Small, inconsequential mini-micro-rant
J.D. Baldwin
Web order forms.
The "Enter your credit card number" field.
Sometimes they tell you, "Don't put spaces in the number." Sometimes
they don't tell you, but they still don't allow the spaces. In rare
instances, they require that you enter the spaces. (I haven't seen
one of these in a while.)
God knows, detecting spaces in a string -- and removing them, if
necessary -- would be a pretty complex thing to ask a COMPUTER to do,
now, wouldn't it?
Idiot web developers. But I repeat myself.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Uhl <ruhl@4dv.net>
>
> God knows, detecting spaces in a string--and removing them, if
> now, wouldn't it?
Heck, what about the myriad forms which do not like addresses of the
form foo...@baz.quux? That _is_ a valid email address, whether they
like to admit it or not.
--
Cooking is great--it's a socially acceptable excuse to play with knives
and fire.
David P. Murphy
> Web order forms.
> The "Enter your credit card number" field.
> Sometimes they tell you, "Don't put spaces in the number." Sometimes
> they don't tell you, but they still don't allow the spaces. In rare
> instances, they require that you enter the spaces. (I haven't seen
> one of these in a while.)
> God knows, detecting spaces in a string -- and removing them, if
> necessary -- would be a pretty complex thing to ask a COMPUTER to do,
> now, wouldn't it?
No shit. If I want to cut & paste the number, it only takes the first
thirteen digits because my clipboard has dashes or spaces and the field
only takes sixteen characters. It's a new level of stupidity: make it
as hard as possible for someone to give you money.
> Idiot web developers. But I repeat myself.
Stop complimenting them.
ok
dpm
--
David P. Murphy http://www.myths.com/~dpm/
systems programmer ftp://ftp.myths.com
mailto:d...@myths.com (personal)
COGITO ERGO DISCLAMO mailto:Murphy...@emc.com (work)
Shalon Wood
> INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
> >
> > God knows, detecting spaces in a string--and removing them, if
> > necessary--would be a pretty complex thing to ask a COMPUTER to do,
> > now, wouldn't it?
>
> Heck, what about the myriad forms which do not like addresses of the
> form foo...@baz.quux? That _is_ a valid email address, whether they
> like to admit it or not.
That reminds me. I have to patch DCForum.
Bah. Great product, but every so often I run across something (no + in
email addresses, HTTP_REFERRER <cough>) that just makes me want to
slap the developer and say *What* the *hell* were you *thinking*?
Shalon Wood
--
Garrett Wollman
David P. Murphy <d...@myths.com> wrote:
>No shit. If I want to cut & paste the number, it only takes the first
>thirteen digits because my clipboard has dashes or spaces and the field
>only takes sixteen characters. It's a new level of stupidity: make it
>as hard as possible for someone to give you money.
I can top that. (Unfortunately, the idiots in question already had my
money.)
Start out with the sadly-common sort of Web site (made from 100% real
processed middleware software product!) that wets itself whenever you
use your browser's user interface for what its design purpose.
Now add in a supposedly ``secure'' Web site that requires you to log
in and out, and won't let you log in if it thinks you already are.
(``Secure'' in quotation marks since I already know from the
/JroBowrpgf.qyy/ that this FPOS runs under Windows.)
For the final trick, mix throughly with a ``comment'' form which
requires that the user fill in the date of his complaint (surely the
computer can do that?). Naturally, this form does not provide any
hint as to what is an acceptable date format -- so one assumes that
it's just a freeform text field, right?
Of course not! They support exactly one date format (even if they
couldn't be bothered to tell you what it was), and of course it's the
most brain-damaged date format in common use. (No points for guessing
which one.) But you only find that out after having typed the 60-line
rant into the feedback form, when it shows you a screen insisting on
that specific broken format, but without offering you a chance to
``correct'' your entry. Of course, you can't use the back button in
your browser's user interface (not for any particular reason that I
can see -- the server side just refuses to proceed if it thinks the
page you're coming from is not the last one it sent you), and the link
they give you that's labelled ``back'' (in tiny print on a green
``button'' background embedded in a GIF image with no ALT tag, natch)
actually gives you a brand-new copy of the form, having thrown your
original rant away.
(You can tell I'm talking about an online-banking site, can't you?)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | [G]enes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of
wol...@lcs.mit.edu | chemical processes. Genes do not make ``novelty-
Opinions not those of| seeking'' or any other complex and overt behavior.
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)
J.D. Baldwin
Borderline UI ahead.
In the previous article, Garrett Wollman <wol...@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> Of course not! They support exactly one date format (even if they
> couldn't be bothered to tell you what it was), and of course it's the
> most brain-damaged date format in common use. (No points for guessing
> which one.) But you only find that out after having typed the 60-line
> rant into the feedback form, when it shows you a screen insisting on
> that specific broken format, but without offering you a chance to
> ``correct'' your entry. Of course, you can't use the back button in
> your browser's user interface (not for any particular reason that I
> can see -- the server side just refuses to proceed if it thinks the
> page you're coming from is not the last one it sent you), and the link
> they give you that's labelled ``back'' (in tiny print on a green
> ``button'' background embedded in a GIF image with no ALT tag, natch)
> actually gives you a brand-new copy of the form, having thrown your
> original rant away.
The problem is so bad that I have gotten into the habit of copying the
text of anything substantial that I write onto the clipboard before I
"Submit" it. When the web "application" eats it, at least I can get
it back.
> (You can tell I'm talking about an online-banking site, can't you?)
I couldn't. I've never used one for more than thirty seconds. There
aren't a lot of credit unions with online sites[1] just yet, and I
don't detect a huge push within that industry segment to implement
them. Presumably they have surveyed their customers and determined
that it isn't all that important. I won't deal with a bank[2], and
use credit unions exclusively, so I'm not too worried about it.
[1] Pentagon Federal Credit Union (penfed.org) is an exception. I
applied for a car loan online and the interface was astonishingly
clueful. It was even usable within w3m. I made a point of
complimenting it to the loan officer who called me the next day.
(Plus I got a 4.99% APR loan on 60-month terms, which is quite
simply unbeatable.)[3]
[2] I might, someday, make an exception for USAA's bank, about
which I hear good things.[3]
[3] I have no financial interest in PFCU and only a very slight one
in USAA; my main connection with them is as a satisfied customer.
Carl Inglis
<ds...@nospam.dummy.pele.cx> wrote:
<snip>
> Bah. Great product, but every so often I run across something (no + in
> email addresses, HTTP_REFERRER <cough>) that just makes me want to
> slap the developer and say *What* the *hell* were you *thinking*?
s/*What* the *hell*//
HTH,
Carl
--
"..as to who I am now, if you're prompted to ask: I'm the ghost of my
future and the sum of my past."
- Talis Kimberly, Small Mended Corners, Archetype Cafe
rev...@sorrydave.org
> Idiot web developers. But I repeat myself.
On behalf of the Royal Union of Colonial Village and Small Town Idiots I
wish to protest this comparison....
--
Better to just create microsoft.my.computer.doesnt.work, microsoft.die.die.die,
microsoft.how.do.i... and microsoft.my.internet.doesnt.work.
-- David Skinner, asr
Paul Tomblin
>INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
>> God knows, detecting spaces in a string--and removing them, if
>> necessary--would be a pretty complex thing to ask a COMPUTER to do,
>> now, wouldn't it?
>
>Heck, what about the myriad forms which do not like addresses of the
>form foo...@baz.quux? That _is_ a valid email address, whether they
>like to admit it or not.
Another perenial favourite: Sites that take your entered email address,
and then convert the user part to upper case before they send you email.
IF I WANTED IT IN UPPER CASE, I WOULD HAVE ENTERED IT LIKE THAT!
--
Paul Tomblin <ptom...@xcski.com>, not speaking for anybody
In 1665 Issac Newton became discouraged when he fell up a flight of
stairs.
Stuart Lamble
>In a previous article, ru...@4dv.net (Robert Uhl <ru...@4dv.net>) said:
>>INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
>>> God knows, detecting spaces in a string--and removing them, if
>>> necessary--would be a pretty complex thing to ask a COMPUTER to do,
>>> now, wouldn't it?
>>
>>Heck, what about the myriad forms which do not like addresses of the
>>form foo...@baz.quux? That _is_ a valid email address, whether they
>>like to admit it or not.
