Comment On Please Pay $0.00

Clearly someone, somewhere thought that the system call might fail to have thought to put that message in.

I wonder who swipped the card from Sydney and what was on it that made is so valuable...

A system call has failed? Haha I bet its an internal handling of the system call that failed in IE.

captcha: minim, hmm sure $0.00 seems to be minimum.

Someone hacked a electronic construction sign north of Reading, PA a few months back. It said something like "Live Nudes Next Exit" for a few hours until DOT was notified and fixed it. I wish I had that kind of free time!

JonC:

Clearly someone, somewhere thought that the system call might fail to have thought to put that message in.

From man getuid(2): These functions are always successful.

Add AT&T Wireless to the list of companies that turn off your phone for non-payment, when their system is asking to pay a credit balance.

Total due: -25.34

Make Payment to reinstate.

Of course the salary requirement is a Yes/No field!!
How else can you prevent applicants from entering negative numbers?

John:

Add AT&T Wireless to the list of companies that turn off your phone for non-payment, when their system is asking to pay a credit balance.

Total due: -25.34

Make Payment to reinstate.

That seems to be a misunderstanding of business rules. Someone figured, they were safe if they put:

if (amountOwed == 0)
echo "You're all good";
else
echo "GIMME MONEY";

I can't think of a good reason for a 0.00 payment to give you grief though.

John:

Add AT&T Wireless to the list of companies that turn off your phone for non-payment, when their system is asking to pay a credit balance.

Total due: -25.34

Make Payment to reinstate.

Clearly, they want you to switch providers until they pay you $25.34

That, or, you're supposed to pay $21474811.13

This comment that should never be posted has posted.

Dan:

Someone hacked a electronic construction sign north of Reading, PA a few months back. It said something like "Live Nudes Next Exit" for a few hours until DOT was notified and fixed it. I wish I had that kind of free time!

I saw that too.
They aren't hard to change if you get a lazy sign guy err so I've been told

TRWTF is that he somehow managed to get a human being from eBay to answer a phone.

Matt:

Of course the salary requirement is a Yes/No field!!
How else can you prevent applicants from entering negative numbers?

Well then we'll just have to create out own sumbit form then wont we?

Ian:

Anyone who says Salary Requirement = Yes is automatically disqualified. Having to pay employees really takes a hit to the bottom line.

And if one says No the HR guys are of opinion he is easily abused, don't care much for his own wealth and never refuses a proposal even knowing it hurts him. A great fit for the company... until he promises the client the software will do everything and more

akatherder:

I can't think of a good reason for a 0.00 payment to give you grief though.

Unless you really owe them 0.0004 dollars, but the system only prints to two decimal places.

"A system call that should never fail has failed."

It does not say it could never fail, this isn't really a WTF. Something went very wrong and the error message reflects that.

BestSnowman:

"A system call that should never fail has failed."

It does not say it could never fail, this isn't really a WTF. Something went very wrong and the error message reflects that.

How do you fix it?

It isn't a useful error message. You look at it, you say, WHAT THE FUCK NOW?! therefor, it is a WTF.

Gnonthgol:

JonC:

Clearly someone, somewhere thought that the system call might fail to have thought to put that message in.

From man getuid(2): These functions are always successful.

Cleary someone, somewhere who was told several times "don't worry about about error handling, this function never fails" thought to put that message in.

CAPCHA = venio (I could really use a glass of venio)

NaN:

BestSnowman:

"A system call that should never fail has failed."

It does not say it could never fail, this isn't really a WTF. Something went very wrong and the error message reflects that.

How do you fix it?

It isn't a useful error message. You look at it, you say, WHAT THE FUCK NOW?! therefor, it is a WTF.

A useless error message cannot be a WTF because it is the norm. Now if someone got an error message that clearly told them what the problem was and how to correct it, well that would be a WTF.

akatherder:

John:

Add AT&T Wireless to the list of companies that turn off your phone for non-payment, when their system is asking to pay a credit balance.

Total due: -25.34

Make Payment to reinstate.

That seems to be a misunderstanding of business rules. Someone figured, they were safe if they put:

if (amountOwed == 0)
echo "You're all good";
else
echo "GIMME MONEY";

I can't think of a good reason for a 0.00 payment to give you grief though.

My guess is that the use of multiple currencies (or even just eBay's internal conversion from AU$ to US$) lead to a rounding error resulting in some tiny fraction of a cent being owed.

It says it should never fail, it doesn't say that it can't fail.

It might not be very helpful but for all we know he covered every error case he could think of and put this in to catch anything he missed, expecting that the user should never see it.

On the subject of oddities on road signs, I was out driving last night and saw a sign on the NJ Turnpike that said "REDUCE SPEED - SNOW AHEAD". Which might not be so odd in a month like February, but it's June, and it was about 90 degrees outside.

