Today, scattered amidst the gems, you will find
a whole
bunch of zeroes. No, not the contributors!
The zeroeth submission of the day is from Bluejay A. who sagely notes
“That shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
Super-poster Michael R. hints at a much stronger encryption than boring old rot13.
“Use Base85
if you want to be safer.” (seriously, I’m a frequent user of base36 for this kind of thing).
Gamer Rob H. is suffering from the tyranny of choice.
“I’m getting a game I ordered months ago… but I guess I have
no choice as to where to put the package. That’s OK, I’ll
put a Select One sign on my front door to make
it easier for USPS to figure it out.”
Job hunter Richard V. has pinpointed proof of an overheated economy.
“Looks like there’s a vibrant job market!”
And finally, long-suffering Lily White has an old, old piece of hardware (or a little bit of zero in it).
“Apparently my newly purchased laptop has been up ever
since a decade before RMS ever thought about the GNU
project.”
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Damn! Did you see Mitch McConnell freeze? That old 81-year-old asshole from Kentucky Looks like a classic MK-Ultra acid casualty Manson Family Mitch, a cat has your tongue! Was McConnell brainwashed when young? Moscow Mitch is a Manchurian Candidate. If the velvety voiced Frank Sinatra were alive Sinatra would surely have something to say Like “Get that moron Mitch off of the stage!” Mental midget Mitch recently had a great fall And ended up looking beat up big time, y’all! Who holds the puppet strings on sick Mitch? Jews with space lasers? Or a Russian bitch? Or his Chinese Republican wife, old Elaine? Called “Coco Chow”, by Trump who is insane
Jake Pickering Arcata, CA, USA
P.S. — You can find out more about me and my widely published writings by clicking on the link: https://muckrack.com/jake-pickering-1
John likes to write about all kinds of things. So he does. You’re reading one now – enjoy!
“This my younger brother and I, taken around 1970, when the Partridge Family was a big hit. The vests were crushed velvet and our hair was plastered with Dippity-do so it would stay in place.”
Clara had a database of users. The EmailAddress field in the user table was, by design, nullable, but some downstream applications didn't like nulls and wanted something there. Now, it didn't particularly matter what the values were, just that there were some, so Clara wrote up a quick stored procedure that would return the users with the null emails converted to the format BlankEmail_YYYYMMDD, e.g., BlankEmail_20230726.
This was all well and good until one of the senior developers decided that Clara's use of the T-SQL date functions was killing performance. They made this decision based on being the senior developer, but not based on any metrics or performance monitoring. Real seniors don't need such trivialities- they know what badly performing code is just by looking at it.
So that senior developer wrote this function, guaranteed to perform better.
CREATEFUNCTION [dbo].[fnGetDate_Formatted] (@Datetime DATETIME, @FormatMaskVARCHAR(32))
RETURNSVARCHAR(32)
ASBEGINDECLARE@StringDateVARCHAR(32)
SET@StringDate=@FormatMask
IF (CHARINDEX ('YYYY',@StringDate) >0)
SET@StringDate= REPLACE(@StringDate, 'YYYY',
DATENAME(YY, @Datetime))
IF (CHARINDEX ('YY',@StringDate) >0)
SET@StringDate= REPLACE(@StringDate, 'YY',
RIGHT(DATENAME(YY, @Datetime),2))
IF (CHARINDEX ('Month',@StringDate) >0)
SET@StringDate= REPLACE(@StringDate, 'Month',
DATENAME(MM, @Datetime))
IF (CHARINDEX ('MON',@StringDateCOLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS)>0)
SET@StringDate= REPLACE(@StringDate, 'MON',
LEFT(UPPER(DATENAME(MM, @Datetime)),3))
IF (CHARINDEX ('Mon',@StringDate) >0)
SET@StringDate= REPLACE(@StringDate, 'Mon',
LEFT(DATENAME(MM, @Datetime),3))
IF (CHARINDEX ('MM',@StringDate) >0)
SET@StringDate= REPLACE(@StringDate, 'MM',
RIGHT('0'+CONVERT(VARCHAR,DATEPART(MM, @Datetime)),2))
IF (CHARINDEX ('M',@StringDate) >0)
SET@StringDate= REPLACE(@StringDate, 'M',
CONVERT(VARCHAR,DATEPART(MM, @Datetime)))
IF (CHARINDEX ('DD',@StringDate) >0)
SET@StringDate= REPLACE(@StringDate, 'DD',
RIGHT('0'+DATENAME(DD, @Datetime),2))
IF (CHARINDEX ('D',@StringDate) >0)
SET@StringDate= REPLACE(@StringDate, 'D',
DATENAME(DD, @Datetime))
RETURN@StringDateEND
This is a very traditional case of bad code: "we replace a built in function with our own, but badly". Because they're eschewing the built in CONVERT, they have to mix DATENAME calls (which return textual representations of dates) with DATEPART calls (which return numeric representations of dates). All the DATEPART calls need to get CONVERTed to text, and they also have to get padded back out.
And then there's the stray case where they enforce a collation on the input string, which I have no idea why they deed to do it there but nowhere else, and I don't think they knew either.
Now, you may be shocked to learn, the addition of this function did nothing to improve performance. In fact, performance got worse. Don't worry, the senior developer who wrote this function knew the root cause: something Clara did, obviously. And the senior dev set about trying to remove as much of Clara's code as possible, so that they could continue to "improve" the performance of the database.
