"Four is not a number"


That was the error message I was given today by a computer system which I was trying to use to book a meeting room.

It wanted a detail of the booking in numerical rather than text format and was not sophisticated enough to recognise the word "four" as a number.

This wasn't a problem for me - I just deleted the word and put in the numeral "4" instead, although an older or less computer-literate user might have been stumped or annoyed.

Don't think computers will be taking over the world just yet.

Has anyone reading this had any daft messages from computers recently that they want to share?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Yes, BT's Fault reporting site that refuses to recognise a valid 5 digit BT number, all you get is - "Please enter a valid telephone number".
It hasn't worked for years and I doubt it has been fixed.

6:59 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Oh dear. Well, I did ask !

I didn't bring my work computer with me to Manchester but as soon as I get back to the office I will do some "due diligence" to see if I get the same problem - I have an old five digit number myself - and if I do I will take the matter up.
2:41 pm
Tim said…
Yeah, I googled "competent politician" and got Ed Milliband", "Nick Clegg" and "David Cameron"
3:42 pm
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