“My wife has complained that OpenOffice will never print on Tuesdays” (2009)
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderSome years back I had a case where a co-worker complained his mouse didn't work in the afternoon. Eventually I went to have a look, and he demo'ed the issue; sure enough the mouse was completely unresponsive. Luckily I guessed the issue immediately and quicky demonstrated - with a shrug - that the mouse "works fine for me". Thing was I'd spotted there was strong sunlight through the window hitting the mouse; guessing it was probably swamping the optosensors I…
Did this get fixed, 7 years later? Yesterday, we had a story about Microsoft's disk management service using lots of CPU time if the username contained "user". Microsoft's official reply was not to do that. I once found a bug in Coyote Systems' load balancers where, if the USER-AGENT ended with "m", all packets were dropped. They use regular expressions for various rules, and I suspect someone typed "\m" where they meant "\n". Vendor denied problem, even after I submitted…
It's interesting to follow some of abrianb's comments by date: "When I click print I get nothing." -Tuesday, August 5, 2008 "I downloaded those updates and Open Office Still prints." -Friday, August 8, 2008 "Open Office stopped printing today." -Tuesday, August 12, 2008 "I just updated and still print." -Monday, August 18, 2008 "I stand corrected, after a boot cycle Open Office failed to print." -Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I've seen this story before. It was a fun read and there are a few others on this site as well. https://dbrgn.ch/stories-from-the-internet.html
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 3
- Total points
- 1258
- Total comments
- 401
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-08-13 | Ubuntu Bug 255161: Openoffice can’t print on TuesdaysFirst breakout | franze | 244 | 37 |
| 2015-10-22 | “Open Office will never print on Tuesdays” (2009) | progval | 3 | 0 |
| 2016-05-17 | “My wife has complained that OpenOffice will never print on Tuesdays” (2009) | hardmath123 | 419 | 155 |
| 2018-10-21 | OpenOffice can't print on Tuesdays | mohsen1 | 3 | 0 |
| 2018-11-02 | OpenOffice does not print on Tuesdays (2009) | csense | 2 | 1 |
| 2019-01-22 | Open Office will never print on Tuesdays | tosh | 2 | 0 |
| 2019-07-03 | Open office doesn't print on Tuesdays | ethanpil | 2 | 1 |
| 2020-01-27 | “My wife has complained that OpenOffice will never print on Tuesdays” (2009)Hall induction · Best thread · Latest 20+ point return | beshrkayali | 577 | 207 |
| 2021-08-08 | Bug: Open office will never print on Tuesdays (2009) | marcodiego | 1 | 0 |
| 2025-01-01 | Open Office will never print on Tuesdays (2009) | redbell | 3 | 0 |
| 2025-01-12 | OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays (2009) | commandersaki | 2 | 0 |