Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 10:38 pm

Yes, the buzzing-then-dead capacitor was probably in the PSU. Probably. I really wish that the PSU had failed to spin up the case fan, though, because then it would be definitely, and definitely is better than probably. Though, reflecting back, one of the sluggish fans I mentioned was on a GPU, and a failing capacitor on the mobo would not affect the power supply to the GPU, what with it having its own rail and what not.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 10:26 pm

Where's the music at the very end of this video from? Sounds kinda familiar, but I can't place it.

https://youtu.be/2OAvXJraqJM?t=800

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:14 pm

Is it just me, or has Amazon shipping for non-prime users turned into complete and total ass? An item I ordered five days ago still hasn't shipped, which is shaping up to be worse than the last time I ordered from Amazon, which in turn was the worst wait I had ever had. I am pretty sure this is all just straight up deliberate and they're just putting holds on non-prime shipping options as an incentive to upgrade.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:20 pm

DSMatticus wrote:Is it just me, or has Amazon shipping for non-prime users turned into complete and total ass? An item I ordered five days ago still hasn't shipped, which is shaping up to be worse than the last time I ordered from Amazon, which in turn was the worst wait I had ever had. I am pretty sure this is all just straight up deliberate and they're just putting holds on non-prime shipping options as an incentive to upgrade.

Last time I ordered something (a couple months ago), it arrived a day early...

Datapoint of one, add it onto the pile

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:58 pm

I'm not sure what you mean by early. They often don't even give you an estimated delivery date until they've finished processing your shipment and handing it off to be shipped - and at that point whether or not it arrives early or late is out of the hands of Amazon and in the hands of the shipping carrier. All of Amazon's work - and therefore all of their procrastination, deliberate or otherwise - happens before you have an estimated delivery date. They do give you a business day range when you place your order ("standard: 4-5 business days" or whatever), but I don't think I've ever had an order where they failed to make it within the upper bound.

No, as far as I can tell the quality of the shipping has stayed the same, but processing times are higher. Back in ye olde days, before the big Amazon Prime push, even for the free shipping option I expected processing times of ~2 days. If I ordered it early on Monday, it'd ship late on Wednesday, sometimes even late Tuesday. And now the processing times seem a lot more painful, and I don't do enough business with Amazon to be able to tell if I was lucky then or unlucky now.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Sep 22, 2016 2:18 am

In my experience, it depends on the seller.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 7:09 pm

Quick question: if I bought a music CD imported from Japan, would I be able to play it on any US devices? e.g. a CD player or laptop?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 7:18 pm

CD-DA does not have region-encoding. You shouldn't have any problems.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 8:42 pm

Shrapnel wrote:Quick question: if I bought a music CD imported from Japan, would I be able to play it on any US devices? e.g. a CD player or laptop?

I recently acquired a Smashing Pumpkins "Zero" album from Japan, only difference is the white label on the side and Japanese text.
No problems.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 11:16 pm

This is most excellent to hear. Onward to the buying!

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 11:56 pm

DSMatticus wrote:Is it just me, or has Amazon shipping for non-prime users turned into complete and total ass? An item I ordered five days ago still hasn't shipped, which is shaping up to be worse than the last time I ordered from Amazon, which in turn was the worst wait I had ever had. I am pretty sure this is all just straight up deliberate and they're just putting holds on non-prime shipping options as an incentive to upgrade.

They're not delibertly putting holds, no. They're just not putting a priority on it. The thing to remember is that Amazon gets an absurdly large number of orders constantly, and has a limited number of staff. 2-day and 1-day shipping get priority and are shoved to the front to the que so that they'll go out the same shipping day. Orders with 5-day shipping or longer will be preempted by higher-priority orders until they near their deadline.
Sometimes you get lucky and Amazon's warehouse efficiency algorithms decide that your order should be packed earlier, maybe because someone else ordered the same thing and it was just more efficient for the employee to grab two from the bin.

I've had free shipping orders ship out the same day. I've had some take 4 days. They always arive the next day, though, because I'm close enough to one of the warehouses. If they have to ship from another warehouse, it usually takes two days from the time its shipped, instead.
This is because it's cheaper for Amazon to just buy a bunch of two-day shipping and put a lower priority on packing 5-7 day orders.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 12:12 am

Yeah, "holds" is just me hyperbolically venting. Mostly I just can't help but wonder if that (now that they are fuck-off huge and are an entrenched near-monopoly) they've reduced the amount of resources (relative to the size of their business) that they dump into processing orders and letting non-Prime users take the shaft because where else are you gonna buy all your random internet shit and hey if it really bothers you we have this cool thing called Amazon Prime. And that ponderance is based entirely on maybe slightly more than a dozen orders, so I am fully prepared to admit that it may be entirely bullshit.

I will, however, continue to be grumpy about it - especially since the item in question arrived fucking broken anyway. I'm not having a great time with my Amazon shopping right now, is what I'm saying.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 1:07 am

DSMatticus wrote:Yeah, "holds" is just me hyperbolically venting. Mostly I just can't help but wonder if that (now that they are fuck-off huge and are an entrenched near-monopoly) they've reduced the amount of resources (relative to the size of their business) that they dump into processing orders and letting non-Prime users take the shaft because where else are you gonna buy all your random internet shit and hey if it really bothers you we have this cool thing called Amazon Prime. And that ponderance is based entirely on maybe slightly more than a dozen orders, so I am fully prepared to admit that it may be entirely bullshit.

