Slashdot Mirror
Hall Of Technical Documentation Weirdness
An anonymous reader submits: "Generally speaking, with the exception of Tina on Dilbert, technical writers aren't very funny. This is something of a rare and unintentional exception. This guy has assembled a bunch of examples of bizarre technical illustration. There's only about 15 at the moment, but he's collecting further examples."
To go with... McDonalds coffee: "May be hot." Ready meals: "Remove plastic before cooking" Nitol (sleep tablets) "May cause drowsyness" Laxitives "exessive consumption may produce laxitive effect." The list is endless.
I was oh so hoping there'd be something amusing waiting for me when I clicked through to this guys site. This guys sense of humor includes laughing at perfectly normal operation instructions because they contain "lots of arrows"? ...yawn... Did anyone really read this site before posting this lame-ass story?
Might contain traces of funny.
Extended Warranty? How can I lose!
There are 12 exhibits, they're even numbered if you can't count to 12 ...
---
"There's only about 15 at the moment, but he's collecting further examples."
---
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Holy Slashdot, Batman! There's smoke coming out of our webserver!
For example, in number "11", it's pretty clear it's not a fridge, but an A/V rack. (that being why it's included with a DVD player). And it's saying "Don't wheel the A/V rack towards you over uneven surfaces, or you'll end up underneath it writhing in pain".
Exhibit 9 is not that stupid - it's pretty clear it's not a cartoon speaking bubble, but rather intimating that somewhere on your computer is a USB port.
Exihibit 5: "I like it because it says 'insert trousers'" Huh? It's weird because it's correct English? Or it's weird because it's telling you what to do? Or it's weird because this guy doesn't know what "trousers" means? It's a pants press - how is it weird for it to tell you to insert your pants into the rack?
Move along folks, nothing to see here.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
On a Caterpillar trench digger, there was this funny picture of a NO sign around a chainsaw looking thing and a caption that said, "Engage crowd control before operating".
because-trench-diggers-control-crowds
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
I don't know how many other people out there have experienced Japanese toilets, but let me tell you, you don't need an instruction manual, you need someone to come and show you how to use those things. You don't wanna be pressing the wrong button at the wrong time, I can assure you from personal experience, makes my eyes water just thinking about it.
...but now I'm not that sure any more...
... because the pieces he exhibits aren't funny or weird, they are just pathetic examples of badly written documentation, and those have existed since electronic devices have grown more complex than kitchen appliances, and their docs started to be written in japanglish.
And quite frankly, the "kind of dirty" ones wouldn't even be half-dirty for women in a covent.
The only interest of those technical docs is (1) to learn how to not write them like that, and (2) to witness the birth of early mangas.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
might i suggest a book of jay leno headlines? my gf got me an old book full of them...ive been laughing at them for the past few days. sometimes its a toss up between his comments or the actual story being the funniest.
personal fav:
the back-to-school ad featuring the 1-liter bottle of vodka. now that's what i call a store!
PH33R T3H BOX-S/\/4|<3
(fear the box-snake for leet speak impaired)
Instead of 'If you drop this box on a dog, don't trip over its tail'.
Quote:
Exhibit 10 - From instructions for swapping out the hard drive on an Apple
G4 Powerbook. I just included it because I thought it was kind of dirty.
Isn't having the top of display in your lap illegal in 48 states and 6 provinces?
I always thought it was "Illegal in 45, practiced in 3, and not understood in 2"...
heh.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
I guess I expected something more like.
this
And
this
This absolute-waste-of-time webpage gets slashdotted and my hundred of gems never saw the light of day?? waaaaah!
Mirror be gentle to my host plz ;-)
Seen on a packet of "Salted Peanuts" in a pub in the UK "May contain traces of nuts" You'd kinda hope so wouldn't you
Visit engrish.com! Hours of fun...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
...but I'm pretty sure this one is a fake. The phrase "till the cowcomes home" is kind of a giveaway. And I was hoping to be able to send a funny link to some tech writer friends.
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
the manual for MS Xenix OS was funnier :)
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Why Maddox is better than your kids
looks like an 8500 powermac to me, never really realized, when illustrated that way how similar they looked to a standard beige pc though.
well.. that was useless now wasn't it?
