Something Random

[sdbardwick]

In any case, the protection provided is rather minimal; looks like all the buyer needs to allege is that the item was substantially different than described. Then the burden of proof seems to shift to the seller to prove otherwise. One hopes that PayPal uses an objective standard for "substantially".

 

[Stereodude]

That's only true for purchases made through ebay. If you use paypal outside of ebay the buyer basically has no recourse as long as you can prove you shipped them something and they received it.

At least that's how it used to be.

 

[MaxBurn]

Best advice I have ever read regarding online buying was from a watch forum; "Buy the seller not the watch." If you don't have a comfort level with the sale don't do it. I basically apply this to all online activity and generally it works really well even when selling.

Anyway the verified address thing doesn't bother me at all, I ship to many unverified addresses. I basically assume I have zero protection online so I need to feel out the seller. Did I get the feeling this guy was on the level = not really. Did I get the feeling that if they were on the level and something went even slightly wrong that I never would have heard the end of it = a little bit yes. A stupid sale like this could mess up your merchant account with paypal if the buyer gets uppity and reports/makes claims with paypal.

He even messaged me back asking about additional terms or what the cost would be to ship to ship to verified address. Not sure he gets it but it isn't about the address, all about how he came across to me. Basically I told him I don't want to deal with him.

I don't think it is easy at all to get a second address attached to your account as verified. They verify via banking info so unless you have a credit card being billed there you are SOL. I travel a lot and it is just something you have to deal with.

 

[Mercutio]

I do not think she liked the matching earrings and necklace I gave her. Dammit. Should've gone with the e-Reader.

 

[Handruin]

Bummer. You can't buy her love even if it feels good.

 

[timwhit]

I do not think she liked the matching earrings and necklace I gave her. Dammit. Should've gone with the e-Reader.

Well, hopefully she pretended she liked the gift. You can't win 'em all. I'm sure I have given my wife many gifts over the years that she didn't like. But, she still appreciates the thought and effort.

 

[Mercutio]

Bummer. You can't buy her love even if it feels good.

I don't know about love. I was just trying to make her happy. Usually if I give her something she's excited about she calls me to tell me so, and she didn't this time.

 

[ddrueding]

That doesn't necessarily mean she didn't like it. It could just be that she isn't sure how to react, or that you actually managed some speechlessness. There are worse things. Even when I get a positive reaction from jewelry I've given, I don't know if she actually liked it unless I keep score of how often she wears it. Even this can backfire; one of the things I bought she won't wear because it is too expensive and she doesn't want to lose it.

My only advice would be persistence and a little variety. Let her know that you are thinking about her regularly, and vary the gifts enough to let her know you understand more about who she is.

 

[Handruin]

There should also be the realization that 'things' aren't going to make someone happy forever, no matter what they cost you. As ddrueding mention, she may not know how to react to a gift like the one you gave. Sometimes a gift that is costly can be hard to accept by anyone.

You're offering nice gestures and only you know what you hope to get from giving someone something nice, or possibly you're altruistic and don't hope for anything from this other than to see her happy. Typically men give women personal gifts like jewelry in hope for them to be happy in exchange for the woman to like the man more or to win affection. I wouldn't give a girl who is just a friend a set of jewelry, otherwise it can be taken with the wrong intentions.

If your intent is to be more than a friend, sometimes the simpler things mean more than a nice set of earnings or necklace. If you were to do something geeky and fun that took time and creativity, she may have a larger reaction than a fine set of jewelry.

Do you know for sure that she received the gift?

 

[MaxBurn]

Personally I wouldn't have gone with the jewelry unless I know it was something she liked. I recognize I am out of my depth in shopping for earrings and necklaces. Now I do know a girl that wanted a 16622 and I could totally identify with that.

 

[Stereodude]

Now I do know a girl that wanted a 16622 and I could totally identify with that.

A Rolex?

 

[MaxBurn]

Next in my selling adventures is a guy that wants my Supermicro SASLPMV8. He is asking about a warranty. Wants to know if it is compatible with HP SAS expander that I have zero experience with. Asks about shipping cost..... to Indonesia. Contacted me via my public visitors messages page on a forum and asked me to PM him, which indicates to me he knows what a PM is.

 

[Stereodude]

You're attracting all the crazies. :bstd:

 

[MaxBurn]

1. Yes Rolex.

2. How do I opt out of that list?

 

[Handruin]

2. How do I opt out of that list?

Unplug from the internets.

 

[LunarMist]

Was that the lady with the gut-busting tumors?

 

[Chewy509]

A sad day it has been - for the first time in 3.5yrs my main desktop has MS Windows running on it. (I've had to install Windows + Visual Studio for my two programming classes at Uni this semester as they both focus on C# and ASP.NET). However it is running in a VM, so at least it's not touching the real hardware.

 

[Handruin]

Does not sound like a sad day at all. Sounds like a good thing to me. I like visual studio and C#.

 

[timwhit]

Can't you use Mono?

