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Casanova Matt swings for the fences. "OKCupid (they don't capitalize the K, but I do, for propriety) must have migrated their match questions through Excel during a recent site revamp. These answers should obviously be 1-2 and 3-4, but maybe I could have 2 with Jan and 4 with Margaret (Mar to friends)."
Someone online said we run a Mickey Mouse outfit. Angered beyond words, we consulted [email protected] and they threatened to find that guy and sue him. So to anyone else who thinks this column is Goofy, you should know that the world's definitive authorities insist that it absolutely is not.
But these guys? This website actually is kind of goofy, according to resolutioner Adam R. who crowed "Someone forgot to localize some text for the new year!"
Happy 2025 to all our readers. I can already tell this year's columns are going to be filled with my (least) favorite form of WTF, the impossible endless gauntlet of flaming password hurdles to jump over or crawl under. Please comment if you know why this week's column has this title and why it doesn't have the title Swordfish.
Peter G.
starts off our new year of password maladies with a complaint that is almost poetic.
"Between desire and reality.
Between fact and breakfast.
Between 8 and -6:00.
Madness lies, lies, lies..."
The Hatter was framed! He didn't even do it! Nil Corpus Delecti, et cetera.
Yet Yitz O. , up to some kind of skullduggery, observed a spacetime oddity. "When trying to compare some results from a GetOrders call via the ebay api, I noticed something weird was happening with the DateTimes in the response. The attached is 3 calls to get the same order, made in quick succession. The millisecond part of all the DateTimes matched the millisecond part of the *current* time (which you can see in the TimeStamp field. I assume it's because they rolled their own DateTime functionality and are Getting a UTC time by subtracting the difference between the local time and the UTC time, and one of those values doesn't have the millisecond value in it, but it's the ebay api so who knows." Undoubtedly a bug that nobody ever noticed because they probably just ignore the millis altogether.
Rational Tim R. observed "When setting up my security camera using the ieGeek app there seem to be two conflicting definitions of sensitivity. I hope the second one is wrong, but if it's right, I really hope the first one is wrong."
The weather isn't the only thing that's balmy around this parts.
For instance Bruce, who likes it hot. "Westford, MA is usually bracing for winter in December, but this year we got another day of warm temperatures. The feels like temperature was especially nice."
This week, a double dose of Daniel D.
First he shared a lesson he titled "Offer you can't refuse a.k.a. Falsehood programmers believe about prices" explaining "Some programmers believe that new prices per month (when paid annually) are always better then the old ones (when paid monthly). Only this time they have forgotten their long-time clients on legacy packages."
...or actually, it doesn't. A few fans found figures that just didn't add up. Here they are.
Steven J Pemberton deserves full credit for this finding. "My bank helpfully reminds me when it's time to pay my bill, and normally has no problem getting it right. But this month, the message sent Today 08:02, telling me I had to pay by tomorrow 21-Nov was sent on... 21-Nov. The amount I owed was missing the decimal point. They then apologised for freaking me out, but got that wrong too, by not replacing the placeholder for the amount I really needed to pay. "
