Alex Papadimoulis

From René V...

A few months back, Jen Frickell's company was given some bad news. When their lease ended, they'd have to move out of their second-floor suite. The good news, however, was that a suite would be available on the first floor. All they'd need to do was pack up and move downstairs.

As you may have noticed, there are now advertisements on The Daily WTF. Well, technically, I've been running ads here since October of 2004… but I just realized that I never bothered announcing it. So, there you have it dear readers: I have officially sold out.

"A while back," Steven Victor wrote, "I was asked to look at an issue where numerical data 'kept getting more and more inaccurate' in newer versions of a software product."

The year was 1999 and the dot-com boom was going full-throttle. Companies everywhere were focused on building revolutionary applications using nothing but top-shelf hardware and state-of-the-art software tools. Developers everywhere were trying to figure out if they should play more foosball, more air hockey, or sit back down on their Aeron and write more code. Everywhere, that is, except Boise, Idaho. Or at least, Dave's small corner of it.

Ever since the first Free Sticker Week ended back in February '07, I've been sending out WTF Stickers to anyone that mailed me a SASE or a small Souvenir. Nothing specific, per the instructions page, "anything will do." Well, here goes anything, yet again! (previous: Random Assortment Transfer).

Allen F occasionally feels out of place. As a software developer in a large, scientific research lab, he's one of the few people not running around in a lab coat, mumbling about things like how to stabilize the latest batch of tretonin, or how only an idiot would name it isoprovalyn instead of hydrozapam. In fact, Allen doesn't even get to wear a lab coat.

Terry Solid writes, "I tried to do a direct debit in the amount of $0.00, but the eBay system told me I was an idiot and had to deposit a minimum of $1.00. To add insult to injury, it took a full twenty-five minutes of explanation before the eBay rep realized that there was, in fact, no way for one to transfer $0.00 to unhold my account

As a junior-level sysadmin at his university, Alcari had gotten used to frantic, middle-of-the-night support calls. Whether it was a mail proxy server freezing up, a replication process getting out of sync, or some application deadlocking, Alcari's solution was almost always the same: reboot the problem server. On a recent 4:00AM emergency call, however, the situation was a bit more dire.

Most of us web developers will never encounter an HTTP 414 Error. According to the W3C, 414 means:

Originally posted in the Sidebar, "AlpineR" shares this interesting story about Wizards of the Coast's Magic Online 3.0...

Good news, everyone. The official The Daily WTF mugs have finally arrived! Well, technically, the mugs have been sitting here in my office for months, but the intern who will mail them out has finally arrived! Either way, now's the time to get your own.

IBM Survivor (from Reid Maynard) In the middle of the dot-com bust, I interviewed at IBM for a contract position. I can't remember exactly what the position was, but I'll never forget the interview.

By the 1970's, computers were practically everywhere. They starred on TV, were the brains behind Cold War Doomsday devices, and had even reached “cliché” status in many science fiction circles. Of course, being that they cost upwards of $1,000 – per hour – the computers themselves weren’t everywhere, only their ominous presence. And nothing said “welcome to the computer era” quite like the ubiquitous punch card.

Nick L. was impressed by DO NOT USE's firey, inspired performance in 2 Fast 2 Furious...

Originally posted to the Sidebar by "ServZero"...