• (cs) in reply to Kuba
    Kuba:
    faoileag:
    ochrist:
    Perhaps the insurance premium was in Italian lire?
    Even then it would be rather hefty; the exchange rate was 1936 lira for 1 euro. With appr. 348 billion euros p.A. insurance premium your driving history must be quite interesting! ;-)
    Yeah, it looks like he has rammed a truck transporting a nuclear warhead. It subsequently detonated, but he has lived to tell the tale anyway.

    He was replaced with a model year newer person. Now that's comprehensive for you.

  • (cs) in reply to TheSoftwareDev
    I'm not sure if I'm more amused by the dev who coded the magazine subscription error, or disappointed in the one who designed the spec.

    Guess which one got fired? (Hint: not the spec designer.)

  • Spewin Coffee (unregistered)

    "While I appreciate their honesty..."

    One would hope that the people behind a site with a name like "Christianity Today" would indeed be honest. Perhaps even a bit overly honest. One would hope, though, that the programmer could have asked the right questions to get the answers he needed to make a more correct error message or avoided the situation altogether to create a seamless user experience.

  • (cs) in reply to slavdude
    slavdude:
    I'm not sure if I'm more amused by the dev who coded the magazine subscription error, or disappointed in the one who designed the spec.

    Guess which one got fired? (Hint: not the spec designer.)

    both!

    they then outsourced the work, and gave the money saved to management.

  • (cs) in reply to Spewin Coffee
    Spewin Coffee:
    "While I appreciate their honesty..."

    One would hope that the people behind a site with a name like "Christianity Today" would indeed be honest. Perhaps even a bit overly honest. One would hope, though, that the programmer could have asked the right questions to get the answers he needed to make a more correct error message or avoided the situation altogether to create a seamless user experience.

    I never really thought that the type of people that threaten you with eternity in a lake of fire as the ones that would give the best "user experience."

  • hugh (unregistered) in reply to faoileag

    [quote user="faoileag"][quote user="Joerg T"]I thought that I knew a thing or two about subpixels, but Google has proven to me that there are some subtle differences that I was not aware of,[quote]. Like, the difference between the words "matrix" and "geometry" in a search query. You can reproduce the different results by exchanging the one with the other.

    This is not a WTF but simply Google applying its algorithm to two different sets of words.[/quote]Exactly. Anyone who has worked with any data matching algorithms will know that a single character can make a massive difference - even where that character is a space

  • Nagesh (unregistered) in reply to hugh
    hugh:
    faoileag:
    Joerg T:
    I thought that I knew a thing or two about subpixels, but Google has proven to me that there are some subtle differences that I was not aware of,
    . Like, the difference between the words "matrix" and "geometry" in a search query. You can reproduce the different results by exchanging the one with the other.

    This is not a WTF but simply Google applying its algorithm to two different sets of words.

    Exactly. Anyone who has worked with any data matching algorithms will know that a single character can make a massive difference - even where that character is a space
    I fix for you

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    Norman Diamond:
    The insurance company's message was in English only.
    So you're telling me that "mercoledi" and "maggio" are English?
    No, you quoted me as talking about the insurance company's message, not the inserted data values that appear to have come from a <shock>library</shock>. Maybe now we see why many developers other than that one do roll their own date and time routines instead of using libraries.
  • Rob (unregistered)

    Google's insistence that schematics and user manuals for electronics, among other things, are the same, also really pisses me off. Whatever happened to "search for exactly what I wrote" being the default?

  • (cs)

    Hmmm. That insurance company... I think we might need to call MoD (ask for Austin). It looks like Dr Evil has returned.

  • (cs) in reply to Coyne
    Coyne:
    faoileag:
    ochrist:
    Perhaps the insurance premium was in Italian lire?
    Even then it would be rather hefty; the exchange rate was 1936 lira for 1 euro. With appr. 348 billion euros p.A. insurance premium your driving history must be quite interesting! ;-)
    Well, that's what happens when you are texting and accidentally run off the road and wipe out Earth.
    Earth wasn't wiped out---just the Internet was disabled. That would cost slightly less to fix.
  • (cs) in reply to ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    Norman Diamond:
    The insurance company's message was in English only.
    So you're telling me that "mercoledi" and "maggio" are English?

