• (cs) in reply to Nick
    Nick:
    Bellinghman:
    The first appointment is on Wednesday 05/13/09.

    And it's offering a monthly repeat.

    So why the third Wednesday, not the second? It's picking the 13th of the month, because that's the same day as the original. If it wants to offer a monthly repeat, why is one option nice and sane and logical (such that it'd actually have picked the first entry), and the other one a setting that couldn't pick that first day?

    This is why we're going WTF?

    See 293100's comment. It is taking the literal week number, not the count of how many "wednesdays" have been in then month
    293100 was obviously written by an ignorant fuckwit who can't be bothered either to think straight, or to check facts.

    Oh ... wait ...

  • (cs) in reply to MadJo@Work
    MadJo@Work:
    The gas-pump image also has a rather large arrow obscuring the O from "start button" and it makes me wonder why it's at all needed. I mean the start button is already the largest button on the keypad. But I guess they have a lot of maroons pumping for gas there.

    Most readers of English (even maroons) scan left to right, not top to bottom, so a quick scan to find the start button will see a number pad, discount that, then see 4 large yellow buttons read them all and not find a start. The visual/mental system has to make a switch to start reading words from top to bottom to find the word start, so I'm not surprised a significant number of people don't find it. Bad UI design IMO.

  • Matt (unregistered)

    I think Tesco have been updating the card readers, and switched from a top loading one to a bottom loading one (Possibly the other way around).

  • Indrek (unregistered) in reply to racerx_is_alive
    racerx_is_alive:
    The sunglasses one makes sense to me- ever since I picked up a pair of polarized glasses, there have been probably half a dozen times where I would be looking at a screen, trying to figure out why it was black, or why it was covered in rainbow swirls (like oil on the ground) when I realized I had my glasses on.
    If your glasses are preventing you from reading anything on the screen, how, pray tell, are you going to be able to read the message? They should've written the note on an actual sign and put it next to the screen.
  • John Preston (unregistered)

    Fargo's got nothing on Denver. This was on Wednesday right before I left work.

    [image]
  • (cs) in reply to boh
    boh:
    Kermos:
    Bah, self checkout systems. I utterly hate those and avoid them like the plague. Don't know about you all but personally, if they expect *me* to do the cashier's job at a store, they better be paying me for it.

    They are paying you for it, by being able to keep lower prices. Some people do not seem to understand this.

    Kermos:
    I actually had a store employee once tell me why I don't use their self checkout instead of coming to her. Flat out told her "I don't work here."

    Yeah. Gimme personal service and higher prices. I don't want to save money.

    Right, because the stores would NEVER EVER think about pocketing the profit of you having to do the work for them. Never. </sarcasm>

    I've yet to see anything cheaper at a place that does self checkout VS one that doesn't. The local home depot here charges me the identical price if I go through the self checkout lane or through the cashier lane for all their items. So why the hell should I be doing their work for them?

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Frank
    Frank:
    Self-checkout systems are nothing more than the express lanes of the future. They are MUCH faster than waiting in line if you only have a few items, but are otherwise completely worthless to the customer.

    In theory, yes, but in reality there's always some fuckwit in front of me who can't handle the complexity of checking themselves out.

    If anything, it's made me appreciate the highly skilled work of grocery store check-out clerks. Because apparently about 80% of the general public aren't up to the job.

  • (cs)

    not error when report cold, that is new freeze cream sold, sales were successed

  • HeebyJeeby (unregistered) in reply to Bellinghman
    Bellinghman:
    Nick:
    Bellinghman:
    The first appointment is on Wednesday 05/13/09.

    And it's offering a monthly repeat.

    So why the third Wednesday, not the second? It's picking the 13th of the month, because that's the same day as the original. If it wants to offer a monthly repeat, why is one option nice and sane and logical (such that it'd actually have picked the first entry), and the other one a setting that couldn't pick that first day?

    This is why we're going WTF?

