• Kuba (unregistered) in reply to Tim
    Tim:
    Not many actual WTFs.

    The cash machine is obviously out of $10 notes. Maybe they should have hidden the fast cash option or changed it to $40, but they were probably too lazy.

    I bet this machine has not seen $10 notes in a long time. There are many ATMs where:

    1. $20 notes were unavailable for the last 4+ years (I personally know of a few).
    2. The fast cash choice took 2-4 years to change to a sensible value.

    If (2) ain't a WTF, then I don't know what is. Nevermind that the code should check whether fast cash value makes sense and either hide it or offer nearest smallest multiple of available bills as an altenative.

    Cheers, Kuba

  • Jeff Grigg (unregistered) in reply to Smash King

    My experience with ATMs has been...

    Some have $20s and $10s. Requests must be a multiple of 10. Asking for $50 gives you two $20s and a $10. ...unless it's out of $20s, in which case you get $10s. This could really annoy me because I'd usually be asking for $200; when I got it in all $10s... Well, it was a "frowny face" day. :-(

    Later, they switched to $20s and $50s. But it's remarkably hard to buy lunch, and other such ordinary things with $50s. So the banks gave up on that, and settled on doing only $20s.

    I'm guessing that the "quick cash" $50 option was a relic of $10 and/or $50 bill options that never got fixed. So it makes "sense," but it's still a WTF. ;->

  • Kuba (unregistered) in reply to JimM
    JimM:
    TRWTF!!:
    The Real WTF is the fact that the ATM is working when his card is clearly in his hand.
    That is the one thing that freaked me out most last time I visited the US - ATMs that make you take your card out again before you do anything. Wierd shit, dude!

    Some people forget their cards in the ATMs. There is no good reason why an ATM should "swallow" the card, so there is really no reason for it to hold on to it. I know that some ATMs will hold the card hostage upon multiple invalid PIN tries or if the card is somehow invalid. I consider it completely unnecessary. Some ATMs in the US have manual "swipe" readers where you swipe the card yourself. I find those to be the best choice -- simple, one less mechanical device to get jammed or malfunction, and the card never leaves my possession.

    Cheers, Kuba

  • Kuba (unregistered) in reply to communist_goatboy
    communist_goatboy:
    [image]

    This is brilliant. It serves two purposes: it keeps out the stupid bots and it keeps out the stupid users.

    I propose that all TDWTF comment post CAPTCHAs now feature vector-calculus problems.

    There is one thing missing from that CAPTCHA: a link to maxima.sf.net. Yeah, I know people in civilized parts of the world should be able to do it while still in high school...

  • Jarvo (unregistered) in reply to Tim

    Actually, the machine might be out of $50 notes.

    ATMs in Australia only carry $20 and $50 notes (and NZ? Not sure about other countries).

  • (cs) in reply to ricecake
    ricecake:
    The keypad matches the lettering system used on American phones. 2=ABC, 3=DEF, ... , 7=PRS, 8=TUV, 9=WXY. There is no 'Q' nor 'Z' due to infrequency of use, so they added them to the 1 button.

    Since the articles are always several hours old by the time I get to work (they are always posted in the middle of the night), I don't expect anyone to read this, but I'm curious: If neither the 1 or the 0 on american phones have any letters on them, how do you create those funny alphabetical phone numbers for numbers containing "1" or "0"?? Or do you not use them in your numbers, thereby reducing the free pool of numbers by 20%?

  • Rhialto (unregistered) in reply to Jeff Grigg
    Jeff Grigg:
    My experience with ATMs has been...

    Later, they switched to $20s and $50s. But it's remarkably hard to buy lunch, and other such ordinary things with $50s. So the banks gave up on that, and settled on doing only $20s.

    The Real WTF is... that you USAnians don't trust banknotes over $20.

    The same problem is starting over here in Europe, to my great annoyance. We have banknotes of 5. 10. 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 Euro, but many shops don't accept notes over 50 anymore. And apparently that is legal too, even though it's our official money (!!).

    I can understand shops not wanting to give change from 500 Euro if you have to pay only 20, but if I buy something worth 500 Euro I want to be able to pay with a 500 Euro note.

