• (cs)

    I do exFR1ST you know. Now feature this.. or I will never go away.

    Incidentally with regards that telephone number, the real WTF is that after the +44 the next digit is an 8.

    Means they probably have one of those 0845 numbers that are fobbed off as "local rate" but are not included in inclusive packages and that make megabucks for telephony providers who charge extortionate rates to call them.

  • RuBen (unregistered)

    At least the phone number has a fallback: "If not in put behind flowers". I shoould check your garden for the real phone number

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    I do exFR1ST you know. Now feature this.. or I will never go away.

    Incidentally with regards that telephone number, the real WTF is that after the +44 the next digit is an 8.

    Means they probably have one of those 0845 numbers that are fobbed off as "local rate" but are not included in inclusive packages and that make megabucks for telephony providers who charge extortionate rates to call them.

    BT include them in the inclusive mins of their packages.

  • (cs)

    "VBScript: File Transfer Manager"

    TRWTF?

  • Thomas (unregistered)

    The "You don't exist" message is presumably from git, which had this cute message in pre-v1.7.11 when getpwuid(getuid()) fails. In which case it would be fair to conclude that your current user does indeed not exist....

  • asdf (unregistered)

    "You Don't Exist. Go Away!" is much older than that, login command from linux's sysutils package require syslog and some other logs up and running in order to manage user's logins. That message usually appeared when you tried to logout.

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to asdf

    I think I remember that from Ultrix, when trying to talk to someone who wasn't in the utmp file.

  • John (unregistered)

    What's the problem with the first one, somebody obviously set up the computer to turn off the display 76 seconds before you stop using it. Think of the energy savings.

  • John (unregistered) in reply to John
    John:
    What's the problem with the first one, somebody obviously set up the computer to turn off the display 76 seconds before you stop using it. Think of the energy savings.

    Aargh, second one. I blame time dilation.

  • Foo Bar (unregistered)

    http://www.google.com/search?q=passwd+you+dont+exist+go+away+1970..1999

  • Brandon (unregistered)

    What is the WTF with the kbb image? A lot of cars come with accessory packages that are known only by their package number, which is assigned to them by the manufacture.

  • faoileag (unregistered)

    But, but, storing telephone numbers in doubles is the perfect solution for the uninitiated! The decimal point makes such a nice separator between exchange and number!!

    Actually, its just another aspect of the old fact that a lot of people don't know how floating point numbers are handled by a computer.

    A WTF, sure, but a common one. I do not want to know how many sums (of money) are stored in doubles, and in what software - it would probably keep me from sleeping at night.

  • (cs)

    I thought "You don't exist. Go away!" is fatal only to fairies...

  • Some Jerk (unregistered)

    Hasn't anyone considered the possibility that the person who received that error message really didn't exist and shouldn't be bothering that poor program to deal with non-existent persons?

    I think I am going to make a custom exception like "Damn You! You found my one weakness!" and throw it arbitrarily under the File > New option.

  • (cs)

    The real WTF is that if you don't exist you can't do anything, not even go away.

  • faoileag (unregistered)

    The 1193046 hrs 27 mins is actually MAXINT seconds - 76 (on a 32 bit system). I wonder how the 76 seconds got lost... did we have that many leap seconds since 1.1.1970?

  • Some Jerk (unregistered) in reply to ekolis
    ekolis:
    I thought "You don't exist. Go away!" is fatal only to fairies...

    We live in a politically correct world... you are supposed to call them queers.

  • faoileag (unregistered)

    And of course the real WTF is a Volkswagen Jetta.

  • Some Jerk (unregistered) in reply to faoileag
    faoileag:
    But, but, storing telephone numbers in doubles is the perfect solution for the uninitiated! The decimal point makes such a nice separator between exchange and number!!

    Actually, its just another aspect of the old fact that a lot of people don't know how floating point numbers are handled by a computer.

    A WTF, sure, but a common one. I do not want to know how many sums (of money) are stored in doubles, and in what software - it would probably keep me from sleeping at night.

    yea... well, try storing telephone numbers in any numeric format in Excel! THERE is a WTF for you.

