The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2006-11-09 Reply Admin

Once upon a time, I worked with another contractor who would order drugs over the phone. Not the most stellar thing although, to each their own...except we shared on open air office with 100+ others and he would shout because there was so much noise in the room..."I'd like one of the ectasy, two of the Marijuana and one of the ..."

emurphy · 2006-11-09 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
So let's say I did as you suggest. I submit my critique to him. He deletes or ignores it. There's no project plan. No formal spec. No functional spec. No test plan. I've mapped out a methodology that is going to allow us to do the project properly (8 weeks), and proven it, but we can't use it. He now is ejected from the building. All his email is gone. We've been working on the project for 2 weeks and it's nowhere near done.

Oh, you don't email it only to him - you make sure to cc: one or more others, e.g. the owner. Also, if you and your colleagues are that confident, you could spend 5% of those 2 weeks setting up the appearance of the wrong way (just enough so that he'll look at it and think nothing is amiss), and the other 95% actually doing it the right way.

2006-11-09 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
cconroy:
Anonymous:
I had a co-worker ask me:
How do you tell if a number is negative?
Ask it whether the glass is half empty or half full.
I dimly recall a certain mainframe designer who used 1's-complement arithmetic in many (all?) of his system designs (and a 6-bit byte length with 60 bit words, among other things).
...

Aaah, the CDC Cyber. Takes me back...

2006-11-09 Reply Admin

cheesy:
Just:
mleh:
Oh, and this same travel booking agency also instantiated factory classes. No no no, not a singleton method to get ahold of an instance of the class, they outright instantiated the class. eg "Factory myFactory = new Factory();".
What's wrong with this? Since when do factories have to be singletons?
I'm no expert on design patterns, but I thought the sole job of a factory class was to create an instance of another class, in which case you can just use a class method rather than instantiate a class and use an instance method. If for whatever reason you need a instance, you probably only need one for the factory, in which case you should use the singleton pattern. But we have no idea of the context so I really don't know what they were thinking.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong, I'd like to understand these design patterns better.

The purpose of a factory is just to hide the details about what concrete implementation type is used for the object being manufactured, so invoking it with a static (class) method, invoking a singleton, or invoking a new, instatiated a factory does not matter; it depends on your situation and how flexible vs simple you want to make things. I have to admit I might question the use of "new Factory()" since the instantiation doesn't appear to add value to the API, but something like "new Factory(configuration)" might make perfect sense.

See the Java DocumentBuilderFactory docs for an example of an API where a 0-arg static method is used, for a reason similar to how a 0-arg constructor might be used, to instantiate a factory that is configured based of the current environmental settings:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/javax/xml/parsers/DocumentBuilderFactory.html#newInstance()

2006-11-09 Reply Admin

I'm not an assembly programmer, but I'm pretty sure this is a joke about assembly. AX, BX and CX are registers, I think -- the teacher's critique is nonsensical.

But since I'm not an assembly programmer, maybe I missed the joke.

homechicken · 2006-11-09 Reply Admin

We recently had this conversation when a hard drive went out on a computer that we needed. The IM session went something like this:

John: Did you set this computer up with RAID?

Matt (ex-coworker): No, I didn't use RAID, but the hard drives are striped.

John: Um, okay. Bye.

Matt is now the IT manager for another company.

2006-11-09 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
Anonymous:
The full-timers said I was far too abrupt / brusqe with him - calling him on his BS and generally not backing down on my desire to "code it properly". He seemed adamant that we could just throw it together then we would have time later to "go back and do it properly, later". Our meetings were basically hammer fests of him saying XYZ and me saying "uh, no, you can't say that and we aren't going to do it like that".
After one such meeting, we dispersed, and one of the non-developer types sitting a cubicle away stood up and fvcking applauded me, saying they agreed with my attitude of "do it right the first time". That was something I had not seen before.
The full-timers were right. 'Calling people's bs' in a meeting is really bad form. Especially in the condescending way you did. For whatever reason they hired the walrus as the project manager, not you. You should have documented your critique of his project plan, presented it to him before development and got him to sign off that he had read it. Then, you do it his way and point to the document at the post-mortem.
When developers push back, most people think it's because we are lazy and\or egotistical. Many times it's true. Doing it this way shows that it is not the case.
People that take an attempt at humour / story telling and act like they were there and pass judgement on what has been written are delusional. Just read the story and enjoy it or move on to the next one, quit being a righteous crusader for Those That Bend Over When Asked.

error: as in, you are in error for thinking your opinion matters one whit.

It obviously mattered enough that you threw together a novella about why his opinion does not matter. Pathetic.

2006-11-09 Reply Admin

"CVS can't handle images, so don't use CVS if you want to checkin images; it will corrupt them." -- HTML 'coder' person at same travel booking agency.

