I guess I can do one of these a day or so. I've collected some novelties over the years.

First up is a Curta mechanical calculator. Before electronic calculators became a thing, these were the best portable calculators in the world. Notably, they were the calculator of choice in rally car sports.

They work by a series of helical gears that act as registers. A series of internal gears and value assignment switches apply an adjustable number of incrementations to those gears, multiplying gears and the tracking gears, once per "grind." The result is output as a number on top of the device. The "clear register" function is lifting the top ring, which releases the reverse lockout on the gears and a clockwise turn on the ring then resets them to their zero state.

They were designed by Curtz Herzstark, partly before WWII and partly while he was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. He had filed a patent for it in 1938, shortly before his family's manufacturey became a weapons factory. During his imprisonment, in addition to nearly starving to death, he completed his plans for manufacturing of his calculator.

It had fun names like the, "pepper grinder," and "math grenade."

A young guy I work with burst into tears today, I had no idea what happened so I tried to comfort him and ask what was up.

It appears his main client had gone nuts with him because they wanted him to make an internet toolbar (think Ask.com) and he politely informed them toolbars doesn't really exist anymore and it wouldn't work on things like modern browsers or mobile devices.

Being given a polite but honest opinion was obviously something the client wasn't used to and knowing the guy was a young and fairly inexperienced, they started throwing very personal insults and asking him exactly what he knows about things (a lot more than them).

So being the big, bold, handsome senior developer I am, I immediately phoned the client back and told them to either come speak to me face-to-face and apologise to him in person or we'd terminate there contract with immediate effect. They're coming down tomorrow...

So part my rant, part a rant on behalf of a young developer who did nothing wrong and was treated like shit, I think we've all been there.

We'll see how this goes! Who the hell wants a toolbar anyway?!

So today after 5 years of working at my current company I decided that enough is enough... I called my boss (while being scared AF) and told him I quit. Now guys I know it is the middle of a pandemic going on right now but I want to focus 100% on my side project and I'm unsure if it will work or not, but it is a dream I want to be able to achieve. Damn it feels awesome to have a community where to say these things

The king is dead!
Long live the kind!

—_(*_*)_—

"The website must be fully compatible with Internet Explorer"
Yeah well that's too fucking bad

EVERYTIME!!

This is what happens when I'm asked to document something.

No doubt 😂

Only pure evil can design a PC case that has reset button same size and shape like USB port and place it next to USB ports.

Found something true as 1 == 1

Finally a guide for understanding if you should use WordPress for your website

*client calls*
"hello, we forgot the password to our WiFi router. Could you reset that for us?"

😐😶😮😅

"We host websites and servers sir, we don't control your router :)"

"Right, i thought so, nevermind!"

Well, that's a new one O.o

🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

Just want to recommend the DevRant stress ball. I wasn't quite sure how to use it (it doesn't come with instructions) but since stuffing mine down the PM's throat my stress level has reduced dramatically.

# Day 0:

Me: "Hey boss, I want to let you know that I need this kind of information from the customer for these features, otherwise I cannot finish the project's milestone in two weeks."

Boss: "OK, just continue as far as you can get. We have to get this finished."

Me: "Well, I cannot go any further for these tickets. I need that input. Shall we leave them in todo?"

Boss: "OK."

# Day 7:

Boss: "Whe didn't you start on these tickets in todo?

Me: "As I have told you, I need some information."

Boss: "We gotta get this out of the door!"

Me: "Yes, if we want to meet the deadline, we should. Yet I cannot guess the feature. Also, let me create a column: `to clarify` and move that ticket there. As I have said: I need that information. You have to contact the customer about it and get their feedback.

Boss: "OK."

# Day 13:

Boss: "Why isn't this project finished? There are still tickets open."

Me: "You never provided the information I asked you about."

Boss: "I want an explanation not an excuses."

Me o_O: "This is the explanation. I was asking you on multiple occasions about the required feedback. You never provided it. See the columns name? It's called `to clarify`. We created it last time together. That clarification never happened even though I told you that I need it. I cannot do magic. I can only implement features, and while I can sometimes make intelligent guesses to their use cases, I rather implement their actual ones than my fictional ones.

Boss: "You should have told me."

Me: ಠ_ಠ

It makes me SO happy when coming across some real neat UI out in the wild! :D :D

(source: https://ticketea.co.uk/users/...)

Well played Allo!

—_😂_—

The bugs have learned to hide

When you SSH into a machine and then SSH back into yours, you know you are drunk.

That's a great bug

A few days ago while browsing devRant, my girlfriend stopped me at this one post and asked why does this person have a rubber duck. I went on to explain her about Rubber Duck Debugging. She was totally amazed by the concept (she's not a techie). Today suddenly a package arrived at my door step from her.

Well now I have an entire family of rubber ducks to code with :D

Me - "Hey, would you like a coffee?"

Linux User - "Let me tell you about Linux."

• Manager : WTF did you push, now it keeps crashing all the servers.

• Me : (silent, I'm trying to speak but nothing is coming out. Felt like someone in coma).

• Someone else shouts at boss : Now we now have 47 major crisis bridges​.

[I went running for the door to get away from everything.]

Only to find myself rolling on the floor tangled in my bedsheets after falling from my bed. Realized it was all but a nightmare.

Went to get some water. While taking the first sip...
Me: Shit, I'm late for work AGAIN.

Running for the door again. Then stopped to think if this is all some fuckin premonition. Hurriedly went for my phone to find out it's nothing but Sunday.

I'm thinking about a career switch now. No more devops once this is over.

Oh yes the timing is impeccable

Here we go

When fixing things:
Linux = be root
Windows = reboot

Umm, Wut?

When your vending machine throws an unhandled exception...