You may call it equity, or equinox or whatever woketerm you like but you can't sugarcoat what those of us in the North know:the Southern Hemisphere is stealing the very essence of our dwindlingdays. Sucking out the insolation like a milkshake and slurping it allacross the equator.
I am amused to see that Warcraft III isstill out there being played. I think it was my son's first PC game and maybe the second to last one I ever played regularly.And it's Maia E. who's doing it. She reports "Warcraft III was patched into oblivion over the years,and it looks like the patches introduced some bugs intocampaign quests. At least they didn't rename Thrall into(undefined)!"
...to know which way the wind blows.This week, it's been an ill one. Two of our readers sent us references to the BBC's reports on unusual weather in Bristol - one from the web, and one mobile. Maybe that will help you deduce the source of this error.Frist, Graham F. shared a screenshot of the beeb's mobile app, bellowing"I know Milton is hitting the US hard right now but that'snothing compared to the 14,000 mph winds here!"
The most common type of submission Error'd receivesare simple, stupid, data problems on Amazon. The textdoesn't match the image, the pricing is goofy, or someother mixup that are just bound to happen with a databaseof zillions of products uploaded by a plethora ofbarely-literate mountain village drop-shippers.So I don't usually feature them, preferring to find something with at least a chance of being a creative new bug.But I uncovered a story by Mark Johansen about his favoriteauthor, and decided that since so many of you obviously DO thinkonline retail flubs are noteworthy, what the heck.Here is Mark's plain-text story, and a handful of bungledproducts. They're not exactly bugs, but at least some ofthem are about bugs."I guess I missed your item about failings of AI, but here's one of my favorites:Amazon regularly sends me emails of books that their AIthinks I might want to read, presumably based on booksthat I've bought from them in the past. So recently Igot an email saying, "The newest book by an author you'veread before!" And this new book was by ... Ernest Hemingway.Considering that he died almost 60 years ago, it seemedunlikely that he was still writing. Or where he wassending manuscripts from.Lest you wonder, it turned out it was a collection ofletters he wrote when he was, like, actually alive. Thebook was listed as authored by Ernest Hemingwayrather than under the name of whomever compiled the letters."What do we all think? Truly an Error'd, or just some publishertaking marketing advice from real estate agents? Let me know.A while back, Christian E."Wanted to order some groceries from nemlig.com. So I saw the free (labelled GRATIS) product and pressed the info button and this popped up. Says that I can get the product delivered from the 1st of January (today is the 2nd of march). Have to wait for a while then..." Not too much longer, Christian.
No obvious pattern fell out of last week's submissions for Error'd, but I did especially like Caleb Su's example.Michael R., apparently still job hunting, reports "I have signed up to outlier.ai to make some $$$ on the side. No instructions necessary."
Amateur physicist B.J. is going on vacation, but he likes to plan things right down to the zeptosecond."Assume the flight accelerates at a constant speed for the first half of the flight, and decelerates at the same rate for the second half. 1) What speed does the plane need to reach to have that level of time dilation? 2) What is the distance between the airports?"
...Screens of Death. Photos of failures in kiosk-mode always strike me as akin to the wizard being exposed behind his curtain. Yeah, that shiny thing is after all just some Windows PC on a stick. Here are a few that aren't particularly recent, but they're real.Jared S. augurs ill: "Seen in downtown Mountain View, CA: In Silicon ValleyAI has taken over. There is no past, there is no future,and strangely, even the present is totally buggered. However, you're free to restore the present if you wish."
...or actually, it doesn't. A few fans found figures that just didn't add up. Here they are.Steven J Pemberton deserves full credit for this finding."My bank helpfully reminds me when it's time to pay mybill, and normally has no problem getting itright. But this month, the message sent Today 08:02,telling me I had to pay by tomorrow 21-Nov was senton... 21-Nov. The amount I owed was missing the decimal point. They then apologisedfor freaking me out, but got that wrong too, by notreplacing the placeholder for the amount I really needed to pay."
This week, a double dose of Daniel D.First he shared a lesson he titled "Offer you can't refuse a.k.a.Falsehood programmers believe about prices" explaining "Some programmers believe that new prices per month (when paid annually) are always better then the old ones (when paid monthly). Only this time they have forgotten their long-time clients on legacy packages."
The weather isn't the only thing that's balmy around this parts.For instance Bruce, who likes it hot."Westford, MA is usually bracing for winter in December,but this year we got another day of warm temperatures. The feels like temperature was especially nice."