    See 293100's comment. It is taking the literal week number, not the count of how many "wednesdays" have been in then month
    293100 was obviously written by an ignorant fuckwit who can't be bothered either to think straight, or to check facts.

    Oh ... wait ...

    This site explains wy this isn't a WTF.

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to Chuck

    Apparently, but those don't matter.

  • Outtascope (unregistered) in reply to boh
    boh:
    Kermos:
    Bah, self checkout systems. I utterly hate those and avoid them like the plague. Don't know about you all but personally, if they expect *me* to do the cashier's job at a store, they better be paying me for it.

    They are paying you for it, by being able to keep lower prices. Some people do not seem to understand this.

    Kermos:
    I actually had a store employee once tell me why I don't use their self checkout instead of coming to her. Flat out told her "I don't work here."

    Yeah. Gimme personal service and higher prices. I don't want to save money.

    Yep, I 'member back when they put those systems in, prices dropped in half. Riiiiggghht.

    Most of these stores barely pay their cashiers in the first place (hence the fact that their heads start pouring out smoke when you give them a 20 dollar bill and a quarter when your total was $18.23).

    I have come so close to ending up on True TV when those POS machines start at me with the "Did you forget to put your item in the bag" BS. Treat me like a shoplifter because your crappy system with its massive 1 and a half feet of counter space can't determine if the item scanned had something else's UPC code? Here's a clue, if I was gonna shoplift I wouldn't have scanned the damn thing in the first place.

    Besides, most stores around here only ever had one of the their 20 lanes open anyway, so how much labor could they actually be saving?

    Captcha: dolor - Canadian currency.

  • mypalmike (unregistered)

    Isn't Bematech a subsidiary of Initrode?

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Frank
    Frank:
    They are MUCH faster than waiting in line if you only have a few items, but are otherwise completely worthless to the customer.

    Is that supposed to be a pro-self checkout or anti- comment? It seems rather paradoxical. Like saying, "That steak tasted great but besides that it was worthless", or "That medicene saved my life but besides that it was worthless".

    What do you expect a checkout line to do? Comb your hair for you?

  • (cs) in reply to boh
    boh:
    Kermos:
    Bah, self checkout systems. I utterly hate those and avoid them like the plague. Don't know about you all but personally, if they expect *me* to do the cashier's job at a store, they better be paying me for it.

    They are paying you for it, by being able to keep lower prices. Some people do not seem to understand this.

    Kermos:
    I actually had a store employee once tell me why I don't use their self checkout instead of coming to her. Flat out told her "I don't work here."

    Yeah. Gimme personal service and higher prices. I don't want to save money.

    TRWTF is that people still think that cost has anything to do with price. Prices are set at what the merchant believes the consumer will pay - no matter what the merchant has to spend delivering the product.

    First Try

  • Zapp Brannigan (unregistered) in reply to racerx_is_alive
    racerx_is_alive:
    The sunglasses one makes sense to me- ever since I picked up a pair of polarized glasses, there have been probably half a dozen times where I would be looking at a screen, trying to figure out why it was black, or why it was covered in rainbow swirls (like oil on the ground) when I realized I had my glasses on.

    They probably put that text on the screen because the cashiers were so tired of people telling them that "the screen is broken."

    Think about it. One, two three...

  • Jay (unregistered)

    We haven't quite hit -196 here in Michigan but we had zero with the wind chill and it's not even officially winter yet. Al Gore assured us that if we just kept driving SUVs and using aerosol spray cans we'd get some global warming! Can we sue him for failure to deliver on his promises?

  • Outtascope (unregistered) in reply to Zapp Brannigan
    Zapp Brannigan:
    racerx_is_alive:
    They probably put that text on the screen because the cashiers were so tired of people telling them that "the screen is broken."
    Think about it. One, two three...

    WIN!

    Captcha: illum - meaningless Big Ten football game

  • (cs)

    Some really good ones in there, I got a good laugh out of this post. Thanks.