Well, actually, it will handle them, but in his defense merging branches that contain a load of images will sometimes corrupt them. I never really got why, it seemed almost as if it was trying to merge the binary files together. At least on CVSNT.

2006-11-09 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
Ok. This one came from my high school programming class. We were asked (pre the days of the interweb) to write some code to display an information site about a local business. We were doing this in pascal. The code was then to be graded by a statewide education board. The problem was that the previous year the education board decided to merge the programming course with the 'Information Processing & Management' course (aka, Secretarial Studies). So, while the board was composed of 50% programmers, the other 50% were glorified typists, and knew just enough to be dangerous.

At the time, I was regularly involved in the demo scene and was pretty adept at x86 ASM. So, for my graphics routines, I wrote everything in ASM. My pascal code was pretty clean, lots of comments and decent style - typical suck-up code written by someone trying to impress.

My assignment came back with a B- (I was truly expecting an A+). The comments said that I had not used useful variable names - "Why is cx sometimes for loops and ax is for Y coordinates, when bx is for X coordinates - USE MEANINGFUL NAMES".

I would have given you an F. You're writing a business app, not a graphical demo. Ease of maintenance is paramount. Assembly code is totally unnecessary and hard to maintain. For exactly the reasons that the graders pointed out (even if only by coincidence).

Congratulations to me for failing to comprehend the difference between "reply" and "quote" -- AND failing to preview my reply! This is the post I was referring to when I said I thought the AX/BX/CX thing is an assembly joke because they are registry names.

What's the deal with all the "captcha" lines at the end of posts? WTF?

2006-11-09 Reply Admin

I work IT at a college and we were interviewing for a new Helpdesk technician. Now there's a very simple practical where a computer is flipped backward and you have to point at the connectors and say what they are.

One poor woman came in and after the written test they began the practical and as soon as they flipped the computer around she began to weep and half ran out of the room.

2006-11-09 Reply Admin

bugs DO eat concrete - at least some of them.

f.

emurphy · 2006-11-09 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
What's the deal with all the "captcha" lines at the end of posts? WTF?

As usual, Wikipedia is your friend.
Alex has primed the CAPTCHA engine with a hand-selected list of words.
FYI, logged-in users don't have to jump through the CAPTCHA hoop, only anonymous users.

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

vvv

emurphy:
Anonymous:
What's the deal with all the "captcha" lines at the end of posts? WTF?

As usual, Wikipedia is your friend.
Alex has primed the CAPTCHA engine with a hand-selected list of words.
FYI, logged-in users don't have to jump through the CAPTCHA hoop, only anonymous users.

I think he was asking why users type them at the end of their posts in addition to the text box. Sometimes they are relevant or ironic but sometimes it just seems like people are typing them just for the sake of it.

Given the low number of alternatives Alex has hand selected I wouldn't be surprised to see this site spammed to death in the near future.

Rich

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
Anonymous:
Anonymous:
The full-timers said I was far too abrupt / brusqe with him - calling him on his BS and generally not backing down on my desire to "code it properly". He seemed adamant that we could just throw it together then we would have time later to "go back and do it properly, later". Our meetings were basically hammer fests of him saying XYZ and me saying "uh, no, you can't say that and we aren't going to do it like that".
After one such meeting, we dispersed, and one of the non-developer types sitting a cubicle away stood up and fvcking applauded me, saying they agreed with my attitude of "do it right the first time". That was something I had not seen before.
The full-timers were right. 'Calling people's bs' in a meeting is really bad form. Especially in the condescending way you did. For whatever reason they hired the walrus as the project manager, not you. You should have documented your critique of his project plan, presented it to him before development and got him to sign off that he had read it. Then, you do it his way and point to the document at the post-mortem.
When developers push back, most people think it's because we are lazy and\or egotistical. Many times it's true. Doing it this way shows that it is not the case.
People that take an attempt at humour / story telling and act like they were there and pass judgement on what has been written are delusional. Just read the story and enjoy it or move on to the next one, quit being a righteous crusader for Those That Bend Over When Asked.

error: as in, you are in error for thinking your opinion matters one whit.

It obviously mattered enough that you threw together a novella about why his opinion does not matter. Pathetic.

yawn Your opinion doesn't matter either, but I am still going to respond. Why? Because I can, and because I so desire. When someone is plain wrong their opinion doesn't have to matter for you to set them straight. And it wasn't thrown together, it was carefully crafted, cunningly and convincingly. And damn cathartic - there's your reason for the novella. Don't give me more excuses for writing another one.

QueerEye indeed.

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

We had a development meeting once to decide on coding style. Mostly it was a battle between The One True Bracing Style and keeping { on a separate line. In the middle of the conversation one (no longer employed) programmer jumped in:

"But what if I need to format my code as a triangle?"