<end/>
- Prythee no sport with stingy of play asperity game. Winding finger have got bloodstream not wallk. Throagh of peril. (bold my addition)
- Tad disport of time grown man tatelage.
- Till thge cowcomes home. Wield toys damage, burn-in prytheee wind to a close wield.
- Give attention to open/close toys, therefore take place peril.for instance slipup batteries wield result in the emission of heat rupture liquid.vent itself prythee pay attention.
- Play at sith to a certainty bolt up power supply fetch out batteries.
- Batteries no electification dissolution,plunge ioto aquaor fire.
- Not trust for tad batteries lest in advertent eat off. In the event of accident without loss of time plythee pillroller tuke order with.
I am not the best typist, but most of the weird spellings above are in the actual warnings. The original may be found here. I wonder if they will ever take the word "prythee" out of their translation dictionary.I know that this page should have been funny, but for some reason, I'm not laughing. And I'm even familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.
.com web awards that are featured on his site. Hooray for Gerald!
I kind of expected something like "Engrish" or the often funny Airtoons (but it's probably only funny for those of us that fly a lot). Or even, the hasn't-been-updated-since-the-millennium Kibo and his amusing criticisms of font use or Gerald Holmes, which has outlived the silly
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
How can you send someone to that site. I've been tricked into going there by friends a long time ago and that site is just out right wrong.
Which is still useless information when there are lots of ways to break your skull, anyway. I feel many of these warning sign etc. are just disclaimers put in place so you don't sue the manufacturers for being stupid. Somewhat ridiculous, but good for a laugh sometimes.
They should just stick to showing how you don't break the device you have just bought. Granted, advice on not trying to fix your tv is in order - high voltage warnings, and such.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
When the zippotricks website was taken off the Net this week, they posted the amusing disclaimer, "A lighted lighter is hot and can start a fire or burn people."
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
At least I thought this was rather funny, but perhaps I am just very childish.
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
Examples:
There was a woman performing the things as he said them. He introduced her by saying, "Jane, who told us on her resume that her hobbies were stroking kitchen appliances."
And he referred to a metal measuring cup as, "A space age one-of-a-kind measuring tool"
I must admit, the motorcycle-style position while dumping is probably more natural, but it does seem strange after being taught the Western-style method of dropping your kids off at the pool.
oh that's right, lamers call it leet speak
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I believe the commonly accepted term is not "frenglish" but " le Franglais"
Anyone who laughs at "insert trousers" needs to readjust their sense of humour.
Now, in a club in Lagos Nigeria (the bar is called Towers, a nice place on Victoria Island), there is a sign above the urinals, which says:
"Employees must wash genitals before returning to work"
I just wish I'd had my camera with me, but you will have to take my word for it.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Good recommendation. So good I bookmarked it.
I mean it.
I don't have a sig.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Agreed. But McDonalds is also a sad commentary on society.
bad sig...no donut.
...when i read technical documents at my company i also start to laugh, but unfortunately its the "manic laugh of utter despair". In my company development and documentation are handled by two different departments, so just take a guess how the documents look like if they are written by somebody who doesn't know a glimpse anything related to IT. Hopefully other /.'ers have better experience. To cut a long story short: if the wants all the "funny" dokumentation produced at the company I work, he should just get a laaaaaarge RAID...
".Sig Stealer" was here
Some friends and I came up with this. It's based on the signs that used to be available at ready.gov.
The group of fat people was thrown out of court because it lacked merit.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Most of my favorite examples are as a result of a poor translation...
From instructions for a plastic puzzle ball that comes apart into 8 pieces, to be reassambled:
"DECOMPOSITION FUN BALL. TAKE PIECES APART. TRY TO PUT BACK TOGETHER. NOW YOU CAN HAVE HOURS OF DECOMPOSITION FUN!"
(No cemetery required.)
And another one, which actually is technical writing of a sort; those instructions from the back of a pack of chopsticks at a Chinese buffet. For the most part, they're pretty good, but I like the last instruction, after telling you how to manipulate them:
"4. NOW YOU CAN PICK UP ANYTHING"
Haven't tested that bold assertion on cars or women, yet.
