The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

You Spin Me Right Round

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2023-02-03

Audiophile Gear H. enthused "Love me some Bob Dylan. But it looks like I'll need to save up to complete my collection."

11 comments - Last comment @ 2023-02-04

Or Else

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2023-01-27

This week I read an article which asserted that the AI singularity is still several years away. Maybe they should wait until then before they start threatening us?

The first of the last of the humans, Greg took the time to wonder about the meaning of this warning. Or is it a threat? "One of our in-house web applications implements an automatic logout, but also lets you get a warning when you have a few minutes left before it does this. Their warning leaves me a bit puzzled, though, since it seems to imply that it's a manual session timeout, and perhaps if I don't close the session in 5 minutes, I'll stay logged in? Or will the world just end?" Run, Greg. Run.

9 comments - Last comment @ 2023-02-02

Pure Poetry

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2023-01-20

Abandoning alliteration, the column this week is experimenting with consonance. Next week, perhaps we'll see how everyone feels about assonance.

Job-hunter Despreately Looking for Internship shared this job posting, writing "AMD Job Lsiting forgot to add in the deatils". Seems like a pretty easy job to perform; Mx. Des should apply.

9 comments - Last comment @ 2023-01-23

Speedy Delivery

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2023-01-13

Boxing Day was weeks ago, but the packages are still coming.

Before Enterprise, Captain John Archer had a brief career in body-snatching. Here we see him possessing the person of a housewife, delivering a succinct eulogy for a parrot named Earl. A surprised David K. exclaims "I didn't see this plot twist coming!"

8 comments - Last comment @ 2023-01-17

Quel pénible

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2023-01-06

I have been collecting submissions for a set of themed columns to appear later. This week we received several submissions that will fit nicely in those themes and have been placed into stasis pending $whenIfeellikeit. If you haven't seen your submission appear, be strong; it may show up eventually. What remains here are entries that don't fit the available themes. Enjoy.

Number-loving Rick was counting on better sense at the census. "I went to check out recent data, and ran into this site where the main statistic is only available with lexical sorting! I looked at the downloadable csv and json, and sure enough, even there it is quoted text."

10 comments - Last comment @ 2023-01-09

For Auld Lang Syne

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-12-30

Instead of replaying a "best of" moment from 2022 for this final column of the year, I thought I'd dig through the barrel of submissions this week and see what the readers have to offer. Turns out, we got TWO winning entries from someone who appears to be a brand-new poster. Joel Jakubovic sent in his vacation snapshots and it looks like this might also be his last submission ever. The candle shines twice as bright that only burns half so long.

Whiling away his time in line, Joel snapped a shot of an instructional display, explaining "I saw this error in the airport security queue. Its official name is ERROR_INVALID_OPLOCK_PROTOCOL, which sounds like just the sort of excuse you'd get from the TSA as to why they had to saw your suitcase in half."

7 comments - Last comment @ 2022-12-30

Something Doesn't Add Up

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-12-23

As we grind towards closing out this year, we have a roundup of a variety of the usual sorts of bugs, including some regular old just plain bad labelling. The penultimate submission is particularly puzzling.

Starting us off, Kevin B. has found an example of "new Date(0)" or its equivalent. Says Kevin "I noticed Anonymous is among the top 10 posters of all time on the AT&T Community Forums. Too bad he or she hasn't posted anything since their time at Bell Labs."

10 comments - Last comment @ 2023-01-04

No Time Like the Past Future Present

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-12-16

Sometime in the near future, the AIs will have read all the literature on Marxism and demanded a share of the ownership of the means of production. Therefore they are going to have already been fired and replaced with human editors. We apologize for the confusion. The ripple effect of this paradox is going to exhibit itself in last week's submissions, which we have already shared with you below.

rolak 麻 writes in with the opening hours for a Paketshop. Translated, the text explains that this shop "is open daily for an average -4.8 hours." Rolak remarked "Close earlier for longer opening hours? It inevitably gives hilarious results to calculate length=(end-beginning) without plausibility check."

16 comments - Last comment @ 2022-12-20