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

I'm working on CMS system used in some major german companies (thus I'm Pole and working in Poland, hello globalisation).
Short chat with my german colleague:

T: (10:56)
We have small problem: after updating inc directory we cannot log in. Maybe you know something about it ?
Oll: (10:57)
You can't log into CVS?
T: (10:57)
No, I cannot log into CMS :)
Oll: (10:58)
with common account?
T: (10:58)
Yes
...
Oll: (10:59)
you updated "/XXX/inc" folder?
T: (11:00)
Yes
Oll: (11:00)
i will do this now on my sandbox :)
(11:01)
it still works
...
Oll: (11:02)
oh you are right after closing browser i can't login too

Nice to know main developing company commits changes which make whole system impossible to log in...

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Peter H:
No, here in the UK [Snip] We are part of Europe too you know.

No you're not.

Why do you think our ancestors dug that channel in the first place :P

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

This happened when I was in college. The Head of the Department (HOD) of the Computer Science department in my college did not check his own email, but was in the habit of getting the IT administrator (the dodo) to do it. This was not because the HOD did not know how to do it, but that was just the way things were.

When I had occasion to send an email to the HOD, I asked him for his email address. It turned out that out of non-use, the HOD did not remember his email address. So, he asked the IT administrator who was passing by to tell us the email address.

The IT admin went...

The email address is... [email protected]. And the password is... zzz.

ROTFL

Richard Nixon · 2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Anonymous:
Anonymous:
The full-timers said I was far too abrupt / brusqe with him - calling him on his BS and generally not backing down on my desire to "code it properly". He seemed adamant that we could just throw it together then we would have time later to "go back and do it properly, later". Our meetings were basically hammer fests of him saying XYZ and me saying "uh, no, you can't say that and we aren't going to do it like that".
After one such meeting, we dispersed, and one of the non-developer types sitting a cubicle away stood up and fvcking applauded me, saying they agreed with my attitude of "do it right the first time". That was something I had not seen before.
The full-timers were right. 'Calling people's bs' in a meeting is really bad form. Especially in the condescending way you did. For whatever reason they hired the walrus as the project manager, not you. You should have documented your critique of his project plan, presented it to him before development and got him to sign off that he had read it. Then, you do it his way and point to the document at the post-mortem.
When developers push back, most people think it's because we are lazy and\or egotistical. Many times it's true. Doing it this way shows that it is not the case.

Uh. Right. Except there was no project plan, he was simply telling us to develop an application that he DID NOT KNOW WHAT IT WAS, WHAT IT DID, or WHAT IT HAD TO DO, in 2 weeks. Simply because he thought we could. Because he said "you're smart guys, I know you can do it". He did not even have the login information for the existing application the new one was being modeled on. He was emailed it but hadn't read that email yet. Had never logged in.
Do you understand?
It would be like me walking into your company, today, and telling you that that 3 month project you're about to embark on can be done in 3 weeks, just throw something together, you can tidy it up later. I'm a contractor and I'm going to be gone in 4 weeks time. You would simply bend over and take it, no wait, you'd write down a little "I concede defeat and accept no responsibilty for my actions" note as if that absolves you. Someone says "live in sh!t" and you agree to do so. That's your choice, but don't expect everyone else to do the same. Especially me.
The only reason I disagreed with him in the meeting (and the other 2 full-time developers were doing so also) was that I was not going to hang around and do the project if we were going to be forced to write sh!t. I had already saved 1 project, fixed another and completed a brand new one. All on time.
He was escorted from the building.
I did the project properly and finished it on time, and finished the next one a week early. Which I was 99% confident of doing, having spent the last 8 months developing / enhancing 3 projects that we were basing the final one on.
If I had have left, they would have been up sh!t creek without a paddle.
What kind of puncy world do you live in where people actually sign off on things?

-------
So let's say I did as you suggest. I submit my critique to him. He deletes or ignores it. There's no project plan. No formal spec. No functional spec. No test plan. I've mapped out a methodology that is going to allow us to do the project properly (8 weeks), and proven it, but we can't use it. He now is ejected from the building. All his email is gone. We've been working on the project for 2 weeks and it's nowhere near done.
What now?
Start again?
Keep going?
You idiot.
------
People that take an attempt at humour / story telling and act like they were there and pass judgement on what has been written are delusional. Just read the story and enjoy it or move on to the next one, quit being a righteous crusader for Those That Bend Over When Asked.

error: as in, you are in error for thinking your opinion matters one whit.

