Slashdot Mirror

A large collection of computer stupidity. Good tech support horror stories.

http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/dialectp.cgi?dial ect=hckr&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.microsoft.com%2Finde x.html Ms seems to have left a loophole (minor) if they did this intentionally. =-D

If you want to see how slash would look like in haxor speak - click here (courtesy of this web tool)

I am shocked.

Are you suggesting that Slashdot should censor the authors of this stuff, no matter how awful it is?

Let's face it, this is Open Source Literature at its' best.

or maybe not.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

If you want to see how slash would look like in haxor speak - click here (courtesy of this web tool)

I am shocked.

Are you suggesting that Slashdot should censor the authors of this stuff, no matter how awful it is?

Let's face it, this is Open Source Literature at its' best.

or maybe not.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

Here's a couple other places that speak Swedish Chef, and can make /. even more fun!

the Dialectizer

the Encheferizer


Del

In hunur ooff Merch medness, ve-a peetted 16 tup cells egeeenst iech oozeer. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp! Noo ve're-a doon tu fuoor cumpeteeturs. Um gesh dee bork, bork! Check oooot zee loocky soorfeefurs und fute-a fur zee tvu yuoo vunt tu veen. Bork bork bork!

In honor of March madness, we pitted 16 top cells against each other. Now we're down to four competitors. Check out the lucky survivors and vote for the two you want to win.

"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"

hehe. damn this is a classic Book-A-Minute type review. Too bad they don't have a computing section. Thanks.

Note: These may be Urban Legends. But given my experience both in Tech Support, and Repair, I doubt it.

Story One

A friend of mine asked me to take a look at her computer. She said the computer was unusually "quiet" and would reboot itself on occasion. I surmised correctly that the fan on her power supply was faulty. She was a chain smoker and apparently smoked a lot while working on the computer; not only was the power supply fan gummed up with revolting tar and nicotine, but the CPU's cooling fan was clogged beyond use, and the cdrom drive drawer would not open. This is the only computer I have ever worked on that died from smoking.

Story Two

In reply to the above anecdote of stupidity, a reader sent in the following:

I've seen a computer die from smoking, too.

A customer came in with a dead computer, claimed it was under warranty, and asked if we could fix it. We had look at it, and before we even laid eyes on it, we could smell it. Imagine the stench of an overused ashtray times ten.

We looked at the yellow case (it was supposed to be beige) and the date of purchase (3-4 months previous) and goggled in disbelief that she actually had any lungs left.

"What are you doing with this computer?" I asked in total disbelief.

It was at a taxi service. She smoked, the cabbies smoked, and the room was apparently only about eight by twelve. Smoking took place 24/7 in this place, and her fingers and the computer bore witness. We opened the case, and there were visible deposits of brown tar everywhere. The whole thing was gummy and slimy inside.

We had to tell her she was on her own. Naturally, she countered with the "it's under warranty" argument, but the computer was well beyond that. She left quite mad. We insisted she take her computer with her when she left.

Final Note: Computers are not designed to be an airfilter for the entire smoking room. But they'll do, for a while.

Note: These may be Urban Legends. But given my experience both in Tech Support, and Repair, I doubt it.

Story One

A friend of mine asked me to take a look at her computer. She said the computer was unusually "quiet" and would reboot itself on occasion. I surmised correctly that the fan on her power supply was faulty. She was a chain smoker and apparently smoked a lot while working on the computer; not only was the power supply fan gummed up with revolting tar and nicotine, but the CPU's cooling fan was clogged beyond use, and the cdrom drive drawer would not open. This is the only computer I have ever worked on that died from smoking.

Story Two

In reply to the above anecdote of stupidity, a reader sent in the following:

I've seen a computer die from smoking, too.

A customer came in with a dead computer, claimed it was under warranty, and asked if we could fix it. We had look at it, and before we even laid eyes on it, we could smell it. Imagine the stench of an overused ashtray times ten.

