07:57 – Yesterday I sent out the Polarizing filter sets that I’d backordered on several forensics kits we’d shipped. I sent email to each of the recipients to let them know their backordered filter sets were on the way to them. One of them emailed me to say that his kit hadn’t arrived yet. It shipped the 9th and was scheduled for delivery the 12th. When I checked the USPS tracking, it turned out that they had it being picked up on the afternoon of the 9th and then transferred to the processing center. After that, nothing. They’ve apparently lost it.
Oh, well. I’ll ship a replacement kit today and ask the buyer to refuse a second kit if one eventually shows up. Nothing to get upset about. Just a cost of doing business. I just checked, and USPS has sucessfully delivered about 500 kits since the last time they lost one. A loss rate of about 0.2% is close enough to zero not to matter.
14:06 – I just finished making up enough subassemblies to build another couple dozen chemistry kits. We’re in decent shape on biology kits, but we’re down to one forensics kit in stock. So I’d better get to work making more of those.
I presume you’re shipping via Priority Mail – doesn’t that rate now include some default level of insurance where you could file a claim which I believe can be done online?
Yes, PM includes $50 worth of insurance by default. The last time I looked, it’d take more than $50 of my time to get the $50.
You know, I never thought of getting a fraudulent climate change expert job with the feddies and then claiming I had been drafted by the CIA, only to go sit at home for six months at a whack, getting paid $200K per year:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/16/epa-climate-change-expert-cia-fraud
“It is a story that flummoxed investigators – how a highly paid climate-change expert at the Environmental Protection Agency managed to defraud the government of nearly $1m, by pretending for a decade to be an undercover CIA agent.”
Christmas emergency bunker!
http://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2013/12/17
Chuck W, thanks for the detailed response last Thursday. I am posting this here so you don’t have to keep going back.
Your comments were way more than I deserved, and have started me thinking. I have learned more about computer music audio than I have ever found in one place. I will explore this as time allows, but right now is pretty busy.
Just checked the Winamp web site, and I have until December 20. Good, because I will probably download it for safekeeping. I had not considered the Android version, and will definitely check that out. In fact, from what you say about Linux’s audio management (or lack,) I might just make the move to Android for all my playing—already use it for most. I plan to get a Windows 7 box up in the near future, so might return to Windows for processing and metadata maintenance. A lot to sort out.
When I said format conversion, I really meant only converting WAVE to other formats. I have a small trove of files ripped from CDs to WAVE, and then processed, mainly volume compressed. These are burned to CDs for play in the car, but I still keeep the originals and volume compressed WAVE files. Much of my music (other than pop) has way more dynamic range than appropriate for noisy environments. For that, I used the venerable Nero Wave Editor. I don’t have the version number handy, but this gem allows creation of arbitrary compression and expansion curves. Never found anything as good. Used judiciously, the expansion can revive some old stuff, especially pop.
I will rerip CDs to some uncompressed format, but haven’t decided which. Still have to sort this out, and you have given me some more options to explore. Right now, life is too full of options, with not enough time to explore them. Fortunately, I don’t have much ripped, so changing won’t involve discarding much.
Agree on CD sources. I live in a small isolated town, so when my wife and I travel we look in thrift shops. Sometimes some unbelievable finds… mostly a lot of time spent looking, but just a fun pastime. It would be more productive to just order them, but many are no longer available. Wonder if there are some good web sites for used CDs? Yeah, I know about Amazon 🙂
I wonder if book catalogging software would also work for your CDs? I tried one of those apps on my old Note, and was impressed. It uses the camera to scan the bar code, and looks up the rest of the data. I also have a LOT of books to catalog before I donate them, and this seems a good way. My CD database is just a spreadsheet with all manual entries, and is far from complete. Before I get too far, I want to make sure the data collected is able to be exported to another app of my choice.
I will post more about broadcasting as time permits.
Wonder if there are some good web sites for used CDs?
Is the stuff you’re looking for more obscure than what can be found at half.com?
Interesting site. I plugged in my obscure song tests, and it did not have any of them, but pointed me to ebay sites that were selling them.
Somehow, book cataloging software never occurred to me. That is a good suggestion. I’ll look around.
Good time to remind everybody to grab Winamp before it disappears. AOL seems determined to kill it and not relent. Only 3 days left. I downloaded last week.
‘Wonder if there are some good web sites for used CDs?’
I have been a happy participant on http://www.paperbackswap.com for years. They have a companion site for CDs.
Here they are:
http://www.swapacd.com
Okay, thanks for the reminder Chuck, downloaded but not sure if I’ll use it…
If you are not already using it, then downloading may be a useless exercise. I do not use browser-based audio programs at all (except on the Android), because I want the ability to process the audio in a manner similar to what broadcast does. Currently, I use Winamp for stuff I play from the computer (and also for things I need to record for later broadcast), and XMPlay for streams. Both support Winamp plug-ins, and I use a compression DSP from a guy in The Netherlands, called Stereo Tool. It is tuned to emphasize the vocal range from around 400 Hz to 4,000 Hz and 4,000 to 6,000 even more, so sibilance sounds that make speech understandable, stand out clearly. That effectively duplicates what we do with the audio in the broadcast chain at the radio station. Then I know what needs to be done when I am prepping audio, so whatever I do sounds right when played through our system.