Wow, you sure showed that guy. Way to thoughtfully express your opinion without resorting to petty name calling. Good job! You're just the type of team player that can disagree with others but still keep their cool enough to have a discussion about the disagreement that I've been looking for! Please, contact me so I can offer you great riches.

sincerely,
Richard Nixon

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

From a lecture

"I play with words to get the message across, with the risk of confusing you"

"It's called dynamic instability because it's dynamic. I could have called it equilibrium stability... or anything else"

Prof: "Shame, they have taken the projector away. I could have shown you some slides"
Guy: "Prof, there is an OHP under the table"
Prof: " Yes, there is! I know!"

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
"CVS can't handle images, so don't use CVS if you want to checkin images; it will corrupt them." -- HTML 'coder' person at same travel booking agency.
Well, actually, it will handle them, but in his defense merging branches that contain a load of images will sometimes corrupt them. I never really got why, it seemed almost as if it was trying to merge the binary files together. At least on CVSNT.

Some Windows ports of CVS do "transparent" translation of line endings, which fscks up binary files by changing every \x0d\x0a sequence to \x0d or vice-versa. Mystery solved, and by gum if that web-developer guy you made fun of wasn't right (at least for *his* CVS client).

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Long time lurker, first time poster (even though a bit late). Regarding semicolons as decimal delimiters and the nationalistic French Excel, decimal delimiters are always locale-specific - it's not just Europe vs. the anglo-saxon world, the Swiss German locale for example uses a dot as the decimal point (as in US, UK) and an apostrophe to delimit groups of thousands (I think Swiss French is the same, btw).

(By the way, I think Excel is far over-localized: even formulas are localized - including words such as "IF" - which is a pain in the neck if you work in different machines with different locale-settings).

The problem is that all locale-specific strings get hard-coded once you convert the thing to csv which means csv output from Excel is only safe to be interchangead between machines with the same locale settings. Making the delimiter of the csv format locale-specific is nothing else than the logical continuation of this internationalization WTF.

A further WTF is that a lot of applications use this same locale-specific number and csv format to output csv - even Trados, a computer-assisted translation suite, i.e.you can literally bet that people working together on a project will all have different locale settings.

catptcha:billgates ;-)

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

After reading the first few sentences I expected the "Joe Board" to be something Joe build so it could be the new "Paula Bean". But it's probably funnier this way.

What if that girlfriend of his WAS Paula? Or maybe his wife... I would hate to see their kids turn into "programmers" though... ugh!

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

People that take an attempt at humour / story telling and act like they were there and pass judgement on what has been written are delusional. Just read the story and enjoy it or move on to the next one, quit being a righteous crusader for Those That Bend Over When Asked.
error: as in, you are in error for thinking your opinion matters one whit.

I was only agreeing with the judgement already handed down to you by the other employees of the company. Your attitude is very common with contractors. They have "the right way" all figured out in their head and everybody else is "in error for thinking their opinion matters one whit" and they'll be damned if they let little things like company politics get in the way of delivering their project. They then publically berate the people who they consider to be underperforming and since they are gone in 4 weeks time they don't give a damn if they leave ill will amongst everybody in the company.

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

>> You should have documented your critique of his project plan, presented it to him before development and got him to sign off that he had read it.

>> Then, you do it his way and point to the document at the post-mortem.

> What kind of puncy world do you live in where people actually sign off on things?

I think you understand that you'd copy yourself on the email to preserve the paper trail. I've done just that within the past six months because not all incompetent managers are escorted out... they're usually promoted.

Judging from the way that you browbeat somebody that was only giving you some constructive criticism, I'd say the only difference between you and the arrogant boss was that in this case you were correct.

So let me give you some advice I hope you'll ignore: you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. Someday -- if it hasn't happened already -- you will be passed over for an assignment or raise in favor of someone that doesn't know as much, but has a nicer personality. Generally speaking people prefer not to work with ~~assholes~~ know-it-alls.

captcha: hacker

darin · 2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

"How do i compile this file you sent me?"
"Compile it in visual studio."
"But i dont know what type of file it is its not a cpp file."
"Its a .C file... its C code.."
"Ohh... uhhh.. ok"
"..."
Senior C developer... ftw?

I had been a TA for a compilers class in which the project had to be written in C, and was done in teams of 3 people. The class was 10 weeks long, and in the middle of the 8th week one team came in and asked that they be given extra time to work on the project (as if had the authority to wave my hand and extend the length of the class). I asked them what was going wrong, and they claimed they were still learning C. I expressed surprise and said that the prerequisite of the class used C++. Their answer was "yeah, we know C++ already, it's just that we need more time to learn C."

(I seriously wonder where some of these students are today)

redtetrahedron · 2006-11-10 Reply Admin

I've never had any problems with VS solutions and source control. You just have to make sure you perform all operations from within the IDE.

