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http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

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https://www.reddit.com/r/tales...

Back in the day I ran across a site that had a huge list of purportedly real-life IT stories, like the cup holder, the floppy magnet, the foot-pedal mouse, and others. For whatever crazy reason the host had titled it with some non-intuitive word (spam, I think?) that the host insisted was valid usage, but makes it probably un-searchable these days.

By any chance do you mean Computer Stupidities?

Tear and tear spring to mind. One is a liquid excreted by the eye the other means to rip something. Same spelling, very different pronunciations. One and won are pronounced the same way, but spelled differently. How, now, and cow all rhyme, but show doesn't. Bow can rhyme with how or show, depending on meaning. And that's just what I can think of off-hand, without any research. There are more heteronyms at http://www.rinkworks.com/words/heteronyms.shtml

http://www.rinkworks.com/apoge...

vogons.org is a reference for retro gaming

Im sure others have similar stories

I know they do.

The "dialectizer" http://www.rinkworks.com/diale... "translates" English to Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron, Pig Latin, or Hacker. And there's an English to Ebonics translator at http://joel.net/EBONICS/Transl... so it won't be that difficult to get a translator that outputs 16-year-old-girl talk.

The "Dialectizer".

Here's an example.

I'm sure that he'll be very happy, there. Smart, eloquent guy, but not one I especially follow. There's a number of folks like that at Google. I doubt he's someone who would cause much damage, and he does bring a lot of funky intellectual PR to the joint.

The "Dialectizer".

Here's an example.

I'm sure that he'll be very happy, there. Smart, eloquent guy, but not one I especially follow. There's a number of folks like that at Google. I doubt he's someone who would cause much damage, and he does bring a lot of funky intellectual PR to the joint.

Well, it is not like other industry giants make better predictions. Like these or these or these.

By far the most accurate summary here. I hope you starting book reviews for Slashdot, seriously. The regular ones are soooo boring.

Remember these guys?

This one has been around for a really long time, lots of pre-Win95 events in addition to all the foolishness since.

http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

This just begs a "reanonymize" browser plugin to alter one's writing style...

All one gots'ta do be to run some sample uh speech drough de Dialectizer, conveniently located at http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/dialectt.cgi, so cut me some slack, Jack.

One wouldn't realize dis, but ah' have some university educashun and am highly fluent in de Enlgish language.

Now ah' can sound likes I'm de average slashdot eyeballer. Ah be baaad...

I've often wondered if it was the fault of the publisher. Given that when an author is new, they likely don't have much choice in the fact that their book will be edited. Whereas after Jordan was a bestseller of 3-4+ books, it would seem to me that TOR stepped back and gave him the green light for whatever it was he wanted to do --- as it would sell.

The whole series is deserving of a quality editor.

Book a minute SF/F are pretty humorous, even for series that I have completely read, like Robin Hobb's Assassin Apprentice+. Jordan's books up to book 11 are 'summarized'. The Jordan Book-a-Minute summaries are combined in this slashdot post.

I haven't posted anything on this thread until now, but I'll put forth a thought: I think it's particular to solar tech. We've been told about the next new solar breakthrough so many times now over the decades, but most deliveries have fallen short of the claims; we're just jaded. While solar tech has certainly improved, we've yet to see the kind of results expected (or hoped for) some time ago, kinda like, it's 2012, where are our Jetsons-eque flying cars?
The history of science is chock full of naysayers, even educated ones, who really should've known better, but once in a while, I imagine some naysayers are right, too.

There's also Computer Stupidities, which has been around forever but still gets updated every now and then

The only hardware requirements are eyes and hands, and the only software requirement is a brain, neither of which will go out of style in my lifetime.

Surely you jest - didn't you know that brains are already fast going out of style?

Especially when we have two political parties, one of which has as its base an entrenched, uneducated set of idiots in urban ghettos, the other a base of entrenched, uneducated rural rednecks and each party happy to keep the system set up so that a real, solid, well-rounded education that includes critical thinking processes and actual techniques of learning (as opposed to memorizing stock answers to just barely pass standardized multiple-guess tests) is the last thing they will ever have the opportunity to experience?

Even worse when each of these parties campaigns on the idea that the other side's basically a collection of morons, and that they can have no valid points in any discussion at all?

It would seem the use of a brain has already gone out the window. Instead, we have to have instructions on a box of toothpicks, and warnings about "do not iron clothes while wearing them", lest some brain-donor injure themselves and launch a frivolous lawsuit that somehow winds up with a $millions judgement because they managed to fit 12 other brain-donors into the jury and win the Lawsuit Lottery?

