The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

The poop of DOOM · 2011-11-21 Reply Admin

OldPeter:
The "11 August" thingie is just a means to shock Americans in their illogical way to write dates. This seems to be a UK company, so the due day translates to 4 August 2011, which is just one week before this notice. So it's within an appropriate time window. - And the captcha bit is also probably just a localization issue, where the reader has not installed a font capable of displaying some European characters. Localization!

People read that differently than: "4 august"? Now that's TRWTF

The poop of DOOM · 2011-11-21 Reply Admin

boog:
Ken B.:
Well, assuming that "550 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10022" is the correct address, I have no problem seeing how it got to the right building.
But, I'm curious about the name of the person to whom it was delivered.

Perhaps the guy in the mail room is good at solving cryptoquotes?
I figured the same address. Maybe sloppy handwriting and OCR gone wrong? (IJ sans-serif looks kind of like it might have been an N, if the N was written real swoopy-like)

In that case, the name looks like Alexander Agranov.

The \arcel "elect $.".\ostage part seems like a query that got printed instead of its output. So,

a query became output
Sloppy handwriting
OCR gone wrong This leads me to conclude that a wooden table must've been involved as well and hasn't been mentioned.

2011-11-21 Reply Admin

Pim:
The real WTF is Nagesh learning how to post images. What's next? Marquees? Blinks? Bgsounds?

No, real wtf is you not being to know how to rede.

PiisAWheeL · 2011-11-21 Reply Admin

Mmmpf:
Anonymous Coward:
Gunslinger:
Or about how stupid it is to have months with different number of days in them. February is the only rational month.
Every month should have the same number of days in it. Even better, each month should have the same number of days as each year has months. The calendar needs to be remade with 19.111253229445734074962408660532 months all containing 19.111253229445734074962408660532 days. Most rational plan yet.

It's not rational in the first place to base the calendar on the rotation of the planet on itself and around the sun, for several reasons.

First point, it is earth-centric. When humanity starts living on other planets, all the moon, sun and earth cycles will lose their universal meaning.

Second point, even on earth, the year calendar is too agriculture-centric. The first sedentarized populations based their calendar on the seasons because they were mainly working on agriculture and livestock breeding. This is not mandatory. For instance, nomadic civilizations like the Tuareg based their calendar on the rotation of the moon because travelling speed is highly influenced by the quantity of light you receive at night. But in modern societies where less than 5% of the population makes a living with agriculture, it does not matter that much. For what it's worth, we could base our calendar on economical cycles or the length of political mandates, which have the same, if not more, influence on our lives than the seasons. Or, more rationally, we could decide that a year is 1000 days and divide it in 10 or 100 equal parts (supposing we stick to the base-10 numeral system, which is an whole other flamewar subject).

As for the day, it is obvious that the day/night cycle has still a huge influence on human life, so I'll give you that concession to nature, it is still rational to use it to measure time (until we start colonizing other planets). But the subdivisions of the day can be changed, because the second is just an arbitrary unit. We could decide to change the length of a second so a day is now 1000 or 10000 seconds.

Ultimately, we should decide units based on really universal things. Decide a universal radix (take 16 for instance), then go for:

distance unit: a n-th power of the radix multiple of the diameter of the hydrogen nucleus (the proton).

time and frequency units: a n-th power of the radix multiple of the parameters of the oscillation of the electron around the hydrogen nucleus. And so on...

I disagree with you. Basing a calendar on the rotation of the earth and as it applies to the sun is extremely rational, at least until the whole space colony thing. In the future when we have colonies elsewhere it may make sense, but changing the number of days in a year doesnt work well for our sedentary culture, because I don't wanna have to effing remember which winter it was last.

The weather cycles affect you more than you think... It gets hot it gets cold it gets hot it gets cold, snow falls snow melts... Also, you can only get certain foods at certain times of the year either because of supply (crop only grows well at a certain time) or demand (how often do you buy egg nog?). Not to mention we all need to recalculate our ages... 1000 days between birthdays is probably better on the wallet for mom and dad, but that means 1/3 the amount of toys and birthday celebrations...