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Context: a very very smart but pretty unstable developer has been increasingly absent and scattered. Finally comes in but is constantly going out in the hall to take cell calls. We figure he's interviewing. I come out of the bathroom to hear:
No! Look! I am NOT going to jail over this again!

Bwahahahaha there's got to be a 90% chance this person is referring to me!!!!!

(forgot the pistol in my car was still loaded from camping, got pulled over + searched -> jail for the night)
(later, forgot to pay fine for pistol offense -> warrant issued -> jail for the night again)

Damn I can't remember who it was that came out of the bathroom though!

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Thats nothing. We had a 'costly' contractor , who made my life hell by complaining to my boss that FTP doesnt connect to the server, but none else had any issues FTPing etc. Finally I had him demonstrate:

ftp Him: see it doesnt do anything, it doesnt work and I havent had anything done since last 2 months. ME: Dude where is the server address HIM: ow u need that.

WTF?!

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Not programming related, but funny nonetheless:-
My wife's sister once asked (whilst we were watching crimewatch) "Where is Caucasia?"

You do know there is a Caucasia... correct?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasia

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
People that take an attempt at humour / story telling and act like they were there and pass judgement on what has been written are delusional. Just read the story and enjoy it or move on to the next one, quit being a righteous crusader for Those That Bend Over When Asked.
error: as in, you are in error for thinking your opinion matters one whit.
I was only agreeing with the judgement already handed down to you by the other employees of the company. Your attitude is very common with contractors. They have "the right way" all figured out in their head and everybody else is "in error for thinking their opinion matters one whit" and they'll be damned if they let little things like company politics get in the way of delivering their project. They then publically berate the people who they consider to be underperforming and since they are gone in 4 weeks time they don't give a damn if they leave ill will amongst everybody in the company.

errr no. *He* was only there for 4 weeks, not me. Or was it 6. Either way, we had been told by the person who hired him he was only there until my boss (a friend) returned from cancer surgery - which was an estimated 6 weeks. I had been there for 8 months and was due to be there until the projects we were working on were completed, at least. This same guy promised pay rises and new hardware to the full-time guys, having no authority to do so. They disliked him.

The full-time employees were the ones, in the meeting, who told him I had worked out how to do what we needed to do, and proven the technology already, and that they wanted to do it that way. They then turned to me (later) and told me I was too harsh with him. But another full-time employee (who overheard everything in the same meeting) applauded my attitude / words - publicly. So "the judgement of the other employees" was divided. Feel free to make me out to be the bad guy, though.

You're right about the company politics, however. I am far more interested in getting something done than pretending to like / respect someone and then turn around and backstab the living sh!t out of them later to anyone that will listen. Which is what pretty much everyeone from managers down to the developers were doing. Often. As was evidenced by the fact that he was escorted from the building. ie he was so abrupt and brusque / rude in meetings and unproductive that he was escorted from the building.

I'd prefer people were upfront too, but I guess I am in the minority there. I didn't put him down. I simply told him I wasn't interested in slapping something together, and he couldn't make a promise that we "would be given time later to rework the mess we wrote, into something useful". ie I called him on his BS.

It's ironic that the "ill will" I left amongst "everybody" equated to : the walrus being ejected, the other 2 developers left within 6 months (in disgust at mgt decisions), one of the company's clients was so impressed with the work we were doing they gave them a new $200k project and we contributed to a successful $30M tender from another. A month after one of the full-time developers got a new job he emailed me to ask if I could come and do some contracting for him at his new job.

I'd like to leave that kind of ill-will everywhere I go.

Captcha: wtf. Indeed.

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
>> You should have documented your critique of his project plan, presented it to him before development and got him to sign off that he had read it.
>> Then, you do it his way and point to the document at the post-mortem.

> What kind of puncy world do you live in where people actually sign off on things?

I think you understand that you'd copy yourself on the email to preserve the paper trail. I've done just that within the past six months because not all incompetent managers are escorted out... they're usually promoted.

Judging from the way that you browbeat somebody that was only giving you some constructive criticism, I'd say the only difference between you and the arrogant boss was that in this case you were correct.

So let me give you some advice I hope you'll ignore: you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. Someday -- if it hasn't happened already -- you will be passed over for an assignment or raise in favor of someone that doesn't know as much, but has a nicer personality. Generally speaking people prefer not to work with ~~assholes~~ know-it-alls.

captcha: hacker

Heh. It's ironic that people are not interested in using honey to capture this fly - your inference that I am an asshole is more derogatory / arrogant than anything I did or said to the walrus in the meeting. But I'm sure you can justify your action now by saying this or that, or feeling safe in the camraderie of any other respondent to date. You brave, anonymous guy you. How is this any different to what you are berating me for? How is this not hypocritical? "Oh, but you *are* an asshole", you reply, based on 3 anonymous posts on a board somewhere in cyberspace. So righteous.

