Left-Handed.com sent me the wrong item and is ignoring me

I work for one of the largest online retailers, but we don’t sell everything. If I’m searching for a particularly rare item, I may have to turn elsewhere. Such was the case when I was looking to buy a left-handed Swiss Army knife a few months ago.

Apparently no company currently makes them, and only websites that sell them are a few online stores that cater to left-handers. Of those, I found that England-based Left-Handed.com had the best selection and the lowest prices, so in November, I ordered one there. Not long after, I received a left-handed Swiss Army knife from them, but it wasn’t the model I ordered. The one I wanted had scissors, and the one I got had some different tools, including a wrench.

I could see how they could have made that mistake. The two models are similarly priced (about $40), and the knife I got was packaged in its original box, which didn’t identify the model. They were probably next to each other on the shelf. No big deal, I figured. So I sent the store an e-mail letting them know about the mix-up and asking for an exchange (although I was secretly hoping they’d let me keep both).

Two weeks passed and I didn’t hear anything from them, so I went ahead and mailed them the knife in the original box with the invoice and a note asking for them to send me the right knife. I chose to send the package First Class (misleadingly, the lowest tier of service that the USPS offers for shipping), which, to Left-Handed.com in England, cost me $11. I didn’t count on them paying me back for any shipping more expensive than that, so I didn’t get a tracking number or anything.

After a few weeks, I still hadn’t heard from Left-Handed.com, so I sent them a message through the contact form on their website. The holidays came and went—no reply. Last week, I tried calling the phone number listed on their website, but no one picked up, not even an answering machine. Then I tried calling them during their business hours (1 AM to 8 AM Pacific Time—not an easy thing for me!), and no one picked up then either. Finally, I sent them another message via the contact form, asking as politely as possible for the item I bought.

Okay, so maybe I sent the first e-mail to a no-reply address. Maybe they didn’t get the package. Maybe their contact form is broken or my messages got stuck in their spam filter. Maybe they don’t have an answering machine, and maybe they had closed up shop early when I called. But I very much doubt that all of the above are true. They seem to be ignoring me, plain and simple. I understand that my story may not sound credible—maybe people have tried to rip them off before—but a simple “We don’t believe you” would be more courteous. If this was my fault, my mistake was to be too trusting.

At this point, I don’t know what recourse I have. I originally paid by PayPal, but it’s too late for me to file a complaint with them. (Of course, if I had thought to do it earlier, I would have.) It seems that the only way to get the attention of Left-Handed.com would be to buy something else from them, although I’m very unlikely to give them any more of my money due to the way they’ve treated me. It looks like I’m out 50 bucks, so I guess all I can do is warn everyone not to make the mistake of doing business with them.

Oh, and I’ll send them a link to this post too, in case it gets their attention.

I’ve often wondered if there’s a website that keeps track of the surprisingly common trend of homophobic public figures being outed as gay themselves. Turns out there is: Gay Homophobe succinctly announces “# days since the last prominent homophobe was caught in a gay sex scandal” (25 as of right now) and lists previous “winners” (there were seven last year alone).

“We the People” and separation of church and state

October 28, 2011

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500

Subject: “We the People” and separation of church and state

Dear Mr. President:

For the first time in my life, I am compelled to sit down and write a letter, by hand, to a government official. I am writing in response to today’s email by Joshua DuBois, Executive Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, to the signers of the “We the People” petitions, “Remove ‘In God We Trust’ from Currency” and “Edit the Pledge of Allegiance to Remove the Phrase ‘Under God’.”

Mr. DuBois wrote that you “strongly support” the separation of church and state but that “that does not mean there’s no role for religion in the public square.” Where do you draw the line? To me, the separation of church (religion) and state (government) means that our public officials, in their capacity as representatives chosen by the people, must not imply that our government favors some religions over others, or irreligion over religion; to do so is to hack away at the “wall of separation” that we hold so dear as Americans. Yet you and most other politicians do this all the time and then give non-answers when we demand change.

I am an atheist, but in order to pledge allegiance to the country of my birth, I must check my worldview at the door and take up someone else’s personal convictions. Is that freedom of religion?

