Comment On Protocol Droid Processing

Frist. Sorry for the inconvenience.

captcha: ullamcorper

I guess Ben should have believed it when he was told that he'd have to give 110%.

This is what we've come to? Mocking explanatory, informative error messages? Sad.

--- Mr. DOS

"When shopping at the local super market for a cheap diner and a movie," Stefan Thoolen wrote, "I noticed very weird Ajam stuff!"

Ahh you must have been trying to share some data via SSDS and were jamming it.

Which one was informative?

Surely the information was on the shopping channel because it's the one that no-one cares if they interrupt its programming with a severe weather warning? God forbid they interrupt Angsty Teen Vampires 3 or the Sportland Sports match to tell people their houses are about to be struck by lightning and washed away.

Captcha: has a letter descender missing off the bottom of the image so I can't tell if it's a q or a g.

Did anyone notice that page 1 of 2 in the Weather Alert one. I guess they want you to go up a channel to see the rest of it?

TRWTF on the receipt being that for a bill of €8.43, it's only giving €1.55 change ("terug") from a €10 note tendered.

Actually. That's correct. The supermarkets here (The Netherlands) round the total to €0.05 so that they don't have to handle 1 and 2 cent coins.

My guess is that it was written with a french e aigu (Saté Ayam).

"When shopping at the local super market for a cheap diner and a movie," Stefan Thoolen wrote, "I noticed very weird Ajam stuff!"

TRWTF is that they were trying to buy a diner at the super market. Clearly a commercial real estate agent would have been the best solution to this problem.

This is really, really lame. C3P0 is a widely-used JDBC connection pool; I'd think most people here would know that. The Audacity and Blueberry Garden error messages are perfectly reasonable and informative. And regarding the receipt, I don't even know what the hell we're supposed to be looking at -- it's not in English, there's no translation. Is it that one funny-looking character? For all we know, that's the word for "fuckwad" in whatever language we're gaping at. Are we supposed to attach some special significance to the word "Ajam?" Given that all the other crap on the receipt is just as meaningless, it says nothing. Bullshit.

Andreas:

My guess is that it was written with a french e aigu (Saté Ayam).

I live in Québec and French is our main language and I see these wierd characters replacing accentuated letters all the time on purchase receipts.

Wouter:

Actually. That's correct. The supermarkets here (The Netherlands) round the total to €0.05 so that they don't have to handle 1 and 2 cent coins.

Lazy goits.

It may be common practice, and it may be that statistically the expected outage is near-zero, but it's not correct. I'm sure there's a Superman III job in there somewhere - pay amounts that would be rounded down with cash, those that would be rounded up with a card, etc.

Apparently in comments too.

Captcha: vereor. Latin for being afraid, as in I'm afraid to see the next Error'd

And why are some of the prices on the receipt randomly grayed out?

Home Shopper:

Surely the information was on the shopping channel because it's the one that no-one cares if they interrupt its programming with a severe weather warning? God forbid they interrupt Angsty Teen Vampires 3 or the Sportland Sports match to tell people their houses are about to be struck by lightning and washed away

In my town, a stiff breeze is enought to interupt the audio on every freaking channel with a recorded message and big flashing banner cross the screen on every freaking channel. On every freaking channel. Stiff breeze.

I have satellite now.

sorry...I only speak America...please keep your crazy moon man language receipts to yourself.

It may be common practice, and it may be that statistically the expected outage is near-zero, but it's not correct. I'm sure there's a Superman III job in there somewhere - pay amounts that would be rounded down with cash, those that would be rounded up with a card, etc.

It's never been any different. I'm Dutch, btw. The last instance of the Dutch currency before the EUR also didn't have cent pieces. Prices that were rounded to the nearest 5 cent number, both up and down.
With the introduction of the Euro in 2002 (for cash) there was a brief period where 0,01 and 0,02 euro coins were accepted but it required far too much handling for stores that handled cash money. So at least Holland and many European countries reverted to 5 cent increments, even in countries that had used cents in their currency before.

