OK - so I know it's only a minor typo and not much of a WTF - but one would have thought that if you're going to advertise on this site, you'd check your text a little more carefully...
OK - so I know it's only a minor typo and not much of a WTF - but one would have thought that if you're going to advertise on this site, you'd check your text a little more carefully...
@bstorer said:
My response as well. Part of me wants to leave him to play with the new guys, but part of me wants to lock this thread immediately. Thoughts?
Naah - he was the best fun we've had for ages - the only reason I registered originally was so I could be a part of that legendary thread. (I was kinda hoping LING! was going to replace him, but was sadly disappointed...)
Here's a quick story I just remembered.
Back around 1981, I was friendly with a certain well-known Games Programmer, whose mother worked for British Coal (before Thatcher bashed it with her privatisation handbag) as a compensation assessor. Basically, she had a number of tables - "Lost eye= £x,000. Lost leg = £Y,000" etc., and would work out a total sum with a few simple formulae. One night, The Programmer (who was aged about 16 at the time) decided to input all the tables into his Vic20, duplicate the formulae and make her job a lot easier.
The next day, his mother took the whole shebang - Vic20, Tape drive and TV set into work, plonked it down in front of her bosses and showed them. "Lovely" they said, "but we can't use it - he's not our Approved Computer Supplier". Fired by the idea though, they contacted their Approved Computer Supplier and asked them to duplicate this.
A week later, they got the reply that it might be possible to do, but it would take an estimated 6 months and would cost a ridiculous amount, making it basically infeasible.
@PeteyF said:
The whole 'bad data hygiene' method of printing out just to scan back in just gives me cold chills - it's the IT equivalent of eating shit.
@morbiuswilters said:
From the Reason article linked by MPS above:
Oh, the article. Right. The actual paper that they're quoting says that at a rough guess, the murder rate between 1800 and 1850 in New York City was just under twice that of the whole of Europe. I should think so - big nasty city like that.
But surely all this rather makes the point more clear. As you yourself so eloquently argue, the US is a more violent nation than most of the rest of the world. Is that a good reason for making the dangerous toys more freely available? This is exactly the same argument as 'the school run' - the more cars, the more dangerous, the less safe, the more cars. In places where they discourage cars, the more children walk / cycle, the fitter everybody gets and the lower the accident rate. Simple, no?
@morbiuswilters said:
The USA has always had a higher murder rate than the UK, even 200 years ago when guns were as common in both countries. It has nothing to do with the guns.
How many historical wtf's in that one sentence? Personally, I haven't yet been able to find the statistics for gun ownership in 1808, but I'd be surprised if America, with its low population density, had a higher murder rate than the UK, commercial, economic and crime capital of the world at the time. (Of course, I'm not counting the "Injuns"...)
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
When you compare the population of the US and England, the scales make perfect sense... but I wouldn't expect these people to understand that.
These people? Oh dear :) What bit of "per 100,000" and "per 1,000,000" don't you get? Indeed though - as of 2001, it looks like the US is dropped to being only 4 times as violent a nation as the UK, rather than 10 times as violent. Well done chaps - keep up the good work.
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
s/DodgyAmericanGraph/Better Graph/Keep up the good work England!
I hesitate to start a big culture-bash, but here on the whole, unlike (it seems) the US, people don't really like guns - they're machines purely designed to kill at a distance with as little emotional involvement as possible. Very uncivilised, and not really the 'done thing'. Professionals such as gamekeepers, pest control and the police use then when they have to, and of course there are many that get a kick out of it, but certainly nobody flaunts it. As a result, very few people get killed by guns - simple as that.
Of course, people get killed in other ways with other weapons - but even a big sharp knife takes a hell of a lot more commitment to inflict comparable damage. I dread to think of the number of heat-of-the-moment-murders in the USA that in the UK would have simply resulted in a bloodied nose.
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
They have choreographed fight scenes to mediocre music?
@KattMan said:
@Kiss me I'm Polish said:
<orth. bitchin>
Also, you wrote "I could of closed the account". Should be "I could have closed the account".
</orth. bitchin>
I know, this gets me too.
Gosh yes...the real WTF is that a Brit (I guess - don't think the Halifax have many branches outside the UK) had his grammar corrected by somebody claiming to be Polish, living in Belgium. Then again, I'm the kind of sad grammar fascist that rubs out grocer's apostrophes from chalkboards. (The thing that's really bugging me atm though is the number of restaurants that're offering "Paninis"...)