>
>Another perenial favourite: Sites that take your entered email address,
>and then convert the user part to upper case before they send you email.
>IF I WANTED IT IN UPPER CASE, I WOULD HAVE ENTERED IT LIKE THAT!
Or sites that say "Sorry, we don't support your browser. Please download
Internet Explorer version foo, or Netscape Navigator version bar." So,
just because I'm using Mozilla 1.0, and you haven't tested your site
with this browser, you think it's a valid reason to completely BLOCK
me? How about just WARNING me that it may not work, and let ME carry
the risk? Or better yet, write your scripts and your HTML in compliance
with the STANDARDS that are out there, so that ANY standard browser
will work?
Nah... too obvious. Too straightforward.
Then there's the condescending "You don't have JavaScript enabled.
You must enable JavaScript to view this website." Nine times out of
ten, I can actually do what I want to do without JavaScript turned
on anyway...
--
I'm waiting for tech support to call me back. I'm also waiting for the
second coming of Jesus. Wanna take bets on which happens first?
Garrett Wollman
In article <slrnah55b...@debtemp.lib.monash.edu.au>,
Stuart Lamble <s...@debtemp.lib.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>Then there's the condescending "You don't have JavaScript enabled.
>You must enable JavaScript to view this website." Nine times out of
>ten, I can actually do what I want to do without JavaScript turned
>on anyway...
Meanwhile, the ones that *do* require JavaShit (usually because some
lazy ``web programmer'' can't be arsed to configure the server
correctly) Just Don't Work without bothering to give any indication as
to why.
It's still all marca's fault.
Garrett Wollman
Lionel <n...@alt.net> wrote:
>I strongly recommend against keeping one's CC details on one's computer,
>much less putting them in one's cut & paste buffer.
Having gone through my life without ever having more than two
general-purpose bank cards, I submit that this information is most
conveniently stored between one's ears. This also has the advantage
of working correctly even when the actual plastic bits are
inconvenient or unavailable. It's not that hard to remember a few
sixteen-digit strings, particularly when the first few bits don't vary
much. (If you regularly use more than three credit cards, you
probably have other problems, too.)
-GAWollman
ObAHS: bought a new beige-box PC six months ago. Have noticed that
there is a seriously annoying click which is buried somewhere within
the sound-card-on-a-chip that this motherboard uses. Only occurs in
stereo PCM output, not input, not other output sources[1], not in mono
mode. Very irritating. So I went to Micro Center and bought three
random PCI sound cards to see if any of them work. Little project for
this weekend, anyway, should I care enough to finish the job (he says,
as he looks forlornly at the pile of crap on his desk which needs to
be dealt with before it falls over).
[1] Sounds somewhat oxymoronic, no?
Stuart Lamble
>[Bogus `Distribution: world' deleted.]
Oops. Newsserver configuration. I've had a word with the guy in
charge of the local news server; it's fixed now.
>In article <slrnah55b...@debtemp.lib.monash.edu.au>,
>Stuart Lamble <s...@debtemp.lib.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>Then there's the condescending "You don't have JavaScript enabled.
>>You must enable JavaScript to view this website." Nine times out of
>>ten, I can actually do what I want to do without JavaScript turned
>>on anyway...
>
>Meanwhile, the ones that *do* require JavaShit (usually because some
>lazy ``web programmer'' can't be arsed to configure the server
>correctly) Just Don't Work without bothering to give any indication as
>to why.
Or they sort-of work. eg: JavaScript-based menus pop up the menus just
fine, but when you go to click on an item, the menus disappear. Or
they are actually sorry excuses for "auto detecting" certain things (eg:
Flash), and don't work when they encounter a web browser they've never
seen before. Free clue: if you must include Schlockwave[1], just embed
the object. Don't bother trying to detect the plugin, and telling the
user that he doesn't have it. If I don't have Flash, I know that this
is the case, and I DON'T FUCKING CARE, okay?
And as for a certain fruity hardware company that keeps shoving said
plugin down my throat, FUCKING WELL STOP. I don't want it. I don't need
it. Don't keep assuming that I do.
>It's still all marca's fault.
Amen.
[1] Hint: you don't need it. I don't care what you want it for, you
DON'T NEED IT.
Ralph Wade Phillips
"J.D. Baldwin" <INVALID...@example.com> wrote in message
news:aetcni$iui$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> Idiot web developers. But I repeat myself.
I wish you wouldn't insult idiots that way.
RwP
(BTW - One of my friends is a "web developer". He actually does
pretty good. Of course, his DAY job is photoretouch of XRays ... )
Don Quixote
[AHS]
>as he looks forlornly at the pile of crap on his desk which needs to
>be dealt with before it falls over).
When it falls over, you'll have a broader plain upon which to place
your new(er) hardware.
HTH!
No, really, HTH.
Obahs:oldsun,newos,makeitstop. Obass:oldsun,newos,makeitstop. Mommy?
Michael I. Pearson
> This is probably a good time to repeat the story of an idiot PFY at a
> former orkplace. The big boss asked him to buy a piece of software &
> gave him the corporate credit card details to purchase it with. Idiot
> PFY buys the software online, cutting & pasting in the CC details. While
> in the process of doing this, he's on IRC in another window, chatting
> with his warez-kiddie buddies. You guessed it - he accidentally hit the
> 'paste' key-combo while in IRC.
I'm curious.. what happened to him?
I can just imagine to him trying to explain it to the PHB. Both the fact
that he pasted the number /and/ that he was IRCing on work's time.
--
Michael I. Pearson
email: nypneba ng frarg qbg pbz qbg nh
Marc Haber
>Another perenial favourite: Sites that take your entered email address,
>and then convert the user part to upper case before they send you email.
>IF I WANTED IT IN UPPER CASE, I WOULD HAVE ENTERED IT LIKE THAT!
Some ListServs convert the domain to upper case. I hate that.
Greetings
Marc
--
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! -----
Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header
Karlsruhe, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " | Fon: *49 721 966 32 15
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fax: *49 721 966 31 29
Marc Haber
>Bah. Great product, but every so often I run across something (no + in
>email addresses, HTTP_REFERRER <cough>) that just makes me want to
>slap the developer and say *What* the *hell* were you *thinking*?
You incorrectly assume that $WEBIDIOT is able to think.
Marc Haber
>INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
>> God knows, detecting spaces in a string--and removing them, if
>> necessary--would be a pretty complex thing to ask a COMPUTER to do,
>> now, wouldn't it?
>
>Heck, what about the myriad forms which do not like addresses of the
>form foo...@baz.quux? That _is_ a valid email address, whether they
>like to admit it or not.
Actually, Pvfpb's web scripts silently drop "+" from e-mail addresses.
I have never seen something that stupid. Obviously, their clue level
decreases the farther you go up in the OSI scheme.
Marc Haber
>On Thu, 20 Jun 2002 20:08:18 +0000 (UTC), in alt.sysadmin.recovery,
>INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) wrote:
>>Idiot web developers. But I repeat myself.
>
>field(s) in a format that is not accepted when the form is submitted.
And I have encountered edit pages that insist on entering phone number
in american format. Which doesn't quite fit the format we use over
here. It's a coincidence that my number fits nicely.
Earl Grey
> Web order forms.
s/order //
> The "Enter your credit card number" field.
20 years ago, I wrote a reasonably simple subroutine in the Basic that
came with the AlphaMicro to do editing using a PICTURE clause. It's not
that difficult. I'm kinda surprised that HTML, JavaShite, et al have not
been able to come up with something similar since. Quite shocked.
--
They tell me that you're going to try posting to Alt.Sysadmin.Recovery.
It's a Magnificent Idea; A Daring and Splendid Idea! It will be FUN!
Assuming you're not vaporized, dissected, or otherwise killed in an
assortment of supremely horrible and painful ways! Exciting, Isn't It?!
Willem
)>I've encountered edit pages that display filled in phone number
)>field(s) in a format that is not accepted when the form is submitted.
)
) And I have encountered edit pages that insist on entering phone number
) in american format. Which doesn't quite fit the format we use over
) here. It's a coincidence that my number fits nicely.
''You must enter a valid 5-digit zipcode'' is much more common, IME.
I think 00000 isn't valid though.
And of course the drop-down box with a list of US states. Sometimes they
bother to list Canada. And this on sites that want to sell you stuff.
But I shouldn't wonder after having seen how world maps look in 'merkin
schools. I mean, Australia looks small on them, and Africa is tiny.
