    I, personally, thank the developer(s) for taking all necessary precautions to ensure that we end users have a pleasant experience while browsing their site.

  • aaron (unregistered)

    Yeah, highlighting the black part shows the name pretty clearly. Who put it black anyway?? and Why?

  • Garrett Bjerkhoel (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.
    Mike D.:
    Marco:
    I found this in the thedailywtf.com's source: 
    jroberts
    Looks like a real WTF to me ;)
    Yeah, there should be a semicolon after "black".

    The last attribute doesn't need a "semicolon".

  • Mike M (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    Yeah, you guys should fix that ;)

  • johndoe (unregistered)

    Why is this a WTF? The may just have a loadbalancer that checks the content delivered by the webservers. If the 'magic string' does not appear, they will switch over to the sorry-server.

    See http://www.google.ch/search?q=sorry+server+loadbalancer

  • Krtscha (unregistered)

    The email address should be censored correctly. If you mark it, you can copy it although there is the black censor bar.

  • breakfast (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.

    IIRC inline CSS doesn't require an ending semicolon

  • Ayden Beeson (unregistered)

    FYI guys,

    Time to shut down the rumour mill :)

    The sorry server was a solution from about 10 years ago that we used to present a "sorry our server seems to be unavailable" in a time before LB's and Clustering.

    A server (the sorry server, which was actually called sorry.csu.edu.au) would check the site, and if the title was presented incorrectly, would do some work to change the virtual IP over to force all www requests through to it, then when it detected the header was right again would fail it back.

    At the time it was a brilliant solution, and one time somebody stuffed up the header and broke it, so in went the comment so it wouldtn happen again, and being that we often improve on code rather than re-write it, that legacy comment has been left.

    Though we only decommissioned the sorry server a short time ago.....

    Some of you managed to get it partly right :)

    PS - John Roberts does still work here, but not in that role, hope you were not actually emailing him!

    PPS - I might ask our web team to remove that now.

    PPPS - If it isnt already obvious, i work at CSU, and know the guy who designed / implemented this.... Look me up on the comms directory!

    Cheers, Ayden

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