The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Nagesh · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

Dirk:
Welcome to the every other daily WTF

You try running website and get back to us.

kthxbai, Alex in Disguise.

KattMan · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
KattMan:
Matt Westwood:
JiP:
... they just couldn't believe this one guy (who apparently always put something into a wall socket prior to having his photo taken) ...

What's that all about? Please explain.

Or is it a reference to the frizziness of the hair of Einstein who first worked out most of this stuff?

wow do you actually think, or are you upper management and have a secretary for that? :)

No, I genuinely want to know why someone would want to put something in a wall socket prior to having his photo taken. In short, I don't get the fucking joke, you shitfucker.

And seriously, you did get the joke because you explained it on the very next line. Obviously your sarcasm detector is also broken (note the smiley?). I figured you were joking about not getting it so I made a joke at your expense. Get over yourself.

KattMan · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

Coyne:
(Some programmers can't get leap year right, even after we just went through Y2K; and leap year happens every 4 years. And this was at Microsoft!)

Seems like you are one of them that can't get it right. Leap year is NOT every four years. We skip one every 100 years, but every 400 years we don't skip it.

Essentially, the year 2000 was a leap year for the following reason. Divisible by 4, yes it is a leap year. Divisible by 100, oops no it isn't a leap year. Divisible by 400, oh wait a minute, yes it is.

For that same reason the year 2100 will not be a leap year.

PedanticCurmudgeon · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

L.:
And yet, people seem to think AM/PM is not retarded... Two girls one stick of butter really ;)

I'd prefer two girls one slab of bacon.

frits · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

PedanticCurmudgeon:
L.:
And yet, people seem to think AM/PM is not retarded... Two girls one stick of butter really ;)
I'd prefer two girls one slab of bacon.

I'd prefer two girls one turkey neck.

nerd4sale · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

no laughing matter:
Stev:
TRWTF is that people don't get the 24hour clock. And no, it's not "Military time", the military just happens to use it.

It is retarded military time when you call 14:00 "fourteenhundred", as if an hour has 100 minutes now!

I have actually worked at a place where the hours did have 100 "minutes". They even had special clocks for that. The company was military-related though.

frits · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

L.:
No ? UK+ USA = 5% of the world - i .e. nobody.
And please don't count the UK as a part of Europe, they're merely geographically close to us that's all.

Sounds like someone's boo boo hurts because American culture is ubiquitous, whilst your stuffed-cabbage-eating country's culture means nothing to nobody, not even its own citizens.

Coyne · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

QJo:
Coyne:
... And it would probably result in a different interval on the Sun or Jupiter (due to the higher gravity changing the speed of light) ...

I suspect this is a case of a certain person completely misunderstanding the Special Theory of Relativity.

Nearly as bad as someone I recently saw declaiming that because of time dilation, developing a star drive based on the concept of travelling at speeds just-sub-light is a pointless waste of time because "you would age thousands of years on the spaceship for every minute in the outside universe."

With such misunderstanding of basic physics as this in the general population, it's more profitable to argue against creationism.

Not really; I'm talking comparatives here. Essentially, if we had 4 functionally identical clocks based on this "10,000,000,000 standard", and one was on Earth, one orbiting the Sun inside Mercury, one orbiting Jupiter, and one just in orbit around Earth: Then all the clocks would keep time at different rates and translating from one to another would ... hell.

Relativity truly is relative.

Coyne · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

KattMan:
Coyne:
(Some programmers can't get leap year right, even after we just went through Y2K; and leap year happens every 4 years. And this was at Microsoft!)

Seems like you are one of them that can't get it right. Leap year is NOT every four years. We skip one every 100 years, but every 400 years we don't skip it.

Essentially, the year 2000 was a leap year for the following reason. Divisible by 4, yes it is a leap year. Divisible by 100, oops no it isn't a leap year. Divisible by 400, oh wait a minute, yes it is.

For that same reason the year 2100 will not be a leap year.

Yes, and you and I both understand that. This algorithm was set in 1582, more than 400 years ago, and everyone should be able to understand it, no problem. Trivial to get right.

So how come some idiot built a software program in 2009-2011 frame that can't handle the /4 leap year part in 2012? (WTF?) Well, the idiot probably tried, but didn't bother to test it because, well, 2012 was 1 or 2 or 3 whole years away.

So if we come up with a leap minute that will only happen every 30 years or so: Just how likely is it that all the programs will work right when the leap minute comes around?

Answer: Just about nil.

2012-03-23 Reply Admin

KattMan:
For that same reason the year 2100 will not be a leap year.

Nope...

Nope, I just don't see it.

There is definitely no situation where I give a shit about the year 2100 being a leap year.

KattMan · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

TheJonB:
KattMan:
For that same reason the year 2100 will not be a leap year.

Nope...

Nope, I just don't see it.

There is definitely no situation where I give a shit about the year 2100 being a leap year.

Just do what I did and die and get it over with. You only die once in a lifetime and I was decalred dead almost 20 years ago, so with that out of the way, I plan on seeing the year 2100.

2012-03-23 Reply Admin

Coyne:
That's why it is silly that they were just discussing doing away with leap seconds. If we go to a strict second count, then pretty soon (cosmic scale) everyone will be complaining because noon really isn't noon anymore, since the Sun will be rising along about 12:00:00. Or else you'll have to look at some stupid table computed by someone to find out that "high noon" is actually at 18:22:31 local time.
So someone might suggest we use two time scales based on second count and a second time based on Earth's rotation, and...we'll be back to tracking leap seconds again. Or maybe we'll go to leap hours or leap days...and guess how that will screw up the program conversions (given that no one will test the programs for something that won't happen until ... "the end of the century").

