Comment On Please Turn to Page F%

Wooden table for the win. Looks like someone printed that page out of sequence.

% is capital 5. Everyone knows this!

maybe it's cussing! disgruntled newspaper employees?

Wow. A Typo in the newspaper. Stop the presses...

Pretty lameo....

Maybe the lack of good WTF's is really a good thing. Perhaps it's an indication that we as a society are moving forward? Just looking for the silver lining....

captcha: waffles

Welbog:

% is capital 5. Everyone knows this!

Hmm. Good point. Does that mean this paper puts page numbers in manually? Yeesh.

Hit:

Welbog:

% is capital 5. Everyone knows this!

Hmm. Good point. Does that mean this paper puts page numbers in manually? Yeesh.

Everyone knows that enumeration is best done by humans! Computers can't be trusted to count in sequence.

The WTF here is that it's a manual entry. Someone held down Shift while typing the F5. I'm surprised they don't have layout software that controls page numbering, etc. I'd hate to see the amount of work they would have to do if they added or removed a full article.

Trying to follow news and current events the old-fashioned way is not so easy.

Yeah, but they don't make you turn off your newspaper for ten minutes while your plane is taking off and climbing to altitude.

ITYM "teh win".

That looks a lot like the Ottawa Citizen... hmm...

Analog media like “newspapers”

I've wondered for a while, is analog the opposite of digital? I thought analog described things that could vary continually, as opposed to discrete digital values. So I would say that watches with rotating hands are analog, film cameras are maybe analog... but newspapers? I don't think so.

Yeah, I'm picky. But I like I said, I've wondered this for a while.

Now I'm reminded of the time I was reading the newspaper. There was an article on page B6, and at the bottom, it said, "Continued on B6".

And no, the article wasn't an infinite loop.

It's an SQL wildcard. You can substitute the advertisement for any other page in section F.

Analog has two definitions:
1. Something that bears an analogy to something else: Surimi is marketed as an analogue of crabmeat.
2. Of or pertaining to a mechanism that represents data by measurement of a continuous physical variable, as voltage or pressure.

Analogous (Analogy):
A form of logical inference or an instance of it, based on the assumption that if two things are known to be alike in some respects, then they must be alike in other respects.


So perhaps he's asking if you've ever tried to read a print newspaper, that bears an anology to electronic newspapers?

Yes, that must be it. There is no way that the author would mis-use a technology term: THAT would be a real WTF

The Fox:

Analog media like “newspapers”

I've wondered for a while, is analog the opposite of digital? I thought analog described things that could vary continually, as opposed to discrete digital values. So I would say that watches with rotating hands are analog, film cameras are maybe analog... but newspapers? I don't think so.

Yeah, I'm picky. But I like I said, I've wondered this for a while.

Interesting observation... Consider the analog computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer

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Welbog:

% is capital 5. Everyone knows this!

Hmm. Good point. Does that mean this paper puts page numbers in manually? Yeesh.

Many years ago, when I was much younger and had yet to write a program with a 4-digit line count, I knew that people used computers to lay out newspapers and I believed that this had to be fantastically sophisticated stuff to implement all the zillions of little rules a newspaper follows--and yet at the same time allow all those exceptions to the rules that show up in actual newspapers.

I had seen a university campus with automated newspaper layout software for one of the student newspapers (based on TeX, it did the whole layout from front to back page, even rearranging content in the middle of the paper according to editorial style rules and splitting long articles automatically), had been suitably impressed, and assumed that the industry at large worked this way. Boy was I wrong.

Now I know better--to a typical newspaper's staff, a computer is little more than digital scissors and glue, and a system which allows article text to be emailed around the office. I wouldn't be surprised now to learn that the date was manually entered on every page along with the page number. After all, it's *tomorrow's* date that has to appear on the page, so a simple $DATE() macro won't work.

This is not rare in the local newspaper on my city. Sometimes you get two pages numbered with 6, (so you have the sequence 6, 7, 6, 9, ...).

Heck, even Word does auto page numbering, so why wouldn't DTP software or whatever they use do it?

I work for a large media company that publishes over 100 newspapers. I am the senior programmer for the division that publishes phone directories, so I don't deal directly with newspaper layout, but I do deal directly with phone directory layout and pagination.

I can tell you for certain that advanced software is in common use that takes a generic layout model and automatically drops in articles, ads, forwarders ("continued on page 7") and everything else you see. It's quite rare that a major newspaper would contain an error involving something the layout and pagination software does.

However, I also know for a fact that at least one of our phone book competitors manually types in each and every phone listing and each advertisement. I think pages are numbered automatically, but it wouldn't surprise me if they weren't.

I don't doubt that some newspapers also still do layout this way.

shakin:

However, I also know for a fact that at least one of our phone book competitors manually types in each and every phone listing and each advertisement. I think pages are numbered automatically, but it wouldn't surprise me if they weren't.

