in a row from your programmers.

“What the hell IS that?”
“OH GOD!”

Generally that means something has just broken your programmers brain.  There are several outcomes though, the best of which may not result in death so it’s not all bad news:

1. The programmer could calm themselves and begin working on a solution
2. The programmer could self-combust from shock
3. The programmer could not so much self-combust as really setting themselves on fire because they no longer wish to exist on this planet
4. The programmer could dig the nearest sharp object into their eyes repeatedly
5. The programmer could become a Marxist revolutionary and begin the reign of the proletariat
6. The programmer could continue screaming and run from the office, never to be seen or heard from again – also, reports just in of a hole opening to the centre of the earth and strange unholy laughter and screaming coming from within
7. The programmer could self-lobotomize in an attempt to clear the incident from their memory
8. The programmer could delete/hang up and ignore the problem, denying all knowledge of the incident and claiming to have been out of the country when it happened
9. The programmer could pass the problem on to an underling/unsuspecting colleague
10. The programmer could log onto his private blog and compose a blog of the things he could do

Some of you may be wondering exactly what might break a programmers head.  In this specific case, it was a maths problem (Yes, it’s plural for me as there’s multiple formulae and calculations. Deal with it) – the problem began with a credit note printed on a receipt where none of the figures totalled correctly.  That is correct, an entire docket where not one total added correctly to the next, and the individual item totals weren’t calculating properly either.  I’d call this an achievement were it not for the fact that after discovering multiple flaws and testing the printout I found that the totals were now correct but all the intermediate totals had now changed to something completely different – and wrong.

I just looked at it and gasped

“What the hell IS that?”
“Oh god…”

And I am typing in a vain attempt to ignore the problem and hope it just goes away forever.  It’s a feature.  It’s supposed to do that.  It’s working as intended.  Our design team uses different maths to the universe.  The customers prefer it this way.  You’ve just done it wrong.  The figures on the screen don’t have to match what comes out on paper, just ignore it.  Have you tried kicking it?  What happens when you press the update button?

My feelings exactly

I found out they made Alan Greenspan a Knight Commander of the British Empire – so therefore in protest I have left the Commonwealth.  I now owe my allegiances solely to the Provincial Leader of Danielistan.

Down with the Empire.

First, you’ll need to install Paint.Net from www.getpaint.net

After that – follow the instructions on the following video (It’s been resized):

http://www.thexdproject.com/flash/

For the full-size version (those of you running high-res might fit it all in):

http://www.thexdproject.com/flash/fullsize.html