From 1972 to 2011, the UTC folks added 24 leap-seconds. That's an average of just over 1/2 second per year. So in 100 years we might add one minute. How many people would really notice that high noon now comes at 11:59 instead of 12:00? Which is more of a pain to deal with, "clock noon" being 1 minute different from "astronomical noon"? Or having to deal with time calculations that involve factoring in extra seconds that occur at (for all practical purposes) no predictable schedule?

2012-03-23 Reply Admin

frits:
PedanticCurmudgeon:
L.:
And yet, people seem to think AM/PM is not retarded... Two girls one stick of butter really ;)
I'd prefer two girls one slab of bacon.
I'd prefer two girls one turkey neck.

I'd prefer it the other way around: two gobblers, one chick. And the chick is my wife.

Now taking applications!

2012-03-23 Reply Admin

Larry:
foo:
Let's see, Indians invented the number 0 around the 9th century, and Americans still act as if it wasn't known. But keep on making your Nagesh jokes if that helps you feel superior ...
That's because we're waiting for an American to invent a zero, at which point it will be a superior zero, one that is worthy of our notice.

Why don't they just claim Thomas Edison invented it, like everything else.

frits · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

Canuk:
Larry:
foo:
Let's see, Indians invented the number 0 around the 9th century, and Americans still act as if it wasn't known. But keep on making your Nagesh jokes if that helps you feel superior ...
That's because we're waiting for an American to invent a zero, at which point it will be a superior zero, one that is worthy of our notice.

Why don't they just claim Thomas Edison invented it, like everything else.

Who cares who invented it? Once something is invented, other people can figure it out and use it. You can't unring a bell (until Thomas Edison invents a bell unringer, that is).

KattMan · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

frits:
Canuk:
Larry:
foo:
Let's see, Indians invented the number 0 around the 9th century, and Americans still act as if it wasn't known. But keep on making your Nagesh jokes if that helps you feel superior ...
That's because we're waiting for an American to invent a zero, at which point it will be a superior zero, one that is worthy of our notice.

Why don't they just claim Thomas Edison invented it, like everything else.
Who cares who invented it? Once something is invented, other people can figure it out and use it. You can't unring a bell (until Thomas Edison invents a bell unringer, that is).

I already know how to unring a bell. First step is to stop it from ringing by placing your hand on it. Now to unring it, find everyone that heard it ring and convince them it did not, or shoot them. (Displays my Colt45 bell unringer)

Coyne · 2012-03-23 Reply Admin

Jay:
Coyne:
That's why it is silly that they were just discussing doing away with leap seconds. If we go to a strict second count, then pretty soon (cosmic scale) everyone will be complaining because noon really isn't noon anymore, since the Sun will be rising along about 12:00:00. Or else you'll have to look at some stupid table computed by someone to find out that "high noon" is actually at 18:22:31 local time.
So someone might suggest we use two time scales based on second count and a second time based on Earth's rotation, and...we'll be back to tracking leap seconds again. Or maybe we'll go to leap hours or leap days...and guess how that will screw up the program conversions (given that no one will test the programs for something that won't happen until ... "the end of the century").

From 1972 to 2011, the UTC folks added 24 leap-seconds. That's an average of just over 1/2 second per year. So in 100 years we might add one minute. How many people would really notice that high noon now comes at 11:59 instead of 12:00? Which is more of a pain to deal with, "clock noon" being 1 minute different from "astronomical noon"? Or having to deal with time calculations that involve factoring in extra seconds that occur at (for all practical purposes) no predictable schedule?

I exaggerated to make a point about the way we want time to correspond to things like the motion of our rock.

But the leap second thing has come up because, pretty soon, they're going to have to start using, occasionally, 2 leap seconds a year. Our rock continues to slow down.

Watson · 2012-03-24 Reply Admin

nerd4sale:
no laughing matter:
Stev:
TRWTF is that people don't get the 24hour clock. And no, it's not "Military time", the military just happens to use it.

It is retarded military time when you call 14:00 "fourteenhundred", as if an hour has 100 minutes now!
I have actually worked at a place where the hours did have 100 "minutes". They even had special clocks for that. The company was military-related though.

For the benefit of the Mars Exploration Rover mission there are wristwatches which take an extra 100 seconds to count off each hour. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/spirit/a3_20040108.html

2012-03-24 Reply Admin

Gosh gosh the tone of this almost sounds like an American didn't invent/discover: -Electricty -Light Bulb -Telephone -Engines -Internet -PCs -Binary (Although Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz discovered this, we'll consider him an Honorary American for all intents and purposes) -A billion other useful stuff

Sorry mates, the Yanks do have you guys licked pretty hard; esp. for a 236 year old country.

2012-03-26 Reply Admin

Curry:
Or C#, when declaring lambda functions.
var rslt = intArray.Select(num => num < limit);

Not sure why you would want to pre-calculate an array of booleans from such a simple function on an array of integers (although it's not inconceivable).

A more likely line of code would seem to be:

var rslt = intArray.Where(num => num < limit);

2012-03-26 Reply Admin

Ali Baba:
Gosh gosh the tone of this almost sounds like an American didn't invent/discover: -Electricty -Light Bulb -Telephone -Engines -Internet -PCs -Binary (Although Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz discovered this, we'll consider him an Honorary American for all intents and purposes) -A billion other useful stuff
Sorry mates, the Yanks do have you guys licked pretty hard; esp. for a 236 year old country.

Mhhh let me guess, Edison ? or was it H. Simpson ?

2012-04-03 Reply Admin

lolwtf:
Spoe:
Looks like PHP. I guess "date('g:i a', $seconds_since_epoch);" was too complicated?
Doesn't handle Wyoming, duh.

When is easy. WY? Now there's a tough one.

Wyoming O'Clock

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