Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill
-
http://www.goerie.com/news/20171225/erie-woman-receives-284-billion-electric-bill
“I can’t recall ever seeing a bill for billions of dollars,” Durbin said. “We appreciate the customer’s willingness to reach out to us about the mistake.”
Or she could've just shrugged her shoulders and coughed up the $284 billion?
-
First thought was: obviously something like an underflow.
But wait, that would only be 2.1 billion, so it's some otherFiled under: Error'd.
-
@topspin said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
First thought was: obviously something like an underflow.
But wait, that would only be 2.1 billion, so it's some otherFiled under: Error'd.
Maybe the underflow is somewhere else in the formula.
-
@ben_lubar Maybe they're storing an integer number of cents rather than mucking about with decimals, and somebody put the wrong exponent in front of the ten.
-
My thought is just a fault in the meter.
-
@the_quiet_one said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
My thought is just a fault in the meter.
Maybe they installed it backward, and all the reads were negative.
-
@pie_flavor said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@ben_lubar Maybe they're storing an integer number of cents rather than mucking about with decimals, and somebody put the wrong exponent in front of the ten.
That would still be $214B, not $284B.
-
Cross-posting @chozang said in In other news today...:
Wasn't sure if this belonged in SideBar WTF.
Well, it made it!
-
@gąska said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@pie_flavor said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@ben_lubar Maybe they're storing an integer number of cents rather than mucking about with decimals, and somebody put the wrong exponent in front of the ten.
That would still be $214B, not $284B.
Maybe her real bill was $70B and they got added together.
-
A security camera still from the electricity company office has turned up that shows the reason for the extra zeros:
-
@alexmedia said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
Or she could've just shrugged her shoulders and coughed up the $284 billion?
Might as well buy the company at that point.
-
Spoiler Alert: She invented the first time machine
-
Spoiler Alert: She has produced the world's best fusion generator to date. In that same month she produced $11 worth of electricity.
-
@polygeekery
Sadly, all of the electricity was consumed by the Hyperloop prototype, so she didn't actually get to sell it onto the grid.
-
What, the utility company didn't blame her for the error?
-
@izzion said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@polygeekery
Sadly, all of the electricity was consumed by the Hyperloop prototype, so she didn't actually get to sell it onto the grid.On the bright side, it did transport 4.75 people 1 mile.
-
@polygeekery said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
4.75 people 1 mile.
I think she converted the wrong unit to metric
-
@polygeekery said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@izzion said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@polygeekery
Sadly, all of the electricity was consumed by the Hyperloop prototype, so she didn't actually get to sell it onto the grid.On the bright side, it did transport 4.75 people 1 mile.
In how many pieces, though?
-
@anotherusername said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@polygeekery said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@izzion said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@polygeekery
Sadly, all of the electricity was consumed by the Hyperloop prototype, so she didn't actually get to sell it onto the grid.On the bright side, it did transport 4.75 people 1 mile.
In how many pieces, though?
That's the missing 0.25.
-
@anotherusername said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@polygeekery said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@izzion said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
@polygeekery
Sadly, all of the electricity was consumed by the Hyperloop prototype, so she didn't actually get to sell it onto the grid.On the bright side, it did transport 4.75 people 1 mile.
In how many pieces, though?
Hopefully no more than 6.
-
Fucking cryptocurrency miners.
-
@slavdude said in Erie woman receives $284 billion electric bill:
What, the utility company didn't blame her for the error?
See, Mr. Stallman? People don't need to be able to fix incorrect bills themselves, they can trust Big Business to get it right, every time.
And yes, some MIT hackers back in the 1960s and 1970s argued that things would be much better for everyone if everyone everywhere knew programming and had access to things like electric company billing systems, so that they could do just that. Because no one would ever abuse that.
Steven Levy specifically mentions that in Hackers as an example of the kind of wild optimism seen at the AI Lab. I might add that this was mostly from people who saw themselves as hardcore free market Libertarians, often of the Heinleinian Objectivist variety.
I don't know if Stallman would have made that assertion, but I'm guessing he did.
Filed Under: Hacker Ethic FT... something, I guess.
-
I can see that a bill like that would be scary, but what's eerie about the woman?
-
@kian Her facial expression after she saw the bill, I’m guessing.