WTF

Modern Medicine Through JavaScript

I love a medical school that gives online tests (quizzes, maybe?) and evaluates the results through JavaScript.  I especially love when it uses this logic to do it:

if(correct) return true;
else {
  if(guess < 2) {
    alert("That is not correct.");
    guess = guess + 1;
    return false;
  } else {
    alert("You have guessed incorrectly, but may move on.");
    return true;
  }
}

I hope my (hypothetical) surgeon works the same way.  “You’ve removed three organs.  None of them were right, but you can send him home now anyway.”

Meals Not on The Move

I was considering ordering lunch through Foodler, and noticed these restaurants listed in the “American” section:

Moogy’s begins takeout at 11am.
Cafeteria Boston – via Meals on the Move.  Never begins delivering.
Wing’s Express begins delivering at 11pm.

Hold it!  Go back a step.  “Never begins delivering?”  And it’s not “takeout only” (like Moogy’s), it’s just “never begins delivering.”  Period.  Here’s the restaurant’s details page:

Never Begins Delivering

Never Begins Delivering

In fact, this seems to be true for every restaurant that Meals on the Move services, rendering its name somewhat inaccurate.  Perhaps “Meals that Don’t Move Any More Than They Would if We Weren’t Involved” would suit them better.

I went straight to the Meals on the Move website to see if their site had more accurate information.  Here’s how they describe Cafeteria Boston:

American, American, American, American, American, Italian, Italian, Italian, Italian, Italian, Burgers & Fries, Burgers & Fries, Burgers & Fries, Burgers & Fries, Burgers & Fries, Seafood, Seafood, Seafood, Seafood, Seafood, Bar & Grill, Bar & Grill, Bar & Grill, Bar & Grill, Bar & Grill, catering, catering, catering, catering, catering, Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, Organic, Organic, Organic, Organic, Organic, Corporate Catering, Corporate Catering, Corporate Catering, Corporate Catering, Corporate Catering, Pasta, Pasta, Pasta, Pasta, Pasta, Hamburgers, Hamburgers, Hamburgers, Hamburgers, Hamburgers, Salads, Salads, Salads, Salads, Salads, Chicken, Chicken, Chicken, Chicken, Chicken, Sandwiches, Sandwiches, Sandwiches, Sandwiches, Sandwiches, Bistro, Bistro, Bistro, Bistro, Bistro, Paninis, Paninis, Paninis, Paninis, Paninis

I believe the only valid response is: GROUP BY, GROUP BY, GROUP BY, GROUP BY, GROUP BY!

Fortunately, Foodler has a nice little “X” button that will forever hide Meals on the Move from my listings.

How Not to Save $100

While researching flights through United Airlines, I clicked an advertisement about a discount when purchasing an “Economy Plus” annual membership together with a Red Carpet Club membership.  The description reads:

Save $100 off the regular price when you buy Economy Plus with United Red Carpet Club! When purchased separately, you pay $849. Purchase both now for just $774.

Err… $849 regularly… with $100 off… is $774?  I hope these calculations are done in a different department than the ones about how much fuel the aircraft needs to carry for a given flight.

(If it makes anybody feel any better, I wouldn’t have paid $749 either; I was just curious about their Red Carpet Club pricing.  The “Economy Plus” membership is borderline, at $349, or about six flights worth of individual upgrades.)

Bank Use Only

The credit card applications I’ve been getting in the mail lately offer enough bonus airline miles for signing up to pay for two full free tickets.  Naturally, I’m tempted.  For one card in particular, I got as far as the web-based application page, which has this at the bottom:

Bank Use Only

Bank Use Only

Shouldn’t the “bank use only” portion of this form not appear on the version I’m filling out from my home computer?

I can imagine the meeting where someone said, “We need a web-based application that’s exactly like the paper one.”

We’re Number One! Occasionally!

The public transportation system in the Boulder, Colorado area is the Regional Transportation District or RTD.

As in most cities, there is no competing public transit network.  Boston has the T, San Francisco has BART, and even New York has its subways and buses cooperating nicely as the MTA.  In Boulder, it’s RTD.

I therefore raised some obvious questions when I saw this banner on a visit to Colorado last year:

We're Number One... of One!

We're Number One... of One!

Chief among those questions: considering the complete lack of opposition, what exactly happened in  1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007?

In their defense, I lived in Colorado for quite a few years, including most of those in question, and I took the bus virtually everywhere.  (My parents would rightly challenge me if I said “everywhere,” having driven me and my friends to every conceivable neighboring city on more than a few occasions — thanks, Mom and Dad — but on balance I used RTD most often.)

I did endure Dick (his real name, as far as I ever learned) for my entire middle school career — the white-haired man who, despite an undying hatred for children and everything they stood for, picked up both the morning and evening runs most likely to have middle school children aboard every day.

But to compensate, I had a driver for much of high school who was fantastic, and whose name I have now completely forgotten.  The proper bus stop I used was about a block from the end of my street, but every single morning this driver would pull slowly up to my intersection and open the door, knowing in advance that I’d be sprinting breathlessly down the street to meet him.  (I always felt guilty about that, but less so when another kid did exactly the same thing at the next stop every morning.)

People like that should get medals.

Or, failing that, they should just hang a big banner on the side of the highway proclaiming that in three out of 13 years referenced, the agency beat itself to become number one.

srouH erotS

I noticed this sign at the Verizon store in Cleveland Circle:

sruoH erotS

sruoH erotS

Here’s a tip: when posting your store hours, have the sign face outside the store.  Most of the people inside don’t need to know your hours, ’cause they’re already indoors.

Dear #{car_company}#

Zipcar just sent me an e-mail that begins:

Hi #{first_name}#,

Oops!  At least this is marginally better than when they addressed me solely by my last name (with no honorific), making their e-mail rather reminiscent of gym class.

A Blog for One?

My boss recently asked us to evaluate the social networking site Ning.  (That’s deliberately not a link.  I don’t want anyone accidentally visiting it.) The idea is sound: build a small, private social network — for example, to help people in the office communicate more easily about project statuses and professional development.

The execution is just terrible.  Ordinary users have access to administrative features (the software just pretends to save their changes while really doing nothing), people invited to join a social network can’t just login using their existing Ning account (they have to follow a special link in the invitation e-mail), and buttons peppered throughout the application take no apparent effect of any kind.  Plus, I was able to put the word “Hello!” in blinking, marqueeing, fuchsia text on my profile, and that’s just a crime against good hypertext markup.

But my favorite aspect of the site is not a quirky bug but a deliberate feature — this simple option that appears when creating a new blog post:

Blog Post Options

Blog Post Options

The first two I understand.  Anyone want to go over that third option with me?

Northwest, Southeast, Westnorth

I recently booked a flight on Northwest Airlines.  They don’t fly a lot of routes that interest me, so I can’t remember ever having flown with them.  Here is their seat selector.  Which seats do you think are available?

Northwest Airlines Seat Selector

Northwest Airlines Seat Selector

Did you guess the blue seats are available?  Incorrect!  Those are premium seats available for a surcharge.

Next you’d probably guess the dark seats are the ones that are available to select, since they have the highest contrast.  You are, of course, again incorrect.

They’ve chosen white to indicate the available seats, thereby making the process as unituitive as they could manage.

There Is No Error

I somehow ended up with a United Airlines ticket that lacked my “Mileage Plus” (frequent flyer) number.  Fortunately, one can ostensibly add their account number through a simple webpage.  This is the result:

There Is No Error

Uhh…

Blërg.