Interweb

Sloppy menus

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I was intrigued by this drop down menu:

Menu displaying a list of countries

It opened by default at United States, presumably because Americans would struggle to find it otherwise, which is not a problem as it is a short hop to United Kingdom. But there was no UK. Perhaps it is listed as Great Britain. As we scroll to Gr we do indeed find… United Kingdom. But why is United Arab Emirates at the top? Switzerland under C? Spain under E? Croatia under H? Ireland between Indonesia and India? South Korea under K (I guess)? Luxembourg before Latvia? Mexico amidst the Ma’s? Norway before New Zealand? Sweden the first S and Taiwan the last T? South Africa can be found at the end.

Presumably it was vibe coded and just accepted as is without anybody actually checking what was spewed out. This was from a commercial site. Why would I trust you with my order if you cannot be bothered to get even such basic things right?

Welcome to our AI future — what can possibly go wrong?

Developers are great – an ongoing series

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Most of my school reports concluded that I ‘could do better’/’must try harder’. As we watch the web disintegrate around us daily those are the words that usually come to mind. It is not just the Enshittification but the careless amateurism of much of what appears on, supposedly, professionally developed sites. I assume that these are managed and overseen by someone competent but…

Duncan, lower your monthly payments by £0 Est.

This is basic stuff. In lesson one you learn about Bubble sorts. Lesson two check for negative and zero values so you do not spew out nonsense like this.

Ms Reeves’ refund?

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It seems unlikely that Rachel Reeves will assign some money from her forthcoming budget to refund the cost of videos I have purchased but can no longer access1 because of the government’s ridiculous nonsensical stupid Online Safety Act.

Perhaps someone should point out that their stupid act, far from saving us from the evils of pornography, allows the sites that are not asking for age verification to now bubble up to the top of the search results; or better still just explain what the Internet is and how it works.

1: This is not strictly true as the Vimeo app on Apple TV displays a QR code to verify your age but you can press the Back button and it takes you to your stuff anyway.