Apparently United Airlines has forgotten that the frequent flyer programs were started in order to reward loyal customers, and have instead turned them into programs to torture customers they regard as unworthy. Warren Buffet once said that someone should have shot down the Wright Brothers and saved investors 100 years of agony. Airlines have repeatedly demonstrated a level of management incompetence that is truly amazing, and part of this is the unique ways in which they turn loyalty programs into disincentive programs. If you want to chuckle at their incompetence, read this.

Just the same … Fennel Ice Cream?

Just say no.

I recently came across the following cartoon, which is a joke that is so obscure that few people will get it (you need to know what sql injection attacks are). Still, if Frank Zappa could name his daughter “Moon Unit” (sister of Dweezil), and David Bowie could name his kid “Zowie Bowie”, then I suppose hackers should have the right to choose equally amusing names.

(it has been commented that this originally came from xkcd.com, but I found it elsewhere on the net. The only reason it is hosted on my site is to make sure it is persistent.)

Of course once you make the obvious selection, there is one more screen to try to convince you not to do it – warning you of all sorts of consequences from not having to carry all that paper to the landfill.

Whenever I pick up the mail, I usually tear up the junk mail, stuff it back into the business reply mail envelope, and mail it back to them so they can dispose of it. It isn’t a very green thing to do, but at least it puts the burden of disposing of this crap on the communities that support direct mail marketing.

I’ve always been amused by the fact that www.dma.org is not the domain for the direct marketing association as you might expect. Turns out the Dayton Microcomputer Association, which must get a shitload of pageviews from their choice of domain. It goes to show you that the DMA was slow to recognize the value of the Internet, confirming their general disregard for the world around them.

1. You put a DVD into your DVD player, but none of the buttons on the remote will function until you finish watching the promotions, the FBI copyright warning, and the logo for the studio. FUCK YOU.
2. You accidentally hit a button no your cell phone and find that you are surfing the web at $1.50 per minute. Unfortunately the phone is in your pocket and you discover it three hours later. FUCK YOU.
3. You try to get your browser window to the forefront by clicking anywhere on the page. Since literally everything on the web page is clickable (probably to get ad revenue), you end up loading a flash movie that is trying to sell you diapers for the elderly or something. FUCK YOU.

I’ve started to see enough irritations in consumer electronics, media, and communications that I think this deserves special consideration as a user interface component. There is an increasing need to register displeasure with media and devices, and no useful way to register your discontent.

On the other hand, I have little hope that such a thing would ever catch on. There is a monopoly on irritation in user interfaces, and users are not in charge of user interfaces.