SaSW, Willem (at stack dot nl)
--
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any of the statements
made in the above text. For all I know I might be
drugged or something..
No I'm not paranoid. You all think I'm paranoid, don't you !
#EOT
Ignatios Souvatzis
ru...@4dv.net (Robert Uhl <ru...@4dv.net>) writes:
> INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
>>
>> God knows, detecting spaces in a string--and removing them, if
>> necessary--would be a pretty complex thing to ask a COMPUTER to do,
>> now, wouldn't it?
>
> Heck, what about the myriad forms which do not like addresses of the
> form foo...@baz.quux? That _is_ a valid email address, whether they
> like to admit it or not.
I've been hitten by that, and by something worse: some apparently check
the @dom.ain.pa.rt of the e-mail addres for an A record, and claim it's
invalid without.
This specifically happens with one of the few $IPV6_TUNNEL_PROVIDER that
actually have an infrastructure to let your endpoint validate itself without
depending on its IPv4 address.
Regards,
-is
Ignatios Souvatzis
wol...@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) writes:
> Of course not! They support exactly one date format (even if they
> couldn't be bothered to tell you what it was), and of course it's the
> most brain-damaged date format in common use. (No points for guessing
> which one.)
*mumble* Julian Date? Modified Julian Date? Seconds since the AmigaOS epoch?
-is
Paul Tomblin
>ru...@4dv.net (Robert Uhl <ru...@4dv.net>) wrote:
>>INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
>>> God knows, detecting spaces in a string--and removing them, if
>>> necessary--would be a pretty complex thing to ask a COMPUTER to do,
>>> now, wouldn't it?
>>
>>Heck, what about the myriad forms which do not like addresses of the
>>form foo...@baz.quux? That _is_ a valid email address, whether they
>>like to admit it or not.
>
>Actually, Pvfpb's web scripts silently drop "+" from e-mail addresses.
>I have never seen something that stupid. Obviously, their clue level
>decreases the farther you go up in the OSI scheme.
My step daughter has a web journal of some sort that every time somebody
enters something in the feedback form, she gets the message with every
single space replaced by a '+'. I assume that's because some simplistic
script somewhere is using '+' as a delimiter. I wonder if it's similar
crapware scripts that are dropping the '+' you enter.
--
Paul Tomblin <ptom...@xcski.com>, not speaking for anybody
"As in the thronged and the lighted ways,/so in the dark and the desert
they stand,/Wary and watchful all their days/that their brethren's days
may be long in the land." - Rudyard Kipling, "The Sons of Martha"
Paul Tomblin
>But I shouldn't wonder after having seen how world maps look in 'merkin
>schools. I mean, Australia looks small on them, and Africa is tiny.
Oh god, you're one of those "Mercator projection is a USian conspiracy"
idiots.
Just for the record, Mercator was developed in 1569.
--
Paul Tomblin <ptom...@xcski.com>, not speaking for anybody
"Panic kills"
-- Rick Grant (quoting RCAF pilot training)
Willem
) In a previous article, willem at stack dot nl said:
)>But I shouldn't wonder after having seen how world maps look in 'merkin
)>schools. I mean, Australia looks small on them, and Africa is tiny.
)
) Oh god, you're one of those "Mercator projection is a USian conspiracy"
) idiots.
Me ? Where did you get that idea from ? What do you know about the beans ?
) Just for the record, Mercator was developed in 1569.
Seriously, it's not a conspiracy, it's just a good indication of how most
murkins think.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Earl Grey <bo...@kapu.net> wrote:
> 20 years ago, I wrote a reasonably simple subroutine in the Basic
> that came with the AlphaMicro to do editing using a PICTURE
> clause. It's not that difficult. I'm kinda surprised that HTML,
> JavaShite, et al have not been able to come up with something
> similar since. Quite shocked.
In my previous life as a web developer[1], I had to write a form that
gave a user a randomly generated password to give him access to some
resource or another. One of the required fields was "Social Security
Number."[2] The CGI script to process the form was in Perl, and
stripping out nonnumeric characters and checking that there were nine
numerals left was the work of less than one line of code.[3]
So The Boss decided to test it for himself and he actually noticed
this. He saw that he could, for example, enter 12@34*56789 and it
would come up as 123-45-6789 on the "confirm this info" page.
No points for guessing what he told me to do.[5]
[1] Shut up.
[2] Shut *up*.
[3] In the sense that other things were accomplished on that same line.[4]
[4] Shut up.
[5] Erdhver gung gur vasbezngvba or ragrerq va aaa-aa-aaaa sbezng naq
erdhver er-ragel vs abg, bs pbhefr.
Robert McCown
"Ralph Wade Phillips" <ral...@techie.com> wrote in message
news:3d12b233$1...@spamkiller.newsgroups.com...
> Grr ...
>
> of course, his DAY job is photoretouch of XRays ... )
>
<doctor type=dishonest>
No really, see? This x-ray shows you have $FOO in your $BAR, which requires
$BAZ treatment, expensive but life-saving...
</doctor>
-=Bob
--
Bob McCown - rmc...@world.std.com
| Why dont the voices in my head ever
| tell me to take my medicine?
David P. Murphy
> Or they sort-of work. eg: JavaScript-based menus pop up the menus just
> fine, but when you go to click on an item, the menus disappear. Or
> they are actually sorry excuses for "auto detecting" certain things (eg:
> Flash), and don't work when they encounter a web browser they've never
> seen before. Free clue: if you must include Schlockwave[1], just embed
> the object. Don't bother trying to detect the plugin, and telling the
> user that he doesn't have it. If I don't have Flash, I know that this
> is the case, and I DON'T FUCKING CARE, okay?
> [1] Hint: you don't need it. I don't care what you want it for, you
> DON'T NEED IT.
That is exactly what I remind myself when a friend tells me
"Oh this is hysterical, it's so funny, you've GOT to watch it"
and it needs some piece of crap or another. You know what?
It can't be that funny. There are other funny things in life
that don't need Flash or Shockwave or Javascript, so I'll just
miss this one and not worry about. The few seconds of humor
are not going to outweigh the pain of installing and cohabitating
with the horrible drek it drags along with it.
ok
dpm
--
David P. Murphy http://www.myths.com/~dpm/
systems programmer ftp://ftp.myths.com
mailto:d...@myths.com (personal)
COGITO ERGO DISCLAMO mailto:Murphy...@emc.com (work)
Ralph Wade Phillips
"Robert McCown" <rmc...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:aevfok$uvp$1...@pcls4.std.com...
>
> "Ralph Wade Phillips" <ral...@techie.com> wrote in message
> news:3d12b233$1...@spamkiller.newsgroups.com...
> > Grr ...
> >
> > of course, his DAY job is photoretouch of XRays ... )
> >
>
> <doctor type=dishonest>
> No really, see? This x-ray shows you have $FOO in your $BAR, which
requires
> $BAZ treatment, expensive but life-saving...
> </doctor>
You can spit the bait out now.
What $FRIEND does is work at a "teaching hospital", Louisiana State
University Medical Center to be precise.
His "touchups" are to EMPHASIZE what's on there for new radiological
students to see it better. By the end of the semester,he's just making sure
that the X-Rays{1} are developed properly.
He ALSO takes photos of surgeries. After all, you can't count on
someone coming in every semester / school year with a 175 pound cyst to be
surgically removed ... (Yes, there WAS a case like that, two years ago. !I!
didn't believe it either, but I got to see the photos and videos of the
operation - well, the short one, without ALL the blood.)
RwP
David P. Murphy
> (You can tell I'm talking about an online-banking site, can't you?)
Oh god. Please, not today.
hu...@cynico.net
Garrett Wollman <wol...@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>It's not that hard to remember a few
>sixteen-digit strings, particularly when the first few bits don't vary
>much.
And, it has the added benefit of impressing the yokels.
--
Matt Hucke (hu...@cynico.com)
Microsoft Delenda Est!
http://www.graveyards.com/
Peter Corlett
[...]
> Having gone through my life without ever having more than two
> general-purpose bank cards, I submit that this information is most
> conveniently stored between one's ears.
Sorta agreed, but it makes online window shopping more dangerous if I can
just clickety-click to order without fishing in my wallet.
> [...] (If you regularly use more than three credit cards, you probably
> have other problems, too.)
