• (cs) in reply to Anon

    I first came into this world in the eighty-first year of the reign of King Bulagrion the Unquestionable, son of Eldor, slayer of the Myth Lords, defeater of the Nibble-Pibblies, uniter of the Old Empires of Asgarothianassitas and H'rodic'hanath, and tester of the Ancient Five Hundred Rune Lim

  • J.R. Raith (unregistered) in reply to Pitabred
    Pitabred:
    That reminds me of this gem about the Great State of Texas

    That is correct, sir!

  • Tei (unregistered)

    some people prefer to put his hage in milliseconds from 1900, using unarian base. ( thats like 189408432489 ones )

  • VLPRONJ (unregistered)

    Set ImpossibleDream=Dreamt

  • (cs)

    The Real WTF is that J.R. Raith assumes people would just throw away their ATM receipts. There's personally identifiable information on there!

    Clearly he hasn't been hanging around this site long enough if his paranoia is that weak.

  • IMSoP (unregistered)

    I've often seen ATMs that are out of paper and disable the option for "cash with receipt". But I swear the other day I saw one that had greyed out "cash without receipt", so you could only get "cash with receipt"! I dunno, maybe it ran out of cash and was printing IOUs onto the thermal paper?

  • IMSoP (unregistered) in reply to Justice
    Justice:
    The Real WTF is that J.R. Raith assumes people would just throw away their ATM receipts. There's personally identifiable information on there!

    No, the real WTF is the number of people who don't realise you can use the ATM without printing a receipt. Lack of paranoia is the least of their problems!

  • David (unregistered)

    Sorry but I just can't call a javascript message box a WTF. ATM is rather funny though.

  • (cs) in reply to IMSoP
    IMSoP:
    Justice:
    The Real WTF is that J.R. Raith assumes people would just throw away their ATM receipts. There's personally identifiable information on there!

    No, the real WTF is the number of people who don't realise you can use the ATM without printing a receipt. Lack of paranoia is the least of their problems!

    Many ATMs (in the United States at least) print a receipt automatically without giving you a choice in the matter.

  • Anonym (unregistered) in reply to amischiefr
    amischiefr:
    Anon:
    Perhaps the 500 character limit on the year field is for those who like to put in the year in words.

    "The year of our lord one thousand nine hundred and seventy five", for example.

    Yeah, but imagine being the programmer who has to write the code to parse that crap.
    A 5 MB regexp should do the trick.

  • (cs) in reply to the real wtf fool
    the real wtf fool:
    RiptoR:
    Or maybe the programmer was just lazy, and only used a 500-character long textbox for every questions in the survey?

    Really? You think? I don't think anybody here has thought of that - you must be some kind of genious.

    genious indeed...

  • Ryan (unregistered)

    Wow, I think I know that ATM - that's the ATM on the north side of the University of Colorado music building, isn't it?

  • ClutchDude (unregistered)

    Actually, if those are Diebold ATM's , they are performing a accuracy check or some other function. If you look around, you might find the SHA key that it'll use for encryption.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon

    Someone is going to interpret "our lord" creatively. You just know it will happen. Cthulu, anyone?

  • Banker (unregistered) in reply to BobB
    BobB:
    Anon:
    Perhaps the 500 character limit on the year field is for those who like to put in the year in words.

    "The year of our lord one thousand nine hundred and seventy five", for example.

    Or for those who like to put the year into lyrics!

    In the year of thirty-nine Assembled here the volunteers In the days when lands were few Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn The sweetest sight ever seen And the night followed day And the story tellers say That the score brave souls inside For many a lonely day Sailed across the milky seas Never looked back never feared never cried

    Take it to the ATM and Print it out!!!

  • Michael (unregistered) in reply to Spoonman
    Spoonman:
    Inno:
    "Test Prt Cnt: 703"

    The test is designed to determine precisely which of paper or ink runs out first! (.... no not FRIST)

    No ink to run out of: pretty much all ATMs use thermal paper.

    I don't know that that's so true... Many of the non-Bank ones do around here, but a lot of the bank ones seem to give a printout that feels a lot more like normal paper and doesn't change colour if it's left in a hot car for two days...(how dare you suggest that colour is spelt wrong you stupid American spell-checker),

  • Grug (unregistered) in reply to Ryan
    Ryan:
    Wow, I think I know that ATM - that's the ATM on the north side of the University of Colorado music building, isn't it?

    I don't think so...It looks like the one that is next to the other one, on the wall....

  • Mark (unregistered) in reply to Ryan

    Nope, I'm pretty sure that it's the one by the northwest entrance to the UMC..

    Definitely CU, though. The pattern of the rocks is distinctive (and mandatory).

  • (cs) in reply to Sutherlands
    Sutherlands:
    the real wtf fool:
    RiptoR:
    Or maybe the programmer was just lazy, and only used a 500-character long textbox for every questions in the survey?