Ho boy.

I understand my post was too long to read fully. But he wasn't an arrogant boss or incompetent manager about to be promoted. He was another, newer than me, temporary (ie 6 week only) contractor. Not a full-time employee.

If anything, I am amazed that people cannot read something and if they don't enjoy an attempt at humour, just let it go (however, it does make sense. See Captcha). People come here for relief or humour, to have a laugh, or to vent or rant about something that happened. To be called an asshole? No, I think not. To be told they didn't handle a situation that occurred 12 months ago correctly? Guess again. To receive constructive criticism? Not this black duck. Does the standup comedian want someone to give them constructive criticism on the content of a joke they just told? Geeze fellas, give it a rest!? I brow beat someone in the spirit of this board - Daily WTF!? - I'm on stage here, as a comedian. Now sit the fvck down and let me finish my show.

You pass judgement, based on a few lines of an account of something that occurred over the course of 10 months. As if your omniscience is complete. Without all the pertinent facts. Without actually being there. As if I really care.

You are correct, you do catch more flies with honey. I eat a lb of the stuff a week. I let the spiders catch the flies though. Ew. Icky.

I'm betting a registration here that the defenders of the walrus are **F* vs my INTJ Myer's Briggs personality type.

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Richard Nixon:
Anonymous:
error: as in, you are in error for thinking your opinion matters one whit.

Wow, you sure showed that guy. Way to thoughtfully express your opinion without resorting to petty name calling. Good job! You're just the type of team player that can disagree with others but still keep their cool enough to have a discussion about the disagreement that I've been looking for! Please, contact me so I can offer you great riches.
sincerely,
Richard Nixon

Wow, you sure showed me. Way to express your opinion without resorting to petty sarcasm. Good job! You're just the type of team leader that can handle anonymous postings on a humour-focused internet board and leap to the defence of the defenceless that I have been looking for. Please, contact me so I can work myself to the bone for your increased riches.

Insincerely

The Atomic Kid

BrownHornet · 2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Alex Papadimoulis:
V, a contractor I worked with during my tenure at the bank, was let go shortly after he requested that IT Security open a port on the firewall because he couldn't get Kazaa (or some similar program he downloaded) working. Although we didn't have a V Board, we did have a Sandal Board that tallied the days that V wore sandals to work. I think it was like 13-11 in favor of sandals by the time he left ...

At my last job, we had a guy that ran Kazaa or something similar, and hosted everything he downloaded on our file server for others to download. At one point he was generating so much traffic that our company's ISP called us because they thought we were being hit by a denial of service attack. We investigated and found several gigs of mp3s, movies, porn, etc. We dug a little deeper and found that he had hacked into the company president's email and stored copies on the file server as well.

Nedless to say, he was fired immediately. He was too smart to think he could get away with this, so my theory is that he was trying to get fired. A few months earlier, the compay laid off some people, cut salaries, etc. He asked to be laid off as well, but the company refused, so he simply resigned. The next day, he was literally dragged back into the office by his wife and she made him ask for his job back. I think the incident above was his way of leaving and making sure there was no way his wife could force him to go back!

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

PM at work: "There's no way to automate it. It has to be done manually. Thanks!"

She's talking about transposing 70ish rows of data from a CSV into a Word document. I'm assuming that in business / middle-management school, they don't quite get to that chapter on how to do a mail merge....

- sr

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

chrismcb:
A fellow contractor fell in love with Int64's. Apparently he though there was a possibility in the near future that a screen would be more than 4 billion pixels wide.

Actually you'll get into trouble much earlier than that, as long as there was the possibility of the distance between two points on the screen being larger than 2 billion pixels.

;-)

Actually I've seen bugs in things like CAD-style canvas drawing libraries because they can't cope with scaling factors that might look at a very small piece of a very large structure at very high magnification, so that e.g. individual line segments get off-screen coordinates that overflow int32 and draw in the wrong direction. The problem goes away if you're storing and calculating all your points as doubles or int64's.

2006-11-10 Reply Admin

Anonymous:

This is the post I was referring to when I said I thought the AX/BX/CX thing is an assembly joke because they are registry names.
What's the deal with all the "captcha" lines at the end of posts? WTF?

Yes, they're register names in x86. And the grader had no clue. But he still shouldn't be coding a business app like that in assembly. I stand by my grade of F. :)

And yes about the captcha comments. WTF.

emurphy · 2006-11-10 Reply Admin

darin:
I had been a TA for a compilers class in which the project had to be written in C, and was done in teams of 3 people. The class was 10 weeks long, and in the middle of the 8th week one team came in and asked that they be given extra time to work on the project (as if had the authority to wave my hand and extend the length of the class). I asked them what was going wrong, and they claimed they were still learning C. I expressed surprise and said that the prerequisite of the class used C++. Their answer was "yeah, we know C++ already, it's just that we need more time to learn C."
(I seriously wonder where some of these students are today)

I could actually see a reasonably intelligent team knowing C++ but still having trouble with C, except that (1) they wouldn't wait till the 8th week and (2) they would explain their trouble in some non-retarded fashion, e.g. "we know how to do it using one or more features specific to C++ but we're having trouble figuring out how to do it without them".

