Great Moments in Computer Programming

[Tdarcos]

"Thanks for the reports. I want to assure you this isn't a bug, it's working as intended," said a Google worker going by the name nealem.

No, it's a bug, asshole.

Reminds me of a problem Microsoft has with Word or with some versions of it. Seems if you load a badly formed document or one incorrectly formed, instead of Word saying the document is damaged, it quits. Microsoft claims this is correct behavior that is intentionally designed that way.

To quote someone I know, "No, it's a bug, asshole."

A certain kind of developer thinks that the definition of a bug is unintended consequences or unexplained actions. It's not. You can intentionally make your app die every sixty seconds. It still means it's buggy as shit.

A "bug" is any form of undesirable behavior which makes the product less useful. "lLess useful" in this case can be anything from minor error behavior to complete unusability, since "less useful" is potentially anything below 100%.

Now, if the bug is desirable behavior but the manufacturer doesn't want it to have that behavior, you can bet that gets fixed in lightning speed. There was a bug in the signed code system for the original XBox that, if you loaded a corrupted save game for a certain game - I think it was one of the James Bond licensed games, but don't hold me to that - it would allow you to bypass the mandatory signed code requirements, and replace the dashboard with one particular piece of software not lauthorized by Microsoft, that piece of software being the Linux Operating System. The change lost you the dashboard and the ability to use XBox live while you had Linux on the 'Box, but was completely reversible. So you could install a running version of Linux on a $300 XBox, which, is sold at a loss and Microsoft did not like this.

While there were a number of "ring of death" errors and other problems that plagued the XBox that didn't get fixed, Microsoft "with all deliberate speed" fixed this "bug" in the XBox with lightning rapidity.

[Flack]

The Xbox was released in 2001. You can still install Xbox Linux using the same exploit. We're a month away from 2015. Can you define "lightning speed" for us?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

So, it's Christmas time which means nothing but stress.

Main SSD died recently. Bought a new one. Not a great time to have to make a $150 extra purchase!

Re-installed Windows. I am going to let go of what a fucking abomination Microsoft's fucking worthless sites are. I downloaded W7 and bought a license from them. I had no fucking idea where to go to get the iso, but I figured it out last week. I typed in the license when I installed and was told it was invalid.

This is the license I bought from them. It was tied to my account. OK, maybe I wrote it down incorrectly.

Well, now it's a week later and Microsoft is bitching about activation. OK...

I have to completely re-invent the search process I used to find my stuff. They are SO FUCKING BAD. I tried to activate the license through Windows and was told...

"This license is for an upgrade, not a clean installation."

FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING PIECES OF SHIT. I bought a NEW FUCKING SSD to put your goddamn shitass slop on a few years ago. I didn't "upgrade" JACK SHIT.

I'm taking out two months of frustration on the next Microsoft garbage human I encounter.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

You apparently go to MicrosoftStore.com to see your purchases.

Not Microsoft.com.

This is a real thing that they setup and they want it that way. I am not kidding.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

So apparently I bought this:

Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade
Price: $219.99 Qty: 1 Status: Complete

I paid $219.99 for a fucking "upgrade" key. This is how retarded this is: if I was able to still clone my old SSD I would have been totally OK.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Jesus Christ, they literally look at a bit to see if your key should work or not.

I found this:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... 7695e619c2

An aside - NICE FUCKING FORUM SOFTWARE. Why the fuck are they appending a giant-ass fucking string or UUID to the URL? Someone tell me this is to prevent an error with their forum software if someone asks the same question. Someone tell me they add a UUID instead of realizing there's a collision and adding a number. Holy shit.

Anyway, that link contains incorrect information -- the path to the right key in regedit is wrong, you need a slash before setup or something -- but I found it because I figured out what the dude was pawing at.

This is the best we can do. This slop.

[AArdvark]

It sounds like it would have been less stressful to install a hacked version. I've heard of hacks that completely circumvent the authentication of a W7 OS and permit all the updates. I've heard of people putting the OS on a bootable flash drive and installing it that way.

[The Happiness Engine]

$219?! That SSD raid 1 I set up looks like a better investment every day...

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

So my 360 red ringed a couple weeks ago.

I bought a new 360.

Guess who makes it extremely easy to login to your pre-existing Xbox account? Guess who assumes your previous FUCKING XBOX ISN'T FUCKING BROKEN to do so?

These fucking assholes created the greatest consumer failure in engineering history and assume as a starting point that it still works and that you can transfer your profile to a different machine.

Unbelievable.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The "Register a device" link on this page currently goes to the same exact page:

https://myservice.xbox.com/en-US/pages/welcome.aspx

When clicking on "register a device" it jut refreshes, in other words.

How ... how did it ever get like this? Why the fuck did I willingly choose to further my association with this terrible fucking company?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I don't care how much it hurts, never giving Microsoft another dollar directly.

How easy do you think it is to add the old gamepad to the new 360? Gotta be fucken simple, right?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

It sounds like it would have been less stressful to install a hacked version. I've heard of hacks that completely circumvent the authentication of a W7 OS and permit all the updates. I've heard of people putting the OS on a bootable flash drive and installing it that way.

Absolutely. Much easier. There are probably people who just don't get mad but do something about it. I'll use a hacked version for my next go-round.

So, I figured out the deal to make the controller sync to a new 360. You have to active the gamepad, then hit a button on a 360, and then hit a different button that is almost flush with the TOP of the gamepad to attach it, within 20 seconds.

I guess this lets you do it on the fly. If it's a button right ON the 360, then you can join at any time. And I guess if you had a lot of 360s in a room somewhere, you can't have a gamepad attach to the first 360 it sees, but...

