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 ...
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"There's only about 15 at the moment, but he's collecting further examples."
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
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
I guess I expected something more like.
this
And
this
Mirror be gentle to my host plz ;-)
Visit engrish.com! Hours of fun...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
- 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.
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
> 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.
Funny sign, but my suggestion is that you don't try to take a camera into a public restroom, snapping pictures while standing at the urinal and snickering to yourself.
Just a friendly Slashdot public service announcement!
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
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.
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.
:)
--- if y cn rd ths y cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmmng!
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.
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.
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"
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
Hello city boy. Ever been out of there?
1. Ever seen anything growing under a nut tree (assuming we are talking walnut or similar)?
2. Peanuts are dug from the ground so this means disrupting any tree roots that are there.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Actually, peanuts aren't nuts at all, but legumes (family Leguminosae). True nuts grow on trees, peanuts grow underground. The reason things get labelled "contains peanuts" is that some folk (rare though they may be) are allergic to peanuts (and have severe reaction to them), so the lawyer-types make them put that on food items that contain them. Now, as for other nut products being labelled the same, it's because they pften packaged in the same factories as peanuts so there may be some cross-contamination.
I have violent reactions to nuts, but only the ones heading SCO.
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.
An anti-personnel landmine that reads simply "Front towards enemy."
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!