Or you care enough to shuffle money around the banking system to maximise
the freebies and minimise the charges. It's hard to get low APR, cashback
*and* zero transaction charges on one card, but you can easily do with
three... (9.9% APR and 1.6% cashback? Yes please.)
> [...] So I went to Micro Center and bought three random PCI sound cards to
> see if any of them work.
The SB128 is dirt cheap, and is Good Enough for most uses unless you are an
audio geek.
Nathan Sidwell
> now, wouldn't it?
another stupid one I found was BT's (.uk $TELCO)[1] site that
does area-code->town-name lookups for you. It asks for an area
code, ok how about '117' then? Nope. 'Please reenter the area code
with the leading '0''.
a) a pedant points out that the zero is not part of the area code,
but tells the exchange that an area code follows (obtains a trunk
route in old money)
b) If you could tell I'd forgotten the zero, *why* *don't* *you*
*fsking* *put* *it* *in* *your* *self*
nathan
[1] This is a literary device called foreshadowing.
--
Dr Nathan Sidwell :: Computer Science Department :: Bristol University
The voices in my head told me to say this
nat...@acm.org http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~nathan/ nat...@cs.bris.ac.uk
Matthew Malthouse
} INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
} >
} > God knows, detecting spaces in a string--and removing them, if
} > now, wouldn't it?
}
} form foo...@baz.quux? That _is_ a valid email address, whether they
} like to admit it or not.
Or .uk postcodes, forms that will only accept XXNN?NXX when XXNXNXX and
XNNXX are not only valid but the forms of my ork and home codes
respectively.
Granted, I've not come across this one recently, but I recall one
occasion when a form wouldn't accept either, wouldn't process without
one and as delivery was involved using my mother's wasn't an option.
Matthew
--
Il est important d'être un homme ou une femme en colère; le jour où nous
quitte la colère, ou le désir, c'est cuit. - Barbara
Matthew Malthouse
}
} And I have encountered edit pages that insist on entering phone number
} in american format. Which doesn't quite fit the format we use over
} here. It's a coincidence that my number fits nicely.
} Fon: *49 721 966 32 15
Shouldn't the * be + ?
Derick Siddoway
> 20 years ago, I wrote a reasonably simple subroutine in the Basic that
> came with the AlphaMicro to do editing using a PICTURE clause. It's not
I had come -><- this close to completely forgetting about those
machines. Thank you, thank you very much. Now I have to go
wash my mind out with soap.
--
Derick Siddoway II. Impact Non-privileged primitive users can
der...@bitflood.net cause the total destruction of your entire invasion
fleet and gain unauthorized access to files.
-- CERT Advisory CA-96.13
Robert McCown
"Derick Siddoway" <der...@bitflood.net> wrote in message
news:slrnah6s6g...@panther.bitflood.net...
> It is said by some that Earl Grey once wrote:
>
> > 20 years ago, I wrote a reasonably simple subroutine in the Basic that
> > came with the AlphaMicro to do editing using a PICTURE clause. It's not
>
> I had come -><- this close to completely forgetting about those
> machines. Thank you, thank you very much. Now I have to go
> wash my mind out with soap.
>
ObCrossThread: Caffienated soap?
Garrett Wollman
Willem <willem at stack dot nl> wrote:
>''You must enter a valid 5-digit zipcode'' is much more common, IME.
>I think 00000 isn't valid though.
You're welcome to use mine, if it helps.
Actually, you're entirely welcome to have everything shiny! you buy
shipped to my address. I don't make any guarantees about whether it
will ever make it to your address, though. (But no spam, please.)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | [G]enes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of
wol...@lcs.mit.edu | chemical processes. Genes do not make ``novelty-
Opinions not those of| seeking'' or any other complex and overt behavior.
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)
Tanuki the Raccoon-dog
said
>Jim <j...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
>>On Thu, 20 Jun 2002 20:08:18 +0000 (UTC), in alt.sysadmin.recovery,
>>INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) wrote:
>>>Idiot web developers. But I repeat myself.
>>
>>I've encountered edit pages that display filled in phone number
>>field(s) in a format that is not accepted when the form is submitted.
>
>And I have encountered edit pages that insist on entering phone number
>in american format. Which doesn't quite fit the format we use over
>here. It's a coincidence that my number fits nicely.
Some years ago $LARGE_NETWORKING_HARDWARE_VENDOR tried to sell me their
first-generation VoIP system.
Let's just say that this system had a rather authoritarian view of the
legitimate formats of phone-numbers that could be entered. If the
structure of a number fell outside the usual NANP snytax, there were,
er, 'problems'.
It must have right-royally pissed-off the salesdroid when his attempts
to enter the phone-number of the person he was trying to make a sale to
kept getting rejected as invalid.
Demo over. No sale. The snapping-turtles will be along shortly; I hear
they are rather partial to liver.
--
!Raised Tails! -:Tanuki:-
"I have seen the future, and it drools"
Robert Uhl <ruhl@4dv.net>
>
> My step daughter has a web journal of some sort that every time somebody
> enters something in the feedback form, she gets the message with every
> single space replaced by a '+'. I assume that's because some simplistic
> script somewhere is using '+' as a delimiter. I wonder if it's similar
> crapware scripts that are dropping the '+' you enter.
Possible UI below:
PTV fpevcgf hfr '+' gb ercerfrag ' '. V guvax lbh pna qenj gur
boivbhf pbapyhfvba...
--
To believe in gun control, one has to believe that guns are not an
effective means of self-defense, which is why police carry them.
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
In <aeu482$4jh$1...@allhats.xcski.com>, on 06/21/2002
at 02:49 AM, ptom...@xcski.com (Paul Tomblin) said:
>Another perenial favourite: Sites that take your entered email
>address, and then convert the user part to upper case before they
>send you email. IF I WANTED IT IN UPPER CASE, I WOULD HAVE ENTERED IT
>LIKE THAT!
OTOH, assuming that you really are case sensitive, think of all the
lovely bounces that they will get.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
Reply to domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+bspfh to contact me.
Annandale pledge: Under no circumstances will I ever purchase
software, audio or video recordings that are copy protected.
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
In <aetg2r$2vb0$1...@traf.lcs.mit.edu>, on 06/20/2002
at 09:05 PM, wol...@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) said:
>(You can tell I'm talking about an online-banking site, can't you?)
Well, /. was a candidate for parts of it.
Alan J Rosenthal
>Garrett Wollman <wol...@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
[credit card number]
>>It's not that hard to remember a few sixteen-digit strings, particularly
>>when the first few bits don't vary much.
>
>And, it has the added benefit of impressing the yokels.
Here's a slurp the fact contest, not a robot but with the same prize money:
My Laurel knows her social insurance number (Canadian taxpayer ID) by heart.
Guess why.
(I know mine, but that's because I'm a geek. She's not a geek.)
Omri Schwarz
> In a previous article, willem at stack dot nl said:
> >But I shouldn't wonder after having seen how world maps look in 'merkin
> >schools. I mean, Australia looks small on them, and Africa is tiny.
>
> Oh god, you're one of those "Mercator projection is a USian conspiracy"
> idiots.
>
> Just for the record, Mercator was developed in 1569.
He was also a .nlistani, wasn't he?
--
Omri Schwarz --- ocs...@mit.edu ('h' before war)
Timeless wisdom of biomedical engineering: "Noise is principally
due to the presence of the patient." -- R.F. Farr
Omri Schwarz
> In article <slrnah5p...@snail.stack.nl>,
> Willem <willem at stack dot nl> wrote:
> >''You must enter a valid 5-digit zipcode'' is much more common, IME.
> >I think 00000 isn't valid though.
>
> You're welcome to use mine, if it helps.
So far no web programmer[0] thought
of the significance of 31337 as a
tossaway zipcode.
[0] That I've encountered.
Marc Haber
>On Fri, 21 Jun 2002 08:56:07 +0200 Marc Haber wrote:
>} Fon: *49 721 966 32 15
>
>Shouldn't the * be + ?
I believe they changed the * to + a few months back. I am pretty
conservative though.
Greetings
Marc
--
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! -----
Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header
Karlsruhe, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " | Fon: *49 721 966 32 15
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fax: *49 721 966 31 29
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> My step daughter has a web journal of some sort that every time somebody
> enters something in the feedback form, she gets the message with every
> single space replaced by a '+'. I assume that's because some simplistic
> script somewhere is using '+' as a delimiter. I wonder if it's similar
> crapware scripts that are dropping the '+' you enter.
