• Pippo (unregistered)

    Am I the only one that doesn't understands the USPS one?

  • Pippo (unregistered)

    Oh, got it, 2012 ....

  • ! (unregistered)

    I don't really get the frist one...

  • I Forget (unregistered)
    Dwayne wrote, "Nice to see Windows 8 is true to the Microsoft Tradition."

    The real WTF is... Windows 8.

  • CigarDoug (unregistered) in reply to !
    !:
    I don't really get the frist one...

    The text says $13.02, but the dollars and coins add up to $13.03. I guess all those extra pennies they bring in will help bail out Cyprus.

  • nobody (unregistered)

    The $13.02 one is interesting: I would assume that the conversion resulted in a value in the range ($13.02, $13.025). They decided to round off the "result", presumably something which happens for all values, but show $13.03 for the coins to indicate that if you were to pay someone this amount (in the limited precision of the currency), you would round up.

  • Guest (unregistered) in reply to nobody
    if you were to *pay* someone this amount (in the limited precision of the currency), you would round up.
    More likely the conversion-to-coins function just continues until the result is larger-or-equal to the value supplied. The supplied value has, in this case, most likely been the non-rounded one.

    Would be a nice trick though: putting "to pay" values on articles like that and at the cash-register getting xx.xx49 values on your ticket.

  • mophobiac (unregistered) in reply to I Forget
    I Forget:
    Dwayne wrote, "Nice to see Windows 8 is true to the Microsoft Tradition."

    The real WTF is... Windows 8.

    TORWTF is that the first PC was made by the founders of Apple and now it colloquially means "Windows machine" while Mac lovers say "pee cee" derisively. Even older versions (Vista, 7?) say "computer" there. It should say "PLEASE do not unplug the computer or pull out the battery." Since, you know, Windows 8 is all about the lithiums.

  • validus (unregistered) in reply to CigarDoug
    CigarDoug:
    !:
    I don't really get the frist one...

    The text says $13.02, but the dollars and coins add up to $13.03. I guess all those extra pennies they bring in will help bail out Cyprus.

    I'm guessing it's a rounding error. There was probably .6 of a cent lying about somewhere.

  • moz (unregistered)

    Most of Sandra Noronha's postage costs came from the simple fact that they had to make absolutely sure the "Item" was really dead before they delivered her.

  • (cs) in reply to CigarDoug
    CigarDoug:
    !:
    I don't really get the frist one...

    The text says $13.02, but the dollars and coins add up to $13.03. I guess all those extra pennies they bring in will help bail out Cyprus.

    Now $13.08 with 4 pennies and a nickel.

  • kjordan2001 (unregistered)

    My guess on the USPS one is that's a re-used tracking number where the old information hasn't been cleared out. I've had that happen with UPS too.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Ah, that's the new way Amazon wants to convince us not to buy our games and DVD in the UK (instead of the more expensive ones in Germany).

  • (cs)

    I do prefer my currency as "Non Metric"

  • Ralph (unregistered) in reply to I Forget
    I Forget:
    Dwayne wrote, "Nice to see Windows 8 is true to the Microsoft Tradition."
    The real WTF is... Windows *.*
    FTFY. Lurn sum hisstory.
  • Paul Chen (unregistered) in reply to mophobiac
    mophobiac:
    TORWTF is that the first PC was made by the founders of Apple and now it colloquially means "Windows machine" while Mac lovers say "pee cee" derisively.
    Uh, no. Apple was not first. And PC is not a "windows machine", PC is an acronym. Can anyone guess what it stands for? Anyone? Buehler?

    Personal Computer.

    Now (and this question allows extra time for the perception-altering thought processes required) who do you suppose should buy and use a Personal Computer?

    A) A school B) A business C) Everyfuckingbody D) A person

    Now, if you've managed to hang on this long, perhaps you have enough brain cells left to formulate the question... one of the most important questions affecting the civilized world in the past half century...

    Are you ready...?

    WHY THE HELL WOULD A BUSINESS BUY AND EXPECT TO GET ANY VALUE OUT OF A PERSONAL COMPUTER????????????

