09:00 – Amazon’s new video streaming box looks interesting. If I hadn’t just bought a Roku 3, I’d probably buy the Amazon Fire TV instead. In video streaming, the Roku 3 is the box to beat, and Amazon’s box is serious competition for the Roku, especially for those who want support for casual gaming. We don’t, so I’m perfectly content with the Roku 3.
I’m going to work on taxes today. Grrrrr.
10:44 – One of the aggravating things about working from home is that many/most chemical vendors won’t ship to residential addresses. I run into this problem frequently. A couple of months ago, for example, I was trying to order three kilos of bacteriological-grade agar from one vendor. They refused to ship to me because the ship-to address was residential. Geez, the stuff is edible. It’s not like I could use it to take down a building or something.
Fortunately, some vendors are reasonable about it. I just realized that I was very low on methylene blue, so I went over to p212121.com to order 250 grams. This is one of those sites that I can never get to accept my login credentials, so I called them to place the order. He warned me that there might be a problem because my ship-to address was residential, but acknowledged that they’d shipped other stuff to me and that methylene blue shouldn’t be a problem. Indeed, about 45 seconds after I finished the phone order I got an email confirmation that my order had been accepted and will ship immediately.