Cake text printer doesn't speak Italian, pens errors instead
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 19th 2007 2:36PM
posted Jan 19th 2007 2:36PM
While we doubt we've seen every single computing error that could possibly occur, there's definitely been a fair amount to surface, and while this story may not take the proverbial cake, it's good for a hearty chuckle if nothing else. Apparently, a certain Aunt Elsa was supposed to receive a custom baked (and messaged) cake from Wegmans Grocery to celebrate her birthday, and as the part-English, part-Italian message was emailed into Wegmans presumably automated printing machine, a bit of miscommunication ensued. Sure, it makes sense that the machine might not have been ready (or programmed) to handle languages outside of English, but surely someone actually looked at this thing before sending it out, right? Nevertheless, Aunt Elsa was graced with a cake that just barely got the whole "birthday" message across, and we presume even the supportEmptyParas tasted mighty sweet going down.[Via BoingBoing]
haha, that's awesome.
How that got through unnoticed is beyond me. The language shouldn't matter, as they're just strings of letters to a machine. So there must be more cakes like this floating about...
I live here in Binghamton, and I have no hope in humanity any longer... People here are really below the standard, It wouldn't surprise me that this cake made it that far unnoticed.
haha, thats great, doesn't italian use the same letters as english?? I don't get why it came out all retarded.
Well, at least it didnt say "PWNED" in big letters.
Actually, i want that cake for my birthday this year.
"U R 25, PWNED!!"
Binghamton, NY? My grandparents live there
Thats what you get when you use refilled inkjet cartridges.
best comment ever @ colin
The program was using Windows Vista I bet.
Those conditional comments are put in by Office or other Microsoft apps. It appears that the error is not in italian translation, but more an issue with the system being able to properly handle HTML formatted emails. Entertaining nonetheless!
This is the coolest thing I've seen today.
Some people think it's ok to print source code to the cake printer. THIS SIMPLY IS NOT SO!!!
a C++ cake? Happy Birthday Bill Gates ;)
Story in their local paper...
"Cake printed with virus code. Consumer in hospital after consumption."
Sweet.
It looks like that code is commented out. At least that is how to comment out code in html, i think.
haha, that's funny. At first, I though the cake had the error code on purpose as a joke. But to find out it was a mistake, and the tech involved, it's a little more twisted in the humor.
This may even come from Italy, precisely from a village called Ciseriis in Friuli, a region in the northeast of Italy, and it is written part in Friuli local languge, part in Italian and part in PostScript or PDF or whatever source code.
Friul to Binghantom = from Friuli to Binghantom
Bon complean alla piu' bella polentona di Ciseriis = Happy birthday to the cutest "polentona" (I can't translate this, it's sort of a joke) di Ciseriis
Avanti a cent'anni! = go on to 100 years!
For those who are not lucky enough to have a Wegman's in your area, I appologize. It is truely beyond a shadow of a doubt, the BEST GROCERY STORE EVER. For a while now, they've had the process where they would put a photo on your cake using one of those ink jet jobs, I'm not exatly sure why anyone would want them to print writing on a cake when they could do it in frosting. My guess is that they had some clip art or something inserted there. Nothing spoils a cake like some Sans Seriff, seriously guys at least get it with Times New Roman!
Meanwhile, back in Cupertino, Steve Jobs laughs menacingly, for only he knows the truth. Operation "Apple Pie" is in full swing. The seeds of dissent have been planted, and it's only a matter of time before the masses demand a user friendly system to satisfy their hunger.
For too long consumers have suffered from poorly rendered textures and a gooey experience that leaves a bad taste in their mouths. Prepare yourself naysayers and heathens! The time is nigh for a revolution of culinary connectedness. At the next World Wide Confectioners Conference, Apple will unleash...
...iCing...
and your world will never be the same!
Apple iPie? I want one now. Can you indicate the size of the slice you want by moving your fingers?
Looks to me like Internet Explorer-specific commands embedded within HTML comment tags.
Adding on to AlBeRtO's translation: "polentona" is the feminine gender version of an Italian colloquialism for a "northerner" (because traditionally it was northern Italians who ate polenta--cornmeal mush, aka "grits" in the southern US). Friuli is the NE extremity of Italy.
Looks to me like Internet Explorer-specific commands embedded within HTML comment tags.
Adding on to AlBeRtO's translation: "polentona" is the feminine gender version of an Italian colloquialism for a "northerner" (because traditionally it was northern Italians who ate polenta--cornmeal mush, aka "grits" in the southern US). Friuli is the NE extremity of Italy.
ParloItaliano; right on brother! There's a little double entendre here because polentona could also be a big cake of polenta- or a "little bit of Polish" thrown in. Kind of a Stateside Italo-Anglicism.
Which for some paesan' from NY State would be a big insult, unless they loved you lots.
Who knows, maybe Aunt Elsa's a l33t haxor?
At any rate,I hope there wasn't a worm in the cake!
Reminds me of "values of beta will give rise to dom" (http://www.cloanto.com/garage/)
I cant believe a pritner for a cake. There are no more artisan in this world. Magic is lost.
I live in Binghamton and just to see us on engadget.com just made my day and the cakes from wegmans are the shit.
And they used Black Helvetica. Awesome. Nothing spells delicious like some mid-century Swiss design.
LOL So much for Print->Preview
Should have converted the type to outlines before sending it to the cake press. DUH.
I live in Binghamton too, I wonder if I wanted HTML printed on a cake if they would do it for me now.
Looks like yesterday's DailyWTF. They had chocolate ingredients with SQL in it:
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Chocolate_Covered_SQL.aspx
Hah. I live in binghamton and know people who work at Wegmans lol... I am going to give them shit for this!
This doesn't appear to much to do with the use of Italian but quite a lot to do with operator incompetence. I'd be curious to examine the software to see how easy or hard it is to cause such errors.
I used to work part time in a bakery, It's actually printed on rice paper using a slightly modified desktop inkjet printer (canon or hp) printed with edible food dyes.
The problem is the HTML comments are wrong. There are supposed to be blanks after the opening "!--" and before the closing "--". So, that junk is text to the HTML parser, which was doing its job correctly.
Christ, the Just.Rob commentary was priceless.
At least was for the aunt, if it was for the grandfather then surely you will earn a good kiss of death. ;-)
The woman who the cake was for is my Aunt Elsa. I was at the party. It was a message my cousin e-mailed to Wegman's to be printed on the cake. The computer text was NOT intended to be put on the cake. We couldn't believe they did it. We laughed
alot over this one....