I don't doubt that some newspapers also still do layout this way.

Tell them I can get them a great deal on a truckload of monkeys that will do it cheaper than the current staff. They've already typed up Shakespeare, so I'm sure a phone book would be no problem.

I work for a newspaper.

We use Quark XPress for page layout, and every page number and date is entered manually on each page.

A separate file is made for each page or small set of related pages (like if a page overflows to a second page, those two will be created in the same XPress file).

Pages are sometimes made on the same day they are distributed, the day before, or occassionally as far as a week before distribution.

While there might be a better system (for example, clicking a day on a calendar when creating a file, so it can enter the right date on all the included pages), there's really no way to have automated page numbering without significant change in everyone's jobs--including multiple departments (advertising, news, and layout).

So yeah, these sorts of erros can occur--but usually the proofreaders catch them before the make it to paper.

And analog is an inappropriate term for newsprint. Static could work, though.

It's a type-declaration character. Maybe on this page F = 5.

The real WTF is that they didn't use the F5 key to type the page number.

I have a high school year book that has an index to allow someone looking at the book to find the page that a certain individual is pictured on. The problem: none of the pages have page numbers. Whoops!

el jaybird:

That looks a lot like the Ottawa Citizen... hmm...

I was thinking the very same thing...

jejeje... he/she pressed Shift + F + 5

I think this should be done automagically. Guess not. Anyway, today captcha is "tacos" now i'm hungry... damn you captchas!

This wtf is bogus!

Logitech is just trying to get some free advertising on a popular tech site!

... "nice" logitech ...

el jaybird:

That looks a lot like the Ottawa Citizen... hmm...

Wow, good eye:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/technology/index.html?pubdate=2007/03/29
Scroll down to page f05...or should I say, f%

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Welbog:

% is capital 5. Everyone knows this!

Hmm. Good point. Does that mean this paper puts page numbers in manually? Yeesh.

Answer: Yes. the pages are manually numbered, manually formatted, and sent to a fancy printer that either prints them to film which is then litho'd on to a metal plate (or the page can be sent directly to plate, but this is expensive if there are any errors), which is then stuck to a massive press, which churns out thousands and thousands of copies.

The process is a MASSIVE pain in the ass, and relies on a good number of zero downtime computer systems.

All that being said, when the hell did a typo become a WTF? If it's a wtf just because it made it into a newspaper, man I could fill this site for about a thousand years.

Bill Thornton:

So yeah, these sorts of erros can occur--but usually the proofreaders catch them before the make it to paper.

The best comedy is unintentional.

My favorite is when small-circulation papers cut-and-paste out of Microsoft Word into a non-Unicode-compliant program and end up with a sentence like this:

?I?m sorry, we?re not able to comment at this time,? said Mr. Smith?s press secretary.

The same problem occurs with accented letters sometimes. So often, it feels like d?j? vu all over again.

Zygo:

Now I know better--to a typical newspaper's staff, a computer is little more than digital scissors and glue, and a system which allows article text to be emailed around the office. I wouldn't be surprised now to learn that the date was manually entered on every page along with the page number. After all, it's *tomorrow's* date that has to appear on the page, so a simple $DATE() macro won't work.

You have no idea. After working as a web contractor with a well-known Canadian national media conglomerate with newspapers in several cities ... you are right on the money. In fact, today (at least as of November 2006), one of these offices is running on Windows98!

Hi, I am the submitter. Yes, it's from the Ottawa Citizen, no the error isn't found online and yes, it's a picture of it on a (dark) wooden table, printed (in colour) then scanned in again. Unfortunately, I think my picture, printout and scan were of too high quality and thus you can't really tell. Sorry. Maybe next time I'll use a 1 megapixel camera, a dot-matrix printer and a parallel port Fisher Price iKanScan.

Also posted on my blog: http://oliiscool.blogspot.com/2007/04/please-turn-to-page-f.html

Cheers,
- Oli

Bill Thornton:

So yeah, these sorts of erros can occur--but usually the proofreaders catch them before the make it to paper.

Priceless.

-Harrow.

Bill Thornton:

I work for a newspaper.

We use Quark XPress for page layout, and every page number and date is entered manually on each page.

For perspective, we have one of the top 100 circulations in the U.S.

(As for "erros" and other typos, like I said--the proofreaders usually catch that stuff.)

Satanicpuppy:

All that being said, when the hell did a typo become a WTF?

You seem to be unfamiliar with the "Error'd" series that runs a few days a week. Error'd was specifically designed for one-off typoes, simple web glitches (NaN degrees, etc.), and things of that nature. They're supposed to be small, to the point, and rather uncomplicated.

I really hope that someday people will figure this out.

The real WTF is that they are using floats for a page number.

Jeff Bell:

The real WTF is that they are using floats for a page number.