We looked at the yellow case (it was supposed to be beige) and the date of purchase (3-4 months previous) and goggled in disbelief that she actually had any lungs left.

"What are you doing with this computer?" I asked in total disbelief.

It was at a taxi service. She smoked, the cabbies smoked, and the room was apparently only about eight by twelve. Smoking took place 24/7 in this place, and her fingers and the computer bore witness. We opened the case, and there were visible deposits of brown tar everywhere. The whole thing was gummy and slimy inside.

We had to tell her she was on her own. Naturally, she countered with the "it's under warranty" argument, but the computer was well beyond that. She left quite mad. We insisted she take her computer with her when she left.

Final Note: Computers are not designed to be an airfilter for the entire smoking room. But they'll do, for a while.

I am sure we have all experienced the horror stories of pointy haired managers in the real world. Maybe one of these days, Stephen King will even do a story on it. Those needing examples can inspect this site, and also check out this column. Although there are many other examples easy to find around the net.

Sadly, the thing that worries me is that it takes more than a haircut cut to change a pointy haired manager.

The art of managing your managers is an arcane art indeed.

There is the old joke regarding delivery of cutome designed goods:

Pick Any Two:

• High Quality
• Low Cost
• Fast Delivery

One thing that many will run into in the computer industry, is employers who are rather clueless and yet don't necessarily realize this. In 1996, a friend told me about a boss he had that needed a C program written for him. After a week, the boss complained that the program wasn't done, and he asked my friend what was taking so long.

• Friend: "The program is written, and I'm debugging it."
• Boss: "What's wrong with you people? You make programming more difficult than it needs to be. I have Frontpage Express to write web pages with, and when I write code with it, I never need to debug it. If you were as good of a programmer as me, you'd never need to debug either."

High Quality goes out the window.

There is an interesting story of a gentleman who wrote perfect code for a particular project. You can find the story HERE The parent page is also interesting, and worth checking out.

The bottom line is that it is a stoty of a guy who knows something sufficiently well that he was able to spend most of his time designing it, and made sure that the design was correct and perfect from the start.

Most places would have a heart attack at any thought that your would approach it this way in the first place.

I am still thinking on the proper conclusions to draw from all this.

SYMPTOMS

If you are 5,0 years old basic visual current in mode of environment of development of SDI and have a form with a menu, StartupPosition of the form will be changed into " 0 handbooks " when the form is carried out. This problem occurs only if the form has a menu.

CAUSE

menus are added to the form with the turn-around time, which causes a form gives to the coast the event to occur. The event to give to the coast causes StartupPosition with the change incorrectly.

RESOLUTION

the only resolution available at this time must not carry out basic visual in mode of SDI. Microsoft MODE confirmed this to be an anomaly in the products of Microsoft enumerated at the beginning of this article. We seek this anomaly and will announce new information here in the base of knowledge of Microsoft while it becomes available.

(English-to-French, French-to-English of http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q 177/0/89.ASP.)

Of course, you might also run it through the Dialectizer:

If you are runnigg Bisual Basic 5.0 in SDI Debelopmin Enbironmin mode 'n habe a f'm wid a menu, the, uh uh uh, form's StartupPosishun will be changid to "0- Manual" when the, uh uh uh, form is run...

--

And have that user decide to buy from another company in the future, only to find out it's exactly the same with them. Ah well, I guess that's why I won't have to worry about a job anywhere soon. Tech-support has it's advantages. Too bad it also has it's downsides.

Also, for a MASSIVE collection of true tech tales from the trenches, try Computer Stupidities.

I can't find the article/court case that provides this opinion but it had to do with meta search engines and the courts didn't like how they used and messed with other peoples content. Simular to what happend with dialectizer (although it's back up!) so now I am unsure and will no doubt look into it.

Anyone have reference to related court cases and rulings?

It seems even Cached pages (which they highlight words on) would almost be illegal, hopefully not though.

