• ThaMe90 (unregistered)

    The last one obviously is alphabetical when looking at the UK as Great Brittain. Maybe an alias is used for display?

  • Carrie (unregistered)

    Sorted by value, not label, obviously.

    At least anyone looking for the UK will be used to scrolling to both U and G.

  • (cs)

    This is a balloon!

  • Warren (unregistered) in reply to Carrie
    Carrie:
    Sorted by value, not label, obviously.

    At least anyone looking for the UK will be used to scrolling to both U and G.

    Yes, we also have to look for "England" sometimes, although whether the other components of the UK are listed in such cases varies.

    And then having picked out the country, half the time we still have to enter a "Zip code" or "State".

    If websites were "sorted by value", these ones would be fairly low on the list....

  • True Hood (unregistered)

    Obligatory: http://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-addresses/

    Captcha: decet -- that's it!

  • (cs) in reply to Carrie
    Carrie:
    Sorted by value, not label, obviously.
    The value should probably be GB for its ISO country code, or an ID (which would obviously be worse).
  • Zathras (unregistered)

    What's wrong with the first one? Those are just the frequent comments in customer reviews, and if "food poisoning" is one of them I'd quite like it to be that prominent!

  • WonkoTheSane (unregistered) in reply to ThaMe90

    "The last one obviously is alphabetical when looking at the UK as Great Brittain. Maybe an alias is used for display?"

    Ordered by country code GBR probably. I suspect looking at the HTML will show the value of the drop down as the country code.

  • (cs) in reply to ThaMe90
    ThaMe90:
    The last one obviously is alphabetical when looking at the UK as Great Brittain. Maybe an alias is used for display?

    Great Britain != UK

    See CGP Grey's excellent explanation

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

  • Pista (unregistered) in reply to True Hood
    True Hood:
    Obligatory: http://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-addresses/

    +1 for this and all the related "falsehood" articles.

    I live in a building which bears number 13-15. I've had a lot of fun getting bills addressed to number 13, number 15 and number 1315, but only a few were able to keep my address with 13-15. Good thing the postal services don't have problems delivering. Had most fun when a lady was looking for a neighbor (whose flat number she knew) and she was wondering if said neighbor is living in building number 13 or 15. I had a very hard time explaining that the flats are not divided that way and that we all live in building number 13-15 (the building is compact, no wings). In brief, it's not just programmers who mess up addresses.

  • (cs) in reply to Carrie
    Carrie:
    Sorted by value, not label, obviously.

    At least anyone looking for the UK will be used to scrolling to both U and G.

    And also B, for Britain, and sometimes E for England (or W for Wales and S for Scotland and N for Northern Ireland).

    We only do it to confuse foreigners and generate work for UI developers.

    Our postcode system was specifically designed to give developers who want to use regular expression a brain hemorrhage.

  • ThaMe90 (unregistered) in reply to Quango

    That's true. Doesn't mean the developers of that site know that though.

    Captcha: saluto. "Ariverderci!"

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to Quango
    Quango:
    ThaMe90:
    The last one obviously is alphabetical when looking at the UK as Great Brittain. Maybe an alias is used for display?

    Great Britain != UK

    See CGP Grey's excellent explanation

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

    It's close enough.

    The real WTF is nations which keep changing their names every few hundred years whenever they (euphemism alert) undergo a merger. It's as bad as companies which keep changing their names and/or logos so as to try and fool people into thinking it's a different entity -- it's usually not, it's just the same cowboy outfit which just has a different number of arms and legs than it did have.

  • (cs)

    TRWTF is the sentence Neil B. wrote.

  • nobulate (unregistered)

    Reason: Illegal Drugs sites are blocked Site: http://thedailywtf.com/

    You know only two kinds of business refer to their clients as "users", don't you?

  • Zathras (unregistered) in reply to QJo

    It's not "close enough" when you're shipping goods, given that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom but is on a different island.

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to Quango
    Quango:
    Carrie:
    Sorted by value, not label, obviously.

    At least anyone looking for the UK will be used to scrolling to both U and G.

    And also B, for Britain, and sometimes E for England (or W for Wales and S for Scotland and N for Northern Ireland).

    We only do it to confuse foreigners and generate work for UI developers.

    Our postcode system was specifically designed to give developers who want to use regular expression a brain hemorrhage.

    Oh come on, the regular expression for a postcode is quite simple:

    ^(([A-Za-z]{1,2})(([0-9]{1,2})|([0-9])([A-Za-z]))) {0,1}([0-9])([A-Za-z]{2})$

    or some such.

    If you want your brain to go bang then write a regular expression for validating the alphanumeric pattern of UK vehicle registration numbers.

  • (cs) in reply to Zathras
    Zathras:
    It's not "close enough" when you're shipping goods, given that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom but is on a different island.

