TR Forums

Amazon's marketing algorithms seem to be a little off today. I just received a "you might be interested in these items" e-mail from them this AM. With only one exception, every item on the list is a music CD that I purchased within the past year... from Amazon! (So in a sense, the e-mail is technically accurate -- I *am* interested in those items!)

Duh.

The directed ads I see from Google, Amazon, etc. are all things that I've already looked at online. I get annoyed seeing the same products over and over again -- I know what they are, seeing the advertisement doesn't tell me anything new, and if I didn't buy it the first time I searched for it, seeing its picture again isn't going to force my hand.

Wouldn't it be more effective marketing to show me a product related to something I'm interested in to give me another possibility? Perhaps even show me a product I didn't even know I needed?

FireGryphon wrote:

The directed ads I see from Google, Amazon, etc. are all things that I've already looked at online. I get annoyed seeing the same products over and over again -- I know what they are, seeing the advertisement doesn't tell me anything new, and if I didn't buy it the first time I searched for it, seeing its picture again isn't going to force my hand.

Yeah, I've been getting those for years. But today's are even worse, in the sense that it is targeted e-mail (not banner ad) advertising from the same place I already bought those exact items from!

Odd week at the office. Instead of doing software development full-time, I've been spending about half of my time in the datacenter rebuilding (as in swapping out motherboards, CPUs, NICs, and SAS controllers) two racks' worth of servers! Apparently there's some horse-trading going on between departments, and if we help out with this we get some test assets for our development lab out of the deal.

They have a new tech starting next week, so I imagine once he gets up to speed they won't be tapping developers for this sort of thing any more. I apparently got volunteered for this little adventure because they are temporarily short-handed, and someone caught wind of the fact that I've built a lot of PCs...

Oh, and one of the things I learned this week: A 4U server with 48 HDDs in it is FRIKKIN' HEAVY!

The Egg wrote:

What kind of scam is this Draft Kings site running? They come out of nowhere, and suddenly they're sponsoring all the pregame and halftime shows, and playing nearly 50% of the commercials in every NFL game. Where does that amount of money suddenly materialize from? Whatever the deal is, it's gotta be borderline illegal.

Looks like the Nevada state govt wants their cut: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/daily-fanta ... in-nevada/

just brew it! wrote:

The Egg wrote:

What kind of scam is this Draft Kings site running? They come out of nowhere, and suddenly they're sponsoring all the pregame and halftime shows, and playing nearly 50% of the commercials in every NFL game. Where does that amount of money suddenly materialize from? Whatever the deal is, it's gotta be borderline illegal.

Looks like the Nevada state govt wants their cut: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/daily-fanta ... in-nevada/

Ugh, day job hat time.

The US prohibits the use of ACH/credit card payment networks to facilitate "internet gambling" (c.f. UIGEA). Until this pronouncement by Nevada, the general legal assumption was that it was a game of skill rather than a game of chance and hence did not run afoul of UIGEA and US payment networks could legally be used to facilitate transactions in this field.

If the Nevada holding of "it's gambling" holds, daily fantasy is dead because of UIGEA. Since entities like Disney have invested in it the chances of this stopping with a Clark County, NV judge are nil.

Popcorn time.

Here endeth the day job, which just got more complicated.

just brew it! wrote:

Odd week at the office. Instead of doing software development full-time, I've been spending about half of my time in the datacenter rebuilding (as in swapping out motherboards, CPUs, NICs, and SAS controllers) two racks' worth of servers! Apparently there's some horse-trading going on between departments, and if we help out with this we get some test assets for our development lab out of the deal.

They have a new tech starting next week, so I imagine once he gets up to speed they won't be tapping developers for this sort of thing any more. I apparently got volunteered for this little adventure because they are temporarily short-handed, and someone caught wind of the fact that I've built a lot of PCs...

Oh, and one of the things I learned this week: A 4U server with 48 HDDs in it is FRIKKIN' HEAVY!

Not surprising that sucker must weight at least 80 pounds or more.

Captain Ned wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

The Egg wrote:

What kind of scam is this Draft Kings site running? They come out of nowhere, and suddenly they're sponsoring all the pregame and halftime shows, and playing nearly 50% of the commercials in every NFL game. Where does that amount of money suddenly materialize from? Whatever the deal is, it's gotta be borderline illegal.

Looks like the Nevada state govt wants their cut: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/daily-fanta ... in-nevada/

Ugh, day job hat time.

The US prohibits the use of ACH/credit card payment networks to facilitate "internet gambling" (c.f. UIGEA). Until this pronouncement by Nevada, the general legal assumption was that it was a game of skill rather than a game of chance and hence did not run afoul of UIGEA and US payment networks could legally be used to facilitate transactions in this field.

If the Nevada holding of "it's gambling" holds, daily fantasy is dead because of UIGEA. Since entities like Disney have invested in it the chances of this stopping with a Clark County, NV judge are nil.

Popcorn time.

Here endeth the day job, which just got more complicated.