@djork said:
ON THE EIGHTH DAY
As an aside, something that no Abrahamic Monothiest has ever been able to explain to me is why an All-Powerful Omniscient Being needed six whole days for creation, then took a rest!. Surely, a simply snap of the fingers..."Let there be light, and planets, and birds and trees and bacteria and animals and stuff" would be all that's necessary. It seems strange to invent an all powerful being, then impose temporal limits.
Oh - and yes...All Hail Eris. And remember, No Spitting In The Forum.
My main worry is MS's strong-arm tactics in getting OOXML accepted. As was widely reported a few months ago, the ISO Document Standard committee business ground to a halt due to the non-participation of all the members that upgraded their status simply in order to vote on the OOXML issue. Digging deeper, one finds that without exception, all of those members are dominated by MS "partners", most of whom again joined their respective commitees in the last few months.
@morbiuswilters said:
It's only the context that makes words profane.
@medialint said:
I'm reminded of those signs in The Illuminatus Trilogy signed by The Mgt.
Congratulations everybody on a near-perfect thread! A good initial post with a clearly put question, many intelligent reasoned answers, and very little squabbling. To cap it all, a nice thank-you from the OP (SpectateSwamp - are you listening?). My faith in webmanity just jumped a notch.
Just to preempt any potential tributes to the late Paul Raymond (or even Sid James...)
Enjoy (mightily) your NSFW Jugs
Insert image in imagination here@brazzy said:
Using the inequation y > x > 0, the best you could do is get an upper and lower bound for the ratio.
@Spectre said:
And C is simple, why not?
Having been C'ing for over 20 years now, I think it's another of those 'hours to learn, lifetime to master' things. I agree though, and would personally recommend working though a copy of K&R (Sorry OP - "The C Programming Language" by Brian Kernigan & Dennis Ritchie - them wot wrote the language), as by the time you've absorbed that, you've learnt not only the basics of lowish-level programming, but you've got the syntax/keywords sussed for all the languages out there that derive from C, you've got a rough idea of what's going on "under the hood", and you know what's in stdlib and the rest. (I've been able to fake my way through many quick fixes in languages that I know next-to-nothing about simply through knowing C, and thus reasoning that strfoo() or whatever must be implemented in there somewhere!) And of course, no matter what hardware / OS you're presented with, you can pretty much guarantee there'll be a C compiler for it.
@asuffield said:
Unfortunately the other half (including the ones who write the telephone books) think that the most reasonable ordering is to treat it like UE.
Strictly speaking that's the correct one, as originally (and whenever the proper chars are unavailable), the German umlaut represents an 'e' ligature (like "æ"). Of course, in Scandinavia it's a whole different story...
Not so much a WTF (hence posting here, and not risking the "Here's your Mug" crowd) as simply a bit depressing...
So, tending unfortunately as I do toward grammar fascism, I happened to notice that my partner's "Always Ultra" packet boasted about "It's dryweave topsheet" , and immediately rattled off a helpful-but-mildly-sarcastic note to Proctor & Gamble about how I would have thought that a multi-billion-dollar company like themselves would be able to afford professional proof-readers.
Here's the reply. @P&G Droid said:Thank you for sharing your disappointment with our product package. Our goal is to produce high quality products and packages that consistently delight our consumers and I'm sorry this wasn't your experience. Please be assured I'm sharing your comments with the rest of our team.(I love the use of two "sharings" in three sentences, but the fact that their goal is to produce packaging that delights me is rather touching, don't you think? )
Whatever happened to human-to-human contact though? Surely, simply "Oops - you're right! I'll make sure it's sorted straightaway - thank you!" , even if expressed more formally, would at least give some confidence that somebody somewhere had actually read the mail, rather than that being the same form letter as if I'd complained about the fact that the violet packaging hurt my eyes?
@stolen_username said:
I've been making the unconscious assumption that SSDS is so unusable, not even SpectateSwamp would be able to stand using it most of the time.
@SpectateSwamp said:
I had the same naming problem the guy that came up with GREP had.
As I've said before, it's frankly insulting for you to even compare your feeble-minded attempt at searching strings with grep. By the way, as for the "Masses" , I had my 12-yr old read the highlights of this thread, then asked him if he wanted to try out your program. He laughed. Lots. Without wanting to get too personal, his opinion is that the best thing about this thread is the phrase "TDEMSYR..."
@bstorer said:
Let's be clear on this: the solution for unoriginality is NOT a Chuck Norris joke.
