Category: Humor

Always be prepared to answer any question in more than two ways. Using words is OK, but it’s nice to also describe yourself with a beautiful dance. It will help you to nail every job interview. Follow us on Google News for mote job hunting tips and tricks!

Melissa was trying to figure out why an old application wasn’t writing out a data file when commanded to do so. It was an implemented feature, it should work, it had worked at one point- but it wasn’t working now.

She traced through the C code and found this:

void writeconf(void)
{
    int fd;
    char buf[100];
    int len;
    int loop;

    snprintf(&buf[0], sizeof(buf),"%dn", confval);
    for(loop=0; loop<10; loop++)    
    {
        fd=open("/tmp/conf", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT);
        if(fd != -1)
        {
            len=write(fd, &buf[0], strlen(buf));
            close(fd);
            break;  
        }
    }
}

The purpose of this code is to write a single integer out to /tmp/conf.

So, first, we use snprintf to write that integer out to a buffer. This line alone piles on the WTFs. &buf[0] isn’t wrong, but it’s weird. Arrays in C are pointers to the first object in the array. &buf[0] returns a pointer to the first object in the array. They’re the same thing. I don’t understand why they went the long way around, unless they didn’t understand what arrays are.

Speaking of, buf doesn’t need to be 100 characters long, but that’s a minor thing. But the real “yikes” is confval itself- a global variable accessed from inside this function, which hints at many, many other bad choices.

Then we loop. We try to open the file up to ten times. If we fail, we just try again. No waiting, no timeouts, just.. try it ten times, as quick as you can.

Once we open it, we write the data, again using the &buf[0] idiom. And… do nothing to check that we successfully wrote anything out. We just hope for the best, close the file descriptor, and exit.

This didn’t answer why the file wasn’t getting written, but it definitely explained why no one was seeing errors. This doesn’t do any meaningful error handling. If it can’t open the file, it just gives up after ten tries. If it can’t write to the file, it doesn’t notice.

“My mom thought it would be nice to take my sister and I for a girl’s day at the local glamour shots. She didn’t always have the best ideas. Honestly, topless with a pink boa was not what my sister and I had in mind. But she genuinely thought this was pretty and proceeded to hang it in our family home for all to see for years. Love ya mom.”

(submitted by Marie) 

Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Constitution received two amazing honors in 2006, winning both a Pulitzer Prize and the Reuben award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. This was the second Pulitzer for Luckovich; his first was awarded in 1995. He had previously received the Reuben award for Editorial Cartooning in 2001, but this was his first time to be named the overall outstanding cartoonist by a group of his peers. The Reuben awards are distributed each year by the National Cartoonists Society and are considered professional cartooning’s highest honor.

Impressive as these achievements are, they are only the latest in a long line of awards for Luckovich. He was a runner-up for the Pulitzer in 1987 before garnering the 1995 win.  In 1989, he won the Overseas Press Club’s award for the “Best Cartoons on Foreign Affairs for 1989,” and in 1991, he was awarded the National Headliners award for editorial cartoonists. In 1994, a Luckovich cartoon was selected by voters in a Newsweek magazine poll as one of the four best editorial cartoons of the year.

After freelancing and selling life insurance to make ends meet following his graduation from the University of Washington in 1982, Luckovich landed his first cartooning job at the Greenville News in South Carolina. After nine months at the News, Luckovich was hired by The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, where he stayed for four years before moving on to Atlanta.

Luckovich’s cartoons, syndicated nationally by Creators Syndicate, appear in more than 350 daily publications, including The Washington Post,The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Denver Post, Newsday, New York Post, The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, The Dallas Morning News, the Boston Globe, the Seattle Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Nashville Tennessean and the Houston Chronicle, and are reprinted regularly in Time, Newsweek and the New York Times.

Luckovich and his wife, Margo, have four children. His hobbies include exercising and collecting unique ties.

Mr. TA inherited some C# code that communicates with a humidity and a temperature sensor. Each sensor logs a series of datapoints as they run, and can provide them as an array of data points.

