A NaN spotted in the wild.
Shopping at the Lovecraftian grocery store be like:
IT DOESN’T NEED TO BE COMPUTER! IT IS A PRICE TAG! THERE IS NO REASON IT SHOULD BE ABLE TO RUN DOOM!
Technically, these digital tags are being developed to automatically update price from a database, so there is a computer somewhere.
I think they’re just e-reader technology that accepts input by RF or something. Probably has an RFID on it, so a control node just (1) scans the RFID, (2) looks up price of product for that RFID, (3) send signal back to update the display.
Because I’ve looked at these things. I don’t see any modules for wireless communication over lan, Bluetooth, or anything like that.
See that window in the top left? It’s a combination photovoltaic cell and IR receiver, so the tag can be powered indefinitely from the shop lights and they can use ceiling-mounted IR blasters to update them. There’s no return path so the blasters just repeatedly transmit the entire inventory and price list, over and over.
Is it garlic NaN?
Yes, it’s Not an Nonion
I like NaN bread!
Oh fucking joyous, automatic surge pricing labels have finally hit the UK, can’t wait for it to be tied to your wifi shadow and device biometrics so that supermarkets can charge people more for daily goods than their neighbours due to their credit/social/political standing.
I mean “Haha that means it’s free, right? Lol.”
Sorry, zero is a number, so it can’t be free. One soul please, or alternatively one upper and one lower limb.
Only a matter of time before a store picks up data on certain people’s net worth and suddenly all the price tags double when they walk down an aisle.
I guess that also sets up the potential side business of paying poorer people to do shopping for you. Well, I mean, I guess that already exists too.
In Canada if a poorer person picked an item up at $3, then some rich dude walked behind him and it became $4, legally they would then have to give him the item free because of a price difference on an item under $10. Over $10 dollars you automatically get the lower of the two prices.
Edit: I’ve been informed it’s not a law, but a voluntary act by retailers (screams internally).
This is not a law, it’s a common and voluntary thing by the retailer.
I wish it was a law, that’d be sick and nip this whole surge thing in the bud.
$15 in Quebec now, that’s neat
Man, egg on my face, I thought it was a law. The way grocery stores are actively turning hostile towards customers we should probably make it a law.
In truth, we should probably nationalize grocery stores, but a more realistic, capitalism driven, “profits before people” approach would be to make it law.
I mean, you got it totally right about how it works, that’s better than most people. I work in retail and you hear some pretty crazy beliefs about how it works.
Totally agree with you about nationalizing. Food is a universal right and we should treat it as such.
I guess that also sets up the potential side business of paying poorer people to do shopping for you
Scamazon, doordash, ubereats, any of those “go buy my groceries, and bring them to my door lest I suffer the fate of seeing a peasant in any other role than serving me.” companies count as exactly that.
Just ask a millionaire what the cost of a loaf of bread is, or a 2kg bag of potatoes.
Just ask a millionaire what the cost of a loaf of bread is, or a 2kg bag of potatoes.

THE PRICE TAGS ARE RUNNING JAVASCRIPT!!
NaN are not exclusive to JavaScript, it’s more scary that they’re using floating point numbers for monetary value.
If you buy something at -Inf, do they empty the business bank account into yours?Eh, it’s not a problem if prices are being converted to floating point at some point before being displayed.
What you don’t want to do is store the definitive price as a floating point and perform calculations with it. I don’t see any reason to assume that’s happening here.
With my [Object object] please 😁
“I have five pounds. Is that enough?”
“No.”
“It costs more than five pounds?”
“No.”
“How much do I have to pay?”
“This is NaN pounds.”
“That means it costs more than five pounds?”
“No.”
“It costs less than five pounds?”
“No.”
“Exactly five pounds?”
“No.”
leaves the shop
(Remember, comparison with NaN is always false)
That’ll be one [object Object].
Well… it’ll make your total a NaN as well.

I need to spend more money on more mentions of the word “Organic”
Do you accept ⯎̷̨̩̯͎͕̮͎͈̞͙̠̽̈́͂͊͗̆͗̒̓͠͠ͅ⥢̴̛̠̩͑̂ⵅ̴̨̨͍͎̄̌͂̐͗͂̄̓́̽͊͐̆̍͘⊣̸̢͙͈̠̗̬͎͎̗̖̓͂͌͆͑̔̔ͅⅆ̸̧̜̲̙̱̱̙̦̗̺́͗◰̷̛͙͓̹͕̯̘̝̌̈́̍͐̌͘̕̕⽅̶̠͔̼̙̠̻̖͕̻͔̗͗̎́̈́̃̀̈́̽̽̅͌͜⸦̴͎͚̦͖̜̞͙̲̑̕?
Reminds me of the Pokémon that glitch multiplied your items
currencies beyond my comprehension, sorry I can’t pay.
Plot twist: it’s accurate, because the price is not a number but in fact your very soul.
The folks who said barcodes were the mark of the beast were so close!
Push a pen through each one of those eink displays - they’re not cheap.
TikTok challenge: each eink price tag is worth one point - GO!