Consider our previous motto and pledge: “of many, one”; “one nation indivisible.” Doesn’t the government’s favoritism toward particular religions pervert these ideals?

Respectfully,

Jordon Kalilich
Seattle, WA

I know that this will go straight into the trash and that the best reply I can hope for is a form letter saying, “Thanks for your letter, citizen. Vote for me,” but it would be worse if I had not written it at all.

Terror on the ground

Much has been made recently of the full-body scanners that the Transportation Security Administration is now using at airports nationwide, not to mention the “enhanced pat-down” that awaits travelers who’d rather not have pictures of their naked bodies saved by one of these things.

It comes down to this: There’s a good chance that someone’s going to see or feel your genitalia—not to mention the rest of your body. So basically, you’re screwed (almost literally) either way.

There are so many things wrong here that I don’t even know what’s most disgusting about it. Where do I begin? The constitutional issues? The health issues? The lack-of-security issues?

Maybe the fact that TSA agents are molesting small children, as seen in this TV news segment that’s going viral. The little girl you see screaming and crying is the daughter of the reporter, who, apparently unfazed by an event that could traumatize his child for life, still manages to shrug off the story with that stupid half-smirking TV news reporter voice like a complete tool. I’m glad that guy’s not my father.

How about this? Sexual assault survivors don’t react too well to “enhanced pat-downs” either. Who knew that having a stranger feel your vaginal area would bring back memories… of a stranger feeling your vaginal area?

According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, one in six American women has been the victim of attempted or complete rape. Is Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano one of them? I hope she isn’t and never will be, and it’s no one’s business but her own, but it seems that the answer is no. Otherwise, I don’t think she would allow the TSA to violate millions of women and men who are trying hard to put traumatic events behind them.

Perhaps the worst thing about these “security” procedures is that they won’t work at all. That’s right; they’re causing all these people untold amounts of grief and distress for nothing. Anyone who’s determined enough to blow up a plane is going to smuggle that bomb inside his body. It’s the final frontier, safely out of sight from the peepers and out of reach of the gropers.

If we really want to catch potential terrorists, we need to adopt the strategies used at airports in Israel. Israel, as you will recall, is surrounded by hostile territories and trades fire with them on a regular basis. But, as the Toronto Star reports, “the security set-up at Israel’s largest hub, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002″—and here’s the kicker—”when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight.”

Their secret: they observe how people behave. If people are acting suspiciously, then there’s a reason to be suspicious. If they aren’t, then there isn’t. There’s no reason to confiscate everyone’s liquids and look inside their shoes (while letting potentially explosive laptop batteries get through). It’s all about examining people’s behavior. Look them in the eyes and see if they get nervous.

I know that deep down inside, the TSA gets this. Last year, having touched down after a long trip to Europe with a large bag in tow, I was pulled aside for screening. An agent asked me which countries I had been to (I rattled off the list) and questioned me about the items I had declared (too bad stroopwafels are so hard to describe). But I’m sure he didn’t care about what I was saying as much as how I was saying it. Yes, I was nervous. But I wasn’t extremely, suspiciously, here-come-my-72-virgins nervous. There is a difference.

If this whole controversy had happened a few years ago, I would have found some comfort in the fact that I had no reason to go anywhere by plane. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case. I’m now torn between avoiding these abhorrent procedures and visiting loved ones. It’s a tough decision to make; I’m more afraid of the TSA than I am of terrorists.

For more information about the invasive body scanners and pat-downs, I highly recommend you read the overview at We Won’t Fly, which also has a blog where travelers’ TSA horror stories are piling up. Noted security expert Bruce Schneier has collected a bunch of links about various facets of the issue as well. You may also be interested in these lists of airports with and without full-body scanners.

I know some of you are going to disagree with me on all this. Will everyone who does please come to my apartment so I can take a picture of you naked or feel your crotch. It’s for national security. After all, you could be carrying a bomb on you at this very moment, couldn’t you?

But seriously: What the hell?

No place to study (except in the study area and everywhere else)

It’s student election time again. In the spring, we vote for Student Body President, Vice President, and Treasurer, along with representatives for freshmen, sophomores, colleges, and grad students. Sound exciting? Oh, it is.