    Really? You think? I don't think anybody here has thought of that - you must be some kind of genious.

    genious indeed...

    FTFY

  • Ford (unregistered)

    In what year were you born?

    1. Write down a number between 1 and 100.
    2. Multiply the number you wrote down by twice the nearest prime number.
    3. Pad the number from step 1 from the left with alternating 1's and 0's, starting with 1, until it is the same length as the number from step 2.
    4. XOR the values from steps 2 and 3 together, and write the result down in reverse.
    5. Now subtract the number from step 1 from the result of step 4.
    6. Find all roots of the polynomial with coefficients from each of the previous 5 steps, star

    (maximum 500 character limit exceeded.)

    FUCK!

  • kingpin (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    a javascript alert box... I could come up with a million of those; and for the amature programmers who write crap... keep doing it.

  • EitherOr (unregistered) in reply to Greygor
    Greygor:
    Of course the ATM could have been receiving an alien communication. it could be printing out the most stupendous message ever received by man.

    And we'd never know

    Absolutely. Align the symbols on the corners in 3D and it's probably some sort of blueprint for an inter-dimensional transporter.

  • Mr. Briggs (unregistered)

    Or perhaps it's for people who forget that it's only the year, so they put the full date:

    The fifth Sunday (that is, the twenty-ninth) of the third month, March, of this two thousand and ninth year of our Lord Jesus Christ (that is, Anno Domini).

    That's a good 200 letters or so... but that's a lot of "of"s.

  • Mr. Briggs (unregistered) in reply to DaveK

    We should actually be preparing for 2106. In that year the Unix epoch will run out, except by that time everyone'll be using 128-bit processors and whatnot, so... never mind.

  • (cs) in reply to Someone You Know
    Someone You Know:
    IMSoP:
    Justice:
    The Real WTF is that J.R. Raith assumes people would just throw away their ATM receipts. There's personally identifiable information on there!

    No, the real WTF is the number of people who don't realise you can use the ATM without printing a receipt. Lack of paranoia is the least of their problems!

    Many ATMs (in the United States at least) print a receipt automatically without giving you a choice in the matter.

    I honestly can't remember the last time I got money out of an ATM and did NOT have the choice.

    Maybe many of the ATMs you use, but most of the ATMs I've used (around the world) give you a choice. I am pretty sure I've seen one or two in other countries automatically give a receipt though.

  • (cs) in reply to DaveK
    DaveK:
    Alan:
    Whoevar:
    Who would assume that four digits for the year are enough anyway? Everyone remembers the Y2K-problem, right?

    Yup - so if you are a programmer in the year 9999 i have only one bit of advice - learn cobol...

    Nah, it aint gonna happen again, everyone will be prepared this time. As proof, I give you RFC2550.
    I was going to reference that, but then I saw you beat me to it. (I've got the 'Complete April Fools RFCs' book :D)
  • a visitor from Gliese 581 c (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    Or maybe they have catered for visitors from a far away galaxy...

  • Nilt (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Perhaps the 500 character limit on the year field is for those who like to put in the year in words.

    "The year of our lord one thousand nine hundred and seventy five", for example.

    Which still uses just over 10% of the 500 character limit.

  • (cs)

    I had a coworker once who was fond of these types of error messages where errors shouldn't be able to happen. We were showing our software at a conference and encountered the error messages "This can't happen" and "The world is coming to an end".

  • David (unregistered) in reply to Whoevar
    Whoevar:
    Who would assume that four digits for the year are enough anyway? Everyone remembers the Y2K-problem, right?

    Forget 10,000. It's safe to assume there'll be a year 2100 problem, a year 2200 problem etc etc etc. Humans never learn.

  • Kane (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    Or they're future proofing to prevent pesky system maintenance right before the end of the Universe.

  • Wyrd (unregistered)

    I keep imagining Cthulhu patiently filling out the form, and having just barely enough space.

    Furry cows moo and decompress.

  • Ray Stantz (unregistered) in reply to seantellis
    seantellis:
    I first came into this world in the eighty-first year of the reign of King Bulagrion the Unquestionable, son of Eldor, slayer of the Myth Lords, defeater of the Nibble-Pibblies, uniter of the Old Empires of Asgarothianassitas and H'rodic'hanath, and tester of the Ancient Five Hundred Rune Lim
    As a duly-constituted representative of the City of New York, and on behalf of the County and State of New York, the United States of America, the Planet Earth and all its inhabitants, I hereby order you to cease and desist any and all supernatural activity and return at once to your place of origin or next parallel dimension.
  • AlefBet (unregistered) in reply to Greygor
    Greygor:
    Of course the ATM could have been receiving an alien communication. it could be printing out the most stupendous message ever received by man.

    And we'd never know

    I bet aliens sometimes print Postscript documents as text, too.

