Comment by vghaisas

11 hours ago

I've collected a list of fun stories of this form and post them when this comes up:

- Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt

- Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p...

- OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...

15 comments

vghaisas

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thedufer  11 hours ago

> Can't log in when standing up

This reminds me of a recent issue I had. I had just gotten a new laptop from IT. While picking it up from them, I had generated myself a password, put it in my password manager on my phone, and then entered it twice to set it on the laptop. Everything worked great. But when I got back to my desk, the password didn't work! I tried a bunch of times, watched myself hit each key to eliminate typos, etc.

I went back to IT and they asked me to demonstrate. But this time it worked! I walked back to my desk, thoroughly embarrassed. But a couple hours later I had to log in again and once again could not.

After thinking about it for awhile, I realized that I was typing at IT while standing over a sitting-height desk. Sure enough, typing in that position fixed my issue. I carefully watched what I was doing this time - something about the exact layout of the keyboard and the weird angle I was typing at ensured that I was making a particular typo I typed in that position - just a single letter switched to another, every time. Sure enough, making that one substitution to my intended password got me in.

  • joncrocks  1 hour ago

    It's worth noting that sometimes (incorrect) keyboard maps can get in the way.

    If it's a key that you may not often type and one that is often transposed between regions, the fact that the entered char is not shown can lead to frustration.

    e.g. " and @ are in different positions in UK vs. US keyboards. So user thinks they are typing @, but " goes into the box.

    • eptcyka  1 hour ago

      No, that is why passwords are alphanumerical, keep your #€{*\$<€$<¥]+]!,’ to yourself.

foobarbecue  8 hours ago

Ok I swear I had a printer that would do some kind of internal cleaning noise thing every time I plugged something else in to a 120v outlet anywhere in the same apartment. I never really tried to figure it out.