WTF Bites



  • @dkf said in WTF Bites:

    @lb_ said in WTF Bites:

    They also seem to have removed the "Send Feedback" link

    Since I don't think it would allow you to send actual physically flaming dog turds to them over the internet, I can't see that it would help a lot…

    Yes, but since they have demonstrated the ability to send the electronic equivalent to YouTube, I don't think that should limit you.



  • @dkf said in WTF Bites:

    Since I don't think it would allow you to send actual physically flaming dog turds to them over the internet, I can't see that it would help a lot…

    Persumably you could send them a video recording of an actual physical flaming dog turd. It may not be recognizable as such after their processing, but it's the thought that counts. Right?


  • kills Dumbledore

    @cvi Since it's Twitch, why not gameplay footage of a burning turd of a game? Something like Sonic 06 would do it



  • This could be amusing, though I doubt Chase will actually read anything on the site. Absentee Webmaster-ism FTW.

    The forum regulars have really started getting pissed at the archaic forum software, the refusal to set up TLS, the lack of response from the administrator about anything, etc. Even the mods are having trouble reaching him, and the possibility of a revolt on the part of both the users and the mods is growing.



  • 0_1516404583380_8e00cb5c-5bd2-4609-8d92-70934494d49d-image.png

    Today's "if you have to write a dialog like this, maybe just fix your UI instead".


  • Considered Harmful

    @scholrlea Watch them switch from phpBB to something equally ancient and equally PHP like XenForo.



  • @blakeyrat This application is just the gift that keeps on giving:

    0_1516405745326_8743cbf5-28fd-43f3-9290-2ebae4ef4bf4-image.png

    Who the fuck thought this was release quality?

    Ah, it was that Ivan jerk.

    0_1516405780482_489b207b-ada6-4573-a70a-73569803813a-image.png

    And look at the reveal in the title bar there, oh yeah, it's written in Java.

    (At least he said it's intended to make it easy, he didn't have the hubris to say he succeeded. Hah.)


  • Considered Harmful

    @blakeyrat Yes, because obviously all Java code is horrible and shitty, in a way that no other language is. (In case you can't tell (you probably can't), </sarcasm>)



  • @pie_flavor I don't give a shit what the code looks like. Maybe God Himself cries at its beauty, what the fuck ever.

    I care that Java GUIs always, always, look and work like utter ass.

    Guess what? This ZenCash wallet has only reinforced that belief.


  • Considered Harmful

    @blakeyrat Mhm. I believe your argument to why JetBrains' IDEs suck was that they were written in Java? Despite the fact that they are a prime fucking example of how to do a UI in Java? Your vitriol gets less fun when it's not backed up by reasoning anymore and just goes around in circles.



  • @pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

    Mhm. I believe your argument to why JetBrains' IDEs suck was that they were written in Java?

    Yup, I even tried to use one once. It didn't render 14 point font correctly.


  • Considered Harmful

    @blakeyrat I assume this was like eight years ago or something.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @pie_flavor I would have assumed something more like double that…



  • I'm getting some mixed messages from these reviews

    0_1516558238358_a1f921af-2b9f-4da8-a0d7-47e6b2837bd6-image.png


  • area_can

    @hungrier I didn't think shipping to China would be fast...


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    Bite: When your context menus are constrained inside the application window:

    0_1516577440463_c786d4fd-624b-4695-8ce1-369742d957ca-image.png


  • area_can


  • Considered Harmful

    Good old cafeteria slideshow screens.
    0_1516590125709_20180121_185246.jpg



  • Digital Ocean.

    1. Try to sign in. "We've emailed you a verification token, enter it below."
    2. No email shows up.
    3. After a while, I try again. I get a token emailed to me. It's a 6-digit number. Enter it into the form and it fails validation because "Incorrect format"
    4. Try again. I get emailed a new token. I enter that, it fails because "Invalid token"
    5. Try again. No token gets emailed.
    6. Try again. No token gets emailed.
    7. Decide to post to WTF Bites.

  • Fake News

    @mott555 How do you mean, you didn't enter the &nbsp;?



  • Someone tell me this is a hoax or false reporting by the NYPost.



