The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2011-05-22 Reply Admin

Put your glasses on, look closer.

It says 19.8g ...

2011-05-22 Reply Admin

Zemm:
imgx64:
KA0F1:
Ever wonder why there's some fraction of a pickle in a pickle jar, or a tiny nub of a carrot in package of otherwise long carrots? Geniuses like you that insist on using such irritatingly fine units of measure.

I don't get it. How can you be sure the carrots or pickles won't cross the ounce boundary (i.e. n pickles are 6.9 oz, n+1 pickles are 7.2 oz)?

You don't want to freely give away that 0.2oz do you? Why should the customers get something for free even if it means more work for the producer?

Which raises interesting thoughts about how we buy groceries...

Fresh produce (at least in this neck of the woods) tends to be sold by (fairly exact) weight, and it is weighed somewhere (either at the cash register, or before a barcode is put on it).
Other food products (tins and jars etc) are sold by a 'guaranteed' weight (or sometimes volume) - that is, "this container will have at least this amount of stuff in it". Without speculating on the amount of water that might be added to tinned vegetables, it is a means to simplify the system for logistics (transport, storage etc) and sales (we don't have to calculate specific quantities). These days, the technology exists to calculate more accurately, but it would still be too complicated to do so, because producers use different sized jars with different volumes of glass, and lids made from different materials - standardising this would be hideously difficult (imagine telling Coke that they can no longer use their trademarked bottle).

(For the record, I think I have seen some fresh produce (carrots, onions and potatoes spring to mind) sold in pre-packaged, "constant-weight" bags. Although I've never actually weighed them, I think I probably get a bit over each time - in return, I don't get the privilege of picking out the nicest looking potatoes...

It's not necessarily the world's fairest system, but it seems to work pretty well...

2gms is insignificant in this case, especially as it is a guaranteed lower-bound rather than an exact measure.

2011-05-22 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Put your glasses on, look closer.
It says 19.8g ...

Holy Shyte, You might be right! or that might be a speck on the jar...I would've thought a decimal point would be a little further to the left

2011-05-23 Reply Admin

Just to remind you that you can take "fatal dosage" of something and then survive if you receive proper treatment in time.

2011-05-23 Reply Admin

jmucchiello:
Bruce W:
The heart attack question reminds me of a health assessment my wife took that asked whether she had a hysterectomy. The options were: Yes, No, Not Sure. Is Not Sure for women that don't know what the word "Hysterectomy" means?
Well, she was presumably given anesthesia for the "hysterectomy" operation. So she can't really prove either way that it was performed without some form of external verification.
Likewise patients given anesthesia sometimes forget information given during the hours before the anesthesia, such as "We're about to perform a hysterectomy on you, Mrs. W."

Internal verification, surely...

2011-05-23 Reply Admin

I think you misunderstand - the person this responded to referred to a rant as "right-wing" even though I didn't think it sounded right-wing, the guy who called it a rant opposes the right-wing, so he calls things he opposes "right-wing" - which is label-based thinking.

The second line is an illustration of how confused label-based thinking can get.

2011-05-23 Reply Admin

Mike:
empire:
Libertarianism borrows the most extreme aspects of both conservatism and liberalism. They're extreme social liberals and extreme fiscal conservatives.

Actually, Libertarians don't borrow from anything. The original founders of the United States were the original Libertarians of the nation.

So is slavery a part of the LIBERT(y)arian platform?

You know what the original requirements were for immigrants to get citizenship? "White persons of good moral character"

2011-05-23 Reply Admin

Anon:
Right wingers dislike Big Business and telling people what to do?
Which word looks more like LIBERtarian? LIBERal or conservative?

I do hope that you're just joking and you don't think this is a serious political argument.

It reminds me of all the times I hear a politician or biased reporter say, "How can these people be against the Widget Consumers' Protection Act? Are they in favor of widget consumers being cheated? How can anyone be against protecting consumers?"

Has there every been a law that gives special favors to a politician's biggest campaign contributors at taxpayer expense that was NOT called the "Tax Reform Act" or "Equal Treatment Under Law Bill" or some such?

Are there really people out there who fall for this? Who really judge a proposal or an idea based on the name given to it by its supporters and not based on, say, the actual contents?

