Tuesday, January 24, 2012

How long?

Microsoft file copy progress window, showing a progress bar stuck at 98% and the text 'About 0 seconds remaining.'

Long enough to blink at for a while, and then find the Alt and PrtScr keys with barely a quarter-cup of coffee inside me, at least.

In Microsoft's defense, I understand they patented the zero late last century, so I suppose they can redefine it to mean anything they want.

8 comments:

Jack said...

Note that it says "*about* 0 seconds remain."

Also, too, the dialog claims to show the time until the file is moved ... not the time until the dialog goes away. ;-D

bjkeefe said...

Spoken like a true Microsoft fanboi!

;)

bjkeefe said...

P.S. Hey, how are you commenting here? I thought you couldn't see the CAPTCHA images. Sorry I had to reenable those, btw, but it was getting to be a nuisance without them, Blogger/Google's fine filtering notwithstanding.

bjkeefe said...

Speaking of "about," I'm reminded of one of my favorite number-nerd stories ever: As you may already know, Julian Schwinger was, among other things, a master pontificator, even when only compared to other Nobel Prize-winning physicists. I read somewhere that his grad students liked to imitate him, and one of their perennial chestnuts was, "Here, we can effectively regard 1 as 0."

Jack said...

LOL! Bastard...

How am I commenting? With my FINGERS?!? But seriously, I'm working from home this afternoon. So I can, you know, comment on your blog and stuff.

Actually, I think the use of "about" in this context makes the dialog more absurd, not less. NTBUSTAB, it's sort of like Data saying that the Enterprise will reach some star system in "approximately 43 days, 17 hours, 26 minutes, and 11 seconds."

bjkeefe said...

LOL! Exactly.

Glad you got off the trireme for one afternoon, at least, even if you're still giving most of your brain cycles to The Man.

bjkeefe said...

BTW, in case you haven't sent that lexical aid to everybody else …

Jack said...

Heh, what a great Far Side. *Printing off to post at work*

Also, thanks for the link to the lexical aid. I still literally LOL every time I see that.

ShareThis