A quick news item, as this is proving to be a busy week, with lots to review at work, and lots to do at home. It seems that the rise in the price of fuel has created another problem: many pumps cannot handle the higher prices. Some pumps cannot accept a price above $3.999/g, and others can’t handle a maximum price over $99.99. Those of us who are old enough remember this happening before, when the price of gas first passed $1.00. Pumps couldn’t handle it, and pump owners coped by either treating the price as per half-gallon (i.e., set the rate to half of the price/g rate, and then double it at the cashier), or by pricing per litre. We may be seeing that again, because station operator profits (as opposed to oil company profits) are razor-thin, and they often cannot afford to update their pumps (especially in marginal or low-traffic areas).
A very interesting article, one that made me think of some of the early Y2K problems, where people just didn’t conceive of dates after 1999.
