That quote is my favorite example of a very polite wtf
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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iiiiiiitttttttttttt
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you know the computer thing is it plugged in?
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Confusion of ideas in, garbage out.
So the I-d10t bug has been around since the beginning, it seems.
Layer-8 issue, even when it's DNS, it's a Layer-8 issue.
Could be layer 9, management
Ada Lovelace invented coding on that thing btw
And then had the wisdom to die before a computer capable of running her programs was invented, thus saving the bother of having to debug them.
Writes code.
Realises that debugging code that was written by the lunatic that is yourself two nights ago is going to be a big part of her life.
dies
We've all had debugging sessions where that feels like the best option. Right?
Debugging was easier when all you had to do was spray the room with fly spray and vacuum the tubes.
Just that the Analytical Engine she'd have had to debug was all gears and levers and cranks and linkages and shit. One wrong move and it'll take off a finger, or a hand, or more.
I wouldnt have done anything different
I always assumed they were asking if it was rigged.
Like, i can write function sum(a, b) that always returns 10, and impress people how it's correct when I pass in 1,9 and 2,8 and 3,7. But if I pass in 7,7 it'll still return the "right" answer of 10, because it's rigged and not actually doing math.
That's a good point, but a few decades of talking to clients has led to a number of conversations like this where they want it to "just work", even if they've input the wrong information.
Clients? Shit happens in my house.
"My monitor keeps turning off."
"Ok next time it happens ill look at it and see if i can figure out what is going on."
"Cant you just fix it?"
"Fix what? I dont know whats wrong yet."
"Just fix the monitor."
Legitimately, about 1/3 of the time my mere presence seems to magically fix the issue.
i really should have gone into IT because electronics spontaneously break around me
There was a thread on Reddit where people likewise noted that having another person try problematic software solved the issue. So one commenter regaled how a dude sidestepped the whole rigmarole by saying to his colleague “look, this thing's broken again”, and then before the other guy could step in, he clicked the thing himself, and it worked.
Same, I keep track of magic on a white board in my office
I've started defaulting to just saying "yes" with my family and pretending to fix it. I'm actually thankful for the laptop revolution, cause I can just say "it's fucked, buy a new one."
Once you've got the new one, I'll take your old one and dispose of it appropriately...
I have like a dozen old laptops with various flavors of Linux on them because of this. Can't give them away cause apparently Linux is a scary word in this part of the country.
Ah, you must be an expert
One time my boss asked me to basically solve the Travelling salesman problem.
My first pass at ot was a simple grab closest neighbor solution, but that left a slightly unoptimal path and my boss asked me to "fix" it. I explained to him why, no, I can't make it both fast amd accurate, pick one, while also showing him that wikipedia page. I was so mad when he said just make it more accurate ignoring now it takes hours to run sometimes only to save 10 seconds of a machine moving.
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I always assumed they were asking if it was rigged.
That's a valid assumption one can only make without knowing the malevolent stupidity of typical computer users.
Alternatively, people could genuinely believe the primitive computer is a "thinking machine". So if you fat-finger an input, will the machine know you made a mistake and intuitively correct you? Not unlike asking "Hey, I've got ten days of vacation, can I take two weeks off?" And your coworker - knowing a week is seven days, but you're only referring to business days - responds "Yes".
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Could it run Doom though?
I've seen a couple papers on theoretical designs for purely mechanical computers that can run doom, but as far as I am aware I've never heard of one that's actually been built.
but in theory yes it could have
i want to play doom with a flipbook now
it has limited memory but could me expanded, by a lot. but I'm theory yes, no display though.
Pff, who needs a display? Just do that Matrix thing and render the raw state in your head.
I didn't even see the code anymore. It's just; pinky, capro, barron.
Person, woman, man, camera, tv.
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And thus the role of QA was born.
All unit tests show PEBKAC
i.e. "I'm not smart enough, nor dumb enough, to understand how you arrived at such a stupid question."
Being extremely, extremely generous, maybe they meant a human would notice the input was incorrect? But even then, a human could notice the same when inputting it into a computer.
Wasn't it a member of Parliament who asked him this? Or was that addition apocryphal?
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