---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20190226182548.GA11047@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 18:25:48 +0000 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: High Winds At Sugarloaf Destroy Summit Radio Tower Yesterday was a very windy day in the state of Maine. Wind gusts exceeding 100mph on were so strong on Sugarloaf Mountain that they toppled the communications tower. https://unofficialnetworks.com/2019/02/26/sugarloaf-tower-destroy/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <8e54c54573884e16d1b09b169413426e.squirrel@mai.hallikainen.org> Date: 25 Feb 2019 15:07:29 -0800 From: "Harold Hallikainen" <harold@mai.hallikainen.org> Subject: How SMS works The surprisingly complex journey a text message takes every time we hit 'send.' By Scott B. Weingart My leg involuntarily twitches with vibration - was it my phone, or just a phantom feeling? - and a quick inspection reveals a blinking blue notification. "I love you," my wife texted me. I walk downstairs to wish her goodnight, because I know the difference between the message and the message, you know? It's a bit like encryption, or maybe steganography: anyone can see the text, but only I can decode the hidden data. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kzdn8n/the-route-of-a-text-message-a-love-story -- FCC Rules Updated Daily at http://www.hallikainen.com Not sent from an iPhone. ------------------------------ Message-ID: <26EF2AF0-2438-4244-8850-C430DA675422@mishmash.com> Date: 26 Feb 2019 06:33:19 -0700 From: "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com> Subject: Crucial.com Cancels Legitimate Orders Over the last weekend, I ordered thirty-two gigabytes of memory for my personal Windows 2016 server I am running on my home network. I gave the vendor a shipping address where I routinely receive personal deliveries. They are a manufacturer/seller of memory and solid state drives. They were highly recommended to me by the technician who built and configured my home server. Yesterday, I got an email saying they had canceled my order. When I called to find out why, they told me it was because they were unable to confirm my delivery address. I resubmitted the order instead giving them my street address for a shipping address. They canceled that order, too. On further discussion, they told it was because my credit card wasn't associated with those addresses. Of course not. They are shipping address, not billing addresses. I use a post office box for my billing address. They gave me this nonsensical dance about how they had so much business with the federal government that they are required to have higher standards in confirming addresses to ship to. I couldn't believe what I was hearing since this was a personal purchase. At first, they suggested I go to Newegg or one of a few other vendors. I got a supervisor on the phone. He tried to give me the same story. We went back and forth. Finally, he said that he could have their credit department call me today and try to confirm my shipping address. He said that he would arrange for free overnight shipping [if they could get this resolved] to make it up to me. He said I would be contacted within twenty-four hours. I am well aware that there is a lot of credit card fraud going on. But there should be effective ways to resolve this when someone who has placed a legitimate order tries to resolve it with the seller. Have anyone else here ever heard of anything so utterly ridiculous? Fred ***** Moderator's Note ***** The problem is that the losses mount up very quickly if they don't check, and the profit they would make on one transaction isn't nearly enough to deal with the pushback from the credit card consortium. Sellers figured out that their internal costs for a single loss far exceed the profit they might make if it goes through, so front-line call-takers are always required to brush you off if you don't meet the usual expectations. There are several ways to deal with this: all of them are based on the assumption that you *have* to use this vendor, but it's usually easier to just pay a buck or two more for something from Amazon. 1. Ask the bank which issued your credit card to authorize a different shipping address. Once that's on your account, the problem goes away: some banks will, but some won't. 2. Offer to pay cash, with either a postal money order or a teller's check from your bank. It will delay the order, to be sure, but it's an ordinary, arms-length transaction that will satisfy any credit manager. 3. Open an account with the vendor, and do whatever they require for new accounts: a deposit, a letter of credit from your bank, etc. Of course, this only works if you're going to be buying things from them on a regular basis. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Wed, 27 Feb 2019