No. It's URL-encoding the text, because that's how it's transmitted
in a form (unless you change the encoding style, but few people bother).
Good systems (including servlets in this case) automatically translate
it back. Hand-kluged Perl scripts might not; that's just plain stupid.
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"No one is safe. We will print no letters to the editor. We will give no
space to opposing points of view. They are wrong. The Underground Grammarian
is at war and will give the enemy nothing but battle." -TUG, v1n1
Satya
>Here's a slurp the fact contest, not a robot but with the same prize money:
>
>My Laurel knows her social insurance number (Canadian taxpayer ID) by heart.
>Guess why.
>(I know mine, but that's because I'm a geek. She's not a geek.)
Your's would be 255-10-1024, and her's would be 666-69-0269.
Oh this? No, it's not fishing rod. And that's not my jacket, I was wearing
that coat over there.
--
Satya.
Joe Zeff
Rosenthal) wrote:
>
>My Laurel knows her social insurance number (Canadian taxpayer ID) by heart.
>Guess why.
I not only know my SSN by heart, I know where to put the commas to
transform xxx-xx-xxxx to xxx,xxx,xxx form. That one *really boggles
the hell out of clerks and other droids.
--
Joe Zeff
The Guy With the Sideburns
Do not meddle in the affairs of gurus,
for they can make your life miserable by doing nothing.
http://www.lasfs.org http://home.earthlink.net/~sidebrnz
Joe Zeff
>But I shouldn't wonder after having seen how world maps look in 'merkin
>schools. I mean, Australia looks small on them, and Africa is tiny.
I know what you mean. Africa doesn't look any bigger than the moon,
does it?
--
Joe Zeff
The Guy With the Sideburns
The light at the end of the tunnel is the explosives around
that little ball of Pu239.
http://www.lasfs.org http://home.earthlink.net/~sidebrnz
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Omri Schwarz <ocs...@h-after-ocsc.mit.edu>
wrote:
> So far no web programmer[0] thought
> tossaway zipcode.
I always use 60609. Maybe I'm showing my age, but it stick in my
mind: "Spiegel. Chicago, 60609." I've never wanted to write to
those guys, but if I do, I'm set for life.
Matthew Malthouse
> Matthew Malthouse <use...@calmeilles.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>On Fri, 21 Jun 2002 08:56:07 +0200 Marc Haber wrote:
>>} Fon: *49 721 966 32 15
>>
>>Shouldn't the * be + ?
>
> I believe they changed the * to + a few months back. I am pretty
> conservative though.
Months? + has been "Use locally applicable international access code" on
my mobiles for as long as I've had them. I recall being told[0] there was
an applicable standard/agreement but no idea right now where to find a
reference.
Matthew
[0] In the course of a long and tedious argument about the "acceptable"
forms in which phone numbers should be written.
--
Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Don't overdo it.
-- Lao Tsu
Matthew Malthouse
> In article <slrnah55b...@debtemp.lib.monash.edu.au>,
> Stuart Lamble <s...@debtemp.lib.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>>Then there's the condescending "You don't have JavaScript enabled.
>>You must enable JavaScript to view this website." Nine times out of
>>ten, I can actually do what I want to do without JavaScript turned
>>on anyway...
>
> As a beautiful exception to this tendency, I'd like to take a moment
> to point out http://www.swcp.org.uk , the website for the South West
> Coast Path around Cornwall & surrounding counties in England.
Oh YES! *That's* how the web should be!
Just sent 'em a note to tell 'em so (if the didn't know).
Matthew
Marc Haber
>In article <af0bk3$np$1...@q.bofh.de>, Marc Haber wrote:
>> I believe they changed the * to + a few months back. I am pretty
>> conservative though.
>
>Months? + has been "Use locally applicable international access code" on
>my mobiles for as long as I've had them.
And I seem to recall that this was the reason for the relevant DIN
standard being changed recently. At least $MANGLEMENT sent us E-Mail
to change our signatures[1] recently.
Greetings
Marc
[1] which is an offense since it's my job to make the signatures for
the entire company. Got that job for yelling at $MANGLER when he came
up with a new mandatory 15-line .sig. Signatures for Tech people are
four lines since then, for Sales people five lines.
st...@madcelt.org
> In article <aeu482$4jh$1...@allhats.xcski.com>, Paul Tomblin wrote:
>>In a previous article, ru...@4dv.net (Robert Uhl <ru...@4dv.net>) said:
>>>INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
>>>> God knows, detecting spaces in a string--and removing them, if
>>>> necessary--would be a pretty complex thing to ask a COMPUTER to do,
>>>> now, wouldn't it?
>>>
>>>Heck, what about the myriad forms which do not like addresses of the
>>>form foo...@baz.quux? That _is_ a valid email address, whether they
>>>like to admit it or not.
>>
>>and then convert the user part to upper case before they send you email.
>>IF I WANTED IT IN UPPER CASE, I WOULD HAVE ENTERED IT LIKE THAT!
> Or sites that say "Sorry, we don't support your browser. Please download
> Internet Explorer version foo, or Netscape Navigator version bar." So,
> just because I'm using Mozilla 1.0, and you haven't tested your site
> with this browser, you think it's a valid reason to completely BLOCK
> me? How about just WARNING me that it may not work, and let ME carry
> the risk? Or better yet, write your scripts and your HTML in compliance
> with the STANDARDS that are out there, so that ANY standard browser
> will work?
Or far. far worse, xbox.com.au When I visited it with Opera, set to
ID itself as Opera, the javashite didn't work. I changed Opera to
ID itself as IE[1] and it all worked perfectly. Bad move mickeysoft.
That bullshit cost you a sale. I was trying to decide between the
xbox and the ps2. I'm very happy with my ps2 thankyouverymuch.
This type of thing can ONLY be premeditated. Arseholes. The lot of them.
[1] a single change in the preferences screen
--
Stevo st...@madcelt.org
If it doesn't involve a plunger or a perker, i'm not interested
Erika, being quoted WAY out of context
Tanuki the Raccoon-dog
<s...@debtemp.lib.monash.edu.au> said
>In article <aeu482$4jh$1...@allhats.xcski.com>, Paul Tomblin wrote:
>>Another perenial favourite: Sites that take your entered email address,
>>and then convert the user part to upper case before they send you email.
>>IF I WANTED IT IN UPPER CASE, I WOULD HAVE ENTERED IT LIKE THAT!
>
>Or sites that say "Sorry, we don't support your browser. Please download
>Internet Explorer version foo, or Netscape Navigator version bar." So,
>just because I'm using Mozilla 1.0, and you haven't tested your site
>with this browser, you think it's a valid reason to completely BLOCK
>me? How about just WARNING me that it may not work, and let ME carry
>the risk? Or better yet, write your scripts and your HTML in compliance
>with the STANDARDS that are out there, so that ANY standard browser
>will work?
We interrupt your regularly-scheduled programming for a rant:
MOTHERFUCKINGVEGETARIANPIECEOFSHITUNCOMPLIANTWEBPAGEAUTHORS!
This concludes the rant. Please return to your normal work.
--
!Raised Tails! -:Tanuki:-
"I will be undertaking some detailed research into sleep this weekend.
Unfortunately, the nature of it makes it difficult to take notes".
Michael D. Hofer
> My Laurel knows her social insurance number (Canadian taxpayer ID) by heart.
^^^^^^^^^
Is it me getting byzantine, or are the overlaps and crossovers becoming
more and more evident? ASR Party at War or what?
--
Cian ua'Lochain m/k/a Michael D. Hofer
/o)\ I'm not a medievalist - I just play one on weekends!
\(o/ http://www.ancientpond.com/public_key.asc ^..^
*BB* [rede what ye will ;) ] \/
David P. Murphy
> So far no web programmer[0] thought
> of the significance of 31337 as a
> tossaway zipcode.
http://www.usps.com/cgi-bin/zip4/zip4inq2
"The ZIP Code you entered was not found in our database."
But there's no guarantee it will continue to be a tossaway ---
it is a perfectly valid code.
ok
dpm
--
David P. Murphy http://www.myths.com/~dpm/
systems programmer ftp://ftp.myths.com
mailto:d...@myths.com (personal)
COGITO ERGO DISCLAMO mailto:Murphy...@emc.com (work)
David P. Murphy
(nothing in particular)
About thirty minutes ago I was driving north on the GW Parkway near
Belle View when I passed a green Subaru Outback. The plates said
+--------+
| TANUKI |
+--------+
Are you a sixty-year-old white male who drives slower than the limit?
