Ah... Drum brakes are TRWTF.
Protip: pull both drums, but only take one side apart at a time. That way you have a reference point (albeit one that is somewhat mirrored from the other one!)
Ah... Drum brakes are TRWTF.
Protip: pull both drums, but only take one side apart at a time. That way you have a reference point (albeit one that is somewhat mirrored from the other one!)
I feel your pain. "Proper" OO design techniques (note that I don't imply "well-executed", at least in my case) bumping up against the real world data usage. When your design documents have a family tree in them, look out!
@Scarlet Manuka said:
...There was no blinky bit for me in IE8; I had to load the page in FF to see the blinkiness. So, yeah, what derula said about cross-browser support.
IE8 ignores the <blink> tag? I think I found my new browser!
@kilroo said:
@tchize said:So, you were under Oveur and over Unger.
So... he was over Uneger and Unger was over Dunn?
Worked at a small ISP back in 2000. Was at home one evening when the pager went off... lost our backbone connection from my POP to the main office. I was able to dial into the main POP or the remote, but couldn't talk between the two. Outage lasted all night.
Found out later that our backhaul provider was performing an upgrade to their ATM switches that night. They tested everything out on the testbed, which worked fine. Unfortunately, their production hardware was a slightly different revision than their test hardware, and the new software had a bug that their vendor was not aware of. They pushed their upgrade to the main switch, which pushed out to the rest of the network, which then crashed... hard.
Solution: Upload a new image and configuration file. Over a 9600 baud serial port (hence the waiting all night for the network to come back up). Kind of like jumping out of an airplane with a bag of caterpillers and watching them spin enough silk for a parachute.
Must be the new "rapid releases" they've been talking about. Since bigger version numbers are "better", they decided to stop counting by ones.
Clearly they've moved to a Fibonacci sequence. Version 3 was the last stable version, followed by version 5. Version 8 is in testing. Obviously the next version will be version 13, followed by version 21.
Just have a laugh at the absurdity of the situation. In my experience, DEED usually manages to straighten these type of things out. Government agencies have an (often justly earned) bad rap, but this one usually does a great job of sticking up for the little guy. Of course, their phone support is like tech support, it can take a while to get through the first level to someone who can help with more than "check your caps lock key".
If you don't manage to get anywhere, log in to your UI account and find the link to contest the $585 overpayment. That will result in a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (you can attend by phone). The likely outcomes are (in descending order):
* The action will force a human to look at your records, they'll clear up the mistaken overpayment, and you'll get a letter saying the hearing is canceled and you don't owe any overpayment.
* The hearing will take place, you'll plead your case, and the Judge will rule that you, the honest joe just trying to earn a living, are entitled to the disputed payments. (MN ALJs have a reputation for favoring the employee, especially in cases like yours where you're back at work already).
* At some point, someone will discover how and why an erroneous $0.00 overpayment letter was sent, and you'll end up paying back an overpayment.
Dig through your old job info... if that $585 was part of separation pay, vacation pay, sick pay, etc. you probably have nothing to worry about.
Oh that would have been awesome. Some card stock and a keypunch, and you've got a do-it-yourself registration system!
When I was going to college at the University of WTF (name changed to protect the guilty), there was a built in workaround for crap like this. There was a magic override code. I believe they used Peoplesoft for their registration system (wrapped in layers of web based crap).
The procedure was:
I had enough experience with the process to know that the override number was unique to the student/course ID combination (I got different override numbers for different courses in the same semester, other students got different numbers for the same course, etc.). I never had enough data to crack the code. I believe the coordinators looked up the codes for us in a printed reference, so I don't know if it was formulaic, a one-time pad for overrides per course, OTP per student, etc.
Their petition system was even more archaic. Print/wooden table/scan would be a great improvement.
@intertravel said:
@RichP said:So were you surprised that when you assigned IP addresses, the number after 192.168.0.9 was 192.168.0.10 instead of 192.168.1.0?IP addresses aren't simple integers, they're dot-separated co-ordinates for a four-dimensional space - or, if you prefer, four digit numbers in base-256, written in a funny way. I suppose when you put it that way, version numbering like 1.9 -> 1.10 is actually not in base-ten. Again, that's using dots to separate non-base-ten numbers written in a way that can use (one or) more than one character to represent each digit.@RichP said:
If you email a buddy in Vancouver at someone@bc.ca, would you expect the next address to be someone@bd.ca, or someone@bc.cb?No. Email addresses aren't sequential, incremental, what-have-you. Version numbering is (supposed to be).
To be more precise, IPV4 addresses are each a single 32-bit number, commonly expressed in a funny way, and (often? sometimes?) understood to be a two dimensional space (network and host). Like I said, the email analogy is a reach. What I was getting at is we're surprisingly used to treating the dot as an arbitrary separator in other scenarios.