Well since Nevada GC has weighed in a lot more states will take notice and follow suit since it seems all other GCs look to Nevada as a baseline.

You think Nevada's position is part of the reason that the NFL isn't directly in bed with these companies? Like they knew that there could be a strong legal challenge and didn't want to get caught in that fire when it happened?

superjawes wrote:

You think Nevada's position is part of the reason that the NFL isn't directly in bed with these companies? Like they knew that there could be a strong legal challenge and didn't want to get caught in that fire when it happened?

Paul Hornung & Alex Karras.

Found this in some YouTube comments on a B5 vid and, for the first time ever, I made the association between B5 and LoTR (the Arthurian analogies had already been explicitly made in several episodes).

YT Comments wrote:

Marcus Cole: Aragorn in space!

Faramir / Galahad, actually. Sheridan was Aragorn / Arthur. Kosh was Merlin/ Gandalf. The Shadow ships were the black riders (they even scream). Delenn was Guinivere / Galadriel / Arwen. Lennier was Legolas. Ivanova was Eowyn / Theoden. The Rangers were the Rangers / Knights of the Round Table. And instead of Kosh / Gandalf falling into Za'Ha'Dum / Kazad Dum, it was Sheriden, just to change things a little.

I was watching some generic cop chases and i had a realization. From now on i want to carry a pizza box in the back of my car, and if i ever go crazy and get in a high speed chase i'll eventually just pull over at a house and walk to the door with the pizza box like i didn't know there were any cops there.

Sitting here waiting for a critical instrument run before going home. We have a fine thunderous lightning display going on right now. The high cliffs East and West (not to mention Grand Mesa) of Grand Junction, CO valley make for great thunderstorms when we get them this time of year.

We got a nice rain storm this morning, with mist (at the least) hanging around through the evening. (Corvallis, OR) Made for a good excuse to walk to campus (instead of riding a bike) for once. Certainly makes those 1.5-2miles seem a good deal longer, and tires me out more at the end of the day.

An added bonus of all this random rain is that the front lawn is finally going green again, despite my best efforts to kill it by driving over it all the time (hey, that's the easiest way to get out of the driveway, all right?).

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a good friend, the same one Vrock posted about before. While trying to push the self-serving feelings about my own mortality aside it was great to see old friends come from all over to honor him. People I haven't seen in twenty-some years came. The service was good. I felt the Active Duty Honor Guard could have used more training but I know how that goes when you are on Post Support and tapped to do this stuff, there just isn't enough training in the world to prepare you for this detail.

In case anyone was wondering here is the article that ran in the Atlanta news about him.

I'll miss him. I'll miss that goofy smile, that quick wit, and that very snarky sense of humor.

I saw Halestorm in concert last night. Afterwards it felt like I had lost my voice, but I couldn't hear myself well enough to tell.

Captain Ned wrote:

Found this in some YouTube comments on a B5 vid and, for the first time ever, I made the association between B5 and LoTR (the Arthurian analogies had already been explicitly made in several episodes).

YT Comments wrote:

Marcus Cole: Aragorn in space!

Faramir / Galahad, actually. Sheridan was Aragorn / Arthur. Kosh was Merlin/ Gandalf. The Shadow ships were the black riders (they even scream). Delenn was Guinivere / Galadriel / Arwen. Lennier was Legolas. Ivanova was Eowyn / Theoden. The Rangers were the Rangers / Knights of the Round Table. And instead of Kosh / Gandalf falling into Za'Ha'Dum / Kazad Dum, it was Sheriden, just to change things a little.

Mr. Morden is Mouth of Sauron, Lorien is Eru and the First Ones are the Valar.....

I'm completely frustrated with Amazon's billing procedures.
Any moderate sized order is broken up into at least 5-6 different charges for no apparent reason (even if all from Amazon.com), and they're often posted on different days. When glancing through your statement, it's impossible to know if things are correct without breaking out a calculator and pulling up your Amazon order history in another tab. If you happened to place a couple decent sized orders within a few days of each other, things get even more crazy. Any reason this has to be such a cluster****?

The Egg wrote:

I'm completely frustrated with Amazon's billing procedures.
Any moderate sized order is broken up into at least 5-6 different charges for no apparent reason (even if all from Amazon.com), and they're often posted on different days. When glancing through your statement, it's impossible to know if things are correct without breaking out a calculator and pulling up your Amazon order history in another tab. If you happened to place a couple decent sized orders within a few days of each other, things get even more crazy. Any reason this has to be such a cluster****?

They probably bill for each item as it ships. If items are shipping from different warehouses, they don't know ahead of time when they ship item A that item B will also be shipping within a few hours, so they immediately bill for item A.

Maybe I don't place large, multi-item orders very often, but I've never had this happen. The one thing I would suggest to check is who you are actually buying from. Amazon sells items directly, they do "fulfilled by Amazon" (Amazon stores and ships a product, buy you're technically buying from a different company), and then I think there are plain, third-party sellers as well (where Amazon is only serving as the payment service).