 

[Sol]

I had to use VS and C# for the first time since Uni late last year. I remembered VS being pretty damn good but after a few years of using Java and Eclipse it's looking a bit shabby. I'm sure I'd have gotten more used to it after a while but a few things just bugged me. Auto-complete isn't anywhere near as good as the Eclipse one, there are no refactoring tools worth mentioning, and it makes you re-compile everything before it tells you about compilation errors.

Visual Studio used to be pretty top notch as a development tool, but it seems like other tools have gotten better and VS has maybe gotten a little bit worse. Plus all the MSDN documentation for anything I want to do always has all the examples in VB.NET but the C# code samples are just TODOs which is really annoying.

 

[Chewy509]

I've used VS and C# quite a bit in the past, and do like some of the features that the IDE and language have, but as someone who first learnt to code on the Commodore64 with Basic and then straight to 6510 assembler some of these new tools I've fond just get in the way of things.

Can't you use Mono?

Unfortunately not, as we must provide VS project files, etc.

 

[Handruin]

I've used VS and C# quite a bit in the past, and do like some of the features that the IDE and language have, but as someone who first learnt to code on the Commodore64 with Basic and then straight to 6510 assembler some of these new tools I've fond just get in the way of things.

Unfortunately not, as we must provide VS project files, etc.

C64 and 6510 assembler are quite different from developing in VS and using something like VB or C#. VS does a decent job of getting you through the code at these much higher levels than what you worked on before. They have their obvious trade-offs in efficiency with the benefits of time to market. VS & C# (among the entire framework) are just another tool for specific jobs. I know it has limitations like anything else and I certainly don't regard it as a tool for every project and situation that needs to be solved.

Sol, I've gone back and forth between comparing Eclipse (Java) and VS (C#). There are features in both that I wish each other could adopt. I spent more time in VS2008 than any of the others, so my habits and memorization of shortcuts certainly lend me to a bias in that product over Eclipse. However, it's hard to complain about Eclipse given its price...especially when comparing to VS2010. Funny though that you like Eclipse auto-complete better than VS. I found the exact opposite to be what I liked better. However, it could just be that I spent more time in VS than Eclipse.

 

[MaxBurn]

I hate when I accidentally buy something from china on eBay. Takes about forever to get here.

Still waiting on my M3x0.5 taps.

 

[Pradeep]

Ordered some movies from Amazon UK (direct), took around 3 weeks, (Royal) Air Mail. I guess the winter weather really put the brakes on shipping. I was sure it had been pinched on the way.

 

[Howell]

Ordered some movies from Amazon UK (direct), took around 3 weeks, (Royal) Air Mail. I guess the winter weather really put the brakes on shipping. I was sure it had been pinched on the way.

Yeah, I had a couple of things shipping out of New Jersey a couple weeks ago take twice as long.

 

[MaxBurn]

I ordered the new aliens bluray set from amazon UK because the price is way better over there, got here inside a week too, I was impressed.

 

[Pradeep]

http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/general/tullys-our-hero/2078994.aspx

A good news Staffy story for once.

 

[Stereodude]

As someone who found himself unemployed for almost 3 month this past summer by no fault of my own, this story made me cringe.

 

[Pradeep]

http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-110217-1.html

Good news, the Japanese are retreating.

 

[LunarMist]

Can you mentally count all the spaghetti? Maybe it's age or no sleep for 24 hours, but I can't see all spaghettis as a discrete collection. :bstd:

 

[Bozo]

Can you mentally count all the spaghetti? Maybe it's age or no sleep for 24 hours, but I can't see all spaghettis as a discrete collection. :bstd:

Say what???? :dunno:

 

[CougTek]

Are you sure you're ok Mooner? Changed pills recently?

 

[Stereodude]

Sleep posting by the mooner?

 

[Stereodude]

So, in case anyone was wondering, shipping a spindle of 25 discs in a padded envelope via SmartPost (FedEx + USPS) isn't such a great idea. Here's what came out of the package I received from Meritline. :bstd:

 

[ddrueding]

Sacrificial packaging? Looks like the disks survived

 

[timwhit]

As someone who found himself unemployed for almost 3 month this past summer by no fault of my own, this story made me cringe.

Here's a comment from that story that made me laugh:

Big corporations are bad news. They don't care about anything except what they can squeeze out of the people that work for them. You could be there for 29 years and if they want you gone, you're gone. Not even a thank you. I worked for one for 15 years and got let go just like that. Loss of benefits and job hurts. After a year I went back and got a job with them again. No seniority with it either. For the next year I ripped off the company for everything I could and quit. I sold all the stuff I stole over the year and made an astonishing $43,000!! Enough to live on til I get another job. BIG corporations deserve to be ripped off. They've been doing it for decades.

Priceless.

 

[Stereodude]

Priceless.

Being stupid enough to brag about it on the internet is priceless. Stealing from your employer is not.

 

[LunarMist]

Say what???? :dunno:

You know how it is. I could not mentally count all the spaghetti like Hoffman with the toothpicks.

 

[time]

So you see yourself as an autistic savant?

Thanks for that. I think this additional information will make forum interaction a little bit easier for those of us who walk a somewhat straighter path.

 

[LunarMist]

No. I was only trying.