> Exhibit 4 - From a pair of shoes. The symbols apparently mean leather uppers, cloth interior and diamonds on the soles
I don't know what it's like in the USA, but in Europe (at least in Sweden and Netherlands), most shoes in the stores have these symbols. I believe that the `diamond' means it's synthetic material, though I'm not sure whether it only applies to molded synthetics.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
If you have set yourself on fire, do not run.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
For example:
- a typedef name was a complete surprise to me at this point in your program
- Can't cast a void type to type void (because the ANSI spec. says so, that's why)
- can't go mucking with a 'void *'
Plenty more goodies! Somebody had some fun writing those error messages...PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
My first thought was "god, what a bunch of anal-retentive...." So I continued reading, and almost didn't notice that the next blank(or not blank) page was:
THIS PAGE ALSO INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
I smirked a little, and read on. It kept getting better though:
YES, THIS PAGE -ALSO- INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
THIS PAGE SHOULD NOT BE LEFT BLANK. OOPS, JUST KIDDING.
etc. etc...they obviously had some fun with that one, realizing just how stupid those messages are and poking fun at it.
It's almost as good as the Irix workstation which was donated to the HS...it would get increasingly cross if it found someone else was using its IP, and the logs would look something like this:
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is still using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is STILL using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... IS STILL USING MY IP ADDRESS GOD DAMMIT!
(I don't remember the exact wording, but yes, it would finally start cursing mildly).
Please help metamoderate.
I wish I still had the instruction manual that came with my girlfriend's old Dell mid tower (Pentium MMX model that came out in about 1997).
It had a screwless door that you could remove to add RAM and expansion cards. The instruction manual illustrated how to remove the door: one hand on each side to press the catches down, and one hand to push the door off. That's right, three hands to open your computer. And the illustration actually showed three hands!
I actually pinned the picture on my dorm bulletin board, and holding it up as an example of terrible industrial design...but maybe it was just 'bizarre' and deserves to be on that site.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
When I read the first line of this post I instantly thought of the TeXbook. Knuth points out that most manuals are dull and boring, and goes on saying that this manual (the TeXbook, and similarly for the METAFONTbook) is different in that it contains jokes here and there. And in fact this is true, even though the jokes are very "technical". But is the really good technical fun, not the one that comes from misprints originated by typos or ignorance. After all, how many nongeeks would laugh for the average www.userfriendly.org strip?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
One time I helped put together a childrens jungle gym sorta deal. It came in a box about the size of a small Australian territory in about 367,894 seperate pieces. Being the men that we are and with the youngins watching in great awe we tossed the directions aside and dove in. After we finished we realized it looked like a scene from that movie "Labyrinth" and something was very very wrong. I picked up the directions finally and opened up to the first page and at the very top in really small print it said "Welcome back". Now I dont know if it was meant for another reason or it was the author being a smartass but it was damn funny at the time you had to be there I guess.
Nope, sorry. This guy is about as funny as wet cardboard. And according to the submitter, he's right up the same alley as most other technical writers.
But I don't blame the writers for being unfunny. Their job isn't to humor us on how this toaster can kill you when soaked in water while plugged in - it's to be serious and prevent injury and death in many cases. As far as a story goes, this isn't one and I see the slashdotting as a benefit to those who will never see the site.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
:)
--- if y cn rd ths y cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmmng!
"This page intentionally left blank"
"Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach 18" Einstein
Today, thanks to "modern" management and cost-cutting masquerading as environmentalism, most product documentation has been reduced to a few poorly written help and PDF files. When I spend $500 on a software package, I expect more than a pamphlet, CD and license code.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
whatever it was, we took it down. I say it was worth it ! Been 2 full articles since any serious slashdotting.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
(lather THEN rinse? no wonder!)
At least yours doesn't say to repeat. I have to CTRL-C my shower every morning.
Do you Gentoo!?
I don't see why you would have to take the cardboard out. I've put the cardboard in the oven and it turns out just fine as long as you don't turn the temperature up to 451F
Maybe i'm just lucky, but my girlfriend is a technical writer at Cray, and she's always cracking some kind of joke.. I don't know if it makes it into her manuals or not.
They didn't want customers calling them up complaining about missing pages. So, if every blank page had an acknowledgment of the fact that IBM really, truly meant to leave that page unfilled by black text, then the customer could be assured that it wasn't a printing error.
