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+ 2002

New Math

1 March 2003

[Tesco receipt] Tesco is a large (the largest?) supermarket chain in the UK. I've discovered a bug in their cash register software which results in negative prices.

On certain items there is a discount if you buy two items instead of one. That's a fairly standard practice. What's interesting is that the discount on the second item is programmed as a fixed amount, not a percentage. Normally this wouldn't matter; except when the item's expiry date rolls by and they slash the price. The receipt on the left shows the entertaining result. A large quantity of ham past its expiry date costs 69p. But if you buy a second pack, the original 98p discount is applied. The net result is that they pay you 29p to take the second pack. Oops.

Now, what to do with all this ham? Looks like there's enough here to build a small pig...

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