The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

TheRider · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

B. D. Johnson:
Why not Fribourg?

Being Swiss, I might be able to answer that. Besides the obvious "undefined, undefined, undefined" WTFs, Fribourg is nowhere near the place indicated on that particular map. It doesn't look like an iOS-faulty-map so I can't fathom how this particular map got painted, but it ain't how geography in Switzerland actually looks like. The "Bern" and "Aare" thing, though, indicate it is supposed to be in Switzerland, the yellow lines being a few Autobahns around Bern (the capital of Switzerland, for the less educated).

or maybe I'm wrong and Fribourg is around there, but then the Autobahns aren't quite right, because one of the major Autobahns goes right through Fribourg.

operagost · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Carl:
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.

OK, I get it: the registry is full of random crap and isn't really a database. The solution, therefore, is to go back to a bunch of .INI files that are also full of random crap and not databases.

operagost · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Clearly, the speed limit has been raised to 88 MPH on the bus route.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

I sure love that Winnipeg transit site. I just wish they'd upgrade my bus to time travel.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

The bus schedule neglects to mention that part of the route is through Diagon Alley.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

operagost:
Carl:
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.
OK, I get it: the registry is full of random crap and isn't really a database. The solution, therefore, is to go back to a bunch of .INI files that are also full of random crap and not databases.

Your missing the point. the .INI files have the extra advantage of being spread all over the hard drive in various locations defined by the many installer/software developers.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Garrison Fiord:
It's really fascinating stuff, but it really digs into the idea of how "space travel" and "time travel" are the same thing.

God it would be cool if I could travel through space without also traveling through time. My commute to work would be so much faster.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

[quote user="Stev"][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.[/quote]

Or you can go back, kill your grandfather, and become your own grandfather. Or maybe you were always meant to go back and become your own grandfather - it's a time paradox. Happens pretty often in the movies - something happened in the past, and then in the future you have to go back and do that thing that already happened.

PiisAWheeL · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Isaac:
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.

That assumes 4 dimensions. x,y,z, and time. You are missing somewhere between 6 and 7 other dimensions (depending on who's opinion you are getting). These extra dimensions allow for extra variance, allowing for your solid block of space-time to actually be very fluid.

Really, the sweet thing to do would be to transfer your conciousness backwards to a previous point in your life (See butterfly effect - movie, not theory). You could accomplish a few really cool things.

You would pretty much have ALL the advantages from the movie groundhog day, over the course of a large chunk of your life. Each "Playthrough" you would be able to build your life different and theoretically better. The only downside is you still have to survive ie if you get hit by a bus well then game over, you lose.

I'm going to go have a cup of coffee and come back and see if any of this still makes any sense.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

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!").

This is actually why we'll never be able to travel into the past. Eventually, the difficulties caused by time travel would lead to the inevitable conclusion to off the guy that invented time travel.

Remy Porter · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

There are four confirmed dimensions of space-time. String theory and a few other related theories only work if there are more dimensions of space-time, and that number is usually 10. The extra six are considered to be "very small" dimensions- that is to say that any two points in our 4D space-time are very very close together in the other 6. The extra dimensions don't make spacetime wibbly or wobbly.

The thing to remember about dimensionality is that it's little more than an addressing system for events. Each event has a coordinate that requires four dimensions to express. Me sitting on my ass right this instant might be coordinate (0,0,0,0) as measured from my reference frame. Relative to that point in spacetime, the instant I hit "Submit" might be (0,0,0,200). Yes, I'm using unitless values, mostly because the units don't matter right now.

As for "transferring consciousness", consciousness is a biological process- you'd have as much luck transferring consciousness as you would transferring digestion. Now there's a sci-fi premise- you send your food back in time to make yourself fat.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

operagost:
OK, I get it: the registry is full of random crap and isn't really a database. The solution, therefore, is to go back to a bunch of .INI files that are also full of random crap and not databases.

The solution is clearly to put a bunch of random crap into a database.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

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.

Er.. that's completely wrong. The arrow of time IS the direction in which entropy increases. Precisely because the laws of physics are time invariant.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

If you go back in time, you leave all of the matter in the Universe, which is currently located at the present moment. So there would be nothing to effect, and nothing to effect it with.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Remy Porter:
Now there's a sci-fi premise- you send your food back in time to make yourself fat.