The current calendar isn't necessarily universal... but its universal enough because everybody uses it, and as long as i'm on this ball of dirt, the current way seems to make the most sense.

oh yeah, and think of what you would do to the religious world (speaking of the impractical) if you were to make those kinds of changes to the calendar.

QJo · 2011-11-21 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
Mmmpf:
Anonymous Coward:
Gunslinger:
Or about how stupid it is to have months with different number of days in them. February is the only rational month.
Every month should have the same number of days in it. Even better, each month should have the same number of days as each year has months. The calendar needs to be remade with 19.111253229445734074962408660532 months all containing 19.111253229445734074962408660532 days. Most rational plan yet.

It's not rational in the first place to base the calendar on the rotation of the planet on itself and around the sun, for several reasons.

First point, it is earth-centric. When humanity starts living on other planets, all the moon, sun and earth cycles will lose their universal meaning.

Second point, even on earth, the year calendar is too agriculture-centric. The first sedentarized populations based their calendar on the seasons because they were mainly working on agriculture and livestock breeding. This is not mandatory. For instance, nomadic civilizations like the Tuareg based their calendar on the rotation of the moon because travelling speed is highly influenced by the quantity of light you receive at night. But in modern societies where less than 5% of the population makes a living with agriculture, it does not matter that much. For what it's worth, we could base our calendar on economical cycles or the length of political mandates, which have the same, if not more, influence on our lives than the seasons. Or, more rationally, we could decide that a year is 1000 days and divide it in 10 or 100 equal parts (supposing we stick to the base-10 numeral system, which is an whole other flamewar subject).

As for the day, it is obvious that the day/night cycle has still a huge influence on human life, so I'll give you that concession to nature, it is still rational to use it to measure time (until we start colonizing other planets). But the subdivisions of the day can be changed, because the second is just an arbitrary unit. We could decide to change the length of a second so a day is now 1000 or 10000 seconds.

Ultimately, we should decide units based on really universal things. Decide a universal radix (take 16 for instance), then go for:

distance unit: a n-th power of the radix multiple of the diameter of the hydrogen nucleus (the proton).

time and frequency units: a n-th power of the radix multiple of the parameters of the oscillation of the electron around the hydrogen nucleus. And so on...

I disagree with you. Basing a calendar on the rotation of the earth and as it applies to the sun is extremely rational, at least until the whole space colony thing. In the future when we have colonies elsewhere it may make sense, but changing the number of days in a year doesnt work well for our sedentary culture, because I don't wanna have to effing remember which winter it was last.

The weather cycles affect you more than you think... It gets hot it gets cold it gets hot it gets cold, snow falls snow melts... Also, you can only get certain foods at certain times of the year either because of supply (crop only grows well at a certain time) or demand (how often do you buy egg nog?). Not to mention we all need to recalculate our ages... 1000 days between birthdays is probably better on the wallet for mom and dad, but that means 1/3 the amount of toys and birthday celebrations...

The current calendar isn't necessarily universal... but its universal enough because everybody uses it, and as long as i'm on this ball of dirt, the current way seems to make the most sense.

oh yeah, and think of what you would do to the religious world (speaking of the impractical) if you were to make those kinds of changes to the calendar.

You are displaying a disturbing temperate-centric view on the world. Where you live, yes, perhaps the seasonal changes are important to you. Significant areas of the world have no effective seasonal climatic changes. So why should you impose your provincial little concerns upon those who care little for them?

2011-11-21 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
Mmmpf:
Anonymous Coward:
Gunslinger:
Or about how stupid it is to have months with different number of days in them. February is the only rational month.
Every month should have the same number of days in it. Even better, each month should have the same number of days as each year has months. The calendar needs to be remade with 19.111253229445734074962408660532 months all containing 19.111253229445734074962408660532 days. Most rational plan yet.

It's not rational in the first place to base the calendar on the rotation of the planet on itself and around the sun, for several reasons.