  • Steve-O (unregistered) in reply to Steenbergh
    Steenbergh:
    <counterrant>I wouldn't have to resort to using own date/time functions, if all the date/time processing offered by many an environment wasn't based on the US exclusively, or used localization that defaults to US at the drop of a hat.</counterrant>
    QFT.

    Where can I make a ticket to have .NET's System.Windows.Drawing.Color be renamed to Colour.

    Because that's how it's spelled.

  • mypalmike (unregistered) in reply to ContraCorners

    Cost has quite a bit to do with price. A merchant can't calculate expected gross margins without considering item cost.

    To put it concretely, let's say I estimate I can sell 10 t-shirts if I charge $20/shirt or 20 t-shirts if I charge $15/shirt. Gross proceeds are $200 vs $300. Unless I consider cost, there's no way to calculate which is more profitable. If a shirt costs me $8, I make $120 vs $140, but if a shirt costs me $12, I make $80 vs $60.

  • Jack Frots (unregistered) in reply to Michael
    Michael:
    It's Cold:
    "It's seriously gotten cold in Fargo these days," Kevin Gross writes, "seriously cold."
    I've lived in Fargo. -196 is not bad for an early Spring afternoon.

    Oh, that's -196 Kelvin.

    Yeah, Fargo gets kinda cold sometimes.

    GEEK JOKE FAIL!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin

    Did you know that a joke going over your head in -196 Kelvin air makes an incredibly crisp "WHOOSH!"?

  • veniam (unregistered) in reply to fennec
    fennec:
    Drain Bamage:
    Great success!

    This was a triumph. I'm making a note here.

    No.

    http://www.seekalyric.com/printer_friendly/Valve/Still_Alive__portal_

    Not linked 'cause some idiot misconfigured their spam filter.

  • veniam (unregistered) in reply to Steve-O
    Steve-O:
    Steenbergh:
    <counterrant>I wouldn't have to resort to using own date/time functions, if all the date/time processing offered by many an environment wasn't based on the US exclusively, or used localization that defaults to US at the drop of a hat.</counterrant>
    QFT.

    Where can I make a ticket to have .NET's System.Windows.Drawing.Color be renamed to Colour.

    Because that's how it's spelled.

    What, are you the director of the society for the preservation of antique dipthongs? Go speak French if you're so horny for unnecessary vowels.*

    ...Oh, wait, just saw the user name. snicker

    • Note: might require eating cheese and surrendering all over the place, you freakin monkey.
  • Ocson (unregistered) in reply to John Preston
    John Preston:
    Fargo's got nothing on Denver. This was on Wednesday right before I left work.

    [image]

    That's not so bad, the wind chill is a nice toasty -34.

  • anon-e-mouse (unregistered) in reply to Indrek
    Indrek:
    racerx_is_alive:
    The sunglasses one makes sense to me- ever since I picked up a pair of polarized glasses, there have been probably half a dozen times where I would be looking at a screen, trying to figure out why it was black, or why it was covered in rainbow swirls (like oil on the ground) when I realized I had my glasses on.
    If your glasses are preventing you from reading anything on the screen, how, pray tell, are you going to be able to read the message? They should've written the note on an actual sign and put it next to the screen.

    Maybe they expect you to come in on a cloudy day or at night, with your sunglasses off, see the message, and then remember it some unspecified number of days later when you think the screen is broken? Because we all know THAT will happen ....

    captcha: valetudo - the two dollars you tipped the guy parking your car?

  • Outtascope (unregistered) in reply to mypalmike
    mypalmike:
    Cost has quite a bit to do with price. A merchant can't calculate expected gross margins without considering item cost.

    To put it concretely, let's say I estimate I can sell 10 t-shirts if I charge $20/shirt or 20 t-shirts if I charge $15/shirt. Gross proceeds are $200 vs $300. Unless I consider cost, there's no way to calculate which is more profitable. If a shirt costs me $8, I make $120 vs $140, but if a shirt costs me $12, I make $80 vs $60.