Solution to world hunger.

chubertdev · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Remy's Law:

"As TDWTF discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Futurama approaches 1."

Remy Porter · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

We're both right, after a fashion. The arrow of time, as usually used, describes the fact that entropy can't be reversed. I should not have used the phrase "arrow of time", and I should not have said "invariant" but "independent". This is what I get when WTFing while coding geospatial stuff in Entity Framework.

Let's instead, focus on delta-t- the amount of change in time.

Pause the universe with a rock about to fall. If I hit "play" and let delta-t be positive, the rock falls and hits the ground. If I then hit "reverse" and let delta-t be negative, the rock will fly back up into the air. Traditional time-invariance, arrow-of-time physics.

But if that rock is a piece of uranium, as it falls I'm going to see the uranium decay. Positive delta-t. As I reverse it, with negative delta-t, the uranium continues to decay. It doesn't reverse its decay.

That's what I'm talking about.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

chubertdev:
Remy's Law:
"As TDWTF discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Futurama approaches 1."

Yes, but custard is better than Futurama. Oh wait...

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

I think that bs was inspired by the TARDIS.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

The first registry error message looks a lot like the one from Windows 95 or 98.

da Doctah · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

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.

We time-travelers aren't allowed to reveal too much about your future, so I'm afraid I can't give you a detailed answer.

I can only offer one piece of advice: take up hedgehog breeding.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

just stop it:
operagost:
Carl:
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.
OK, I get it: the registry is full of random crap and isn't really a database. The solution, therefore, is to go back to a bunch of .INI files that are also full of random crap and not databases.

Your missing the point. the .INI files have the extra advantage of being spread all over the hard drive in various locations defined by the many installer/software developers.

And they have the advantage of being files. So you can do all sorts of filey things with them:

Back them up
Restore them when someone craps up their preferences too severely
Compare today's with the backup to see what changed
Copy them from the master system to 100 clones that will now all magically be setup and work the same
Delete them when you delete the corresponding [software package, user] so you don't have tons of clutter left lying around
Post a few lines to a help forum
Copy and paste someone else's config to yours
Actually fucking SEE what they are doing without 100 clicks opening and shutting stuff

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Remy Porter:
the uranium continues to decay

So you're saying the solution to nuclear waste is to create a time chamber that just oscillates time forward and back at a high rate allowing waste to decay out in an accelerated timeframe. Sure, it'd cause an alpha particle and infrared wave to build up at the location of decay but, actually, that would be a cool weapon.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Were the kids entertained by the Wile E. Coyote Windows crash? Stand it up, brush it off, crash it again; fun for the whole family.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

The bus route can be explained by pure administrative deviousness. The bus routes could not be designed such that the driver was returned to the depot during a normal shift. The PHB had the intern create a time loop so he could get an extra 30 minutes work from the driver; and get him back to the yard without paying overtime. And he sent the intern thru the loop first as a test; and never paid the intern because the time loop had not been created yet. Pure management evil genius.

Silverhill · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Stev:
TarquinWJ:
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).
I don't think it is possible to become your own grandfather, even with the ability to time travel.

Oh yeah? Read Heinlein's short story "All You Zombies". Guaranteed to twist your brain (while providing various laffs).

Also in the vein of thoroughly involuted time-travel stories is Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps". A classic.

Silverhill · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Name:
Get ready for really ugly (and painful) computers.
¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
The triangle. The strongest shape ever constructed; a shape that fits all the other shapes inside of it.

The triangle. The most perimeter- (and therefore case-material-) wasting shape ever constructed, inside which all other shapes can be fit (but only if they're small enough).

This triangle shape is ridiculous, since content is routinely formatted for rectangular screens with no small, inconvenient corners. It is not stronger in the ways that are needed: flexion out of the plane of the device, and perpendicular loading of the screen (also known as impact).

tin · 2012-09-28 Reply Admin

The real WTF is Microsoft's "Genuine Advantage" - I've seen plenty of genuine copies of Windows and Office suddenly turn "non-genuine".

We even had a batch of computers at a school randomly saying their volume licensed copy of XP was non-genuine. Ironically, the WGA tool around that same time reported my Linux box was genuine Windows.

2012-09-28 Reply Admin

Silverhill:
Stev:
TarquinWJ:
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).
I don't think it is possible to become your own grandfather, even with the ability to time travel.
Oh yeah? Read Heinlein's short story "All You Zombies". Guaranteed to twist your brain (while providing various laffs).
Also in the vein of thoroughly involuted time-travel stories is Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps". A classic.