    Answer that and you explain the very existence of Microsoft, the billions of hours of productivity lost over the past several decades, the morass which is computing in most companies even to this very day, the tidal wave of idiocy which innundates our shores, and the overall hopelessness of finding intelligent life in the universe... including here.

    (Sigh.)

  • (cs) in reply to Paul Chen
    Paul Chen:
    mophobiac:
    TORWTF is that the first PC was made by the founders of Apple and now it colloquially means "Windows machine" while Mac lovers say "pee cee" derisively.

    Uh, no. Apple was not first. And PC is not a "windows machine", PC is an acronym. Can anyone guess what it stands for? Anyone? Buehler?

    Personal Computer.

    Now...yawn...here.

    (Sigh.)

    Maybe they think it means "Personnel Computer"?

  • Paul Chen (unregistered) in reply to sid351
    sid351:
    Maybe they think
    Yeah, maybe. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.
  • mophobiac (unregistered)

    I know it's an acronym. I know Apple wasn't first. Maybe I should have said Apple did the most for the PC snowball way back when windows was just a noun. It doesn't matter. Everyone play musical terms. When the music stops, somebody is wrong. Come back for same deal tomorrow. I really enjoyed the Hungarian Notation tsunami yesterday.

  • (cs) in reply to Paul Chen
    Paul Chen:
    sid351:
    Maybe they think
    Yeah, maybe. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.

    I don't wish to bring your personal hygiene into question, but:

    Ew.

  • Valued Service (unregistered) in reply to Paul Chen
    Paul Chen:
    sid351:
    Maybe they think
    Yeah, maybe. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.

    Let's test that. Put you in a box, tie a teleporter to a decaying atom. The teleporter will teleport a flying monkey into your butt if the atom decays.

    Oh yeah that's right. A flying monkey both did and did not fly out of your butt.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Just for the record, Windows is still a noun.

  • (cs)

    I object. When I was doing interstellar parcel runs in a space trade game such runs typically paid 20,000 credits. Even United Galactic Express runs with emergency deadlines from the opposite side of the galaxy were paid 300,000 credits at best. Either Sandra got swindled, or this could be intergalactic shipping; I've never done those so I wouldn't know.

  • trucking foll (unregistered) in reply to mophobiac
    mophobiac:
    I Forget:
    Dwayne wrote, "Nice to see Windows 8 is true to the Microsoft Tradition."

    The real WTF is... Windows 8.

    TORWTF is that the first PC was made by the founders of Apple and now it colloquially means "Windows machine" while Mac lovers say "pee cee" derisively. Even older versions (Vista, 7?) say "computer" there. It should say "PLEASE do not unplug the computer or pull out the battery." Since, you know, Windows 8 is all about the lithiums.

    Why not unplug and pull out the battery? The computer is working, and I want to save power while I'm not using it.

  • C-Derb (unregistered) in reply to Paul Chen
    Paul Chen:
    WHY THE HELL WOULD A BUSINESS BUY AND EXPECT TO GET ANY VALUE OUT OF A ***PERSONAL*** COMPUTER????????????
    They get value out of it by calling it a "workstation".
  • Will A (unregistered)

    TRWTF is not knowing the (...) means there was text cut off. So it's actually 2 of 1? a number somewhere between 10 and 19.

  • somebody (unregistered) in reply to nobody
    nobody:
    The $13.02 one is interesting: I would assume that the conversion resulted in a value in the range ($13.02, $13.025). They decided to round off the "result", presumably something which happens for all values, but show $13.03 for the coins to indicate that if you were to *pay* someone this amount (in the limited precision of the currency), you would round up.

    Just to confirm. I entered "13.024 US dollars" and it shows me "input interpretation: $13.02" but "minimal currency form: 1x 10$ + 3x 1$ + 3x 1ct".

    See: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=13.024+US+dollars

  • Adam (unregistered)

    I just tried "10 EUR IN USD" in WolframAlpha again. The result now is $13.07. The minimal currency form is still wrong. It has 7 cents as a nickel and 3 pennies. Nice.

    Is there a WolframAlpha bank or credit union? I'd like to do all my currency exchanges there.