The Hatter was framed! He didn't even do it! Nil Corpus Delecti, et cetera.Yet Yitz O., up to some kind of skullduggery, observed a spacetime oddity."When trying to compare some results from a GetOrders call via the ebayapi, I noticed something weird was happening with the DateTimes in the response.The attached is 3 calls to get the same order, made in quick succession.The millisecond part of all the DateTimes matched the millisecondpart of the *current* time (which you can see in the TimeStamp field.I assume it's because they rolled their own DateTime functionalityand are Getting a UTC time by subtracting the difference betweenthe local time and the UTC time, and one of those values doesn't havethe millisecond value in it, but it's the ebay api so who knows."Undoubtedly a bug that nobody ever noticed because they probablyjust ignore the millis altogether.
Happy 2025 to all our readers. I can already tell thisyear's columns are going to be filled with my (least)favorite form of WTF, the impossible endless gauntlet offlaming password hurdles to jump over or crawl under. Please comment if you know why this week's column has this title and why it doesn't have the title Swordfish.Peter G. starts off our new year of password maladies with a complaint that is almost poetic.
Someone online said we run a Mickey Mouseoutfit. Angered beyond words, we consulted legal@disney.com and they threatened to findthat guy and sue him. So to anyone else who thinks this column is Goofy, you should know that the world's definitive authorities insistthat it absolutely is not.But these guys? This website actually iskind of goofy, according to resolutioner Adam R. who crowed "Someone forgot to localize some text for the new year!"
Casanova Matt swings for the fences."OKCupid (they don't capitalize the K, but I do, for propriety)must have migrated their match questions through Excel duringa recent site revamp. These answers should obviously be 1-2and 3-4, but maybe I could have 2 with Jan and 4 with Margaret(Mar to friends)."
Decreasingly hungry thrillseekerWeaponized Fun has second thoughts about the risk to which they're willing to expose their palate."In addition to Budget Bytes mailing list not knowing who I am, I'm not sure they know what they're making. I'm having a hard time telling whether 'New Recipe 1' sounds more enticing than 'New Recipe 3.' I sure hope they remembered the ingredients."
I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot of AI WTFerry at this site for a while, and fewer stupid online sales copy booboos. For today, here we go:Jet-setterStewart wants to sell a pound, but he's going to have to cover some ground first."Looks like Google are trying very hard to encourage me to stop using their search engine. Perhaps they want me to use chatGPT? I just can't fathom how it got this so wrong."
Because we still have the NWS, I learned that "A winter storm will continueto bring areas of heavy snow and ice from the Great Lakes through New Englandtoday into tonight." I'm staying put, and apparently so is Dave L.'sdelivery driver.Dave L. imagines the thoughts of this driver who clearly turned around and headed straight home."Oh, d'ya mean I've got to take these parcels somewhere!? in this weather!? I can't just bring them back?"
We like trains here at Error'd, and you all seem to like trainstoo. That must be the main reason we get so many submissions about brokeninformation systems."Pass," saidJozsef. I think that train might have crashed already.
The title of this week's column is making me hungry.To start off our WTFreitag, Reinier B. complains "I did not specify my gender since it's completely irrelevant when ordering a skateboard for mydaughter. That does not mean it is correct to address meas Dear Not specified." I wonder (sincerely) if there is a common German-language personal letter greeting for "Dear somebody of unknown gender". I don't think there is onefor English. "To Whom It May Concern" is probably the best we can do.
It's only a day away!Punctual Robert F. never procrastinates. But I think now wouldbe a good time for a change. He worries that"I better do something quick, before my 31,295 year deadline arrives."
I'm not entirely sure I understand the first item today, but maybe you can help.I pulled a couple of older items from the backlog to round out this timely theme.Rudi A.reported this Errord, chortling"Time flies when you're having fun, but it goes back when you're walking along the IJ river!" Is the point here that the walking time is quoted as 77 minutes total, but the overall travel time is less than that? I must say I don't recommend swimming the Ij in March, Rudi.
Today we have a whole batch of category errors, picked out from the rash of submissions and afew that have been festering on the shelf. Just for fun,I threw in an ironic off-by-some meta-error. See if you can spot it.Adam R."I'm looking for hotel rooms for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina. Most hotels haven't opened up reservations yet, except for ridiculously overprice hospitality packages. This search query found NaN facilities available, which equates to one very expensive apartment. I guess one is not a number now?"
We got an unusual rash of submissions at Error'd thisweek. Here are five reasonably good ones chosen not exactlyat random. For those few (everyone) who didn't catch theoff-by-one from last week's batch, there's the clue."Gotta CAPTCHA 'Em All," puns Alex G."So do I select them all?" he wondered. I think the correct answer is null.
I never did explain the elusive off-by-one I hintedat, did I? A little meta, perhaps.It is our practice at Error'd to supply five nuggets of joy each week.But in episode previous-plus-one, you actually got six!(Or maybe, depending on how you count them, that's yetanother off-by-one. I slay me.) If that doesn't tickleyou enough, just wait until you hear what Dave L.brought us. Meanwhile..."YATZP" scoffed self-styled Foo AKA F. Yet Another Time Zone P*, I guess. Not wrong. According to Herr Aka F., "German TV teletext (yes, we still have it!) botched the DST start(upper right corner). The editors realized it and posteda message stating as much, sent from the 'future' (i.e. correct) time zone."