Seriously, who reads error messages from IE anymore? You know it's going to break/crash at some point, no need to know why.

BestSnowman:

"A system call that should never fail has failed."

It does not say it could never fail, this isn't really a WTF. Something went very wrong and the error message reflects that.

Actually, it demonstrates a principle that can be broadly applied to many situations:

• A relationship that should never end has ended.
• An operating system that should never gain acceptance has been accepted.
• A dumbass who should never be president has been elected.
• A war that should never happen has happened.

NaN :

How do you fix it?

It isn't a useful error message. You look at it, you say, WHAT THE FUCK NOW?! therefor, it is a WTF.

More than likely IE doesn't actually know what went wrong. Something outside of its control failed without any indication to what error actually happened.

On New Year's many of us need additional Memory inserted.
Particularly after a night of drinking.

I think the sign was a public service announcement.

Phil:

On the subject of oddities on road signs, I was out driving last night and saw a sign on the NJ Turnpike that said "REDUCE SPEED - SNOW AHEAD". Which might not be so odd in a month like February, but it's June, and it was about 90 degrees outside.

Were you counting the cars on the NJ Turnpike?

Phil:

On the subject of oddities on road signs, I was out driving last night and saw a sign on the NJ Turnpike that said "REDUCE SPEED - SNOW AHEAD". Which might not be so odd in a month like February, but it's June, and it was about 90 degrees outside.

Hey, this is New Jersey.

This sign is simply pointing out that you don't need the current drug you're on, because there's someone selling a far superior variety just up the road.

Targeted advertising, gotta love it.

Interestingly, Ebay sent me a mail today (June 11) that as of February 20 (!!??) 2008 the insertion of most items is at 0 cent. First I thought it was some kind of phishing. Or maybe they have this going since them. Probably the date is just wrong. And probably that still means I have to pay when the stuff actually gets sold.
At least, redeeming a EUR 10 Paypal voucher worked some days ago. That is a miracle.

A friend of mine with a very dry sense of humor worked as an intern for a company that had a contract from the DOT dealing with road signs. He was on a job installing one of them once when his boss told him to put a test message up on it. He entered the message "I like ponies". He had to take it down as soon as his boss spotted it.

Apparently they're not supposed to put messages up like "this is a test" so that people won't think the sign isn't working, but rather generic messages like "Department of Transportation".

Bobbo:

Phil:

On the subject of oddities on road signs, I was out driving last night and saw a sign on the NJ Turnpike that said "REDUCE SPEED - SNOW AHEAD". Which might not be so odd in a month like February, but it's June, and it was about 90 degrees outside.

Were you counting the cars on the NJ Turnpike?

Yeah, they've all gone to look for America...

Actually a major WTF last night was NJ Transit when they stranded scores of unfortunate rail commuters in Manhattan yesterday. The big schedule board said trains were "delayed", actual meaning = "Cancelled". Big windfall for NY cab drivers though, lots of them on the NJ Turnpike yesterday...

-Lego

dot:

Apparently they're not supposed to put messages up like "this is a test" so that people won't think the sign isn't working, but rather generic messages like "Department of Transportation".

Makes sense. Since the sign is visible to the motoring public while it's being tested, they're basically testing in a production environment. While that may be unavoidable in this situation, it's better not to put up anything that may cause drivers to get distracted. I can imagine a driver looking at the sign saying "I like ponies," wondering what that is all about, and being distracted long enough to become part of the scenery.

INSERT MEMORY CARD - this is probably a metaphor used to sex up the event.

Tim:

Dan:

Someone hacked a electronic construction sign north of Reading, PA a few months back. It said something like "Live Nudes Next Exit" for a few hours until DOT was notified and fixed it. I wish I had that kind of free time!

I saw that too.
They aren't hard to change if you get a lazy sign guy err so I've been told

I think all it takes is someone to forget to lock the control box - inside it is supposed to be a keyboard that you can use to just type the message you need to display... just a regular AT style keyboard, nothing fancy. It's possible that it isn't locked during the day if crews are nearby (and lazy) since they have to open the box to turn off the sign when they're done...

But I suppose there are several different variants of the sign - some I guess have a little memory card full of sign information so the guy on the sidewalk just rolls it out, sticks it in, and turns it on. others let you write messages out right there and then...

I think I enjoy the comments as much as the original posts. You guys and gals are funny.

LEGO:

Yeah, they've all gone to look for America...

Oh well, just to add the obligatory song reference...

Funny how Simon and Garfunkel managed to miss the NJ Turnpike altogether. I guess they must have took the wrong exit somewheres.

(Incidentally, I'm being, as per usual, extremely unfair. Apparently, if you drive from the north-west to the south-east, it really is the Garden State.

Unfortunately, if you drive from the north-east to the south-west, it's just Noo Joisey.)