  • Indignant sheep (unregistered) in reply to Paul Chen

    WHY THE HELL WOULD A BUSINESS BUY AND EXPECT TO GET ANY VALUE >>OUT OF A PERSONAL COMPUTER????????????

    Businesses have employees. Employees are people (even though businesses tend to forget this) - so they might have a computer for an employee - i.e. an employee computer, or a "personal" computer.

    Really the distinction is/was "personal computer" vs "shared computer" (think mainframe/time sharing/batch processing). Captcha: causa - "Causa I said so"

  • Jake (unregistered) in reply to mophobiac

    I think that Apple themselves passed on calling their machines PCs when they created a series of terribly annoying ads where they always talked about how their computers were different from PCs.

  • AnonymouseUser (unregistered)

    PC is an abbreviation, not an acronym.

  • Stabbitha (unregistered)

    TRWTF is Norton. Seriously, how is it that someone who is knowledgeable enough to appreciate this site is also dumb enough to run Norton antivirus?

  • Joe (unregistered) in reply to validus
    validus:
    There was probably .6 of a cent lying about somewhere.

    If we could transfer all of those fractions of a cent from every time interest gets calculated, into this special account...

    Didn't I see this in a movie?

  • Ken in NH (unregistered)

    Wolfram|Alpha is not incorrect, it's just including inflation into the calculation.

  • (cs) in reply to Paul Chen
    Paul Chen:
    PC is not a "windows machine", PC is an acronym. Can anyone guess what it stands for? Anyone? Buehler?
    Paul Chen?
  • Slapout (unregistered) in reply to Paul Chen
    Paul Chen:
    sid351:
    Maybe they think
    Yeah, maybe. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.

    Then TRWTF was what you had for lunch

  • Slapout (unregistered)

    Wolfram|Alpha is obliviously running on the computer from Superman 3.

  • T (unregistered) in reply to Paul Chen
    Paul Chen:
    And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.
    I don't know about monkeys, but your comments must have come from somewhere.
  • y54y5hssdfh (unregistered) in reply to Paul Chen
    Paul Chen:
    WHY THE HELL WOULD A BUSINESS BUY AND EXPECT TO GET ANY VALUE OUT OF A ***PERSONAL*** COMPUTER????????????
    Because "Personal Computer" means a computer designed to be used by one person at a time, no more or less.
  • Alex (unregistered) in reply to Guest
    More likely the conversion-to-coins function just continues until the result is larger-or-equal to the value supplied.

    That would be an extremely crappy way of implementing this function since it's not guaranteed to give you the minimum number of coins.

  • nimis (unregistered) in reply to Gurth
    Gurth:
    Paul Chen:
    PC is not a "windows machine", PC is an acronym. Can anyone guess what it stands for? Anyone? Buehler?
    Paul Chen?

    Pissy Contributor?

  • (cs) in reply to nimis
    nimis:
    Gurth:
    Paul Chen:
    PC is not a "windows machine", PC is an acronym. Can anyone guess what it stands for? Anyone? Buehler?
    Paul Chen?

    Pissy Contributor?

    Per Cibum. Prescription-speak for "with meals".

  • BigOldGeek (unregistered) in reply to Adam

    They'r ejust counting as programmers.

    !3.00 - one coin 13.01 - two coins 13.02 - three coins

    That's my .01 cent's worth.

  • stew (unregistered)
    Judging by the postage costs, Sandra Noronha's order is being shipped from the other side of the galaxy!
    Nah, you see that all the time on Marketplace: undercharge for the product, overcharge for shipping.
  • PRMan (unregistered) in reply to BigOldGeek
    BigOldGeek:
    They'r ejust counting as programmers.

    !3.00 - one coin 13.01 - two coins 13.02 - three coins

    That's my .01 cent's worth.

    I literally LOLed.

  • (cs) in reply to PRMan
    PRMan:
    BigOldGeek:
    They'r ejust counting as programmers.

    !3.00 - one coin 13.01 - two coins 13.02 - three coins

    That's my .01 cent's worth.

    I literally LOLed.

    What, Licked Out Lottie?

