Minor Accident: Update

Apparently no one records things anymore. The city police said that they don’t have the information on the offender (well maybe if you gave him a ticket for turning left at a no left turn you would?), and the State Police also claim they don’t have it (they do on their in-car camera, blah). So basically I’m SOL.

Minor Accident

I was involved in a minor accident this morning. I was going down Military Road, which is 2 lanes. Someone was trying to make a left turn from Lillian, which is actually illegal (no left turn). Anyway, I was in the outer most lane (Military has 2 lanes on each side, then a center turn lane). I seen the truck approaching me and I just reacted by swerving into the center lane.
There was a State Trooper behind me and a City Cop parked at the bank who both witnessed it. I pulled into the bank parking lot, as did the offender. We both got out and looked at our vehicles, as well as each others, but neither of us saw anything on my car. We seen some minor scuffing on his truck, but he was not worried about it. So when the cop asked, we chose not to file a report.
However, upon arriving at Wal-Mart, my initial destination, I realized there was some minor damage. Thinking back, perhaps I should have filed a report. Maybe I still will if I can, after I talk to Nannette and Kent about it.
Here are pictures of the damage.

What do you think? What would you have done, or what would you do at this point?

Seagate Firmware Issue

Well, I managed to get a drive from Amazon Warehouse, that was poorly packed in only the bumpers, with no other packaging or even an anti-static bag. It arrived and shows up as 0MB when you add it to a computer.
I called Seagate regarding the matter and told them everything, including how I found online that there are others with this issue, how Amazon Warehouse means it was used, Amazon’s poor packing, ect. They gone and set up an RMA where I have to mail it in at my expense, but they will replace it.
I was kinda hoping for a free advance RMA (normally $19.99), due to the firmware issue, but they swear up and down that this drive is not affected. They said this drive was manufactured in March 2008, and that the drives that have the issue were all from the same plant, and was around September 2008. So, I didn’t get a free RMA, but I have gotten one none-the-less.
The only problem is, since Amazon did not send it in an anti-static bag, is that I need to obtain one, since Seagate requires me to send them the drive in one.
I guess the moral of this story is do NOT buy computer hardware from Amazon Warehouse (aka “Warehouse Deals” on Amazon).

Beware of Binverse

So I was looking for a usenet provider, and stumbled upon Binverse. I was going to sign up for the trial, but it asked for a credit card, like most, so I stopped. Randomly, a day or so later, out of desperation, they sent me an email giving me a login with 1gb of download on it and 14 days.
So I decided to try to log in. Firstly, they make you download their client software. That is, if you didn’t know to append @binverse.com to your username when you connect to their server. They don’t tell you this because they want you to download their crap.
So I did, and I did a random search, found a 45 day old file, worth 2k, and clicked download. The transfer failed, and they removed 1MB from my transfer limit. But that is not the worse part. Upon inspecting the packet log, I found they aren’t even a provider at all. In fact, they want to charge me for a bandwidth cap on CHARTER’s server! Say what? Seriously? I can do that for FREE. Thanks, but no thanks, Binverse.

200 Welcome to Charter NNTP Service (newsfe06.iad) (Tornado v1.2.7.560-2)
AUTHINFO USER bnv-t********-trial@binverse.com
381 More Authentication Required
AUTHINFO PASS T*******
281 Welcome to Binverse.com
ARTICLE <005f309f$0$14117$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>
430 No Such Article
ARTICLE <005f309f$0$14117$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>
430 No Such Article
ARTICLE <005f309f$0$14117$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>
430 No Such Article
ARTICLE <005f309f$0$14117$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>
430 No Such Article
ARTICLE <005f309f$0$14117$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>
430 No Such Article
ARTICLE <005f309f$0$14117$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>
430 No Such Article
QUIT
205 GoodBye

Flood update

Well, they are only predicting a rise to 22ft, so we shouldn’t have to leave. We’ll see what happens. Might make for some interesting pictures and video though :)

Possible Downtime due to Flooding

There is a small possibility that the server may be taken offline in the coming days. We are scheduled to receive 5-7 inches of rain. We live in a flood plain and the river will be at 7ft when it starts (normal is about 4ft). Flood stage is 18ft, and evacuations occur around 24-25 feet. I’m not sure how high it will get.

