UK supermarket scales go 404 on shoppers

BORK!BORK!BORK! The scales are empty, and so what else can there be but a 404? Today's entry in the pantheon of bork takes us to the UK city of Coventry, where a set of scales at a Tesco store shows the number 404. Spotted by eagle-eyed Register reader Rowan Archer, the scales have logged off and done the computing equivalent of popping down to the pub. It's an odd number to choose. Hopefully it's a device identifier rather than a message code. After all, netizens have long associated the number with a browser being unable to find a resource on a server. 404 means not found. 400 is a bad request and, in fact, pretty much anything starting with a 4 generally means the client has likely done something naughty and the server is patiently replying with the computing equivalent of "don't do that." Archer sent us another image, with a 403 number and a plea for a human to deal with its label feed. 403 means Forbidden, so... could these be the forbidden scales? Only for weighing Eldritch Horrors? We're not sure how much Cthulhu weighs, but this might be the place to find out. The device in question looks like one of the Avery Berkel XT scale series, perhaps an XTi100, i101, or perhaps an x100 or x101. There's a large color touchscreen that lets the customer select the produce to be weighed. The screen can also show video ads to "increase customer basket value," which is exactly what we'd want to see after plopping a bag of onions on top of the thing. As far as we can tell, the scales run a version of Linux. The i incarnation has only 2GB of memory, while the x version pushes the boat out with 8GB, and so has a bit more headroom. Whatever the amount, it feels a little like overkill compared to the mechanical versions of yesteryear. There, no power or open-source operating system was required. Just an assistant capable of doing some basic mathematics, spotting what was in the bag, and knowing the difference between exotic berries and a cabbage. Still, progress, eh? And the only thing an old-fashioned scale could advertise was an audible notification when it was time for a squirt of WD-40. (R)