-- .sig --

It seems to me that while many really dumb intellectual property lawsuits occur all the time, there are many more in the computer world than otherwise. I have a theory for this. As many of you know, when perfectly intelligent people get involved with computers, they tend to completely lose any shred of common sense they may have possesed. I think what happens is these patenet reviewers or others who have the power to grand broad intellectual rights say, "Hey, that sounds like a great idea. I'll give this guy a patent for doing something with computers that we do every day, because it works on a computer!" And the computing public just groans and says here's another one.

It seems to me that the Dialectizer got in trouble some time back for letting people run URLs through a filter like this. Could these guys get in the same trouble?

--
Il vaut mieux avoir l'air sans l'effet que l'effet sans l'air.

Oh, piss off, you floater!

Check out Computer Stupidities if you think Mac users are the only ones who need to be told the obvious stuff. In case you don't realize, stupid people do use computers, and regardless of the platform they're on, they tend to get lost.

And for the record, you never *had* to drag the floppy into the trash. There is a menu item "Eject Disk."

And I haven't had to use a floppy in years. And honestly, I don't think you have either. Don't tell me it wasn't a bad idea to get rid of the floppy drive for a new user's computer.



The Happy Blues Man

People do not want software that is "easy to use." People want software that looks good. Compare pine and Lotus Notes (as an email client). Which one looks better? Lotus Notes. Which one is easier to use? Pine, by far. But the good-looking one wins.

So don't try and tell me that Microsoft has made software that is easy to use. Visit iarchitect and you can see plenty of counterexamples which prove that a pretty GUI does not deliver an easy-to-use interface. (They have a whole section devoted to that colossal pile of dung known as Lotus Notes.) I don't believe that there is such a software that is "easy enough for the average person to use." I think that there is some psychological phenomenon which turns many people into morons whenever they get near a computer. Read Computer Stupidities for some excellent examples.

Until a computer is developed that completely understands human speech, no software can be "easy to use." And when I say "completely understands," I mean a computer than understands jokes, puns, idioms, and mispronunciations with a 99.999% accuracy; one that can really guess what the user "meant to say." Remember, the true test of fluency in a langauge is when you can understand jokes in that language.

Rendezvous with Rama is a classic of science fiction, but has pretty much exactly nothing to do with asteroids hitting the earth. Let me point y'all to a synopsis.

Hi. I regret to inform you that the owner of http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/15/173226 &mode=nested has requested that this web site not be translated by The Dialectizer.

DID YOU EXPECT THE COMPUTER TO START RECOGNIZING YOUR FACE????

You know, I think some people do......

Check Computer Stupidities for a laugh :-)

I have a somewhat unique perspective on this, as I'm the main Abuse handler for Dreamhost - the web host for rinkworks.com. I mostly handle spam and the odd copyright violation...

The way I see it, what he COULD do is provide an opt-out list of some sort for sites that don't wish to be Dialectized. So, if SomeBigCorp.com doesn't like their site being munged, they can specifically request removal. You don't need to take the whole thing down, just make it fair to all involved. I personally think most people wouldn't mind at all.

You could have a basic MySQL database with domains that have opted out, or a flat-file or something. If the URL being parsed is in the list, the person using the service gets a notice that due to complaint the process can't continue.

SpamCop does something like this as well, for ISPs that don't want spam reports from their service (kind of lame, but...).

I guess the big trick is making sure that the person opting out is legit, but that's mostly an implementation and policy detail.

Anyhow, I hope Mr. Stoddard finds a way around this. It's a pretty nifty site, I think.

<PLUG TYPE="shameless">
Oddly enough, when I first saw the original story I skipped over it. As a web host, I think it's pretty cool that we were prone to the dreaded Slashdot Effect and didn't even notice. :>
<PLUG>

BTW: these comments are my own, not that of my employer. etc. etc...


- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

Does this mean I am in copyright violation if I have the Bank of America web site in my browser's cache? Wouldn't Babelfish be shut down if this sort of thing was not allowed?

The Dialectizer's author, Samuel Stoddard , puts it best. As for me, I think we are way overdue for copyright law reform, because current laws are doing more harm than good.