When faced with an information system lacking sufficient richnessto permit its users to express all of the necessary data states,human beings will innovate. In other words, they will find creativeways to bend the system to their will, usually (but notalways) inconsequentially.In the early days of informationsystems, even before electronic computers, we found users choosing to insertvarious out-of-bounds values into data fields to represent states such as "I don't know the true value forthis item" or "It is impossible accurately state the true value ofthis item because of faulty constraint being applied to the input mechanism"or other such notions.This practice carried on into the computing age, so that now, numericfields will often contain values of 9999 or 99999999. Taxpayer numberswill be listed as 000-00-0000 or any other repetition of the samedigit or simple sequences. Requirements to enter names collectedJohn Does. Now we also see a fair share of Disney characters.Programmers then try to make their systems idiot-proof, with theobvious and entirely predictable results.The mere factthat these inventions exist at allis entirely due to the ommission of mechanisms for the metacommentary that we all know perfectlywell is sometimes necessary. But rather than provide those,it's easier to wave our hands and pretendthat these unwanted states won't exist, can be ignored, can be glossed over."Relax" they'll tell you. "It probably won't ever happen.""If it does happen, it won't matter." "Don't lose your head over it."The Beast in Black certainly isn't inclined to cover up an errant sentinel. "For that price, it had better be agenuine Louis XVI pillow from 21-January-1793." A La Lanterne!
Faithful Peter G. took a trip."So I wanted to top up my bus ticket online. After askingfor credit card details, PINs, passwords, a blood sample,and the airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow,they also sent a notification to my phone which I had toauthorise with a fingerprint, and then verify that allthe details were correct (because you can never be toocareful when paying for a bus ticket). So yes, it's me,but the details definitely are not correct." Which part iswrong, the currency? Any idea what the exchange rate is between NZD and the euro right now?
It's just the same refrain, over and over."Time Travel! Again?" exclaimed David B."I knew that Alaska is a good airline. Now I get to return atthe start of a century. And not this century. The one beforeair flight began." To be fair, David, there never is justone first time for time travel. It's always again, isn't it?
The lights are on here and the roof is intact and I'm grateful. Is anybody home? You decide.Pharm fanIan S. clucked"Perhaps they'll put those as dates on my headstone." If you're very lucky.
Mike V. shares a personal experience with the broadest version of Poe's Law:"Slashdot articles generally have a humorous quote at the bottom of their articles, but I can't tell if this displayed usage information for the fortune command, which provides humorous quotes, is a joke or a bug." To which I respond with the sharpest version of Hanlon's Razor: neverascribe to intent that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Underqualified Mike S. is suffering a job hunt."I could handle uD83D and uDC77 well enough, but I am a little shortof uD83C and the all important uDFFE requirement."
High-roller Matthew D. fears Finance. "This is from our corporate expense system. Will they flag my expenses in the April-December quarter as too high? And do we really need a search function for a list of 12 items?"
Time LordJason H.has lost control of his calendar."This is from my credit card company. A major company you have definitelyheard of and depending upon the size of the area you live in, theymay even have a bank branch near you. I've reloaded the page andclicked the sort button multiple times to order the rows by datein both ascending and descending order. It always ends up the same. May 17th and 18th happened twice, but not in the expected order." I must say that it is more fun when we know who they are.
Just a quick note this week: I discovered that many people have been sending in submissions for this column and designating them for CodeSod by mistakes. Consequently, there is an immense backlog of material from which to choose. An abundance of riches! We will be seeing some older items in the future. For today, a collection of colons:Bill NoLastName, giving away clues to his banking security questions online:"If had known there was a limit, I would have changed my daughter'smiddle name. I've been caught by this before - my dad has only amiddle initial (no middle name)."
Wikipediadescribes the (very old) English children's game. I wonder if there'sa similar game in Germany. In any case, the Worcester News is definitelyconfused about how this game is played.Martin I. explains "This is a cookie acceptance dialog. It seems to struggle with labeling the buttons when the user's browser is not set to English ..."
Happy Friday. For those of us in America, today is a political holiday. But let's avoid politics for the moment. Here's a few more wtfs."Error messages are hard," sums Ben Holzman, mock-replying"Your new puzzle games are fun, LinkedIn, but your error messages need a little work..."
"Toledo is on Earth, Adrian must be on Venus," remarksRussell M., explaining"This one's from weather.gov. Note that Adrian is 28 million miles away from Toledo. Being raised in Toledo, Michigan did feel like another world sometimes, but this is something else." Even Toledo itself is a good bit distant from Toledo. Definitely a long walk.
