Category: Stupidy (of Others)

Requesting the Impossible

Client: Our website went down for two hours yesterday! What are you doing to ensure that this never happens again!?!

Hmmm, well, how about nothing?

If you own a website, sooner or later it’s going to go down. It’s the nature of the beast. I mean Amazon went down for a full 11 hours last year, and some of their cloud services were down for three days. If Amazon can’t run their website with 100% reliability, how the hell do you expect us to?

It’s not like we play with server cables for entertainment’s sake. We didn’t sit down yesterday morning and say “Hey, you know what would be funny? Taking down a bunch of websites for two hours!”. Our severs aren’t sitting in a cupboard, prey to custodial staff who disconnect them to plug in their vacuum cleaner, or in a leaky attic where rats and possums can nest in the cases. Our systems are secured with all  the industry standard protection and backup systems to prevent outages. Despite this, outages will sometimes occur. If you can’t understand that, you shouldn’t be operating a website. And if you think that there’s some other company out there who’ll keep your website online 100% of the time guaranteed, please feel free to go looking for them.

(And if you find them, please take a look at how much they charge you compared to us)

But hey, I’ll tell you what. If you pay us 48 billion dollars a year we’ll guarantee to be as reliable as Amazon. This means we promise that your site won’t be offline for more than an additional nine hours this year.

How’s that for a deal?

Work-a-day Blues

Client: This order didn’t go through the checkout properly! Help!

Me: Yes, you’re right. OK, we’re troubleshooting it and will keep you posted.

Some time later…

Client: I tried putting the order through again and it didn’t work!

Me: Yes, we’re still trying to sort out the problem with the checkout. We’ll let you know when we’ve solved it.

Some more time later…

Client: I tried putting the order through again and it didn’t work! We need to get this order processed to balance the books! It’s hurting our business!

Me: Have you had problems with any other orders since?

Client: No, every other order is coming through fine, but this one keeps failing every time I put it through!

Me: OK, we’re still working on the checkout issue, but you can use this tool to edit the details of the order – that way you can correct the erroneous details, process the order and get your books balanced. Try it out and let me know how you go.

Time passes…

Client: I put the order through again and it still failed! Are you taking this issue seriously? We need to balance our books.

Me: Did you edit the order like I suggested, or put through an entirely new one?

Client: I put through a new one! You need to fix this!

Me: I know we need to fix it, we’re working on it. In the meantime here are the instructions again on how to edit one of the failed orders so you can get the order processed and squared away.

Later on…

Client: I’ve tried putting the order through again, and it still failed. We are seriously reconsidering our business relationship with your company!

Me: Do you mean you edited one of the orders like I showed you and it failed?

Client: No, I put through a new one! The checkout needs to be fixed NOW!

Me: We’re working on that, it’s a very complicated issue and it’s taking time to resolve. You haven’t received any other problematic orders and if you follow the instructions I sent you can get the order corrected and processed. Let me know if you need a hand with it.

This morning…

Client: I put the order through again and it didn’t work. You need to fix this NOW!

* * *

Is it wrong that I’m having fantasies about heading over to this client’s place with a rocket propelled grenade launcher?

Ask and You Shall Receive

Great minds think alike…

So, last week the wreck of the Titanic received legal protection to prohibit people heading down and taking souvenirs. I learnt this fact from a couple of blithering fools on the radio who went on to speculate on how such a law could possibly be enforced – because, after all, what’s to stop anyone from putting on a SCUBA kit and taking a swim?

Among my dark mutterings about the lack of education concerning the depth of the oceans in general, the depth of the Titanic wreck site in particular and the limitations of SCUBA diving I wondered if Randal over at XKCD had ever done one of his famous charts about the matter. Not three days later, what appears on the XKCD site? This.

I’m now going to spend a fair bit of time wondering if Randal will post a comic explaining in precise detail how I get a date with Alisen Down. Hey, it’s gotta be worth a try! 🙂

Miscelleny

Miscellaneous Stuff Part 1: I got a brochure in my letter box yesterday telling me that I could get the Sunday Times delivered each week for only $1.80! Seriously, if I need packing material I can grab a copy of the local paper for free.

