Comment On Faster than the Speed of Light

Adrian spotted this interesting fact in his newspaper. At 670 miles per hour, light is almost as fast as the land speed record! [expand full text]
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Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:06 • by Premier Bank IT Dept (unregistered)
Remember how Y2K happened over eight years ago?


Nonsense. It isn't due to happen for another 891 and a bit years. We've got plenty of time to fix things.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:07 • by Someone You Know
For the record, the speed of light in a vacuum is about 670.6 million miles per hour.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:13 • by täheke (unregistered)
The speed of light might very well be 670 mph in a sufficiently translucent environment.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:14 • by Grovesy (unregistered)
195940 in reply to 195937

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:19 • by Warren (unregistered)
May 21 13:18:03 dailywtf kernel[0]: warren_post_funny_comment_failure


Seriously, though, Y2K probs from a bank? I'll stick with the matress.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:22 • by Ru (unregistered)
Michael is in fact the name of an algorithm used in WPA. It generates a Message Integrity Code, apparently. Not a WTF at all, sadly, unless you count slightly odd names as WTFs, of course.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:23 • by Premier Bank IT Dept (unregistered)
195944 in reply to 195936
OK, TRWTF is that I can't count.

It's in 1891 and a bit years.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:24 • by JonC (unregistered)
Looks like The London Paper dishing out duff information about the speed of light.

It's not like they've got it confused with the speed of sound either as it's too low for that.
I'm intrigued to find out what their quoted source was as it's too blurry to read in the photo.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:30 • by Grovesy (unregistered)
I recognize that paper.. it's TheLondonPaper (A freebie handed outside pretty much every form of public transport in London)

The speed of light, is probably just one of many facts they have got wrong, or misrepresented though poor Journalism, of the inability to check something up on Google... I'm pretty sure we could run a whole daily Error'd of that paper.

Though, we are assuming they meant 'the speed of light in a vacuum as (quick wikipedia lookup) The speed of light was reduced to 17 meters per second in 1999, and temporarily stopped in 2001.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:41 • by Tyler Szabo (unregistered)
The IEEE notify Michael is not as WTF as it would seem, since Michael is the name of the MIC function used in WPA. I'm sure failing to notify it is bad news. It does make for good error messages, though.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:42 • by Tyler Szabo (unregistered)
195949 in reply to 195948
Sorry, forgot to refresh. Well, you heard it twice, so it must be true.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:43 • by Jake Grey
The Guardian making typographical errors is not a WTF, it's just the Guardian being the Guardian.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:43 • by snoofle
195951 in reply to 195937
Someone You Know:
For the record, the speed of light in a vacuum is about 670.6 million miles per hour.

But... but... but it's dark inside a vacuum. If it's dark, then there's no light. How can something that isn't be going sooo fast?

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:46 • by Anonymous Cow-herd (unregistered)
195952 in reply to 195950
Jake Grey:
The Guardian ...


The Grauniad, shirley?

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:46 • by JM (unregistered)
195954 in reply to 195938
.....

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:47 • by real_aardvark
195956 in reply to 195936
Premier Bank IT Dept:
Remember how Y2K happened over eight years ago?


Nonsense. It isn't due to happen for another 891 and a bit years. We've got plenty of time to fix things.
I'm not worried about fixing things. It's what we do in the intervening 891 years that worries me.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:48 • by Stiggy (unregistered)
The top one could be true. Supercool sodium until it becomes a Bose-Enstein condenstate and you can actually get light to stop.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:49 • by real_aardvark
195958 in reply to 195951
snoofle:
Someone You Know:
For the record, the speed of light in a vacuum is about 670.6 million miles per hour.

But... but... but it's dark inside a vacuum. If it's dark, then there's no light. How can something that isn't be going sooo fast?
Well, if it wasn't going sooo fast, you'd spot it, wouldn't you?