Lets help this guy out by totally blasting his site off of the internet slashdot style.
technical writers aren't very funny
I am not a technical writer, but in my experience, the technical writers are consistently the funniest and most diverse group in the company, and they often have some artistic hobby, and some are writing a novel on their spare time. Novelists are technical writers while they wait for publication. Stand up comedians tend to work in call centers.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
I've been a technical writer for 9 years. And I am funny. Most of my co-workers are funny. In fact they are some of the funniest people I've ever met. I don't know where this guy gets off saying tech writers aren't funny.
What d'ya mean technical writers aren't funny? We have great senses of humor. How else could we tolerate working with engineers?
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
Check out the back page of a Consumer Reports magazine. They have great examples of silly ads, bad technical documentation, and veiled attempts at what can only be explained as attempts to rip people off. They are far more entertaining and funny than this list, which is not very funny or entertaining.
I'd have a web link but Consumer Reports website is a subscription based site you have to pay to get into.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I work for an american company that has exports to the far east. Our translations into japanese and chinese should give the customers a good laugh, that is until they realize that we don't offer customer support to asia.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Don't do anything...whatever you are thinking of, don't do it!
I'm not even sure I was supposed to take a picture of it...
Being former SWAT, I almost peed my pants reading that one.
Some of those are actual SWAT hand signals too (though the translation is a bit off).
Too funny... thanks for the morning chuckle!
That goes in my bookmarks.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I have a digital photo lying around somewhere that documents a chocolate peanut butter cup candy box that says "May Contain Peanuts" on the back.
Olin Shivers was one of my professors at Georgia Tech (and a great one at that), and he's also the author of the scheme shell. I always smile when I read the acknowledgements page.
http://www.talknerdy.org
Most web forums are full of twelve year olds perfectly willing to take someone elses content and claim it on their own, or to leech bandwidth by posting a img link to a different site.
I hate (most) web forums.
It's pretty clear that the page you link to is just such a site. He just took a bunch of screenshots of another web page and produced them (clearly infringing copyright).
This appears to be the original SWAT team hand gestures page.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
For the life of me, I googled for it and I still can't find where I read this originally, but IIRC, the warning "May Contain Nuts" was on bags of peanuts because peanuts and nuts are two entirely different types of nuts, and some people have violent allergic reactions to nuts but NOT peanuts.
The explanation I remember went like this: Peanuts and nuts are harvested in the same fields and often use the same bags to dump them in when they're collected, and those bags sometimes get stray nuts stuck inside of them among all the peanuts. Hence, there is a possibility that nuts MAY be contained within the peanut package since there's really no feasible way to sort through every single individual peanut and try to find the nut, and that anyone that's allergic to nuts needs to be wary.
If anyone knows what I'm talking about and has a clearer recollection, or, even better, a link explaining this, speak up!
Like the time we at Borland International (circ:1991ish) released our Quattro Pro product with a nice image on the back of the box illustrating a new macro language added to the product.
The code snippet in the image was a macro that logged you into our R&D server including addresses, passwords, etc...
Years ago I bought a brand new 1980 Datsun 310-GX. I decided to get the service manual since I did alot of my own car repairs. Many of the illustrations dealing with vacuum hoses, brake lines, etc. had a little cartoon man with his mouth on the end of the tube, blowing or sucking in an exaggerated manner, to show the direction of air or fluid flow. It was pretty amusing and quite suggestive. I'll have to go see if I still have it in the garage...
- Crusadio
"Additionally, this 0-length string englifies that this form was not called from another."
I have no idea what that word was supposed to be ... Shame ... and my first language is English. :-)
"Needs switches shoving NO,for pre arrows specifing of orention shiving.Packing it up time,withbold toy pate need switches shoving OFF."
I need orention shiving NO not BEOFEER! He Get lucky A number 1!
Thanks for clearing that up.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
This guys sense of humor includes laughing at perfectly normal operation instructions because they contain "lots of arrows"? ...yawn...
And did this guy ever play Dance Dance Revolution?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Obligatory Technical Documentation link
l
http://www.things.org/~jym/fun/see-figure-1.htm
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Check out my new site: Paint drying webcam!
Sig it.
take a gander.
