Category: Uncategorized

Don’t Make Me Bend!

This is a 4-drawer bureau that I found in my hotel room.
It’s simple, clean, useful, and look! No handles!
Seen from the side, you can see that in order to open each drawer, you insert your fingers behind either the top or the bottom of each drawer, and pull.

But what about the others? For each one, the top edge is one drawer-height closer to me, and I’d rather open it from the top.

So here’s my question: They obviously knew that putting the finger grip on the bottom of the lowest drawer was a bad idea, so they put it on the top. And putting it on the bottom of the highest drawer makes sense to me.

Or perhaps the two middle drawers might have top AND bottom grips.

But why make me bend more than I have to?

Define “Relaxed” – Oh, Wait. Don’t Bother. It Doesn’t Help.

I was at LL Bean today, and was trying to figure out what the difference was between RELAXED FIT and NATURAL FIT. I wasn’t quite sure what they meant by “Relaxed”, but then I realized it didn’t matter, because they used the same term for both.

They defined RELAXED FIT as:
“Loose through the hips and thighs”

And they defined NATURAL FIT in the exact same words, except instead of calling them LOOSE, they called them RELAXED:
“Relaxed through the hips and thighs”

So which one is MORE “Relaxed”???

In-Store Comparison

The answer can be found in their wordier explanations on their website, even though they STILL use the word “Relaxed” to describe each:

On-Web Comparison
FYI: I bought the Natural Fit.

East is West, and South is North, and I’ve Never Met Mark Twain

Here in Massachusetts, we’re not too picky about how we label our highways.

For example, 95 North is also 128 North, going West, and 93 North is also 128 South, going East:

At this intersection, if you take 3 North, you are also taking 2 WEST and 16 EAST. If you take 3 South, you are also taking 2 EAST and 16 WEST:

BB-2015-07-22 18.19.42 fixedAnd because of the fish-hook shape that State Route 28 takes, there’s a section of it in Orleans, on Cape Cod where 28 South goes Due North!

CC-Mass28

Why are Only SOME Corners Curved?

I noticed this a while back, and wondered when it would change. Many years later, it still hasn’t.

When you print a stick-on label, it makes sense to cut the corners curved, as this makes it easier to remove from the backing AND harder to accidentally get peeled off after you stick it on something.

When companies (mostly charities) started printing address labels as “gifts”, they continued to cut the corner of the PAGE OF LABELS curved, but not each individual label. Some most of the address labels have four perpendicular corners, and four per sheet have three perpendicular corners and one curved corner. WHY HASN’T ANYONE FIXED THIS YET?

Curved corners

Address Label Shapes

No Cumming Allowed!

OK, there’s Good UX, there’s Bad UX, and, well, there’s just Weird UX. Or maybe file this one under “Unfortunate UX”.

Half.com seems to have a censor filter, and it seems to think that Alan Cumming’s last name is a dirty word, and so it appears as censored (in both the title & the Author field).

Oh, myyy.

ACeBayThe good news is that at least in the Synopsis text, it says:

“A star of stage, television and film, as well as a singer, writer, director, producer, activist and author, Alan Cumming made his acting debut in the early 1980s and has gone on to become one of the most recognizable faces in entertainment today. …”