Also read David Gerrold's "The Man Who Folded Himself".

2012-09-29 Reply Admin

I concur with "The Man Who Folded Himself". It is THE best time-travel story, the only one that I've read that makes it plausible for time travel to actually exist. IMO. (OK, there have been a few variations on the theme -- which is basically that there is a new time stream branch is created, so the time traveler does not actually change the original time stream. And he can't get back to the original.)

All/most other kinds of time travel suffer from the "it can't stay happening". To explain: assume time travel can exist and also is discovered. Time travelers will cause the "time stream" to become unstable. The events in time will continue to change (as time travelers continue to time travel) until -- time travel is "undiscovered". At that point the time stream becomes stable. Hence, no time travel (now) exists nor is possible to discover.

-- My Opinion, MINE I tell you!

2012-09-29 Reply Admin

The arrow of time failed because of the compiler option to treat arrows as warmings. Unfortunately the resulting warmings caused the destruction of SoftIce.

2012-09-29 Reply Admin

Vista becoming non-genuine: Yup.

Microsoft let me beta test Vista, as in reporting bugs that wouldn't be fixed before its release instead of reporting bugs that wouldn't be fixed after its release. Microsoft was so grateful that they gave me a free licence key for Vista, and I was so impressed with Vista that I haven't used that free licence key.

Anyway, when Microsoft was preparing Service Pack 1 for Vista, we were supposed to take activated paid-for installations of Vista, grade them to SP1, and grade them back to RTM. On grading back to RTM, an activated paid-for installation decided it was fake. I told Microsoft that everyone makes mistakes, I don't mind testing betas and expecting bugs, but I don't need the ship-it of a paid-for installation deciding it's fake.

Microsoft complained about my ship-it language and took me off the beta program.

SilentRunner · 2012-09-29 Reply Admin

I didn't understand any of that except for the one with the minus time. All the others were fuzzy or out of focus.

2012-09-29 Reply Admin

That gas station display reminds me of the broken javascript in an old version of sugarcrm. looks like osmbright on the map too... as an american I must say I'm impressed at their attempt to at least use modern tech to actually build something...rather than the microsoft philosophy of programming should only be putting one of a handful of blocks together and involve no creative thought or design.

2012-09-29 Reply Admin

I get in the queue every day (Too much, the Magic Bus) Get on the bus, take me to yesterday (Too much, the Magic Bus) Just sit and smile, 'til we hit 88 (Too much, the Magic Bus) To reach you on the previous date (Too much, the Magic Bus)

Thank you Doc Brown, for getting me now (Too much, the Magic Bus) Your flux capacitor really works, wow! (Too much, the Magic Bus) I don't want to cause to much fuss (Too much, the Magic Bus) But can I buy you Magic Bus? (Too much, the Magic Bus)

Watson · 2012-09-30 Reply Admin

Fake Nagesh:
Or you can go back, kill your grandfather, and become your own grandfather. Or maybe you were always meant to go back and become your own grandfather - it's a time paradox. Happens pretty often in the movies - something happened in the past, and then in the future you have to go back and do that thing that already happened.

A paradox is a good sign that you're making a false assumption without realising it. Even if you could go back in time to attempt to kill your grandfather (before he was old enough to conceive your father), the fact you could implies that you existed to do so. The implication of that is that your attempt failed.

Just because you're time-travelling doesn't mean you get to change the initial conditions halfway through the experiment. It's physics, not Calvinball.

2012-09-30 Reply Admin

Speaking of time travel, there is nothing wrong in Jon's MacBook.
It is simply notifying the user that Safari has already been downloaded... sometime around the middle of the Pleistocene.

2012-09-30 Reply Admin

Minor nitpick on the Physics discussion - The laws of Physics aren't actually the same if you flip the direction of time (t -> -t). It used to be assumed that they were, but in 1964 James Cronin and Val Fitch found a violation of that symmetry, in the weak interaction (which, it turns out, works slightly differently forwards to backwards; for which they won the 1980 Nobel Prize for Physics). ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP_violation )

If you want things to look the same, you have to flip all three of time, parity, and charge; not just time ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry ).

2012-09-30 Reply Admin

Carl:
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.

