Protiguous: May 2015

Thursday, May 21, 2015

On being a Healer in World of Warcraft

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Social Security History - Misused Numbers

Social Security Cards Issued by Woolworth
The most misused SSN of all time was (078-05-1120). In 1938, wallet manufacturer the E. H. Ferree company in Lockport, New York decided to promote its product by showing how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets. A sample card, used for display purposes, was inserted in each wallet. Company Vice President and Treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be a clever idea to use the actual SSN of his secretary, Mrs. Hilda Schrader Whitcher.
The wallet was sold by Woolworth stores and other department stores all over the country. Even though the card was only half the size of a real card, was printed all in red, and had the word "specimen" written across the face, many purchasers of the wallet adopted the SSN as their own. In the peak year of 1943, 5,755 people were using Hilda's number. SSA acted to eliminate the problem by voiding the number and publicizing that it was incorrect to use it. (Mrs. Whitcher was given a new number.) However, the number continued to be used for many years. In all, over 40,000 people reported this as their SSN. As late as 1977, 12 people were found to still be using the SSN "issued by Woolworth."
Mrs. Whitcher recalled coming back from lunch one day to find her fellow workers teasing her about her new-found fame. They were singing the refrain from a popular song of the day: "Here comes the million-dollar baby from the five and ten cent store."
Although the snafu gave her a measure of fame, it was mostly a nuisance. The FBI even showed up at her door to ask her about the widespread use of her number. In later years she observed: "They started using the number. They thought it was their own. I can't understand how people can be so stupid. I can't understand that."

Mrs. Whitcher compares the Social Security card "issued by Woolworth" with her own real card of the same number.

The card that started all the fuss!

NOT THE ONLY ONE
The New York wallet manufacturer was not the only one to cause confusion about Social Security numbers. More than a dozen similar cases have occurred over the years--usually when someone publishes a facsimile of an SSN using a made-up number. (The Whitcher case is far and away the worst involving a real SSN and an actual person.)

One embarrassing episode was the fault of the Social Security Board itself. In 1940 the Board published a pamphlet explaining the new program and showing a facsimile of a card on the cover. The card in the illustration used a made-up number of 219-09-9999. Sure enough, in 1962 a woman presented herself to the Provo, Utah Social Security office complaining that her new employer was refusing to accept her old Social Security number--219-09-9999. When it was explained that this could not possibly be her number, she whipped out her copy of the 1940 pamphlet to prove that yes indeed it was her number!

Chuck Norris C# developer humor

C# developer humor - Chuck Norris. Posted by Adam White
These jokes were inspired by this link. I have modified them a bit to apply to the C or C# language.

Chuck Norris can make a class that is both abstract and constant.
Chuck Norris serializes objects straight into human skulls.
Chuck Norris doesn’t deploy web applications, he roundhouse kicks them into the server.
Chuck Norris always uses his own design patterns, and his favorite is the Roundhouse Kick.
Chuck Norris always programs using unsafe code.
Chuck Norris only enumerates roundhouse kicks to the face.
Chuck Norris demonstrated the meaning of float.PositiveInfinity by counting to it, twice.
A lock statement doesn’t protect against Chuck Norris, if he wants the object, he takes it.
Chuck Norris doesn’t use VisualStudio, he codes .NET by using a hex editor on the MSIL.
When someone attempts to use one of Chuck Norris’ deprecated methods, they automatically get a roundhouse kick to the face at compile time.
Chuck Norris never has a bug in his code, without exception!
Chuck Norris doesn’t write code. He stares at a computer screen until he gets the progam he wants.
Code runs faster when Chuck Norris watches it.
Chuck Norris methods don't catch exceptions because no one has the guts to throw any at them.
Chuck Norris will cast a value to any type, just by staring at it.
If you catch { } a ChuckNorrisException, you’ll probably die.
Chuck Norris’s code can roundhouse kick all other classes' privates.
C#'s visibility levels are public, private, protected, and “protected by Chuck Norris”. Don’t try to access a field with this last modifier!
Chuck Norris can divide by 0!
The garbage collector only runs on Chuck Norris code to collect the bodies.
Chuck Norris can execute 64bit length instructions in a 32bit CPU.
To Chuck Norris, all other classes are IDisposable.
Chuck Norris can do multiple inheritance in C#.
MSBuild never throws exceptions to Chuck Norris, not anymore. 753 killed Microsoft engineers is enough.
Chuck Norris doesn’t need unit tests, because his code always work. ALWAYS.
Chuck Norris has been coding in generics since 1.1.
Chuck Norris’ classes can’t be decompiled... don’t bother trying.

Here are some originals:

If you try derive from a Chuck Norris Interface, you'll only get an IRoundhouseKick in-the-face.
Chuck Norris can serialize a dictionary to XML without implementing IXMLSerializable.
Chuck Norris can decompile your assembly by only reading the MSIL.