The real wtf is in using something that relies on a "very strictly controlled Windows environment" to work without requiring your users to reboot. I believe it's time for one of your users to come down to IT support and give you a righteous beating for wasting their time on broken software.
Posts made by olsner
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RE: User Oblivion
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RE: Interesting difference here, can the experts explain this?
You have not grokked the difference between an n-dimensional array and an array of arrays. The Java array is:
T myarray, where T=U[], where U = V[], where V = W[], where W = int - note that types T and U are 1-dimensional arrays of objects and V is a 1-dimensional array of ints
while the C# array is:
V[,,] (3-dimensional!), where V = int.
Not that I know C#, but I still can guess :P
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RE: Origins of WTF coders
Dear God!
He actually teaches a "course" at a "university" based on this book!
More horror at http://www.franca.com/cmps060/
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RE: Precise time
[quote user="runegri"]
You also have AddTicks that adds a number of 100-nanosecond ticks to the DateTime. And the datetime is actually measured as the number of ticks since 12:00 midnight, January 1st 0001 AD.
[/quote]
Are you sure? I thought it was 1600 AD (which is possibly even more WTF - 0001 is at least a pretty even number (1 being the second integer, but indeed the first year...)). At least, the Win32 API uses that time (epoch=January 1st 1601) for files: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wcekernl/html/_wcesdk_win32_filetime_str.asp
And I can find no mention of how this time measure interprets the several changes in calendars we've went through since that time. And I'm quite sure that none of you really know how many years ago year 1 actually was (years, months, days, hours and seconds have all been fudged by arbitrary constants in the calendar shifts).
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RE: Default password
Perhaps the idea is that you print (and preferably read) the instructions *before* formatting the server and starting the installation CD you probably know nothing about.
Or just COPY file.txt LPT1: - works nicely if the printer&file is postscript or if the file is plain text. If you need to use a network printer, you'll need to install it first - then you can set it up as a virtual LPTn: port to use with COPY, or just use it as a normal printer with Notepad.
If the installation instructions are in HTML, you'll be out of luck unless the server a) has Internet Explorer (yay! servers with insecure web browsers!) b) you want to read it all in HTML code.
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RE: Unary arithmetic
Let's break it up: (analysed to the best of my regexp abilities.. YMMV)
^...$: The whole string must match ...
Now, the outer parens contain two cases and a special ?: operator in the beginning:
(`) ?: makes it so that the string matched by the enclosing parens isn't captured as \1 - I guess this one's optional, but makes the (b) subexpression less confusing
(a) 1? - matches 0 or 1 '1' - i.e. the two special non-primes.
(b) (11+?)\1+ - This one finds n-(n>=2)-multiples of strings of 2 or more ones using a back-reference. i.e. for 42*'1', this part of the reg-exp would match \1 = "11" followed by 20 copies of \1. By using (11+?), the shortest sequence of ones (minimum length 2) is chosen for the back-reference - i.e. the smallest factor of the number is in the \1 and the largest factor is the number of times it is matched by backreference. Which is why 42 matches 2*21 instead of 7*6. I can only guess that it is done like that for efficiency.
Now that I almost understand it, it doesn't seem that awesome anymore, but kindofa neat trick to have up one's sleeve - should impress the cow-orkers.
Edit: Whatever... the previous poster probably said it better ;-)
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RE: Not so C++
[quote user="HeroreV"]... you'd just be dipping into a big bucket of bits with no safety checks.[/quote]
But that's what C++ is good for! The big bucket of bits without the safety checks is what it's all about! Absence of {raw bit buckets, unchecked casts, pointer arithmetics, ambiguous grammar, (2^k; k much larger than 1) ambiguous and unintuitive precedence rules} makes Jack a dull boy, you know.
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RE: A flamewar on java dev forums WTF
Allow me to misunderstand and redefine all terms used in your previous post when I say: Java dont uses call-by-value for objects (just another name for passing an objects by-value instead of the actual value of the object). this why the three-wire design of JSP isn't by the J2EE design document PROPER. Just by passing by-value of objects it is! But you must count the client in, otherwise the previous proof isn't proven - at least that is what thet say with the design document (I have read this, if you say not you are incorrect!).