At UF, one political party controls most of Student Government. It’s the party that all of the fraternities and sororities happen to support, and these days it’s known as the Unite Party. They always win.

There’s also one or several opposition parties. The past few semesters, there have been the Orange & Blue Party and the Progress Party, but after cannibalizing each other’s votes last semester, they’ve decided to (ahem) unite as the Student Alliance. Their presidential candidate is Ben Cavataro, whom I mentioned around this time last year. He used to represent my dorm in Student Government, and I have a high opinion of him.

One of the big issues this semester is the student union. The university wants to increase tuition so it can raise funds to expand the building. The majority party, which basically always does whatever the university administration wants, supports the plan. The issue is now on the ballot for students to vote on (albeit in a non-binding manner).

This week, I’ve seen official-looking signs posted in the student union that list so-called problems with the current building and the benefits of jacking up our tuition to fix them. One of the “problems” is that the building has “no place to study,” even though a large study area was just built about a year ago. Today (well, yesterday, since I’m writing this after midnight), I wrote a letter to a student newspaper expressing my outrage at the university for creating these signs with false statements.

Then I read today’s issue of the paper and found out that the signs had been created by a student-run campaign, not the university. Oops. By the time I was able to send a correction to the newspaper, they told me that my letter had already gone to press. Tomorrow, a lot of people might realize that I’m not technically right. Boo.

In my defense, the signs were misleading and were placed very prominently, as if the university had endorsed their message. In fact, that’s actually likely because I’ve never seen any other student group’s signs placed at the entrances of the building for all to see. As if that weren’t enough, some university departments actually have officially endorsed the campaign.

Also, my letter can pretty much be read as though I’m criticizing the university for allowing the signs to be put up, so all in all, I guess I’m still right. I just hope no one nitpicks.

Here’s an old video about how they make food look good for TV commercials. (Via The Presurfer)

This compact calendar is pretty clever. (Via Lifehacker)

I knew I’d seen this cliché in about a million TV shows and movies: Let’s Enhance. (Via waxy.org)

Brain damage

My right brain and left brain need to sit down and have a chat sometime.

Sometimes I’m caught having to choose between what’s logically sound and what feels good. It doesn’t have to be anything big; even little things can tear me to pieces.

For a while now, my parents have been giving me scratch-off lottery tickets as small gifts. Playing the lottery is a bad idea if you want to win. It is a system designed to make money; otherwise, it wouldn’t exist. As I’ve been more and more concerned about saving money, I asked my parents to stop buying me lottery tickets and to maybe give me the money they would have otherwise spent on the tickets instead. Of course, I regretted it as soon as the words came out of my mouth.

But scratch-offs were fun, they said. They didn’t sound too happy, so I backpedaled. I had wanted to categorically reject all gambling because it’s a bad idea that makes people lose money, but I compromised myself because my emotions got the better of me. I feel like I should be able to say, “Please don’t buy me lottery tickets, do something useful with your money instead,” but on the other hand, I want my parents to be happy. Also, seeing if you’ve won can be entertaining, and the proceeds of the Florida Lottery fund education.

There are always two sides to every issue. Why do they both have to have merit? It only makes life more difficult for those of us who want to make principled decisions.

And then there are the Hare Krishna types who serve lunch at my university. Krishna Lunch is considered an institution because they’ve been doing it for many years. People like the food, and it comes at a competitive price. Every day around lunchtime, students line up on the plaza to be served while Hare Krishnas play their Hare Krishna music and chant Hare Krishna.

I’ve had Krishna Lunch once or twice. It was pretty tasty. I might like to take advantage of their cheap lunch offers more often, but I’m concerned about who I give my money to and what it says about me. I’m obviously not too keen on giving my money to a religious organization because then they have that much more of an ability to spread their religious nonsense.

In my research, I’ve found that Krishna Lunch is a nonprofit, which puts me at ease somewhat. But there’s still another issue that I think is important. I feel that if I’m caught with one of their paper plates full of unidentifiable food, there should be some kind of disclaimer above my head stating that I don’t necessarily endorse the beliefs or practices of the organization.