    Nobody has a problem with the Isle of Wight or Isle of Thanet, do they?

  • faoileag (unregistered) in reply to Pista
    Pista:
    I live in a building which bears number 13-15. ... the building is compact, no wings
    So instead of the originally planned two buildings, the build just one. I wonder why they kept the 13 and did not just drop it?

    Captcha: conventio - by conventio a 13th floor is often missing.

  • faoileag (unregistered)

    The Haskell one is understandable. Come on, that site mentions monoids!

    Agreed, monoids are probably only half as harmfull as steroids, but still!

    Can't have that, no, not at your workplace, Sir!

  • Hasse de great (unregistered)

    http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/10/redesigning-the-country-selector/

  • faoileag (unregistered) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    It's as bad as companies which keep changing their names and/or logos so as to try and fool people into thinking it's a different entity
    Say, whatever happened to Daewoo? ;-)
  • Jay (unregistered)

    Element14 (aka Farnell) Oz-edition is very enterprisey indeed, if enterprisey means "complete morons".

    I once ordered from them with delivery set as "pick-up" (they're down the road). They decided this meant "Courier" and thus shipped it, and charged my card again for the cost of the courier. Nice!

    Never mind dropping in: "WTF, it says pick-up right there!"

    So today I get a call (& email!) asking if I want a credit account.

    Two orders (one of which they fucked up) apparently makes you eligible for an account.

    Desperate for customers or just useless? Who knows.

    More systems need a Customer.IsPissedOff flag for these situations.

  • (cs)
  • The Balance (unregistered) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    The real WTF is nations which keep changing their names every few hundred years whenever they (euphemism alert) undergo a merger.

    Having been alive during all those centuries of name changes, you must now be thoroughly confused.

    Matt Westwood:
    Nobody has a problem with the Isle of Wight or Isle of Thanet, do they?

    But both the Isle of Wight and Isle of Thanet are considered to be part of Great Britain... The Isle of Thanet isn't even an island.

    ...

    I'm going to just talk about North Americans from now on, because they're all on the same landmass, and therefore they all conform to every stereotype and have no individual traits that might separate one from the other.

  • (cs) in reply to faoileag
    faoileag:
    QJo:
    It's as bad as companies which keep changing their names and/or logos so as to try and fool people into thinking it's a different entity
    Say, whatever happened to Daewoo? ;-)

    It has officially been turned into Murican Muscle, of course!

    Vroom!

  • MrBester (unregistered) in reply to The Balance
    The Balance:
    Matt Westwood:
    Nobody has a problem with the Isle of Wight or Isle of Thanet, do they?

    But both the Isle of Wight and Isle of Thanet are considered to be part of Great Britain... The Isle of Thanet isn't even an island.

    And May Week is in June...

  • Jeff Miles (unregistered)

    I've been an avid reader of The Daily WTF for years! I'll be looking for you at TechEd next week, it'd be really cool to meet you in person.

    http://twitter.com/Jeff_Miles_says

  • Kevin (unregistered) in reply to Zathras
    Zathras:
    What's wrong with the first one? Those are just the frequent comments in customer reviews, and if "food poisoning" is one of them I'd quite like it to be that prominent!

    It doesn't appear in any of the reviews. It actually looks well reviewed. https://plus.google.com/115223395417920025733/about?hl=en&gl=us

  • (cs)

    Hah, and I had to look up "General Tso's" as I hadn't heard of that before. I thought it was a case of an extraneous apostrophe, or some other thing related to food poisoning, but Google has told me it is common in North American "Chinese" Restaurants.

  • Nancy Reagan (unregistered)

    Just say no.

    Friends don't let friends use Haskell.

    Haskell. Not even once.

  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to Pista
    Pista:
    I live in a building which bears number 13-15. I've had a lot of fun getting bills addressed to number 13, number 15 and number 1315, but only a few were able to keep my address with 13-15. Good thing the postal services don't have problems delivering.
    I'm surprised you didn't get anything addressed to "-2".
  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to Kevin
    Kevin:
    It doesn't appear in any of the reviews. It actually looks well reviewed. https://plus.google.com/115223395417920025733/about?hl=en&gl=us
    Or you can just search for "food poisoning" in Google Maps and save yourself a lot of time. The fun part is seeing how many places you recognize (whether or not you have actually eaten there).
  • (cs)

    The Slashdot one also sorts "United States" at the top.

  • Dale (unregistered) in reply to The Balance
    The Balance:
    I'm going to just talk about North Americans from now on, because they're all on the same landmass, and therefore they all conform to every stereotype and have no individual traits that might separate one from the other.

    North Americans of various varieties are much more like each other than any of them are willing to admit.

  • (cs)

    Lincoln forgot to include the carriage return in the product search. Darn Crestron part numbers. Make sure you don't get the part with the linefeed character, that one is actually a HDMI over tolken ring converter.