Here's another way to think about the original question, would the following sequence of version numbers seem unusual?
1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 3.0....
On the one hand, the first part of the sequence could imply our version system is base-4, so version 3.4 must be followed by 4.0. On the other hand, if we assume the numbers are base-10, for some reason we don't find the lack of version 1.4 to be glaring.
I'm sure there's someone out there studying human perception of numeric data that can explain why we have some of those perceptions. I'm content to marvel at them (both the perceptions and the people with time to study them!)
@RHuckster said:
A little while ago I actually had a very similar experience at my own work, when I was designing a software update system for our products. Being relatively new at the time and (incorrectly) assuming they used version numbering like the OP was expecting from The Sims, I had used a simple "parse the number then just use comparison operators to see which is newer." I got yelled at when their app stopped working when we went from 1.9 to 1.10. I explained to them that it's a bit confusing since we really should have started at 1.01. Their answer to that was, "well, what happens after 1.99?"
If you want to use a version numbering scheme where 9 is less than 10 because it's really a minor version number that's sort of "independent" of the major version number to a certain degree, then I don't understand why one would use "decimal notation" to express the version number. It just creates confusion like the OP and my own experience.
So were you surprised that when you assigned IP addresses, the number after 192.168.0.9 was 192.168.0.10 instead of 192.168.1.0?
If you email a buddy in Vancouver at someone@bc.ca, would you expect the next address to be someone@bd.ca, or someone@bc.cb? (ok, that one was abusing/stretching the analogy, even for me!).
I guess I'm just used to the major.minor.patch format of version numbering, especially the idea of "rules" for assigning or incrementing version numbers. In my experience, a jump from 1.9 -> 2.0 implies "get ready for an entirely new UI (Firefox) or backend DB (peachtree) etc." and a jump from 1.9 -> 1.10 means something like "whew, we fixed that security hole".
Let's go through the partial checklist:
Ow. I feel your pain.
Let me guess, though. Your company has a 42-page disaster plan so that the execs can feel good about how prepared the company is.
Great effort, but unfortunately it's probably all wasted. I have a strong suspicion that you'll find the batteries are also six years old. So, come the next power outage, at about the time your carefully crafted shutdown plan thinks there should be about 30 minutes of battery life remaining, the UPS will unceremoniously shut down.
Picture the techs sitting in the dark unable to comprehend that the UPS died already. "but the datasheet said that this UPS has a 65 minute runtime!" (Then you get to explain to them that yes, 65 minutes is correct. With brand new batteries. And a 25% load. And operating at room temperature. You have batteries that are old enough to go to kindergarten, have been running at 35C or better, and the load is at about 95% of nameplate capacity. Game over.)
Clbuttic.
And today, class, we use a real-world example to learn why regexes can be more useful than find/replace. Today's lecture is entitled: "Leaning toothpick syndrome".
Not a WTF. This is simply a rare installation of TCP/IP-over tin cans and a string. The taut cable is necessary for higer data rates.
Yahoo! Finance has decided to "improve" the design of their portfolio tracker page. Lots of minor WTFs, including:
1) The "%change" for the day used to be red or green for up/down, they're now all black text.
2) The %change figure is preceeded by a dollar sign (I could swear that my math teacher told me percentages were unitless)
3) The day's value change includes a surpurflous plus sign for gains.
4) Last trade time looks like "04:00pm EST".
5) Somehow managed to make the entire view wide enough that I need to scroll to see it all.
The good news is that it claims my portfolio made money today.
@mott555 said:
(snip)
Then you'll have to develop your CGI application to take a URL and figure out the correct file to download. For maximum performace you should write the application in C and use assembly for the critical logic. It'll need to be portable so it can run on any embedded system so you'll need to find good assembly-language programmers who are knowledgeable in several operating systems and CPU architectures. Once this CGI application is written you'll be ready for beta and user-testing.
(snip)
Awesomeness. You forgot one meme, thought I'd help.
According to the MacromatX web site: "WE WORK THE WAY YOU DO, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND"(the bold and caps are theirs, not mine). So, the majority of their customers must Fubar their float calculation. Or, alternatively, maybe it's just assuming the till operator pockets all/most of the folding money!
@Master Chief said:
In Career Highlights:
"<font face="Arial">Microsoft</font><font face="Arial"> –
"Windows XP - 1st consumer release" Discovered,
Troubleshot & developed
workarounds with Microsoft high level engineers over the course of 9
months for Windows Explorer bugs that affected file display & Local
Area Networking"</font>I call bullshit.
"Windows XP - spent many hours on the phone with Microsoft Tech Support, trying to enable file sharing between the two computers on my
10 Base-T Internet at work"
...There, I fixed it.
123456? That's amazing, I have the same combination on my luggage!
@Wrongfellow said:
<snip>Call-centre guy: "Well, we need a phone number for our records."
