WTF\b\b\b



  • This is a minor WTF but still.


    A client called, all flustered, arguing that both Excel and Ultra Edit are broken because he could not convert a fixed-width text file to CSV. Apparently Excel was putting all the text in the same column and Ultra Edit was always asking to convert the file to DOS format, and the client was insisting that the CR was there, he could see it in Wordpad (!!!).



    My NDA is not extensive enough to allow them to send me the file so after endless discussions and heavily CCed emails I ended up going on site to conduct an investigation. The culprit was a single line of code in their ASP.Net application:


    txt.Append(line).Append("\r\b");




    What the client was seeing in Wordpad was the "\b". Somehow I was disappointed that the "\b" was not erasing the "\r", it could have been useful to create self-destructing documents...



    TRWTF here is that for the client fixing the "\b" ended up costing $2,300, plus whatever is the price of a rug cleaning (a sysadmin threw a bunch of printouts on my desk, domino-effecting the wireless mouse all the way to my delicious mocha [1] which was apparently too close to the edge).



    [1] I graciously declined to add the price of the wasted mocha to my bill. The client told me it was a classy gesture, but the truth is that I can't have a client pay for food otherwise my accountant can't use it if he needs to inflate my expense numbers to reach a specific amount.



  • @Ronald said:

    a sysadmin threw a bunch of printouts on my desk

    I would have punched him in the dick.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Ronald said:
    a sysadmin threw a bunch of printouts on my desk

    I would have punched him in the dick.

    That's sexist! How do you know it was not a woman, early 20s, cute as a model?



    (Of course it was a balding dude with severe eczema and a mouthbreather attitude.)



  • @Ronald said:

    (Of course it was a balding dude with severe eczema and a mouthbreather attitude.)

    Was he morbidly obese or sickly thin?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Ronald said:
    (Of course it was a balding dude with severe eczema and a mouthbreather attitude.)

    Was he morbidly obese or sickly thin?

    Picture John Goodman with a Bruce Willis haircut, an apres-ski kind of sweater, pleather loafers and non-matching belt. And his hands looked like he got caught cheating in a Sierra Leone casino.



  • @Ronald said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ronald said:
    (Of course it was a balding dude with severe eczema and a mouthbreather attitude.)

    Was he morbidly obese or sickly thin?

    Picture John Goodman with a Bruce Willis haircut, an apres-ski kind of sweater, pleather loafers and non-matching belt. And his hands looked like he got caught cheating in a Sierra Leone casino.

    This is perhaps the best character description I have ever read.



  • @Ronald said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ronald said:
    (Of course it was a balding dude with severe eczema and a mouthbreather attitude.)

    Was he morbidly obese or sickly thin?

    Picture John Goodman with a Bruce Willis haircut, an apres-ski kind of sweater, pleather loafers and non-matching belt. And his hands looked like he got caught cheating in a Sierra Leone casino.

    Ah, so an old Emacs user then, got it.



  • @RichP said:

    @Ronald said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ronald said:
    (Of course it was a balding dude with severe eczema and a mouthbreather attitude.)

    Was he morbidly obese or sickly thin?

    Picture John Goodman with a Bruce Willis haircut, an apres-ski kind of sweater, pleather loafers and non-matching belt. And his hands looked like he got caught cheating in a Sierra Leone casino.

    Ah, so an old Emacs user then, got it.

    Hey, fuck you.  There's nothing wrong with emacs.

     



  • @Ronald said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ronald said:
    a sysadmin threw a bunch of printouts on my desk

    I would have punched him in the dick.

    That's sexist! How do you know it was not a woman

    Well, in that case,




  • @drurowin said:

    @RichP said:

    @Ronald said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ronald said:
    (Of course it was a balding dude with severe eczema and a mouthbreather attitude.)

    Was he morbidly obese or sickly thin?

    Picture John Goodman with a Bruce Willis haircut, an apres-ski kind of sweater, pleather loafers and non-matching belt. And his hands looked like he got caught cheating in a Sierra Leone casino.

    Ah, so an old Emacs user then, got it.

    Hey, fuck you.  There's nothing wrong with emacs.

     

     

     

    I have heard a lot of things said about emacs. The idea that nothing is wrong with it wasn't amongs them.

     



  • @drurowin said:

    @RichP said:

    @Ronald said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ronald said:
    (Of course it was a balding dude with severe eczema and a mouthbreather attitude.)

    Was he morbidly obese or sickly thin?

    Picture John Goodman with a Bruce Willis haircut, an apres-ski kind of sweater, pleather loafers and non-matching belt. And his hands looked like he got caught cheating in a Sierra Leone casino.

    Ah, so an old Emacs user then, got it.

    Hey, fuck you.  There's nothing wrong with emacs.

     

    Regardless, it was a description of an Emacs user, not Emacs.

     


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @El_Heffe said:

     

    "Basically... the Internet is a place where a discussion about anything will eventually result in someone showing a security camera video of a hooker being punched in the cunt."



  • @Lorne Kates said:


    "Basically... the Internet is a place where a discussion about anything will eventually result in someone showing a security camera video of a hooker being punched in the cunt."

     

    If you google that sentence you get broken window theory as a result.