2006-11-11 Reply Admin

A few years ago I worked for a small PC sales and service store as a bench tech for walk-in customers. One day a lady brought in a Apple Macintosh that would not power on. We don't normally service MACs but it was a slow day and I had an idea that it was the famous clock battery (it was). The machine was in a MAC bag with all of her software cables etc.

While connecting the keyboard mouse etc I came across in the bag a service invoice from another computer store in town. A quick summary from memory that the previous tech had written:

1 Hour of labor cleaned computer, cleared pattern buffer, replaced crystals.

WTF!?

2006-11-11 Reply Admin

there are some nuts answering in a BEA products newsgroups..i suppose..

my colleagues question in the forum : I am getting connection timeout in every few intervals of time. Whenever I unlock my computer the connection gets lost and my application doesn't produce the output. (marked as question)

answer to the question in the forum: mine doesn't

2006-11-11 Reply Admin

Good thing the editor wiped out context. That was in as regards the knuth character conversion hardest problems in computer science gag.

Michali · 2006-11-12 Reply Admin

My previous boss told me something that quite amazed me. This was maybe 4 years ago. He said that he knew about a new thing, called object oriented programming, that it was popular for a while and that it's outdated now. Less and less people are using it now and it's dying out, that's what he said. I didn't really respond to it, because i knew this was absolute nonsense, but i really had a WTF moment there. I think he said it because they are still developing in a 20 year old framework which is no longer supported (not sure what it is).

2006-11-13 Reply Admin

Yes but sometimes computers just screw up and often if there are networked printers involved. I've seen it on my network either in UNIX or Windows. Reboot the flippin thing and see if that clears it up. If it does that empowers the user to try a reboot every now and then. If not, then it's time to look under the hood.

My 2cents

Richard Nixon · 2006-11-13 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Richard Nixon:
Anonymous:
error: as in, you are in error for thinking your opinion matters one whit.

Wow, you sure showed that guy. Way to thoughtfully express your opinion without resorting to petty name calling. Good job! You're just the type of team player that can disagree with others but still keep their cool enough to have a discussion about the disagreement that I've been looking for! Please, contact me so I can offer you great riches.
sincerely,
Richard Nixon
Wow, you sure showed me. Way to express your opinion without resorting to petty sarcasm. Good job! You're just the type of team leader that can handle anonymous postings on a humour-focused internet board and leap to the defence of the defenceless that I have been looking for. Please, contact me so I can work myself to the bone for your increased riches.
Insincerely
The Atomic Kid

I believe anonymous posting should have been disabled a long time ago on this forum.

sincerely,
Richard Nixon

2006-11-13 Reply Admin

Really, a contractor revealed a picture of his butt on a laptop. That's nothing, my ex boss, on several occasions has gone out to the balcony and mooned the entire office during meetings. Just recently though I believe he lost his job, along with 90% of the rest of the office. So I guess it goes to show.

2006-11-14 Reply Admin

I agree.

wrong.

about the only devices I can think of that do write-after-reads (because

of destructive reads or data degradation) are cmos memory cells and

core memory. (If you don't remember core memory, you ARE a noob)

the bad part about these forums is that after you've gone and posted something

embarrassing (like putting too many fff's in your name :) -there is simply no way

to revoke it and you are doomed for all time to look silly.

RyuO · 2006-11-14 Reply Admin

triso:
Anonymous:

Context: a very very smart but pretty unstable developer has been increasingly absent and scattered. Finally comes in but is constantly going out in the hall to take cell calls. We figure he's interviewing. I come out of the bathroom to hear:

No! Look! I am NOT going to jail over this again

<font size="+1">I</font>t would be interesting to read his resume to see how he has disguised his time in the big house.

Oh, that's easy.

Counselor, US Government, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

Assisted adults with anger management problems and sexual disorders, etc.
Worked closely with management in identifying problem employees and decreasing turnover. As a result, promoted to working alone on special projects.
Reason for leaving: desired better working conditions and looser dress code.

...and not much of a stretch from the average technical resume.

2006-11-14 Reply Admin

DWalker59:
Anonymous:

No, here in the UK we use . for a decimal point and , for as a thousands separator. We are part of Europe too you know. An island to the west, before you get to all that wet stuff.

