Television emits international distress signal

[pne]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/18/odd.television.reut/index.html

Someone's year-old Toshiba flat-screen TV emits a distress signal which was picked up and resulted in a visit by a contingent of local police, civil air patrol and search and rescue personnel. He was told to keep his TV off or risk a $10'000 fine for "willingly broadcasting a false distress signal."

Buh?

Comments

[robnorth.livejournal.com]

I heard Toshiba's going to give him a new set.

"It's not a bug, it's a feature!"

[robnorth.livejournal.com]

He was told to keep his TV off or risk a $10'000 fine for "willingly broadcasting a false distress signal."


On a completely unrelated note, that's the first time I've ever seen someone write thousands that way. (I don't read stuff in German much, seeing as how I've forgotten almost everything I learned in that brief 1st-year university course lo these many decades ago.)

I prefer the ISO standard of using spaces for thousands, but I often throw commas in to keep my North-America-centric acquaintances happy. Fortunately, my kids (most of whom are in French immersion at school) are learning spaces from the word go.

(Along with using a comma as a decimal point, which is OK with me; my hand-written decimals tend more towards commas than periods anyhoo. I also cross my 7's, and my 1's often have long-ish opening tails on the left; very European.)

10'000

[pne.livejournal.com]

Not sure where I picked up the habit; it's certainly not the usual German way (which would be "10.000", since they use a decimal comma as well). But I rather like it.

10'000

[pne.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where I picked up the habit; it's certainly not the common German way (which would be "$10.000,00" -- or simply "$10.000" if no decimals are involved).