• (cs)

    Where's the WTF in the first one?

    Have you never heard of different time zones? Perhaps the bus travels West and crosses one, thus the time shifts back an hour.

  • (cs)

    because there is no way to represent a NaN / infinity with integers, one will commonly use 0x8000000 as the value to represent it, obviously if they are going to use this value for the purpose, they need to check when outputting to a string.

    In this case they should probably use a double. As the download appears to be making no progress whatsoever, it will take an infinite amount of time to complete. (Which it either will, only you will abandon any attempts, or the issue will be fixed in which case it will take a finite amount of time).

    The cleaner one is a very random 64-bit number, and looks like it is purely an uninitialised variable which really contains random garbage (not the commonly used uninitialised memory values) or there is some memory "trample" error corrupting this value.

    Many of the others, where some system error has occurred: well yes, there is an operating system under there and software that runs on top. I know it looks funny when this happens, but it's not the most WTF'y thing.

  • (cs) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    Have you never heard of different time zones? Perhaps the bus travels West and crosses one, thus the time shifts back an hour.
    I shall bite...

    Winnipeg (where #1's route takes place) is situated roughly in the middle of the CST/CDT timezone. It is not possible to make it out of that timezone within the amount of travel time in that route, and the route does not leave it in any case. While it would be possible to travel during the CST-CDT change, that takes place in the early hours of the morning, not at the stated travel times.

    Also ... I want that bus system to run here, since it would allow you to go back and remove all those mistakes you wish you had never made. And become your own grandfather (though you may have to ride the route quite a few times for that).

  • RandomGuy (unregistered) in reply to TarquinWJ

    Maybe the bus takes almost a day?

  • Stev (unregistered) in reply to TarquinWJ

    [quote user="TarquinWJ"][quote user="Cbuttius"]Also ... I want that bus system to run here, since it would allow you to go back and remove all those mistakes you wish you had never made. And become your own grandfather (though you may have to ride the route quite a few times for that).[/quote]

    I don't think it is possible to become your own grandfather, even with the ability to time travel. For you to be your own grandfather, you would have to have existed to impregnate your grandmother in the past - however, you couldn't possibly exist until you were born and for you to be born, you would need to have had a biological grandfather. If you went back in time and had sex with your grandmother, the worst you would do is cease to exist as she would get pregnant with someone else instead of your Father or Mother.

    The only feasible way to do it would be to go back in time at the moment of your grandfather's conception, somehow figure out which individual sperm would get to the egg and remove it, then transplant that into your own penis and THEN have sex with your grandmother. If you could then somehow guarantee that the same sperm from above would hit the egg, you'd sort of manage it - but it would do little more than make you some sort of surrogate to your own conception, not really your biological grandfather.

  • RFmich (unregistered) in reply to TarquinWJ

    OOH OOOH I get it... during the trip the time changed to Daylight savings time righ??? No...oh oh well.

    TarquinWJ:
    Cbuttius:
    Have you never heard of different time zones? Perhaps the bus travels West and crosses one, thus the time shifts back an hour.
    I shall bite...

    Winnipeg (where #1's route takes place) is situated roughly in the middle of the CST/CDT timezone. It is not possible to make it out of that timezone within the amount of travel time in that route, and the route does not leave it in any case. While it would be possible to travel during the CST-CDT change, that takes place in the early hours of the morning, not at the stated travel times.

    Also ... I want that bus system to run here, since it would allow you to go back and remove all those mistakes you wish you had never made. And become your own grandfather (though you may have to ride the route quite a few times for that).

  • accident (unregistered) in reply to Stev

    You can't become your own grandfather. If in the future you will go back in time to become your own grandfather, in the present you already are your own grandfather.

  • (cs) in reply to Stev
    Stev:
    I don't think it is possible to become your own grandfather, even with the ability to time travel.
    It's called a stable time loop, and while it has certain philosophical difficulties they pale in comparison to the other main time travel plot ("Let's change the past!").
  • (cs) in reply to Stev
    Stev:
    I don't think it is possible to become your own grandfather, even with the ability to time travel.
    And this is why you do not lack the delta brainwave, and will not be the saviour of the Universe. The search is still on for the one with the superior yet inferior brain, willing to do the nasty in the pasty.
  • Warren (unregistered)

    Uh-oh Microsoft. You might think you've had loads of those dodgy "time remaining" errors in Windows, but now we know that Apple probably have a patent for it, so that means you copied them.

  • Carl (unregistered)

    Two Windows registry errors today; I think I'm going to be ill.