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 08:50 • by dkf
195959 in reply to 195951
snoofle:
But... but... but it's dark inside a vacuum.
Don't worry! Of course it's dark inside a vacuum. All that dust absorbs any light in there. Along with stray pieces of lego and nondescript hair. (I really hope it stays nondescript too...)

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:01 • by Azd (unregistered)
195962 in reply to 195957
Stiggy:
The top one could be true. Supercool sodium until it becomes a Bose-Enstein condenstate and you can actually get light to stop.


Ah, that's what the futuristic blinds in our office are made of. No wonder profits are down this year.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:05 • by Ben Curthoys (unregistered)
195963 in reply to 195943
Ru:
Michael is in fact the name of an algorithm used in WPA. It generates a Message Integrity Code, apparently. Not a WTF at all, sadly, unless you count slightly odd names as WTFs, of course.


Reminds me of the good old days on my BBC model B micro, where parts of the memory were named "Fred", "Jim", and "Sheila".

http://central.kaserver5.org/Kasoft/Typeset/BBC/Ch42.html

144 90 Alter TV display position/interlace
145 91 Remove character from buffer
146 92 Read from I/O area FRED
147 93 Write to I/O area FRED
148 94 Read from I/O area JIM
149 95 Write to I/O area JIM
150 96 Read from I/O area SHEILA
151 97 Write to I/O area SHEILA

224 E0 Cancel VDU queue

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:14 • by Anonononymous (unregistered)
195964 in reply to 195946
Grovesy:
I recognize that paper.. it's TheLondonPaper (A freebie handed outside pretty much every form of public transport in London)


If not for the word "The" in the title bar, I'd have assumed it's the one we get in New York. I think every major city gets their version of this (hey, we get 2!)

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:21 • by Grovesy (unregistered)
195966 in reply to 195964
Anonononymous:
Grovesy:
I recognize that paper.. it's TheLondonPaper (A freebie handed outside pretty much every form of public transport in London)


If not for the word "The" in the title bar, I'd have assumed it's the one we get in New York. I think every major city gets their version of this (hey, we get 2!)


We get two as well (well, two evening ones) The London Paper, and London Lite..

In the morning thre is the 'Metro', and a fincial one called (I forget the name)... There is a statistic kicking around that nearly a quater of all waste collected in public bins in the West End of London are these free papers.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:23 • by A.T. (unregistered)
I'd rather ask myself: who is micheal failure and why do I want to notify him?

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:27 • by Zecc
"Remember when you successfully registered? Oh, those were the days..."

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:31 • by david (unregistered)
They obviously just mean the speed of sound there...

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:36 • by Rich (unregistered)
195971 in reply to 195966
Grovesy:
In the morning thre is the 'Metro', and a fincial one called (I forget the name)...

"City AM", I think. Although it's been a while since I worked over in the City (thankfully).

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:42 • by Leak
195972 in reply to 195967
A.T.:
I'd rather ask myself: who is micheal failure and why do I want to notify him?

Hello.

Posting that non-WTF is really scraping the bottom of the barrel, though...

np: Tocotronic - Explosion (Kapitulation Live)

RE: Notify Michael

2008-05-21 09:43 • by Magnus Falk (unregistered)
The notify_michael thing really isn't so wierd. The checksum scheme (Message Integrity Check or MIC) in WPA(1) is called Michael (which in itself is a bit weird I guess).

Anyways, it's not really a WTF.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:44 • by Jon (unregistered)
195975 in reply to 195971
Rich:
Grovesy:
In the morning thre is the 'Metro', and a fincial one called (I forget the name)...

"City AM", I think. Although it's been a while since I worked over in the City (thankfully).


It is indeed.

And I swear, one day I'm going to hit one the free paper pushers who crowd around the exit doors of my bus at Waterloo everyday. If I want one of your crappy papers, I'll walk up and take one from you, I don't need it shoved in my face for the fifteenth time since I left the office.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:45 • by akatherder
195976 in reply to 195959
dkf:
Don't worry! Of course it's dark inside a vacuum. All that dust absorbs any light in there. Along with stray pieces of lego and nondescript hair. (I really hope it stays nondescript too...)


