Just ordered something from the US Geological Survey (the bat rabies
thing reviewed in the February NSS News). It arrived with a flier
advertising other things, among them topographic maps for $8 each plus
a $5 service charge per order. When I started caving, topographic maps
were 35 cents, with a substantial discount for quantity orders. I
believe I got most of the cave area in Indiana for 18 cents each.
Of course you can now supposedly download scans of topo maps free, but
the USGS web site has got to be the most badly designed in the world.
(That's an exaggeration, of course, but ....) I think I managed, just
looking for how to do it, to get to a place where I might have been
able to, except I would have had to enter my name and e-mail address,
at which point I gave up. What's the point of that? If you want to
actually buy something, you can't just order it, you have to "create
an account," complete with a password. Having it remember your data
might be nice for somebody who orders something every week, but having
to create and keep track of a password is a pain for people who order
something once every few years. And of course you can't order
something again with the same e-mail address unless you remember the
password. Fortunately I have more than one e-mail address, so I was
able to order the "free" book, with the $5 service charge, using a
second one. There's no way on the Web site to _cancel_ your account
after you use it once, thereby freeing up your e-mail address for the
future. And what idiot designed a Web form that doesn't allow spaces
in a credit-card number? "Close enough for government work," I guess.
-- Mixon
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All the world’s a stage, but the play is badly cast.
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