    Seriously, the "registry" is a major WTF. A more wretched hive of scum and villainy will never be found on this planet. "Oh I've got a great idea! Let's make one big file and dump all sorts of random crap into it. Only it won't resemble a real file in any useful way. Instead, it will be more like a database. Well almost. Except that it won't resemble a real database in any useful way."

    Please can't we go back to .ini files in software install directories or user space? They were so much more manageable. And by the way please note Windows is still forcing people to reboot a lot more often than a stable datacenter server can tolerate.

  • Jack (unregistered)

    OK I just searched the entire source code of Linux and I can verify that it does not support the "genuine Windows" feature at all. Yet another reason why Linux will never be ready for the desktop!

  • Name (unregistered)

    Someone please explain why that sign at the London Olympic Park had to be shaped like a cloud, with sharp-cornered triangles and lines jutting into the display. Did it make the games more exciting somehow? Or is it simply there to prove that some government agency had a lot of extra tax money to waste? And how the hell do you code your display parameters around that junk? Rectangles are not actually cursed by the devil, you know folks.

  • Bill (unregistered) in reply to Name
    Name:
    Someone please explain why that sign at the London Olympic Park had to be shaped like a cloud
    Duh. Cloud computing. It's the new thing. Please try to keep up.
  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to Name
    Name:
    Rectangles are not actually cursed by the devil, you know folks.
    But roundrects are caused by Steve Jobs, which some people think is almost as bad.
  • Name (unregistered) in reply to ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    Name:
    Rectangles are not actually cursed by the devil, you know folks.
    But roundrects are caused by Steve Jobs, which some people think is almost as bad.
    I get it now. That ragged border is the only display shape that hasn't already been patented.

    Get ready for really ugly (and painful) computers.

    (P.S. time for someone to go all Bobby Tables on the patent system, methinks.)

  • Jerry (unregistered) in reply to Bill
    Bill:
    Name:
    Someone please explain why that sign at the London Olympic Park had to be shaped like a cloud
    Duh. Cloud computing. It's the new thing. Please try to keep up.
    Actually, cloud was the new thing several years ago. Now it's the old thing. Please do try to keep up.
  • Tim (unregistered) in reply to Jerry
    Jerry:
    Bill:
    Name:
    Someone please explain why that sign at the London Olympic Park had to be shaped like a cloud
    Duh. Cloud computing. It's the new thing. Please try to keep up.
    Actually, cloud was the new thing several years ago. Now it's the old thing. Please do try to keep up.
    OK smartypants, what's the new new thing? And make sure it's from next week, because this week is pretty much over.
  • (cs) in reply to pjt33
    pjt33:
    Stev:
    I don't think it is possible to become your own grandfather, even with the ability to time travel.
    It's called a stable time loop, and while it has certain philosophical difficulties they pale in comparison to the other main time travel plot ("Let's change the past!").
    Any messed up stuff is possible with time travel if the people time traveling (and their time traveling device) are immune to the changes to the time line. Just remember with time it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.

    The biggest thing I find people mess up with time travel is that the time travel device has to move through space and time. After all the earth is NOT stationary, so you go one month into the past and you will find yourself in space looking at earth.

  • (cs) in reply to Anketam

    Relativity teaches us that traveling through space and time are identical. If you have a time machine, you also have a "space machine". Time and relative dimensions in space, and all that.

  • Isaac (unregistered)

    Time is a four-dimensional solid object. If you are your own grandfather, it's only because you always were your own grandfather, and nothing you can do will ever change that.

    You have no freedom of choice. Everything is already predetermined. As you move backwards through time, the bullet is unshot. The cream coalesces and rises out of the coffee cup. The grass gets wetter and wetter until droplets rise to the clouds. And the mechanisms of memory in your brain run backwards so that once you get back to 1947 to become your own grandfather you've completely forgotten your plan to murder yourself. The note you pinned to your lapel has become unpinned and unwritten.

    In fact, 1947 looks like a brand new world to you because you've forgotten everything from 1947's future. You could be time traveling right now but you'd never realize it.

  • Lee (unregistered)

    Actually I am time traveling right now, but the speed control is rather lame. Every minute I move 60 seconds into the future.

    And, as I arrive, I realize the future is not what it used to be.

  • the way (unregistered)

    I don't get it, either. Do these hotels make any money off of the game controller things? Way too expensive and for games created back in the 90s. I suppose they get the one-offs.

    (For reference to what I'm talking about, read the HTML comments in the article.)

  • Garrison Fiord (unregistered) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    Relativity teaches us that traveling through space and time are identical. If you have a time machine, you also have a "space machine". Time and relative dimensions in space, and all that.

    Where it gets really interesting is in the ergosphere of a black hole- where you actually have to exceed the speed of light to even hold still.