One big file, like one big file that is NTFS or other file system. Windows registry have a tree directory structure, its is somewhat organized like an normal disk with a tree. I cant understand, why linux saving a bunch of ".conf" all over the system disk in a tree like data structure is any better than windows saving a bunch of its configuration in a tree like data structure that happens to be a file inside another tree like data structure. Perhaps this is wasteful, but an SQL database does the same thing, why saving all your tables in one place is better than spreading on entire disk, because there are one more layer of abstraction to take care of things for you. Real problem with windows registry is not registry per si, but COM registration, that was the problem, but with new winsxs, that was problem of past. Never have any single problem with registry on windows7 also. I have a bunch of windows servers, and they only reset one time per week for update, this its not a single problem, the load balancer just switch traffic for other machines when some machine is updating, you only have to be careful to not update all datacenter on same time. Storing all configuration on ".ini" files doest solve the real problem, software life cycle and deployment management is hard, and the fault is not of windows registry, but is a software engineering problem.

2012-09-30 Reply Admin

Anketam:
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.

Not a problem, space and time forms space-time continuum, to travel in time you have necessary travel in space also, because they are the same thing. Just saying, if it doest works, go rant to Einsten.

2012-09-30 Reply Admin

Captcha:eros:
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.

Why someone wastes her time to get windows updates if they are using linux.

2012-09-30 Reply Admin

Carl:
just stop it:
operagost:
Carl:
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.
OK, I get it: the registry is full of random crap and isn't really a database. The solution, therefore, is to go back to a bunch of .INI files that are also full of random crap and not databases.

Your missing the point. the .INI files have the extra advantage of being spread all over the hard drive in various locations defined by the many installer/software developers.
And they have the advantage of being files. So you can do all sorts of filey things with them:

Back them up

Restore them when someone craps up their preferences too severely

Compare today's with the backup to see what changed

Copy them from the master system to 100 clones that will now all magically be setup and work the same

Delete them when you delete the corresponding [software package, user] so you don't have tons of clutter left lying around

Post a few lines to a help forum

Copy and paste someone else's config to yours

Actually fucking SEE what they are doing without 100 clicks opening and shutting stuff

Back them up can do this on registry

Restore them when someone craps up their preferences too severely can do this also, just shadow copy %windir%\system32\config

Compare today's with the backup to see what changed can do this with proper tool

Copy them from the master system to 100 clones that will now all magically be setup and work the same registry can do this also, but need deployment tool to copy files on 100 clones, u just dont do it manually.

Delete them when you delete the corresponding [software package, user] so you don't have tons of clutter left lying around this was supposed to happen when you uninstall a program, but always they leave crap, also ".ini" crap, and on linux the crap is spread all over the harddisk, its not registry problem, its a problem with "package managment" that windows doest have and rely on crappy "installshield" like bloatware to do it, this is the real problem.

Post a few lines to a help forum i have done this with registry keys, no problem

Copy and paste someone else's config to yours cant be done without a tool, but i made several programs work on other windows installation just by exporting registry keys and copying files, problem is you have to know what files and keys need to be copied.

Actually fucking SEE what they are doing without 100 clicks opening and shutting stuff what? windows default registry editor is crap, i just use powershell to manage the registry database.

2012-09-30 Reply Admin

Unicorn #8157:
Remy Porter:
the uranium continues to decay
So you're saying the solution to nuclear waste is to create a time chamber that just oscillates time forward and back at a high rate allowing waste to decay out in an accelerated timeframe. Sure, it'd cause an alpha particle and infrared wave to build up at the location of decay but, actually, that would be a cool weapon.

Hey, alpha particles are cool, also after uranium decay you can use it on baby baths or on multivitaminic complex, or on building structure.

2012-09-30 Reply Admin

SEMW:
Minor nitpick on the Physics discussion - The laws of Physics *aren't* actually the same if you flip the direction of time (t -> -t). It used to be assumed that they were, but in 1964 James Cronin and Val Fitch found a violation of that symmetry, in the weak interaction (which, it turns out, works slightly differently forwards to backwards; for which they won the 1980 Nobel Prize for Physics). ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP_violation )

They proved it by reversing time, right?

Minor knit pick in the fabric of time: when a stitch in it saves nine lives, string theory says my cat gets all nine of them.

2012-10-01 Reply Admin

Plausible, except that the bus is travelling across the city, not across multiple time zones.

