The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

A Rip in Time

by Bruce Johnson in CodeSOD on 2013-09-23

The Academy graduating class of 2316 gathered in lecture hall. The moment was almost at hand. A moment they had been anticipating for the last four years. Indeed, for many of them, they had been eagerly looking forward to finding out the secret since the time they formed their first differential equation.

As the professor strode to the lectern, a murmur spread through the room. As she placed her notes on the lectern, she straightened her glasses, a hush fell over the crowd.

There's Something About Mary

by Bruce Johnson in Feature Articles on 2013-09-03

His friends would say stop whining, they've had enough of that.
His friends would say stop pining, there's other girls to look at.
They've tried to set him up with Tiffany and Indigo,
But there's something about Mary that they don't know.

Back in 1988, a small start-up company had made a name for itself by creating and selling a spreadsheet application. Keep in mind this is prior to the domination of Lotus and Excel, so it was possible for an application that met the needs of their customers and did it well to be successful. In this case, successful enough so that the start-up was purchased by a large(r) company in the Silicon Valley. Since the purchase was actually for the software (and not solely to get the talents of the engineering team), development continued in Texas with the QA process taken over by their Silicon Valley master...er...owners. Mary was assigned to be the QA person looking after the application.