     



  • @Zecc said:

    Regardless, it was a description of an Emacs user, not Emacs.

    Exactly. I mean, technically a vuvuzela is just a tube of molded plastic until it gets into the hands of a cocksucker.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @El_Heffe said:

     

    "Basically... the Internet is a place where a discussion about anything will eventually result in someone showing a security camera video of a hooker being punched in the cunt."

    That's definitely staged.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Lorne Kates said:

    @El_Heffe said:

     

    "Basically... the Internet is a place where a discussion about anything will eventually result in someone showing a security camera video of a hooker being punched in the cunt."

    That's definitely staged.

    No this is a typical prank in the Houston area. It's called a "launch pad".



  • @Ronald said:

    No this is a typical prank in the Houston area. It's called a "launch pad".

    Excuse me, but I've fractured enough superior pubic rami to know the difference between an authentic vaginal battering and one that's done for show.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Zecc said:
    Regardless, it was a description of an Emacs user, not Emacs.

    Exactly. I mean, technically a vuvuzela is just a tube of molded plastic until it gets into the hands of a cocksucker.

    We call them "football horns" here.  I'm surprised you guys haven't started calling them "Freedom horns".



  • @drurowin said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @Zecc said:
    Regardless, it was a description of an Emacs user, not Emacs.

    Exactly. I mean, technically a vuvuzela is just a tube of molded plastic until it gets into the hands of a cocksucker.

    We call them "football horns" here.  I'm surprised you guys haven't started calling them "Freedom horns".

    that name is already taken by French horns



  • @drurowin said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @Zecc said:
    Regardless, it was a description of an Emacs user, not Emacs.

    Exactly. I mean, technically a vuvuzela is just a tube of molded plastic until it gets into the hands of a cocksucker.

    We call them "football horns" here.  I'm surprised you guys haven't started calling them "Freedom horns".

    I thought this was "football horns".

     



  • @drurowin said:

    We call them "football horns" here.

    Why? From what I understand, they're mostly used at pussyball matches. Shouldn't they be "pussy horns"?

    @drurowin said:

    I'm surprised you guys haven't started calling them "Freedom horns".

    Dude, did you just wake up from your TimePod®? It's been, what, a decade since that happened?



  • @da Doctah said:

    Sigh... Oh W, how I miss you.. (in the way that a guy with Stage IV cancer misses Stage IIIb, but still..)



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @drurowin said:
    We call them "football horns" here.

    Why? From what I understand, they're mostly used at pussyball matches. Shouldn't they be "pussy horns"?

    @drurowin said:

    I'm surprised you guys haven't started calling them "Freedom horns".

    Dude, did you just wake up from your TimePod®? It's been, what, a decade since that happened?

    No, vulvuzelas became a fad in 2010-2011.  So I'm only 2-3 years behind the times.  I just figured you yanks stuck "freedom" in front of anything you didn't understand.  Or "terrorism".



  • @drurowin said:

    I just figured you yanks stuck "freedom" in front of anything you didn't understand.  Or "terrorism".

    Sigh.. your trolling is so weak. I mean, first off, the most notorious "freedom" item was "freedom fries" and I don't think anyone would argue that Americans don't understand fucking deep-fried bits of potato.

    Second, you're one to talk about terrorism when there are terrorist words appearing right beneath your avatar.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @El_Heffe said:

     

    "Basically... the Internet is a place where a discussion about anything will eventually result in someone showing a security camera video of a hooker being punched in the cunt."

     

    The hookers wear a lot more obvious in my part of the world.

     



  • @drurowin said:

    No, vulvuzelas became a fad in 2010-2011.  So I'm only 2-3 years behind the times.
    Except that the damn squeakwhistles are plainly evident (admittedly not as a continous drone) in the song "Charged Up" by Leon Lai, which was used to promote China's participation in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, so you're at least 11 years behind the times.



  • @da Doctah said:

    @drurowin said:

    No, vulvuzelas became a fad in 2010-2011.  So I'm only 2-3 years behind the times.
    Except that the damn squeakwhistles are plainly evident (admittedly not as a continous drone) in the song "Charged Up" by Leon Lai, which was used to promote China's participation in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, so you're at least 11 years behind the times.

    This is a terrible song. It looks like he knows it and he is taunting me with his tambourine.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @drurowin said:
    Or "terrorism".
    ....

    Second, you're one to talk about terrorism when there are terrorist words appearing right beneath your avatar.

     

    I'd never bother to translate that before, but you piqued my curiosity.

    <p>My company used to have an office in हैदराबाद. They fired everybody and closed the office because they were so f'ing incompetent. The bad part of this is that I occasionally have to deal with their WTFs, and nobody who knows anything about it is still around.



  • @Ronald said:

    @da Doctah said:
    "Charged Up" by Leon Lai, which was used to promote China's participation in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, so you're at least 11 years behind the times.

    This is a terrible song. It looks like he knows it and he is taunting me with his tambourine.

    Is that the expression the kids are using for it these days?

     



  • @da Doctah said:


     

     


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @El_Heffe said:

    @da Doctah said:



  • @PJH said:

    @El_Heffe said:
    @da Doctah said:


Log in to reply