Lieven Marchand
> ptom...@xcski.com (Paul Tomblin) writes:
>
> > Just for the record, Mercator was developed in 1569.
>
> He was also a .nlistani, wasn't he?
Flemish, actually. But he did most of his important work in Germany
since the local PHBs didn't offer much support.
--
Bored, now.
Lieven Marchand <m...@wyrd.be>
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> Or far. far worse, xbox.com.au When I visited it with Opera, set to
> ID itself as Opera, the javashite didn't work. I changed Opera to
> ID itself as IE[1] and it all worked perfectly. Bad move mickeysoft.
> That bullshit cost you a sale. I was trying to decide between the
> xbox and the ps2. I'm very happy with my ps2 thankyouverymuch.
I haven't bought any new ones yet (still being recovered, and not
enjoying it much), but the GameCube looks pretty nifty, too. There's
also still a lot of good games I haven't tried on the PS1, so I have no
real motivation to go out and buy a new console.
The X-Box is an amusing and well-deserved disaster of a console...
You know what happens when you hit power off on a Wince machine that
keeps its games on the HD?
As I often say about many things, "Yeah, like that was going to work
out well."
> This type of thing can ONLY be premeditated. Arseholes. The lot of them.
>[1] a single change in the preferences screen
ITYM "a single change on the Quick Preferences menu".
Earl Grey
> My Laurel knows her social insurance number (Canadian taxpayer ID) by heart.
> Guess why.
Well, it might be that it's her DL# as well,
or that it used to be her OHIP#.
Or maybe as some hinted, it spells out her name.
Dunno.
Why?
--
They tell me that you're going to try posting to Alt.Sysadmin.Recovery.
It's a Magnificent Idea; A Daring and Splendid Idea! It will be FUN!
Assuming you're not vaporized, dissected, or otherwise killed in an
assortment of supremely horrible and painful ways! Exciting, Isn't It?!
mrob...@worldnet.att.net
>''You must enter a valid 5-digit zipcode'' is much more common, IME.
>I think 00000 isn't valid though.
If it really doesn't matter, use 10101, New York City[0]. For things
that have to be somewhat local (like movie showtimes), I use the
equivalent ZIP code for the main post office in town, which in larger
places is usually like nn101. Usually these ZIP codes are just post
office boxes - physical locations downtown will have another code.
I saw a consumer marketing report once that was broken down by ZIP
codes. Their "junk/bad data" category included ZIP codes identified
as "mostly PO boxes or businesses". I figure using the main post
office ZIP code helps the tracking data the site is trying to collect
land in this category.
Matt Roberds
[0] If you really want to be pedantic, use 04652, Lubec, Maine. This
is among the few .us ZIP codes that are the closest to you.
Paul Tomblin
>If it really doesn't matter, use 10101, New York City[0]. For things
The World Trade Center used to have two Zip codes all on its own (I got
that as a question in Trivial Pursuit last weekend). Maybe we should use
one of them.
--
Paul Tomblin <ptom...@xcski.com>, not speaking for anybody
"Nobody can be told what the dominatrix is, they have to see it for themselves"
Michael Hinz
> Actually, Pvfpb's web scripts silently drop "+" from e-mail addresses.
> I have never seen something that stupid. Obviously, their clue level
> decreases the farther you go up in the OSI scheme.
Uhm... I've seen their switches. Just to pull the carpet from under that
statement.
Michael
PS: did that french publisher sue you, too? They seem to be very keen on
kicking all kinds of shins, even if they don't get anything for it.
And that domain name of yours looks quite like one of those
centurions[0] ;)
[0] Überflus, Autobus, Nichtsalsverdrus, you know the scheme ;)
--
[Perl is] friendly like a night with a whore is friendly. Be careful
what you catch! Syntactically transmitted diseases are the plague of
this generation.
-- thi
Michael Hinz
> INVALID...@example.com (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
> >
> > God knows, detecting spaces in a string--and removing them, if
> > necessary--would be a pretty complex thing to ask a COMPUTER to do,
> > now, wouldn't it?
>
> Heck, what about the myriad forms which do not like addresses of the
> form foo...@baz.quux? That _is_ a valid email address, whether they
> like to admit it or not.
As is x@y.z, but most of them still won't take it. Ah well, they usually *do*
accept x...@y.com.
*sigh*
Michael
--
Offer me a beer and I'll tell you the tale. It's not much of a tale,
so don't offer much of a beer.
-- Jonathan Guthrie
Christian Wagner
Matthew Malthouse <mat...@calmeilles.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <aev0c5$s5n$1...@ennui.biomass.to>, Chris Klein wrote:
>> In article <slrnah55b...@debtemp.lib.monash.edu.au>,
>> Stuart Lamble <s...@debtemp.lib.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>>>Then there's the condescending "You don't have JavaScript enabled.
>>>You must enable JavaScript to view this website." Nine times out of
>>>ten, I can actually do what I want to do without JavaScript turned
>>>on anyway...
>>
>> As a beautiful exception to this tendency, I'd like to take a moment
>> to point out http://www.swcp.org.uk , the website for the South West
>> Coast Path around Cornwall & surrounding counties in England.
>
>Oh YES! *That's* how the web should be!
>
>Just sent 'em a note to tell 'em so (if the didn't know).
[c.i.w.a.h mode ON]
Needs a DOCTYPE.
And the "mailto:f...@bar.com?subject=baz" construction is dangerous and
shouldn't be used.
Otherwise very nicely done.
--
Christian Wagner | "Fairy tales do not tell children the
Sysadmin, Writer, Geek | dragons exist. Children already know dragons
cwa...@io.com | exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons
http://www.balseraph.net | can be killed." - G.K. Chesterton
Christian Wagner
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>
> The X-Box is an amusing and well-deserved disaster of a console...
>You know what happens when you hit power off on a Wince machine that
>keeps its games on the HD?
The XBox is not WinCE. In no point during its development was it ever
intended to run WinCE. It handles powering off in the middle of things
just fine, thanks. I've had mine since they shipped, and no problems so
far (except the "too many games to buy, not enough $$$" problem).
I know this is a lot to ask, but can people please stop mindlessly bashing
on Microsoft, especially when you get your facts wrong? Thanks. Otherwise
this place is going to turn into Slashdot.
(That said, the tendency for MS webmasters to use browser-sniffing to
exclude Opera does suck serious donkey nads. That doesn't make the XBox
not one of the few things that MS has gotten right... I also like my MS
Intellimouse Explorer a lot.)
David P. Murphy
>>About thirty minutes ago I was driving north on the GW Parkway near
>>Belle View when I passed a green Subaru Outback. The plates said
>>
>> +--------+
>> | TANUKI |
>> +--------+
>>
>>Are you a sixty-year-old white male who drives slower than the limit?
> Most definitely not! I'm more like a 40-year-old white male who drives
> one of these: [cut cut cut]
> at speeds usually somewhat over the limit. Neat licence-plate though...
Gonna make me beg, eh? Okay, what is the meaning of "Tanuki" and why
would this guy have it?
Garrett Wollman
David P. Murphy <d...@myths.com> wrote:
>Gonna make me beg, eh? Okay, what is the meaning of "Tanuki" and why
>would this guy have it?
0-312-85429-3
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | [G]enes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of
wol...@lcs.mit.edu | chemical processes. Genes do not make ``novelty-
Opinions not those of| seeking'' or any other complex and overt behavior.
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)
Marc Haber
>Marc Haber <mh+use...@zugschlus.de> writes:
>> Actually, Pvfpb's web scripts silently drop "+" from e-mail addresses.
>> I have never seen something that stupid. Obviously, their clue level
>> decreases the farther you go up in the OSI scheme.
>
>Uhm... I've seen their switches. Just to pull the carpet from under that
>statement.
Come on, they're not that bad. Underpowered and overpriced, but not
_really_ bad. And they make the cheapest, smallest dot1q-able switch I
could find.
>PS: did that french publisher sue you, too? They seem to be very keen on
> kicking all kinds of shins, even if they don't get anything for it.
> And that domain name of yours looks quite like one of those
> centurions[0] ;)
Before they sue me, I expect the DBAG to sue me. Having lived off
mangling lawyer's LANs for seven years, I know my share of excellent
trademark landsharks though.