And shouldn't B.O.A.'s legal department have better things to do?

The previous in jive:

I dunno about ya' dudes, but ah' fo' one am glad t'see dis doodad gone. Who wants's "JIBE" rap anyway? Do ya' real dink seein' "slap ma' fro" all de time be funny? Do ya' dink dat real sucka's uh African descent rap dat way? I'm glad ah' wuzn't raised on 70's blaxploitashun films.

And whut about "redneck"? Soudern-Americans gots it baaaad enough, whut wid de Yankess harassin' dem about da damn flag dey flew in de War uh No'dern Aggression. 'S coo', bro. ah' duzn't dink makin' fun uh de way dat dey say "y'all" be very propuh'.

And lastly, de Swedish chef. Can we real tolerate da damn amount uh anti-Scandinavian bigotsry which we is bombarded wid daily in de media? Linus himself wuz uh Swedish 'estracshun, and it be no secret dat his Big Daddy wuz some chef. Granted, he had some tendency t'drow chickens around wildly and make noises dat kin't quite be described as speech, but dat's no reason t'rub salt in old wounds.

Shame on ya' Slashdot, fo' suppo'tin' dis monstrosity. Slap mah fro!

... and in redneck:

ah dunno about yo' guys, but ah fo' one is glad t'see this hyar thin' gone. Who be hankerin' "jive" speak ennyway? Do yo' pow'ful reckon seein' "slap ma' fro" all th' time is funny? Do yo' reckon thet real varmints of African dexcent talk thet way? ah's glad ah warn't raised on 70's blaxploitashun films.

An' whut about "redneck"? Southern-South Car'linans haf it bad inough, whut wif th' Yankess hareessin' them about th' flag they flew in th' War of No'thern Aggresshun. ah doesn't reckon makin' fun of th' way thet they say "y'all" is mighty right.

An' lastly, th' Swedish chef. Kin we pow'ful tolerate th' amount of anti-Scan'inavian trimenjusotry which we is bombarded wif daily in th' media? Linus hisse'f was of Swedish extryckshun, an' it is no secret thet his Pappy was a chef. Granted, he had a tendency t'throw possums aroun' wildly an' make noises thet kin't quite be dexcribed as speech, but thass no reason t'rub salt in old woun's.

Shame on yo' Slashdot, fo' suppo'tin' this hyar monstrosity.

... and in "swedish chef":

I doonnu ebuoot yuoo gooys, boot I fur oone-a em gled tu see-a thees theeng gune-a. Vhu vunts "jeefe-a" speek unyvey? Du yuoo reelly theenk seeeeng "slep me' fru" ell zee teeme-a is foonny? Du yuoo theenk thet reel peuple-a ooff Effreecun descent telk thet vey? I'm gled I vesn't reeesed oon 70's blexplueeteshun feelms. Um gesh dee bork, bork!

Und vhet ebuoot "redneck"? Suoozeern-Emereecuns hefe-a it bed inuoogh, vhet veet zee Yunkess heresseeng zeem ebuoot zee fleg zeey floo in zee Ver ooff Nurzeern Eggresseeun. Bork bork bork! I dun't theenk mekeeng foon ooff zee vey thet zeey sey "y'ell" is fery pruper. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp!

Und lestly, zee Svedeesh cheff. Cun ve-a reelly tulerete-a zee emuoont ooff untee-Scundeenefiun beegutry vheech ve-a ere-a bumberded veet deeely in zee medeea? Leenoos heemselff ves ooff Svedeesh ixtrecshun, und it is nu secret thet hees fezeer ves a cheff. Grunted, he-a hed a tendency tu throo cheeckens eruoond veeldly und meke-a nueeses thet cun't qooeete-a be-a descreebed es speech, boot thet's nu reesun tu roob selt in oold vuoonds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!

Sheme-a oon yuoo Sleshdut, fur sooppurteeng thees munstruseety. Bork bork bork!


This straight to you from the "it's-funny-laugh" dept.

