Today I received a newsletter from some furniture design company. As far as I know, I’ve never heard of them nor asked to receive their newsletter. Isn’t that um spam?

I used the link in the newsletter to unsub:

Press the button and I get this:

which I don’t read carefully, presuming that in fact it is removing me from their list, until moments later I get this email:

Subject: You’re on my list!

Hi

Thanks so much for joining our list, your subscription was a success. If you have any questions about our emails or have any feedback of your own, please don’t hesitate to reply to this email. We’d love to hear from you.

Also, We’ll be including a removal link in every email we send you, so you can leave our list any time that suits you

Ohhhhhhh. The unsubscribe link takes you to an unsubscribe page which then asks you to confirm your SUBSCRIPTION. Nice inescapable loop, folks.

Yahoo has a strange bug or design flaw in their logic for adding to your My Yahoo page. It’s been like this forever and I’m amazed that they haven’t bothered to fix it.

From the My Yahoo page, the weather module lets you see your current selected cities, and also search for others. Here I’m searching for Holland, MI (where we’ll be spending the third week in December).


Here’s the results for Holland. And in the top right is a button to add this city to my My Yahoo weather.

But clicking that doesn’t add Holland. It takes me to a page where I can remove existing cities, or begin a completely new process to add any city I want.

So here I have to type in Holland, again (!), and ask for search results.

Here’s the result. Once again I have the option to add it to my My Yahoo weather.

Only this time it actually works.

The New Yorker takes a wry look at the cultural perspectives embedded in information design

When you sign up online for Skywards, which is the frequent-flier program of Emirates, the international airline of the United Arab Emirates, you enter your name, address, passport number, and other information, and you select an honorific for yourself from a drop-down list. A few of the choices, in addition to the standard Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss, and Dr, are: Admiral, Air Comm, Air Marshal, Al-Haj (denoting a Muslim who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca), Archbishop, Archdeacon, Baron, Baroness, Colonel, Commander, Corporal, Count, Countess, Dame, Deacon, Deaconess, Deshamanya (a title conferred on eminent Sri Lankans), Dowager (for a British widow whose social status derives from that of her late husband, properly used in combination with a second honorific, such as Duchess), Duchess, Duke, Earl, Father, Frau, General, Governor, HRH, Hon, Hon Lady, Hon Professor, JP (justice of the peace?), Judge, Khun (the Thai all-purpose honorific, used for both men and women), L Cpl, Lt, Lt Cmdr, Lt Col, Lt Gen, Midshipman, Mlle, Monsieur, Monsignor, Mother, Pastor, Petty Officer, Professor, Senor, Senora, Senorita, Sgt, Sgt Mjr, Shaikha (for a female shaikh, or sheikh), Sheikh, Shriman (an Indian honorific, for one blessed by Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, wisdom, luck, and other.

The local Macy’s store has modified all their card reading boxes so that the card swiping slot is blocked. That t-shaped blob of plastic along the right side is where the slot used to be.

The software hasn’t changed, however, and while your purchases are being run up you are asked (as always) to swipe the card. I looked for quite a while, feeling stupid, trying to to figure out where the heck to put my card.

There was no place.

They also have not changed their staff training, so there was no mention of what to do or not do with the card.

Eventually, they take the card from you and swipe it themselves, and you return to the device to “sign” the purchase.

The sign reads

Please order by number “only”, specifing which listed bread you would like, and specifying which condiment you do not want

A bit too complex. Fortunately, the staff at Norms Market in Pescadero pretty much ignore these ordering rules.