  • Watson (unregistered) in reply to RiptoR
    RiptoR:
    Or maybe the programmer was just lazy, and only used a 500-character long textbox for every questions in the survey?
    Only in the sense that all good programmers are lazy: there's a very clever bit of code generation that looks at the table these results will be recorded in and chooses an appropriate input field. In this (and every other) case, varchar(500).
  • IMSoP (unregistered) in reply to Someone You Know
    Someone You Know:
    IMSoP:
    Justice:
    The Real WTF is that J.R. Raith assumes people would just throw away their ATM receipts. There's personally identifiable information on there!

    No, the real WTF is the number of people who don't realise you can use the ATM without printing a receipt. Lack of paranoia is the least of their problems!

    Many ATMs (in the United States at least) print a receipt automatically without giving you a choice in the matter.

    Then I guess I've been out-WTF'd.

  • archivator (unregistered)

    They probably wanted to provide enough space for this guy's story:

    One day, in the year of the fox Came a time remembered well, When the strong young man of the rising sun Heard the tolling of the great black bell. One day in the year of the fox, When the bell began to ring, It meant the time had come for one to go To the temple of the king.

    Either him or Beowulf. Though the latter would need an order of magnitude more characters.

  • Chris Griffin (unregistered)

    Are you The Matrix?

  • just once (unregistered)

    |"#$%&'()+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[#]^_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~-|"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[#]^_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~-|"#$%&'()+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[#]^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~-|"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[#]^_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~-|"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[#]^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~-|"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[#]^_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~-|"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[#]^_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~-|"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[#]^_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{ "Test Prt Cmnt:1"

  • Pine Scented (unregistered)

    The tree hugger in me just died a little.

  • Peter Venkman (unregistered) in reply to Ray Stantz
    Ray Stantz:
    seantellis:
    I first came into this world in the eighty-first year of the reign of King Bulagrion the Unquestionable, son of Eldor, slayer of the Myth Lords, defeater of the Nibble-Pibblies, uniter of the Old Empires of Asgarothianassitas and H'rodic'hanath, and tester of the Ancient Five Hundred Rune Lim
    As a duly-constituted representative of the City of New York, and on behalf of the County and State of New York, the United States of America, the Planet Earth and all its inhabitants, I hereby order you to cease and desist any and all supernatural activity and return at once to your place of origin or next parallel dimension.
    Well, that ought to do it.
  • (cs) in reply to Greygor
    Greygor:
    Of course the ATM could have been receiving an alien communication. it could be printing out the most stupendous message ever received by man.

    And we'd never know

    The owls are not what they seem.

  • Knger (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Perhaps the 500 character limit on the year field is for those who like to put in the year in words.

    "The year of our lord one thousand nine hundred and seventy five", for example.

    500 characters falls short if it was Nostradamus filling the form, he would have needed a thousand:

    Anyhow, I count the years from the creation of the world to the birth of Noah as 1,506, and from the birth of Noah to the completion of the Ark, at the time of the universal deluge, as 600 ( let the years be solar, or lunar, or a mixture of the ten ) I hold that the Sacred Scriptures use solar years. And at the end of these 600 years, Noah entered the Ark to be saved from the deluge. This deluge was universal, and lasted one year and two months. And 295 years elapsed from the end of the flood to the birth of Abraham, and 100 from then till the birth of Isaac. And 60 years later Jacob was born. 130 years elapsed between the time he entered Egypt and the time he came out. Between the entry of Jacob into Egypt and the exodus, 430 years passed. From the exodus to the building of the Temple by Solomon in the fourth year of his reign, 480 years. According of the calculations of the Sacred Writings, it was 490 years from the building of the Temple to the time of Jesus Christ. Plus 1503 to me.

  • Engywuck (unregistered)

    ATMs give out receipts?

    WTF?

    Here (germany) you enter your bank card (credit cards should work, too), enter your pin, say what you want, get card and money - that's it

    If you want your transaction on paper you go to the next automaton and let your transactions print (once every three months or so necessary, doable every 5 minutes :p)

  • cozappz (unregistered) in reply to Frog99

    I think the message spells: I got a virus!

  • me (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    agreed. I mean, it rationalizes just fine the idea - everything would be simpler if we used the same input class on all of the screens.

  • Norman Plum (unregistered)

    Well, incorrect Sign Prices just became really unfunny, I know a guy that works on that code. I am sure he blamed it on the data entry people

  • eric bloedow (unregistered)

    that ATM story reminds me of what happened in the computer lab at college one time: the lab had 3 long tables, each with about a dozen PCs. all the PCs on each table were hooked up to a...call it a "print buffer" device, which was hooked up to a printer. one day, when i entered the lab, the person in charge of that lab said one of the printers had gone crazy, and had been printing junk for an hour, and he couldn't make it stop. after completing my homework at one of the other tables, i decided to look at the printer. it was printing what appeared to be an old newspaper page, over and over. then i looked at the lights on the side of the "buffer"-and quickly saw that the "test mode" light was on! i pressed ONE button, and the problem was fixed! and the person in charge of the lab had been completely stumped...

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