It still takes me some 10 to 15 seconds to find/count any amount of small change in Euros, a process I could do instantly with the previous currency.

Anonymous Cow-Herd:

Wouter:

Actually. That's correct. The supermarkets here (The Netherlands) round the total to €0.05 so that they don't have to handle 1 and 2 cent coins.

Lazy goits.

It may be common practice, and it may be that statistically the expected outage is near-zero, but it's not correct. I'm sure there's a Superman III job in there somewhere - pay amounts that would be rounded down with cash, those that would be rounded up with a card, etc.

It has nothing to do with lazy and everything to do with costs involved in processing the worthless change bits. The usual policy of places that do this is to round 1 and 2 down, 4 and 5 up and 3 in whichever direction is advantageous to the customer. (If applied to total prices round down; if applied to change, round up.) Thus it actually, in the long haul, costs the businesses who do this and yet they find that it saves them money over the expense of counting, rolling, transporting and otherwise processing the smaller denomination coins.

This is really, really lame. C3P0 is a widely-used JDBC connection pool; I'd think most people here would know that. The Audacity and Blueberry Garden error messages are perfectly reasonable and informative. And regarding the receipt, I don't even know what the hell we're supposed to be looking at -- it's not in English, there's no translation. Is it that one funny-looking character? For all we know, that's the word for "fuckwad" in whatever language we're gaping at. Are we supposed to attach some special significance to the word "Ajam?" Given that all the other crap on the receipt is just as meaningless, it says nothing. Bullshit.

You shouldn't drink so much coffee :) Relax...

Wouter:

Actually. That's correct. The supermarkets here (The Netherlands) round the total to €0.05 so that they don't have to handle 1 and 2 cent coins.

And that is TRWTF.

Xanthus179:

And why are some of the prices on the receipt randomly grayed out?

Because those numbers are not prices but 'personal numbers' that can be linked to the customer.

OMG:

This is really, really lame. C3P0 is a widely-used JDBC connection pool; I'd think most people here would know that. The Audacity and Blueberry Garden error messages are perfectly reasonable and informative. And regarding the receipt, I don't even know what the hell we're supposed to be looking at -- it's not in English, there's no translation. Is it that one funny-looking character? For all we know, that's the word for "fuckwad" in whatever language we're gaping at. Are we supposed to attach some special significance to the word "Ajam?" Given that all the other crap on the receipt is just as meaningless, it says nothing. Bullshit.

Why would I know that C3P0 is something to do with JDBC? I've been programming professionally, mostly, for twenty years, and I've never used JDBC even once.

The Audacity and Blueberry Garden error messages may mean something to the typical TDWTF reader, but to most users, they are saying that their fleen has been ogglefloggled, and opening up that kind of detail (look, I didn't even know I had a fleen, OK?) to random users is pointless. Heck, for some people, the Windows "ApplicationX has encountered an error and will close" message is too much, even though these people are perfectly capable of operating dangerous machinery such as cars, circular saws, and electric can openers. There is no easy solution to this problem, but keeping your opinion of the user's fleen to yourself is probably a good idea.

The receipt is in *Dutch*, and if you can't see that the WTF is the IBM PC Linedraw character in the middle, get your eyes tested.

Third attempt

I know it's in Dutch, but isn't it kind of obvious that "BONUS NR" might mean "Bonus Number" and "AIR MILES NR" might mean "Air Miles Number" (what we call Frequent Flyer Number in the US) ? That is, personally identifying information that the poster might not want to put on the internet...

The real WTF is that somebody has the guts to call that a dinner (even if he can admit its on the goedekoop side).

Wouter:

Actually. That's correct. The supermarkets here (The Netherlands) round the total to €0.05 so that they don't have to handle 1 and 2 cent coins.