  • (cs)

    the real WTF is what follows SMT and comes before S

  • Whiner (unregistered) in reply to faoileag
    faoileag:
    a lot of people *don't know how floating point numbers are handled by a computer*.
    But why should we have to know anything? All that geeky stuff is supposed to be abstracted away! Computers should be designed so that the proudest most ignorant lamer can do just as well as a CS grad, if not better! This is really just another failure of everybody-but-me.
  • Bill P. Godfrey (unregistered)

    Don't exist? Try thinking.

  • (cs) in reply to Steve
    BT include them in the inclusive mins of their packages.

    I'd have to see what the full package would be. Virgin have fibre-optic broadband and a good TV service. I subscribe to Sky Sports and no way am I ever going to use YouView so any broadband package that includes that as the TV service will never have me as a customer.

    And no mobile phone service offers inclusive 0845 numbers.

  • Larry (unregistered) in reply to Bill P. Godfrey
    Bill P. Godfrey:
    Don't exist? Try thinking.
    I did once, but damn, that is so fucking painful. There must be another way.
  • Some Jerk (unregistered) in reply to Whiner
    Whiner:
    faoileag:
    a lot of people *don't know how floating point numbers are handled by a computer*.
    But why should we have to know anything? All that geeky stuff is supposed to be abstracted away! Computers should be designed so that the proudest most ignorant lamer can do just as well as a CS grad, if not better! This is really just another failure of everybody-but-me.

    In my experience... ignorant programmers tend to do much better than CS grads... but then, I suppose I could incite a riot if I started ragging on college programmers. I'll do my best to keep my prejudices to myself.

  • Some Jerk (unregistered) in reply to Larry
    Larry:
    Bill P. Godfrey:
    Don't exist? Try thinking.
    I did once, but damn, that is so fucking painful. There must be another way.

    fart... and if you can smell it, then you can be reasonably certain that whomever caused the smell did in fact exist.

  • Uncle Slacky (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius

    I think the "8" may have been rounded up from the more likely value "7".

  • Alexander Ragtime Bell (unregistered)

    "Who on earth stores phone numbers in a numeric field?"

    You'd be surprised. We got into the habit of doing a descending sort on phone numbers to be loaded into a machine we have, since otherwise the loading widget would conclude that they were 32-bit integers and fail when it got to (say) Massachusetts and a 617 area code. Internally, it is true, the machine stored them as VARCHARs.

    And don't get me started on the software that barfed when it hit a "house number" such as 125E....

    Captcha: odio, the ablative of odium...

    (And why is a guy named Papadimoulis giving us all these Latin captchas? Where's the Greek patriotism?)

  • (cs) in reply to Some Jerk

    It depends on the kind of college programmers. I've seen a lot of colleges that basically try and make any IT-related degree a Vo-tec program. Then there are other schools that have a real CS program that actually teaches people things. There are a lot more of the former than the latter.

  • Lindsay M (unregistered)

    "Who on earth stores phone numbers in a numeric field?"

    Alas, I've seen it done several times.

  • (cs) in reply to Lindsay M

    I used to train programmers, and my first lesson was: "I don't care what you call it- if you aren't going to use it in mathematical expressions, it isn't a number. PINs, phone numbers, zip codes, SSNs, etc.- they are all text."

    And then people would go and hand me programs that treated each one of them as an integer.

  • (cs) in reply to faoileag
    faoileag:
    But, but, storing telephone numbers in doubles is the perfect solution for the uninitiated! The decimal point makes such a nice separator between exchange and number!!
    What's even better is that it supports automatic anonymization for TDWTF!
  • moz (unregistered) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    The real WTF is that if you don't exist you can't do anything, not even go away.
    But then again, there's no harm in asking.
  • (cs) in reply to faoileag
    faoileag:
    But, but, storing telephone numbers in doubles is the perfect solution for the uninitiated! The decimal point makes such a nice separator between exchange and number!!

    Actually, its just another aspect of the old fact that a lot of people don't know how floating point numbers are handled by a computer.

    A WTF, sure, but a common one. I do not want to know how many sums (of money) are stored in doubles, and in what software - it would probably keep me from sleeping at night.

    You don't exist. Go away!

