When good product documentation goes funny

Post #20,275 by Meerkat 12/4/01 10:03:25 PM Reply	When good product documentation goes funny There I was, patiently studying product documentation, reading through the user guide, minding my own business, when suddenly I let out a brief cackle, which fortunately didn't cause any ripples in the ocean of white business shirts around me. The offending line of documentation was... When you do this, a dialog box prompts you to indicate whether you want to save the universe. Sounds like a sure-fire way to get a fantastic performance review, eh? "So, what did you achieve this year?" "Well, not much, I just, like, saved the universe..." Superheroes, take note. John freely admits there are times when he's easily amused.
Post #20,285 by Ashton 12/5/01 1:43:15 AM Reply	Beware of.. Those who instinctively click \ufffd NO Verily I say unto thee: such ones are doomed to roam the Earth in search of heavy yellowish glittery substances, form large groups for accelerating this process - as they relish the taking of it from as many as possible. That my son is the meaning of a Yes on NO: More is never Enough. {shudder} (Of course if it's a Windoze \ufffd, it could just mean it was an Internal Ethics Engine Failure: Unknown Function - never mind..)
Post #20,321 by orion 12/5/01 10:58:56 AM Reply	Someone snuck in a sneaky I used to do that in my English reports to see if the teachers really read my reports or not. Most of the teachers just skimmed the reports and gave whatever letter grade they thought it deserved based on the skimming and subject material. Like I did a report on Edgar Allen Poe, and I said he liked to eat snakes and hold concerts with Alice Cooper. The teacher didn't see that until I pointed it out to her. Eating snakes may not be true, but may be possible, but Alice Cooper was born way after Poe had died. I got a lower letter grade, but I proved my point about the teachers not fully reading the whole report. *I am free now, to choose my own destiny.*
Post #20,377 by Meerkat 12/5/01 5:09:20 PM Reply	It's actually legitimate, in context. The documentation is for a program that deals in collections of data it terms Universes, so saving a Universe is actually a legitimate thing to do. Pretty arrogant behaviour from the software designers, I say. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #20,393 by ben_tilly 12/5/01 5:59:56 PM Reply	Sounds reasonable to me In some approaches to set theory your universe is everything you know about. So by calling something in a program its universe, you are just saying that it knows about nothing else. Cheers, Ben
Post #20,394 by Meerkat 12/5/01 6:13:55 PM Reply	Good point, that! Considering a Universe in this case is basically a set of data, it all makes sense. Kind of robs the words of its greatness though, doesn't it? But this is business - where only numbers matter. I guess the people writing the documentation did so with a straight face. Poor things. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #20,407 by orion 12/5/01 8:21:32 PM Reply	Then apparently God doesn't use Windows to run our universe as it never gets a BSOD or crashes and needs to be rebooted. :) *I am free now, to choose my own destiny.*
Post #20,416 by Ashton 12/5/01 8:48:36 PM Reply	Stick around We're right in the middle of a new P.O.S.T. - and we haven't gotten past the Maturity Self-test. It's on the 99th retry. (Will a WSOD do? I believe the initial flash is Very.. 'white' before the retina fries) Ya gotta keep your metaphors consistent Oh Ryan, so's ya know WTF you're believin and all.. never mind Truth n'stuff - It doesn't 'mind' You!
Post #20,433 by wharris2 12/5/01 10:54:24 PM Reply	You sure about that? God doesn't use Windows to run our universe as it never gets a BSOD or crashes and needs to be rebooted. :) Do Windows programs know when they've been rebooted? Maybe we've been rebooted sixty-zillion times throughout our lives while the Creator debugs the universe.... and, when necessary, restores from backups, when He has them.... "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #20,504 by nking 12/6/01 2:33:09 PM Reply	Maybe that explains the Black Holes? The Black Holes are really damaged areas of space, sort of like memory leaks? ;)
Post #20,562 by wharris2 12/6/01 7:59:07 PM Reply	I like it Memory leaks, or damaged bits of memory. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #20,662 by Steven A S 12/7/01 1:33:27 PM Reply	Definately would explain the expansionist theory of the universe. Also why we know so little about the universe despite what we think we know. Obviously we need to sign that UNDA (universal non-disclosure agreement) ~~~)-Steven---- "I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country..." General George S. Patton
Post #20,332 by pwhysall 12/5/01 11:28:40 AM Reply	The Dialogue Box From Hell "Are you sure that you don't want to not reformat all the hard disks in the server and erase all the backup tapes?" (:= Ia! Ia! Peter Shill For Hire [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal]
Post #20,569 by Ashton 12/6/01 8:17:26 PM Reply	Need the rest of that \ufffdbersoftian excrescence. Or at least a close cousin: Some time ago at \ufffdbersoft, a droid was testing out new Error Messages on Alex, including ~that abortion and IIRC an even more convoluted one. Trouble was - even if you cancelled out the double-negatives.. you still couldn't be sure.. you hadn't \ufffd0 :( Did you happen to see Chris's little mind-bender? A.

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