Well, there's TRWTF. The store just stole 2 cents from the customer because small coins are too much hassle for them.
If 1 and 2 cents coins are too much trouble, then W(hy)TF do they use prices such as 3.19 and 3.89. Just make them 3.20 and 3.90 and the problem goes away completely.

Home Shopper:

God forbid they interrupt Angsty Teen Vampires 3 or the Sportland Sports match to tell people their houses are about to be struck by lightning and washed away.

If I was watching Angsty Vampires 3 I'd be grateful for any interruption. 1 & 2 were great but they really jumped the shark with 3

MichaelWH:

Anonymous Cow-Herd:

It may be common practice, and it may be that statistically the expected outage is near-zero, but it's not correct. I'm sure there's a Superman III job in there somewhere - pay amounts that would be rounded down with cash, those that would be rounded up with a card, etc.

It has nothing to do with lazy and everything to do with costs involved in processing the worthless change bits. The usual policy of places that do this is to round 1 and 2 down, 4 and 5 up and 3 in whichever direction is advantageous to the customer. (If applied to total prices round down; if applied to change, round up.) Thus it actually, in the long haul, costs the businesses who do this and yet they find that it saves them money over the expense of counting, rolling, transporting and otherwise processing the smaller denomination coins.

Actually this is almost right.

1,2 round down.
3,4 round up.

5 doesn't need to be rounded as it is already round,
I leave the cases 6-9 as an exercise for the reader.

It shouldn't cost anyone in the long run. However, you could even try to do your purchasing to get those extra little coins.

Most people tend to pay with little plastic cards however (not credit cards though, its all debit here). They don't round for electronic transactions.

TRWTF is that even if you are paying with a debit card the cashier will tell you the rounded price. You can't see that on a receipt unfortunately, but I would think you could deduce that from random fluctuations in the ether.

Oh and they do claim it saves money. Which may even be true. Of course, it saves them even more if you don't pay with cash at all. The question is are the savings passed on?

No stealing involved. Next time around, you'll get 2 cents more if the rounding works in your favour. It all balances out in the end. I wish they'd do the same here in the US.

OMG:

This is really, really lame. C3P0 is a widely-used JDBC connection pool; I'd think most people here would know that. The Audacity and Blueberry Garden error messages are perfectly reasonable and informative. And regarding the receipt, I don't even know what the hell we're supposed to be looking at -- it's not in English, there's no translation. Is it that one funny-looking character? For all we know, that's the word for "fuckwad" in whatever language we're gaping at. Are we supposed to attach some special significance to the word "Ajam?" Given that all the other crap on the receipt is just as meaningless, it says nothing. Bullshit.

Have you finished now? Have a sit down with nice cup of tea and try to calm down.

MichaelWH:

The usual policy of places that do this is to round 1 and 2 down, 4 and 5 up and 3 in whichever direction is advantageous to the customer.

ITYM 1 and 2 down, 3 and 4 up. 5 MOD 5 == 0

Thus it actually, in the long haul, costs the businesses who do this and yet they find that it saves them money over the expense of counting, rolling, transporting and otherwise processing the smaller denomination coins.

Again, lazy goits that can't be arsed to count their money properly. In many other places that have adopted Swedish rounding, the coins concerned have gone away. Australia lost its 1c and 2c coins in 1992. New Zealand abolished 5c in 2006. Otherwise, the mint still produces them, and the banks still have to handle them. If you're not going to use the small value coins, abolish them. If you're not in a position to abolish them, don't act like they have been. I don't much like the collection of coppers in my pocket, but until HMG decides to abolish them, I've got to live with them.

Anonymous Cow-Herd:

Wouter:

Actually. That's correct. The supermarkets here (The Netherlands) round the total to €0.05 so that they don't have to handle 1 and 2 cent coins.

Lazy goits.

It may be common practice, and it may be that statistically the expected outage is near-zero, but it's not correct. I'm sure there's a Superman III job in there somewhere - pay amounts that would be rounded down with cash, those that would be rounded up with a card, etc.