  • (cs) in reply to mophobiac
    mophobiac:
    I know it's an acronym. I know Apple wasn't first. Maybe I should have said Apple did the most for the PC snowball way back when windows was just a noun. It doesn't matter.

    Accuracy does count. The Radio Shack TRS-80 outsold the Apple back then. The order -- at least in my neck of the woods -- was Radio Shack TRS-80, Apple, Commodore, and then everyone else. Radio Shack did not go too far into 16-bit, but during the 8-bit days, they were dominant.

  • Dann of Thursday (unregistered) in reply to Paul Chen
    Paul Chen:
    mophobiac:
    TORWTF is that the first PC was made by the founders of Apple and now it colloquially means "Windows machine" while Mac lovers say "pee cee" derisively.
    Uh, no. Apple was not first. And PC is not a "windows machine", PC is an acronym. Can anyone guess what it stands for? Anyone? Buehler?

    Personal Computer.

    Now (and this question allows extra time for the perception-altering thought processes required) who do you suppose should buy and use a Personal Computer?

    A) A school B) A business C) Everyfuckingbody D) A person

    Now, if you've managed to hang on this long, perhaps you have enough brain cells left to formulate the question... one of the most important questions affecting the civilized world in the past half century...

    Are you ready...?

    WHY THE HELL WOULD A BUSINESS BUY AND EXPECT TO GET ANY VALUE OUT OF A PERSONAL COMPUTER????????????

    Answer that and you explain the very existence of Microsoft, the billions of hours of productivity lost over the past several decades, the morass which is computing in most companies even to this very day, the tidal wave of idiocy which innundates our shores, and the overall hopelessness of finding intelligent life in the universe... including here.

    (Sigh.)

    You seem really angry. Is being too dumb to know the definition of "colloquially" really that much of a hardship in your life that it makes you lash out like that?

  • jay (unregistered) in reply to Paul Chen
    Paul Chen:
    mophobiac:
    TORWTF is that the first PC was made by the founders of Apple and now it colloquially means "Windows machine" while Mac lovers say "pee cee" derisively.
    Uh, no. Apple was not first. And PC is not a "windows machine", PC is an acronym. Can anyone guess what it stands for? Anyone? Buehler?

    Personal Computer.

    In real life, phrases often have meanings that are more specific than the words that make up the phrase, sometimes even meanings that are rather different from the constituent words.

    For example:

    traffic light: I suppose you could say that the sun shining on a highway is a "light" that is associated with "traffic" and it is therefore a "traffic light". But no one understands the word to mean that. We understand it to refer to a specific device with red, green, and yellow lights hanging above intersections to inform motorists which cars are allowed to proceed and which should wait.

    public servant: A household employee who is not hidden from view? No, a government official.

    bath room: Go to a public building and ask for the bathroom, and they are likely to direct you to a room which has no bathtub, shower, or any other bathing facilities.

    personal computer: Any computer that can be used by a person? No, today it's pretty much understood to mean a computer running a Windows operating system.

    WHY THE HELL WOULD A BUSINESS BUY AND EXPECT TO GET ANY VALUE OUT OF A ***PERSONAL*** COMPUTER????????????

    Hmm, I have no idea. Unless, perhaps it's because most business on planet Earth are made up of people.

    Aside from the word game, there is nothing remarkable about the idea that a business might have tools and equipment intended to be used by a single individual. Sure, SOME business equipment is huge machinery that requires many people to operate. But others are not. Auto mechanics and carpenters routinely use tools that are designed to be used by only one worker at a time, for example.

  • jay (unregistered) in reply to Gene Wirchenko
    Gene Wirchenko:
    mophobiac:
    I know it's an acronym. I know Apple wasn't first. Maybe I should have said Apple did the most for the PC snowball way back when windows was just a noun. It doesn't matter.

    Accuracy does count. The Radio Shack TRS-80 outsold the Apple back then. The order -- at least in my neck of the woods -- was Radio Shack TRS-80, Apple, Commodore, and then everyone else. Radio Shack did not go too far into 16-bit, but during the 8-bit days, they were dominant.

    Actually I think Altair was the first.

    And don't forget Sinclair.

Leave a comment on “Got Any Spare Error'd Change?”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

« Return to Article