Mark Bowytz

Besides contributing at @TheDailyWTF, I write DevDisasters for Visual Studio Magazine, and involved in various side projects including child rearing and marriage.

Jun 2011

How Not to Count Lines

by in Representative Line on

 "Not long ago, I was poking around one of our production web servers and noticed the following curiosity in a shell script," writes Marshall G.

/bin/cat /var/run/netstat_r.lst | /usr/bin/wc | /usr/bin/cut -b -8 |perl -e 'my $r=<>; $r =~ s/^\s+//; print "$r"'

A More Better Way to Count

by in CodeSOD on

As he popped the blister pack on another pair of 'industrial grade' antacid pills Brian recalled the contractor's first few weeks in the department.

Everything was better at his last assignment. The department's development processes were obsolete and the development tools he was given? Don't even start. His way, no matter how convoluted or obtuse was the best way. Don't question it - just get used to it.


CAPTCHA'd - All Facebook Edition

by in Error'd on

Well...it's been a while, but here's an all CAPTCHA edition of Error'd!


Not So Smart Card

by in Feature Articles on

A few years ago, Sebastian was working as a security consultant for a relatively big software security company that was working on a credential management project for "Her Majesty's Telecom" or simply, HMT.

His group was high-spirits all around counting down the days remaining in the final month of the year-long project, well, that is presumably except for Simon. Up until 48 hours prior, he was the consulting company's corporate liaison who had decided to unexpectedly exit from the project.  His departure left Sebastian, a former corporate IT drop-out himself, the project's only possible option to fill his shoes two days before an all-manager status meeting.