  • @rhywden nope. Sadly. That's NYC for you. And public sector unions in the USA more generally.



  • @rhywden

    The cards are often used to wiggle out of minor trouble such as speeding tickets, the theory being that presenting one suggests you know someone in the NYPD.

    Nobody is above the law.
    Unless you're a cop, of course 🙄

    “They are treating active members like s–t, and retired members even worse than s–t,” griped an NYPD cop who retired on disability. “All the cops I spoke to were . . . very disappointed they couldn’t hand them out as Christmas gifts.”

    Just use this one instead
    0_1516657446403_Getoutofjailfreecc.jpg

    Police: a gang of criminals in uniform, paid with your taxes.


  • BINNED

    Facebook released the "lite" versions of their mobile apps (Messenger and the FB app itself). They used to be available under some conditions before (only select markets I think) but it was a bit of a pain in the ass to get them. Now they're in the play store for everyone, which is nice, so I grabbed them both, because they should be less horribly bloated than the "full" ones.

    First, a minor WTF: both apps seem to be called just "Lite" when installed - that's what shows up in the app drawer. Huh?

    The real WTF, though, is that the FB app seems to be constantly searching for GPS, putting an entry in the notification drawer that won't go away, and it drains the battery pretty fast. I only noticed when I got a system notification about an app consuming excessive power, at which point I found it's been searching for GPS for over 6 hours. Yes, location services are enabled on the phone, but for some reason the app won't use them.

    I also just noticed that while there's a Messenger Lite app, the Facebook Lite app has chat as well. Why bother with two apps then? Was project management too high to notice the duplicate functionality? I mean I'm glad I apparently don't need Messenger now, but...

    (I do actually still need messenger because allowing the Facebook Lite app to run in the background makes it search for GPS and kill my battery again... god, this is like a WTF smorgasbord.)


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    If Not Session("HideThing") IsNot Nothing Then
    
       Thing.Visible = True
    
    End If
    

    This was written less than a month ago.

    The values are either Nothing (null), or "true". As in a string value "true", not a Boolean.

    I just re wrote it to be behind a strongly-typed property (Boolean).

    Thing.Visible = ShowThing


  • kills Dumbledore

    @lorne-kates said in WTF Bites:

    If Not Session("HideThing") IsNot Nothing <> False Then
    
       Thing.Visible = True
    
    End If
    

    There. Fixed it


  • area_can

    https://medium.com/@edouard_harris/how-to-be-a-rocket-ship-b348df5351c

    Choosing to work instead of goofing off for 5 minutes every day adds up to 3 more full days of work per year. That’s a big deal.



  • @ixvedeusi said in WTF Bites:

    Radians is metres / metre, which does look like it's dimension-less, but IMHO the two kinds of metre should be considered different.

    meters / metre


  • Java Dev

    Well, Dremel can't write software. Tried troubleshooting a 3D printer. Everywhere says to update firmware if there's a firmware update. How to update firmware? File on USB or over internet. Only that updating over internet is apparently misconfigured and will brick the printer. Which I was told after pressing update. Apparently, Dremel thinks the firmware update order is to first wipe the old firmware and then download the new firmware. So if the download fails for whatever reason you're fucked. Also, there's apparently no way to recover from a failed firmware update.

    As an addendum, as long as the printer is connected to the internet it will always try updating from internet. There's no option to update from file, it will only do that if it is disconnected from the internet.

    Now, it is 2018. In 2018 things like making safe firmware updates have been a solved problem for over 10 years. FIRST download. THEN verify the download. THEN perform the update. And if something goes wrong anyway, have a recovery mode to load new firmware from a file on USB or similar. A sensitive process like firmware updates should not come without a full set of failsafes to minimize the risk if/when things go wrong.



  • @atazhaia said in WTF Bites:

    Well, Dremel can't write software.

    Color me surprised.



  • @atazhaia said in WTF Bites:

    Now, it is 2018. In 2018 things like making safe firmware updates have been a solved problem for over 10 years.

    Colleague works on maintenance of a device that runs some Linux. It updates by installing packages using rpm. If any of the install fails, it installs the older versions back. Except that might fail too, either because the scripts are buggy, which they are, or because the user happens to pull the power in the wrong moment—the updates are fully automatic and the user may not even notice. When it fails, the device won't start again and the user must send it back and be sent a replacement.