Everyone thinks a sentient machine will be built, and I'll agree that sentience can be easily faked; I've written fake AI that seems real. There is no artificial sentience on earth, why is it supposed that machines can be made sentient?

These experts seem to agree with you.

The professional name is "Redneck", translator is here. http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/
Also translates to Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron, Pig Latin, or Hacker.

Remember the fundamental law of the universe.

Just when you think you have idiot-proofed something, Nature will design a better idiot just to spite you.

Thus the reason we have to have instructions printed on a package of toothpicks, and my clothes iron has a tag on the power cord saying "warning: do not iron clothes while wearing them."

Pretty much anything on this list.

I'm waiting for Idiocracy to occur. After all, we already have "Ow, My Balls" on TV - ABC just calls it "Wipeout."

They ban smoking in office buildings that might be visited by the public

If something might be visited by the public, chances are that there's other workers. Second hand smoke can be just as bad to people, as well as computers. Most non-smokers chose not to smoke because they prefer not having a nicotine addiction, having an awful smell, or eventually getting cancer because they can't find a smoke-free environment (and no, living off welfare doesn't count because that's stigmatized.) In case of children, I'm sure they prefer not being actively screwed over by their own parents.

They ban smoking on beaches and other open air venues

While there are smokers who know how to properly dispose cigarettes, there's a large chunk that don't. Besides, people prefer getting their feet dirty with sand rather than getting their feet dirty with various junk.

They slap high taxes on purchase - so high that governments are dependent on people to continue smoking
[...]
Imagen how many more cities, counties and states would have to declare bankruptcy if everybody stopped smoking tomorrow.

If everyone stopped smoking tomorrow, then countries that have basic healthcare for citizens won't have to spend as many resources to ensure people remain healthy. In particlar, each pack of cigarettes costs $11 - more than twice the costs of the cigarettes themselves. At worst, there's a short term shock, which will level out later.

Plus, people can more easily switch to other potentially taxable drugs, such as alcohol, caffeine, or glucose. The damage from those three drugs is more contained, and has less collateral damage.

I'm sure he could find a job here:

When I was a college senior in 1988, I was flipping through the Boston Globe want ads. On one page was a job posting for a programmer with "a minimum of five years of Macintosh programming experience." I sometimes wonder if they found a qualified candidate. The Mac had only been on the market since 1984.

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_misc.shtml

Rinkworks beat them to it. http://rinkworks.com/market/

Unfortunately I think you're right. We are a very reactive culture, generally. We don't seem to believe in using foresight to ease predictable and inevitable suffering of any kind. I suspect that's because there is a great deal of political power and quick money to be had in crises when people are desperate and afraid, but not so much in preparedness and prevention.

I heard of a case in which a store was selling "Y2K compatible" flashlights. The person who saw this couldn't tell if it was "stupid marketing or clever marketing aimed at stupid people".

See this for more.

It is unfortunate that dollars obtained from stupid people are just as green and spend just as well as money obtained from those who make intelligent purchasing decisions. Does this alone not explain modern marketing?

Unfortunately I think you're right. We are a very reactive culture, generally. We don't seem to believe in using foresight to ease predictable and inevitable suffering of any kind. I suspect that's because there is a great deal of political power and quick money to be had in crises when people are desperate and afraid, but not so much in preparedness and prevention.

I heard of a case in which a store was selling "Y2K compatible" flashlights. The person who saw this couldn't tell if it was "stupid marketing or clever marketing aimed at stupid people".

See this for more.

Hilarious! But the least you could do is cite the original source. Well, unless your goal was uncredited plagiarism, in which case, bravo, mission accomplished!

Hmm? Does this mean Amazon has re-invented and patented The Dialectizer? -- http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/

Or the lolcat translator? - http://speaklolcat.com/

"SPEEK SOFTLY AN CARRY HOOJ STICK" -- Theodore Catavelt

"Speek sufftly und cerry a beeg steeck" -- Theobork Borkevelt

Thank you for summarizing the entirety of Computer Stupidities - it's reminded me to check for updates!

http://rinkworks.com/dialect/dialectp.cgi?dialect=bork&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2Fthreatlevel%2F2009%2F05%2Fjudge-reviewing-pirate-bay-trial-bias-is-removed-for-bias%2F

When it comes to privacy, noise may be a solution rather than a problem. Vernor Vinge suggested that if the Net remembers everything about you, you should flood it with contradictory noise that provides plausible deniability about things that are actually true. Either that, or they'll have more evidence against you.