Miscellaneous Stuff Part 2: Surely Bob Katter can’t get any more ridiculous? Yes, yes he can…

Miscellaneous Stuff Part 3: Another excellent blog I should have mentioned earlier – someone’s posting the entire Diary of Samuel Pepys – day by day. They’re up to March 1668, but you should really go back and start at the beginning. Fascinating stuff.

Except for Swans

Once again I really must apologise for yesterday’s post. It’s just that bad poetry really gets to me. Particularly bad poetry inflicted on the public by the privileged.

It’s my problem, I’ll deal with it.

I was thinking maybe I’ll scrawl the following onto a slate tile and post it to the manager of the markets with a cover letter saying “I understand you’re accepting donations of pieces of rock decorated with poorly rhymed political manifestos and would like to contribute to the collection”…

One day I want to be the king,
So I can own everything,
Except for swans it seems,
Which I’m told belong to Elizabeth the Queen,
And so one day you must give everything,
To the person who is your king,
By which I mean me,
See?

In the meantime, here’s this.

Caramelldansen!

Oh Holy….

There’s a new market opened up in Morley, in the old Coventry’s building.

Outside the new market in the old Coventry’s building is a giant lump of iron ore.

On the giant lump of iron ore outside the new market in the old Coventry’s building is a plaque.

On the plaque on the giant lump of iron ore outside the new market in the old Coventry’s building is a group of words that the very charitable might concede to describe as something resembling a poem.

A poem apparently written by mining magnate Gina Rhinehart….

Our Future

The globe is sadly groaning with debt, poverty and strife
And billions now are pleading to enjoy a better life
Their hope lies with resources buried deep within the earth
And the enterprise and capital which give each project worth
Is our future threatened with massive debts run up by political hacks
Who dig themselves out by unleashing rampant tax
The end result is sending Australian investment, growth and jobs offshore
This type of direction is harmful to our core
Some envious unthinking people have been conned
To think prosperity is created by waving a magic wand
Through such unfortunate ignorance, too much abuse is hurled
Against miners, workers and related industries who strive to build the world
Develop North Australia, embrace multiculturalism and welcome short term foreign workers to our shores
To benefit from the export of our minerals and ores
The world’s poor need our resources: do not leave them to their fate
Our nation needs special economic zones and wiser government, before it is too late.

Now you’re going to have to excuse me here, because bad poetry is something that really gets up my nose, to the point of making me almost irrational. So I beg your forgiveness in advance for the tone of what I’m about to type…

WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? WHAT IS THIS FUCKING CRAP PIECE OF SHIT DOING IN A PUBLIC SPACE!?!?!?!?!?! WHAT IN GOD’S NAME MAKES GINA FUCKING RHINEHART THINK SHE’S CAPABLE OF WRITING GODDAMED FUCKING POETRY WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST CONCEPTION OF METER AND/OR SCANSION AND THAT THE PUSTULANT CRAP PRODUCED IS WORTHY OF BEING PUT ON PUBLIC FUCKING DISPLAY!?!?!?! IF A FUCKING TWELVE YEAR OLD HANDED THIS IN TO ME AS POETRY I’D TELL THEM TO FUCKING REWRITE IT!!!!!! YOU CANT JUST FUCKING ARRANGE A BUNCH OF FUCKING RUN ON SENTENCES OF WILDLY VARIABLE FUCKING LENGTH AND STRESS INTO COUPLETS AND CALL IT POETRY FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!!!
 FUCK!!!!!

Ahem. Sorry about that. Meter is something trivially easy to get your head around, yet so many people seem to be completely incapable of comprehending it, and it really gets me steamed.

Obviously 😀

A somewhat more reasoned critical analysis of Rhineharts lyrical atrocity may be read here.

The Ice of FADADES

Here we see another performance from the incomparable, castle-dwelling, laser-building, French master of metal, FADADES!!

Unlike some of his other more ‘abstract’ videos, this one has an easily comprehensible plot. The alien FADADES comes to Earth and lands his spaceship in Egypt. Here he discovers that his precious ice keeps melting in the desert heat. This angers him, and as lightning flashes across the sky (no doubt a result of the disturbance caused by his ship plunging through the atmosphere) he curses. “BAD ICE!! DIE ICE!!” he shrieks over and over again.

Hey, it makes as much sense as anything else…

Close Bitnami banner
Bitnami