The real WTF would be mixing up "%f" and "F%" in your format string. printf indeed.

The Fox:

Analog media like “newspapers”

I've wondered for a while, is analog the opposite of digital? I thought analog described things that could vary continually, as opposed to discrete digital values. So I would say that watches with rotating hands are analog, film cameras are maybe analog... but newspapers? I don't think so.

Assuming that some kind of dot-based printing system is used, the data storage mechanism of newspapers is digital, at least as much as computers. Unless you view "the data" as an image of the desired layout and point out that it still varies more or less continuously according to the desired image. What should "the data" be considered for text? I don't think you can really say that it varies continuously, so it must be digital regardless of medium.

Is a watch with 60 discrete second/minute/hour-hand positions analog or digital? I suppose analog, because it still varies according to ? = kt or somesuch, whereas the transition from 00 to 01 or whatever on a digital watch is not simply a change in some simple physical measurement.

Is a printed picture an analog representation of an image? Yes, it varies more or less continuously according to the image (5% increase in the image's brightness -> n% increase in picture's reflectivity, or whatever). I guess that part of the newspaper is analog, at least. But then, so is the same on a computer monitor. But probably not in memory. 5% increase in the image's brightness -> n% increase in total voltage over the corresponding area, though, surely, if it's uncompressed, because you get more 1's?

Uh . . . let's just take "analog" and "digital" as approximate terms, I guess.

Simetrical:

Assuming that some kind of dot-based printing system is used, the data storage mechanism of newspapers is digital, at least as much as computers.

That's an excellent point. While our eyes perceive a full range of colors, it's really a discrete combination of four different colors.

On the analog-vs-digital (when they mean noncomputer-vs-computer) I report this little dialog:

Annoying Geek's Aunt: Is the clock battery or electric?

Annoying Geek: Auntie, batteries *are* electric.

Aunt: Aaawwwwwww! You know what I mean!

Analogue clocks operate by drawing an analogy between the periodicity in the passage of days and the periodicity in the behaviour of a rotating shaft. And while digital clocks (of the wristwatch and bedside table variety, at least) have vibrating quartz oscillators buried inside them, they don't care about the precise nature of those movements (in the way that an analogue clock cares about the precise position of its moving parts), all it cares about is counting those oscillations.

(Which is why of course you can have digital clocks with analogue displays - the display is analogous to that of an analogue clock....)

I read an article a while ago, that I should have sent in. A whole page article on a disasterous plane crash, all died, horrible etc. bottom corner had an ad for a discount travel agency.
d'oh!
:)

I read an article a while ago, that I should have sent in. A whole page article on a disasterous plane crash, all died, horrible etc. bottom corner had an ad for a discount travel agency.
d'oh!
:)

Zemyla:

Now I'm reminded of the time I was reading the newspaper. There was an article on page B6, and at the bottom, it said, "Continued on B6".

Is that referring to just another column on that page?

Zemyla:

And no, the article wasn't an infinite loop.

Then, is it "1 Infinite Loop"? ;D

The Fox:

Analog media like “newspapers”

I've wondered for a while, is analog the opposite of digital?

For newspapers, books and the like, I'd rather say "physical"/"paper" vs. "electronic"/"online".

edit: there should be a quote here about someone talking about four descrete colors or something like that
edit2: found it
That's an excellent point. While our eyes perceive a full range of colors, it's really a discrete combination of four different colors.

Ehm, it's not descrete, colors are perceived using three continuous functions. (from the S,M,L cones)

Then you have the rods that can only see light/dark, which are more sensitive, and thus, "take over" in the dark. (I think that's why, in the dark, everything looks black-and-white)

D2oris:

Ehm, it's not descrete, colors are perceived using three continuous functions. (from the S,M,L cones)

Then you have the rods that can only see light/dark, which are more sensitive, and thus, "take over" in the dark. (I think that's why, in the dark, everything looks black-and-white)

I wasn't referring to how the eyes work, but rather how the paper is printed.

hmm... is there a reason why it is F(number)?

here in europe the newspaper usually are just numbered 1,2,3,4.... without a letter (at least the ones i know/read)

AbbydonKrafts:

The WTF here is that it's a manual entry. Someone held down Shift while typing the F5. I'm surprised they don't have layout software that controls page numbering, etc. I'd hate to see the amount of work they would have to do if they added or removed a full article.

We all know that you better handle memory allocation and page numbering manually.


Oops, did't forget the sarcasm tags? Then here they are <sarcasm state='on'></sarcasm>

betlit:

hmm... is there a reason why it is F(number)?

here in europe the newspaper usually are just numbered 1,2,3,4.... without a letter (at least the ones i know/read)

Big newspapers (in the U.S. at least) are often split up into sections (Front Page, Local, Arts, Sports, etc.) each of which has a letter, and the numbers usually start at 1 again with each section. So page F4 is the fourth page in section F.