And you've managed to save a grand total of up to two cents per transaction as compared to doing it consistently one way or the other. Since you don't have millions of transactions to do it with (as with Superman III/Hackers/Office Space/Entrapment/Don't movie writers know any other financial scams?), this is an essentially insignificant amount. Now, if everyone did it... well, it would still be an insignificant amount next to their total profits, and without anyone making any more than a few euros a year by doing so, they've got no reason to go after anyone for it.

And of course, also unlike the generic movie plot, you can't actually make cash that way, all you do is save a couple cents on stuff that you're buying and that they're still making a profit from.

Sorry, I'm with the caffienated comment above.. I don't get what's funny about this "Ajam" stuff.

Steve the Cynic:

OMG:

This is really, really lame. C3P0 is a widely-used JDBC connection pool; I'd think most people here would know that.

Why would I know that C3P0 is something to do with JDBC? I've been programming professionally, mostly, for twenty years, and I've never used JDBC even once.

As long as you keep working with Microsoft tools, you'll never need to worry about it. Would you like an extra chunk of gruel today?

rant64:

It's never been any different. I'm Dutch, btw. The last instance of the Dutch currency before the EUR also didn't have cent pieces. Prices that were rounded to the nearest 5 cent number, both up and down.
With the introduction of the Euro in 2002 (for cash) there was a brief period where 0,01 and 0,02 euro coins were accepted but it required far too much handling for stores that handled cash money. So at least Holland and many European countries reverted to 5 cent increments, even in countries that had used cents in their currency before.

Please come to North America and convince the countries here to do this.

I hate carrying around pennies.

TRWTF is going through the Taco Bell drive through in broad daylight...

(switches to HSN for weather warning)
Huckster: "...and we have only 8 minutes left on this fastastic deal for HSN's own discount flood insurance. Call now!"

OMG:

This is really, really lame. C3P0 is a widely-used JDBC connection pool; I'd think most people here would know that. The Audacity and Blueberry Garden error messages are perfectly reasonable and informative. And regarding the receipt, I don't even know what the hell we're supposed to be looking at -- it's not in English, there's no translation. Is it that one funny-looking character? For all we know, that's the word for "fuckwad" in whatever language we're gaping at. Are we supposed to attach some special significance to the word "Ajam?" Given that all the other crap on the receipt is just as meaningless, it says nothing. Bullshit.

Why? Did container-managed connection pools suddenly vanish? Or have people actually started writing Java desktop apps that use databases?

TRWTF is going through the Taco Hell drive through for, well, anything . . . at any time.

TRWTF are all these people commenting on the C3P0 error who can't frickin' use Google...

http://developer.novell.com/wiki/index.php/GroupWise_C3PO

regeya:

TRWTF are all these people commenting on the C3P0 error

Indeed.

GroupWise supports and uses Custom 3rd Party Objects (like extensions). Should I add a childish giggle about how it is a lot like C-3PO?

Perhaps I should also giggle about how "extensions" are things you can get in your hair, or (according to the spam I receive) other parts of your body...

Anonymous Cow-Herd:

MichaelWH:

The usual policy of places that do this is to round 1 and 2 down, 4 and 5 up and 3 in whichever direction is advantageous to the customer.

ITYM 1 and 2 down, 3 and 4 up. 5 MOD 5 == 0

Thus it actually, in the long haul, costs the businesses who do this and yet they find that it saves them money over the expense of counting, rolling, transporting and otherwise processing the smaller denomination coins.

Again, lazy goits that can't be arsed to count their money properly. In many other places that have adopted Swedish rounding, the coins concerned have gone away. Australia lost its 1c and 2c coins in 1992. New Zealand abolished 5c in 2006. Otherwise, the mint still produces them, and the banks still have to handle them. If you're not going to use the small value coins, abolish them. If you're not in a position to abolish them, don't act like they have been. I don't much like the collection of coppers in my pocket, but until HMG decides to abolish them, I've got to live with them.