Grandpa's pubes!

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:46 • by LisaP (unregistered)
The Michael MIC is a stand part of WPA encryption. Failure of the system indicates a need to renegotiate the connection, hence higher level subsystems need notifying when this happens. Other than a slightly funny name, there's nothing wrong with this one.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:46 • by Grigori Rasputin (unregistered)
195978 in reply to 195967
A.T.:
I'd rather ask myself: who is micheal failure and why do I want to notify him?
In Soviet Russia micheal failure notifies us.

Try googling for 19108

2008-05-21 09:54 • by realmerlyn
If you ignore the hits for the zip code, you'll see thousands of hits for dates on very very old pre-Y2K software that put "19" in front of the year-1900 value. Yes, still running. When I need a quick laugh, I show that to people.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 09:56 • by Therac-25 (unregistered)
The site generating the 108 as a year is probably written in Perl.

Perl5's localtime() function will return the year as "Year - 1900" by default, so you have to add 1900 to it after you get it out. Yes, very annoying, Perl6 needs to get out already.

(Not that this is a big deal to any serious project, as there are better libraries for formatting dates other than the builtin localtime() -- Date::Manip is godlike).

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:07 • by campkev
195987 in reply to 195972
Leak:

Hello.

Posting that non-WTF is really scraping the bottom of the barrel, though...



Um, why is this a non-WTF? Just because there is actually a function in WPA called michael doesn't make this a non-wtf. If anything it makes it MORE of a WTF because I know the first thing I would say if I was working with code and found a function called "michael" is "What the fuck?"

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:13 • by Grovesy (unregistered)
195989 in reply to 195975
Jon:
And I swear, one day I'm going to hit one the free paper pushers who crowd around the exit doors of my bus at Waterloo everyday. If I want one of your crappy papers, I'll walk up and take one from you, I don't need it shoved in my face for the fifteenth time since I left the office.


Coming up the exit at Paddington (the small exit by platforms 10/11) I've come close to punching them, (after getting whapped in the face darting up the stairs by an overzealous distributor…)

Though not as half as annoying as when they cause blockages at the top of the stairs... I've already come close to putting my boot up the arse of the tourist standing on the right hand side the escalator, wanted to just pummel the person to death who while walking up the right hand side of the escalator decides to 'stop' and look around slightly lost when walking of the escalator and had to stop myself from doing a sprinting close line on the person who for the fifth time has put there ticket through the barrier to have it rejected and is standing there blocking it looking confused...

Only then, my last obstacle, get some idiot blocking the top of the stairs trying to shove a paper into my hand do I feel like I really might just snap...

I think then my anger peaks, and starts to wayne as I get on the overcrowded, standing room only train, despite the fact that I brought a first class ticket and no one sitting in first class has a ticket, let alone a first class ticket, so I get crammed into the vestibule area where someone will pull out a Big Mac and Fries and eat it about 4 inches from my face... I’m just resigned to apathy then…

Often worse on the way into work, we had to once move ‘Bug Triage’ from Monday morning 9am to after lunch as I would just end up taking it out on the test manager, followed by calling the project manger all sorts of (probably true) things…

I’m quite happy I’m not working in London at the moment.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:23 • by bonchibuji (unregistered)
they meant to say 670 million miles....

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:23 • by Ru (unregistered)
195994 in reply to 195987
Names? Names? What the fuck? A minor silly naming incident does not a WTF make. Take one Message Integrity Code algorithm. MIC. Ooh, lets pronounce it Mike. And then use the long name for which Mike is commonly an abbreviation. Ho Ho.

Did you know that the original name for the AES algorithm was Rijndael? What the fuck? Even the pronounciation for that is a WTF.

Campkev? The fuck? Why aren't you just 'Poster 876340'?