First point, it is earth-centric. When humanity starts living on other planets, all the moon, sun and earth cycles will lose their universal meaning.

Second point, even on earth, the year calendar is too agriculture-centric. The first sedentarized populations based their calendar on the seasons because they were mainly working on agriculture and livestock breeding. This is not mandatory. For instance, nomadic civilizations like the Tuareg based their calendar on the rotation of the moon because travelling speed is highly influenced by the quantity of light you receive at night. But in modern societies where less than 5% of the population makes a living with agriculture, it does not matter that much. For what it's worth, we could base our calendar on economical cycles or the length of political mandates, which have the same, if not more, influence on our lives than the seasons. Or, more rationally, we could decide that a year is 1000 days and divide it in 10 or 100 equal parts (supposing we stick to the base-10 numeral system, which is an whole other flamewar subject).

As for the day, it is obvious that the day/night cycle has still a huge influence on human life, so I'll give you that concession to nature, it is still rational to use it to measure time (until we start colonizing other planets). But the subdivisions of the day can be changed, because the second is just an arbitrary unit. We could decide to change the length of a second so a day is now 1000 or 10000 seconds.

Ultimately, we should decide units based on really universal things. Decide a universal radix (take 16 for instance), then go for:

distance unit: a n-th power of the radix multiple of the diameter of the hydrogen nucleus (the proton).

time and frequency units: a n-th power of the radix multiple of the parameters of the oscillation of the electron around the hydrogen nucleus. And so on...

I disagree with you. Basing a calendar on the rotation of the earth and as it applies to the sun is extremely rational, at least until the whole space colony thing. In the future when we have colonies elsewhere it may make sense, but changing the number of days in a year doesnt work well for our sedentary culture, because I don't wanna have to effing remember which winter it was last.

The weather cycles affect you more than you think... It gets hot it gets cold it gets hot it gets cold, snow falls snow melts...

I am saying the seasons are just a small part of our use of the time measurement, when it used to be absolutely everything ("the winter is coming, we need to have grain reserves or we're going to die" - so, really important). Now it's just relatively important.

When you are discussing the matter of creating a measuring units, what you need is something that is absolutely universal. And the rotation of the planet around the sun has lost its importante on this matter.

Also, you can only get certain foods at certain times of the year either because of supply (crop only grows well at a certain time) or demand (how often do you buy egg nog?).

Few people still care about when it's the season of the fruits or vegetables. I go to the market, check the tomatoes, if they seem good and cheap, I buy. That's really all I need to know, the rest is logistics.

Not to mention we all need to recalculate our ages... 1000 days between birthdays is probably better on the wallet for mom and dad, but that means 1/3 the amount of toys and birthday celebrations...

I guess you'd receive thrice as more gifts when it's your b-day!

The current calendar isn't necessarily universal... but its universal enough because everybody uses it, and as long as i'm on this ball of dirt, the current way seems to make the most sense.

As a developer, I need to disagree. Dates as they exists now are a true pain in the arse (next time I'll argue on how every address in the world should be expressed by its sole geographical coordinates).

oh yeah, and think of what you would do to the religious world (speaking of the impractical) if you were to make those kinds of changes to the calendar.

I'm not sure their opinion counts, but you gave yourself a counter-argument: Islam uses a monthly calendar, and Jewish, Chinese and Japanese calendars, thus year based, each start at a different time of the year. So that's kind of an argument for a neutral normalization.

2011-11-21 Reply Admin

Mmmpf:
I'm not sure their opinion counts, but you gave yourself a counter-argument: Islam uses a monthly calendar, and Jewish, Chinese and Japanese calendars, thus year based, each start at a different time of the year. So that's kind of an argument for a neutral normalization.

Erratum: read "Islam uses an moon-based calendar".

PiisAWheeL · 2011-11-21 Reply Admin

Mmmpf:

Not to mention we all need to recalculate our ages... 1000 days between birthdays is probably better on the wallet for mom and dad, but that means 1/3 the amount of toys and birthday celebrations...