I just drop them in the tip jar if one exists, or leave the pennies where someone might find them. I'm glad I don't work in retail, because counting them out all the time would make my blood boil.

I live in the US and I would be glad to see enough retailers adopt this that the whole country could abolish pennies completely. We're getting closer to it, but the ones who entirely ignore pennies are still few and far between.

TarquinWJ:

regeya:

TRWTF are all these people commenting on the C3P0 error

Indeed.

GroupWise supports and uses Custom 3rd Party Objects (like extensions). Should I add a childish giggle about how it is a lot like C-3PO?

Perhaps I should also giggle about how "extensions" are things you can get in your hair, or (according to the spam I receive) other parts of your body...

Damn, since when do so many humorless Aspie nerds come into Error'd threads? Error'd has never been and never will be high-brow programming humor, it's just silly gags and lame mistakes! I love 'em.

Does this mean I can only get home insurance in Oakland MI if I promise to move out by the end of 2036?

When did TDWTF start linking to the sites shown instead of trying to obscure them?

Why is "someone's line printer doesn't handle foreign characters properly" a WTF?

Does the Scandisk come with fries?

Who's going to trust a weather prediction for 35 years in the future when we can't even accurately predict tomorrow?

This article raises a lot of questions.

Slave Programmer Overseer:

Steve the Cynic:

OMG:

This is really, really lame. C3P0 is a widely-used JDBC connection pool; I'd think most people here would know that.

Why would I know that C3P0 is something to do with JDBC? I've been programming professionally, mostly, for twenty years, and I've never used JDBC even once.

As long as you keep working with Microsoft tools, you'll never need to worry about it. Would you like an extra chunk of gruel today?

Oh noes, we's been eaten by a Gruel!

I'm not entirely sure whether the poster is a Microsoft Shill(TM) or a Freetard(TM) or simply somebody who likes swapping sweaty T-shirts with Java fan-boys. Pick one of the three. It doesn't make sense in any case.

FYI: Gruel does not come in lumps.

FYI(2): Only clinically insane people care what cute name is given as the default for a JDBC/Insert Acronym Here connection.

Remember Oracle, all those years ago? I used to think that Scott/Tiger was rather sweet -- after all, I like cats too.

Then I realised that it was just the sign of a hopelessly broken installation process.

C3PO? Get back in the basement and play with your plastic toys, little boy. Come back when you've grown hairs on your chest.

Anon:

Wouter:

Actually. That's correct. The supermarkets here (The Netherlands) round the total to €0.05 so that they don't have to handle 1 and 2 cent coins.

Well, there's TRWTF. The store just stole 2 cents from the customer because small coins are too much hassle for them.
If 1 and 2 cents coins are too much trouble, then W(hy)TF do they use prices such as 3.19 and 3.89. Just make them 3.20 and 3.90 and the problem goes away completely.

What if you buy a now 3.90 item 100 times?
390 euros instead of 389. The store just stole one euro from you.

Also, note that if you actually *ask* for your 1 or 2 cents back, stores are obliged to give them back to you.

Whooptedoo:

Anon:

Wouter:

Actually. That's correct. The supermarkets here (The Netherlands) round the total to €0.05 so that they don't have to handle 1 and 2 cent coins.

Well, there's TRWTF. The store just stole 2 cents from the customer because small coins are too much hassle for them.
If 1 and 2 cents coins are too much trouble, then W(hy)TF do they use prices such as 3.19 and 3.89. Just make them 3.20 and 3.90 and the problem goes away completely.

What if you buy a now 3.90 item 100 times?
390 euros instead of 389. The store just stole one euro from you.

Also, note that if you actually *ask* for your 1 or 2 cents back, stores are obliged to give them back to you.

No they didn't. The price is 3.90 and you paid 3.90 for each and every one of them.

Of course, TO(ther)RWTF is people still using cash.