The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Luck of the Draw

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2012-08-31

"One of these icons closes the current window, one completely exits the program," observed Sam Oldak.

90 comments - Last comment @ 2024-10-09

PIN Panic

by Mark Bowytz in Feature Articles on 2012-08-30

Credit: racheocity@Flickr; # 54 :: 02/23/10 :: My door handle Bill T's morning was off to a really bad start. First, his alarm went off late. This forced him skip his morning coffee which, in turn, made him so groggy that he blew right through a stop sign on the way to work causing a near-miss with some guy on a bicycle. A passing police cruiser noticed the event and Bill was issued a citation, the writing of which resulted in him arriving almost an hour late to work.

And now, just when things couldn't get any worse, his security fob didn't work.

154 comments - Last comment @ 2013-04-03

The Race Case

by Mark Bowytz in CodeSOD on 2012-08-29

"I'm trying to figure out some code and I don't even know where to start with the WTFs!" writes Rachel. "The design has introduced me to a new level of terrible. The naming convention is inconsistent, and the WTFs just keep coming..."

"Here's one of my favorite snips of code. Apparently names are all numeric, and everyone has to be White, Hispanic, Asian, or Indian."

113 comments - Last comment @ 2013-07-19

It Doubles as an Oven!

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2012-08-24

"It's a good thing I decided to test this machine out," writes Jim, "We had been looking to replace / repair our oven, and it seems we can just bake on the hard drive."

97 comments - Last comment @ 2013-03-11

Square Peg Meets Round Hole

by Mark Bowytz in CodeSOD on 2012-08-23

Have you ever been faced with this scenario? You need to unscrew a Phillips head screw but you only have a similarly sized flat head screwdriver available.

I have and boy was it ever frustrating.

133 comments - Last comment @ 2014-03-21

The Unimportant Clients

by Mark Bowytz in Feature Articles on 2012-08-21

Credit: Marcin Wichary@Flickr; Data processing center, pt. 5 About a decade ago, Coyne's employer at the time hosted various application systems for multiple clients running on their IBM host.

The clients ranged from a high profile Fortune 100 client all the way down to companies that were so small that they would probably rank in the Fortune 10,000,000's...and it was up to Coyne to do a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) for one of the clients' application systems. Specifically, the applications were responsible for payroll, direct deposit, etc.

110 comments - Last comment @ 2022-05-06

Beware of the Banana Cream Pie Blizzard

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2012-08-17

"I was looking up the point values for Dairy Queen in the Weight Watchers iOS app," writes Vince, "and I think that I'm going to have to pass on ordering the Banana Cream Pie Blizzard."

100 comments - Last comment @ 2012-08-30

There's Always Room to Expand

by Mark Bowytz in CodeSOD on 2012-08-16

"I was going through old e-mail from several years back I ran into this gem," writes Lianna. "This snippet, with data anonymized, comes from the logs of the database as some of the queries that were performed by a particular PHP system:"

update tmp set f76 ='p' where f0=1961520010330;
INSERT INTO tmp (f0,f18,klther) VALUES ('1961720010330','985356431','bestaand');
update tmp set f1 ='' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f2 ='' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f3 ='M' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f4 ='J.' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f5 ='Doe' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f6 ='' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f7 ='Somestreet' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f8 ='123' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f9 ='1001' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f10 ='AA' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f11 ='SOME CITY' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f12 ='0123' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f13 ='456789' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f14 ='[email protected]' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f15 ='1440513' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f16 ='jdoe123' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f29 ='1195073' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f20 ='1001' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f21 ='AA' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f22 ='0123' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f23 ='456789' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f76 ='p' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f48 ='' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f49 ='' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f50 ='' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f51 ='IEG' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f30 ='1287342' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f59 ='AQ' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f61 ='' where f0=1961720010330;
update tmp set f75 ='' where f0=1961720010330;

85 comments - Last comment @ 2018-08-01

The Process that Never Failed

by Mark Bowytz in Feature Articles on 2012-08-15

Richard fumbled with his key card, taking care not to accidentally spill his coffee as he entered the conference room. Normally, he was as much a morning person as the next guy, but for him, arriving to work for a 7AM meeting was best suited for the birds. Richard had some hoped that this meeting would at least involve some donuts, but he knew better. After all, they don't title happy project kickoff meetings "Damage Control".

When Richard arrived at the conference room, everybody else was in the same hazy state he was, each nursing a large cup of joe and awkwardly attempting to stifle a yawn. Everybody that is except for Richard's director who nervously got down to business.

106 comments - Last comment @ 2012-08-19

You Don't Exist. Go Away!

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2012-08-10

Chris got this error while playing around with Xcode. Though he could prove to the contrary, he was given no choice other than to agree.

126 comments - Last comment @ 2017-08-04

Representative Line - jQuery Search n' Replace

by Mark Bowytz in Best of the Sidebar on 2012-08-09

Out on the The Daily WTF Forums, user dynedain found this gem while doing maintenance on a site that's a huge pile of static HTML files:

$('.bottom_content a').each(function(){ var temp =
              $(this).html().replace('ClientName¬ÆClientService','ClientName^®ClientService'); $(this).html(temp); });

71 comments - Last comment @ 2013-03-06

There's a Rat in my Computer, Naughty NAS, and other Support Stories

by Mark Bowytz in Feature Articles on 2012-08-07

There's a Rat in my Computer (from M. Fragger)

A man called in distraught. "There is a rat in my computer!"

125 comments - Last comment @ 2017-08-01

Kentucky Fried Cat

by Mark Bowytz in Error'd on 2012-08-03

Ok, everyone, let's pitch in so Kristof Mattei can finally get this folder of his deleted.

114 comments - Last comment @ 2013-11-06

Oh, so THAT's what's wrong!

by Mark Bowytz in Feature Articles on 2012-08-02

Hey - just a quick reminder - if you haven't checked out our free Daily WTF T-Shirt Giveaway sponsored by our friends at New Relic, you might want to get on it before it ends. Supply is limited to 250, so sign up soon!

John Kupski received a call from a user recently about a failed laptop. The irate user complained that his laptop was dead, had not worked at home all weekend, and he had no idea what had happened to the unit even though it had stayed put on his dining room table the entire time.

101 comments - Last comment @ 2012-09-27