    And as it's a site for insurance in Ireland, the obvious choice for a common language was Irish.

    Slight problem there being the 58.6% of the Irish population who can't speak Irish at all. Last census didn't seem to give a nationwide figure for first spoken language, possibly because it'd be too embarassing

  • Dhamp (unregistered) in reply to Rob
    Rob:
    Google's insistence that schematics and user manuals for electronics, among other things, are the same, also really pisses me off. Whatever happened to "search for exactly what I wrote" being the default?

    It was unveiled to the general public who immediately responded that they didn't want it to search for what they actually put in, but what what they were thinking of at the time.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Rob
    Rob:
    Google's insistence that schematics and user manuals for electronics, among other things, are the same, also really pisses me off. Whatever happened to "search for exactly what I wrote" being the default?
    This is a tough issue. For example a few years back I searched for things like 82810 and it was advantageous that Google knew that 82810 and 810 were synonyms. For example I translate an error message into English but don't know the exact wording that was used in the English language version of the error message, but it's close enough so Google gets it. Sometimes even when all discussion is done in a single language, a verb tense might differ. 90% of the time Google's recognition of synonyms is helpful. But I agree we need something for the other 10%. I wonder what Google thought they were doing when they deleted the syntax of +thiswordmustbeinthispage
  • (cs) in reply to Silverhill
    Silverhill:
    Earth wasn't wiped out---just the Internet was disabled.
    Alright, who typed "Google" into Google?
  • Commentator (unregistered)

    The true WTF is a programmer reading Christianity today. I mean, had he been sent to it by a link, fair enough, but we do not need TDWTF to show us the real WTFs in the world.

  • JP (unregistered)

    As someone not far from New Orleans I couldn't help but literally laugh out loud at the Big Tymers album art for the Beatles.

  • Not Safe for Whales (unregistered) in reply to Commentator
    Commentator:
    The true WTF is a programmer reading Christianity today.
    How do you reach this conclusion?
  • Mick (unregistered)

    Better late than never: The bloke complaining about google has 2 different search terms (I originally thought the difference was a space "sub pixel" vs "subpixel" - and although I could understand they might vary a bit, thought it was a bit much).

    He's also got "geometry" instead of "matrix" in the search term - so of course the results will be different.

    Did you really think that google knows exactly what you want to search for? If it did, it would list 3-5 articlaes most pertinent to what you want and that would be it. Not much point listing articles you're not interested in now, is it?

  • eh what? (unregistered)

    Limited = having a limit. 997 days and some hours remaining: sounds like there's a limit.

    Where the WTF? The offer is limited to a little unmder 3 years.

  • trololo (unregistered) in reply to faoileag

    I'd tend to believe that it was Zimbabwean Dollars, are you sure you haven't finished up in some skimming scheme ?

  • Loom (unregistered) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    I never really thought that the type of people that threaten you with eternity in a lake of fire as the ones that would give the best "user experience."
    Not "threaten". The correct interpretation is "warn, and in time for people to do something about it".

    So yeah, I think user experience matters a lot to such people.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Mick
    Mick:
    He's also got "geometry" instead of "matrix" in the search term - so of course the results will be different.
    I understand you've been searching for the geometry. Did you mean to search for the matrix? Choose your pill wisely.
  • some asshole (unregistered)

    TRWTF ChristianityToday.com

  • (cs) in reply to Loom
    Loom:
    chubertdev:
    I never really thought that the type of people that threaten you with eternity in a lake of fire as the ones that would give the best "user experience."
    Not "threaten". The correct interpretation is "warn, and in time for people to do something about it".

    So yeah, I think user experience matters a lot to such people.

    No, it's "threaten." That's the UX they use to get more money.

  • Gribbles (unregistered) in reply to Rob
    Rob:
    Google's insistence that schematics and user manuals for electronics, among other things, are the same, also really pisses me off. Whatever happened to "search for exactly what I wrote" being the default?

    I have been using AltaVista for literal-text searches since before Google existed, as should you.

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