    Colleague proposed inserting a transactional layer under it that would be able to roll back the files and do so reliably after restart to handle the case of pulled power. It was deemed too big change for maintenance, so they'll rather continue sending replacements—costing couple thousand dollars every time it happens and it's not that rare.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @atazhaia said in WTF Bites:

    So if the download fails for whatever reason you're fucked. Also, there's apparently no way to recover from a failed firmware update.

    That sounds like RMA time, or maybe small claims court for failing to produce equipment of reasonably-expected merchantable quality.



  • Oh shit, Windows Defender actually found malware.

    0_1516797191560_8e06d859-744a-479a-8868-bff397e800e3-image.png

    It's in the browser cache, so I'm assuming it didn't actually get run.

    But the WTF is... there's no way to see the full file path in that window :facepalm:.

    After clicking and right-clicking everywhere, I had to use the (extremely intuitive as we all know) Windows Event Viewer to find it.



  • My WTF of the day, sent to an e-bike company:

    To whom it may concern,

    I’ve cooled down and am not very angry (i.e. spitting nails) anymore, having simmered down to “seriously annoyed”. And I’m feeling a bit like a beta tester.

    First I had problems with the Google Pixel and your bike (to the point where I basically gave up and used the key fob exclusively).
    Then I got an iPhone recently and an iPad to go along with it (and also an AppleWatch which will play a minor role).
    Today was the day both were in the vicinity of the bike for the first time. I was able to ride to the subway station just fine. When I came back after an exhausting day, I tried to unlock the bike through my iPhone just like I had before when I drove to the station in the morning.
    The iPhone just told me that it didn’t have a connection. Looked at the app on the Watch only to see the yellow “It’s connected” and the grey “No connection” sign flicker rapidly. “Last connection: 0 seconds” it stated.

    I was confused. The lights were turned automatically when I came near the bike which meant that a connection had been established. And if I went away and came back after having shut off the bike, it automatically turned on again.
    In fact, it even turned on when the phone was off. This finally clued me in as to what was happening:
    When you have multiple iOS devices and install an app on one of them, iTunes will automatically install the app on all of them while also sharing the settings.

    Thus I figured out that you obviously have some Highlander-style “There can be only one!” scheme going on without clueing the user into this kind of important fact anywhere. This is one of the things you should seriously consider changing. Shouldn’t be too hard to implement, considering that my AppleWatch obviously noticed this, going from the rapid Connected-Disconnected cycling it did.
    Alright, I noticed it. Everything should be fine, right?

    Of course not.

    Because I had the bright idea of simply uninstalling one of the apps (I actually did this while out of range of the bike). This act must’ve confused your bike’s software to the point where it didn’t turn off anymore. Annoying. It also didn’t unlock the bike anymore. Which was just a tad on the aggravating side.

    Because your app told me: “Hey, you now have four seconds to unlock! 3! 2! 1! Bummer…” whereas the actual bike kind of didn’t display the countdown and also didn’t disengage the lock.
    But I was able to turn off the lights through the app. Baby steps, guys, baby steps.

    That’s where my experience with the Pixel shenanigans actually came in handy (because it was after hours, of course): I knew how to reboot the bike – you know, plugging in a USB charger into the connector on the underside of the bike.

    Too bad I was fresh out of power outlets, what with me being out in the open near a subway station. But I had this portable USB charger!

    At home.
    So I walked home, got the charger, walked back to the bike, rebooted the bike and finally drove home. Took me only one and a half hour.

    And I’ve just been laughed at. “Why are you back so late?” – “I had to reboot the bike.”

    This tale is not full of win on your end. A lock needs to be reliable. Important information like “Single device only” needs to be displayed prominently. If your software is unreliable it needs an easy way to reset it.
    I mean, just think of how this story would sound to someone not from your company. Not that I’m threatening to tell it to the mountains or anything, but it doesn’t make you look good.

    Regards, Me.



  • @rhywden said in WTF Bites:

    And I’ve just been laughed at. “Why are you back so late?” – “I had to reboot the bike.”

