The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Anno Domini

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-06-24

Buffalo, New York is a recovering Rust Belt city which has given the world several notable achievements. First, a fairly forgettable sliced meat sandwich au jus more known for its barely edible stale roll than for the entirely unremarkable beef entombed within. Second, an innovative repurposing of a castoff fowl appendage into a drunkard's delicacy (and Mlle Simpson's famed befuddlement). Most of all, it's indispensable for the construction of a lighthearted linguistic shibboleth: Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo... and so on. Unfortunately, the city also brings us bad news this week.

But first, Tony H. reminds us of a famously scandal-ridden bank. Theirs might not have been the worst fraud in 2016 (or 2017, or 2018, or 2019) but apparently they're now tightening down the screws on consumer lending. Tony observes, frostily, "a credit card with a limit below zero is alarming even for Wells Fargo."

17 comments - Last comment @ 2022-06-24

Meat!

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-06-10

I remember when gasoline was under a dollar a gallon in the US! And penny candy was only a penny! And a pound sterling could buy you a decent dinner, not just a few ounces of meat product! And the euro! Let me tell you about the euro!!
I mean, um. Yeah. Things have changed, and it seems lately all our consumer goods and services have become suddenly more expensive, or smaller, or inferior in some other way. Have you priced airplane flights, even in middle seats with no luggage or food?
The lead submission this week isn't really a software Error'd. It's not even a wacky product offering from Amazon. But despite what seems an unconscionable price, the manufacturer has discovered a revolutionary method to deliver extra value by (apparently) literally altering the properties of the universe.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... MEAT!

Finally free from those awful EU restrictions, Michael R. now has access to 85% over-clocked pork sausages. "Not bad to get 185g meat out of 100g product.", he grunts gluttonously. "I will take 2."

19 comments - Last comment @ 2022-06-21

Cinch

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-06-03

Yankee Ezra A. explains the screenshot below at some length. Says he: "I live in Newton, MA, an affluent, wealthy suburb of Boston. In general, city services are excellent, although the home page of the website is a bit crowded, so I was glad to get an email with a link to the page where I could see how the city is handling my request/complaint about sidewalks, via the city's 311 service (I have no idea what the 311 stands for) When I went to the website, I found what you see in the photo. I guess one can't really complain about one small error in a large website." It's certainly an effective strategy for keeping the complaints box empty!

13 comments - Last comment @ 2022-06-14

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-05-27

This week brings an ongoing installment in a long-running gag, and a plea for help with a truly execrable pun. Can someone please find me some map-related material in Idaho? I promise not to credit you directly!

Workaholic Stuart Longland flexes "Yes, I'm working on a Sunday. And yes, I've worked some long hours in the past. But 56 hours in one day? I don't know whether to crow or cry! But TRWTF is the fact these phantom work entries re-incarnate after I delete them." In his own defense, Stuart explains (and I concur) "Monday-Friday is fairly meaningless after COVID and the Queensland Floods."

16 comments - Last comment @ 2022-06-06

Nice Work If You Can Get IT

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-05-20

Danish cookie connoisseur Jørgen N. contributes our starter course this week. "Cloudera has an interesting way of implementing "Required only" cookies." It's an exercise for the frist poster to explain to the peanut gallery what's so distasteful about third-party cookies.

17 comments - Last comment @ 2022-05-25

Irony

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-05-13

This week's edition of Err'd gets off to a flying start with one that came in "over the transom" as t'were. Ordinarily, expired certs are a bit mundane for this column, but in this case, where this foible fetched up is at least worth a chuckle.

Jim M. wrote directly to the editor with this explanation. "If you're looking for compliance reports to prove that your cloud provider has solid security practices, be wary of this WTF with Azure. Quoting the site, SOC 2 Type 2 attestation report addresses the requirements set forth in the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM), and the Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalogue (C5:2020) created by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). Sounds impressive! The link for Azure DevOps SOC 2 Type 2 attestation report goes to this link, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/regulatory/offering-soc-2, which shows that the cert for this page has expired. Try it here: https://servicetrust.microsoft.com/ViewPage/MSComplianceGuideV3 "

18 comments - Last comment @ 2022-05-24

He's Got a Ticket to Ride

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-05-06

We've had a rash of train troubles lately. If only I had saved them all, we could have enjoyed a first class special edition instead of squeezing them into economy. But here we are. First stop Budapest!

Magyar Máté murmurs from Switzerland "I seem to have a ticket into the void 😱" Make sure you pay for a round trip!

7 comments - Last comment @ 2022-05-17

Time is Time in Time and Your Time

by Lyle Seaman in Error'd on 2022-04-29

Shocked sharer Rob J. blurts "I feel like that voltage is a tad high."

24 comments - Last comment @ 2022-05-10