Yes, it's a useful comment. Have extra blank pages for reasons of bad planning, and make sure people know it's nothing to worry about.
The thing which makes this "funny" (in that obscene geek sense) is that, of course, the page isn't blank. It has "this page intentionally left blank" on it.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
What, boiling water isn't hot enough to cause serious injuries? Spill some in your lap and find out.
Read the facts of the case. Coffee served at home is typically 135-140 degrees; McDonald's was holding their coffee at 185-190 degrees, which is hot enough to cause third-degree burns. (The woman in the lawsuit was hospitalized for eight days; she had third-degree burns over 6% of her body and required skin grafts.)
The warning printed on the cup is, unfortunately, a classic case of "fix it with documentation": a bad product decision that the writer has to try to protect users from. It's a pity McDonald's didin't let the warning writer tell the truth--Warning: Coffee has been held near boiling point, may cause extensive and excruciating injuries if spilled, which is not unlikely since our own research indicates that most customers drink this stuff in the car immediately after purchase...
I was disturbed and amused by a warning on the stick form factor of Crisco: "Not to be used as a spread."
Ewww.
Needs work. When I was in the USA last month, I replaced the hard drive in my Powerbook G4 AND I bought one of those cameras. In both cases, the documentation came in very useful. And yes, I did use a soft cloth for the keyboard and rested the PowerBook display in my lap. If you have one, you'ld know why.
Cheers,
Harry Erwin
WARNING!: Do not attempt to eat a Happy Meal larger than your head.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
While hiking through the Australian Blue Mountains (near Sidney), I came accross the following sign:
5 83
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=122
It had several lines of text, in various Asian languges, and one line of English that read:
THIS SIGN IS TO PREVENT FOREIGN TOURISTS FROM GETTING LOST.
Love to know what the other lines say.
Dogs are faster in Greenland because the trees are farther apart.
Its been 30 years, and every schematic that I've drawn since, I've followed that lead and added that same note...
"We've got lots of them. So many in fact, that you would need two strong people to carry around the documentation if we had bothered to write it. So many that even we don't know what most of them do. Don't ask us for any of these options, because we probably can't find the PEC for it anyway. Even if we find the PEC, we probably can't order it either (just TRY asking for nroff on a 3B2). If you don't like it, call Technologies. They'll tell you to see Figure 1."
And, of course, Figure 1 was a ascii-art image, in the finest technical wierdness tradition.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
to squeeze something "/. postable" out of garbage.
And he didn't do a very good job.
For those of you smarting from that lack of funny, I suggest somethingawful's comedy goldmines.
I've also heard (and probably used) Francais (pronounced "Frank case") and Froglish (being a reference to the French being called Frogs by the British back in the day).
-CPM
---You're all I need, When the water runs deep, You're all I need, Now I cry my soul to sleep -- Collective Soul, Needs
I could never figure out why, on the back of a credit card, it gives the number to call if your card is lost or stolen. If your card is lost or stolen, how can you check the back of the card for the number to call????
One time I asked for one of those hooks that snap onto the top of a cubicle wall, so I would have a place to hang my jacket. What they got me instead was a really nice padded coat hanger, like for a suit jacket, with a small clip-on hook to hang the coat-hanger on. It came in a special triangular box labelled "Garment Management System". So I cut the name off the box and stuck it on the wall next to the hanger. Just so people wouldn't mistake my Garment Management System for a mere coat hanger.
Years ago, back before Tektronix's quality of documentation suffered the Curse of the MBA's, when they still had real schematics and valuable service info in their equipment manuals, one would often find cute little additions to the corner of a schematic diagram.
Two that I remember, which I think showed up in manuals for the 540-series or similar era oscilloscopes, were a wizard on a skateboard, and a forlorn-looking imp, blackened like a charcoal briquette, with little wisps of smoke coming up as though he'd been struck by lightning.
The additions were appropriate, too. The wizard, I think, showed up in the triggering section (this was a time when some Tek engineers were referred to as 'wizards,' thanks to the advances they were making in triggered-sweep 'scopes), while the imp appeared in the high-voltage power supply area.