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:29 • by J (unregistered)
195996 in reply to 195994
TRWTF is so many people rushing to post "AARGGH THAT'S NOT REALLY A WTF!!!!" before reading any of the preceding comments.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:33 • by fcardenas (unregistered)
196000 in reply to 195936
In less than 30 years, in fact

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:34 • by fcardenas (unregistered)
196002 in reply to 195936
Premier Bank IT Dept:
Remember how Y2K happened over eight years ago?


Nonsense. It isn't due to happen for another 891 and a bit years. We've got plenty of time to fix things.


Sorry, I forgot to add the quote:

In less than 30 years, in fact

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:37 • by Frunobulax (unregistered)
196006 in reply to 195996
J:
TRWTF is so many people rushing to post "AARGGH THAT'S NOT REALLY A WTF!!!!" before reading any of the preceding comments.


You're new here--aren't you?

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:40 • by shadowman
It looks like the CDC fixed their bmi calculator. Oh well, I was hoping to get in on the fun.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:56 • by Otac0n
At my work, we use piece of invoicing software that was written around 1910 or so.

Now, in order to get around the Y2K problem, they added a "Century Code" to the front of all their dates.

The dates of the current format could stay as 990201 and anything else would be 1080513 or so. It required a small change in the front end, and no change to the database, so everybody was happy.

I assume the same thing happened here.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 10:58 • by valgonzarp (unregistered)
Hate to spoil the fun, but Michael is in fact some WPA algorithm, from Wikipedia:

The cyclic redundancy check (CRC) used in WEP is inherently insecure; it is possible to alter the payload and update the message CRC without knowing the WEP key. A more secure message authentication code (usually known as a MAC, but here termed a MIC for "message integrity code") is used in the protocol, using an algorithm named "Michael". The MIC used in protocol includes a frame counter, which prevents replay attacks being executed.

Anyhow, fun while coding I bet. I'd call it ieee80211_notify_richard though.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 11:06 • by Plastix (unregistered)
Your problem is clear, Matt S., you failed to notify Michael.


Michael is a message integrity check used in WEP with TKIP.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 11:08 • by Frunobulax (unregistered)
196023 in reply to 196018
Ru:
Michael is in fact the name of an algorithm used in WPA. It generates a Message Integrity Code, apparently. Not a WTF at all, sadly, unless you count slightly odd names as WTFs, of course.


Tyler Szabo:
The IEEE notify Michael is not as WTF as it would seem, since Michael is the name of the MIC function used in WPA. I'm sure failing to notify it is bad news. It does make for good error messages, though.


Magnus Falk:
The notify_michael thing really isn't so wierd. The checksum scheme (Message Integrity Check or MIC) in WPA(1) is called Michael (which in itself is a bit weird I guess).

Anyways, it's not really a WTF.


LisaP:
The Michael MIC is a stand part of WPA encryption. Failure of the system indicates a need to renegotiate the connection, hence higher level subsystems need notifying when this happens. Other than a slightly funny name, there's nothing wrong with this one.


valgonzarp:
Hate to spoil the fun, but Michael is in fact some WPA algorithm, from Wikipedia:

The cyclic redundancy check (CRC) used in WEP is inherently insecure; it is possible to alter the payload and update the message CRC without knowing the WEP key. A more secure message authentication code (usually known as a MAC, but here termed a MIC for "message integrity code") is used in the protocol, using an algorithm named "Michael". The MIC used in protocol includes a frame counter, which prevents replay attacks being executed.

Anyhow, fun while coding I bet. I'd call it ieee80211_notify_richard though.


Don't worry about spoiling the fun, it's already happened at least four times already. Anyone else? I'm still unclear about who this Michael guy is and why it's so important to notify him. ;)

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 11:14 • by SenTree
196026 in reply to 195938
täheke:
The speed of light might very well be 670 mph in a sufficiently translucent environment.
In keeping with the Tolkien reference in another thread, here's a gratuitous Discworld reference.

Re: Faster than the Speed of Light

2008-05-21 11:24 • by Saint Gerbil (unregistered)
196027 in reply to 195938
That's "the london paper" for you.

Its also about as accurate as they get.
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