    Yes. :rofl:
    edit: (icon update? why's that so pixelated now?)


  • Considered Harmful

    @dcon If you're referring to :rofl:, hasn't it always been?



  • @pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

    @dcon If you're referring to :rofl:, hasn't it always been?

    I could have sworn it was "rounder". Not so jaggy.


  • Considered Harmful

    @dcon Last modification was two years ago, when emoji were added to the Docker image.



  • @pie_flavor Ah. Then I blame the FF 58.0 update. Since I just did that today.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @anonymous234 said in WTF Bites:

    Oh shit, Windows Defender actually found malware.

    Oh no! Defender found threats!

    0_1516859242938_ccb155d1-1f32-4467-ac4a-f035e6ae3644-image.png

    0_1516859290619_d830f75c-6475-468b-8bff-289b2ed14702-image.png

    Oh hey, lookit that. Well, I don't need that anymore, so buh-buy I guess?


  • 🚽 Regular

    @dcon said in WTF Bites:

    @pie_flavor Ah. Then I blame the FF 58.0 update. Since I just did that today.

    I'm still on57.0 and it looks pixelated.

    If you remove the height attribute from .emoji-tdwtf-emoji it looks better, so I'm guessing NodeBB uses a different height from what Discourse did.


  • Considered Harmful


  • Notification Spam Recipient


  • 🚽 Regular

    @pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

    [//]: <> (This post is longer than 2 characters.)

    No one said NodeBB is perfect.


  • Considered Harmful

    @zecc I frequently contend that it is quite the opposite, in fact.



  • My WTF of the day.

    I sometimes have to use a very obscure Pascal derivate (I wish it was Pascal, but it really just took some of the syntax and keywords, stripped it of everything even remotely useful and leaves the user with a huge steaming pile of sh*t).

    I added two textboxes to a dialogue box and then of course wanted to save any user input. The user is supposed to enter numbers here (but there's actually no way of allowing only numbers other than asking the end users nicely), but I am supposed to add those numbers to a string and build an SQL string with it.

    So... if a user enters anything other than "0", it is treated as a string. So

    variable := UserInput
    

    is a string.

    So far, so good. BUT if the user enters "0" (or just leaves the field blank) the "0" is actually interpreted as a numeric value.

    variable := UserInput
    

    now suddendly is a numeric!

    And concatenating "String + numeric" doesn't work. Oh well, there's this handy functions "str(numeric)" which converts a numeric into a string. So everything is fine? No, of course not. Remember how anything other than "0" is treated as a string? And remember how I said the function is "str(numeric)"? Yep, using "str()" on a string results in an error. So, what can I do? There's no way to determin the type of a variable (and there's no way to declare a variable to be a certain type, much like in PHP).

    My first attempt was

    IF variable > 0
        s := "My string " + variable
    ELSE
        s := "My string " + str(variable)
    ENDIF
    

    But of course that doesn't work, because "String > 0" can't be resolved to a boolean value.

    My second idea was to just use a try catch then, but there's absolutely NO error handling. No try, no catch, not even On Error Resume Next. I think it would just ignore lines that contain an error and try to execute the rest of the program as if nothing happened.

    I now ended up checking the value in a previous sql statement, if it is 0 I will write "0" into the textbox, else the value. This works, but it's still a huge WTF.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @hans_mueller said in WTF Bites:

    I think it would just ignore lines that contain an error and try to execute the rest of the program as if nothing happened.

    So just do both approaches. It will fail on one but work on the other, and after trying both is will work.

    Make sure to comment it liberally though



  • @jaloopa Then the user would have to click through 4 error messages per input. Not really an option. ;)



  • @hans_mueller said in WTF Bites:

    @jaloopa Then the user would have to click through 4 error messages per input. Not really an option. ;)

    So it does have an error handling after all: bother user with useless popups.

    ¿¡QUE, KURWA!?



  • @hans_mueller said in WTF Bites:

    I sometimes have to use a very obscure Pascal derivate (I wish it was Pascal, but it really just took some of the syntax and keywords, stripped it of everything even remotely useful and leaves the user with a huge steaming pile of sh*t).

    InnoSetup? (Just a shot in the dark, it's the only reason I've ever had to touch Pascal)


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