  • mithanon (unregistered) in reply to cryptic

    it clearly says "fast cash $50", meaning that you must pay a $50 surcharge if you want your cash now rather than in 3 working days

  • (cs) in reply to Kuba
    Kuba:
    JimM:
    TRWTF!!:
    The Real WTF is the fact that the ATM is working when his card is clearly in his hand.
    That is the one thing that freaked me out most last time I visited the US - ATMs that make you take your card out again before you do anything. Wierd shit, dude!
    <snip> I know that some ATMs will hold the card hostage upon multiple invalid PIN tries or if the card is somehow invalid. I consider it completely unnecessary. <snip>
    Yes, it's so much better to allow someone who is attempting to use a card fraudulently to keep hold of it indefinitely...
  • (cs) in reply to Shill
    Shill:
    This is how the conversation looked to me:

    JM: Those ATMs do something funny. CD: Here's a perfectly good reason for doing it that way. JM: You must be implying that ATMs I am familiar with do not deal with that problem. I am insulted. You sound dumb.

    So tell me, how was CD supposed to inform about why the ATMs work the way they do without insulting you? He made no comment on other ATMs, he just explained why the ATMs work that way.

    OK, a) did I ask you to butt into my conversation? and b) The conversation was more like:

    JM: I think those machines are weird! CD: They do it like that because of stupid people (inference: you didn't realise that so you must be stupid) .....

    It's not like I said it was a bad system or a WTF - I understood perfectly well why the ATMs work like that. I just think it's weird, because i have over 20 year's experience of using ATMs, in both the UK and in continental Europe, and prior to my trip to the US I'd never met one that worked like that. Hence, to me it is weird. As a system, there's obviously nothing wrong with it.

  • (cs) in reply to Code Dependent
    Code Dependent:
    JimM:
    I think Code Dependent's "ATMs here try to anticipate the stupidity of the user" could quite easily be read as a generality aimed at a specific person (i.e. me, the person they were responding to). *snip*

    Oh, and to clarify: I most certainly did not intend any direct offense to any individual with my comments.

    I'm glad we got that ironed out. If anybody is indicated by my "stupidity" observation, in context it would be the targeted users of that ATM -- Americans (although I doubt that the manufacturers limit their sales to this one country).
    Hang on - did we just get into an argument on a forum, have a reasoned debate, and then come to an agreement without an overly agressive flame war?

    ARRRGH! RUN! THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!!!!!

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Mizchief
    Mizchief:
    Anyone notice that the windows background on the Hong Kong pic looks a lot like the "your copy is pirated" black background?
    Wouldn't know, I'm not stupid enough to install Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications.
  • DT (unregistered) in reply to Steve
    Steve:
    Mizchief:
    Anyone notice that the windows background on the Hong Kong pic looks a lot like the "your copy is pirated" black background?
    Wouldn't know, I'm not stupid enough to install Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications.
    Yeah, if they're gonna make that shit optional then I'm amazed that ANYONE has seen the "this copy is pirated" background. Just don't install WGA notifications and your copy of Windows will remain genuine... sort of...
  • (cs) in reply to cryptic

    Honestly, who "hasn't" wanted to dance on a dos prompt?

  • Mike K. (unregistered) in reply to communist_goatboy
    communist_goatboy:
    [image]

    This is brilliant. It serves two purposes: it keeps out the stupid bots and it keeps out the stupid users.

    I propose that all TDWTF comment post CAPTCHAs now feature vector-calculus problems.

    Yes, it is brilliant in that it sums up the whole of this long thread of posts. "If you can solve this problem, you're smart and, therefore, good. If not, you're an idiot. Get lost."

    The argument that the ATM interface is not a WTF is astonishing. The assumptions seem to be, "If you can figure out what caused the problem, it's not a problem at all. In fact, it's the user's fault for being unable to see the obvious flaw in the algorithm."

    That's so like the stereotyped mentality of the engineer, which I have to fight in myself everyday. It makes me wonder, what would make it a WTF? If pressing the button somehow brought on the Apocalypse? It's funny, it's inexcusably frustrating for the user, and it either shows blatant laziness or stupidity on the part of the programmer, or it shows that little, if any testing was done on the system before releasing it.

    I say it's a WTF.

    And I'll take my flames off the air, thank you.

  • Buddy (unregistered) in reply to Gooey Designer
    Gooey Designer:
    ...The user interface should make it impossible for the user to make a mistake. ...

    So the ATM should have a picture of one $20 bill. No other choice is allowed, so no mistake is possible.

    Oh you want $100? Just repeat the $20 request 5 times. Simple. Easy to learn, easy to use, impossible to make an error!

    While I agree the UI should make it impossible to make mistakes, this design is not fool-proof.

    Besides having no way to confirm, it is possible to press $20 more times than intended. One potential consequence is this could bring the user's balance below a minimum so that he gets charged for withdrawals that month.

  • bolo (unregistered) in reply to boh

    No alphabetical numbers here. Every single phone number I've had in Europe has had at least either a 1 or 0.