I know, I know :) - that was sorta the point. I still find it's possible though to amuse my son's 'gang' (jaded 12-14 yr olds) by using Chuck as the punchline of an obtuse shaggy-dog story, say. ("Ever wonder why a bunch of trees suddenly uprooted and became Ents? Well, it was a nice and peaceful day in the woods, the sun shining and the birds singing...")
Not the part about crying; that's just messed up.Awww - you've obviously missed out. I defy anyone to listen to Count Arthur Strong's "Fiddler on the roof" finale without fluid coming out of every orifice capable of producing it.
@El_Heffe said:
There's nothing original. No actual jokes. Nothing even remotely funny. It's all setup and no punchline.
Just to slap in my 2 10 50c, I think it simply needs a little re-direction, in as many interpretations of that word as you can think of. Although I know bugger all about comic strips, I've done a bit of stand-up in my time, and have both acted in and directed a few comedies, and I've found that one of the most important things is a fair estimate of your audience's level of humour. </>
Considering the audience here, and the well-worn-but-still-current theory of humour being a suprise-based reaction, I'd like to see each 'gag' worked a little more, and some space to allow the audience to create their own laugh, as it were. I'm desperately trying to think of a good example here and failing miserably, but a poor example would be the "Chicken crossing the road" - even the best variant of the "straight" gag will barely raise a titter, but mileage can still be gained from indirect reference ("For Sale - free-way-range chicken" , "The road crossed Chuck Norris and turned chicken" - sorry - brainstorming on the fly here, but you get the idea.) The best laugh comes from the audience discovering the laugh, rather than being fed it. That's why Larson is so brilliant - you actually have to look hard to find the gag. It's the same reason that the best TV comedies don't need a laugh-track.
Failing that, then exaggerate. Rather than simply having Bill tearing at whatever-that-is he's holding, he should be walking out of the door with suitcases packed, a big sign on the window saying "Out of Business" and muttering "I'm going to rip Stallman's balls off" or something. If the basic premise is "Geek sends open letter - Bill gets worried", then take both ends further apart - "Geek considers sending open letter - FBI overhear and tell Bill - Bill jumps off a cliff".
Characterisation is important too - I still know nothing about the characters other than some very broad (and again, well worn) stereotypes. Again, if your audience know the characters, they predict the gag themselves. A particularily good example of this recently (this side of the pond anyway - no idea how long it's been going on over there) is "The Big Bang Theory". Not necessarily the best sitcom ever, but they worked hard in the first episode to get over all the personality traits of the principals, such that the second episode (shown here last night) managed to rely almost entirely on the audience's awareness of their feelings, to the point that many of the 'reaction lines' could remain unstated - a simple look sufficed.
It's a worthwhile effort, and the potential's there, but it's only running at 50% at the moment. C'mon boys - make me cry - I know you can do it :)
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Right, it is clear that English == United Kingdom.
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Riiiight. I should do all my searching in a UK dictionary...
@Lingerance said:
@Benn: Windows explorer when it generates the start bar below is referred to as the shell, cmd.exe and command.com are no longer referred to as shells. TRWTF is that MS renames half of the components every desktop OS.
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
The reference to vulva reads ... That doesn't clear anything up for me. Sorry.
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fanny
I don't get it. Making up meanings to words and then expecting everyone else to know them is the WTF?
Ermm - the statement "from earlier British meaning 'vulva' (1879), and then later "2. external female sex organs; in England 'fanny' is vulgar slang for female genitals" may have given you a clue...
@GalacticCowboy said:
back to your randomly scheduled video and search.
{Insert joke about videoing in OneNote format and searching it with SSDS here}
@equalssolved said:
it is relevant to the length of the url
Not being a windows-y VB-y guy, can't say for certain, but this page tells you how to get hold of your parent process - presumably, that'd be cmd.exe if you launched from the shell, rather than explorer.exe if you launched from the GUI. HTH
@dhromed said:
What I mean is that Editplus [snip] various comment colours for Done versus defer/delay/feedback. :)
@djork said:
That is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.
LABEL_10345 shoot at birds
LABEL_20332 miss birds
LABEL_43693 birds don't give a fuck
LABEL_56931 GOTO LABEL_10345
I really can't be bothered at the moment, but if anyone's got a spare half-hour, why not knock up SSDS using a combination of grep, figlet and mplayer? Can't be hard - I reckon it could be done in about 30 lines...maybe then he'd shut the fuck up!
Apologies for yet another homonym, but I couln't resist...
Enjoy your lug!
@shadowman said:
That doesn't count. It requires me to assume facts about somewhere else in the code that aren't clearly shown there.
Just to remove any ambiguities...