I realize, or at least sincerely hope, that your post was satirical but in making your point you neglected include an important link on the dialectizer site concerning discrimination/racism.

--

He kinda just shrugs and moves on.

However, it seems that some of the media (besides slashdot) may pick up this story from the sounds of it, so maybe he'll be persuaded to take a stronger stance

Really he says it much better than I can:

http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/dialectp.cgi?dial ect= redneck&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rinkworks.com%2Fdiale ct%2Fcopyr.shtml

--
blue

A Brief History of Hard Drives
(a la Book-A-Minute).

Scientists: OH NO! Hard drives can't get any better!

Engineers: Wait! Your science is WRONG! (Writes some new equations).

Computer industry: You have SAVED us!

Geeks: YAY!

You too can generate these posts using the handy dandy Dialectizer!!: Here's the swedish chef in Pig latin (This is twice as funny right?): Umyay eday urhay eday urhay eday urhay. Ununymuoosyay inyay Indyyay eetesvray: "Usay yuoo'fe-aay ootshay ooffffyay yuooray uukeeescay, uckedblay use-athay unner-edbay eetessay, undyay instelledyay Oonkboosterjay. Urtyhay urtyflay ippschnay ippschnay! Eeleengfay ecoore-asay inyay yuooray ununymeetyyay? Ellvay, Erteenmay Uulpay etyay Eenooxcere-alay Oostreleeayay oosknay ayay eyvay eeyzay uncay eellstay ecktray yuooay eevhay yuooay oorffsay: Ybay useengyay eezay hTTPay eche-a-cuntrulcay eederhay. Urtyhay urtyflay ippschnay ippschnay! It'syay erfay ure-amay efeeuoosday unthay uukeeescay, undyay ure-amay eefffficooltday utay uckblay, uutay. Eeshay erteecle-ayay Eezay Eunteeme-amay Ixplueetyay eellvay eefe-agay yuooay ayay escreepshunday undyay ayay emunstreshunday." Esyay ayay unoosbay, Erteen'smay eetingvray isyay oonnyfay undyay eerclay. Urtyhay urtyflay ippschnay ippschnay! Elcume-avay utay Underdstay Erunueeapay Eeme-atay.

Hmmm, did you run this through the dialectizer?

It's a pretty neat thing to play with. Looks like he either set it to redneck or to idiot!
Happy playing!

Someone needs to extend the proud tradition of jive and valtalk (see The Dialectizer) to KATZ

Well I think Netscape's great- twice the performance and a lot more stable than anything else made by other people who haven't paid me as much cash to say that.

Barry Fishcake
Senior VP, Mindcraft

Scott Kurtz dose not get the jokes in UserFriendly but that hardly makes them unfunny.

Look at the strips and you'll see they are jokes about people who are prepetually stupid. Illiad colects tech horror storys for his strip. It's not entirely fictional.

Kurtz dose not know what it's like to work at a helpdesk. It is far from the student teacher relationship he likens it to. Instead the help desk is the target of harrasment by users who would rather not use computers to start with.

He seems to think User Friendly is far fetched and not truely representive of what it's like to work at a helpdesk. However the reallity can be found by doing a websearch for "helldesk" the nickname for helpdesk given by it's victoms.
Computer Stupiditys is a website full of examples. Rather than a commic strip this is just the storys from people who work at the helpdesk.
There is annother website with audio recordings from accuall tech support calls and in some of thies the caller screams and yells and dosn't even let the poor tech talk.

Kurtz seems to believe thies are purely attacks on newbes. True newbes do need some help and thats what the help desk is for. The problem is far to often the caller dose not want help instead they want the computer to be byond reason or to conform to some bizzar idea of how computers work.