  • Jonathan Wilson (unregistered) in reply to Jarvo

    I have seen at least one ATM here in Australia that spits out hundreds. But it was at a major resort complex (hotel, casino, restaurants, bars, theater/showroom etc) near one of the entrances to the casino.

  • (cs) in reply to Code Dependent
    Code Dependent:
    That's so you don't take your money and walk off leaving your card in the slot for the next guy to find.

    Do you have to 'log out' when you've finished? What happens if you forget?

    Over here (in the UK), when you have your card back, you can't do anything else, so 'logging out' is a tactile process or retrieving your card, rather than an abstract procedure.

    When you ask for money, you get your card back, and the machine will wait until you've taken it, then you get your money, and then (if you asked for it) your receipt.

    I suppose the difference depends on whether you think someone is more likely to walk away without getting their card, or walk away without doing an abstract 'log out' procedure.

  • (cs) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    The converse error is that the user wants $20 which the machine interprets as 20 cents. At worst it dispenses two dimes, he realizes his error, and asks for another $19.80. As no ATM I've ever used dispenses less than a $10 bill, he probably just gets an error message, realizes his error, and tries again.

    Of course, unless the dollar devalues much further, they could easily set a limit of $1980 dollars to be withdrawn at any one time. Then, a simple test will be able to work out what the user wants. Ask the user how many dollars they want withdrawn (as happens with pounds/euros in Europe) and if they type '2000' it just gives them $20 anyway. The entry could show

    $___ and when someone types in $2000 or more it changes to $.

  • Shill (unregistered) in reply to JimM
    JimM:
    Shill:
    This is how the conversation looked to me:

    JM: Those ATMs do something funny. CD: Here's a perfectly good reason for doing it that way. JM: You must be implying that ATMs I am familiar with do not deal with that problem. I am insulted. You sound dumb.

    So tell me, how was CD supposed to inform about why the ATMs work the way they do without insulting you? He made no comment on other ATMs, he just explained why the ATMs work that way.

    OK, a) did I ask you to butt into my conversation? and b) The conversation was more like:

    JM: I think those machines are weird! CD: They do it like that because of stupid people (inference: you didn't realise that so you must be stupid) .....

    It's not like I said it was a bad system or a WTF - I understood perfectly well why the ATMs work like that. I just think it's weird, because i have over 20 year's experience of using ATMs, in both the UK and in continental Europe, and prior to my trip to the US I'd never met one that worked like that. Hence, to me it is weird. As a system, there's obviously nothing wrong with it.

    a) If you want to have a private conversation, use private resources. b) There was no negative implications in the statement, you are just revealing your insecurities.

  • (cs) in reply to boh
    boh:
    ricecake:
    The keypad matches the lettering system used on American phones. 2=ABC, 3=DEF, ... , 7=PRS, 8=TUV, 9=WXY. There is no 'Q' nor 'Z' due to infrequency of use, so they added them to the 1 button.

    Since the articles are always several hours old by the time I get to work (they are always posted in the middle of the night), I don't expect anyone to read this, but I'm curious: If neither the 1 or the 0 on american phones have any letters on them, how do you create those funny alphabetical phone numbers for numbers containing "1" or "0"?? Or do you not use them in your numbers, thereby reducing the free pool of numbers by 20%?

    Phone numbers with 1s or 0s in them do exist (mine has a 1 in it) but they are not usually represented as funny alphabetical phone numbers. Many funny alphabetical numbers are not entirely alphabetical, though; what matters is getting people to remember the number, not consistency.

    Also, once you have entered a valid phone number, any further digits you enter will have no effect; companies will often add extra useless digits onto the phone numbers in their advertisements so that the extra letters spell something useful. For example, a local radio station here calling itself "The Edge" has the phone number 644-9334, which they speak on the radio as 644-9EDGE. That last E or 3 won't do anything when you dial it, but it makes the number easier to remember.

  • guppy (unregistered) in reply to Gooey Designer

    Unless the user loses count, or gets impatient and clicks again and again, like they do for print jobs that won't print.

  • (cs)

    As for the one about "injustice," I'm going to guess that the original programmer was francophone. The French adjective "juste" can mean either "just" in the sense of justice, or correct (with a connotation of precise).

  • realwtf (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that you can see the credit card number in the reflection!

  • Prof AntiQuercus (unregistered) in reply to Bob

    It has the same flaw that all captchas have, and that is the challenge can be copied and fed to other human users who will solve it.

  • phreak (unregistered) in reply to ricecake

    British phones never used to have letters on '1', but they had 'O' on '0' where it belongs. As I recall, we had to give up using letters when international dialling happened, because foreigners put letters in the wrong place (like 'O' on '6').