That swap site looks interesting. I am in an unusual situation, or I would probably use it. Because my library is used for the radio project, we have determined that we need to keep CD’s in our physical possession—even though they are played from computer rips. At present it is really untested in a court, as to whether or not a song can be played from a copy, without penalty for not having the original (or for not playing it from the original). So we keep the original CD, in case such a situation might develop in the future. Additionally, there is still an outfit in Delaware that is claiming a patent on the technology to play songs through a computer for radio and TV broadcast. Prior art has been presented (some of it significantly prior), but a judge this year reversed a decision that would have made their claims moot. If that reversal stands, then it could have reverberations through the whole ‘prior art’ concept of negating patents.
So the bottom line is that I cannot let my CD’s go after I rip them; I have to hold onto them. Same with what is at the station library—even though we hardly ever play CD tracks, if it has been ripped to the computer.
Swap site and retaining CDs. We often see popular CD titles at places like thrift shops and pawn shops. Really cheap – $1/per. Pick up a handful of popular dreck and post that to build up some credit. Another cheater technique I’ve used on the book swap site is to pull a short list of items currently on people’s want list, then look for those at our used bookstore excursions. Post them, they get immediately snapped up. Woo hoo quick credit without impoverishing my personal library.
All this hinges on time, cheap media, and finding it amusing to play silly games with the system.
I am glad you mentioned retaining your physical media as ice heard of other folks ripping and dumping which seems legally risky.
My mother died at 10:30 pm on Monday. I am now an orphan. Sigh.
Condolences to all concerned, RBT….. Bob
HAYeeee LYNN: E-mail me when you need a assistant at that EPA Climate Control job,, robert@phil-group.com…. Bob
Sorry to hear the news, Ray. Although as is often the case in these situations, it usually offers relief. That was true for both my mom and my wife. I miss them both, but would not have wanted to extend their lives in the shape they were in, by one more day.
I cannot imagine that not possessing a CD would matter for regular individuals. But at the radio station, one can never be sure. We pay thousands every year for publishing rights, and even more for performers rights in order to stream. Unless you are owned by an educational institution, it really does cost a lot of money to play music. It would be ironic if anyone in authority cared where we got the music we play, because we pay for the rights to broadcast it no matter where it came from. But just in case, we keep the CD’s.
I had a similar experience with a Priority Mail package also shipped on December 9th from suburban Washington DC. Supposed to be delivered to my customer in Florida on the 12th. It disappeared from tracking for four days and then popped up again at a Florida bulk mail center. It was eventually delivered on the 16th.
I would normally have said the delay was due to the ice storm in the DC area but I shipped two Priority Mail packages on the 9th, and the second was delivered on the predicted schedule of the 12th.
So far, I’ve not had a single domestic Priority Mail package fail to make it to the destination. I’ve had a few hung up in the system but eventually all made it. I’ve had almost as good a record with first class packages, where one padded envelope failed to arrive.
My loss rate for domestic postal service shipments is around 0.1% or a bit better. Internationally, the biggest problem is slow delivery. I think international mail is subject to more security screening now than it was even two years ago – packages to Europe that used to be delivered in two weeks or less (first class) can now take as long as 45-60 days. And this is in Germany, the Netherlands and other countries with decent postal systems. Packages to Italy and Russia are only sent after first obtaining the consent of the recipient to my terms for these destinations — no refunds and no replacements. A copy of the stamped customs declaration is proof of shipment and at that point risk of loss is with the recipient.
Although as is often the case in these situations, it usually offers relief.
My mother had been in the hospital since Thursday and the hospital was not able to contact anyone because someone had transposed a couple of digits in a contact phone number. I was notified at 12:30A on Monday, made trip arrangements, flew on Tuesday, the earliest I could get out. But she passed Monday about 10:30P.
Considering what her father, brother and sister (my aunt) went through with dementia, it was good that she went quickly. No long term nursing home as happened with my aunt. My mother was living on her own until she entered the hospital.
Death is a natural progression of life, the final phase.
Thanks for the comments.
I wouldn’t call it risky unless you plan to broadcast the ripped music.
Yeah, the only thing the *AA prosecutes for is “making available”. Although they don’t admit it very loudly, it’s perfectly legal in the US to download copyrighted materials; it’s just illegal to upload them.
That’s why when I bittorrent the latest episode of Heartland, I keep my upload rate set to 0.00 kb/s. They can’t prosecute me for downloading whatever I want, as long as I don’t upload (make available) even a single bit of it. Of course, I also buy the DVD sets as soon as they’re available, so it’d be pretty hard for anyone to argue that I’m not paying for what I watch.
A friend of mine is a radio DJ here in the Houston area, “Kevin Charles”. He only works music occasionally since there are so few radio DJ jobs now. He has a studio in his house where he puts his show together, usually working one hour for every four hours of show. Then he uploads the show file to the station. He only gets paid for the one hour that he actually works, not the four hours of show. He also has to start the show remotely from his house. He also works a news talk show and does many commercials for locals due to his deep voice and professional announcer training.