They really can't have a "Controllers" choice for the System setup? Really? This one thing which is totally hardware based can't have a 1KB instruction shown if you happen to choose it? I mean, obviously not, but still. Not how I would have done it, that's all.

[Flack]

If I've already posted this story, keep scrolling.

A few years ago I bought a GPS for the car. I turned it on one day and it said, "whoa buddy, your maps are out of date. It's time for an update!" Maybe where you live roads change all the time and your GPS needs new maps on a yearly basis in order to navigate properly but... not so much in Oklahoma. I'm pretty sure the way I got to work 20 years ago is the same way I go now. But, whatever. I need new maps. Ok.

Let me preface this by saying that my GPS has (a) some internal storage and (b) an SD card slot.

I go online to Garmin's website and find that this year's map is $49. I am almost positive I paid $49 for this GPS. I try to buy the map and it says, well, no. You cannot buy the map without having the GPS connected to your computer. I had assumed that I would download it on to an SD card, take the card out to the car, and it would install the map. No. The GPS has to be connected to the computer when you download the map. This was a couple of years ago, maybe they've made things better, but back then, this is how it worked.

So I bring in the GPS and play a rousing game of "let's find a cable that will connect the GPS to the computer." It's one of the smaller USB types and eventually I find one that works. I believe there were some other hoops like registering the device and stuff. Eventually I get to the point where I can download the map. The download takes something like 4 hours. It's ridiculous. When it finishes, it says, "uh oh! There's not enough room to install this map on your device!" There's a link to some troubleshooting tips on getting this to work and so I click it.

The troubleshooting tips say, "delete things you don't need off of the GPS" and gives some examples of extra car icons you've downloaded and favorite locations you have saved. I once downloaded a thing that makes my car avatar look like a slice of pizza, so I delete that. I also delete every language pack but English. There's just such small odds that I will ever need my GPS to speak to me in Mandarin. The one thing I leave are my favorites because I have like 40 of them and Jesus Christ, how much space can a text file with 40 GPS locations in it actually be taking up?

After that I click okay and the website says "Downloading!" So yes, there's no "try again" -- it's now going to download this giant map again. And it takes another 4 hours or whatever. I actually think I spent two or three days trying this. And when it's all done it says "uncompressing" followed by "uh oh! There's not enough room to install this map on your device!" and that same link to the same troubleshooting hints. F me.

At this point I google "how to install new maps on Garmin 220" (I think that's the model) and there are only two types of responses. Half of them say "I can't get it to work." The other half say, "I downloaded pirated maps and they work great." Most of the people in the second group even say they tried to buy the maps first and couldn't get it to work.

I go on pirate bay or some torrent site and sure enough there are maps for the Garmin on there. There are instructions, too. "Download this file, put it on an SD card, put it on your GPS, and you're done."

So... let me stop there for a moment. Some how, the pirates have some up with a sensible and smooth way to install the maps while Garmin has the world's worst map update system ever. Here's a tip to companies: don't make it less painful to steal your product than it is to buy it.

I download the map, copy it over to an SD card, put the card in the GPS, and turn it on. The GPS says, "hey, new maps! Thanks!" and... that's it. I felt like sending the pirates $50!

This must have been a year or two ago because the last time I turned on my GPS it was asking for new maps again. I'm not even going to bother going through their website.

The best part about all of this is with the maps now stored on the SD card I had enough room to redownload my pizza icon!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

In another thread I spoke of buying computer parts to make a new Linux machine. I am running Mint.

First thing I wanted to do with it is run Steam.

Steam doesn't work. It will continually try to log me in and then LOCK UP THE COMPUTER.

This is why so many of us can't make the jump to Linux. Their shit doesn't work!

[RetroRomper]

I think the current force feeding of Windows 10 counts as a "Great Moment of Computer Programming," especially as they made Xing out of the dialogue initiate the upgrade (as opposed to clicking cancel.)

And then they took out the X.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Agreed, that is probably the worst one yet. I installed Never10 and haven't had to think about it.

Some guy that works in a game preserve, where they pay ten bucks a byte or something, learned that MS silently downloaded 6.5 GB of files on him. He is livid.

[pinback]

Why don't you people want Windows 10? It is better than 7, which we all agree was the best one.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

It sends everything you type to the NSA including your home WiFi password, it offers absolutely no benefits -- not a single one except that it is "new" -- and will move files around, delete shit it doesn't recognize, fail to have drivers for stuff I use every day and make me waste time installing my software again.

The practices used to install it are absolutely reprehensible and should be enough for the government to interfere and permanently shut Microsoft down and throw everyone who worked on Windows 10 in prison.

They have recently started spamming pop-ups where closing it accepts, which should be enough for the government to intervene and throw everyone involved in writing that tactic in prison. I mean, this should be done with the creators of malware, but we can't catch them. Only reason. We should be locking these people up.

So, less device and driver support, slimeball tactics to install, ads all over the place, NSA keylogging, WiFi password compromising, free reign to delete shit.... yeah, sounds like a winner. I can't believe people don't want this.

It's Vista / Bob / 8.

[RealNC]

it offers absolutely no benefits -- not a single one except that it is "new"

DirectX 12.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

it offers absolutely no benefits -- not a single one except that it is "new"

DirectX 12.

I would wager that most people, if sitting down to the exact game running in 10, 11 and 12 wouldn't be able to say which version it was running.

But you get that it's also a made-up circular requirement, right? "We made this OS that can only run the latest DirectX. DirectX can only run on the latest OS." Microsoft can write an entire OS but back-porting DirectX to 7, nope, can't be done. Come on.