<snip>
You should have answered something like "one" or "42". That could have been fun!
That would make some sense. Although the last issue dragged on for months while Service Pack 1-3 were "going to fix the problem for sure", so I wasn't anticipating a quick fix.
There's also the part of me that wants to raise the issue right away, in case the problem is more widespread, so that they can try and resolve it quickly.
That's exactly the thought process I assume they're using. I don't even have a problem with the desire to close the tickets. However, it would be one thing if McAfee sent me an email that actually looked for a response (status update request, request to close with the assumption the instruction will fix it, asking what the weather is like, etc.). No, instead their daily emails are "gosh we're sorry for the inconvenience" followed by boilerplate contact information.
Ironically, they're creating an inconvenience, since I need to give them a love letter every day to tell them that I'm still alive.
If I ever have to open another ticket with them, I'm just going to create a cron job to email them a ticket update once per day. Problem solved.
I'm running McAfee SaaS on a Windows 2003 SBS server (my admin skills on Windows are probably the source of plenty of WTFs, but that's for another day). After the last McAfee update, we started getting errors from the McAfee updater. This happened to us with the last release, which took forever to resolve, so I wasn't really excited.
I logged a tech support request with McAfee (including a note that since this is a production server, I can't just reboot on a whim). Their initial reply was that I should manually uninstall and reinstall the software. Detailed steps included:
1. Log on to the security center from www.mcafeeasap.com
2. Click on the tab utilities-> select the sub tab Migration & Optimization.
3. Under the Cleanup Utility --> select the download option.
4. Download and save it to the desktop and run this exe to uninstall.
5. Delete all the entries from start->Run->temp and then select all the files and folder under that and delete. (Ignore the files that you are not able to delete)
6. Delete all the entries from start->Run->%temp% and then select all the files and folder under that and delete. (Ignore the files that you are not able to delete)
7. Delete all the entries from start->Run->prefetch and then select all the files and folder under that and delete. (Ignore the files that you are not able to delete)
8. Reboot the computer.
I replied right away to thank them and to indicate that I would not be able to try this right away, due to my aforementioned desire to not reboot a production server without arranging for the downtime. McAfee replied:
"I read your reply. I really apologize for the inconveniences you had with McAfee. The McAfee which you are going to install is the new version 5.2 and this won't create any problem."
"Moreover this new version doesn't require a reboot to work as per its functionality. You can carry on your work when the installation gets completed. Please let me know if you have any other queries and I will be assisting you further."
After that, I started getting daily "I really apologize" emails, until I didn't reply to one of them with a daily "no change, still waiting for a maintenance window" message. After 23h without a reply, McAfee closed the &*#$ ticket due to "no response from customer". Let's count the WTFs:
"you are upgrading to 5.2" -- No, the system was already upgraded to 5.2, I'm reinstalling.
Argh, the pain. NetBEUI alone is bad enough.
I bet that while you were on hold with Tier 3, the engineers first huddled in a sidebar meeting and concluded that you had a fun challenge. The rest of the time was spent coding. Betting on the outcome may have been involved.
TRWTF is Cisco IOS image names. I don't think they really write the images, they just have an auto-generating system that takes the alphabet soup of a name and spits out a .bin file.
"Oh, you want a router that does OSPF, NetBEUI, Appletalk, and Lantastic? That's image ios-hfw_78r(32)_T-%#h.bin. What's that? you also want to be able to access the console by tapping on the case in morse code? Well that's image ios-qq(5)_T-ël11.3.bin"
On the bright side: you can now call yourself the world's foremost expert on tunneling NetBEUI. The downside: you are the world's foremost expert on tunneling NetBEUI.
@Samuel Adam said:
@Alex Papadimoulis said:This DNS stuff is way over my head. Should I change anything?
<snip>
I am not affiliated with any of these sites; and I only briefly skimmed their explanations for general signs of cluefulness and/or usefulness. I also skimmed over some disastrously bad advice, e.g., saying that you need separate IP addresses and PTR records set up for each of your virtual hosts at which you have mail aliases (!). At the bottom line, all you need is for forward DNS, reverse DNS, and
HELO/EHLO
on your mailserver to all agree with each other; the actual addresses you are sending and receiving at are irrelevant.[Edit: Added
nofollow
link to identify persons guilty of bad advice.]
I once ran into someone even dimmer. We were helping someone set up a coffee shop/Internet cafe back in the late 90s (dude was way ahead of his time). This was before wifi, so the guy had about 6 PCs in the back for Internet access. In talking to the "network admin", I found out that they had Three class C blocks (yes, this was back in the pre-CIDR days). When I asked why he had three class-Cs, his answer was "well, I have to have three, after all, I have three domains".
Yep, he thought that registering three domain names required him to have three class C blocks of addresses.
Things didn't go well from there. Last I heard, the owner was found living in a steam tunnel beneath the building. Sad situation.