I think I'm going to start a "Motherhood and Cuddly Kittens Party".

2011-05-23 Reply Admin

boog:
For example, my wife and I argue over when is appropriate to throw away a jar of peanut butter. Her opinion is that when there is only about an inch (height-wise) of peanut butter left in the jar, it's not worth the effort - the knife/spoon only gets a little bit on each dip into the jar and you usually end up with peanut butter on your knuckles from the rim of the jar.
I say that while it's only a small percentage of the whole jar, on its own it really is a few good servings. Those servings may last us another week or two, meaning I get to put off dragging my lazy ass to the store to buy more peanut butter. Ergo, the last bit of peanut butter in the jar is totally worth the effort.

But surely you don't get the absolute last molecule of peanut butter out either. Personally, I wouldn't throw away a jar of peanut butter that still had an inch of product in the bottom. But I will throw it away when there are still streaks of peanut butter stuck to the sides. At some point the effort of scraping these off and collecting them isn't worth the trouble.

I also have a simple philosophy regarding left-overs. It seems awfully wasteful to throw away perfectly good food. So instead, I put it in the refrigerator and wait until it goes bad. Then I throw it away. That way I am only throwing away inedible food, and I am being much more economical and saving the environment and all that.

2011-05-25 Reply Admin

Billy:
cappeca:
The MAZZTer:
What's wrong with the Nescafe? You're assuming both are EXACTLY 7oz, but if the first is 198g and the second is 200g, both can be rounded to 7oz when converted. It seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Problem is that you've been stolen of 2g of coffee if you buy the lighter one. 200g should be standard. In a production of 10.000 coffee jars, Nestle has saved 20kg of coffee, another 100 jars to sell.

Small, but profitable, all because you don't care about 2g of coffee and the industry standard.

I know you're trolling at least a little, but in most countries I'm pretty sure companies try to overfill anyway, to make sure they don't get in trouble for going under.

I know in a dip factory where I worked once, they aimed to have an almost 10% (8-9% for the pedants) overfill in 200gm dips. Anything below 200 or above about 230 was rejected, but they considered around 217gms to be the safest fill...

You would most likely find that both those jars have a touch over 7oz in them...

No, I'm not trolling, and most countries don't change their products package every six months in order to keep the same price, like they do here in Brazil. Seriously, all of a sudden 1L juice becomes 750ml juice, 40m toilet paper becomes 30m toilet paper, 180g chocolate bar becomes 160g chocolate bar. Sizes visually won't change, and prices remain the same. So the ordinary people gets the idea that there's no inflation, even though they're paying the same for less product. This is fact. Good for you who live in a place where your favorite industry puts more stuff in the box, but here it's less, it's legal, and it's right under our noses.

Keep an eye open, is all.

Kuba · 2011-05-25 Reply Admin

I think that TRWTF is the transformer sitting, apparently, squarely in the middle of the bottom edge of a skiing slope.

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

Amen to point F. My school recently made us convert from PowerPoint to Prezi. All online social interaction is also banned.

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

anon:
Ralph:
Rahjesh:
were i get crack? i need arcobat reely fast for school!
If your school makes you use Acrobat, you're going to the wrong school.
Further, if your school is tax funded (govt. school at any level) then we have yet another example of tax dollars collected by force and used to promote the fortunes of a private company.

Big government + big business = big trouble.

Nice out of the blue, right wing, moronic rant but: A. You're replying to an obvious troll B. The troll is pretending to be from India C. The student edition of Acrobat is only $115, ie less than most college textbooks D. When the government grants funding to a school, it does not dictate what software the school uses in it's curriculum, nor should you want it to E. Generally no schools require you to buy software, you have the option to buy it if you'd rather use your personal computer rather than a lab computer F. The software used in an educational institution needs to reflect what's used in the real world, or the education provided will be rather worthless

Other than that, nice rant.

Big Ralph + Internet = Moronic comments

Amen to point F. My school recently made us convert from PowerPoint to Prezi. All online social interaction is also banned.

2011-07-08 Reply Admin

Wouldnt that be in liquid ounces and thus actual weight would depend on the density of the liquid?

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