Bill Lumbergh:

A useless error message cannot be a WTF because it is the norm.

Have you ever tryed any of those wanderfull operting systems not made by Microsoft? Those with error messages that actualy gives users a good understanding of what went wrong.

LOL, Welcome to Ebay. this doesnt surprise me in the least coming from them.

JT
www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

What's so funny about advertising my memory card store?

dot:

Apparently they're not supposed to put messages up like "this is a test" so that people won't think the sign isn't working, but rather generic messages like "Department of Transportation".

There's a good one along those lines on the toll road around Birmingham (UK). If I recall correctly, there's an electronic sign which I think tells you the charge for each type of vehicle, then in front of that is a fixed metal sign saying "Sign Not In Use".

I would have LOL'd, had I not just shelled out £4.50 just to be able do a tonne for a few miles. Err, I mean 'drive on clear roads'.

mallard:

akatherder:

John:

Add AT&T Wireless ... Total due: -25.34

Make Payment to reinstate.

That seems to be a misunderstanding of business rules. Someone figured, they were safe if they put:

if (amountOwed == 0)
echo "You're all good";
else
echo "GIMME MONEY";

I can't think of a good reason for a 0.00 payment to give you grief though.

My guess is that the use of multiple currencies (or even just eBay's internal conversion from AU$ to US$) lead to a rounding error resulting in some tiny fraction of a cent being owed.

Ah, Java, the new COBOL... worse than the old COBOL, since it doesn't natively support decimal precision.

It's reassuring that the programmers are still COBOL-grade, though. Never mastered that pesky little angle-bracket thingy in math.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms740668.aspx

WSASYSCALLFAILURE
10107

System call failure.

A system call that should never fail has failed. This is a generic error code, returned under various conditions.

Returned when a system call that should never fail does fail. For example, if a call to WaitForMultipleEvents fails or one of the registry functions fails trying to manipulate the protocol/namespace catalogs.

Returned when a provider does not return SUCCESS and does not provide an extended error code. Can indicate a service provider implementation error.

Bobbo:

dot:

Apparently they're not supposed to put messages up like "this is a test" so that people won't think the sign isn't working, but rather generic messages like "Department of Transportation".

There's a good one along those lines on the toll road around Birmingham (UK). If I recall correctly, there's an electronic sign which I think tells you the charge for each type of vehicle, then in front of that is a fixed metal sign saying "Sign Not In Use".

I would have LOL'd, had I not just shelled out £4.50 just to be able do a tonne for a few miles. Err, I mean 'drive on clear roads'.

That would be a metric tonne, I presume; rather than an imperial ton, ie 100mph.

100kph is still offensive if not on the local motorways and dual carriage-ways; say, the A45 or A43 or A435.

Care to pass on the number-plate, sonny boy?

I might not care, except that this is Birmingham. It's my fucking home town. Mess with me and you mess with 1.5 million of the rest of us.

Do not ever do that again.

1) A perfect example of floating-point imprecision and the programmers incompetence in floating-point arithmetic
2) Blame Murphy
3) CardNotFound
4) Oh so common
5) Actually, he was fired for answering "Yes". The company clearly looks for pro-bono employees

Captcha: lorem ipsum DOLOR sit amet (:

Bappi:

I can imagine a driver looking at the sign saying "I like ponies," wondering what that is all about, and being distracted long enough to become part of the scenery.

Uh, you know they do use those signs for advertising too, right?
There was one for ages down near Maitland (NSW, Australia) proudly proclaiming that a new sex shop was open... If that wasn't a distraction, I don't know what was.

So, with the recovery partition you can do nothing but destroy all your data... which is alright, that's what the recovery partition is supposed to do.

Or should there be a second button "Cancel" which will only a dialog saying "Alright then, reboot your machine now"?

Makes perfect sense, don't see what's so WTFky.

Unless someone who is used to clicking on OK dialog boxes because they do nothing does so in this case without paying attention to the red, red background color.

Ebay has rapidly become the biggest WTF ever (at least in Australia). Sellers can no longer leave neutral or negative feedback on bay purchasers. Sellers also now have to sign up for paypal and further line ebay's pockets...direct deposit is no longer an option..

Every tried to lodge a real complaint and only get canned responses stating how wonderful their policies are....
and then get your account suspended due to the ability of vindictive buyers still being able to lodge (possibly falsely) negative feedback WTF indeed

The real WTF is that the text in the "Format and Recover" screenshot is incredibly hard to read. I know that the submitter had to take a photo of his computer screen, possibly after placing it on a wooden table, but what about aligning the camera to the screen and not using the most space efficient (read: crappy) JPEG compression setting? And preventing further artifacts from cropping the image for publication purposes would have been easy by just using PNG. Alternatively, there are even ways to crop JPEG images without requantization (i.e. jpegtran).