  • (cs) in reply to Isaac

    Actually, this isn't entirely true. Much of physics is "time invariant". So if you hit the "reverse" button to rewind time- the cream and the coffee would stubbornly stay mixed, uranium would continue to decay and never undecay, etc.

    Entropy always increases, no matter which way the arrow of time is pointing.

  • by (unregistered) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    Much of physics is "time invariant". So if you hit the "reverse" button to rewind time- the cream and the coffee would stubbornly stay mixed
    You have, perhaps, experimental proof of this claim?
  • Garrison Fiord (unregistered) in reply to Garrison Fiord
    Garrison Fiord:
    Remy Porter:
    Relativity teaches us that traveling through space and time are identical. If you have a time machine, you also have a "space machine". Time and relative dimensions in space, and all that.

    Where it gets really interesting is in the ergosphere of a black hole- where you actually have to exceed the speed of light to even hold still.

    I should expand- it's actually due to the fact that as the black hole spins, it picks up the spacetime surrounding it and spins it as well. It's really fascinating stuff, but it really digs into the idea of how "space travel" and "time travel" are the same thing.

  • Black Bart (unregistered)

    The Genuine Windows problem illustrates what happens when a computer is behind a blocking firewall. After so many days of not being able to check in with Microsoft and being able to verify as genuine, the computer defaults to being not-genuine - in other words accusing the disconnected computer of being pirated for not submitting to the genuine check

  • Lone Marauder (unregistered) in reply to Tim
    Tim:
    Jerry:
    Bill:
    Name:
    Someone please explain why that sign at the London Olympic Park had to be shaped like a cloud
    Duh. Cloud computing. It's the new thing. Please try to keep up.
    Actually, cloud was the new thing several years ago. Now it's the old thing. Please do try to keep up.
    OK smartypants, what's the new new thing? And make sure it's from next week, because this week is pretty much over.

    "The Cloud is everything, all that once was was and all that will be! The Cloud controls time and space, love and death! The Cloud can see into your mind! The Cloud can see into your soouull...."

    "Really, the Cloud can do all that?"

    "Heh, no..."

  • (cs) in reply to by

    Obviously, there are no time reversers, so there is no experimental confirmation of this specific statement. But there are deep mathematical reasons why the best explanations for things like entropy are time invariant. Our theories of entropy are well tested and cover many cases, and they predict time invariance.

    It leads to one of the bigger quandaries of modern physics: if entropy increases regardless of the direction of time, why does the arrow of time proceed in only one direction? Why does causality flow from cause to effect?

  • golddog (unregistered) in reply to Name
    Name:
    Someone please explain why that sign at the London Olympic Park had to be shaped like a cloud, with sharp-cornered triangles and lines jutting into the display. Did it make the games more exciting somehow? Or is it simply there to prove that some government agency had a lot of extra tax money to waste? And how the hell do you code your display parameters around that junk? Rectangles are not actually cursed by the devil, you know folks.

    Because a normal, monitor-shaped sign isn't pretentious, and teh designer of same wouldn't then be able to afford the payments on his/her Porsche.

  • (cs)

    Actually, it's pretty common to have Windows suddenly decide that you're not running a Genuine copy during normal use with a legal installation, often after an upgrade. Typically this just requires re-entering your key, but they might not have anything connected to that kiosk that would allow them to do that. Or maybe they were in the process of getting it fixed.

  • (cs)

    Going back in time to 1947 would be nice for another reason: I could go and watch Charlton win the FA Cup final...

  • Captcha:eros (unregistered) in reply to Jack
    Jack:
    OK I just searched the entire source code of Linux and I can verify that it does not support the "genuine Windows" feature at all. Yet another reason why Linux will never be ready for the desktop!
    That's why they made Wine, to add support for these things: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/07/06/18/0037223/ubuntu-linux-validates-as-genuine-windows.

    Unfortunately, due to changing requirements and lack of documentation, this feature tends to break often.

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Name
    Name:
    Someone please explain why that sign at the London Olympic Park had to be shaped like a cloud, with sharp-cornered triangles and lines jutting into the display. Did it make the games more exciting somehow? Or is it simply there to prove that some government agency had a lot of extra tax money to waste? And how the hell do you code your display parameters around that junk? Rectangles are not actually cursed by the devil, you know folks.

    Relax - no tax payers money spent here - it was an advertising stand for Cisco, called (you guessed it) "The Cisco Cloud"

  • (cs) in reply to Jerry
    Jerry:
    Bill:
    Name:
    Someone please explain why that sign at the London Olympic Park had to be shaped like a cloud
    Duh. Cloud computing. It's the new thing. Please try to keep up.
    Actually, cloud was the new thing several years ago. Now it's the old thing. Please do try to keep up.
    Indeed. Apparently nowadays the new thing is cartoon characters having sex.