  • immibis (unregistered)

    The WTF in the first one is that it's letting him withdraw cash, but he still has his bank card in his hand.

  • Random832 (unregistered) in reply to O...kay...
    O...kay...:
    The dancing DOS prompt photo looks a bit off - the lines of the tiles that are being projected on don't line up with the other tiles. I thought it could be a lame background, but it goes over the task bar...

    Looks shopped to me!

    I got the impression that it's some sort of game that's normally supposed to be there, projected onto a specially made area of white tiles (since it wouldn't look as good on the tiles the rest of the floor is made of) that is, you know, actually present in the floor for the projector to point at. The game program has simply crashed

    St Mary's Hospital for the Uncurable Damned:
    Did anyone note the letters on the ATM keypad? I always thought the "1" button had the letters A, B and C.

    No, that's "2". "1" is normally blank, and Q and Z are traditionally absent (my own phone puts Q on 7 with PRS and Z on 9 with WXY, and punctuation on 1)

    The reason for this is that 1 cannot be used in some positions in phone numbers because it would interfere with long-distance dialing.

    rfsmit:
    O...kay...:
    Looks shopped to me!
    Agreed.

    See the right side of the near corner of the image overlaps the superimposed grid -- so that grid is not the edges of reflective tiles.

    Yeah, it's impossible to cut tiles to fit a defined area. Kind of sucks that my bathroom's width isn't an integer multiple of the size tiles they used so they had to leave a portion of the floor uncovered.

    The children are also not lit up opposite their shadows.

    I was actually going to say something about it being washed out, but guess what? You can see a portion of the column header line projected onto the girl's arm. There's also other light in appropriate places, though you can hardly be blamed for thinking it's light from sources other than the projector. The boy's shadow falls almost entirely on the black dos prompt window, so there's very little light being projected onto him.

    Why is it that every time there's one of these windows errors, someone insists the photo is faked? Are windows errors, or the use of windows in surprising places, that rare in real life?

    boh:
    If neither the 1 or the 0 on american phones have any letters on them, how do you create those funny alphabetical phone numbers for numbers containing "1" or "0"?? Or do you not use them in your numbers, thereby reducing the free pool of numbers by 20%?

    It's no worse in principle that case than trying to make one for a number that simply doesn't spell anything - and if there were letters on 1 or 0, there would be some words that can't be turned into phone numbers since you can't have a 1 or 0 in the first digit.

  • Random832 (unregistered)
    See the right side of the near corner of the image overlaps the superimposed grid -- so that grid is not the edges of reflective tiles.

    Misunderstood your complaint in my answer above - the white area is clearly surrounded by a metal strip (you can see a darker gray not matching the surrounding tiles the rest of the way around) which is only reflecting a lot of light at that spot because it's specular rather than diffusive.

  • moz (unregistered) in reply to phreak
    phreak:
    British phones never used to have letters on '1', but they had 'O' on '0' where it belongs. As I recall, we had to give up using letters when international dialling happened, because foreigners put letters in the wrong place (like 'O' on '6').
    And now we have mobile 'phones which are often used to write various things, but only use (for example) 8 out of 24 keys for letters.
  • eon (unregistered) in reply to snoofle

    I figure my ATM makes you enter cents because for deposits they need to be available (your refund check is for $12.36), and nobody wants to bother coding an 'if action == withdraw' statement in there.

    And wow, I've never seen an ATM in NE, SE, or W of US that could spit out anything but twenties.

    off-topic: In California (SF peninsula) they think it's weird that in New England, there are drive-up ATMs.

  • videoproductionsupport (unregistered)

    I don't know... I have a 'captcha' replacement on my forums ( at www.videoproductionsupport.com ) [along with a captcha that I should remove] that seems to stop machine registration [the captcha didn't]. It even accepts two different possible answers in case the user is confused!

  • Paolo G (unregistered) in reply to Kuba

    What is it with everyone going on about "integer multiples"? A multiple is the product of a quality by an integer (take your pick from http://onelook.com/?w=multiple&ls=a), and this is how mathematicians use the term. So $50 cannot be a multiple of $20. If "multiple" has to be qualified by "integer" to be meaningful, then the unqualified noun "multiple" becomes pointless because every number is then a multiple of every other number (1/2 is a multiple of 4 (1/2 = 1/8 * 4), 0 is a multiple of 100 (0 = 0 * 100), i is a multiple of pi (i = i/pi * pi)...). Time to go back to your mathematics textbooks?

  • sonu nitesh (unregistered) in reply to communist_goatboy

    i dont know abut captch work i want to know it ,about detail ,iwant to work on that

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