The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Now Wait for Next GetYear()

by Erik Gern in CodeSOD on 2013-05-29

Bob was watching the sales telecast for WidgetCo when his boss approached him. “We got a big problem, and it needs to be fixed fast.” Before Bob could object, she grabbed his laptop and ushered him down the hall.

The VP of Sales stood outside the conference room where the telecast was taking place. He shoved a tablet under Bob’s nose, which showed a line graph of WidgetCo’s sales from January 2012 until now. The graph took an enormous plummet on January 1, 2013. “Son, this has got to be fixed, or I won’t have a graph to show our record sales!”

91 comments - Last comment @ 2013-06-10

Kilobits and Drillbits

by Erik Gern in Feature Articles on 2013-05-16

Kristian stood on the deck of the USS Marianas, the sun in his face. The Marianas and her sister ship, the USS Abyssal Explorer, were a two-boat exploration team, scouring the Atlantic for oil deposits not yet tapped by offshore rigs. The sea rolled beneath him, far calmer than it had been the day before. It was a perfect day off the coast of Brazil in the south Atlantic.

So perfect, the satellite connection would be five by five to download all those patches that the Marianas urgently needed.

86 comments - Last comment @ 2013-05-28

Cheaters Never Prosper

by Erik Gern in Feature Articles on 2013-05-08

"That's quite an impressive resume, Fred," Avi said. The phone interview had gone well so far; among the several hundred applicants for Senior Developer at BigBoxCo, Fred's qualifications put him among the top five Avi had spoken to. Fred himself was amiable, if slightly over-confident.

"Thanks, Avi," Fred replied. "I hope I have what you're looking for."

146 comments - Last comment @ 2014-07-30

Re-Inventing the Alphabet

by Erik Gern in CodeSOD on 2013-05-01

Michael listened as his co-worker Draughon droned on at lunch. "I just don't trust hashes, man. I never understood any of the algorithms behind them, and I don't trust anything I don't understand."

"But MD5 is a well-documented algorithm," Michael countered.

111 comments - Last comment @ 2013-05-11