I guess I might as well go through with it; I don’t think anyone would judge me. I should be more concerned about whether I would judge myself. And I did eat at a Chick-fil-A recently, which is like giving money to a church (and getting a crappy sandwich and delicious fries in return). But what would you do if you were me?

Less money, mo’ problems.

Slate asks: Why Do We Call Galileo Galilei by His First Name? (Via J-Walk Blog)

This chart could be handy for me now that I’m dabbling in buying perishable food: The Table of Condiments That Periodically Go Bad. (Via All About Me – And Then Some)

Blue tape

During my freshman year, I was hanging out with some members of Gator Freethought after a meeting, and I mentioned my plan to start an Esperanto club. The president of Gator Freethought offered me a word of caution.

It’s a lot of work to start a club, he said. “There’s a lot of red tape.”

One thing that student organization presidents have to do is attend a training session at the beginning of each year. They mostly just go over the rules that you had to go over yourself to renew your club’s registration a week or two ago. But, in any case, there are a few morsels of new information.

As I found out at a training session on Wednesday, one of the new rules for this year is that organizations can bring “outside” food into meetings as long as it doesn’t have to be temperature controlled. Previously, clubs had to rely on the student union’s catering service for all their food needs. (Their pizza is the worst I’ve ever had, so that’s a welcome change.)

The woman explaining the new rules mentioned as an afterthought that we couldn’t bring non-Pepsi products to meetings.

Wait, what? Yeah. You should have heard the uproar in the room.

Apparently, since UF has a deal to sell Pepsi everywhere on campus and tout it as the official soft drink of the Gator Nation or whatever, student organizations—which, as the presenter stressed in another part of the program, are not part of the university—are bound by that sponsorship deal as well. Capitalism rears its ugly head, stifling consumer choice and common sense.

Where does it end? Are Coca-Cola’s Hi-C juice boxes out of the question? If I want to bring oatmeal to a meeting, does it have to be made by PepsiCo’s Quaker Oats? How much money is the university getting from this stupid deal, and could it be had without making personae non gratae out of those who have the good sense to spit in the face of its stifling provisions?

Since then, I’ve noticed that the ubiquitous Pepsi machines around campus say “Thanks for Choosing Pepsi.” Some choice we have, all right.

So, the university gives everybody some free web space. Not many people know about or take advantage of the offer because it’s not 1996 anymore, but I thought I’d put my own space to good use.

As viewed from a campus IP address (and forwarded to my screen by SSH tunneling):

And from off-campus:

A real ’50s instructional film: Dating: Do’s and Don’ts. It’s in color, too! (Part of the film is missing, hence the lack of an introduction.)

Famous films edited down to (about) five seconds: 5 Second Movies.

And finally, I know this site isn’t new, but I’ve never linked to it here before: Will It Blend?

A grammatical interlude

Today in one of my classes, we did something I haven’t done since high school: we peer-reviewed each other’s research papers. And no, I’m not talking about fact checking; I mean basic stuff like proofreading. We split into groups of three, and each person proofread the others’ essays and offered comments. I bet I was the only one in the class to use proofreader’s marks, which I’d been taught in sixth or seventh or eighth grade.

But anyway, I’m not a big fan of peer review in classrooms. The process is fundamentally broken; it assumes that each person knows more about writing than someone else, which is just not true. For example: a classmate marked my use of the Latin phrases per se and status quo as clichés and said not to use them because they weakened my argument. De facto just seemed to confuse the hell out of her. Maybe I won’t italicize my Latin phrases in the final draft.

But the biggie came when I saw her scrawling a note in the margin saying not to start a sentence with “because.” What the heck, guys.

Schoolteachers tell schoolchildren not to start a sentence with “because” to prevent them from writing incomplete sentences:

Because I like cookies.

This sentence has no main idea; “Because I like cookies” is a subordinate clause and must have a main clause or whatever it’s called to go with it. (Excuse me; it’s been a while. I hope this doesn’t, ahem, weaken my argument.) Now let’s consider another sentence with the word “because”:

I bought extra milk because I like cookies.