I will, however, continue to be grumpy about it - especially since the item in question arrived fucking broken anyway. I'm not having a great time with my Amazon shopping right now, is what I'm saying.

Working as an Amazon warehouse floor employee is basically hell. Like, 9th circle, with Satan's three heads constantly chewing the archtraitors, and everything. The pace that Amazon demands has literally actually killed people.

If they hired more employees, non-Prime would probably still take the shaft, because they'd start by torturing their employees less.

On, who am I kidding, Amazon will never torture their employees less. They can get away with it because they use temps.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 3:15 am

My recent amazon shipping beef was with an item that was noted on the order tracking to have been delivered to my mailbox. ~30 hours later still no sign anywhere around my house, mailbox or no. There seemed to be no way to contact amazon directly so I messaged the seller and it shows up in my mailbox literally an hour later at like 6:30pm (and had re-checked at 5:30) making me feel like a dick even though their order tracker is a bloody liar. I dunno how much of that is amazon and how much is usps but it annoyed me.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 4:01 am

Probably mostly USPS. I'd bet it was scanned at the wrong time, or something

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 2:35 pm

hyzmarca wrote:So something like this but with period appropriate weapons?

What is this and who do I throw my money at to get?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 2:58 pm

Shrapnel wrote:
hyzmarca wrote:So something like this but with period appropriate weapons?

What is this and who do I throw my money at to get?

Dino Riders Brontosaurus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lor_uUkJkkw

They were produced by Tycho Toys from 1988 to 1990, and hasn't been made since then. So good luck finding one.

Edit: Here's a Chasmosaurus for $1,790
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1989-Dino-Rider ... SwYmZXDYEA

Or, more reasonably, a boxless Tyrannosaurus for only $399.99
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dino-Riders-T-R ... SwmLlX9DgF

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 9:24 pm

Dino Riders was the shit back then . .
Also, surprisingly, the series only ever got 13 episodes, certainly seemd very much longer than that to me for some reason . .

angelfromanotherpin · Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:09 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Dino Riders was the shit back then . .
Also, surprisingly, the series only ever got 13 episodes, certainly seemd very much longer than that to me for some reason . .

The comic was also very short and disappointing. Issue 1 made it look like it was going to involve a lot of overwrought psychic soap opera - great stuff. Then issue 2 turned one of the characters into dinosaur hybrid superman who made the entire rest of the setting obsolete, and issue 3 involved him running around showing off, and that was the last issue. I can only guess that they got the cancellation notice before issue 2 was written and just decided to spend their two remaining issues goofing off.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Oct 12, 2016 8:48 pm

one of my favourite youtubers uploaded a new video, which i can't watch because of geoblocking . .
any of you know a good chrome addon to do away with that bullshit? <.<

Video in Question, in case you were curious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1NBMyVXeUc

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Sat Oct 15, 2016 7:32 pm

Stahlseele wrote:one of my favourite youtubers uploaded a new video, which i can't watch because of geoblocking . .
any of you know a good chrome addon to do away with that bullshit? <.<

Video in Question, in case you were curious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1NBMyVXeUc

Hola! is decent.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Oct 16, 2016 1:18 am

Thanks, but it did not work for me <.<

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sun Oct 16, 2016 2:06 am

erik wrote:My recent amazon shipping beef was with an item that was noted on the order tracking to have been delivered to my mailbox. ~30 hours later still no sign anywhere around my house, mailbox or no. There seemed to be no way to contact amazon directly so I messaged the seller and it shows up in my mailbox literally an hour later at like 6:30pm (and had re-checked at 5:30) making me feel like a dick even though their order tracker is a bloody liar. I dunno how much of that is amazon and how much is usps but it annoyed me.

Sounds like a USPS thing. I've lived in multiple locations where they drop the normal mail off, then come back at the end of their runs to drop off packages. But they scan the packages as delivered when they drop off the normal mail, 3-4 hours before they come back to actually deliver them.

It's been about 20 years since I've lived someplace where the USPS wasn't shit. Everytime I purchase something online and the seller ships it USPS, I resign myself to a day or two of anxiety and rage.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 17, 2016 10:36 am

Is there any particular reason immigration can judge the validity of a marriage? I mean, why should "yes, we got married because it lets them stay in the country. That's the way the law works, what business is it of yours whether we love each other?" be any less valid than easily bullshitted "true love?"

I mean, is it just puritanical idealistic bullshit, or is there some kind of actual reason?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:27 am

Prak wrote:Is there any particular reason immigration can judge the validity of a marriage? I mean, why should "yes, we got married because it lets them stay in the country. That's the way the law works, what business is it of yours whether we love each other?" be any less valid than easily bullshitted "true love?"

I mean, is it just puritanical idealistic bullshit, or is there some kind of actual reason?

People using "marriage" to essentially draft slave labor from shithole countries is already a thing. You "marry" someone from a warzone and then they have to do whatever you say or you divorce them and send them back. Having Los Federales look into green card marriages to see if they are legit is not unreasonable since there is an obvious angle for coercion.

That being said, La Migra is pretty famously a bunch of douche canoes about the whole process, so I would in no way stand in the way of people demanding that it be reformed or even abolished.

-Username17