    At retail the shirt costs you whatever it costs regardless of what you are paying YOUR labor. Labor is an overhead cost and the calculation is to get away with as little labor as possible while moving the most product through the door, regardless of whether my profit per widget is $3, $5, or even negative in cases where some chain businesses cough walmart cough are simply trying to eliminate local competition and corner the market. Any savings made on retail labor are typically not reflected in lower prices, they show up as management bonuses, preferred shares, dividends and K-street services.

  • Gas-Pump-Challenged (unregistered)

    The gas pump one is very familiar to me. There is one station here in town that has that same model of gas pump. All of the other stations have the pump where you slide your card, select the grade of gas you want then pull the trigger and fill'er up. I normally don't use the station with the funky pumps because it's out of the way, but one day I decided to stop there because their gas was several cents per gallon cheaper than the other places.

    I swiped my card, selected my grade, put the nozzel in my tank and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Tried a few more times, and still nothing. Canceled that out, figured the pump was broken and pulled up to the next pump. Same thing happened. At that point I went to the cashier and asked them what was up. She did something and told me to try again. Still nothing. Went back and she asked me "Did you press Start?"

    Made me feel like a total idiot. I had my polarized glasses on so I couldn't see the message on the screen and I'd never used a pump that required you to select the grade

    They may have put that big "Start Button" arrow on the side of the pump so people would know there is an extra step on their funky pumps.

  • bramster (unregistered) in reply to It's Cold, eh?
    It's Cold:
    "It's seriously gotten cold in Fargo these days," Kevin Gross writes, "seriously cold."
    I've lived in Fargo. -196 is not bad for an early Spring afternoon.

    Oh, that's -196 Kelvin.

    Yeah, Fargo gets kinda cold sometimes.

    1. Kelvin CANNOT be negative.

    2. Regardless, it's not going to be a good day at the Dairy Queen.

  • bramster (unregistered) in reply to Crash Magnet
    Crash Magnet:
    Ok, -196F is equal to -127C. So the embedded system can't handle -128?

    Q:

    1. There is 1LSB of noise in the analog circuit.
    2. The ADC can't handle -128,
    3. The programmer flubed the conversion from ADC units to degrees C
    4. The programmer flubed the conversion from degrees K to degrees C
    5. The programmer never tested the prototype at -198F.

    A: #5 You need to test all corner conditions and know what the answer should be.

    1. The programmer's fingers were frozen when he wrote the conversions. . .
  • James (unregistered) in reply to Drain Bamage

    Gotta love Chingrish! ...er, make that: "is always be happy-time when china persons try write english"

  • chunder thunder (unregistered) in reply to Outtascope
    Outtascope:
    At retail the shirt costs you whatever it costs regardless of what you are paying YOUR labor. Labor is an overhead cost and the calculation is to get away with as little labor as possible while moving the most product through the door, regardless of whether my profit per widget is $3, $5, or even negative in cases where some chain businesses **cough** walmart **cough** are simply trying to eliminate local competition and corner the market. Any savings made on retail labor are typically not reflected in lower prices, they show up as management bonuses, preferred shares, dividends and K-street services.

    The purpose of almost every business is to maximize its profits. Obviously, this is done by maximizing margin times number of sales (neglecting fixed costs, etc). If labor costs can be reduced without impacting the shopping experience to a degree that reduces sales, then the price can be lowered for the same margin. Why would that happen? Competitive advantage, enticing people to buy something they otherwise would not have bought, etc. Prices definitely reflect the cost of labor in many settings.

    A business won't reduce its price unless it needs to, but if labor costs can be reduced, they have the ability to do so. If they can then reduce prices to undercut their competition, that's great for the customer, barring anti-competitive short-term tricks.