2012-10-01 Reply Admin

Luiz Felipe:
Carl:
just stop it:
operagost:
Carl:
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.
OK, I get it: the registry is full of random crap and isn't really a database. The solution, therefore, is to go back to a bunch of .INI files that are also full of random crap and not databases.

Your missing the point. the .INI files have the extra advantage of being spread all over the hard drive in various locations defined by the many installer/software developers.
And they have the advantage of being files. So you can do all sorts of filey things with them:

Back them up

Restore them when someone craps up their preferences too severely

Compare today's with the backup to see what changed

Copy them from the master system to 100 clones that will now all magically be setup and work the same

Delete them when you delete the corresponding [software package, user] so you don't have tons of clutter left lying around

Post a few lines to a help forum

Copy and paste someone else's config to yours

Actually fucking SEE what they are doing without 100 clicks opening and shutting stuff

Back them up can do this on registry

Restore them when someone craps up their preferences too severely can do this also, just shadow copy %windir%\system32\config

Compare today's with the backup to see what changed can do this with proper tool

Copy them from the master system to 100 clones that will now all magically be setup and work the same registry can do this also, but need deployment tool to copy files on 100 clones, u just dont do it manually.

Delete them when you delete the corresponding [software package, user] so you don't have tons of clutter left lying around this was supposed to happen when you uninstall a program, but always they leave crap, also ".ini" crap, and on linux the crap is spread all over the harddisk, its not registry problem, its a problem with "package managment" that windows doest have and rely on crappy "installshield" like bloatware to do it, this is the real problem.

Post a few lines to a help forum i have done this with registry keys, no problem

Copy and paste someone else's config to yours cant be done without a tool, but i made several programs work on other windows installation just by exporting registry keys and copying files, problem is you have to know what files and keys need to be copied.

Actually fucking SEE what they are doing without 100 clicks opening and shutting stuff what? windows default registry editor is crap, i just use powershell to manage the registry database.

So, you basically admit that the registry is inferior to .ini files, but you managed to improve your situation when you found "proper tools" somewhere on the interwebs to manage your registry.

And that you were lucky enough that said "proper tools" didn't come with all manner of spyware/adware/rootkits to pwn your system.

I suscipere that TRWTF is that you don't get these "proper tools" out of the box with Windows.

2012-10-01 Reply Admin

Anketam:
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.

You're assuming that gravity doesn't hold you to the surface of the Earth while you are travelling in time.

2012-10-01 Reply Admin

just stop it:
operagost:
Carl:
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.
OK, I get it: the registry is full of random crap and isn't really a database. The solution, therefore, is to go back to a bunch of .INI files that are also full of random crap and not databases.

Your missing the point. the .INI files have the extra advantage of being spread all over the hard drive in various locations defined by the many installer/software developers.

Actually, yes, that is the point. Each application has its data in its own file. Are you seriously suggesting that an ADVANTAGE of the registry is that it combines data from many, many applications into a single file with no simple, consistent way to tell which data goes with which app? So, you think the ideal system of the future is one in which there is only one file on your hard drive, with all data stored in that one big file?

2012-10-01 Reply Admin

operagost:
Carl:
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.
OK, I get it: the registry is full of random crap and isn't really a database. The solution, therefore, is to go back to a bunch of .INI files that are also full of random crap and not databases.

The advantage of the old INI files was that if application A decides to fill its INI file with a bunch of "random crap" as you put it, that's his problem. It doesn't affect me as the author or user of application B. Each app is responsible for its own mess.

As I understand it, Microsoft invented the registry because there was so much junk being put it win win.ini file and they felt they needed to clean it up. But instead of eliminating the junk from the win.ini, they decided to institionalize putting junk in it.

It seems to me the intelligent solution would be to say that the win.ini or whatever replaced it can ONLY have system-level data. The only data related to an application in a win.ini should have been the name, path to the exe, path to the uninstall program, and a list of the extensions that it knows how to open. Maybe you can think of one or two other things that might be appropriate. Any other data the app needs should be in a data file private to that app and stored in its own directory. This would be clean and easy to manage.

2012-10-01 Reply Admin

[quote user="Stev"][quote user="TarquinWJ"]I don't think it is possible to become your own grandfather, even with the ability to time travel. ....[/quote]

Actually it's very easy to become your own grandfather, even without time travel. Just marry your son's daughter. Then your son is also your father-in-law, and you're your own grandfather.

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