"Before" you get to all that wet stuff? If you're an island, aren't you SURROUNDED by wet stuff? You have to "get to" the wet stuff before you get to your island, regardless of what direction you're coming from. Or going. I think.

The Channel is just a bit of damp, really. Not what you'd call wet. Now the Atlantic...that's an ocean...that gets to be called wet.

;-)

2006-11-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
DWalker59:
Anonymous:

"Files on a server will deteriorate over time and need to be refreshed" -- director of computing and networking at a relatively popular travel booking agency."
I can't comment on the rest of it, but this is true. The magnetic domains on a hard-drive are re-written when they are read. Just one of the reasons regular back-ups mean you won't need the back-ups.
Wrong: PC disk drives don't generally re-write the magnetic domains on the hard drive when they read them. They only re-write them when they write them.
What references do you have for your statement?
I think what the original was trying to get across is that by reading the data on the drive, it reinforces the magnetic integrity.

Reading data doesn't do anything for the magnetic integrity, it just reduces the drive's remaining service lifetime.

Some drives do ECC testing on the data, and will recover and remap sectors with unacceptably high bit error rates. Most drives will actually not remap the sector, but mark it as "pending" and remap it later only if it continues to be bad after new data is written in the sector, because there are few spare sectors and you don't want to go filling them up--permanently--because of a transient read failure. Hopefully your drive will make a temporary copy of the "pending" sector in the spare sector area, or you'll lose your data. This feature set is usually accompanied by a command set which tells the drive to read its entire surface during idle time to find these sectors, and another which forces the remapping to occur immediately (this is what the various "data recovery" utilities from the hard disk vendors do).

Cheap hard disks have atrocious firmware problems, so it's most likely that your drive will just lock up or corrupt data without telling you, instead of all this warm and fuzzy data recovery stuff.

2006-11-14 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
tmountjr:
A few weeks ago I had a user call in about a program that was printing documents in reverse order. For whatever reason I couldn't remotely connect to her computer, so I asked her to reboot, figuring this would fix both problems at once.

Her: If I reboot, then you might not be able to see the problem.
Me: If you try printing and it works right, then I won't need to see the problem.
Her: But how will you fix it if it happens again?
Me: That's why we're rebooting.
Her: But I don't want to reboot. It might solve the problem and you won't be able to see it!
Me (getting a little frustrated): Just reboot the computer.

First time I've had a customer who was more concerned about me seeing a problem than fixing it.

Yes, damn her for expecting you to actually look at and, perhaps, attempt to fix the problem. How dare these users expect their tech support people to do more than say "scandisk-defrag-reboot"...
Expecting you to make some attempt to fix it is perfectly reasonable. If you're any good at your job you should have at least attempted some basic testing or checking with her over the phone. For extra brownie points you could have tried to fix the remote access problem, perhaps by restarting a service (nice and easy with a remotely scheduled batch file with net start/stop), then trying again.
And you wonder why people have such a low opinion of IT departments? It's because the first "tech" staff they come across have an attitude like that.
</pet hate>

That can go both ways. Sometimes rebooting is

I once encountered a user who had bad RAM--really, spectacularly, obviously bad RAM. Apart from having to hit ESC and F-keys to get past the BIOS error message on every boot (and that was with memory testing turned off!), only one in three boot attempts successfully completing, string messages in programs (everything from window titles to dialog box buttons) were getting letters corrupted, normally reliable programs and servers were dying in a shower of segfaults, even filenames were getting misspelled...

Me: Your computer has bad RAM. Nothing on your computer will work until the RAM is replaced. Have [a CSR] replace it immediately, then we can see about recovering what's left of your data. Hopefully you have brought this problem to my attention as soon as it was discovered, so that the amount of data corruption is minimized.

Him: "OK, that explains the printing problem, now what about my email..."

Me: Your computer has bad RAM. Nothing on your computer will work until the RAM is replaced. Replace the RAM before you do anything else, so that it doesn't damage your data any more.

Him: "OK, that explains the email problem, now what about my internet access..."

Me: Your computer has bad RAM. Nothing on your computer will work until the RAM is replaced. Turn off the machine before all your data is irretrievably lost!

Him: "OK, that explains the internet problem, now what about..."

Me: "Your. Computer. Has..."

Him: "Could it be that all of these things are not working because of the RAM problem?"

Me: "Your computer has...uhhh...what? Oh...yes...yes all these things will not work because of the bad RAM."

Him: "And it won't work until I have the RAM replaced. It's as simple as that?"

Me: "Yes, it's as simple as that. They have lots of sticks on a shelf somewhere, it'll take them 10 minutes tops."

Him: "Well, shouldn't I turn the machine off or something? I mean if there's defective parts running inside the machine, maybe it will damage my data?"

Me: <thunking sound as head bounces off desk>

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