    Personally, I refuse to use self-checker lanes. Even for small numbers of items, they're so annoying I prefer to wait a short time in line. Mostly though I shop at stores that provide adequate checker staff. I prefer to pay for that service.

  • (cs) in reply to Crash Magnet
    Crash Magnet:
    Ok, -196F is equal to -127C. So the embedded system can't handle -128?

    Q:

    1. There is 1LSB of noise in the analog circuit.
    2. The ADC can't handle -128,
    3. The programmer flubed the conversion from ADC units to degrees C
    4. The programmer flubed the conversion from degrees K to degrees C
    5. The programmer never tested the prototype at -198F.

    A: #5 You need to test all corner conditions and know what the answer should be.

    Flubed? What the heck is that?

  • ikon810 (unregistered) in reply to HeebyJeeby

    Agreed! I didn't understand why this image was posted here!

  • (cs) in reply to veniam
    veniam:
    fennec:
    Drain Bamage:
    Great success!

    This was a triumph. I'm making a note here.

    No.

    http://www.seekalyric.com/printer_friendly/Valve/Still_Alive__portal_

    I know how it goes, but I need to work with what I've got. Blame Drain for not making the right First Post to begin with.

  • Brrrrr (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    We haven't quite hit -196 here in Michigan but we had zero with the wind chill and it's not even officially winter yet.
    Winter starts in December in the Northern Hemisphere. (It would make more sense for the solstice to be the exact midpoint of the season, not the beginning. The reason it's not is because the Earth heats up and cools down relatively slowly. [source])
  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    They can take your card, yes - but if they use fallback mode they don't have the degree of payment protection they do it they use Chip & PIN, so they will lose out if you turn out to be a fraudster. This usually matters less to the big stores because they are often multiples who can negotiate non-standard deals with the card processors.

    Why should the small stores have to lose out because you have a less secure payment system? C'mon, guys, at least have some respect for the people you are expecting to risk their income to deal with your quaint old systems.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to bramster
    bramster:
    1. Kelvin CANNOT be negative.
    Which is why it's a joke. I take it that when you read Dilbert you huff and puff about how donuts can't fire bullets and how they didn't have a glass room next to the secretary's office three pages ago?
  • Worf (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Frank:
    Self-checkout systems are nothing more than the express lanes of the future. They are MUCH faster than waiting in line if you only have a few items, but are otherwise completely worthless to the customer.

    In theory, yes, but in reality there's always some fuckwit in front of me who can't handle the complexity of checking themselves out.

    If anything, it's made me appreciate the highly skilled work of grocery store check-out clerks. Because apparently about 80% of the general public aren't up to the job.

    My experience is, if there's a free self-checkout machine, use it. If however, the machines are all in use or there's a lineup, find a normal cashier. It's way faster.

    And I suepect it's because of the slowdowns they purposely put on the self checkouts - after you scan it, you have to wait for the display to prompt you to put it in the bag. Then when it's in the bag, you wait for the display to ask you to scan the next item. It's quite frustrating to use with all the delays. Oh, heaven forbid you be fast and right after scanning, you put it in the bag. Now you've screwed it all up and have to wait for the attendant to reset, or to put it in the bag, remove it, put it back in, remove it until the register finally cooperates.

    Given the speed at which a normal cashier can get through a pile of stuff, the slow parts are normally the customer unloading, the customer bagging, or the payment.

  • moz (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Frank:
    Self-checkout systems are nothing more than the express lanes of the future. They are MUCH faster than waiting in line if you only have a few items, but are otherwise completely worthless to the customer.

    In theory, yes, but in reality there's always some fuckwit in front of me who can't handle the complexity of checking themselves out.

    Interesting. Around here, the supermarkets which have those checkouts employ staff to watch over them to help people who have trouble (say) remembering to scan items before they put them in the bag, so you're no more likely to have a long wait than with a normal checkout.

  • veniam (unregistered) in reply to fennec
    fennec:
    veniam:
    fennec:
    Drain Bamage:
    Great success!