At work, I hit up rinkworks namegen , then do a google search on each term to make sure it's not a common (nor offensive) word in some other language, and that's the name of the actual machine. Machine then gets a logical DNS name based on function (e.g. the server hatrakos is there to run nagios, so there's a DNS alias "nagios" out there for it, as well as "hatrakos").

At home, someone was a fan of Chobits (manga) when the last round of laptops got purchased, so they're all variants on the name "Plum" (the name of a portable computer) ("Sumomo" (Japanese), "Ameixa" (Portugese)).

Before that, we wanted to defer naming a server at the house, so it's still called "later".

This would relate to the viruses section.

Teachers are incredibly undereducated when it comes to technology.

That's a pretty broad brush you're painting teachers with. Don't know about your schools, but my town has computers in the classrooms, and teachers that, for the most part, know how to use them to help them get their jobs done.

Even Tech Support (you know, the people whom are actually supposed to have a good grasp of technology) can be very wrong sometimes.

Go here:
http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_nicetry.shtml

And read the second last entry on the bottom.

These make for great legends, but as much as I hate to admit it, I've gotten very serious about my work. Easter eggs are not generally appreciated by the Powers That Be, or by clients paying big cash for a product. My personal reputation, and producing a quality product have become important to me.

Here's one of those legends where a well-executed easter egg of sorts served to corroborate one's professional reputation:

My old boss spent some time writing statistical analysis packages for the Archimedes. One of them got fairly popular for Archie software, and he started a small business selling it. For those who don't know, Archie software usually came as source code and was executed through an interpreter.

One day at a scientific meeting, he noticed that another company was showing Archie software with remarkably similar functionality to his own, so he wandered over. The longer he watched, the more familiar it looked. Eventually, when the sales representative had gathered a good crowd, he asked in a loud voice:

• My Boss: "Are you using my copyrighted code for this?"
• Sales Representative: "Of course not."
• My Boss: "So what happens if you press [key combination]?"
• Sales Representative: "Nothing."
• My Boss: "Do it for me."
• Sales Representative: "Ok sir, but I can assure you it does--"

The screen displayed my boss' copyright notice. All they'd done was remove the front end.

It widely accepted as the biggest laugh of the show.

Dialectizer to the rescue:

Jive:

Lego had stepped t'de European Court uh Justice in de fight against da damn Canadian competito' Mega fire, which some cube on de market gots brought dat watches out which uh Lego. 'S coo', bro. De court judged today dat da damn design uh Lego gots not been protected by de European market and dat dere kin no rap be derefo'e uh exclusive right. Man!

If there was a way to disable it like sigs or anything else here, it would be one thing.

Generally it could be argued that /. is about choice and provides a pretty decent set of tools to achieve this (user submitted stories/firehose/tagging/comments/comment rating and filtering/etc).

So aside from the fact that disagree mail is stupid and mostly insulting to those of us who do this work (I do technical work; posting and commenting on help-desk emails seems unoriginal and asinine) this seems like a rather sharp and somewhat unexpected shift away from what it is that makes Slashdot unique.

A book review that doesn't include any kind of critical analysis, that just summarizes the book, isn't a review.

For example, this is not a review:

The Collected Work of Jane Austen
By Jane Austen
Ultra-Condensed by Christina Carlson and Peter da Silva

Female Lead

        I secretly love Male Lead. He must never know.

Male Lead

        I secretly love Female Lead. She must never know.

(They find out.)

THE END

Though, admittedly, that might be a useful guide as to whether you need to bother reading the work in question. :)

http://www.rinkworks.com/said/warnings.shtml

>clearly a misspelling of "libraries of conger" as in [[daggertooth pike conger]]

You've used the wrong collective noun for such an aggregation of conger. According to this it should be a swarm of [conger] eels. They just don't seem very bookish to me. :-) They are tasty, however.

source

Since idle.slashdot.org is failing to deliver on the promise to waste my life away, I present http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

For more of that great feeling of superiority...

The game you're looking for is (apparently) also known as Exterminator. However, there is a *nix port in the bsd-games project, which exists in Gentoo Portage and probably thus in some other distros' package managers. Under the Exterminator name, Rinkworks has a page where you can play a web-based version right here. I had the bsd-games version installed, but found the Exterminator online version in three seconds of googling (search for robots teleport, it's the fifth result.)

Why do kids not have a right to privacy?

And why would such a right magically turn on at 18?