  • Ziplodocus (unregistered) in reply to The Balance
    The Balance:
    The Isle of Thanet isn't even an island.

    Neither is Monster Island...

  • Ziplodocus (unregistered) in reply to RichP
    RichP:
    tolken ring converter

    MY PRECIOUSSSSS!!!

  • GladysBertrude (unregistered) in reply to Quango
    Quango:
    ThaMe90:
    The last one obviously is alphabetical when looking at the UK as Great Brittain. Maybe an alias is used for display?

    Great Britain != UK

    See CGP Grey's excellent explanation

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

    Simpler: UK includes Northern Ireland, various islands, etc, Great Britain is England, Scotland, Wales. (Not to be confused with the British Isles)

    captcha: uxor - Uxor corp is evil.

  • Leak (unregistered) in reply to vt_mruhlin
    vt_mruhlin:
    The Slashdot one also sorts "United States" at the top.
    The apostrophe in 'Murica clearly sorts first...
  • (cs) in reply to Pista
    Pista:
    True Hood:
    Obligatory: http://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-addresses/

    +1 for this and all the related "falsehood" articles.

    I live in a building which bears number 13-15. I've had a lot of fun getting bills addressed to number 13, number 15 and number 1315, but only a few were able to keep my address with 13-15. Good thing the postal services don't have problems delivering. Had most fun when a lady was looking for a neighbor (whose flat number she knew) and she was wondering if said neighbor is living in building number 13 or 15. I had a very hard time explaining that the flats are not divided that way and that we all live in building number 13-15 (the building is compact, no wings). In brief, it's not just programmers who mess up addresses.

    I think you've proven why 13-15 is a bad choice for a building "number".

  • (cs) in reply to Zemm
    Zemm:
    Hah, and I had to look up "General Tso's" as I hadn't heard of that before. I thought it was a case of an extraneous apostrophe, or some other thing related to food poisoning, but Google has told me it is common in North American "Chinese" Restaurants.
    It wasn't created in China (like chow mein), but it was created by Chinese chefs, so I'd call it "Chinese".
  • The Mole (unregistered) in reply to GladysBertrude

    Not quite. The abbreviation GB can either stand for:

    1. The land mass of Great Britain covering mainland England, Scotland and Wales
    2. The political region of Great Britain, which includes some of the minor coastal islands around it (ie Isle of Wight)
    3. The iso code which represents the United Kingdom of Great Britain (most conmmonly seen on cars).

    So when using the iso code GB==UK

  • CUPS Lover (unregistered)

    CUPS: Can't Use Print Services

  • Blah (unregistered)

    'THE DAILY WTF' COMMENTS SECTION

    This is a comment.

  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to True Hood
    True Hood:
    Obligatory: http://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-addresses/
    He missed mentioning the falsehood of "all addresses will be in strictly increasing or decreasing order along a geographic direction". (such as along a street or winding around a block) In Japan, with its already different from most of the world block system, addresses within a block are not necessarily in any particular order. And if a new address gets added to a block, they'll just use the next available number, regardless of relative position.

    The block system itself (allocating addresses to blocks between streets, rather than along a street) is alien to most people on this planet, but in addition to Japan, I am aware that at least some US army bases use a block system.

    The number of buildings is the difference between the highest and lowest building numbers

    He also didn't mention the very common practice in the US of using the relative position in a block to determine an address, particularly in residential areas, which often go x00 x01 x04 x05 x08 x09..., skipping every other pair of numbers.

    And the counting of a block of addresses may not end at a street intersection. My own house is at x77, next door to y01, with the nearest intersection a few houses in either direction.

  • (cs)

    UK post codes are uppercase only, so that reduces the regex a little unless you want to take into account some of the other specifications regarding which letter can or cannot appear in specific positions.

    https://www.mrs.org.uk/pdf/postcodeformat.pdf

    for those sad enough to want the full spec

    at least it is not as impossible to validate as an email address :-)

  • C-Derb (unregistered)

    TRWTF with the country drop-down is the "Falkland-Malvinas" option. You should cater to the larger user base (probably Falkland), rather than piss them both off.

  • Ozz (unregistered)

    Ceci n'est pas une balloon.

  • CigarDoug (unregistered) in reply to ip-guru
    ip-guru:
    at least it is not as impossible to validate as an email address :-)
    Bah. Does string have an @ symbol? Is there at least one letter on the left and the right of the @ symbol? Then it is a valid email address.

    To complete your order, we will send you a confirmation email. Within that email is a link you must click, or a number you must type in.

    If you give me a bad email address, you can't complete the order.

    What else do I need to validate?

    CAPTCHA: facilisis. This email-can't-be-validated meme is facilisis.

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