Some examples of the kind of calls the help desk gets:
Screaming loon.. person will not calm down long enough for the tech to understand what they caller is trying to say... some times the caller just called to curse out the tech.. some times the tech didn't give the caller the answer they wanted.. some times the caller is just to paniced to be reasonable.
The Expert.. Caller is a newbe with just enough knoladge to be dangerous.. he dosn't know computers but he thinks he dose. As a result he dosn't like answers that don't conform to his little world.
Your fault.. User did something newbish.. after all we all make mistakes so it's just a matter of helpping the user fix the problem...
Only the user dosn't want to fix the problem on HIS computer.. he's dead set the problem is on your end.
All three: User did something stupid he knows it's on your end becouse he's an expert and he'll scream at you to fix it...


After all that it's comforting to read a commic strip like user friendly and see that your not the only person sitting at a hell desk.

While Scott Kurtz dosn't think making jokes about idiots is funny he thinks spreding Linux fud is.
In one strip he mentioned how Linux is stable as long as you don't install a sound card...
A sound card dosn't make Linux unstable...
In the past a lot of sound cards didn't work on Linux... but dosn't work on Linux means just that... no sound card... it dosn't exist. Linux remains just as stable as ever..
However on Windows dosn't work means.. crash...
Maybe this is funny to someone who uses Windows and dosn't know better but it's not funny to the person who acually knows what Kurtz is saying.

In short... pot.. kettle.. black...

I feel everything I would want to say is said already, but still....If the manual says: "Press and hold button till beep to store",
then DON'T release the frigging button until you hear beep. If you do release it, then I not only call you an idiot, then you ARE an idiot.

This is a long (and funny) list of people who fall into this category. Or as the lady with the burned out engine said: "I thought the oil-light was an
recommendation, not an order"

#include "whatever.h"
/* This code does everyting */

See also: Computer Stupidities

As for humor in general, almost all jokes are at someone's expense, and we all tell them, so we shouldn't be complaining...just laughing.

It's better in Cockney anyway.

Using Babelfish:

barredefractionpoint.org (French)
schrägstrichpunkt.org (German)
tagliopuntino.org (Italian)
slashponto.org (Portuguese)
rayaverticalpunto.org (Spanish)

Using The Dialectizer:

swashdot.org (Elmer Fudd)
sleshdut.org (Swedish Chef)
ashslayotday.org (Pig Latin)

paranoid.android

There are more actual disclaimers at the Rinkworks site .

Also check out the employee reviews and the computer stupidities pages.

There are more actual disclaimers at the Rinkworks site .

Also check out the employee reviews and the computer stupidities pages.

There are more actual disclaimers at the Rinkworks site .

Also check out the employee reviews and the computer stupidities pages.

There are more actual disclaimers at the Rinkworks site .

Also check out the employee reviews and the computer stupidities pages.

Oh bother, there goes my karma.

The Dialectizer is my favorite online translator. Check it out.

When I first got on the Internet, I had the address of a proxy that would translate everything into Swedish Chef ..does anyone know one that still exists?

Try The Dialectizer. It does Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron, and Pig Latin. Better than Jar Jar, but then again, anything is. :)

Whatever. Too bad you haven't got a sense of humor. I think it's just as funny in Cockney, or Redneck, or Elmer Fudd, or Swedish Chef, or Moron, or Pig Latin.

If you've got a problem with it, then read The Dialectizer's Not Discriminatory statement. If you still got a problem, don't bitch at me - I didn't write the program. Bitch at Samuel Stoddard, who did write it, at his feedback address.

Please try to have a nice day!

Whatever. Too bad you haven't got a sense of humor. I think it's just as funny in Cockney, or Redneck, or Elmer Fudd, or Swedish Chef, or Moron, or Pig Latin.

If you've got a problem with it, then read The Dialectizer's Not Discriminatory statement. If you still got a problem, don't bitch at me - I didn't write the program. Bitch at Samuel Stoddard, who did write it, at his feedback address.

Please try to have a nice day!

You want to see something really funny? I ran the page through The Dialectizer. It won't work from The Dialectizer page, something about Mindcraft's server not being standard. So I make a copy of the page and dialectized it. You can view the result here.

The Dialectizer offers several pseudo-translators.

Ask Swashdot and Qwick Winks!