Tell you what -- before I had a computer entirely my own, I was certainly allowed to have a pencil and paper. And I was allowed to keep it in a secret place, if I wanted to. And my parents did not read my various diaries (though there weren't many attempts).

When I went out, I could go pretty much anywhere, I just had to tell them where I was going, and not stay out too late (most of the time). When I got a cell phone, they didn't screen my calls, they didn't have access to my call logs.

My parents apparently did a good job teaching me mutual respect. And the process has nothing to do with the Internet. I suspect this sudden Puritanical paranoia has much more to do with the tendency of people to suspend all reason when it comes to computers.

I'm not gonna kill them, but I'm also not a fan of safety labels on everything. I will laugh at people who die of their own stupidity, and hope other people learn to not be as stupid. I think despair.com said it best.

I'm a firm believer that the field of biotech needs a new, younger generation to add new ways of thought to the field. It's always the younger generation who make the breakthroughs because they are not hindered by old ways of thinking.

TFA reads like a press release for Kroll. The whole thing is (almost) written like a short superhero story, with several paragraphs about Kroll saving the day in a small variety of mishaps which are neither very original nor particularly amusing.

These aren't disasters; all of these folks got their data back.

If this is the going rate for disaster articles these days, I might as well tell you all about the hard drive I recently rescued out of a Dell laptop after the Geek Squad had given up on it (big surprise, that). The Toshiba drive had either very bad spindle bearings or a failed head stack (or both), as when I powered it up it vibrated like crazy and made a very rapid thumping noise, but none of this was a big surprise given that it was a little over four years old.

In experimenting with it, I found a few interesting features:

Plugging it into a Windows box to try running Acronis against it immediately bluescreened the host machine.

When powered up, if the drive was slowly rotated, the nature of the thump would change, and something inside would emanate a horrible metal-on-metal grinding sound for as long as I kept rotating it (apparently due to the gyroscopic effect of the spinning platters along with the failed bearings).

The drive was totally unusable in its normal (label-side up) orientation; Linux wouldn't even read the partition table in that state.

But if I carefully propped the drive up, in a very particular, almost-vertical position resting on its connector, it worked. Not only that, but dd was able to recover every single sector of the disk, without error. I then dd'd that back to a new disk, reinstalled Windows (the theory is that Best Buy's fine Geek Squad managed to fuck up XP somehow) on it, did some shuffling of partitions in Acronis, and gave the customer back a working computer complete with their family photos and music library.

Total recovery of user data, much rejoicing, !=disaster.

Or, there was the 200GB Seagate desktop drive that was under six feet of water for about 48 hours. It worked just bloody fine after letting it dry for a week, and then removing the cover to dry out the innards a bit more. Despite the visible traces of river silt still laying on the platters, Windows Explorer was more than capable of retrieving all of the requested data.

Total recovery of user data, much rejoicing, !=disaster.

On the other hand, another (different model) Seagate drive which was also in the same flood failed miserably. Swapping controller boards did not help. Kroll's pricing for recovery was deemed too expensive, and it was therefore a total loss.

It was the hard drive from one of my boss's machines. Years worth of quotations and customer data that were stored in Outlook which he had been accustomed to referring to, all gone. This, of course, ==disaster. (But it was a minor disaster compared to the rest of the flood, which destroyed his office building, trashed the basement at his house, and ate enough of my own house that it is now condemned.)

He is still insistent on maintaining his own PCs, and has subsequently been given the standard-issue lecture about backups, which he'd already heard in the past. We'll see if it soaked in, this time.

But I seem to be digressing a lot, here. The point is, in a world stuffed full of stupid and funny computer stories, TFA doesn't seem to include any. The absence of both well-written humor and real disasters factored with the total lack of technical details equates to this article being positively inane and simply as useless as common whitewash. (Another example of this same PR tactic, not surprisingly from Kroll'

This website keeps a comprehensive list of tech support horror stories. I come back to this site every couple of months when I need a good laugh.

Someone may have posted it but I've been referring to this site every six months or so to check on updates since my highschool years back in the late 90's. It is a list of "computer stupidities", some of which are actually pretty funny.

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/

Here is a treasure I bookmarked back at 2000 or something.

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_paranoia.shtml

Stuff like these:

"A customer called saying he was getting an error in Windows 95. He told me what the error was, and I recognized this as a typical error that occurs after installing MS Office 97.

Tech Support: "Sir, did you just install Office 97?"
Customer: "YOU'RE IN MY COMPUTER, AREN'T YOU?????" (click)"