Greetings
Marc
Derick Siddoway
> In a previous article, mrob...@worldnet.att.net said:
>>If it really doesn't matter, use 10101, New York City[0]. For things
>
> The World Trade Center used to have two Zip codes all on its own (I got
> that as a question in Trivial Pursuit last weekend). Maybe we should use
> one of them.
I could only find one: 10048.
--
Derick Siddoway II. Impact Non-privileged primitive users can
der...@bitflood.net cause the total destruction of your entire invasion
fleet and gain unauthorized access to files.
-- CERT Advisory CA-96.13
Darren Tucker
Marc Haber <mh+use...@zugschlus.de> wrote:
>Michael Hinz <mic...@hinz.dhs.org> wrote:
>>Marc Haber <mh+use...@zugschlus.de> writes:
>>> Actually, Pvfpb's web scripts silently drop "+" from e-mail addresses.
>>> I have never seen something that stupid. Obviously, their clue level
>>> decreases the farther you go up in the OSI scheme.
>>
>>Uhm... I've seen their switches. Just to pull the carpet from under that
>>statement.
>
>Come on, they're not that bad.
The ones at ork can't even do auto-negotiation right. Unless you set the
clients to noauto they'll randomly disable the port every so often.
Handy.
--
Darren Tucker (dtucker at zip.com.au)
GPG Fingerprint D9A3 86E9 7EEE AF4B B2D4 37C9 C982 80C7 8FF4 FA69
Good judgement comes with experience. Unfortunately, the experience
usually comes from bad judgement.
Jim
> I'm very happy with my ps2 thankyouverymuch.
For 'Ico' if nothing else. Lovely, lovely game.
Jim
--
j...@magrathea.plus.com AIM:JCAndrew2 Grey...@mac.com
"We deal in the moral equivalent of black holes, where the normal
laws of right and wrong break down; beyond those metaphysical
event horizons there exist ... special circumstances" - Use Of Weapons
Maarten Wiltink
>In article <aeu7fq$30u$2...@traf.lcs.mit.edu>,
>Garrett Wollman <wol...@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>>It's not that hard to remember a few
>>sixteen-digit strings, particularly when the first few bits don't vary
>>much.
>
>And, it has the added benefit of impressing the yokels.
At one time, I knew pi to sixty-five decimals.
This lasted about until somebody at the bar was flounting his
knowledge of the first... twenty. I gave him the next twenty,
to impress them with the futility of memorising pi. Then I made
their jaws fall off by giving them _another_ twenty.
Since then, I've more or less forgotten. It's also never come
up again. (And now, they're all back. Damn you bunch of geeks.)
Tebrgwrf,
Maarten Wiltink
Maarten Wiltink
>
>In the previous article, Omri Schwarz <ocs...@h-after-ocsc.mit.edu>
>wrote:
>> So far no web programmer[0] thought
>> of the significance of [eek!] as a
>> tossaway zipcode.
>
>I always use 60609. Maybe I'm showing my age, but it stick in my
>mind: "Spiegel. Chicago, 60609." I've never wanted to write to
>those guys, but if I do, I'm set for life.
Somehow that comes out in my head sounding like "Pennsylvania 6-5000".
I bet that wasn't what you meant.
Tebrgwrf,
Maarten Wiltink
Tanuki the Raccoon-dog
said
>Tanuki the Raccoon-dog <Tanuki@canis-^hmajor.da^hemon.co.uk> wrote:
>> In <af2034$udn$3...@allhats.xcski.com>, David P. Murphy <d...@myths.com> said
>>>About thirty minutes ago I was driving north on the GW Parkway near
>>>Belle View when I passed a green Subaru Outback. The plates said
>>>
>>> +--------+
>>> | TANUKI |
>>> +--------+
>>>
>>>Are you a sixty-year-old white male who drives slower than the limit?
>
>> Most definitely not! I'm more like a 40-year-old white male who drives
>> one of these: [cut cut cut]
>> at speeds usually somewhat over the limit. Neat licence-plate though...
>
>Gonna make me beg, eh? Okay, what is the meaning of "Tanuki"
http://www.canismajor.demon.co.uk/tanukigarden/tanuki.htm
>and why would this guy have it?
Well, why not?
[apologies for the # of bad links - I _really_ need to do some
updating]
--
!Raised Tails! -:Tanuki:-
"I have seen the future, and it drools"
Tanuki the Raccoon-dog
<dtu...@dodgy.net.au> said
>In article <af3lng$8k3$1...@q.bofh.de>,
>Marc Haber <mh+use...@zugschlus.de> wrote:
>>Michael Hinz <mic...@hinz.dhs.org> wrote:
>>>Marc Haber <mh+use...@zugschlus.de> writes:
>>>> Actually, Pvfpb's web scripts silently drop "+" from e-mail addresses.
>>>> I have never seen something that stupid. Obviously, their clue level
>>>> decreases the farther you go up in the OSI scheme.
>>>
>>>Uhm... I've seen their switches. Just to pull the carpet from under that
>>>statement.
>>
>>Come on, they're not that bad.
>
>The ones at ork can't even do auto-negotiation right. Unless you set the
>clients to noauto they'll randomly disable the port every so often.
Blame the 802.bling committee and their open-to-interpretation
specs - they couldn't autonegotiate themselves a good time even
if they turned up at the first day of a hooker-convention carrying
a whole suitcase full of fresh dollars and full-strength cocaine.
--
!Raised Tails! -:Tanuki:-
"Suck the pig, this pork is mine; Pining for the pork of the porcupine"
Rik Steenwinkel
persuaded newsservers all over the world to carry the following:
} Omri Schwarz <ocs...@h-after-ocsc.mit.edu> writes:
}
} > ptom...@xcski.com (Paul Tomblin) writes:
} >
} > > Just for the record, Mercator was developed in 1569.
} >
} > He was also a .nlistani, wasn't he?
}
} Flemish, actually. But he did most of his important work in Germany
} since the local PHBs didn't offer much support.
And well before the US got off the ground even, so it's been a mighty
clever trick of him to support a conspiracy that might have gotten
started not before three centuries later.
--
// Rik Steenwinkel # VMS mercenary # Enschede, Netherlands
Paul Tomblin
>This lasted about until somebody at the bar was flounting his
>knowledge of the first... twenty. I gave him the next twenty,
>to impress them with the futility of memorising pi. Then I made
>their jaws fall off by giving them _another_ twenty.
In a case like that, why not just make up random digits? After all,
they're not going to check, are they?
--
Paul Tomblin <ptom...@xcski.com>, not speaking for anybody
"I'm cruising down the Information Superhighway in high gear, surfing the
waves of the Digital Ocean, exploring the uncharted regions of Cyberspace.
Actually I'm sitting on my butt staring at a computer screen."
Randal L. Schwartz
J> I always use 60609. Maybe I'm showing my age, but it stick in my
J> mind: "Spiegel. Chicago, 60609." I've never wanted to write to
J> those guys, but if I do, I'm set for life.
Gah. I not only recognized that one, but one that I would use
for similar purposes is "02134"[1].
[1] "Write zoom, zee double oh em, box three five oh, boston mass,
oooooh two onnnne three foooooour"
--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<mer...@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!
Lieven Marchand
> In article <af3jch$lqp$2...@allhats.xcski.com>,
> David P. Murphy <d...@myths.com> wrote:
>
> >Gonna make me beg, eh? Okay, what is the meaning of "Tanuki" and why
> >would this guy have it?
>
> 0-312-85429-3
Any relation with the go term "tenuki" ?
David P. Murphy
> In a previous article, "Maarten Wiltink" <m...@dds.nl> said:
>>This lasted about until somebody at the bar was flounting his
>>knowledge of the first... twenty. I gave him the next twenty,
>>to impress them with the futility of memorising pi. Then I made
>>their jaws fall off by giving them _another_ twenty.
> In a case like that, why not just make up random digits? After all,
> they're not going to check, are they?
To impress lusers? We might be sysadmins but we still have some
small shred of dignity, I trust. Unless there are cute chix
watching with stars in their eyes, or there's a bar bet to be won
(i.e., actual cash in front of me) I wouldn't bother spouting
the true value, let alone make one up.
I suddenly discovered one day at age 15 that I knew the first 32
digits without any effort or intent on my part[1] but did not
become surrounded by adoring sexy MOTAS.
[1] still do
Maarten Wiltink
[...]
