
RBA not fazed by Australian $50 note typo - angrygoat
https://www.watoday.com.au/business/the-economy/no-one-died-behind-the-typo-on-the-new-50-note-20190618-p51yqg.html
======
voltagex_
"The graphical software package used by [Note Printing Australia] has no copy-
paste mechanism and no spelling or grammar check. The text was manually typed
in and misspelt at this point," according to a report into the error from the
printing agency, dated January 11 this year."

~~~
inflatableDodo
Specialist software for industry can be absurdly shit sometimes. There are
seemingly tons of niche software packages used in business that cost thousands
per copy and lack even the most rudimentary features normally found in most
software.

~~~
mark-r
I don't know about other OS, but in Windows it's absurdly difficult to build
an input mechanism that doesn't allow pasting.

~~~
NKosmatos
You should try using Citrix remote connection software in a business
environment :-)

~~~
sverige
Oh man, I just remembered that day ten years ago when I wanted to kill myself
because of Citrix.

~~~
bshacklett
Oh the hours I spent on
[https://www.brianmadden.com/..](https://www.brianmadden.com/..).

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nkrisc
Best method I've ever used for spotting misspellings in what I write: read the
words you've written from last to first. Reading in this order breaks the
prediction your brain does on what it expects to read next and stops you from
filling in the words yourself or simply recognizing them by "shape" instead of
reading each letter.

Of course this does nothing for grammar or general flow nor does it help you
if you've spelled the wrong word correctly.

~~~
underwater
I have text to speech read back what I've wrote. You'll immediately notice
incorrectly spelled words and doubled up words.

~~~
HeavenFox
If you have access to a computer, why not just use a spellchecker :)

~~~
Arbalest
Spellchecking isn't universal, and I've frequently found myself typing
completely different words than I had intended, which are not misspellings.
That would be picked up pretty quickly.

~~~
hnick
Case in point, it probably wouldn't have picked up this submission's title if
'phased' had been written instead as I commonly see these days.

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mceoin
Not nearly as bad as the Canadian $20 note depicting a Norwegian maple leaf (7
points) instead of a Canadian maple (5 points).

~~~
lb1lf
Well, that one at least makes sense historically.

After all, we -Norsemen, that is- were there way before the British and
French.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows)

:)

~~~
umadon
Uhh but weren't the maple trees there before that?

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NKosmatos
The funny thing is that this typo managed to pass through the
inspection/review of so many different people. Related to the “copy & paste”
between programs, this depends from which point of view someone looks at it,
having to type/input information manually avoids copy&paste mistakes but on
the other hand introduces human errors. That’s the reason a good company
should have reviews and a clear process for its software and documentation.

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darcys22
Australian here: I’ve seen the typo, it’s tiny.

It’s part of the anti forgery features where they write large amounts of text
on a building in the background of the note.

You literally need a magnifying to see this error

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perfmode
perfect example of a wontfix.

the error truly doesn’t matter.

~~~
protomyth
Actually, they are going to fix in the next print run.

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charliesharding
Unfortunate but at least it's in the minuscule "anti-spoofing" text. Might not
even be visible to the naked eye

~~~
Rebelgecko
Until some eagle-eyed cashier tries to confiscate someone's "counterfeit" $50
because it has a spelling mistake

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mpolichette
I love that the follow up email which is trying to figure out the blame of the
misspelling has the word "thru".

~~~
thaumasiotes
The article's quote of the email is interesting:

> "It is spelt wrong all the way thru [sic] microprint!"

They'll [sic] the "thru", but the article image clearly shows that the
sentence in question says "It is spelt wrong all the way thru _the_
microprint!", which has the added bonus of being grammatically valid, unlike
the supposed quote.

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rongenre
This could be easily solved using the blockchain /s

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ryanthedev
I wonder what graphic design app they used. it's such a common problem with
these types of apps.

they never include spelling and grammar features as default options.

I think I lost a job because of this reason. I even had a coworker proof read
it. I can't spell :(

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jshowa3
Once they correct the mistake, those notes will be worth a fortune to
collectors in a couple decades. Collectors love errors. And since the history
is well documented online you get a bonus of free provenance.

~~~
pvg
They don't plan to recall them. Collectors love errors mainly because they're
rare. There's 480 million of these and they'll never be worth much more than
50 AUD.

~~~
duck
With inflation, they'll be worth less than 50 AUD. :)

~~~
magashna
50 AUD is always 50 AUD, but it's not necessarily worth the same amount of
burgers

~~~
rzzzt
We should use burgers as currency, then.

~~~
pvg
[https://www.economist.com/news/2019/01/10/the-big-mac-
index](https://www.economist.com/news/2019/01/10/the-big-mac-index)

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jamestimmins
This is the appropriate response to an error: "nobody died". I can't help but
wonder what would have been the response if this happened in the US? I assume
a full news cycle would be taken up with opportunistic politicians trying to
score points by ascribing blame to their enemies.