    That would explain the logo on the sign.

  • Onaka (unregistered)
    "Maybe the people at Moe's need to start wearing pirate eye patches," notes Evan.

    My legit Windows Vista box did this same shit a while ago after a hard reset. Blocked access to the control panel and was a huge pain in the ass to deal with. Next time I'm just pirating if I can't even be safe in knowing my OS will still think it's legit next time someone presses the reset button instead of the power button. At least then when it gives me the "YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PIRATE" -speech, it'll be true.

    God how I wish "PC gaming" didn't imply "Windows gaming".

  • $$ERR:get_name_fail (unregistered)

    Regarding the bus route: Maybe the bus takes 23 hours and 29 minutes, so the route planner means 16:11 the NEXT day?

  • Jellineck (unregistered) in reply to Name

    You are talking about this ad. You would not be talking about a rectangular ad.

    You've probably read this thread and know who the advertiser is.

  • linepro (unregistered) in reply to Tim
    Tim:
    Jerry:
    Bill:
    Name:
    Someone please explain why that sign at the London Olympic Park had to be shaped like a cloud
    Duh. Cloud computing. It's the new thing. Please try to keep up.
    Actually, cloud was the new thing several years ago. Now it's the old thing. Please do try to keep up.
    OK smartypants, what's the new new thing? And make sure it's from next week, because this week is pretty much over.
    Thin is the new thing. Apple said so.
  • C-Derb (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    Going back in time to 1947 would be nice for another reason: I could go and watch Charlton win the FA Cup final...
    I wish I could go back in time 10 minutes and not read all these lame comments about math and grandfathers and entropy and sperm and black holes and time travel and relativity and sex with your grandmother and....
  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to Name
    Name:
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    But roundrects are caused by Steve Jobs, which some people think is almost as bad.
    I get it now. That ragged border is the only display shape that hasn't already been patented.

    Get ready for really ugly (and painful) computers.

    (P.S. time for someone to go all Bobby Tables on the patent system, methinks.)

    The triangle. The strongest shape ever constructed; a shape that fits all the other shapes inside of it.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Isaac
    Isaac:
    In fact, 1947 looks like a brand new world to you because you've forgotten everything from 1947's future. You could be time traveling right now but you'd never realize it.

    Whow! Dude! You gotta tell me who your dealer is.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Tim
    Tim:
    Jerry:
    Bill:
    Name:
    Someone please explain why that sign at the London Olympic Park had to be shaped like a cloud
    Duh. Cloud computing. It's the new thing. Please try to keep up.
    Actually, cloud was the new thing several years ago. Now it's the old thing. Please do try to keep up.
    OK smartypants, what's the new new thing? And make sure it's from next week, because this week is pretty much over.

    Apparently, it's traveling through time so you can become your own grandfather, which is already are and have always been. Maybe.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Isaac:
    In fact, 1947 looks like a brand new world to you because you've forgotten everything from 1947's future. You could be time traveling right now but you'd never realize it.

    Whow! Dude! You gotta tell me who your dealer is.

    Are there dealer selling time travel vehicle in US of A?

  • Jordan (unregistered)

    456MB for a web browser? God damn that is insane

  • not grandad (unregistered)

    There are lots of photos of my grandmother, she was quite good looking. She died before I was born, but still I don't think I would do it.

    Anyhow "Looper" is coming out this weekend. Guy travels back in time to kill himself. But I can't figure out from the trailer why the younger instance is in the future.

  • (cs) in reply to Garrison Fiord
    Garrison Fiord:
    Garrison Fiord:
    Remy Porter:
    Relativity teaches us that traveling through space and time are identical. If you have a time machine, you also have a "space machine". Time and relative dimensions in space, and all that.

    Where it gets really interesting is in the ergosphere of a black hole- where you actually have to exceed the speed of light to even hold still.

    I should expand- it's actually due to the fact that as the black hole spins, it picks up the spacetime surrounding it and spins it as well. It's really fascinating stuff, but it really digs into the idea of how "space travel" and "time travel" are the same thing.

    Dude, the moderators are really screwing with you now. They replaced your entire off-topic incomprehensible rant with something that makes sense.

  • B. D. Johnson (unregistered)

    Why not Fribourg?

  • Publius25 (unregistered) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    Actually, this isn't entirely true. Much of physics is "time invariant". So if you hit the "reverse" button to rewind time- the cream and the coffee would stubbornly stay mixed, uranium would continue to decay and never undecay, etc.

    Entropy always increases, no matter which way the arrow of time is pointing.

    Come on Remy, don't bogart that thing. Pass that bowl around.

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