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vghaisas 6 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...

thedufer 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> 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.

an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
dnmc 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Here's another for your collection.

- Putting the car in reverse sets off the neighbor's home security system. https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/7k12fs/neighbors_hous...

kshacker 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Did this get solved? I think I read all the comments from OP but saw no confirmation as to what happened.

3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
foobarbecue 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

jimbob45 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

- We can’t send an email more than 500 miles

https://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles

whatever1 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The vanilla story is insane!

zerocrates an hour ago | parent [-]

It's not real, but it's still a fine story.

LoganDark 40 minutes ago | parent [-]

How do you know?

zerocrates 5 minutes ago | parent [-]

It's an urban legend that's floated around in various forms: in some it's an ice cream parlor rather than a store and they pack the vanilla faster, in some it's only the vanilla that gets hand-packed so it takes longer, it's pistachio that takes longer and triggers the problem.

Snopes covered this one and they cite to an urban legends book from 1989: "Curses, Broiled Again" by Jan Harold Brunvand. Brunvand prints the "vanilla takes longer" version and reports also having a "pistachio takes longer" version printed in a magazine in 1978, which itself referred to another magazine as its source. In the book's version it's a Texas car dealer who's looking into the problem. The same author's later book from 1999 covers the story again and includes versions dating back further, plus a 1992 version which is this one where it's Pontiac and the problem is the vanilla being in a separate case at the front of the store.

Maybe there's some kernel of a true story in there, but if so it's probably a pretty small kernel. Anyway it doesn't matter much: it's just a fun story that teaches a little lesson so people like to share it around.