~~~
sorenn111
I disagree somewhat. US news might laugh about it on morning news coverage.
But is it that trivial and a laughing matter? I get it, typos are funny and no
one dies. But "nobody died" isn't a valid excuse for mistakes on filing for
taxes or legal contracts. Errors do matter, even if no one dies. not to
overblow the issue, but governmental trust may require error avoidance for
many people.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Taxes and contracts can a big impact on the people they affect, though. A typo
on a bank note has no direct effect on any users. It's an aesthetic problem,
not a functional one.

~~~
SilasX
Really? Isn't it going to throw a lot of false positives when people try to
spend them and the cashier thinks that the misspelling means it's counterfeit?

~~~
was_boring
Did it though? It's been in circulation for years.

~~~
SilasX
I thought the version with the typo was recent?

~~~
was_boring
Years is probably an over statement on my part. A second read indicates
probably a year and half.

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plink
The article mentions that the banknote passed multiple reviews before release,
but doesn’t say who had the ultimate responsibilty for its being approved.

~~~
paranoidrobot
Does it matter? Who fucked up on a typo of this minor amount isn't a problem -
even the Governor of the Reserve Bank (who's signature is on the note) says
not to worry.

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dogma1138
And that’s how a new collectors note is born.

~~~
cronix
How collectible is it with 480 million of them out there?

~~~
dogma1138
Well if they’ll recall these they can become pretty rare pretty quickly as all
notes returned to a bank either voluntarily or via circulation would be
destroyed and exchanged with new ones.

~~~
couchand
The article makes it quite clear that the notes are not being recalled.

~~~
dogma1138
Not now but eventually they are recalled, notes even plastic ones usually only
have a decade or so in circulation in most countries until they are issued a
soft recall.

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mrob
WAToday not fazed about headline typo.

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sverige
They also misspelt "emphasize" but no one even noticed. I guess the missing
'i' became the "centre" of attention.

~~~
lotophage
Are you saying this is a genuine error, or are you making a joke about
spelling in American English diverging from British and Australian English?

~~~
red369
I would assume a joke based on the scare quotes around the spelling of
"centre". And at the risk of killing a joke (which I liked), I found the chart
of "centre" vs "center" usage interesting:
[https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/87978/how-and-
wh...](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/87978/how-and-when-did-
american-spelling-supersede-british-spelling-in-the-us)

~~~
sverige
Yes, it was a joke. Yes, I know jokes are hard to discern without the "/s".
Yes, that's why the scare quotes.

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m0zg
It could be argued that this is an anti-forgery feature. Or, rather, was,
before everyone else caught on to it.

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vernie
smh the normalization of deviance

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rebelrexx858
isn't this why stuff like grammerly was created?

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intea
The correct spelling is Grammarly...

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tagh
Guy done need Spellingly

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caymanjim
Apparently they also lacked human editors with grade-school educations.

~~~
Someone1234
Can you cite something linking education level with an improved ability to
spot typographical errors? According to the psychologist quoted in this
article[0]/study our inability to spot typos might be an innate limitation of
how our brains process information, rather than a lack of
intelligence/education.

[0] [https://www.wired.com/2014/08/wuwt-
typos/](https://www.wired.com/2014/08/wuwt-typos/)

~~~
caymanjim
This wasn't a typo. One person makes a typo. When creating a high-profile
physical thing with text on it, there are authors, editors, typesetters (or
the digital equivalent), copy editors, and proofreaders involved. If this
wasn't reviewed by at least four people prior to printing, and if there
weren't then test printings reviewed by additional people, then the entire
process is flawed. But it still wasn't a typo. It was a failure in quality
control.

My dig about education level was too subtle, so I'll be more blunt: too many
stupid people were involved. People who don't know how to spell (barring
special circumstances like dyslexia or communicating in a non-native language)
are stupid. Everyone makes mistakes, but when multiple people whose job it is
to produce something like this fail, it's no longer a mistake. It's because
they were unable to review it and notice the problem.

All it takes is five minutes of reviewing Facebook posts or comment forums to
see just how pervasive this stupidity is. Hacker News is one of the few forums
I participate in, because most of the people participating are intelligent,
and reading comments here doesn't make my eyes bleed.

As the sibling commenter stated, no one died, and this isn't a big deal. It's
still an embarrassment.

~~~
Someone1234
> too many stupid people were involved

You've gone from one unconstructive thing ("lacked [a] grade-school
educations") to another ("stupid"). My link explains why neither one of these
adequately explains why people make or miss these kind of mistakes, rather
than just hurling out glib insults as an explanation.

~~~
caymanjim
I'm going to leave the comment there and own what I said, but it's just grumpy
and spiteful so I'll leave it at that.