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I’ve been trying to get this 1CC for a while now. And now I got it! Havin a good ******* night and I just wanted to share the good vibes cause this ******* challenge was way harder than I thought it was gonna be. That final level is brutal even when you know what you’re doing.
“This photo of my 6 month old brother, taken on my second birthday. Apparently my siblings thought it would be hilarious to tie balloons to all of his limbs and my parents were just like, ‘whatever.’ He was the eighth child.”
Texas Governor launches buoys project to keep out immigrants, tenders tutorial on history of immigration.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has launched a spirited offensive to prevent immigrants from breaching the boundaries separating Mexico from Texas. Last June 8, upon passage of necessary legislation by the Texas legislature, Abbott announced plans to install strings of buoys in high-traffic areas of the Rio Grande River, the body of water which is contiguous with Texas and Mexico.
Abbott: “We just need to sell more of them little porcelain Alamo figurines.”
So far, only one 1000 ft. string of large orange buoys has been deployed, near Eagle Pass. The Rio Grande extends for 1,885 miles, which would make the project, at $1 million dollars per installment, cost on the order of $12 billion.
“Not a problem,” said Abbott, speaking to the press from the state house in Austin. “We just need to sell more of them little porcelain Alamo figurines.”
Critical reaction has been pointed. U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar and seven like-minded Democrats sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, questioning if the anti-immigration effort may conflict with international law. “Abbott is using dangerous and inhumane practices which intimidate, endanger and hurt immigrants and their families,” charged Escobar.
A spokesperson from Abbott’s office dismissed such remarks as “Spic talk.” Critics of the program have been many. Former Rep. Beta O’Rourke called the governor a “feckless asshole,” and Rep. Joaquin Castro described the buoys as “drowning devices.”
Abbott responded to criticism by describing the buoys as “pretty, large, round, solid-plastic balls that are fixed to the river bed.” They are also festooned with razor wire and draped with netting — to prevent wily immigrants from crawling under the obstacles. He said that they will merely “bolster measures already long in use.”
Critics decry the measure as “cruel and inhumane,” citing instances in which infants and babies have been pushed back into the water by border patrol personnel, and at least one case in which a pregnant woman miscarried after becoming entangled in the razor wire. “Look at it this way,” replied the Governor. his eyes crinkling in a smile, “we got rid of at least one faux natural-born citizen. Nip it in the bud, I say,” he declared.
Texas Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, hand-picked by Abbott for his position, remarked that the system of buoys was “more effective than the measures incorporated during the previous administration,” which involved parolees and trustees from Texas penal institutions, outfitted in small water craft, and forcibly holding immigrants beneath the water of the Rio Grande.
Abbott was candid about his objectives: “My hope is that the possibility of death will deter persons from trying to enter our state.” When asked by reporters whether there were more subtle means by which the same objective could be reached, Abbott replied, “Yes, a 30.06 to the brain is equally effective, but the high cost of bullets necessarily places such measures in the background.”
While addressing the press, Governor Abbott gave a short tutorial on immigration in the United States. “The United States,” said Abbott, “has seen more immigrants than any nation on earth. Between 1783 and 2019, more than eighty six million immigrants have crossed our shores. Legislative action taken against immigration is no stranger to this country, either.
“Modern anti-immigrant action began in 1882 with the Chinese Exclusion Act. Economic-downturn in China, the Opium Wars, and new economic opportunities due to the Gold Rush and construction of the Continental Railroad accounted for four million Chinese immigrants betwen 1850 and 1882. Alarm at increased competition for jobs, natural xenophobia, and the understandable Caucasian annoyance with slanted eyes, led to this needed legislation.
“In 1942, in the shadow of WWII, Executive Order 9066 was implemented by President Franklin Roosevelt, resulting in stripping Japanese American citizens of their rights, and their internment in prison camps. Served them right, you ask me, the damned little squint eyes.
“At the same time, the so-called Bracero (Spanish for laborer) was enacted, whereby Mexicans were recruited to perform agricultural tasks in the United States. In all, some four million braceros were so employed. After the program ended, braceros were henceforth known, as they are today, as “wetbacks.”
“In 1965 the Celler Immigration Act was enacted, whereby immigrants of nationalities other than Western European or British were encouraged to immigrate. As a result, individuals came over from Asia, Africa and Latin America; and there you have your shithole countries.
“That pretty much brings us up to date, if you discount DACA and Dreamers and all that shit. Now, let me be clear: I’ve nothing against beaners. I don’t care how greasy they are. As a noted American statesman once said, when Mexicans immigrate. “they only send the murderers, the thieves, the rapists. And I’m damn sure going to keep them out!”
Bill Tope is a retired (caseworker, cook, construction worker, nude model for art classes, and so on) who lives with his mean little cat Baby.
American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey was recently spotted wearing a uniform and working a shift at a Waffle House in Alabama for reasons still unknown. What do you think?
“A true multi-hyphenate.”
Kelly Hamlin, Greeting Card Consultant
Federal Reserve Calls For More Poverty
“Well, I’m sure she has some perfectly offensive reason for it.”
Chris Tubbs, Unemployed
“Maybe one day she’ll be successful enough to wait tables full time.”
Icelandic cartoonist Hugleikur Dagsson perfectly represents “gálgahúmor” which translates from Icelandic as “dark humor” or “gallows humor”. His work is filled with adult themes such as death, sex, and capitalism. Scroll down only if you’re not easily offended social justice warrior!
If this is your kind of humor, we suggest that you check out Hugleikur Dagsson’s books on Amazon. Please note that this site is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. As an Amazon Associate affiliate we earn from qualifying purchases.
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