  • (cs)

    Relevant poem:

    Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there He wasn’t there again today I wish, I wish he’d go away...

    When I came home last night at three The man was waiting there for me But when I looked around the hall I couldn’t see him there at all! Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more! Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)

    Last night I saw upon the stair A little man who wasn’t there He wasn’t there again today Oh, how I wish he’d go away

  • bhtooefr (unregistered) in reply to Brandon

    And in 2006, VWs didn't have trim levels, they had packages on the Jetta.

    Not familiar with the packages on the 2.0Ts, but on the TDIs, it went something like this:

    Package 0 (no packages selected): Pleather, no trip computer, CD changer with MP3, ordinary HVAC Package 1: I think added sunroof and Sirius to Package 0 Package 2: Added real leather, trip computer, climate control to Package 1

    I'd guess that Package 3 on a 2.0T would be HIDs or something like that, on top of Package 2.

  • (cs) in reply to Uncle Slacky
    Uncle Slacky:
    I think the "8" may have been rounded up from the more likely value "7".

    Difficult to know as 0845 would round down to an 8 but some mobile numbers like mine which begins 0795 would round up to an 8.

  • (cs) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    I used to train programmers, and my first lesson was: "I don't care what you call it- if you aren't going to use it in mathematical expressions, it isn't a number. PINs, phone numbers, zip codes, SSNs, etc.- they are all text."

    And then people would go and hand me programs that treated each one of them as an integer.

    What would you consider enumerations to be?

  • (cs)

    One wonders why a simple POS terminal needs to be written in .Net. Seems like overkill. Reminds me of this great story: http://www.ganssle.com/articles/toastallessons.htm

    Representative line: " "With a computer our customer can load the bread the night before, program a finish time, and be presented with the perfect slice of toast when he awakens", Bob intoned as if reading from a script. "

    I wonder what toast made with stale bread tastes like?

  • Jon (unregistered)

    Classic copy paste into Excel and mail merge - happens all the time.

  • (cs) in reply to Cbuttius
    Cbuttius:
    Remy Porter:
    I used to train programmers, and my first lesson was: "I don't care what you call it- if you aren't going to use it in mathematical expressions, it isn't a number. PINs, phone numbers, zip codes, SSNs, etc.- they are all text."

    And then people would go and hand me programs that treated each one of them as an integer.

    What would you consider enumerations to be?

    Opaque. You should almost never have to care about the value of a particular enum.

  • Bob (unregistered)

    Who the hell leaves an $8.02 tip?

  • Some Jerk (unregistered) in reply to FrostCat
    FrostCat:
    One wonders why a simple POS terminal needs to be written in .Net. Seems like overkill.

    Perhaps writing it in javascript would make more sense to you.

  • Nagesh (unregistered) in reply to Bob
    Bob:
    Who the hell leaves an $8.02 tip?
    Someone who can't do (approx.) 15% without a calculator.
  • Nagesh (unregistered) in reply to Lindsay M
    Lindsay M:
    >"Who on earth stores phone numbers in a numeric field?"

    Alas, I've seen it done several times.

    Yes, I've also been reading this site for a few weeks. :(

  • Some Jerk (unregistered) in reply to Remy Porter

    I always enjoy giving a handfull of javascript tasks where javascript is guaranteed to infer a number when a string is meant, and the other way around. I was typically making the same point that you were, and reinforcing the value of strongly typed languages as well.

  • golddog (unregistered)

    Neil's WTF presumably means he won't make any verizon phone calls in August 2017.

    Hope that means he's only gotten a different provider rather than he's dead.

  • (cs)

    The really hot girl I met at the bar last night works at MSDN tech support? Cool!

  • Chelloveck (unregistered)

    Can Chris really prove that he exists? Come on, this one's been bugging philosophers for millenia now! If Chris has an air-tight proof he really needs to publish.

  • Some Jerk (unregistered) in reply to RichP
    RichP:
    The really hot girl I met at the bar last night works at MSDN tech support? Cool!

    I wonder if she can get an employee discount on a premium subscription. If she could save some $5 or $10 per year... that would be neat :p

Leave a comment on “You Don't Exist. Go Away!”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article