Whoever decided to use backslash as a directory/file separator on DOS, carrying it over from CP/M (or is that CP\M?); whoever decided to keep using it in Windows. Forever after requiring people to ask “You mean forward slash, or backward slash?” There is no forward slash; there is only slash and backslash.
Whoever came up with the message after yet-another endless Windows patch, “You must restart your computer to complete the installation. Do you want to restart your computer now?” No, I don’t WANT to restart my computer now, but apparently I have to. As in the Bugs Bunny routine, “Do you want to shoot me now, or wait till you get home?” “Shoot him now, shoot him now!” “He doesn’t have to shoot you now.” etc.
Whoever decided to call unleaded gas “regular unleaded”, back when there used to be a choice between “regular” and “unleaded”. I guess I just prefer “Magna Sin”.
Sony. Because they keep making boneheaded decisions to stick with proprietary and/or homegrown media and formats. Sony makes awesome hardware, but then they cripple it by, say, not letting it run standard MP3s, or in the case of their “Palm-compatible” Clie handhelds, making it just barely not Palm-compatible, so you had to use their version of the sync software. Some would blame this on things like Sony owning Sony Media. I blame it on the old “not invented here” where you think that everything you make must of course be the best, so there’s no reason to adhere to an obviously inferior standard.
People (like Condi Rice this morning) that keep saying Muslims should like us because we support religious freedom. Don’t you get it – that’s exactly why they hate us even more! It’s one thing to have different beliefs – as far as I know the Muslims don’t hate the Chinese for being Buddhist, or the Northern Irish for being Catholic (Israelis being the obvious exception). But what’s worse than being different, is being indifferent! As a high school professor used to say, “The opposite of love is not hatred, but what? Indifference!” Religious freedom, as we apply it now, means the government says you can believe whatever you want to believe – the government is agnostic! Ironically, it’s the bornagain Christian right that seems to hate the Muslims, because that’s what Jesus taught, wasn’t it, hate?