How many posts like those posted by daFoi over there, are posted and moderated to oblivion over here? Any moderator willing to share their experience?
Or are we in fact so lucky as not to have such moronic posters at all in this forum? I sort of find that inprobable, even though this site is so much more serious in contents, I mean some of the posts here must strike some nerve even in daFoi's mind. OTOH, he probably finds most of the WTF:s prime examples of How It Should Be Done(tm) in the Real World, and the Real WTF in daFoi's mind is always that we don't understand how infinitely clever the code in the WTF is.
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RE: Google code search
Now THIS is why I never comment my code - you just never know where those comments are going to end up!
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RE: Solaris /bin/true
Most systems already come with a fully functional filenotfound utility.
/bin/filenotfound; echo $?
zsh: no such file or directory: /bin/filenotfound
127
/bin/true; echo $?
0
/bin/false; echo $?
1
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Zombie Hunter WTF
http://platsbanken.ams.se/text/97/061003,090010,240916,81,0281650597.shtml
Sorry for the link being in swedish. (Crappy translation available through http://www.systranbox.com/systran/box) Basically, they're looking for 2-10 zombie hunters, who are to explore the northern parts of Sweden looking for zombies.
Requirements include a hunting license, documented knowledge of zombies and other viral undead, experience of epidemiological research and medical training. "Beside daytime duties, your work as a zombie hunter will involve early mornings, late nights and weekends." (loosely translated)
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RE: Dell's ABCDs
A: Floppy 1, B: Floppy 2, C: Hard drive and D: CD-ROM. In the next version, the LED's will attempt to properly rename themselves if you for some reason remap the partitions and hard drives (but this is of course for advanced users only!) - but since LED's E through Z don't exist your computer will crash hard, and your data will relocate into cyberspace.
Google holds the real answer though. In the first found page, it's all available for Reading in The Fine Manual.
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RE: Just to be on the secure side...
Perhaps the newly created Random object will be used to generate 20megs of random data - and has to generate them fast. Using one (more secure) RNG to initialize an RNG of lesser strength isn't all that uncommon.
The RNGCryptoWhatever service may connect to a really secure entropy source (such as a geiger counter or mouse data or something) that is too slow (think /dev/random which waits until enough entropy events has come in) to use in the real application. Of course, the added cryptographic security of randomly initializing the seed is dramatically reduced by generating lots of data from the standard RNG, but it might be a reasonable trade-off in this application (at least if the seed is re-initialized now and then from the secure RNG).
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WTF!? Pterodactyl Porn
Yes, this abomination actually exists!
(NSFW, etc, because it's actually porn, you know... but with pterodactyls in it)
http://www.pornotube.com/media.php?m=32561
Not much to say but WTF!
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RE: Battlestar Galactica Girls
[quote user="Richard Nixon"]
I really want someone to chime in with, "Oh, I don't watch television. I don't even own a television set." I love those people. They make the world a brighter place with their need to tell everyone that they don't own a TV.
[/quote]
I don't watch television. I don't even own a television set! (But that doesn't mean anything in this context, since BSG doesn't even run on television over here!) Of course, I do watch battlestar galactica - all that's worth seeing is made available through other means ;-)
Back to the topic; left bsg-girl is definitely bbg-class! The right bsg-girl is more fbg-class (at least in this picture). And I just loove how this has evolved into an entire subculture. BTW, does anyone have a screenshot of hairpulling girl? I seem to have missed her...
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Accessibility WTF
In preparation for the upcoming swedish election, the government has put together an information site with all the information needed for any idiot (hrm... citizen!) to complete the election.
Naturally, this information needs to be available in all languages for people with all kinds of disabilities (poor eyesight, poor hearing, poor motor abilities) and of all languages. Every language has its own video file with someone reading the most relevant information, so this information is available even for those who can't read well or at all. Including sign language. Let me explain in a little more detail: when clicking on the link to "Sign Language", you get a page which presents another link "See the information video" to where they've put up a link to a video file (silent!) with someone signing all the information on the web page.
Let's think about this a little harder... "Hmmmm, how to represent information visually?" Yeees! Have a person sign it out in sign language, put it in a video file, and link to it on a page.
Perhaps I'm missing something here, but what's the point in presenting information in sign language that's already readily available in text?