Basically, is it possible that you are buying some items from Amazon and some from a third party?

EDIT: right...should also have mentioned that I am a Prime member, so almost everything I get arrives in two days.

I see this all the time, it's just an artifact of their logistics having grown to the point where one order can ship on several different days from several different locations. To avoid committing mail fraud, they have to bill each item or group of items as it ships.

ludi wrote:

I see this all the time, it's just an artifact of their logistics having grown to the point where one order can ship on several different days from several different locations. To avoid committing mail fraud, they have to bill each item or group of items as it ships.

So why not just bill the entire order immediately when it's placed? It seems like they're making things unnecessarily difficult.

Because it's considered a best practice (for avoiding things like mail fraud, as mentioned) to charge when you ship. It's not actually required, but it's best practice, as I understand.

Another odd bit with them - I ordered a bunch of parts for the car. They shipped a bunch of stuff and 3 spark plugs together, and the last spark plug by itself. All ordered direct from amazon. Uhh, what?

The Egg wrote:

So why not just bill the entire order immediately when it's placed? It seems like they're making things unnecessarily difficult.

It's expressly mentioned in at least some card credit merchant agreements:

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/ ... chants.pdf

Page 12 wrote:

Deliver the merchandise or services to the cardholder at the time of the
transaction. Cardholders expect immediate delivery of goods and services
unless other delivery arrangements have been made. For card-absent
transactions, cardholders should be informed of delivery method and tentative
delivery date. Transactions cannot be deposited until goods have been shipped
or services received.

localhostrulez wrote:

Another odd bit with them - I ordered a bunch of parts for the car. They shipped a bunch of stuff and 3 spark plugs together, and the last spark plug by itself. All ordered direct from amazon. Uhh, what?

I ordered three music CDs from them a few weeks ago. All were billed together, and I got a single shipment notification e-mail. They arrived on the same day, in three separate packages.

Posting this from my shiny new Comcast Xfinity Internet connection. Speedtest says 108 down, 24 up. Old connection was a 3 mbps DSL connection, so we're looking at a near-40-fold increase in download speed.

The installer had a very bad day though. Apparently the coax strung around the house was bad enough that it couldn't reliably support HDTV or high speed Internet. He spent most of the day here pulling new coax, finding/removing/replacing old splitters and bad cable crimps, etc... all of which had been put there either by the previous homeowner, or whoever originally installed their cable service. I actually felt bad for the poor guy (even helped him with a couple of the more difficult cable pulls); he was 2 hours ahead of schedule before he got to my house, but behind schedule by the time he left!

just brew it! wrote:

localhostrulez wrote:

Another odd bit with them - I ordered a bunch of parts for the car. They shipped a bunch of stuff and 3 spark plugs together, and the last spark plug by itself. All ordered direct from amazon. Uhh, what?

I ordered three music CDs from them a few weeks ago. All were billed together, and I got a single shipment notification e-mail. They arrived on the same day, in three separate packages.

Yeah, but I'm in Oregon. They shipped a bunch of stuff from way over in Maryland, and the last spark plug from California. Most places, amazon generally included, seem to ship me stuff from Washington or California (usually not OR).

Glorious wrote:

The Egg wrote:

So why not just bill the entire order immediately when it's placed? It seems like they're making things unnecessarily difficult.

It's expressly mentioned in at least some card credit merchant agreements:

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/ ... chants.pdf

Page 12 wrote:

For card-absent transactions, cardholders should be informed of delivery method and tentative delivery date.
Transactions cannot be deposited until goods have been shipped or services received.

I guess it makes sense if you've ordered an item which isn't scheduled to ship for 3 weeks. I understand what the card merchants are going for, but in most cases it makes things unnecessarily convoluted to break apart charges for each individual item (or random groupings of items) in the same order just because they're shipping from a different warehouse.

In my particular case, it probably makes me more susceptible to fraud, since I don't always have the ability to compare side-by-side with my order history, and when I see 8-9 random Amazon charges I often go "eh....it probably adds up".

localhostrulez wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

localhostrulez wrote:

Another odd bit with them - I ordered a bunch of parts for the car. They shipped a bunch of stuff and 3 spark plugs together, and the last spark plug by itself. All ordered direct from amazon. Uhh, what?

I ordered three music CDs from them a few weeks ago. All were billed together, and I got a single shipment notification e-mail. They arrived on the same day, in three separate packages.

Yeah, but I'm in Oregon. They shipped a bunch of stuff from way over in Maryland, and the last spark plug from California. Most places, amazon generally included, seem to ship me stuff from Washington or California (usually not OR).

Just a function of Amazon's logistics. They have warehouses in particular places, and each warehouse will have a different type and quantity of inventory at any given time. I would guess that an operation the size of Amazon might also use auto-leveling algorithms to maintain appropriate inventory levels at each warehouse based on current stock levels, historical demand trends, and shipping cost considerations. As long as you get four spark plugs within the promised time frame at the indicated price, their work is done.