This leads to this code:

DataPoint[] humidDataPointArray = null;  
DataPoint[] tempDataPointArray = null;


if (sensorType == (int)SensorTypeID.HUMIDITY)
{
    
    humidDataPointArray = new DataPoint[ttPlusData.SecondarySensorData.GetDataPoints().Count];
    humidDataPointArray = ttPlusData.SecondarySensorData.GetDataPoints().ToArray();
}
else
{
    if (sensorNum == 1)
    {
        
        tempDataPointArray = new DataPoint[((SingleSensorTemptale)ttData).PrimarySensorData.GetDataPoints().Count];
        tempDataPointArray = ((SingleSensorTemptale)ttData).PrimarySensorData.GetDataPoints().ToArray();
    }
    else
    {
        
        tempDataPointArray = new DataPoint[ttPlusData.SecondarySensorData.GetDataPoints().Count];
        tempDataPointArray = ttPlusData.SecondarySensorData.GetDataPoints().ToArray();
    }
}

It starts out okay. We create the arrays to hold the data. Then we check the sensorType against an enum. And that’s where things start to go wrong.

We initialize an empty array that’s the same size as the number of data points, then we set that array equal to the array of data points.

I’m stuck trying to figure out if this is someone with no real experience, or a C programmer trying to migrate from pointers to references. Since C# is uses references, we don’t need that new– we can just set humidPointsArray equal to the result of the function call.

Speaking of the result of the function call- it looks like GetDataPoints() returns a C# enumerable type. Which implies there’s really no good reason to convert it into an array. I can’t be certain about that, maybe they really need the array, but I suspect that’s not the case- and it’s a best practice in C# to use more abstract interfaces for collections.

But it gets worse.

We have an else with an if inside of it, instead of an else if. This second condition eschews the lovely enum we used before, and just checks sensorNum == 1. Then we repeat the same unnecessary allocation, with the bonus misspelling of SingleSensorTemptale, which is certain never to give any future developer problems.

For a bonus, this code runs in a tight loop, ensuring the garbage collector gets lots of practice cleaning up memory we never needed in the first place.

Making fun of the headlines today, so you don’t have to

The news, even that about the ruby slippers from the “Wizard of Oz,” doesn’t need to be complicated or confusing; that’s what any new release from Microsoft is for. And, as in the case with anything from Microsoft, to keep the news from worrying our pretty little heads over, remember something new and equally indecipherable will come out soon:

Really all you need to do is follow one simple rule: barely pay attention and jump to conclusions. So, here are some headlines today and my first thoughts:

Man admits stealing ‘Wizard of Oz’ ruby slippers from museum in 2005, but details remain a mystery

… no word if he clicked his heels three times and was apprehended in Kansas.

One million Gazans displaced as Israel readies for ground attack

Well, if you’re going to use those Jewish Space Lasers, this would be the time.

Harvard professor wins economics Nobel for work on gender pay gap

Instead of usual million-dollar prize, she’ll only receive $770,000.

Kevin McCarthy removed as US House Speaker, making him the shortest-serving since 1876

Biden:  Never thought I see that happen again.

Dodgers get swept out of playoffs by Diamondbacks

Well, looks like the Dodgers are going to the World Series … if they buy their tickets early.

Snoop Dogg calls out Trump

It’s’ Straight Out of Compton’ against ‘Straight into Leavenworth.’

Israel-Hamas conflict was a test for Musk’s X, and it failed

Let’s face it, porn sites oughta sue Musk for defaming the letter X.

Meet Gay Bob, the out and proud anatomically correct 1973 disco-era doll

Also, complete your set with the 1990’s era ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell GI Joe’ doll.

Disney cast member found a real bear inside Magic Kingdom

Would still be there if he just could’ve remembered all the words to ‘California Bears’ at the Country Bear Jamboree.

Hannity says his dad used beat him with a belt

… And, not one person has said he didn’t have it coming.

Cologne Catholic diocese clergy and staff used work computers for porn

In fairness, they get to know each other in a biblical way.

A Kim K source speaks out on report that she wants to ‘warn’ Bianca Censori about Kanye

… And remind her of her no returns policy.

90 years ago: Air France is founded

Or, as it was also known No Virgins Airlines.

Scalise drops out of race for Speaker of the House, leaving Congress in limbo

… If you see smoke coming out of the House of Representatives it doesn’t mean we have a new Speaker, it’s just Boebert vaping …

“When I was a kid, my mom managed a business called ‘In Hot Water’ where you could go and rent out a hot tub in a private room on an hourly basis. This was the photo they used for the ads. That’s me and my brother in the tub. No idea who the older man is though.”

(submitted by Vanessa)