I think such additions would help keep technical writers from going quietly nuts. I know from experience that it's a demanding and very dull task to write a good manual. I'm not going to blame anyone for doing what amount to sanity-saving doodles, especially if they're well done.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
...I think the trousers press itself is funny. I have only seen these things in the UK, and even though I have been explained many times what they're used to I still wonder what they are actually used for. If you know what I mean...
Here.
As mentioned in that story, my all-time favorite is from a Mackie (audio mixer) manual:
"The mating ritual of consenting adult banana plugs".
(anyone who's ever "mated" banana plugs knows exactly what the author was talking about. (-: )
S
I bought this stroller made by Graco for my daughter a few years ago, and, I kid you not, on the illustration for folding it up for storage was this warning: Remove infant from stoller before collapsing
I was using Matlab (4.x I think) as an undergrad and got so frustrated during one all-nighter that I typed in the command line "fuck". Instead of the typical annoying machine beep and a standard error message, I got a response similar to following:
"This function is no longer supported and will need to be removed from future versions."
That replaced my curses of frustration with laughter. Of course, I had to verify that they no longer supported that function in 5.x - too bad.
This is not my sig.
I'm glad that the good people at Windex were kind enough to remind me that Windex should not be used for the cleaning of contact lenses.
From instructions for setting up and using a flying Dragonball Z action figure:(from the site)
That's just disgusting.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
> Please don't slashdot it too much, it's an old, falling-apart server
If it's an old, falling-apart server, perhaps you shouldn't post a link to in on slashdot. Just an observation.
Found on the inside of my firefighting helmet, among 3 dozen other labels and warnings:
"Warning: firefighting is inherently dangerous"
MRE (meal ready to eat) heater instructions:
l earer at bottom of this page:
http://www.mreinfo.com/images/mre-heater.jpg
C
http://www.mreinfo.com/mre-frh.html
It's kinda hard to see, but the instructions say to keep the heater inclined. Then there is a picture with the heater at an angle leaning on an object labeled "rock or something."
An anti-personnel landmine that reads simply "Front towards enemy."
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
Hiya,
It is always nice to see something about tech writing. FYI for many: Tech writer's document much more than code. Buy almost anything with a user's guide, and the chances good that it was put together by a tech writer. Of course, some docs are written by developers, engineers, or marketers, but we won't go there.
But all that chest puffing aside, if you can squeeze some money out of your budget or are willing to cough up the $25 or so out of your own pocket, pick up a copy of "Fowler's Modern English Usage."
The average person won't appreciate the subtleties of usage described in Fowler's, but there are some real doozies. Some afternoons when time actually begins to flow backwards, and when my editor's boss's boss is in the office and I can't get away with surfing for a bit, I read my Fowler's for some relief from the misery.
I highly recommend it.
Here is a link to a list of some product warning sites:
Dumb.Com - Product Warnings
Sign, Interstate 10, Near Phoenix, AZ
"State Prison: Do Not Stop for Hitchhikers"
On a Rowenta iron:
"Warning! Never iron clothes on the body!"
On a blanket from Taiwan -
"NOT TO BE USED AS PROTECTION FROM A TORNADO."
The poorly-translated manual for my Chinese SKS rifle says, "Do not let your SKS become tainted with defilement or sunburnt." I see "tainted with defilement" and think some sort of metaphysical pollution of the soul, not just dirty.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I picked up this book yesterday for a writing class at SFSU and I agree, it's a gem. My favorite quote (so far):
Flammable - An oddity, chiefly useful in saving lives. The common word meaning "combustible" is inflammable. But some people are thrown off by the in- and think inflammable means "not combustible." For this reason, trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operating such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable.
Priceless!
The Mac in the camera instructions looks just like my 9500/180MP. That's hilarious.
My father teaches technical writing, so I have developed a love for these things. Sadly, I don't have links, but my favorites are:
"Warning: Weak Batteries May Cause Errotic Response"
(a little sticker from the bottom of a neighborhood child's RC car. My dad has this one mounted in his office)
And my personal favorite:
the graphic of an idiot tipping a soda machine onto his head, complete with lightning bolts indicating pain. And the caption "Warning: Do not rock or tip machine, injury or death may result".
I realize there were a few geniuses killed trying to steal a soda. (One of them was in college, his parents are suing...) I'd like to think Darwin had ridden us of lower primates without the mastery of "Heavy rock fall on head == not good".