I guess you'd receive thrice as more gifts when it's your b-day!

Not my family... they are cheap.

So now I'm curious... how is using the rotation of the earth to the sun and the rotation of the earth around the sun, which are universal constants, to calculate days and years, not rational? I mean ignoring everything else (crop cycles, moon cycles, tide cycles... any other cycles... notice a pattern), at least knowing what time it is based on the location of the earth around the sun still seems logical and rational to me.

QJo · 2011-11-21 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
Mmmpf:

Not to mention we all need to recalculate our ages... 1000 days between birthdays is probably better on the wallet for mom and dad, but that means 1/3 the amount of toys and birthday celebrations...

I guess you'd receive thrice as more gifts when it's your b-day!

Not my family... they are cheap.

So now I'm curious... how is using the rotation of the earth to the sun and the rotation of the earth around the sun, which are universal constants, to calculate days and years, not rational? I mean ignoring everything else (crop cycles, moon cycles, tide cycles... any other cycles... notice a pattern), at least knowing what time it is based on the location of the earth around the sun still seems logical and rational to me.

But they're not universal constants. Their value is changing all the time.

2011-11-21 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
Mmmpf:

Not to mention we all need to recalculate our ages... 1000 days between birthdays is probably better on the wallet for mom and dad, but that means 1/3 the amount of toys and birthday celebrations...

I guess you'd receive thrice as more gifts when it's your b-day!

Not my family... they are cheap.

So now I'm curious... how is using the rotation of the earth to the sun and the rotation of the earth around the sun, which are universal constants, to calculate days and years, not rational? I mean ignoring everything else (crop cycles, moon cycles, tide cycles... any other cycles... notice a pattern), at least knowing what time it is based on the location of the earth around the sun still seems logical and rational to me.

To use it as a measure unit is an approximation. Talk about a universal constant, even we make it change its value every 4 occurences. Plus, astronomically, every year is different in duration. So, in the end, we are using a unit which is not constant to define time measurement. It feels comfortable but it's the kind of details that scientifically you have to care about one day or another, because evil lies within!

2011-11-21 Reply Admin

*devil

PiisAWheeL · 2011-11-21 Reply Admin

QJo:

But they're not universal constants. Their value is changing all the time.

How do you figure? The whole point in a leap year is to take all those extra minutes that add up over 4 years and give us an extra day to make up for the fact that there should be an extra day over the course of 4 years. So if we have it figured out that it takes 365.25 days to get the earth around the sun, then we can calculate where the earth should be on any given day, and calculate the day based on the location of the earth to the sun. The math is all there. Its been that way for eons. Thats long enough to make it a constant in my book... or at least long enough to be a javascript constant...

2011-11-21 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
QJo:

But they're not universal constants. Their value is changing all the time.

How do you figure? The whole point in a leap year is to take all those extra minutes that add up over 4 years and give us an extra day to make up for the fact that there should be an extra day over the course of 4 years. So if we have it figured out that it takes 365.25 days to get the earth around the sun, then we can calculate where the earth should be on any given day, and calculate the day based on the location of the earth to the sun. The math is all there. Its been that way for eons. Thats long enough to make it a constant in my book... or at least long enough to be a javascript constant...

I don't need that knowledge! I don't need to know that there's a leap year every 4 years except every 100 years unless it's au multiple of 400, and even then you still need to correct it sometimes because there's no rational (in the mathematical and usual meaning of the word) relation between the time earth rotates on itself and the time it rotates around its star. I just want to make base-10 time calculations, how's that so compicated?! This is a just a bloody useless historical weight.

I don't want to have to know which month has 31 days and have to explain it to kids, and show on their hands how they can do to master irrational logics. If someone is interested in the revolutions of earth, let that person look it up and read books about it. With the system we have now, everybody needs to understand some flawed system related to astrophysics when they want to know which day of the week is the 1st of January 2013.

smxlong · 2011-11-21 Reply Admin

QJo:
You are displaying a disturbing temperate-centric view on the world. Where you live, yes, perhaps the seasonal changes are important to you. Significant areas of the world have no effective seasonal climatic changes. So why should you impose your provincial little concerns upon those who care little for them?