No one can deny that that is a grammatically correct sentence. But if all our sentences looked like that, the world would be a boring place to read stuff, and we’d probably just watch more TV. So what do good writers do? They shake up their sentence structure by reversing clauses!

Because I like cookies, I bought extra milk.

“Oh noes! It starts with ‘because’!” Chill. It’s okay. There’s a whole idea in there, see? There is absolutely nothing wrong with this sentence (except that liking cookies too much might make you fat). It’s just like the last sentence. There’s a main idea (“I bought extra milk”) with a supporting idea (“because I like cookies”) backing it up.

To be fair, my classmate made valid criticisms of my 3 A.M. writing. I can’t really blame her for not realizing her mistake. Not everyone is a grammar whiz, after all.

No, I think the problem ultimately comes down to English teachers. They tell kids not to start sentences with “because,” a sweeping and inappropriate generalization. To make matters worse, they hardly ever seem to “unteach” it later on by saying that starting a sentence with “because” is okay if you do it right. So this “rule” remains in students’ heads, standing as an artificial impediment to their self-expression.

So, English teachers, can you please stop saying that a sentence can never begin with “because”? You’d be doing your students a favor, and the rest of us would really appreciate it too.

(And yes, I realize that I’ve started a sentence with a coordinating conjunction seven times. Oops. Make that eight.)

I thought it was obvious, but there’s a long Wikipedia article about it: the evenness of zero.

The Pac-Man Dossier consists of everything you ever wanted to know about Pac-Man, all on one page. (Via The Presurfer)

The price of a first-class stamp is going up so often that by the time I remember what it is, it’s changed again. So I guess I’m not the only person who had this idea for a simple web site: priceofastamp.com. (Via The Presurfer)

Play nice, kids

[Edit Tue, Feb 10, 2009 22:27 EST: Wow. Um, this post is about me getting my Internet access cut off because I was using BitTorrent. After I wrote it, I got a message saying that my access was blocked because of bad authentication - I had just changed my password, and it hadn't propagated through the system yet. So, um, let's just pretend I didn't accidentally incriminate myself.]

Brian Malow is a comedian… who jokes about science! Don’t worry, his jokes are very accessible and still pretty funny.

Last year, there were several Internet outages due to cable breaks in the Mediterranean. New Scientist reports on why the sea is the Achilles’ heel of the web.

It’s the same everywhere

This morning, someone with glossy flyers came out of nowhere and started talking at me about all manner of topics. It’s that time of year again!

A university is a microcosm of society. And just like in the actual cosm, school politics have been flaring up over the past few weeks. Student Government elections are next week, and it’s once again down to the classic battle of the Greek party vs. the non-Greek party. The former is the Gator Party, while the latter is the Orange and Blue Party. Here at UF, it’s the same as it is with many universities: the Greeks dominate student politics.

Earlier this year, a UF sorority member (who wished to be anonymous for her safety) had this to say:

Apparently, in recent years, stickers that say “I Voted” have been banned, but now they just give out “SG” stickers instead. Can you see why the Gator Party might oppose online voting? In fact, they oppose it vehemently. They know what will happen if it becomes easier for students to vote. Turnout increases dramatically. If Greeks are a minority of students, and they’re all already voting, they won’t be the majority of voters for very long.

Last year, I voted against the Gator Party, and I plan to do the same this time. While the Gator Party’s platform includes wastes of money like putting crossing guards at crosswalks that I’ve crossed safely for a year and putting a video rental store in the student union, Orange and Blue’s platform is shorter and actually has details of their plans. And I like what I see: online voting, eliminating wastes of money, socially responsible investing, getting student pep rally acts that people have heard of (unlike last year’s Frank Caliendo and Lynyrd Skynyrd or this year’s Jon Reep and Steve Miller Band). Already this fall, as the minority party, they’ve blocked a regulation that would have limited the legal consumption of alcohol by students anywhere and pushed to make the day before Thanksgiving a holiday. Not bad.