Of course, I also have a sticker on one of my boxes which reads: "Notice: All money is removed from this machine daily". I like the sentiment, and since the soda machine in my office it was affixed to is set up to dispense for free, I figured it wasn't really needed.
Slow newsday at Slashdot.
Well, after that whole lighbulb thing, my Karma is apparently enjoying the beating it has been taking this week, so .. what the hell.
Here is the disclaimer from my website.
My apologies for a lack of formatting, but I am home at lunch, and must get back to work in 10 minutes.
This page may or may not reflect the thoughts or opinions of either myself, my company, my friends, or my cat; don't quote me on that; don't quote me on anything; all rights reserved; you may distribute this message freely but you may not make a profit from it; terms are subject to change without notice; illustrations are slightly enlarged to show detail; any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is unintentional and purely coincidental; do not remove this disclaimer under penalty of law; hand wash only, tumble dry on low heat; do not bend, fold, mutilate, or spindle; your mileage may vary; no substitutions allowed; for a limited time only; this message is void where prohibited, taxed, or otherwise restricted; caveat emptor; This page is provided "as is" without any warranties; reader assumes full responsibility; an equal opportunity website; no shoes, no shirt, no problem; quantities are limited while supplies last; if any defects are discovered, do not attempt to read them yourself, but return to an authorized service center; read at your own risk; parental advisory - explicit lyrics; text may contain explicit materials some readers may find objectionable, parental guidance is advised; keep away from sunlight; keep away from pets and small children; limit one-per-family please; no money down; no purchase necessary; you need not be present to win; some assembly required; batteries not included; instructions are included; action figures sold separately; no preservatives added; slippery when wet; safety goggles may be required during use; sealed for your protection, do not read if safety seal is broken; call before you dig; not liable for damages arising from use or misuse; for external use only; if rash, irritation, redness, or swelling develops, discontinue reading; read only with proper ventilation; avoid extreme temperatures and store in a cool dry place; keep away from open flames; avoid contact with eyes and skin and avoid inhaling fumes; do not puncture, incinerate, or store above 120 degrees Fahrenheit; do not place near a flammable or magnetic source; smoking this webpage, or a printout of, could be hazardous to your health; the best safeguard, second only to abstinence, is the use of a condom; no salt, MSG, artificial color or flavoring added; if ingested, do not induce vomiting, and if symptoms persist, consult a physician; html is ribbed for your pleasure; possible penalties for early withdrawal; offer valid only at participating sites; slightly higher west of the Rockies; allow four to six weeks for delivery; must be 18 to read; disclaimer does not cover misuse, accident, lightning, flood, tornado, tsunami, volcanic eruption, earthquake, hurricanes and other Acts of God/Goddess/Cthulhu/Pikachu/Pikathulhu etc, neglect, damage from improper reading, incorrect line voltage, improper or unauthorized reading, broken antenna or marred cabinet, missing or altered serial numbers, electromagnetic radiation from nuclear blasts, sonic boom vibrations, customer adjustments that are not covered in this list, and incidents owing to an airplane crash, ship sinking or taking on water, motor vehicle crashing, dropping the item, falling rocks, leaky roof, broken glass, mud slides, forest fire, or projectile (which can include, but not be limited to, arrows, bullets, shot, BB's, shrapnel, lasers, napalm, torpedoes, or emissions of X-rays, Alpha, Beta and Gamma rays, knives, stones, etc.); other restrictions may apply.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
The Kickers sign(exhibit 4)clears up something that's puzzled me for almost 20 years. On the Graceland CD, there's a song about "diamonds on the soles of her shoes". Guess that sounds better than "she wore Kickers".
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
You're off by a couple hundred years, I'm afraid. Unless you're talking about tech notes for 16th C oxcarts or something...
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Hmmm, an old schematic for a piece of classic Japanese music kit that has a device called a "frip frop" on it.
And, geeze I wish I still a copy, from an LCD datasheet -- very typical Japanese/manga type artwork with big eyed childish looking character with his/her tongue sticking out holding a dripping little rectangle:
"Never taste of it".
Of course the datasheet didn't talk too much about what "it" was...
