I recently had a chance to interact with the healthcare system in a way other than routine preventive care or straightforward injury, and it was an interesting reminder about how people outside a system may relate to experts. I think of doctors as experts on the health system of my body, people I consult about what […]
Category Archives: Bad Business
OKCupid: as clueless as Facebook, but not as evil.
Much has been made recently of this post on the OKCupid blog. In this post, OKCupid “confesses” to experimenting on users in order to verify that their algorithm works, in such a tone as to suggest that this is an obvious thing that everyone does and what of it? In the process, Rudder (the post’s […]
Car2Go website continues to be horrible
I still haven’t used Car2Go, in part because of its horrible web interface, and in part because it never seems to be more convenient than biking or TriMet — there were a few times recently when I would have liked to use it, but I would have needed to walk farther than I could at […]
Car2Go website is just horrible
Inconspicuous login button, disappearing links, ridiculous password requirements, a map interface that would make the Baby Jesus cry… I could detail all the ways it’s totally wrong, but I normally get paid to design and build web applications, and they didn’t ask for my advice, so. It seems really tragic, actually. I think Car2Go is […]
Comcast update and nifty bank technology
The final item in the Comcast saga is that I overpaid them by $5.42 and they issued me a check for it, which of course they directed to my old address so it took a while to arrive. But at least dealing with them is over for now. Thank you, neighbor with open wireless. Yesterday […]
Comcast Fail, let me count the ways
I’ve written before about my struggles with Comcast — they lose payments, they bill incorrectly, and until recently, calling their general customer service from my cell phone was an exercise in frustration because they would redirect me to New Mexico Comcast based on my area code. When closing my account with them, I had another […]
When you say “as in”
” ‘With any luck we will be able to ftp some suitable software and get it running on the Tera.’ ‘The Terror?’ ‘Tera. As in Teraflops.’ ‘That does me no good at all. When you say “as in” you are supposed to give me something more familiar to relate it to.’ “ I got a […]
USPS Fail — again!
I was at home today when the postal carrier came by, which turned out to be a good thing, not because he had a package for me, but because he apparently thought I had already moved. I don’t understand, because I filed a change-of-address that had a start date of 6/27/09 (the day I’m moving). […]
Do LG/Verizon hate commas? or: Weird interface things with the LG Dare
A while back I bought an LG Dare. Mostly I like it fairly well, but it has a couple of problems — even leaving aside the fact that it’s now restarted spontaneously four times since I bought it. One is that it’s hard for it to distinguish between scrolling and selecting. Oddly, the browser and […]
And: tax cuts? are you kidding?
Say what you like about the original bailout bill, it did not get better with the addition of tax cuts (yes, tax cuts at a time the government is proposing to give away $700B it doesn’t have anyway) and unrelated items. Write or call and urge your rep to vote against it. Strangely, those of […]