It probably won’t get into our house, but the side end of the trailer park is lower, and as such, they evacuate everyone and cut power to the entire park. Therefore the server would be taken offline, and if we do evacuate, I will be taking the server with me just in case.

I don’t know, but you can keep an eye on it here and here.

Nocturnal

I’m bored and I can’t sleep. I don’t know why. I should be sleeping considering my schedule but I just can’t. It sucks because my schedule will become wacked. I feel slightly tired but not enough to sleep. I’ve been playing World of Warcraft again. Finally made it to 55 on my Warlock so now I can make Death Knights. They rule. My DK is 60 already.

Yeah, um. This sucks. I’m broke already after getting gas and cigs and stuff. So I can’t even go to Wal-Mart or something. Well, I think I have like $1 left.. *checks*

Yeah, I can’t wait until November 3rd when I will be getting the HTC Hero cell phone. Yay, Linux phone. Yay, google phone. Yay, new fancy phone. lol.

La, la, la. Wal-Mart’s txt crap isn’t responding, as usual.. .. oh, there it goes, $1.35. Not even enough for a Pepsi or Dr. Pepper. How sad.

Well, maybe. I guess I could go see. I have to go to my car to get cigs anyway.

Oh yeah, I need to post pics of my car on here. It is nothing fancy, but it has less than 100k miles on it. But more about the car in it’s own post.

Okay, I’m gonna find SOMETHING to do.. x.x Later…

Amazon Marketplace and APO

When selling on the Amazon Marketplace, I guess you need to charge extra for the item. Because if a buyer buys your item and has an APO Military Address, you do not get any extra credit for shipment.

I sent Amazon a letter regarding the charges. We’ll see what they say in response.

In my letter to Amazon, I wrote:

The Amazon Marketplace charged the buyer $5.49 for shipping, however due to the fact this was an APO address, the cheapest option available was $12.70. Why does the Amazon Marketplace not adjust the shipping charges accordingly for the pricey APO shipments? How can I get the difference?

Amazon’s Response:

…

Because your buyer selected standard shipping, you received $4.49 + $0.50 per pound for your shipping credit. This resulted in a total shipping credit in the amount of $5.49.

When you create a listing, the shipping credit you will receive is displayed on the last page of the listing process. It is also included in the e-mail listing confirmation that we send when you create a listing. If the allowed shipping credit will not be sufficient to cover the actual cost of shipping the item, we encourage you to keep that in mind when pricing your item.

…

My response:

While I understand your pricing scheme, the problem is with just APO. I seen the $5.49 shipping credit when I listed the item. This was sufficient for most addresses. When I’m listing an item, there is no way for me to know if it will be an APO purchase or not. Most sites classify APO as International, and credit the user as such. Amazon should incorporate some way to credit the user for an APO shipment, because it is not the same price as a standard shipment to the continental US.

Server Downtime

I’m not quite sure what the problem is with my server, sometimes it just powers itself off for no reason. It is not the board, even though the CPU isn’t supported, when I used it as a desktop, it ran for 2 weeks+ straight.

I’m thinking it is the power supply but not sure exactly what. It seems the connection for the power cable to the PSU is a bit loose, so it could be that it is just being shifted out randomly by the forces that be.

Either way, the server cannot recover itself due to the unsupported processor (E7400 on the G965 chipset). The processor works, but only at half speed, and requires one to press F1 to boot the server from the BIOS. I’ll try to get another board, but the problem is the case, its HP and as such it does not like to have a board besides theirs. The way the tray is designed prevents you from attaching a cooling device to the board when its another board.

I’ll figure something out. It is pretty stable until I start rummaging through the wires back there, so I guess if I just push it in every once in a while it won’t “pop” back out.

Anyway, all should be fine now.