TARGET WHAAA YOU SUCK!?!?!?

You can’t do anything without these plastic bits.

So I sent an opening email to Target guest services:

01/09/11 19:06:13
Comments: I bought one of these (link) at a Target the other day. When I opened the box, it had the wire frames, but none of the plastic parts which hold them together.

I got a response back asking for more information:

Dear Elliott Back,

I’m sorry for the trouble you had with the wire cube shelving system which you’ve recently purchased.

We’d still like to help you out, but we aren’t able to determine if the item has been purchased from Target.com or not. Please write back to us with the information listed using the link below.

-Whether the item was purchased at Target.com or in a Target store
-Order number (You can find it on the packing slip)
-Name or e-mail address of the person who placed the order

We look forward to hearing from you!

I sent back that I had bought it at a physical target, and my information was passed along to guest.relations@target.com, who wrote back:

Dear Elliott Black, oops! The message we received came in scrambled and unreadable. To make sure we have a chance to respond to your question or concern, would you please re-send your original message?

So I reiterate the situation:

I bought one of these at a Target the other day (link). When I opened the box, it had the wire frames, but none of the plastic parts
which hold them together. I was hoping you could send some of the plastic bits?

I can provide a photo of the box & contents if that helps you out.

A different rep wrote back that they couldn’t help me out:

Dear Elliott Black:

Thanks for sharing your comments with us about the Wire Cube Shelving System you purchased at Target. I know it’s frustrating when an item doesn’t work out for you due to missing parts. I’m sorry we aren’t able to provide any manufacturer information about this Wire Cube Shelving System and unable to request parts.

We work with lots of manufacturers to offer you a unique variety of merchandise. Because of our relationship with this manufacturer, we need to follow the guidelines of our return policy, which requires a valid receipt for all returns and exchanges.

We may be able to return or exchange your item so please don’t hesitate to contact Target.com if you purchased it online or your local Target store if bought there. Please accept my apologies for any disappointment this has caused. Hearing about your experience is important to us, and I’ll be sure to share your comments with our Merchandising and Buying teams.

I don’t live near a physical target, and I didn’t keep the receipt (my bad, I suppose). So I wrote back “I live in NYC , so I don’t believe I have a local target?” and I have yet to hear from them. The 50% hit rate on their crappy wireframe shelves is something I should factor into their pricing if I visit again in the future. It’s really too bad; the nearest Target is an hour away in New Jersey and not worth the time of going over there and replacing / buying a new one. Maybe a miracle will happen and their customer service send me a refund, or better yet, a new wireframe shelving unit, avec plastic parts?

Doubtful, I’m convinced Target sucks.

Apple Inc.’s senior antenna expert voiced concern to Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs in the early design phase of the iPhone 4 that the antenna design could lead to dropped calls, a person familiar with the matter said.

Last year, Ruben Caballero, a senior engineer and antenna expert, informed Apple’s management the device’s design may hurt reception, said the person, who is not authorized to speak on Apple’s behalf and asked not to be identified. A carrier partner also raised concerns about the antenna before the device’s June 24 release, according to another person familiar with the situation.

So the plot thickens. The biggest outstanding question is, “What will Apple do next?” Well, just now I plugged in my iPhone and got the following software update notice:

iOS 4.0.1 Software Update for iPhone

This update contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

• Improves the formula to determine how many bars of signal strength to display

Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4

For feature descriptions and complete instructions, see the user guides for iPhone at http ://support.apple.com/manuals/iphone

I did the update and I don’t see any differences on my 3GS….

Location Date Local Time DescriptionWhat’s This?
SAN PABLO, CA, US 10/13/2009 1:40 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
SAN PABLO, CA, US 10/12/2009 3:51 P.M. IN TRANSIT-PACKAGE LEFT IN A CONTAINER / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED
PARSIPPANY, NJ, US 10/07/2009 1:36 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
SAN PABLO, CA, US 10/02/2009 3:09 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
SAN PABLO, CA, US 10/01/2009 8:43 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
PETALUMA, CA, US 10/01/2009 7:36 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
10/01/2009 6:51 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 09/29/2009 8:00 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED
Tracking results provided by UPS: 10/13/2009 10:09 A.M. ET

The delivery date, which was originally 10/8/2009 when I first signed in to track it, is now 10/19/2009. I’m not sure what exactly has happened here!

Related: Twitter search for posts tagged #upsfail turns up more interesting anecdotes:

• KeithPipes: Oh, and thanks for the call yesterday letting me know you’d make the delivery between 8am and 7pm. #upsfail
• ladycatie: UPS delivered my alice.com order to the wrong person/apartment! #UPSFail
• DocOccupant: #UPSfail So, UPS lost my shipment of books and have now decided to refund my company instead of me. So, no books and out the shipping.
• ppdiva: @MomTV I have tried the 1-800 number. They are no help. Never returning any phonecalls that were promised. It’s so aggravating. #UPSFAIL

Genetic programming is combined with program analysis methods to repair bugs in off-the-shelf legacy C programs. Fitness is defined using negative test cases that exercise the bug to be repaired and positive test cases that encode program requirements. Once a successful repair is discovered, structural differencing algorithms and delta debugging methods are used to minimize its size. Several modifications to the GP technique contribute to its success: (1) genetic operations are localized to the nodes along the execution path of the negative test case; (2) high-level statements are represented as single nodes in the program tree; (3) genetic operators use existing code in other parts of the program, so new code does not need to be invented. The paper describes the method, reviews earlier experiments that repaired 11 bugs in over 60,000 lines of code, reports results on new bug repairs, and describes experiments that analyze the performance and efficacy of the evolutionary components of the algorithm.

Literally, they wrote some small samples of code that said “here’s what I want this buggy program to do” and then their genetic algorithm actually went off and hacked away at the code (much like many of us flesh-and-blood programmers) and made it work. They have several nice examples, including one on automatically fixing the infamous Zune date bug.

The dream of automatic programming has eluded computer scientists for at least 50 years. Although the methods described in this paper do not evolve new programs from scratch, they do show how to evolve legacy software to repair existing faults.

Vronko said the iPhone 3GS’s heat problem is evidently tied to the battery, because the pictures of discolored white iPhones reveal the outline of the battery. He noted that although thousands of iPhone 3GS users probably own defective handsets, the risk of causing fire or explosion is low because the iPhone’s battery cell is extremely small.

I decided to do a small test and played two rounds of Star Defense on the phone while on Battery power. Here’s what I found using an infrared thermometer. Initially, ambient temperature of the room was 80°F and the iPhone measured 83°F on the back. After playing the game, the room temperature had dropped 2° to 78°F while the iPhone 3GS measured 102°F on the back. More interestingly, there was a temperature gradient:

I’ve also felt the phone get much hotter than this quick test, probably proportional to how much load you put on its battery. There’s an Apple support document called Keeping iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS within acceptable operating temperatures which documents some obvious “leaving your phone in the sun” cases which can cause overheating:

- Leaving the device in a car on a hot day.
- Leaving it in direct sunlight for extended amounts of time.
- Using certain applications in hot conditions or direct sunlight for long periods of time, such as GPS tracking in a car on a sunny day or listening to music while in direct sunlight.