    This was a triumph. I'm making a note here.

    No.

    http://www.seekalyric.com/printer_friendly/Valve/Still_Alive__portal_

    I know how it goes, but I need to work with what I've got. Blame Drain for not making the right First Post to begin with.

    laff! then you should have gone with a Borat.

  • (cs) in reply to bramster
    bramster:
    Kelvin CANNOT be negative.
    Wrong. However, because of the really quite odd way in which Kelvin is defined (it measures a factor related to the gradient of the population distribution of entities in a thermodynamic system) when you have a negative temperature it is hotter than all positive temperatures. In reality, what you've got in that situation is a population inversion, and the most common place where that happens on earth is in lasers.

    So... someone was firing a laser at the temperature sensor in Fargo. Or it was all just broken.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to dmi
    dmi:
    And the last WTF: it usually initialises things to the same as the day you chose. If you selected the third Wednesday of the month, it should show that as an option (although in this case it *should* show "second Wednesday"). Just as it displays "13th of every month" because it's the 13th day of the month...

    Did someone dumb down the Interblagosphere while I wasn't paying attention?

    Sorry. I don't even know what that application is, and I certainly don't have a spec for that application sitting in front of me that I can reference. Exactly how are we supposed to know without previous experience that it's supposed to be suggesting either the selected date or the selected day of the selected week of the month? There's a complete lack of context to the last WTF.

    Captcha: jumentum? Given a 80kg rabbi traveling at 100 km/h, answer the following questions...

  • (cs)

    Being a person who was born in a metric world, I've learned to just ignore large Fahrenheit values.

    Crazy Americans... Can't they just learn to use real measurements?

  • (cs) in reply to bramster
    bramster:
    It's Cold:
    "It's seriously gotten cold in Fargo these days," Kevin Gross writes, "seriously cold."
    I've lived in Fargo. -196 is not bad for an early Spring afternoon.

    Oh, that's -196 Kelvin.

    Yeah, Fargo gets kinda cold sometimes.

    1. Kelvin CANNOT be negative.
    *facepalm* Yes, that's the joke. You were looking right at it but you still missed it.
  • (cs)

    Dunno about that, but I'm sure it's a dup'd thing:

    http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Tax-Broke.aspx

    Holy fuck, what is akismet and why does it delete two ... uh I mean repeatedly reject this goddam post?

  • (cs) in reply to DaveK

    CASH PAYDAY CHEQUES UGG BOOTS BUY NOW WORLD OF WARCRAFT GOLD. FAKE ROLEX WATCHES heh, just testing :) http://thedailywtf.com/

  • (cs) in reply to DaveK

    Well, that's not a /whole/ lot of use then.

    I'm guessing it keys off # of URLs relative to length of post rather than blacklist of keywords. Not that I'd really mind much if we were never able to discuss UGG BOOTS or WORLD OF WARCRAFT GOLD on this forum again...

  • (cs) in reply to Kermos

    The KMart where I first saw self-checkout had to station a manager nearby to help people figure them out. After a while they just moved a bunch of displays in front of them to block them off.

  • Slicerwizard (unregistered) in reply to Craig
    Craig:
    That GM one just baffles me. Here's a company who wants to sell you a vehicle, but you can't even get through the process of designing the vehicle because no one bothered to actually walk through the process.

    The lack of quality and care that goes into today's software just pi**es me off.

    They're just preparing you for the build quality of the actual vehicle.

    BTW, the comments have it all today - "flubed", "orientated", self-checkout and negative Kelvin haters... Damn.

  • jeff (unregistered)

    the one about the address not being found is faked - there is no place on the squaregroup website which: a) Lets you search for anything (as I assume this fake wtf was meant to be), and b) displays any form of javascript alert.

    It's a sad time when people (read WTF-kiddies) have to make up WTFs to gain fame.

    Well done, Richard Hamilton-Frost, I hope you enjoyed it.

    (Captcha: Validus)

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