AFAIK peanuts are the only plant that bears its fruit (i.e. the part where the seeds are) underground. This is quite an accomplishment for the peanut, because in order for pollination to occur, the plant has to flower above the ground. After it's pollinated, the plant grows downward, so that by the time it sets fruit, the seed pods are underground. Weird but true.
Expanding the topic a little, here is a website that has a large selection of bad product designs: http://www.baddesigns.com/
I believe the stock was sold At least in Dick (gotta love the name) Cheney's case, the call for a lack of conflict of interest required the VP to divest himself of Oil Company Stock. I own a lot of Petroleum stock, it is profitable, and does not Dot com itself. We will always need oil. With out the energy generated from fossil fuel, there would be no slash dot. And lightwave renders on........
And it rendered on, until the end of its days.
having warm water sprayed on my ass was the highlight of my overnight stay.
You must have not met a girl who does the thing with the string of beads.
Freedom: "I won't!"
I took CS 101 with a group of people who OBVIOUSLY knew what they were doing, and just couldn't get into 102 (convienently placed at the same time slot). We mucked it up and had a great time learning HYPERCARD instead of C++.
So one of the first things we did after completing the first months' assignments in about an hour, was to code a detailed error logging and processing routine in hypercard. Basically it tracked and tallied the types of errors that the user was making, and became increasingly derogatory as the counts increased. We spent about two hours populating error messages like, "Hey, that's a mouse. You move it around on the table and it moves the little arrow on the screen." and "I really don't believe that you did that AGAIN!"
After incorporating it into the first projects, we acutally had other people volunteer to playtest our stacks, just so they could read the new error messages we incorporated.
"One touch of Darwin makes the whole world kin." George Bernard Shaw
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You tried to divide a number by 0 to get the remainder. Most numbers don't take to this kindly.
Your C library apparently doesn't implement gethostent(3), probably because if it did, it'd feel morally obligated to return every hostname on the Internet. DNS tends to give machines a sense of grandeur.
Unlike next or last, you're not allowed to goto an unspecified destination, the opinions of Elizabethans not withstanding. Go to goto.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
I like my coffee like I like my women
Now, who here wants a big-assed coffee????
Burma?
Ah, someone beat me to it. I was about to say I thought the whole reason for "May contain peanuts" was so that people could avoid those particular products.
I remember this one episode of Freaks & Geeks where the geek had a peanut allergy and some jackass stuck some peanuts in his sandwich at lunch in the cafeteria. He went down within a matter of seconds from (apparently) a violent swelling of the tissues in his airway, and had to be immediately hospitalized, coming close to death because some idiot wanted to be funny.
Of course it was a dramatization, but if this peanut allergy is really anything like that, I'm sure I would want to stay away from anything with even a molecule of peanut matter in it. It's literally a matter of life and death for some folks.
I think the parent post needs to be modded up so more people see the correct reason for that label. The grandparent post had it backwards, it's not the nuts that are dangerous, it's the peanuts.
So when you cook or bake things with peanuts to feed to the public or people that you don't necessarily know, make sure that they know it contains peanuts. I don't know about the rest of you, but accidentally killing someone would tend to make me feel bad.
No, you're right. The site is bad.
The illustrations were hardly what I would call "bizarre". And they weren't excerpts from technical documentation; they were out-of-context pictograms from the instruction manuals/packaging of common mass-produced goods.
Boring and dull.
higle
The Feedback column in New Scientist has these every week. My favourite so far was the invoice for a locomotive purchased at auction, something like:
Item: Locomotive Quantity: 1 (approximately)
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Documentation of Cerwyn-Vega products tends to be (often intentionally, but sometimes not) quite amusing.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Slashdotters, being the concerned U.S. terror-level-alert-watchers we are, have no doubt studied up already on these informational diagrams from the united states website ready.gov http://www.houstonjusticenotwar.org/articles/terro rist_attack/
[ you and I are ugly ]
what would happen. Thank God I never succumbed!
Even if you can read Japanese these things can be extremely confusing. Mainly because out of all the different sized buttons, not a single one will actually flush the toilet! I count myself lucky every time I get out of one of these things alive.
One definitely good idea is to heat the seats (in the winter at least).
"Nuns- no sense of humor." -Clancy Brown in Highlander
It must be a pain reading such non-structural HTML with a screen reader. It's all tables.