More importantly, we need to shake things up in Student Government. If the people in charge are working harder to stay in charge than to respond to students’ needs and wants, they need to be kicked out. Fortunately, my dorm went for the non-Greek party last year, and our representative is now trying to hang on to his seat, one of the few that Orange and Blue has. Incidentally, I’m acquaintances with his Gator Party opponent, so it would be weird if I saw Mr. Gator Party and was like, “Hey, I’m not voting for you.” But if he tries to convince me to vote for him, I’ll have to tell him how I feel.

Oh yes, even the links are getting political. From Chicken Girl: Sarah Palin’s Greatest Hits.

Another one: Celebrities tell you to vote.

Okay, this isn’t political, but it’s cool. Have you ever wondered what a search query would have been like in the past? Like, what if you could search for “osama bin laden terrorist threat” before 9/11? For Google’s 10th birthday, they’ve brought back their oldest surviving search index, from January 2001, for a limited time only. You can search the web as it was in 2001. Each search result includes a link to the Internet Archive’s earliest archived version of that page for 2001, in the likely event that the page has been moved, deleted, or changed.

Darts and laurels

A few months back, I discovered Brad Sucks, a “one-man band with no fans” who had a lot of fans. His only album at the time, 2003′s I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, was very good, and I think he owes his fan base to the fact that he distributed the album for free under a Creative Commons license that allowed for noncommercial use and remixing.

This week, he released his second album, Out of It. It was the first time I was excited about the release of a new album, maybe… ever? Anyway, it’s a short record, but if you liked the first one, you’ll enjoy it. You can download it in MP3 format for whatever price you want, including for free. (For the Ogg Vorbis q7 version, Jamendo has a torrent and a direct download link.)

Interestingly, the new album is released under a Creative Commons license that allows commercial and noncommercial use of all kinds, provided that the artist is credited and that derivative works are released under the same license. Incidentally, this license is incompatible with the license Brad used for his first album, which means you can’t mash up tracks from the two without permission. Still, it’s good that he chose a more generous license for Out of It. He can get away with it since he has so many fans.

I’ve also heard of this fellow called Girl Talk and how everyone loves him. Unauthorized mashups are his thing. Yesterday, when Waxy.org analyzed the hundreds of samples he used on his latest album, I decided to download it. It’s called Feed the Animals, and it’s a 53-minute orgy of popular music. There’s something for everyone. Recommended.

You know what’s annoying? Selling out. I have stopped visiting a number of sites because they were jumping on the money bandwagon and/or acting all high and mighty. At The Sneeze, Steve’s running jokes got old fast, and he pretends that his blog is a magazine. I am mad at PostSecret because Frank Warren passes over normal people’s secrets in favor of the most scandalous ones, which he then makes money from by putting them in expensive books and music videos. Jessica Hagy of Indexed accepted a book deal. Damn Interesting reposts the same damn articles over and over again… because they’re busy writing a book (and sometimes for no apparent reason at all).

Remember a few months ago when I said this?

Jim Davis, the mastermind behind the Garfield empire, has now realized that if you can’t beat ‘em, you should join ‘em. His company is going to publish a book of old Garfield strips with Garfield removed, and the Garfield Minus Garfield guy is going to write the foreword. This is just absolutely nuts… and I count it as a sell-out.

I was going to say that I Can Has Cheezburger was getting very close to the point of selling out. It’s run by an actual company now. They’ve had sweepstakes and have launched sister sites in case this lolcat thing doesn’t work out. Yes, I was going to say that ICHC is close… but I just went to the site and saw that I Can Has Cheezburger is now a registered trademark of Pet Holdings, Inc. Whaaa?

To you alleged sellouts: Don’t be mad. I used to love you all. You had, and still have, some great ideas. I still have a place in my heart for each of you (except maybe The Sneeze). And hey, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?

As we all know, good-looking people face so many problems in our society. Fortunately, there’s now a social network just for them: BeautifulPeople. To get in, you have to be voted attractive by members who are of the opposite sex. Then you have to pay pretty dang much money if you want full membership. (£69.95 a year? What the heck?)

One of those university projects: Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene.

How much of the things you remember actually happened? A recent (or not recent, I can’t tell how old the article is) study suggests that creating false memories is pretty easy.