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/stonedan/source.txt
Enjoy your [10,000] bug[s]
(Can't believe we haven't done this yet!)@belgariontheking said:
@Lysis said:
@belgariontheking said:
"To fill your mind with knowledge, we must start by emptying it"
This is a very bad quote and very wrong to boot!
It's a fucking joke you moron!
Ahem - chaps? Do you mind awfully if we get back to the point of this thread now?
Enjoy your Plug...Before the main thrust, as it were, first a quick plea to SS. Please stop the 'Greppler' business. It's annoying and insulting to the intelligence to hear this from a grown man who doesn't even know what a bloody regular expression is. Have you ever used grep? No, not VAX Search - I said grep. Well - have you?
(While we're at it, and although I said nothing at the time, if you ever called me 'BennieSwamp' to my face, I'd lamp you. And I'm a hippie...)
Now, for everybody else - the ones that can parse English sentences with more than a single clause, that is. I'm sure I'm not alone in trying to work out what it is about this thread that's so compulsive, other than the car-crash fascination of watching a psychotic in full flow, and having just spent a morning showing non-techie-types some basic stuff about MS Word without resorting to screaming "Just Press F1" at them, I think I've sussed some of it.
As programmers, and thus generalised problem-solvers on the whole, we're good at analysing a situation and breaking it down into its constituent parts. I'm sure most of us here are also the ones that friends / colleagues come to when they need complicated concepts explaining - even if we know bugger all about it, we're often good at simplifying for others. :)
With Doug, we appear to have hit a wall, and it's become almost a matter of pride to see who can be first to explain something that seems so obvious to us in a language that the man understands. Personally, it annoys the hell out of me that I can't just make him see in 3 sentences or less! Part of it of course is the medium - he can pick-and-choose as he likes, ignoring the questions that may shake his convictions, whilst picking up on throwaway sarcasm and treating it as verification. Even so, we've got to admit at some point that like any good koan, this is simply insoluble.
The main clue in all this is the code. Anybody still tying to explain basic concepts to this man who hasn't had a look at the source yet should do so now. You know how when you look at "The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke", which although a work of genius, is so obviously done by a psychotic? Take away the "work of genius" bit, and you've got it. It contains every single possible class of WTF ever featured on this site. It's what would have happened if Paula had been allowed to continue for 20 years. My very first post here was an attempt to explain to SS about the quality of code reflecting the quality of thinking - and at that point I'd only scanned the first 100 lines or so. Having looked at the rest now, I can only conclude that there really is no hope. We will never be able to explain anything to this man. Ever. Let's simply accept the peace of mind that brings :)
Enjoy your (other type of) tug
(The real WTF is a google image search for "tug" with SafeSearch off...I had no idea!)@rc_pinchey said:
I nominate you for the "Best Post of the Thread" award.
@Lysis said:
Prime numbers are for sci fi movies since WTF CARRRRRRES if a number is prime. Get a life, Mathematicians.
@SpectateSwamp said:
SSDS started off mirroring the Vax search. I'm sure GREP and Vax/Search have most of the same options that SSDS has.
Again, the online-version-of-search-that's-nowhere-near-as-good-as-SSDS instantly clues me in on the VMS search utility . What's interesting is that the VMS search searched files , and allows (like grep) for non-matches, line numbers and the rest. I don't think SSDS is quite at that stage yet. Please too, read up about Regular Expressions before you mention SSDS and grep in the same sentence again.
As it happens, I suspect that this whole thread is simply about the fact that you miss the command line. Did you know that you can still access a DOS prompt from whatever Windows you've got? Have you ever played with Linux shells? Mate - you'd love it - *just* like being back in the '70's...
@Mikademus said:
Benn, that was simply one of the single best posts I've ever read.
I'm flattered - thank you. (Pity about the line breaks disappearing though) . I think though, looking at your site, that there may be a slight bias, considering some of my more outspoken opinions about the state of modern gaming...blah blah...all blokes in suits these days...blah blah...when Rob & I did Monty...blah blah... :)
@Mikademus said:
I'll turn homosexual for your sake and have your children
Give me a shout when you get the womb implant.
Learn<br>
some<br>
more<br>
about<br>
HTML and CSS<br>
especially<br>
the <P> tag
@SpectateSwamp said:
It would be nice to see which was first VAX/Search or Grep.
Use of a certain search engine beginning with 'G' and the words "grep history" pulled up this in about 2 seconds...
"Grep is listed in the Manual for Version 4 Unix which is dated November, 1973. The date given for the creation of grep is March 3, 1973."
You see, the internet and searching and stuff like that is quite easy when you know how...