Why would people who don't have such concerns be unwilling to concede some conveniences to those who do? Because they're dicks?

Silverhill · 2011-11-21 Reply Admin

Mmmpf:
With the system we have now, everybody needs to understand some flawed system related to astrophysics when they want to know which day of the week is the 1st of January 2013.

Or, much more importantly, which day is 19 January 2038. All good coders should be in their bunkers by then, with emergency supplies including cases of Hollerith cards....

2011-11-21 Reply Admin

Ken B.:
Well, assuming that "550 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10022" is the correct address, I have no problem seeing how it got to the right building.
But, I'm curious about the name of the person to whom it was delivered.

Perhaps the guy in the mail room is good at solving cryptoquotes?

There can't be that many jew orks in the building.

QJo · 2011-11-22 Reply Admin

Mmmpf:
PiisAWheeL:
QJo:

But they're not universal constants. Their value is changing all the time.

How do you figure? The whole point in a leap year is to take all those extra minutes that add up over 4 years and give us an extra day to make up for the fact that there should be an extra day over the course of 4 years. So if we have it figured out that it takes 365.25 days to get the earth around the sun, then we can calculate where the earth should be on any given day, and calculate the day based on the location of the earth to the sun. The math is all there. Its been that way for eons. Thats long enough to make it a constant in my book... or at least long enough to be a javascript constant...

I don't need that knowledge! I don't need to know that there's a leap year every 4 years except every 100 years unless it's au multiple of 400, and even then you still need to correct it sometimes because there's no rational (in the mathematical and usual meaning of the word) relation between the time earth rotates on itself and the time it rotates around its star. I just want to make base-10 time calculations, how's that so compicated?! This is a just a bloody useless historical weight.

I don't want to have to know which month has 31 days and have to explain it to kids, and show on their hands how they can do to master irrational logics. If someone is interested in the revolutions of earth, let that person look it up and read books about it. With the system we have now, everybody needs to understand some flawed system related to astrophysics when they want to know which day of the week is the 1st of January 2013.

One advantage to the complexity of the current system is precisely because of the fact that you have to explain it to kids. Children are much more likely to be able to pick up non-base-10 arithmetic if they have a practical example to work on. Pre-decimal coinage and non-metric measurements have the same beneficial side-effect.

frits · 2011-11-22 Reply Admin

Mmmpf:
I just want to make base-10 time calculations, how's that so compicated?! This is a just a bloody useless historical weight.

Shit would be much better if we had 16 fingers.

The poop of DOOM · 2011-11-22 Reply Admin

Mmmpf:
PiisAWheeL:
QJo:

But they're not universal constants. Their value is changing all the time.

How do you figure? The whole point in a leap year is to take all those extra minutes that add up over 4 years and give us an extra day to make up for the fact that there should be an extra day over the course of 4 years. So if we have it figured out that it takes 365.25 days to get the earth around the sun, then we can calculate where the earth should be on any given day, and calculate the day based on the location of the earth to the sun. The math is all there. Its been that way for eons. Thats long enough to make it a constant in my book... or at least long enough to be a javascript constant...
(...)With the system we have now, everybody needs to understand some flawed system related to astrophysics when they want to know which day of the week is the 1st of January 2013.

Why would you need to know that? If I want to know which day of the week the 1st of January 2013 is, I open Outlook and check the calendar in there. It's a tuesday, btw. Took me less than 10 seconds.

2011-11-24 Reply Admin

i'm french (no one can be perfect) and in french 'help' is said 'A l'aide'

so when i read 'A e'AIjDE' somewhere it seems like a french guy trying to send discretrly a message

quick, to the WTVcave (na na na na na na ... WTF !!!)

captcha : oppeto http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oppeto

2011-12-09 Reply Admin

At least in the UK the post office will ask the recipiant to pay if someone sends a letter/parcel without postage or with insufficiant postage.

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