>Let's just say that this system had a rather authoritarian view of the
>legitimate formats of phone-numbers that could be entered. If the
>structure of a number fell outside the usual NANP snytax, ...
Immediately parsed as "Not A Number Protocol". Which fits. Backwards.
Tebrgwrf,
Maarten Wiltink
Tanuki the Raccoon-dog
<maa...@kittensandcats.net> said
That would be applicable, in this context. Let's just say
that pvfpb'f system fell over copiously when faced with 4-
or 5-digit "area codes" as normally used in the UK, and
was utterly freaked by numbers of the form 020-8901-2345
--
-----Tanuki-----
"Build it, and they will test it to see if it relays. Then we can kill them"
Robert Uhl <ruhl@4dv.net>
>
> I suddenly discovered one day at age 15 that I knew the first 32
> become surrounded by adoring sexy MOTAS.
Sigh. There goes yet another of my impress-the-gals ideas.
--
Consistently separating words by spaces became a general custom about
the tenth century, and lasted until about 1957, when FORTRAN abandoned
the practice. --Sun FORTRAN Reference Manual
Joe Zeff
<maa...@kittensandcats.net> wrote:
>Somehow that comes out in my head sounding like "Pennsylvania 6-5000".
>I bet that wasn't what you meant.
Is that anything like Beechwood 4-5789?
--
Joe Zeff
The Guy With the Sideburns
If you can't play with words, what good are they?
http://www.lasfs.org http://home.earthlink.net/~sidebrnz
Michael Hinz
> Garrett Wollman <wol...@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
[snip]
> > [...] So I went to Micro Center and bought three random PCI sound cards to
> > see if any of them work.
Oooooh, look! He's throwing his money out of the window!
> The SB128 is dirt cheap, and is Good Enough for most uses unless you are an
> audio geek.
Seconded.
After having to deal with that thing and never getting more than one channel
working, I finally threw away the SB Live! I had in my work PC and replaced
it with a SB128. Never had a problem since (at least not with that kind of
sound[0]).
But there's one thing to watch out for: there are SB128s with two kinds of
chips out there - the plain es1370 and the es1371/1373. Just be sure you
know which kind you have or you'll get all kinds of driver problems ;)
(I consider sound in PCs to be *recovery-related*, so this was *not* UI)
Michael
[0] just replaced the "jet engine" CPU fan with a Papst fan - finally the
10000rpm SCSI disk is louder than the rest of the beast.
--
Gethsemane was a garden...obviously [Peter] was looking to cut some flowers
for a bouquet. Those cute little Japanese garden clippers didn't get invented
until recently, you know, and I, for one, am mighty glad to have them, as
swords are a PITA to schlep through the roses. -- Boron Elgar
Michael Hinz
[SSN-story snipped]
> [5] Erdhver gung gur vasbezngvba or ragrerq va aaa-aa-aaaa sbezng naq
> erdhver er-ragel vs abg, bs pbhefr.
... after which you just put an 'if' checking for PHB's computer around that
line?
Well, at least *my* PHBs over time were not capable of reading any programming
language at all. <insert rant about general Perl "readability">
Michael
--
Was ist das schrecklichen Gepong? Es schmecke wie ein Scheisshaus!
kesi...@math.ttu.edu
: J.D. Baldwin wrote in message ...
:>I always use 60609. Maybe I'm showing my age, but it stick in my
:>mind: "Spiegel. Chicago, 60609." I've never wanted to write to
:>those guys, but if I do, I'm set for life.
: Somehow that comes out in my head sounding like "Pennsylvania 6-5000".
: I bet that wasn't what you meant.
It sounded to me like ``6060842''.
==Jake ``Operator, what's wrong?'' K.
Patrick R. Wade
>In a previous article, willem at stack dot nl said:
>>But I shouldn't wonder after having seen how world maps look in 'merkin
>>schools. I mean, Australia looks small on them, and Africa is tiny.
>
>Oh god, you're one of those "Mercator projection is a USian conspiracy"
>idiots.
>
>Just for the record, Mercator was developed in 1569.
>
And was intended strictly as a navigational tool. Its use for graphical
representation of the Earth's surface is coincidental.
--
Nulla potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam |
vere, quantum a me Lesbia amata mea est. | Catullus 87
Nulla fides ullo fuit umquam foedere tanta, |
quanta in amore tuo ex parte reperta mea est. |
Ralph Wade Phillips
"Joe Zeff" <the.guy.with....@lasfs.org> wrote in message
news:8qachuo28u6vndcem...@4ax.com...
> There's a scandalous rumor that "Maarten Wiltink"
> <maa...@kittensandcats.net> wrote:
>
> >Somehow that comes out in my head sounding like "Pennsylvania 6-5000".
> >I bet that wasn't what you meant.
>
> Is that anything like Beechwood 4-5789?
Nope. But Beechwood 4-5789 is like Pennsylvania 6-5000.
(Why? Well, does your dad look like you, or you like your dad?)
RwP
Omri Schwarz
> In article <Ysd2q9KROUC1-p...@news.xs4all.nl>,
> Rik Steenwinkel <rst...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> : And well before the US got off the ground even, so it's been a
> : mighty clever trick of him to support a conspiracy that might
> : have gotten started not before three centuries later.
>
> I've seen the nutters explain that it's actually a European (i.e.,
> once again, white people trying to put down brown people)
> conspiracy, because Europe is far enough north that it gets
> distorted to its "advantage" by the Mercator projection.
You were that close? I take it you've since
done the necessary decontamination?
--
Omri Schwarz --- ocs...@mit.edu ('h' before war)
Timeless wisdom of biomedical engineering: "Noise is principally
due to the presence of the patient." -- R.F. Farr
Omri Schwarz
> In article <aev3k2$iob$1...@allhats.xcski.com>, Paul Tomblin wrote:
> >In a previous article, willem at stack dot nl said:
> >>But I shouldn't wonder after having seen how world maps look in 'merkin
> >>schools. I mean, Australia looks small on them, and Africa is tiny.
> >
> >Oh god, you're one of those "Mercator projection is a USian conspiracy"
> >idiots.
> >
> >Just for the record, Mercator was developed in 1569.
> >
>
> And was intended strictly as a navigational tool. Its use for graphical
> representation of the Earth's surface is coincidental.
Also, relatively irrelevant to why ex-prisoners
of .k12.us are ignorant of geography, which has
far more to do with the crack-induced ideology they
feed schoolteachers about the learning of 'mere facts.'
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
In <octy9d5...@nerd-xing.mit.edu>, on 06/23/2002
at 08:31 PM, Omri Schwarz <ocs...@h-after-ocsc.mit.edu> said:
>Also, relatively irrelevant to why ex-prisoners
>of .k12.us are ignorant of geography, which has
>far more to do with the crack-induced ideology they
>feed schoolteachers about the learning of 'mere facts.'
You mean that the school of Mr. EDLIN doesn't feed them Soma?
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
Reply to domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+bspfh to contact me.
Annandale pledge: Under no circumstances will I ever purchase
software, audio or video recordings that are copy protected.
Rob Adams
>There's a scandalous rumor that "Maarten Wiltink"
><maa...@kittensandcats.net> wrote:
>
>>Somehow that comes out in my head sounding like "Pennsylvania 6-5000".
>>I bet that wasn't what you meant.
>
>Is that anything like Beechwood 4-5789?
<tack change>
867-5309
</tack>
Rob.
--
ADVISORY: The email address contained in the header of this posting is
a legitimate address; it is used to harvest email addresses so that we
can email you our own email message containing advertisments. To stop
yourself getting on this list use robadams(at)dingoblue{dit}net(dit)au
Paul Tomblin
><tack change>
>867-5309
></tack>
I heard that Jenny changed that number.
--
Paul Tomblin <ptom...@xcski.com>, not speaking for anybody
The Borg assimilated my race & all I got was this T-shirt.
David P. Murphy
>>There's a scandalous rumor that "Maarten Wiltink"
>><maa...@kittensandcats.net> wrote:
>>
>>>Somehow that comes out in my head sounding like "Pennsylvania 6-5000".
>>>I bet that wasn't what you meant.
>>
>>Is that anything like Beechwood 4-5789?
> <tack change>
> 867-5309
> </tack>
<FEAR SOURCE="GOD">
Echo Valley 2-6809
</FEAR>
I would be greatly relieved if none of you know that one.
I wish I didn't.